C&O Canal visitors can help decorate 1800s plantation house

SHARPSBURG, Md. (AP) — Managers of the Chesapeake and Ohio National Historical Park are inviting visitors to help decorate a 19th-century plantation house in western Maryland.

The National Park Service says in a statement that the event will be held Saturday at the Ferry Hill Plantation near Sharpsburg.

It also includes period parlor games, Civil War soldier impersonators and old-time music by the Lonesome Fiddle Ramblers.

The house overlooking the Potomac River was built by John Blackford in the early 1800s. It was the childhood home of Henry Kyd Douglas, who became the youngest staff officer of Confederate Gen. Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson. Douglas kept a diary that was published under the title, “I Rode With Stonewall.”

The house served as the park’s headquarters from 1980 to 2001, when the office was moved to Hagerstown.

More information about the event can be found at the Chesapeake and Ohio Historical Park website. .

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