About Somerset
Place State Historic Site
 Somerset
Place offers visitors a comprehensive and realistic view of
nineteenth-century life on a large-scale North Carolina
plantation. During its eighty-year existence as an active
plantation (1785-1865), Somerset Place encompassed as many as
100,000 acres and became one of North Carolina's most prosperous
rice, corn, and wheat plantations. Cumulatively, it was home to
more than eight hundred enslaved men, women, and children of
African descent-eighty of whom were brought to Somerset directly
from their West African homeland in 1786.
 The
plantation operated as a business investment for more than forty
years. In 1829 it became home to two generations of a planter
family: Josiah Collins III, his wife Mary, and their six sons.
When the Civil War ended in 1865, so did slavery in the United
States. Left without unpaid labor, planters such as the Collins
family could no longer maintain the plantation system that had
characterized much of the antebellum South.
Visitors tour the Collins Family Home
and related domestic dependencies including the Dairy,
Kitchen/Laundry, Kitchen Rations Building, Smokehouse, and
Salting House. Reconstructed buildings related to the enslaved
community include the Suckey Davis Home, Lewis and Judy's Home,
and the Plantation Hospital. Archaeological remains of several
buildings and the plantation grounds (including stocks where
slaves were punished) can also be explored.
Hours of Operation: Open
Year Around,
Monday-Saturday, 9 AM - 5 PM, Sunday 1-5 PM
Admission Fees: Free / Donations Accepted
About the
Facilities
- Visitor center
- Gift shop
- Free parking
- Recreational trails (Pettigrew State Park
adjacent to site)
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- Public restrooms
- Motorcoach parking
- Exhibits
- Historic structures
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Handicap Accessibility:
Visitor Center and Public Restrooms are accessible; site is
partially accessible.
Nearest Major Town/City: Plymouth, NC (30 miles
northwest)
For Visitor Information
Washington
County Chamber of Commerce
701 Washington Street
Plymouth, NC 27962
252.793.4804
252.793.4804
 Website:
www.washingtoncountygov.com
Email:
wcchamber@gotricounty.com
About
the Programs
Major Program Areas:
Antebellum, African American
Education Resources:
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Guided tours
On-site interpretive activities
Off
Site/Outreach Activities
Costumed/period programs
Staff interpreters
Self-guided exhibits
Hands-on activities
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School Tour Requirements:
- Maximum group size limit 100 with some exceptions.
- Reservations required
- $1.00/participant for hands-on activities
- 1.5 hour guided tour. 2.5 hours educational program
tours
- Curriculum-based tours for 4-12 students
Education Coordinator:
Email:
Karen Hayes
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