Travel the USA

Traveling The USA

Governor Ogle's Mansion in Bowie, Maryland

August, 2005: Comments on our visit to Belair, Governor Ogle's Mansion in Bowie, Maryland, circa 1745.

As we drove up the rise to the mansion I have to admit I was less than enthused at what I saw. We talked to the young man in charge for a while. A very pleasant young fellow, and quite knowledgeable. My wife and I spend about an hour at Belair. I wanted to walk the floors my cousins (or maybe ancestors) walked. You will need to take with you an imagination able to ignore the many private homes that now occupy the area.

Standing at the balcony on the second floor, thoughts began drifting in and out of my head. You can look out from the upper balcony over what was a very large farming estate. If you have ever plowed ground with a team of horses as I have, you would understand the amount of work required to maintain such an estate, it must have employed quite a number of people. That is what I tried to do, to take myself back to a time in 1745. Smell the horse and leather saddle as you ride the grounds where the hands are working the fields with teams of harnessed work horses, smell the fresh turned soil. Then smell the cornstalks, the water melons, cantaloupe, cucumbers, beans, peas, and onions as the season for gathering came, when the fields were filled with so many good ripened things. There must have been cherry, peach, and apple orchards, as well as wild persimmon, and sassafras root for tea, and poke salad (that's polk sallit after its boiled, preferably with a ham hock included, salted and a little vinegar sprinkled on, real good eat'n. The roots are poisonous and don't be making jam out of the berries).

Then thoughts came to me of how the field hands lived. In one to four room log cabins, and you get a sense of the power and wealth involved in the people that occupied this three storied, many roomed building, truly it was and still is a mansion.

Ed Ogle Fall 2005

The Director may be reached by calling 301-809-3088.

http://www.cityofbowie.org/Press_releases/2008/mus_event_sep_nineteenth_fun.asp for directions and comments.