The County Alms House, then Plaindealing

A large brick structure that stood here for more than two centuries served first as the county Alms House from about 1792 to 1826, where county officials could commit a person to the Poor House with legal due process and inmates were required to work hard, sleep on straw mattresses, and wear red cloth badges marked with the Roman letters P.C. for Poor of Caroline County, with severe punishments for failing to wear the badge including loss of rations, hard labor, and ten lashes by whip. In 1826 the county sold the building to the Dukes, a prominent family of planters, mariners, and legislators, who renamed it Plaindealing and from there controlled the lives of about 150 enslaved African Americans working on 2,000 acres in the Denton area until a new Maryland constitution freed enslaved workers in 1864. After the Civil War, the dwelling was remodeled in the Victorian Gothic style and was occupied until 1955 by Dukes family descendants and later by the W. Henry Brown and John Donahue families; by 2017 it was much altered, structurally unsound, and badly damaged by a 2013 fire, and before its demolition that year the Caroline County Historical Society removed the historic stairhall, dating to about 1792, for installation in its Denton museum.

Denton, Maryland · United States