The Old Chiswell Place, also known as Blue Plains, was built in multiple stages beginning in the 1790s and finalized in the 1830s. The farmland was initially purchased in 1778 by George Frazier Magruder, a “large slaveholder and a man of prominence in the community.” The estate was purchased by Col. Solomon Simpson in 1803, but he died soon after the purchase. The home then came into the possession of Colonel Thomas Fletchall. In 1819 the home was willed to Thomas’s daughter Sarah, who had married William Chiswell in 1809.
William Chiswell was “a planter, attorney, and surveyor in a part of Maryland that was still frontier land.” William and Sarah had ten children in this home – six lived into adulthood. One of their sons, George Chiswell, took possession of the home from his parents and served as a Captain in the confederate army from 1862 to 1865.
Following their parents’ ownership of the estate, two of George’s daughters took possession of the farm. According to historical record, the daughters lived in the log portion of the home and used the brick portion to rent to “summer boarders who came regularly from Baltimore and Washington to spend a few weeks in the country.”
My favorite story from this amazing home takes place in 1863, when George allegedly snuck back to his home after being wounded in the Battle of Brandy Station. Needing to keep his wounded leg elevated while he laid in bed recovering, a pulley system was devised in his bedroom. According to county records, the I-bolt in the ceiling that was used as part of the pulley system was still there in the 1970s (it might still be there today!).
