Marshall Hall | |
Location | 5 miles north of Maryland Routes 210 and 227, Bryans Road, Maryland |
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Coordinates | 38°41′6″N77°5′55″W / 38.68500°N 77.09861°W Coordinates: 38°41′6″N77°5′55″W / 38.68500°N 77.09861°W |
Area | 10 acres (4.0 ha) |
Built | 1725 |
NRHP reference No. | 76000152 [1] |
Added to NRHP | May 12, 1976 |
Marshall Hall, Maryland is the site of the Marshall family mansion. It is now part of Piscataway Park operated by the National Park Service. Marshall Hall is located near Bryans Road in Charles County, Maryland, next to the Potomac River, more or less across from Mount Vernon, Virginia, the home of George Washington. The home was one of the finest built on the Maryland shore of the Potomac in the early 18th century. The Marshall family were minor gentry and owned as many as 80 slaves by the early 19th century. [2]
Soon after the Civil War, the site became a highly frequented picnic ground because of its proximity to Mount Vernon. Steamship lines, originally established to ferry tourists from Washington D.C. and Alexandria to/from Mount Vernon, discovered a new source of revenue in the park across from the historic estate. In the 1880s, the Mount Vernon and Marshall Hall Steamboat Company ran large ships between Washington, Alexandria, Mount Vernon and Marshall Hall: the round-trip fare at that time was $1, and included admission to Mount Vernon. [3] Washingtonians fled the summer heat of the city for all sorts of events at the picnic grounds, from exclusive catered events to popular cultural events such as a swimming exhibition given by the daredevil Robert Emmet Odlum in the summer of 1878, seven years before his death at the Brooklyn Bridge. Marshall Hall later became one of the first amusement parks in the Washington, D.C., area in the 1890s, offering numerous "appliances of entertainment" (as one deed described them) for visitors who wanted to do more than picnic, many of them arriving by river boat. Starting in the 1870s, [4] annual jousting tournaments took place at the site. New attractions were added throughout the 20th century, and gambling became a major draw for a while after World War II. Between 1949 and 1968, the Southern Maryland area offered the only legal slot machines in the United States outside of Nevada.
The National Park Service gained control of the park after Congress, acting upon a request from the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, mandated that the views from Mt. Vernon had to be protected and returned to something resembling the days when George Washington sat on his colonnaded porch and looked across the Potomac.[ citation needed ] The term "historic viewshed" was coined for this act of preservation.[ citation needed ] The Park Service tore down all vestiges of the amusement park in 1980, whose popularity had declined due to competition by much larger, newer parks. A fire destroyed much of the colonial house soon after. [5] In January 2003, a truck driver slammed his rig through the remaining hulk. [6] The damage done to the brick shell was repaired the following year.[ citation needed ]
Mount Vernon is an American landmark and former plantation of George Washington, the first president of the United States, and his wife, Martha. The estate is on the banks of the Potomac River in Fairfax County, Virginia. It is located south of Washington, D.C. and Alexandria, Virginia and is across the river from Prince George's County, Maryland.
The Potomac Heritage Trail, also known as the Potomac Heritage National Scenic Trail or the PHT, is a designated National Scenic Trail corridor spanning parts of the mid-Atlantic region of the United States that will connect various trails and historic sites in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia. The trail network includes 710 miles (1,140 km) of existing and planned sections, tracing the natural, historical, and cultural features of the Potomac River corridor, the upper Ohio River watershed in Pennsylvania and western Maryland, and a portion of the Rappahannock River watershed in Virginia. The trail is managed by the National Park Service.
Marshall Hall was an amusement park at Marshall Hall, Maryland, located diagonally south from Mount Vernon, Virginia on the banks of the Potomac River. The site of a small amusement park opened in the early 1920s and included a small wooden roller coaster. A larger wooden roller coaster was built in its place in 1950. The coaster was destroyed by tornado force winds in July 1977 and was the beginning of the end for the park. Marshall Hall as an amusement park closed in 1980. It was a favorite of Washington, D.C. residents who often arrived by excursion boat.
The George Washington Memorial Parkway, colloquially the G.W. Parkway, is a 25-mile-long (40 km) parkway that runs along the south bank of the Potomac River from Mount Vernon, Virginia, northwest to McLean, Virginia, and is maintained by the National Park Service (NPS). It is located almost entirely within Virginia, except for a short portion of the parkway northwest of the Arlington Memorial Bridge that passes over Columbia Island within the District of Columbia.
Mount Vernon is a neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland, located immediately north of the city's downtown district. Designated a National Historic Landmark District and a city Cultural District, it is one of the city's oldest neighborhoods and originally was home to the city's wealthiest and most fashionable families. The name derives from the Mount Vernon home of George Washington; the original Washington Monument, a massive pillar commenced in 1815 to commemorate the first president of the United States, is the defining feature of the neighborhood.
Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial, formerly named the Custis-Lee Mansion, is a Greek Revival style mansion located in Arlington, Virginia, United States that was once the home of Confederate Army General Robert E. Lee. It overlooks the Potomac River and the National Mall in Washington, D.C. During the American Civil War, the grounds of the mansion were selected as the site of Arlington National Cemetery, in part to ensure that Lee would never again be able to return to his home. The United States has since designated the mansion as a National Memorial. Although the United States Department of the Army controls Arlington National Cemetery, the National Park Service, a component of the United States Department of the Interior, administers Arlington House.
The Mount Vernon Trail (MVT) is a 17-mile (27 km) long shared use path that travels along the George Washington Memorial Parkway in Northern Virginia between Rosslyn and George Washington's home at Mount Vernon. The trail connects the easternmost portions of Arlington County, the City of Alexandria, and Fairfax County, and travels mostly on dedicated trail with a small portion on city streets. As part of U.S. Bike Route 1, the Potomac Heritage Trail and the East Coast Greenway, the MVT opened in April 1972 as a gravel path and was subsequently expanded and paved.
George Washington Parke Custis was an American plantation owner, antiquarian, author, and playwright. His father John Parke Custis was the stepson of George Washington. He and his sister Eleanor grew up at Mount Vernon and in the Washington presidential household.
Woodlawn is a historic house located in Fairfax County, Virginia. Originally a part of Mount Vernon, George Washington's historic plantation estate, it was subdivided in the 19th century by abolitionists to demonstrate the viability of a free labor system. The address is now 9000 Richmond Highway, Alexandria, Virginia, but due to expansion of Fort Belvoir and reconstruction of historic Route 1, access is via Woodlawn Road slightly south of Jeff Todd Way/State Route 235. The house is a designated National Historic Landmark, primarily for its association with the Washington family, but also for the role it played in the historic preservation movement. It is now a museum property owned and managed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
Fort Washington, located near the community of Fort Washington, Maryland, was for many decades the only defensive fort protecting Washington D.C. The original fort, overlooking the Potomac River, was completed in 1809, and was begun as Fort Warburton, but renamed in 1808. During the War of 1812, the fort was destroyed by its own garrison during a British advance.
Piscataway Park, located 20 miles (32 km) southwest of downtown Washington, D.C., in and around Accokeek, Maryland, protects Marshall Hall, the National Colonial Farm, and the Accokeek Creek Site. The park is located across the Potomac River from George Washington's Mount Vernon estate.
Little Hunting Creek is a 3.6-mile-long (5.8 km) primarily tidal tributary of the Potomac River located in Fairfax County, Virginia, not to be confused with Hunting Creek farther north. A stone-arch bridge, completed in 1931, carries traffic on the George Washington Memorial Parkway across the narrow mouth of the creek, located 96.6 miles (155.5 km) upriver from the mouth of the Potomac. The Washington family built its Mount Vernon plantation on the Potomac River along both banks of Little Hunting Creek during colonial times. The creek is bordered by residential communities in addition to the Mount Vernon property. It is a popular location for recreational fishing, and much of the wildlife characteristic of the tidal Potomac wetlands can be spotted there.
Harmony Hall, located in Fort Washington, Maryland, is managed by the United States National Park Service as part of the National Capital Parks-East system. It has been a National Park Service site since 1966. Harmony Hall is a 2+1⁄2-story Georgian country house built of red brick during the eighteenth century. It is surrounded by 65 acres (26
Mount Clare, also known as Mount Clare Mansion and generally known today as the Mount Clare Museum House, is the oldest Colonial-era structure in the City of Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A. The Georgian style of architecture plantation house exhibits a somewhat altered five-part plan. It was built on a Carroll family plantation beginning in 1763 by barrister Charles Carroll the Barrister, (1723–1783), a descendant of the last Gaelic Lords of Éile in Ireland and a distant relative of the much better-known Charles Carroll of Carrollton, (1737–1832), longest living signer of the Declaration of Independence and the richest man in America in his later years, also the layer of the First Stone of the new Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, just a short distance away in 1828.
The Forrest-Marbury House, located at 3350 M Street NW in Georgetown, Washington, D.C., and is not far from the Francis Scott Key Bridge over the Potomac River.
The B & O Railroad Potomac River Crossing is a 15-acre (6.1 ha) historic site where a set of railroad bridges, originally built by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, span the Potomac River between Sandy Hook, Maryland, and Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, in the United States. The site was added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 14, 1978 for its significance in commerce, engineering, industry, invention, and transportation.
Mount Harmon is an historic home, located at Earleville, Cecil County, Maryland, United States. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974, and is currently open to the public.
Hagerstown City Park is a public urban park just southwest of the central business district of Hagerstown, Maryland, United States. The park is located at the junction of Virginia Avenue, Key Street, Walnut Street, Prospect Street, and Memorial Boulevard.
Abingdon was an 18th- and 19th-century plantation owned by the prominent Alexander, Custis, Stuart, and Hunter families and worked at times by slaves and domesticated animals. The plantation's site is now located in Arlington County in the U.S. state of Virginia.
Baltimore Heritage is an American nonprofit historic-preservation organization headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Marshall Hall, Maryland . |
External images | |
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Photographic slide show of 2003 crash of semi-truck crash into Marshall Hall Mansion. | |
Ca 1900 postcard of Marshall Hall Mansion |