Oaklands (Laurel, Maryland)
Oaklands or Contee was a slave plantation owned by the Snowden family, and remains as a historic home surrounded by residential development. Description and history The house is a three-story Federal architecture manor of brick construction, and was built by Major Thomas Snowden and his wife Eliza Warfield from Bushy Park, Howard County. The estate extended westward into modern Howard County. Richard Snowden inherited it from his father. His oldest daughter Anne Lousia Snowden inherited the estate and married Capt. John Contee, for whom "Contee" station of the B&O railroad was named. In 1911, the estate was purchased by Charles R. Hoff and his wife who was a descendant of the Snowden family. Slavery Overseers of this plantation in the mid-1800s were described as particularly cruel to their slaves. Dennis Simms, born in 1841, recalled such in 1937 as part of the Library of Congress Slave Narrative project. "We had to toe the mark or be flogged with a rawhide whip, and almost every day there was from two to ten thrashings given on the plantations to disobedient Negro slaves...We all hated what they called the 'nine ninety-nine', usually a flogging until fell over unconscious or begged for mercy. We