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LAUREL GROVE
SCHOOL MUSEUM
1830s slave cabin
5 COURTESY OF LAURELGROVESCHOOL.ORG
Laurel Grove School
SOTTERLEY PLANTATION
COURTESY SOTTERLEY.ORG
6840 Beulah St.

Alexandria, VA 22310
703-313-4690; laurelgroveschool.org
Kids may take a different stance toward
school after visiting this 19th-century, one-
room schoolhouse built by the first generation
of African Americans born to freedom in
Fairfax County to educate their community’s
children. The schoolhouse is now a living
museum, where intriguing insights come
to light. Some kids had to walk up to
5 miles to attend this school, where students
shared books and desks, studied geography
without maps and helped cook meals with Sotterley Plantation
items brought from their home gardens.

Special programs include pictorial history
exhibits, talks by history makers, children’s
story hour and other topics that bring to life
the school’s history. Visitation is currently by
appointment only.

44300 Sotterley Lane
Hollywood, MD 20636
301-373-2280; sotterley.org
For centuries, enslaved people worked this
18th-century tobacco plantation overlooking
the Patuxent River in Southern Maryland,
at a site where many captured Africans first
stepped ashore in America. This history is today
recounted through a restored one-room, pine-
log cabin from 1830, where a dozen or so people
lived. Kids can duck their head to enter the low
doorway and take in the dirt floor, simple pallet
bed, and low stairs leading to an attic space.

Throughout February, Sotterley celebrates
the life and legacy of Dr. Agnes Kane Callum,
a historian and genealogist whose ancestors
were enslaved at Sotterley during the 19th
century. The grounds are open year-round,
and the tour season runs May through October
(Friday-Sunday). Call 301-373-2280 to reserve
a tour time; tickets are $10 for adults, $6 youth
(6-18), and children younger than 6 are free.

SULLY HISTORIC SITE
3650 Historic Sully Way
Chantilly, VA 20151
703-437-1794; fairfaxcounty.gov/parks/sully
Northern Virginia’s first Congressman,
Richard Bland Lee, built Sully Plantation,
where enslaved people cultivated wheat,
corn and rye. Today, thanks to archaeological
evidence (such as squirrel and herring
bones, broken pottery and coins), record-
keeping and letters, researchers found a
slave quarter. A slave cabin was built in
2000 to represent the enslaved community.

Today, we know about Thornton, who
cooked in the kitchen; Madam Juba, who
laundered the clothes; Sam, who worked as
a blacksmith and many others whose stories
need to be shared. All this history can be
discovered by visiting the site and taking a tour
of the house and an outdoor walking tour—the
Forgotten Road Tour.

Several special events will take place this
February, including a free virtual lecture on
Saturday, Feb. 5, by Dr. Richard Bell on the
“Fire of Frederick Douglass” and a “lunch
and learn” on Saturday, Feb. 17, a chance to
learn about Sully’s enslaved people.

February tours, available Thursday through
Sunday at 11 a.m., 1 p.m. and 3 p.m., will focus
on the work and lives of Sully’s enslaved
people. The grounds are open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

daily, and the visitor center is open 11 a.m. to
4 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. The fee for the
house tour and Forgotten Road tour is $10 for
adults and $8 for children (5-15); the grounds,
outbuildings and garden are free. n
COURTESY SULLY HISTORIC SITE
4 Slave quarters
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