You are standing in front of a graphic panel titled “SERC’s Campus and the Surrounding Area: 1650s to 1776.” To your left is the entrance to section three of the exhibition: Who Lived in This House? To your right is a reader rail titled “Window on the Past: An Area Rich in Resources.”

The panel in front of you includes text, two maps, and nine images.

The larger of the two maps shows an aerial view of SERC’s campus and the surrounding area with markers showing the locations of eleven historical sites. The aerial view shows grassy and forested areas and the Rhode River.

A smaller area map shows the location of SERC’s campus in relation to the Chesapeake Bay, London Town, Galesville, Annapolis, Washington, DC, and Baltimore.

The eleven sites listed are:

1. YOU ARE HERE
Woodlawn House (1735) 
House built by tobacco planter William Sellman. The accompanying drawing shows what the 1735 house may have looked like. It is a rectangular building with two chimneys, two windows, and a door on the lower level, and three windows on the upper level.

2. Shaw’s Folly (ca. 1650s)
House built by Quaker settler John Shaw

3. Sparrow’s Rest (ca. 1650s)
House built by Puritan settler Thomas Sparrow

4. Squirrel Neck (1747)
House built by Annapolis merchant Nicholas Maccubbin (later renamed Java Mansion by John Contee). The accompanying drawing shows a central three-story house with two chimneys. On either side of the main house are two-story wings, attached to the main house by single-story structures.

5. Major Thomas Francis’s Grave (1685)
The final resting place of Major Thomas Francis, who lived nearby and drowned in the Rhode River in 1685. The accompanying photo shows a gravestone overgrown by plants.

6. South River Clubhouse (1742)
The South River Club is one of the oldest social clubs in the country. Its members included the Sellman and Contee families. The accompanying black-and-white photo shows a white single-story structure with a chimney and a porch with trees in the background.

7. All Hallows Church (1710)
The Sellmans were members of this Anglican (now     Episcopal) church, also known as the Brick Church. The accompanying photo shows a single-story red brick church surrounded by bushes and trees.

8. London Town (Founded 1683)
During the colonial period, the port of
London Town was a major trading hub for tobacco, European goods, and slaves. The accompanying photo shows people walking on a dock in the water. In the background, a grass lawn slopes up a hill to a red brick house with two chimneys.

9. Cedar Park House, Galesville (ca. 1702)
The earliest surviving example in the region of a house built on posts in the ground (later encased in brick). The accompanying photo shows a two-story brick house with a dark, slanted roof and a white fence in front.

10. Tulip Hill House, Galesville (ca. 1750s)
One of the best examples of a “five-part” Georgian house in the country (named for the five distinct sections across the front). The accompanying black-and-white photo shows a three-story central brick house with two chimneys. On either side of the main house are two-story wings, attached to the main house by single-story structures.

11. Larkin’s Hundred (ca. 1725)
One of the earlier colonial buildings and one of the largest dwellings in the area when it was built. The accompanying photo shows people standing in front of a three-story red brick house with bushes and grass in the foreground and blue sky in the background.