(Click on the image for Whitney Pipkin's Bay Journal report)
- In the heavily wooded acres of Piscataway Park, on Maryland’s shore of the Potomac River, is a popular collection of cattle, sheep, hogs and plants — with breeds and varieties commonly found on local farms in the 1700s. Along with costumed interpreters, they bring to life a recreated colonial farm established there in 1958, complete with a farmhouse and tobacco barn.
- “We want to listen to the rhythm of the land and the river and listen to the various stories of the land,” said Gene Roberts, one of the nonprofit’s board members, during a conversation the foundation hosted on March 31.
- The discussion about the “complicated story” of conservation was the first of three this spring that aim to incorporate a diversity of perspectives into the site’s interpretation.
- “This series,” explained Shemika Berry, Accokeek’s interpretation coordinator, “is designed to honor the voices of those who were here on this land before us, and those who still live here.”
- The Piscataway people inhabited the riverside area for thousands of years before the English explorer John Smith encountered them in the early 1600s. Their communities suffered violence and disruption as colonists came to control the landscape. Farms and plantations grew, — depending greatly on the work of enslaved people — and changed over time. In the 1700s, George Washington lived in the Mount Vernon mansion directly across the river. The land at Piscataway Park was preserved from development in the 1950s to protect the tree-lined view from that estate.
- “Reciprocity: Humans and the Environment” from 2 to 4 p.m. on April 28
- “Interconnectedness: Heritage, Traditions, and History” from 2 to 4 p.m. on May 5