History

The oldest building in the area is located at 11420 Old Georgetown Road. The log cabin adjoining the house was built around 1790 and purchased by George Riley in 1797, along with 520 acres. At that time, slave Josiah Henson, the Uncle Tom of Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, came to the plantation.

Born in Charles County, Henson was sold at auction when he was 6. The sale separated him from his mother. A man named Robb, a tavern keeper near the Montgomery County courthouse in Rockville, bought him. Riley bought his mother.

When the Hanson child became ill, after the separation after the separation from his mother, Robb made a deal to sell him to Riley. Being reunited with his mother revived the child, and he grew to be the strongest and brightest slave on Riley's farm. He became Riley's overseer of the other slaves and manager of the farm.

Riley could have sold his slaves to payoff his debts but instead, he sent them to live with his brother Amos in Kentucky in 1825. In 1830, Henson escaped to Canada and helped to establish a black community of runaway slaves. He wrote his memoirs to help support the community. He soon became' a favorite of the abolitionists. Montgomery County has purchased the home for Historic preservation. It will soon open for occasional tours.

Josiah Henson was now a hero, well-off from the sale of his books. He met with the President, and then journeyed out to Montgomery County to visit, for the first time since 1830, the place where he had been enslaved. What he found was shocking.

Long before we reached the house where my old master used to live, I saw that it was indeed another land from that of my boyhood. The once great plantation was now but a wilderness. When we drove at last, up the grass-grown road to the house, I saw it standing there all alone…and it was in such a dilapidated condition that the windows rattled and the very door sprung ajar as we drove up and stopped before it. We went in, and there was the old mistress…she was a poor, fretful invalid of seventy. Her bed was in the old sitting room, which was the first place I had seen that seemed at all familiar. The room and the old comer cupboard, where the master used to keep his brandy, were just as they were fifty years ago, but the furniture was scanty and dilapidated."

The Riley farmhouse, now restored, still stands and has been meticulously cared for. The log cabin attached to the farmhouse was probably the kitchen wing and a place where slave Henson spent much of his time. It has thus been called "Uncle Tom's Cabin", and is a source of pride for our community for the place it occupies in the history of the US.

Gazette Article on Uncle Tom's Cabin


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