The young woman alluded only twice 

 to Somerset blacks — once to the 

 slaves who dug the 6-mile canal con- 

 necting Lake Phelps to the Scupper- 

 nong River and once to "hired girls" 

 who kept the house, a sanitized refer- 

 ence to the enslaved people that were 

 the lifeblood of this 

 once 100,000-acre 

 farm. 



Redford recalls 

 the tour of the 14- 

 room mansion, built 

 in 1830, as unre- 

 markable, and the 

 state of the visitors' 

 center, lamentable. 

 Buzzing flies and 

 two drab pictures of 

 Collins and his wife 

 kept vigil in the 

 dusty visitors' cen- 

 ter. Known as the 

 Colony House, this 

 two-story building 

 provided overnight 

 lodging when 

 Somerset was still 

 an absentee-owner 

 farm in the late 

 1700s. The outbuildings such as the 

 kitchen and smokehouse were mere 

 storage bins. Trees and tangled under- 

 growth obscured the lake. And in a 

 clearing west of the mansion, one 

 lonely wooden sign commemorated 

 26 disappeared slave cabins. 



Almost a decade later, Somerset 

 is in a striking metamorphosis. 



It began with the culmination of 

 Redford' s genealogy, which not only 

 included her own direct maternal line, 

 but 20 other families that made up 

 Somerset's slave community. She 

 celebrated in grand style, with a 

 homecoming of slave descendants — 

 as well as Collins heirs — at the site 

 in September 1986. Redford, then- 



Gov. Jim Martin and 120 oak trees 

 cinched with yellow ribbon wel- 

 comed Alex Haley, national media 

 and nearly 2,000 kinfolk from across 

 the country to the commemoration of 

 Somerset's roots. 



Redford was hired as program 



Scott D. Taylor 



Dorothy Redford watches 

 Virginia fifth-graders dip candles. 



specialist the following year, and 

 Somerset began to emerge from its 

 cocoon. With the help of then-legisla- 

 tor Howard B. Chapin, she cleared 

 the growth from the lakeshore. The 

 outbuildings — including the kitchen, 

 laundry and salting house — were 

 cleaned, furnished and opened to the 

 public. Books binding both black and 

 white histories, broomsedge brooms 

 and colorful pottery are now sold in 

 the adjoining room. Archaeologists 

 are reclaiming the shards of 

 Somerset's black history, and 



Redford soon hopes to break ground on 

 rebuilding of the slave chapel, hospital, 

 field hand kitchen and two cabins. 



"The entire way we look at 

 Somerset Place has changed," says 

 Redford. "Sometimes you were met on 

 the porch, and it was said this was the 

 home of Josiah 

 Collins III, and then 

 you were taken over 

 for a tour of the 

 house and furniture. 

 ... We no longer 

 look at it as a plan- 

 tation house, but we 

 interpret the culture 

 that lived here. 



"Ninety percent 

 of the compliments 

 we get is that we 

 don't say servants; 

 we say enslaved 

 people or slaves, 

 and we acknowl- 

 edge what everyone 

 did on the planta- 

 tion. And we find 

 no one is offended," 

 she says. "Some- 

 times when you 

 start it's like a big relief because 

 everybody's got millions of questions. 

 And when you go to other sites and the 

 's' word is never mentioned, you come 

 with the questions and you leave with 

 the questions. Here, because we're 

 opening it up, people can ask." 



The room next to the gift shop is 

 now an orientation room for visitors. 



"It has black faces, people who 

 were born slaves hanging on the walls, 

 so that the moment you begin your in- 

 terpretation of the site, people under- 

 stand that more than one population 

 lived here," says Redford. "Now you 

 see the work buildings, you see the salt- 

 ing house, you see the smokehouse, ... 



Continued 



COASTWATCH 1 1 



