Colonial History

For over 40 years, Claude Moore Colonial Farm was a well-preserved time capsule of 18th-century farm life in northern Virginia. Since the early 1970s, costumed staff and volunteers lived as if it was the year 1771. They grew and cooked their own food, sewed their own clothes, and raised their own livestock. But after a tumultuous battle with the National Park Service, the colonial farm in McLean, Virginia permanently closed its doors on December 21, 2018. The National Park Service hosted an open comment period, which ran through April 25, to decide the future of the land.

When a damaged brig, the Peggy Stewart, arrived in Annapolis in 1774 with sick passengers and a secret stash of tea, local outrage forced a dramatic decision — the ship and its tea were run aground and burned in a protest of British taxation. It was reminiscent of the Boston Tea Party and helped set Maryland on the road to revolution.