Longwood Plantation was a

slave plantation A slave plantation is an agricultural farm that uses enslaved people for labour. The practice was abolished in most places during the 19th century. Slavery Planters embraced the use of slaves mainly because indentured labor became expensive ...

in Glenwood in Howard County,

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It borders the states of Virginia to its south, West Virginia to its west, Pennsylvania to its north, and Delaware to its east ...

, United States. The Longwood

plantation Plantations are farms specializing in cash crops, usually mainly planting a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Plantations, centered on a plantation house, grow crops including cotton, cannabis, tob ...

was started by Dr. Gustavus Warfield (1784-??), son of Dr. Charles Alexander Warfield, a doctor and wealthy landowner in Howard County, where he owned an estate called Bushy Park. Gustavus graduated in 1806 from the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

and returned to Howard County to practice medicine with his father. The elder Warfield died

intestate Intestacy is the condition of the estate of a person who dies without a legally valid will, resulting in the distribution of their estate under statutory intestacy laws rather than by their expressed wishes. Alternatively this may also apply ...

in 1813, and Gustavus eventually took possession of part of his father's estate. In the 1820s, he built a manor house, part of which stands today. The name Longwood originates with the

Longwood House Longwood House is a mansion on the British overseas territory island of St. Helena. It was the final residence of Napoleon Bonaparte, the former Emperor of the French, during his exile on the island of Saint Helena, from 10 December 1815 until ...

where

Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French general and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led Military career ...

was exiled in

Saint Helena Saint Helena (, ) is one of the three constituent parts of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, a remote British overseas territory. Saint Helena is a volcanic and tropical island, located in the South Atlantic Ocean, some 1,874 km ...

. Rather than the typical practice of naming estates after land patents which would have included "Ridgley's Range" or "Ridgley's Great Park". Warfield practiced medicine and ran his forced-labor farm in the house; he would keep patients in a loft above his office if they were unfit to travel. It feature numerous outbuildings and a smokehouse. The Warfields built a graveyard for people they enslaved; it sits to the south of the house. In 1860,

Robert E. Lee Robert Edward Lee (January 19, 1807 – October 12, 1870) was a general officers in the Confederate States Army, Confederate general during the American Civil War, who was appointed the General in Chief of the Armies of the Confederate ...

visited Longwood to visit his wife's first cousin, George Washington Parke Custis Peter. He returned to visit in July 1870. A will made out in 1865 by Warfield's wife, Mary Thomas Warfield, bequeathes various parts of the property and the people she enslaved to her daughters. In April 2024, plans were announced to open Howard County’s first-ever destination public garden at Longwood. The garden will be overseen by the county’s Department of Recreation & Parks and a newly formed Public Garden Focus Group.

References

{{reflist Houses in Howard County, Maryland Plantations in Maryland Glenwood, Howard County, Maryland

See also

References