Prince George's County Considers the Destruction of History

From the Historic District National Historic Register Nomination PG79-63 June 1990

The proposed commercial zoning and eventual construction between US 301 and Old Crain Highway in Upper Marlboro will permanently destroy a potential national treasure in Prince George's County. We cannot go back and save the land once we destroy its character. A people who do not have a history worth remembering, do not have a future worth saving. We are defined by our current problems and our common past.

The Woodland Historic District includes land on both sides of Old Crain Highway and Marlboro Pike, for a length of approximately two and one half miles between Bowling Heights on the North and the Patuxent River at Hills’ Landing on the south. This is the national nomination which will be destroyed if the politicians of Prince George’s County ignore the rural tier plan for development in the rural tier. Buildings on the over 1300 acres of the national register nomination district range from 1780 to the present, including one federal style brick plantation house (1780), a Greek revival style frame plantation house (1852), an Italianate farm dwelling (1867), a Gothic mansion (1870), Queen Anne style houses and many houses from the early to mid 20th century. The area consists of rolling farm land, woods and cultivated fields, with streams which are tributaries to the nearby Patuxent Rover. The road itself is one of the oldest roads in Prince George’s County.

Virtually all of this land was at the end of the 18th century the possession of Clement Hill. Four of the important architectural buildings in the district were built for members of the Hill family. In addition to the houses built by the local carpenter John Wyvll for the Hill families, there were buildings constructed for members of the Wyvill family. Also in the district are two dwelling build by freed-men after the Civil War. At the time of the survey, there were 88 sites and building in the proposed district.

There is ample oral history not yet recorded of the African Americans who lived, build and died in this area; if we pave it over and do not hear their stories, we will have nothing left to remind us of their hardships and tribulations which built this county. We will have a few houses with no memory of the unwilling partnership that shaped this county; we shall have history without context.