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Bethesda (Ellicott City, Maryland)

Buildings and structures in Ellicott City, MarylandHouses in Howard County, MarylandPlantation houses in Maryland
Bethesda Ellicott City Maryland
Bethesda Ellicott City Maryland

Bethesda is located in Ellicott City, Maryland within Howard County, Maryland, United States. The home is sometimes mistakenly referred to as "Dower House" because a small dower house exists on the property. A "dower" is a widow's share for life of her husband's estate, so a dower house is where a widowed mother would live when her son and his family inherited and moved into the main house. The foundation of the original house was found using ground penetrating radar to the west of the existing structure. The center portion of the existing house is the oldest; dendrochronology revealed that the trees for the wood in that portion of the house were felled the winter of 1827–1828. Dendrochronology also revealed that the large granite section of the house to the west was added in 1841. The east section was added in 1960 by owner John M. DeBoy. While the house looks wide from the street, it is only one room deep. Outbuildings include a smoke house, a carriage house, and the stone "Dower House" which may have been built in the early 1830s to serve as a summer kitchen. Bethesda rests on a collection of surveyed properties totaling 1000 acres named "Long Reach", "Chews Resolution Manor", "Search Enlarged", "Search", and "Dorsey's Search" (448 Acres). The land grant was given to Maj Edward Dorsey (1646–1705) in 1682. When Edward Dorsey died, he willed the land to his nephew, Caleb Dorsey of "Belmont" in Elkridge, Maryland. Caleb gave the land to his daughter, Mary, when she married Michael Pue, an Irish doctor. They are the first people known to live on the property, and they lived there in 1790 when the newly formed United States of America conducted its first tax assessment. In 1769, the "Bethesda Old Place Farm" home was expanded on the property and run as a tobacco-producing plantation with 26 slave workers. Two successive generations of Pues also lived there. The property was struck by a tornado in 1858, and stayed in the Pue family until 1859. It was purchased by Thomas Lishear, a sea captain. He had three daughters who never married, and they lived in the house until their deaths. The house was later owned by Dr. George B. Sybert. By 1943, the property had been subdivided to 237 remaining acres. In 1954, the Columbia Hills Corporation developed the land leaving just 8.3 acres surrounding the house. By 1965, the land was subdivided down to three acres. Howard Research and Development purchased most of the original Long Reach property between 1963 and 1966 for the development of Columbia.

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Bethesda (Ellicott City, Maryland)
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N 39.25 ° E -76.75 °
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Patapsco Valley State Park Hilton Area

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21052
Maryland, United States
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Bethesda Ellicott City Maryland
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Hilton (Catonsville, Maryland)
Hilton (Catonsville, Maryland)

Hilton is a historic home located at The Community College of Baltimore County in Catonsville, Baltimore County, Maryland. It is an early-20th-century Georgian Revival–style mansion created from a stone farmhouse built about 1825, overlooking the Patapsco River valley. The reconstruction was designed by Baltimore architect Edward L. Palmer, Jr. in 1917. The main house is five bays in length, two and a half stories above a high ground floor, with a gambrel roof. The house has a 2+1⁄2-story wing, five bays in length, with a gabled roof, extending from the east end; and a two-story, one-bay west wing. The roof is covered with Vermont slate. The house features a small enclosed porch of the Tuscan order that was probably originally considered a porte cochere.Hilton is situated on the 5000-acre "Taylor's Forest" surveyed in 1678. The first construction at the 511-acre site was a stone farmhouse built between 1818 and 1825 for James W. McCulloh. After defending several charges of conspiracy, the property was sold to John Lewis Buchanan in 1825. In 1827 Dr. Lennox Birckhead, son of McColloh's business partner Soloman Birkhead purchased the property. Birkhead named his home "Hilton" for its high elevation.William Carson Glenn purchased the property in 1837, selling to his politician brother John Glenn in 1842. Guests during this period included Robert E. Lee. In 1852, Glenn added several stone outbuildings. The property passed to Marrietta Glen and was managed by newspaper publisher William Wilkens Glenn. William Glenn managed the farm with 26 slaves, sympathizing with the South during the Civil War. Hilton was used as a stopping location for Southerners fleeing Union troops for home. Glenn died in 1876, with the farm falling into disuse. In 1905 the estate was subdivided into 25 lots. In 1907 43 acres were donated by Russell Sage Foundation director John Mark Glenn (1858–1950) to create the first section of Patapsco Valley State Park. Hilton was purchased in 1917 by National Enameling and Stamping Company owner George Worth Knapp as a summer home and dairy farm reassembling 105 acres of the estate. In 1962 Baltimore County Public Schools purchased the property to establish a Community College of Baltimore County branch. In the 1970s lecture halls occupied the mansion. In 2011, a grant was awarded to renovate the building as the Center for Global Education.In addition to the Hilton Mansion, several other slavery-era outbuildings are on the property: two Tudor style stone houses built in 1852, of which one is in ruins; an 1852 stone bowling alley in ruins; and a stone gardeners building.It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.