Somerset Place

Somerset Place is a former plantation near Creswell in Washington County, North Carolina, along the northern shore of Lake Phelps, and now a State Historic Site. Somerset Place operated as a plantation from 1785 until 1865. Before the end of the American Civil War, Somerset Place had become one of the Upper South's largest plantations.In 1969, Somerset Place was designated as a State Historic Site. In 1986, descendants of African American slaves from Somerset Place planned a gathering known as Somerset Homecoming. The event inspired a book titled "Somerset Homecoming" written by the property's former manager Dorothy Spruill Redford, who retired in 2008.Visitors can tour the 1830s period plantation house, the dairy, kitchen/laundry, kitchen rations building, smokehouse and salting house. The site features several reconstructed buildings for the plantation's slaves, including two homes and the plantation hospital; the grounds include stocks that were used to punish slaves.The visitor center's exhibits display the history of the site and antebellum North Carolina. There is also a gift shop.