Plantation Life in the Colonial Era

Plantation Life in the Colonial Era. Mount Harmon Plantation. , Plantation Life , In the colonial era Mount Harmon was a working plantation. A community of people lived at Mount Harmon during the 18th century including the landowners, indentured servants, slaves, and tradespeople. Inventories from the Heath and Louttit families paint a picture of life at Mount Harmon at this time. There were dozens of cows, horses, sheep, hogs, and chickens, and producing food for all who lived and worked on the plantation was a year round job.

Smoke House , The white clapboard building before you is a recreated smokehouse, which was used to cure meats prior to electricity and refrigeration. Today the smokehouse is used for living demonstrations and to reflect Mount Harmon’s plantation era.

Colonial Kitchen , The brick building beside the smokehouse is a colonial out-kitchen, with a large hearth and full complement of cooking tools. The kitchen was a separate building on many plantations, to keep the heat and risk of fire away from the main house. The out-kitchen was listed on Mount Harmon’s 1837 fire insurance survey. Today the colonial kitchen is used for education and hearth cooking programs, demonstrations and is a popular destination for school field trips and special events.

[Inscription on the lower right, to right of the map image] , Time Traveling to 1837 , This map of Mount Harmon from 1837 reflects what the plantation looked like during the post-colonial era when it was a working agricultural farm with numerous outbuildings, including a brick quarter, smokehouse, spring house, carriage house, stable and other dependencies.