Riversdale Plantation

Riversdale Plantation. Town Of Riverdale Park. Much of the area around you , some 1500 acres , was part of Riversdale, a plantation founded in 1801 by an aristocratic Belgian family , the Stiers , who had escaped the terror of the French Revolution and subsequent Napoleonic wars. Daughter Rosalie Stier married George Calvert, a member of Maryland's founding family, and the couple received the plantation from her father Henri upon his return to Europe after the defeat of Napoleon. Riversdale Mansion, a National Historic Landmark and Prince George's County Historic Site, is open to the public and operated by M-NCPPC and the Riversdale Historical Society. George and Rosalie Calvert finished construction of the mansion and grounds by 1807. Their son Charles Benedict Calvert (1808-1864), a slave-holder, US Congressman, and a founder of the University of Maryland at College Park, introduced scientific agriculture to the plantation, adopted ideas published in journals and newspapers, exhibited at county and state fairs, and introduced a number of his own innovations. He could implement these innovations because of the large number of slaves as many as 55 in 1850 at his command. One slave, Adam Francis Plummer, worked at Riversdale from age 10 in 1819 until emancipation in November 1864. Plummer left a diary, begun in 1841 and continued until his death in 1905. , , Charles Calvert died six months before Maryland's new constitution emancipated all slaves within the state's borders. Calvert's will divided his estate among his children. Charles Baltimore Calvert and his wife, Eleanor Mackubin, built their farm, which they called MacAlpine, on their share of the estate, the same land on which you now stand.