Chesapeake Bay towns, cities, and the roads between them are built upon the foundations of a multitude of well- and little-known landowners. Their houses, whether hidden in forests, a lonely field, or a small-town road, add to the collaborative story of our region’s past and its influence on the present. Seven historic houses, in particular, disclose the livelihoods, legends, and legacies that shape and foster the communities in which they reside. We investigated, and even visited a few of the properties, to help to tell their stories.
Linthicum Walks Gambrills, Anne Arundel County
Linthicum Walks (not related to the town Linthicum) is a house still very much in use for one that has seen so many days. Before it became the gathering center that it is today, Linthicum Walks was the home of the Thomas Linthicum family for almost 200 years. The unpaved road leading to the house was once part of a road that transports tobacco to the South River. Though enclosed by seemingly endless forest now, the house sat for the majority of its life on a medium-sized tobacco farm which occupied what is now Crofton Park to its right and Crofton Middle School on its left.
From 1924 to 1977, Benjamin and Olive King called the Walks’ home and raised their four adopted children there, while modernizing the house and adding a kitchen, upstairs heating, and two bathrooms. Although the house was bequeathed to the Washington National Cathedral, Anne Arundel County has become the property’s owner.
The historic house still enjoys the usage of various groups. The Annapolis Watercolor Club, the Crofton Village Garden Club, and Wild Birds Unlimited are a few of the organizations that host events regularly at Linthicum Walks. Its caretakers, the Friends of Historic Linthicum Walks, invite the community to partake in its indoor and outdoor hospitality. Weddings and parties are welcome. Easily missed by drivers along Davidsonville Road and only marked by a simple white sign with thin cursive writing, it’s a place just waiting for visitors.
Crownsville, Anne Arundel County
Like Linthicum Walks, Belvoir, also known as Scott’s Plantation, is a notoriously easy-to-miss piece of history. Off Generals Highway in Crownsville and up a winding, gravelly drive, the circa 1736 house hosts not only a new change in ownership, but countless stories as well.
Beside that Francis Scott Key, author of the Star-Spangled Banner, stayed for a summer there with his grandmother who then owned the house, Belvoir’s best-known history is that of Comte de Rochambeau, who camped there with his French troops on the way to support George Washington in the Battle of York during the Revolutionary War. As impressive as that fact makes the property, an even greater significance lies in the quality of Rochambeau himself.
At the end of the war, the British wanted to surrender only to the French count; he was an aristocrat, and the British felt more comfortable giving way to someone of equal standing. Yet Rochambeau did not let them do that. He had them submit to the true head of the war, George Washington. Nate Bailey, a Rockbridge Academy board director who lived at Belvoir with his family from fall 2007 to December 2018, says: “A lot of the areas Rochambeau stayed are now Walmart parking lots, freeways, office buildings. Few areas exist now that look like where he camped. Rochambeau was a military genius, a powerhouse, and George Washington’s equal in the campaign against the British.”
In 2014, archeologists with the Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration intended to uncover more finds of Rochambeau and his troops. Instead, they discovered rare slave quarters of unusual design and traces of slaves whose descendants live locally today, as well as the story of a house slave named Cinderella and her free husband, Abraham, who tried to run away. In March 2018, the archeologists uncovered a slave graveyard. Belvoir, once owned by Rockbridge Academy in Millersville, was recently bequeathed to the Anne Arundel Medical Center, which may or may not enhance the property for public use as a healthcare facility. Jan Wood, president of the foundation, says, “If there are appropriate care needs in our community that would be appropriate for that property, then we’ll explore those options as they come to light, but right now there are no working plans for the property except to steward and take care of its beautiful condition.”
Bowlingly Estate Queenstown, Queen Anne’s County
Bowlingly Estate, a 10-acre property within walking distance of the Queenstown Outlets along Route 50, is just what owners Sean and Kellee Glass had been wanting for their family of four. “We’d been looking on the Eastern Shore for quite some time, and Bowlingly kept popping up,” Kellee Glass says. In 2014, the couple bought the place on short sale, and now use it as a weekend and summer home. The size of the property, the lawns, the water, and the fact that it’s only a mile from the highway makes this an idyllic place for the local D.C. family.
A long lane leads to the Georgian-style, Flemish-bond brick home. The house displays a double staircase upon entering, seven bedrooms, four and a half baths, a fully-modernized kitchen, and five different representations of period construction. Bowlingly, the oldest portion of which was built in 1733, is the only dated historic building in the area, making it an important reference in dating surrounding historic sites.
Yet the prominence of its history extends far beyond a date on a header brick. On August 2, 1813, mid the War of 1812, British troops under Sir Charles James Napier affronted Bowlingly, thinking it was the governor’s house, which was a few miles away. The local militia who were staying there fled, and the British ravaged Bowlingly severely before marching on the west. “They burned out the stairs and took whatever they could take,” Glass says. Since then, the house belonged to numerous owners, including Queen Anne’s County Railroad Company, which converted it to a hotel with an amusement park and racetrack. It became known as The Ferry House, and was painted all yellow and gained 220 feet of covered porch, both which were removed in 1953 with the help of architectural historian William Foster. There’s a rumor that British cannonballs still hide within the walls from that fateful, long-past day; Glass confirms that they have not found any.
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Handsell Vienna, Dorchester County
A tall, old brick house sits amid the quiet, rural fields north of Vienna, Dorchester County, a close distance from Route 50 along a narrow road named Indiantown. One might be shocked to learn how long this lonely house has been there. The members of The Nanticoke Historic Preservation Alliance (NHPA) have faithfully restored the house, called Handsell, to its best shape, and continue to unearth more artifacts of its long and obscure past.
The name of the road along which the house stands, Indiantown Road, gives a fair hint to where Handsell’s history starts. You can be sure that when you stand on Handsell’s land, you are standing where the Native American Chicone village used to thrive as late as the latter 1700s. British privateers burned the house around 1779-1781, inferring the house that now stands is what remains of a grander structure. The land passed through several families throughout the decades: the Steeles, the Shehees, and the Thompsons. It lastly became the Webb family farm in 1892 until NHPA bought it in 2009. Four fireplaces have been repaired from their crumbled state, and new windows were added in June 2018. The difference between Handsell’s exterior in 2003 versus 2018 is impressive.
Beside the former presence of Native Americans, British privateers, and American farmers, evidence of African American fieldworkers also contributes to the history of Handsell. Pictures belonging to their descendants help shape what life looked like for those generations who worked on the land until the 1950s.
Anyone can stop at the roadside, walk around the Native American garden display in front of the house, and read the history plaques. One of them invites you to take a guided cellphone tour. NHPA also hosts an annual Nanticoke River Jamboree each fall featuring historical demonstrations, food, and activities for the whole family.
The Inn at Mitchell House Chestertown, Kent County
The Inn at Mitchell House, located between Rock Hall and Chestertown in Kent County, offers six rooms and a 2007 cottage called Stone’s Throw on its scenic and secluded environs beside the Chesapeake Bay. The Mitchell House property has been an amusement park, a private residence, and a nursing home, but its initial history as a victory site in the War of 1812 is the house’s greatest boast.
In the beginning, “Joseph Mitchell had purchased 200 acres from his mother-in-law in 1808,” says Tracy Stone, who runs the inn with her husband Jim. By 1830, the year of his death, Mitchell owned over 1,000 acres, 39 slaves, and had $3,700 in cash. When the war struck in 1812, however, Mitchell’s prosperity came to a standstill.
It is legend that the Mitchell House is the death place of Mitchell’s foe, the British commander Sir Peter Parker. Stone confirms that the myth is just a legend: “One of the [British] sailors on ship kept a journal, and it’s very detailed.”
British, Lt. Col. Philip A. Reed commanded Sir Peter Parker to create a diversion as the main British troops went to bombard Baltimore, so no American reinforcements would be sent to challenge them. Sir Peter Parker and his troops fought the Kent County Militia, the commissary general of which was Joseph Mitchell himself. The British thought that Mitchell was the commissary general of Maryland, however, and took Mitchell and his wife prisoner and shot all his horses. According to the journal, after they released his wife a few days later, she returned with “honey, butter, and fruit.” Mitchell was held prisoner for three years, making him the longest-imprisoned man in the entire War of 1812. Even so, the battle fought on Isaac Caulk’s field—one of the few intact War of 1812 battlefields remaining in North America—was a victory for the young United States.
Peter Parker likely died on the battlefield along with 14 of his men. The British soldiers who died on the field were buried there, and their grave markers are there to this day. According to the legend, Sir Peter Parker was shipped back to England to be buried, preserved along the way in a barrel of rum. Today, one can pay their respects to the commissary general’s house with a comfortable stay unlike any other. As the owner, Stone says: “You’re living history. You’re able to stay in a house steeped in history, and you get to be a part of it. That in itself is a one-of-a-kind experience. Who can say they got to stay in a 1820s period house?”
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Exeter Federalsburg, Caroline County
If one has been to or heard of Federalsburg, it’s likely because of the sewing outlet in the center of town. It is also home to perhaps the oldest remaining structure in Caroline County: an early 19th-century house named Exeter. Exeter was the abode of several generations of millers. Although the mill itself burned down in the mid-1900s, and the mill business faded, the house is alive and well.
A real fire crackles in the period fireplace in the dining room beyond the front hall. The floorboards, stairs, windows, and decoration of the front door are original, as well as the fireplace mantel in the room to the right of the hall. Visitors can explore upstairs, where one can see a miniature fireplace in the children’s bedroom (the only heating upstairs), two other bedrooms, and a third room in the back connected by a narrow, small-framed passage just above a very steep set of stairs leading down to the kitchen.
Mary Holt, the woman responsible for the loving restoration of Exeter from 1967–2011, furnished the house with items from the 1800s, including the top hat of a state senator, several children’s books belonging to a Paul Meredith Greensboro, and a rocking chair made by Charlie Walker, the man who built several of the houses along Old Denton Road. Mary Holt had an eye for antiques, and, along with a hardworking team, successfully recaptured the integrity of the old home. From the outside, Exeter looks like a doll’s house; on the inside, it’s a time capsule of Old World ways and curiosities.
The Federalsburg Historical Society is happy to give guided tours by appointment outside of the house’s touring schedule (2nd Friday of each month; May-September 10 a.m.–2 p.m.), as well as a bonus tour of the Federalsburg Historical Museum and the town. Wendy Garner, a Federalsburg local and volunteer for the Federalsburg Historical Society, says, “[My husband and I have] been here for 28 years, and we’re still exploring.”
Myrtle Grove Easton, Talbot County
Somewhere in the woodsy recesses of Goldsborough Neck Road in Talbot County is a house called Myrtle Grove. An arboretum graces the property, as well as the modern additions of a pool, barn, gatehouse, extensive gardens, and a pond. The original floors, paneling, and decorations—such as a circa-1790 mirror, a signature of Robert E. Lee on the grand piano, eagle cornices, and a ceiling cornice of tobacco leaves and corn sheaves—still grace this Georgian-style telescope house. The property’s most notable feature is a little law office apart from the house built in 1770, rumored to be the oldest in the country. The manor house is not only fascinating for its exquisite ornaments and remarkable age, but significant for the men it sheltered as well. If it were not for the Goldsborough line, the United States would have lost out on about nine generations of influential lawyers, senators, congressmen, judges, and more from the 1690s to the mid-20th century. When Robert Henry Goldsborough died in 1836, the Easton Gazette (which he had founded) mourned, “A great man in Israel has fallen. Talbot has lost her pride, and the Eastern shore one of her proudest boasts.” Harold W. Hurst wrote a detailed account of the Goldsboroughs’ national significance in his 2011 essay “Gentleman Politicians: The Goldsborough Family, 1805-1951.” Myrtle Grove is a private residence, but its current owners, Herb and Patrice Miller, seem willing to host organizations such as Tour, Toast, and Taste and Maryland Home and Gardens as well as wedding ceremonies on the property.
