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Past Getting Facelift, Garden
Maryland Newsline Friday, March 3, 2006 RIVERDALE PARK, Md. - As the University of Maryland marks its 150th anniversary this year with a series of celebrations, the nearby Riversdale mansion, whose past is inextricably linked to the university’s, has reason to celebrate, too. Several projects – including the construction of an interpretive garden and paint “peelbacks” inside the 205-year-old house – are planned for this year. The Department of Parks and Recreation in Prince George’s County, which owns the property, hopes the projects will entice more visitors. “We want to keep things exciting,” said Ann Wass, historian and museum specialist at Riversdale. Work is being funded with the help of private grants from local organizations, such as the Riversdale Historical Society. Plans to fully restore Riversdale, which was once a 2,000-acre plantation, originated in 1988, about four decades after Abraham Lafferty, a former congressman from Oregon, sold the property to the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission. The goal is restore the house to its 19th century appearance, when the Calvert family occupied the home. The interpretive garden, expected to be completed by this summer, will include heirloom varieties of vegetables, herbs and flowers that possibly grew on the land during the 1800s, said Edward Day, director of Riversdale Museum. The garden will be erected on the west side of the grounds, adjacent to a dependency house – the last remaining outbuilding on the property. The garden will help highlight an orchard that consists of 16 different fruit trees, including sour cherry, plum and pear trees, Day said. Doug McElrath, a resident of the town of Riverdale which abuts the house and a curator of rare books on Maryland history at the University of Maryland, said it is important to preserve the connection between Riversdale’s Charles Calvert and the University of Maryland.
Calvert helped found the Maryland Agricultural Society, which provided the site for what would become the University of Maryland, College Park. “The connection is as important as Thomas Jefferson and Monticello are to the University of Virginia, as Calvert is to the University of Maryland,” McElrath said. “The founding of the college was to probe scientific methods. That foundation in science has been carried on to this day.” Staff members at Riversdale agree it’s important to preserve the historical connection between Riversdale and the university while preserving the house itself. “It all started here,” Day explained. “Charles sold the property to the university to start the college. It comes down to tradition, to where it all began. The symbolism is important.” The Riversdale house dates back to 1801. It was first home to Henri Joseph Stier and his family, who fled from Europe to the United States during the French Revolution. Stier’s daughter, Rosalie, married George Calvert, a planter and state legislator, in 1799, and took up residence in Riversdale during the early 19th century. The Calverts had nine children; only five lived to adulthood, including Charles. Charles Calvert lived in Riversdale until his death in 1864. The property was opened to the public in 1993, after five years were spent stabilizing the mansion, Wass said. Plans began in 1996 to restore the Riversdale Dependency, an outbuilding where plantation workers and slaves most likely performed daily chores. That building was dedicated in May 2001. Other projects underway at Riversdale include numerous peelbacks, in which layers of paint are being peeled away from walls in the house to be analyzed, Wass said. This process informs the M-NCPPC of what paints, wallpapers and other aesthetic aspects once existed in the house, so that walls and other surfaces can be restored. A paint study was recently done in the salon, and two pilasters – rectangular columns located on each side of the two main doors – were sent to a craftsman's studio in Alexandria. “The craftsman, Brandon Thompson, is peeling away the paint to see the original decorative work,” Wass said. The M-NCPPC is seeking funds to continue the projects in the salon and the parlor and is attempting to furnish each room of the house. Also on the agenda for 2006 are plans to restore flooring and shelving in a dairy in the basement of the house -- likely used to churn butter and store milk, Day said. That project is also being funded by the Riversdale Historical Society. Copyright © 2006 University of Maryland Philip Merrill College of Journalism
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