Samuel Ogle and the Belair Stud Traditional Cache

The City of Bowie today encompasses a very large tract of land in northeastern Prince George’s County that was once comprised of a vast number of colonial and early national period plantations and farms and early churches. The rich soil in this area had made it a prime location for production of both tobacco and crops. Principal among the plantations in the area was the Belair Mansion, built for colonial Governor Samuel Ogle around 1745, and encompassing some 2,500 acres. The house sat prominently atop a high hill and thus assumed a lofty view of the region for miles around.

Enjoy Bowie’s earliest history at the Belair Mansion (circa 1745), the beautiful five-part Georgian plantation house of Samuel Ogle, Provincial Governor of Maryland. Enlarged in 1914 by the New York architectural firm of Delano and Aldrich, the Mansion was also the home of William Woodward, famous horseman in the first half of the 20th century. Restored to reflect is 250-year old legacy, the Mansion is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The original Belair estate was patented in 1683 as a five hundred acre tract called Catton, owned by a Robert Carvile of St. Mary’s City. By 1719 the property had grown to 1,410 acres and was owned by the Reverend Mr. Jacob Henderson, Rector of Queen Anne’s Parish. In 1721, Henderson formally changed the name from Catton to Belair. In March 1737, he sold his estate to Governor Samuel Ogle and Ogle’s father-in-law, Benjamin Tasker, Sr. Though Ogle would soon buy out Tasker’s interest, the Tasker family continued to play a major role in the eighteenth-century development of the plantation.

Samuel Ogle, three time colonial governor of Maryland, arrived in Annapolis in 1731 at the request of the proprietor, Charles Calvert, Fifth Lord Baltimore. Ten years later, Ogle married Anne Tasker, the daughter of one of the principal political and social leaders of colonial Maryland. While the Ogles left the next year for England, where they lived for four years, Benjamin Tasker, Sr., and his son, Benjamin, Jr., were left in charge of the construction for the large brick mansion house and the running of the estate.

Samuel Ogle’s son, Benjamin Ogle I, served as Governor of the State of Maryland himself, being elected repeatedly for three one-year terms commencing in 1798. Other governors associated with the house include Benjamin Tasker, Sr., who, as President of the Council, served as the interim governor of the colony after the death of Governor Samuel Ogle in 1752, and for other brief periods, as well. Tasker’s wife, Anne Bladen, was sister to Thomas Bladen, another colonial Governor. Tasker’s great, great grandson was Lloyd Lowndes, governor of Maryland from 1896-1900. Lowndes’ first name honored his maternal grandfather, Edward Lloyd V, another early Maryland governor. A near neighbor to the Belair Estate was Governor Oden Bowie, owner of “Fairview”. All this contributes to the house’s title as the “House of Governors”.