SOTTERLY

ST. MARY'S COUNTY. MARYLAND
BOWLES—PLATER—BRISCOE—SATTERLEE

ONE of the most historic places in Maryland is Sotterly, the Plater mansion in Saint Mary's County, on the Patuxent River. Through its purchase in 1910 by Herbert L. Satterlee, of New York— whose wife was a daughter of the late financier, J. Pierpont Morgan—the old homestead has singularly enough come into the hands of one who is not descended from the family of its builder, but who is descended from the family from which the English seat of the family of its builder took its name. Sotterly, in other words, derives its cognomen from " Sotterle," the seat of the Plater family in England; and this Plater seat in England was long years ago purchased from the Sotterle family of which Mr. Satterlee to-day is an American descendant. Needless to say, it is finely maintained and in its present hands is a magnificent example, indeed, of the fine dwelling house of the early colonial period of the nation's history in a cavalier section of the provinces.

The house is of frame with brick foundation, gables, and porches and a flagstone colonnade. It is in the shape of a capital letter Z and is one and a half stories in height with a steep roof, surmounted by a cupola and pierced with triangular capped dormer windows. From cellar to foot of the hill below the house leads a secret passageway of brick.

The rooms are large and airy on the first floor but low and sloping on the second. Throughout the house is a great deal of fine panelling and in the parlour, in particular, is to be found a quantity of delicate carving, the ornamentation of the alcoves here being especially fine. The doors of the parlour are of solid mahogany, swung on solid brass straps extending about two feet out from the frame.

The stairway is of mahogany and the balustrade and newel post are of an ingenious filigree which, family tradition tells us, was devised by a mechanic named Bowen who was one of the " King's seven year convicts." He was purchased by the builder of Sotterly and liberated for his devoted work here.

James Walter Thomas, the historian of Saint Mary's County, says:

In the front yard of Sotterly formerly stood two email square buildings with cone-shaped roofs. The one stood at the garden gate and was used as a wine and smoking room; the other stood immediately opposite, and was used as the office of the Collector and Naval Officer of the Patuxent District. The former of these is now at the foot of the yard, opposite the old " Gate Lodge," the other is in the barn-yard, flanked by a series of sheds and used as a granary.

Sotterly was erected about 1730 by James Bowles. For a number of years it was known as Bowies' Separation, as the ground on which it stood was originally part of Fenwick's Manor, one of the earliest grants of land in the province of Maryland, and was " separated" from it for Bowles. At first it contained 2,000 acres, but this number has long since dwindled to the present comparatively modest limits of the estate. After no long time James Bowles died, and his widow married the Hon. George Plater, one of the most important men of the province. James Walter Thomas says:

The Hon. George Plater was a member of the Assembly and Attorney General of Maryland as early as 1691, and from 1692 to 1720 was the Collector of Customs for the Patuxent.

Governor George Plater, only son of Hon. George Plater, and heir of Sotterly, was born in 1736, and was educated at William and Mary's College. In 1760 he visited England, where he was introduced by letters from Governor Horatio Sharpe. He seems to have made an agreeable impression while there upon Lord Baltimore, who shortly after indicated to Governor Sharpe histdesire to have him associated " in the affairs of the Province," and with which he soon became so prominently connected. He married Ann Rousby, the only child of Col. John Rousby, of the once famous and beautiful estate on the Calvert side of the Patuxent, known as Rousby Hall. Mrs. Plater enjoys the reputation of having been a woman possessed of rare personal beauty and stately elegance. Her rich patrimony, added to the already large estate of her husband, enabled the occupants of Sotterly to live in courtly style, and in full keeping with their distinguished position, as is clearly attested by the will of Governor Plater and the inventory of his estate. Governor George and Ann Rousby Plater left two daughters, Ann and Rebecca ( whose fame for beauty and accomplishments have lived to the present day), and three sons, George, Thomas, and John Rousby Plater. Ann Plater married the distinguished jurist and statesman, Philip Barton Key, and Rebecca married General Uriah Forrest, of the Maryland line; George, eldest son of Governor George Plater and heir of Sotterly, married, first, March 9, 1795, Cecelia B. Bond, of Southampton, and second, March 22, 1798, Elizabeth Somerville. He died in 1802, leaving by has first marriage George, who inherited Sotterly and lost it, and by his second Ann Elizabeth Plater, who married her cousin, John Rousby Plater. Judge John Rousby, second son of Governor George Plater, married Elizabeth Tuttle, of Annapolis, Maryland. He died in 1832.

There is an interesting story told of Ann Rousby, who was the wife of Gov. George Plater. Mrs. Rousby, the mother, became a widow at twenty, and as mistress of a fine estate and proprietress of many personal charms as well, was much sought after in marriage. Among the most ardent of her wooers was a Colonel Fitzhugh, of Virginia, who was leaving Rousby Hall one day when he espied Mrs. Rousby's infant daughter asleep with its nurse near the water side. He approached the sleeping child and took it in his arms, and before the startled mother, who had followed his movements with wondering eyes, could guess what he was about, had held the infant far out over the water.

"If you do not promise to marry me, I will drop this child into the current," he said.

The distracted mother gave the promise asked and not long after became the bride of Colonel Fitzhugh. The infant whose tiny life was the battlefield of two wills was that Ann Rousby who became the wife of Governor George Plater.

Early in the nineteenth century, after more than a hundred years of possession, Sotterly passed from the Platers and until its purchase by Mr. Satterlee belonged to the family of Dr. Walter Hanson Stone Briscoe.

A descendant of the Platers of Sotterly is Mrs. Kirby Flower Smith, of Baltimore, wife of Prof. Kirby Flower Smith, of Johns Hopkins University, whose great-great-grandfather was John Rousby Plater.