ABOUT US

The Farm’s History

The first mention of the property was described as a Native American settlement. It is assumed that Native Americans occupied the land prior to the arrival of Europeans. The first recorded history of the property dates back to a land grant in 1666 from Lord Baltimore. As the story goes, the colonial manor house we see today is said to have been built in the early 1700’s by a French Sea Captain for his bride. Over the years, the property changed hands several times and was home to family’s with names such as Allen, Duer, Dennis, Mattlage, Howerton, and Sturgis. The chosen agricultural crops were once tobacco but now are most often corn and soybeans. Documented history also notes typical farm animals, a barrel making cooperage, a mill site (Cottingham’s Mill), and a turkey farm. The high banks and deep water access over time  surely accommodated a “landing” when the rivers were the highways of the time for commerce and access to colonial America. Just imagine, this home was built about 75 years before Americas revolution.

The Cellar House’s Name

The name is curious, but there’s a story. The relevance of the “cellar” originates from the legend of a secret tunnel that ran from the cellar to the cypress swamp to the north and was accessed from the house through a trap door beneath the interior stairs. As stated above, the Manor home was built by a ship captain. Legend says that he participated in privateering and piracy. Through this tunnel, goods could be smuggled and escape could be enabled upon siege. Remember, the river was the properties primary access in those times. Careful watch was kept looking downriver for the approach of potentially threatening ships from the unique “lie on your belly” window above the rafters in the south gable. During the Civil War era, the house and tunnel were used as a stop along the famed “underground Railroad” as fleeing slaves escaped through the cellar, north towards freedom. And, lastly, In the early 1960’s and during the homes restoration, an Indian bundle burial was discovered beneath the house. It was customary for local Native Americans to gather the remains of their ancestors in a small “bundle” and relocate them with the tribe as they migrated. The burial remains undisturbed in the cellar following its accidental discovery to this day. 

Legends and Folklore

Bloody Tales of Murder and Piracy
Cloak Mystery of Old Cellar House

By Orlando V. Wooten
Thursday, October 13, 1966
The Daily Times, Salisbury, MD

There were tales of a baby drowned, and a dagger through the mother's heart. Grandmothers told of foreign ships slipping up the black river on moonless night, and of French brandy and perfumes smuggled ashore through a secret tunnel of soldiers of the Revolution resting from their wounds in it's beautiful halls, and of Negro slaves escaping through the swamps to find refuge and escape in its famous cellar passageway - all these are part of the truth and half-truth that has drifted through the mists of time about the Cellar House on the Pocomoke River.

And now a skeleton has been found in that fabled cellar as workmen finished restoring the beautiful old plantation home to add another facet to its fascinating history. John L. Graham III of Salisbury, owner of the property, said a mason's shovel recently discovered the remains.

Built about 1740, the symmetrical, handsomely paneled mansion has just been completely restored and refinished by Mr. Graham for modern living, with all its original detail preserved.

Surrounded by 400 acres of land, the Cellar House is located high on the banks of a broad reach of the Pocomoke River, one mile down-stream from Milburn Landing. There are no nearby homes, and the only visitors are wild deer of the forest. Stands of large black walnut and bald cypress trees adorn the farm.

The old house is timber frame with two brick ends. All beams in the cellar and attic are hand-hewn, and every nail in the building is hand-made. No two windows are the same dimension, and much of the original colonial glass remains intact. H and L hinges appear on nearly all the doors. The outside doors are thick, of crossed plank construction. The old home may have originally have been designed as a fortress against Indian attack.

In the "greate room" a deep fireplace is marked by a flat arch in the Elizabethan manner, and the overmantel is paneled horizontally to the ceiling. Fluted pilasters tie up the fireplace and the overmantel into one composition. Deep wine cupboards lie between the fireplace and the wide walls.

The stairway is of hand-carved, black walnut. All the rooms contain fireplaces, and are unusually large and airy, beyond the general style of that period. In the attic on the south end of the building, a small "lie-on-your-stomach window" was used as a lookout post by the early residents for an unobstructed view for miles down the river.

Mr. Graham is an architect with the Salisbury firm of George, Miles, and Buhr. He is the designer of nearby Shad Landing State Park and the Nassawango Country Club, and is the consulting architect on Pemberton Hall in its restoration. Now that the two-year restoration of the Cellar House is complete, Mr. Graham is in no hurry to let it go. He says he wants just the right tenant who can appreciate and care for this beautifully preserved old mansion with all its original paneling.

The Discovery of the skeleton in the cellar of the old building brings to mind the wealth of legend surrounding "Cellar House." A French sea captain is said to have been its original builder. He located it on the banks of the Pocomoke because because it could accommodate ocean-going sailing ships, and because his young English bride had a brother, William Allen, who had lived near there.

Soon after building this elaborate structure, the Frenchman suffered business losses and became desperate for money He took the easiest way out, in a manner than he knew, and started smuggling in an effort to recoup his fortunes. For this purpose, a tunnel is said to have been built from the edge of the water into the cellar of the house, giving it its' name. Foundations of a building that might have been a shipping warehouse have recently been discovered near the water.

But the captain was away for a long period of time, and the young wife grew lonesome and restless in her isolated location, with no neighbors.

She became attached to a younger man also a seasman, whose small vessel was seen tied up more and more at the wharf there. An affair developed.

But one night the captain's ship drifted in with the tide unnoticed by the people at the house, and the pair were discovered by the Frenchman. The man escaped, but the disgraced young wife was banished from the house.

In despair, the young woman attempted later to return to the shelter of her husband's home and ask his forgiveness. On the boat trip up the river, the craft overturned and her infant was drowned. The woman managed to make her way ashore through the swamps and forest to the house.

The husband, however, was far from forgiving. The bitterness of her betrayal had driven him half mad. At the sight of the young woman, he dragged her to the bedroom where she had been discovered, and plunged his long dagger into her torn heart. Not pausing even to bury the body as it lay in a spreading pool of blood, the Frenchman gathered up his crew and sailed away. What distant seas he visited, or what acts he later committed, no one ever knew.

But the memory of such a tragedy could never be erased from the Cellar House, and the old people nearby came to believe that ghosts from these first inhabitants remained there. They thought that in the middle of a thunder storm, they could hear the faint echo of the Frenchman's ship carronade boom through the forest. They said they could hear the wail of the drowning infant, and the cries of the wife seeking her lost lover mingle with the summer fireflies or startle the wild swans as they flew south at dusk.

The recent finding of the skeleton in the cellar of the old house was the first evidence that there might have been some basis to this tale of violence, Mr. Graham wondered if it might not be the remains of the murdered woman, and asked two Delaware archaeologists, Dr. David Marine of Rehobeth Beach, and Henry Hutchinson of Bethel, to investigate it, and to help him locate the mythical tunnel to the cellar.

They say the skeleton was in fact that of an Indian, and that the house may have been built, unknowingly, over the site of an ancient Indian town. Indian artifacts were found in the soil around the burial site, and some of the bones had been broken before the burial in a typical "basket burial" of old Indian times. They said, "An Indian wigwam or hut stood where the house now stands, and some Indian family moved the bones of their loved one and reburied them under their new home.

The archaeologists have discovered the brick foundations of what may have been a warehouse for the plantation near the river, which does give some credence to the tales of the smuggling and illegal shipping. An old well has been discovered which will probably give up many clues. But, no signs of a tunnel, either near the river or in the cellar, have been found.

Many proud Eastern Shore names have been connected with the Cellar House. The Duers owned in in 1795, and Benjamin Dennis later purchased it, leaving it to his son of Revolutionary War fame. The younger Dennis was captain of the Wicomico Battalion of Worcester County in 1776. The Covingtons, Hacks, and Beohms have also owned the property. Some years ago it was operated as a vegetable and turkey farm by Miss Calvine, who was famous for packher skirt, and Miss Clara Mattlage. The quality of their turkeys were well-known in Eastern markets.

Inconclusive as the evidence may be as to the existence of the tunnel, there is no doubt in the minds of many local residents about the fate of the young Englishwoman. There are men living who will swear that they remember as children seeing the stains from her body on the wood floor of the bedroom.

And while they have never heard it themselves, they have been told by others who did hear the echo of ship's guns answering lightning flashes; and they did hear how geese flying low along this stretch of the river in early winter would be answered by the cries of the mother and child as they sought to join the wild ones and escape from the reeds and mists of the Pocomoke.