Monday, October 13, 2014
We spent about a week in New Bern, getting both
of my parents settled. Mom needed
nametags on all her belongings, so that was my task for the week. Steve helped Dad with several tasks and took
him to visit Mom several times a day.
Dad’s doing much better now that he can get
some sleep without worrying about Mom.
Mom’s doing well recovering from her fall. She’s now in a facility where they will work
with her regularly on speech and physical therapy.
Here’s my dad, with both Woody and Obi trying
to convince him to share his dinner.
We left New Bern on Wednesday, October 18, and
drove to a campground near Williamsburg.
This was a good break in the drive from New Bern to Baltimore and was
near a plantation Steve wanted to stop at.
Chelsea Plantation was built in 1709 by Col. Augustine Moore. Steve’s 7
times great grandmother, Elizabeth Todd Seaton, as a widow with a son, married
Col. Moore in 1714, after both of their spouses died. Her son, George Seaton, is Steve’s 6 times great
grandfather. He was 2 when they married,
so this is where he grew up. George and
his father, Henry Seaton, are both buried at Chelsea Plantation.
Col. Moore
had no children before he married Elizabeth Todd Seaton, so Steve is also
related (yes, distantly) to all those descendants, who apparently include
Robert E. Lee, whose grandmother was raised and married at Chelsea Plantation.
So now we
know we both have Confederates and slave holders in our backgrounds. Mine were in Tennessee, although I do have
relatives who lived in a nearby county in Virginia about the same time as
Steve’s, but I have a lot of research to do on them yet. We also probably have Yankees and Tories and
people who fought on the American side in the revolution. When you get back that far, you have some
of everything!
Anyway, the
plantation was quite interesting, even though it wasn’t open as it was supposed
to be. There was absolutely no one
around, so we parked the rig and wandered.
Here are some pictures of the plantation.
Front facing the
river
The river from the
front. That’s Obi in the picture.
The remains of a
formal garden.
It is still
being farmed and is on the National Register of Historic Places. Hopefully someday we will be able to go back
and get a tour.
If you are
at all interested in the plantation, here’s a URL:
We then continued our drive to Baltimore. We’re actually staying at the Capital KOA in
Millersville, MD, but it’s a short drive into Baltimore and a reasonable drive
to Steve’s dad, whom we visited a couple of times. Steve attended his symposium and today we
visited the B&O Railroad Museum.
They have restored a wonderful roundhouse and lots of rolling
stock. Currently they have an exhibit
commemorating the 150 anniversary of the Civil War – The War came by
Train. I had forgotten about the role
trains played in the Civil War. By then,
the nation had become dependent on them and the North and South both used them
to move troops and supplies. Disrupting
the trains became a major occupation of both sides. Those of us who are old enough will remember
the song, “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”, which talks about tearing up
the tracks during the end of the war.
B&O Roundhouse
A round house allowed them to turn engines
around and change them out.
The first passenger cars were built to
resemble stage coaches!
We took Steve’s dad out to dinner and were
lucky enough to find a restaurant that would make me gluten free crab
cakes! My favorite food!
We’re headed into Baltimore tomorrow. Fort McHenry and the Aquarium are on the list. We'll see how far we get!
Deb
