Rosaryville and Mount Airy Mansion
Near Dc Northern Virginia, Maryland
Rosaryville State Park preserves a tract of Prince George's County woodland that belonged to the Calvert family, founders of the Maryland colony, for more than two centuries. The property was a hunting retreat for Charles Calvert, third Baron Baltimore. His descendant Benedict Calvert, an illegitimate son of the fifth Baron Baltimore, began building Mount Airy mansion here in seventeen fifty-one.
Benedict was a significant colonial Maryland planter and politician who died at Mount Airy in seventeen eighty-eight. The estate later passed through several owners, including newspaper publisher Cissy Patterson, who restored the mansion after a nineteen thirty-one fire. The State of Maryland acquired the property in nineteen seventy-three.
Today the park offers hiking, biking, and equestrian trails through the woodland, and the mansion, now restored, remains visible from the grounds.
