The County Alms House, then Plaindealing

The County Alms House, then Plaindealing. Stark Realities… Stately Home, c. 1792 - 2017. , A large brick structure that stood here for over two centuries had many historic uses., Alms House (c. 1792-1826): County officials could commit a person to the "Poor House" with legal due process. The inmates had to work hard, sleep on straw mattresses and wear red cloth badges bearing the Roman letters "P.C.", which stood for "Poor of Caroline County". Punishments were severe: penalties for failure to wear the red badge included loss of rations, hard labor, and ten lashes applied by whip., Plantation dwelling (1826-1864): In 1826 the county sold the Alms House to the Dukes, a prominent family of planters, mariners and legislators who renamed it Plaindealing. From the dwelling the Dukes family residents controlled the lives of about 150 enslaved African Americans working on 2,000 acres of land in the Denton area. The enslaved workers here and in Maryland were freed by a new Maryland constitution in 1864., Stately home (1865-2014): After the Civil War, the dwelling was remodeled in the Victorian Gothic style and occupied until 1955 by Dukes family descendants, then by the W. Henry Brown and John Donahue families. By 2017 the house was much altered, structurally unsound and badly damaged in 2013 by fire. Prior to its demolition in 2017, the Caroline County Historical Society removed the historic stairhall (c. 1792) for installation in its Denton museum., [Captions:] , A conjectural drawing (2016) shows how the structure looked as the Alms House for impoverished residents when erected circa 1792 by the county., A photograph (c. 1910) shows the former Alms House as remodeled after the Civil War.