Pemberton Hall

Pemberton Hall. , Pemberton Hall has a story to tell. Although important, that story is far wider and richer than the story of the preservation and restoration of a regional and local historical treasure. It is the far richer and wider story of the settlement of the Chesapeake beginning with the original Pemberton land patent in 1680 into the early Federal Period of the new Republic. The story of Pemberton and the Handy family represents the complex and fascinating narrative of the settlement of the Eastern Shore., Pemberton Hall is an example of eighteenth-century lower Eastern Shore architecture. The two storied gambrel roofed house was completed in 1741. It is distinguished by Flemish bond brickwork with glazed header patterning, plastered cove cornices and extensive original eighteenth-century interior woodwork and detail. Interior furnishings are based on three eighteenth-century probate inventories of owners of Pemberton Hall. The east end kitchen wing, added circa 1785, was reconstructed on its original foundation after it collapsed., The construction of Pemberton Hall was accomplished by Isaac Handy (1706-1762) and his wife Anne Dashiell (1706-1771) on land, overlooking the Wicomico River, purchased from Joseph Pemberton in 1726. In addition to being a sizable landowner, merchant-planter, and captain of his own ship, Isaac Handy served as a Justice of the Peace, colonel in the Maryland militia and as a member of the Maryland Provincial Assembly. He was one of the founders of Salisbury in 1732 on land then known as "Handy's Landing.", Enslaved Persons , Seventeen enslaved persons were listed at Isaac Handy's death in his probate inventory in 1763. The Eastern Shore economy depended upon enslaved people to provide labor to keep farms and households running. Slavery played a critical role in the economic development in the area. From the colony's founding in 1634 until the state abolished slavery in 1864, enslaved Africans and African Americans were important in shaping Maryland's history. The commodities they produced provided the foundation for Maryland's economy and formed its society., Henry Handy (1747-1787) was the youngest son of Isaac and Anne's eleven children. He inherited Pemberton at the age of 16. He married Jane Winder (1749-1803) in 1770 and his Mother Anne lived at Pemberton until her death in 1771. He was commissioned in the Continental Army as an Ensign of the Salisbury Company in the Salisbury Battalion of Militia in Somerset County in 1778. He rendered patriotic service during the Revolutionary War by supplying wheat for the use of the military in 1781. Pemberton remained in the Handy Family until 1835 when Jehu Parsons purchased the property., Pemberton Hall Foundation, Inc. , After the plantation house became derelict and threatened with destruction, the Pemberton Hall Foundation, Inc. was formed in 1964 to restore this important vestige of our Chesapeake Bay regional heritage. The Hall and surrounding two acres are owned and maintained by the Foundation. Pemberton Hall is surrounded by 262-acre Pemberton Historical Park, which maintains three of the original plantation boundaries of 1750 intact., In 1980 The Pemberton Hall Foundation persuaded the Wicomico Recreation and Parks Department to purchase and develop the surrounding land, the core of the original plantation, as an historical park. In 1987 as the first phase of development was being completed, the remaining land adjacent to Pemberton Hall was threatened by a 100-house subdivision. With funding aid from the State of Maryland and the people of Wicomico County, the land was saved from development. Pemberton's wharf at Mulberry Landing on the Wicomico River is the earliest documented bulkhead-style wharf in the country. Pemberton Hall and its two acres are the focus of this historic site.