You are standing in front of a graphic panel titled “SERC’s Campus and the Surrounding Area: 1865 to 1965.” To your left is a graphic panel titled “From Emancipation to Jim Crow.” To your right is a wide doorway leading to section four of the exhibition: A New Nation.

The panel in front of you includes text, two maps, and eight 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 ten historic 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, D.C., and Baltimore.

The ten sites listed are:

1. YOU ARE HERE
Woodlawn House
The Sellman family left Woodlawn in the early 1900s and the Kirkpatrick-Howats moved in. The accompanying colorized photo shows Woodlawn House from around 1928. It shows a car in front of the red brick house surrounded by lush greenery.

2. Java Mansion
The Java Mansion was rebuilt after being struck by lightning in 1890. Today it is a ruin. The accompanying black-and-white photo shows the dilapidated Java Mansion around the 1950s.

3. Java Dairy Farm (1915)
Entrepreneur Robert Lee Forrest turned 368 acres of ailing farmland into a thriving dairy business. The accompanying colorized photo shows cows on the Java Dairy Farm around the 1930s. 

4. Steamboat landing at Contees Wharf
The accompanying black-and-white photo shows a steamboat docked at Contees Wharf with horses and carts in the foreground.

5. Mill Swamp School (1930) 
The Mill Swamp School served the local African American community after the former Freedmen’s Bureau School reportedly burned down. After desegregation, it became a community center named for prominent scholar, diplomat, and Nobel Laureate Ralph J. Bunche.

6. Asher Family House
The Asher family, who managed the Kirkpatrick-Howats’ farm, lived in this house, which may have originally served as slave quarters. The accompanying photo shows a small wooden house with a red roof.

7. and 8. Tenant Farm Sites
Archaeologists are investigating the sites of African American tenant farms, including dwellings occupied by the Brown (7) and Down families (8).

9. Cottage at Contee Farm
This cottage was built on the remains of a dwelling from the early 1700s. A shipwright lived here in the late 1800s. In the 1900s it was used as a summer cottage. The accompanying photo shows a wooden house near the edge of the water with a large tree overhanging it.

10. Contees Wharf Houses (late 1800s)
Built by a German immigrant, these houses later served as a summer retreat for Jewish families, who were barred from using other Chesapeake Bay beaches.