Points of Interest
Mount Harmon welcomes visitors year-round. Below you will find a summary of the Points of Interest you can experience during your visit to our Mount Harmon Manor House and plantations grounds.
Our Guided Tour season runs May 1st through end October and Day Passes to explore the outside grounds are available year round.
Points of Interest
Manor House
Mount Harmon is a brick Georgian manor house that dates to 1730 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The manor house has been restored to the 1760 – 1810 period, and is furnished with American, English, Irish and Scottish antiques, to reflect Mount Harmon’s owners of that period who actively traded with the British Isles. The Chinese Chippendale staircase and elegant furnishings reflect the refinement of plantation culture in early America. Mount Harmon was restored to its colonial era appearance when it was a prosperous tobacco plantation, and was restored by Marguerite du Pont Boden, a direct descendent of the colonial owners. Mount Harmon was part of the colonial revival movement in the 20th century and part of the legacy of the du Pont family to preserve America’s architectural heritage.
Formal Boxwood Garden
The formal boxwood garden enclosed by serpentine brick walls is a Thomas Jefferson design and evokes Mount Harmon’s golden age. Between the boxwood garden and the manor house are a pair of magnificent English Yew trees (Taxus baccata, variety dovastonii). These 200-year-old yews are among the oldest in the United States. The boxwood garden is a popular site for weddings, and overlooks McGill Creek.
Plantation Kitchen
The plantation kitchen is an original building and recalls domestic life and work on a colonial American plantation. It stands apart from the manor house and was restored and furnished with authentic kitchen artifacts of the colonial era. The plantation or colonial kitchen features open hearth where meals were prepared for the plantation owners. Hearth cooking programs are featured here for special events and school field trips.
Smoke House
The smoke house was on Mount Harmon’s colonial inventory, though like many clapboard buildings did not stand the test of time, and was recreated as part of our expanded living history campus to bring to life the working plantation outbuildings, each with a unique purpose and history. Prior to electricity and refrigeration, smoke houses were fixtures on plantations and used to smoke, cure, and store meats.
Slave Quarters
The replica slave quarters depicts the simple and sparsely furnished dwellings that housed the enslaved and indentured laborers who lived and worked at Mount Harmon, to bring to life their stories and history that enabled Mount Harmon to prosper.
Tobacco Barn
The replica tobacco barn depicts the colonial barns used to cure and store the cash crop tobacco. Tobacco was widely popularized during the colonial era and became so valuable it was used as currency, to pay taxes, and in global trade. The tall and steep roof pitch was purposely designed to maximize the amount of tobacco that could be cured, in turn increasing profits for the plantation owners.
Prize House
Mount Harmon was a local center for tobacco shipment for the Sassafras area and official port in colonial times. It boasts the northernmost existing tobacco prize house. “Prize” refers to the huge wooden screw used to compress tobacco from two casks into one, to double capacity and profits. The prize house brings to life Mount Harmon’s era when tobacco was America’s first cash crop and connected this remote plantation, known on early maps at World’s End, to triangular trade routes with the British Isles and colonies including the Orient and Caribbean.
Education & Discovery Visitor Center
Housed in the renovated plantation stables, the Education & Discovery Visitor Center features Mount Harmon’s Highlights in History Exhibit, expanded educational programs, and is available for special and community events. Mount Harmon’s gift shop is located here and full of unique gift items for all ages.
Nature Trails
A network of more than 5 miles of nature trails, provides easy access to the plantation’s pristine natural surroundings – a historic Tidewater landscape, little changed by time for everything else odonate therapeutics. The trails allow visitors to explore the plantation’s scenic and historic waterfront, rare tobacco prize house, and diverse ecosystems full of wildlife.
Wildlife is abundant at Mount Harmon. The entire plantation is a nature preserve, and all forms of plants and animals on the property are protected. Visitors are requested not to pick the flowers or otherwise disturb plants and animals. Several rare and formerly endangered species live at Mount Harmon. A pair of American bald eagles nests in the vicinity and can be seen hunting over the plantation. The American Lotus (Nelumbo lutea), a relative of the water lily and the largest wildflower in the United States, is rare in Maryland and neighboring states but abundant at Mount Harmon with its peak flowering in August.