Last Christmas at Hampton National Historic Site

maryland, national parks, passport stamps

Last Christmas at Hampton National Historic Site

Published by

Caitlyn

on

November 12, 2024

When my parents went to Denali National Park in Alaska a couple of years ago, they got us hooked on the National Parks Passport and we became semi-hyperfixated on collecting all of the stamps we could.

Maryland doesn’t have any national parks whatsoever (Great Falls Park & Shenandoah are the closest, in Virgnia) which is a bummer, but we do have a few national historic sites and this one is about 15 minutes from our house.

Hampton National Historic Site is the restored estate of the Ridgely family. When it was built in 1790, it was the biggest private home in the country.

The reality is that this was a slave-owning family. It was the second largest plantation in Maryland and they had up to 300 enslaved people working there.

Here are some details from within the main entrance hall.

And this was the first room. It was so pretty.

As is commonly the case, it seems like much of the history of the enslaved people of this place was buried, minimized, and sugarcoated. They say they’re making an increased effort to tell their stories.

The tour we took was pretty honest about that and I’m glad the National Park Service is bringing more light to it but there’s so much more they could do.

Needless to say, it was decorated beautifully. There were a few rooms to view from behind a rope, each with a guide explaining the historical context and significance of every detail.

I was really obsessed with the carpets.

The only way to go inside the estate itself is via guided tour which you reserve ahead of time, or on one of the days they open it to the public.

This hallway was super interesting, all of these bells have a wire leading to a room in the house. Ring the bell, service comes. I also really liked the hardware on this door.

This year, they’re hosting the holiday open house on December 14 and it looks like the theme is going to be music. They were doing some renovations last year so it might be fun to go check out again.

The grounds were also pretty nice to walk around and there the remains of a cool sunken greenhouse. I just remember that it was mid-December and chilllyyyy.