Early history The original estate was called
Catton and was
patented from the first proprietors of the
Maryland Colony, the
Calvert family, on August 26, 1681, by Robert Carvile of
St. Mary's City, Maryland. Carvile sold the land in 1698 for £100 to
Henry Ridgley. In 1700, Ridgley purchased an additional adjacent to
Catton called
Enfield Chase. Upon Ridgley's death in 1710, his third wife, now twice
widowed, Mary Ridgley (
Duvall, née Stanton) was
executrix of the will and inherited the properties. Mary had previously inherited
Middle Plantation in
Davidsonville, Maryland when her first husband,
Mareen Duvall died in 1699. Reverend
Jacob Henderson, became
rector of
Queen Anne's Parish in 1712 and married Mary Duvall that same year. In 1718, Henderson believed that Benjamin Cheney and Joseph Cheney had "committed some trespass" so on January 20, 1718, Henderson petitioned the Maryland Land office to resurvey the boundaries of his properties. As a result, in 1721, a new deed was issued to a much larger and the property was renamed
Belair (sometimes written as Bel Air).
Ogle family ownership begins Henderson sold the land along with two other parcels known as ''Woodcock's Range
and Enfield Chase'' to two partners, Ogle, and
Benjamin Tasker Sr. on March 30, 1737, for the sum of £500. In August, that same year, Ogle bought Tasker's half of the property. In 1739, the 47-year-old Ogle married his former partner's 18-year-old daughter, Anne Tasker.
Construction to Revolution In 1740, Ogle was dispatched to
England following
England's declaration of war against Spain and left Tasker with
power of attorney and "the task of supervising the construction of a new house at Belair." In 1747, Ogle returned to Maryland with his new bride Benjamin Ogle became a friend of
George Washington whose presidential records show he dined at Belair on October 1, 1773, and that Washington frequently sought Ogle's counsel.
Post Revolution to Civil War Benjamin Ogle operated Belair and gained prominence as a gentleman. He was elected
Governor of Maryland in 1798. That same year the Direct Federal Tax assessment listed Belair as containing: He continued to prosper until his death in 1809 when the property was inherited by his son, Benjamin Ogle II. Ogle II operated the estate and stud farm until his death in 1844 when his two sons, George Cooke Ogle and
Richard Lowndes Ogle divided the estate into two parcels. George took the parcel with the mansion and Richard moved to a house on his parcel known as
Bladen (which was torn down in the 1960s to make way for the Kenilworth Elementary School). When George took possession of the deed to Belair, it carried an interesting restriction: George's youngest sister, Rosalie Ogle, must be able to remain in her room in the mansion as long as she remained single. She chose a large room of 17 by 20 feet on the upper floor.
Civil War and end of Ogle ownership As Belair was a
slave-operated plantation, the ratification of the
Maryland Constitution of 1864 which emancipated the slaves in the state effectively ended its operation as a plantation. In 1867, Dr. George C. Ogle reported to the Maryland State Commissioner of Slave Statistics that he had freed 41 slaves, 24 of them 18 years or younger. Belair, like other plantations, was "possessed of huge tracts of land but suddenly without the built-in workforce to make them productive, they were often unable to meet mortgage debts or to pay taxes." By 1870, the house had fallen into bad repair and George Ogle was in debt of $7,400 to his brother-in-law
William Henry Tayloe of
Virginia as well as several lesser debts to others including $2,400 to the estate of Maria Jackson, being executed by James Mullikin. In 1871 Ogle defaulted on the latter debt, Mullikin filed suit and the court ruled the Belair be sold to satisfy the debt.
Changing hands In 1877, Munford and Tayloe sold the property for $17,000 (~$ in ) to Edward T. Rutter. Belair subsequently changed hands numerous times while it continued to fall further into disrepair. The property was divided into smaller parcels, some of which were then recombined. By 1896, ownership of most of the land had passed to Benjamin N. Hardisty. During this period, William opportunistically bought up adjacent tracts of land including purchases from the Magruder family and the nearby
Fairview Plantation of
Oden Bowie and began developing the Belair Stud. In 1918, he entered his first two-year-olds into competition, and in 1923
Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons arrived at Belair as trainer who eventually brought the Belair Stud two
Triple Crown champions, a feat matched by only one other stable.
William Woodward Jr. Woodward Jr. became an avid horse racing enthusiast. After his father's death, he took over operation of Belair for a brief period before he was fatally shot in his
Oyster Bay, New York estate by his wife in 1955.
Belair development By the time of Woodward Jr's death, the estate had grown back to ; it was purchased at auction by
Levitt and Sons in August 1957 for $1,750,000 (~$ in ). Levitt used the building and the stables as corporate offices as they developed their suburban housing development, "Belair at Bowie." In 1964, Levitt sold the mansion and of land including the Ogle cemetery to the City of Bowie for the price of $1 to be used as
City Hall Bowie's city hall relocated out of the mansion in 1978.
Museum operation The mansion, located at 12207 Tulip Grove Drive in
Bowie, Maryland, is owned by the City of Bowie and functions as a
museum, as does the nearby
Belair Stable Museum. Both the mansion and stables are listed separately on the
National Register of Historic Places. ==Architectural details==