Stephanie Gilbert, a resident of Dresher, was recently featured in two articles published by The Washington Post.

The first, which came out on August 6, is titled “She cherished the home where her family fled slavery. Then a stranger bought it.” Yesterday, her story reappeared in an opinion piece titled “More than a house story.”

The first article details the story of her family’s former home, the 133-acre Richland Farm estate in Maryland, which had been purchased by a store owner named Jungsun Kim for $3 million.

From the article:

Gilbert had laid out the three centuries of remarkable history it had taken her a decade to unravel: the five generations of her enslaved ancestors who had labored at Richland Farm and a neighboring plantation in Clarksville for one of Maryland’s most prominent families, Oliver Gilbert’s escape in 1848 via the Underground Railroad, his successes as a free man and his return to Maryland in 1908, when he boldly presented himself to his enslaver’s grandson, Edwin Warfield, the state’s 45th governor. The many years of correspondence between the political scion and the African American lecturer and musician.

Gilbert wanted to know if she could still visit the property. The article goes on to document the history of her enslaved ancestors. 

The follow-up opinion piece is written by a first-generation Asian immigrant. An excerpt:

The Aug. 6 front-page article was both an early-morning jolt and a rewarding read. Kudos to Stephanie Gilbert’s exhaustive and tenacious research and coherently documented history of her enslaved ancestors. Their trajectories over time are brought to life by her history. That’s the great news.

In July 2012, Gilbert was quoted in The Philadelphia Inquirer’s “Annette John-Hall: Jack and Jill a shining example“.