By Casey Hughes and Sara Ludewig
In the coming months the 1856 Project, the University of Maryland’s contribution to the Universities Studying Slavery, will be exploring the role that enslaved individuals played in the founding and early history of our institution. UA staff are supporting this project through archival research. In 2009, students in Dr. Ira Berlin’s HIST429 class published Knowing Our History, an exploration of the University of Maryland’s ties to slavery. One person whose story they highlighted was Adam Francis Plummer. UA staff have begun to compile the biographical details of Plummer’s life, based on the Knowing Our History report and other primary and secondary sources. Adam Plummer’s story provides a glimpse into the dynamics of slavery in Maryland in the 1850s, dynamics we know profoundly shaped both the history and present of Prince George’s County.
Adam Francis Plummer was born enslaved to George Calvert, a descendent of Maryland’s founder Lord Baltimore, in 1819 on the Goodwood plantation in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. When Plummer was ten years old George Calvert took him to Riversdale where he was made the personal servant (still enslaved) to George Calvert’s son, Charles Benedict Calvert. Charles Benedict Calvert would go on to be a founder of the University of Maryland while Adam Plummer was still enslaved by him and acting as his personal servant.
As a child, Plummer was taught to read and write in secret by John Bowser, a Black Methodist preacher. This was a dangerous activity as it was illegal to teach enslaved individuals how to read or write. Plummer kept a diary throughout his life, which was donated to the Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum and has been made accessible through their website.
In 1841, Adam Plummer married Emily Saunders who was enslaved at Three Sisters Plantation. Three Sisters was eight miles from Riversdale and owned by the Hilleary family. When Plummer and Saunders were married at a church in D.C. they received an official marriage certificate which was rare for enslaved individuals. After their wedding, Emily remained enslaved at Three Sisters and Adam walked to visit her every weekend. The couple would go on to have eight children that lived to adulthood, all of whom were born into slavery.
In 1845, the Plummers planned their family’s escape to Canada intending to use their marriage certificate as proof of freedom. However, Emily told her aunt about their plans who told the plantation mistress. As a result, their marriage certificate was confiscated and Emily was sent to work in the fields. In 1851, the mistress of Three Sisters, Sarah Ogle Hilleary, died. This resulted in the sale of part of the family to Colonel Gilbert Livingston Thompson of Meridian Hill plantation in Washington, D.C. Two of the couple’s children were separated from the rest of the family at this time, and their oldest daughter Sarah Miranda was sold and sent to New Orleans in 1861.
When D.C. abolished slavery in 1862 some of the older children fled to D.C., while Emily Plummer attempted escape with her youngest children. Emily Plummer and the younger children were caught and imprisoned in Baltimore City. Charles Calvert granted Adam permission to visit his family in prison, and in 1863 Adam secured a court order to release Emily and the children. They all returned to Adam’s Riversdale cabin. In 1865, after the end of the Civil War, the family was freed.
After receiving his freedom, Adam continued to work for Calvert and also pursued other employment. The family was able to retrieve their oldest daughter Sarah Miranda from New Orleans in 1866. The rest of the family also secured paid work and eventually bought an eight acre family homestead in Prince George’s County, which they named Mount Rose, in 1868. Now free, some of the Plummer children pursued education at Wayland Seminary in D.C., and Robert Plummer studied at Howard University. Emily died of pneumonia in 1876. Adam lived to age eighty-six and passed away in 1905 at Mount Rose surrounded by family. In 1927, Plummer’s youngest daughter Nellie published a book entitled Out of the Depths or the Triumph of the Cross. The book recounts the family’s history and their long struggle for freedom based on the oral testimonies of Adam, Emily, Sarah Miranda, and Henry Plummer.
As research for the 1856 Project continues, we hope to uncover and share the stories of enslaved individuals associated with the University of Maryland and its founding. The traditional narratives surrounding University of Maryland history silence an entire group of people, reproducing structures of white supremacy and oppression. As research continues we hope to begin to undo these structures of silence, giving voice to those who have been excluded from the stories we tell in order to develop a fuller picture of our past and determine new avenues for a reparative future.
Terrapin Tales 
Reblogged this on Christopher Fitzgerald TV and commented:
This is important.