THE RIGHT-HAND SHORE by Christopher Tilghman (fic)

Christopher Tilghman has written a novel about a stately manor of vast acreage built in 1657 by the ancestors of the Bayly family on the eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay.  It is actually the second novel Tilghman has written about this estate, but this story takes place before his previous novel, "Mason's Retreat." 
The story opens post-civil war and continues until the turn of the century.  It is a story of the consequences of building an empire upon slavery and the breakdown of an aristiocratic family, its members fleeing the dead end the Mason House plantation had become. 
When we enter the story, we learn the last of the slaves were sold off as the civil war was coming to an end.  Ophelia, the heiress married a Union man from Baltimore, as if the remove the stain of the family's support of the Confederacy.  Ophelia plays a small role in the story; she soon abandons the property to her husband and escapes with her daughter Mary to France and then Baltimore.
For a while the plantation was successful growing peaches, until blight ruins the orchard and changes the direction of the story.  While all this is playing out, the reader becomes engrossed in the stories of both the black and white workers on the farm.  Their relationships, especially the romance between Thomas the heir, Randell Terrell his best friend and Randell's sister, Beal, move the plot along to its poignant end.  It seems all the main characters in the novel are searching for their own ways of escaping the vaguely sinister atmosphere of the manor.
Mary Bayly returns to the manor as a grown woman and is the only family member interested in bringing back the glory days of the property.  She does this by turning it into a modern dairy with the latest equipment.  It becomes a model for organic farming in the early years of the 20th century.  As soon as Mary returns, her story becomes entwined with that of Thomas and Beal.  We view much of the story through the eyes of the faithful estate manager as we and he watch the decline, rise and denouement of the stately Bayly homestead.
Tilghman writes beautifully and keeps his readers interested in the history of the Chesapeake peninsula and the drama of the Bayly family.  I recommend this book as a good read which may prompt you to find his previous book to discover what happens to Mason's Retreat in the 20th century.