If you wanted to tell the full story of the Ag Reserve, Chiswell’s Inheritance might be the best place to start. The brick estate, completed in 1796, has been described as “an elegant compromise between the rugged demands of eighteenth century farm life and those of the well-to-do gentleman planter’s family.”
Stephen Newton Chiswell emigrated to colonial America from England in 1735 to serve an indenture with his uncle in Piscataway, Prince George’s County. Family legend is that he was rescued from a shipwreck off the coast of Rhode Island with only four silver spoons left of his luggage. Stephen married Sarah, his first cousin, before moving to the area we now know as the Ag Reserve in about 1743. They built an 8-room log house and raised 11 children on the land where Lewis Orchards now grows peaches and apples.
In the year his only son Joseph was born, Stephen acquired a 90-acre land grant, “Joseph’s Choice”. Upon reaching the age of 21 in April 1768, Joseph was deeded multiple tracts of land from his father, which he consolidated with his own holdings into a single tract of land and named it “Chiswell’s Inheritance.” It is here that In 1796 that Joseph and his wife, Elinor White, glazed their initials in the north wall of the brick house built over more than 30 years. Joseph would live there another 40 years. Much of the house is just as he left it.
