5 Best Sights in Annapolis and Southern Maryland, Maryland

The Dr. Samuel A. Mudd House is where John Wilkes Booth ended up at 4 am on Holy Saturday, 1865, his leg broken after having leaped from the presidential box at Ford's Theater. Most likely, the 32-year-old Dr. Mudd had no idea his patient was wanted for the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Nonetheless, Mudd was convicted of aiding a fugitive and sentenced to life in prison. (His time behind bars was cut short when President Andrew Jackson pardoned him in 1869.) Today the two-story house, set on 197 rolling acres, looks as if the doctor is still in. The dark purple couch where Mudd examined Booth remains in the downstairs parlor, 18th-century family pieces fill the rooms, and the doctor's crude instruments are on display. There's a 30-minute guided tour of the house, an exhibit building, and Mudd's original tombstone. They also have a farm museum and tobacco museum.

Based on the Villa Pisani in Montagnana, Italy, this 1774 home was a Colonial high-style residence. Currently, the museum is working to provide and present greater visibility and documentation about those enslaved at Hammond-Harwood House, including wills and letters. Up to seven women, men, and children were enslaved here in the 19th century, according to census records, and a slavery exhibition documents what scholars and historians have learned about them thus far. There are also exhibits of Colonial art by Charles Willson Peale and Rembrandt Peale, as well as displays of decorative arts—everything from Chinese-export porcelain to Georgian-period silver.

The 17th-century tobacco port of London, on the South River a short car ride from Annapolis, was made up of 40 dwellings, shops, and taverns. London all but disappeared in the 18th century, its buildings abandoned and left to decay, but one of the few remaining original Colonial structures is a three-story brick house, built by William Brown between 1758 and 1764, with dramatic river views. Newly reconstructed buildings include a tenement for lower-class workers, a carpenter's shop, and a barn. Guests can walk around on their own or take a 30-minute docent-led tour. Allow more time to wander the house grounds, woodland gardens, and a visitor center with an interactive exhibit on the area's archaeology and history.

The distinguished house on the grounds of this 18th-century plantation is the earliest (1703) post-in-ground structure known to exist in the United States; in place of a foundation, cedar timbers driven straight into the ground support it. The house is a sampler of architectural styles and interior design from the last two centuries. On the grounds of this National Historic Landmark are other buildings from the 18th through early 20th century: a Colonial customs warehouse, a smokehouse, a "necessary" (an outhouse), and a restored slave cabin from the 1830s. The house also has Colonial Revival gardens and nature trails overlooking the Patuxent River. Admission, which is less for children, includes a tour.

A signer of the Declaration of Independence, William Paca (pronounced "PAY-cuh") was a Maryland governor from 1782 to 1785. His house was built from 1763 through 1765, and its original garden was finished by 1772. The main floor (furnished with 18th-century antiques) retains its original Prussian blue–and–soft gray color scheme, and the second floor houses more 18th-century pieces. The adjacent 2-acre pleasure garden provides a longer perspective on the back of the house, plus worthwhile sights of its own: upper terraces, a Chinese Chippendale bridge, a pond, a wilderness area, physic garden, and formal arrangements. An inn, Carvel Hall, once stood in the gardens, now planted with 18th-century perennials. Guests can take a self-guided tour of the garden, but to see the house, take the docent-led tour. Private tours can be arranged. The last tour leaves 1½ hours before closing.