Celebrating Black History Month at Riversdale

 On February 22, 2026, the Riversdale House Historic Site and Museum held an event called “Plummer’s Kitchen.” This event was named after an enslaved man  Adam Plummer who was enslaved at Riversdale from the age of 10 in 1829 all the way up to emancipation in 1864. Plummer resided at the site for six more years as a paid foreman before purchasing a nearby parcel of land called Mount Rose in 1870, in what is now the town of Edmonston. Plummer is notable among enslaved people in that he was able to read and write, and kept a diary for most of his life chronicling events in his own life and that of his family’s. In 1927 his daughter Nellie Arnold Plummer drew upon this diary as the main source material for a history of the family’s journey from slavery to freedom under the title Out of the Depths or the Triumph of the Cross. The diary itself is in the collections of the Anacostia Community Museum in Washington, D. C. 

Plummer’s Kitchen was an attempt to demonstrate the foods that enslaved people in Maryland might have eaten on a typical day. This event took place both in honor of both Black History Month and as part of the effort to give greater recognition to the enslaved men and women who lived and worked at Riversdale. Part of Riversdale’s initiative to be more inclusive in its interpretation has focused on highlighting the experiences of those who have historically been marginalized. One example of a largely forgotten figure in the Riversdale story is of a cook named Sam. Little is known about Sam other than that he was a skilled cook who particularly excelled at making stews. This information was gathered from the writings of Rosalie Calvert, who appeared to be pleased with his work, having stated that she was “glad [she] bought the cook.”

Unfortunately, most of Sam’s story is relegated to a footnote in Rosalie’s diary and the remainder lost to time, along with the stories of countless others who were enslaved. At the very least, programs like Plummer’s Kitchen and other efforts to uplift the stories of enslaved people can help us better reconcile a complicated past with the present.