Salubria - A Maryland Plantation Home by Pauline Collins 1992

SALUBRIA-A MARYLAND PLANTATION HOME

    Located across Oxon Hill Road from the Oxon Hill Manor, slightly to the north of the present Manor entrance is the plantation home Salubria. Salubria was the home of the Bayne, Addison, Breckinridge, and Castle families, and had been occupied by members of these families from the early 1800's until 1989. The Bayne family arrived in America on the Ark in 1634. In Out of the past, Prince Georgians and Their Land 1-, by R. Lee Van Horn, many references were made to the ancestors of the Dr. Bayne who built Salubria.

    In 1695, a John Bayne was a delegate to the General Assembly in Annapolis from Charles County. A later John Bayne was appointed postmaster in 1761 and 1766. This John Bayne was also awarded a contract to build a bridge over the lower Piscataway Creek in 1762. In 1776 references were made to a Captain Samuel Hawkins Bayne and a Lieutenant William Bayne in connection with their orders for the Revolutionary War. The main hall at St. John's Church is called Bayne Hall. The plantation home was built in 1827 by John H. Bayne, an 1825 graduate of the University of Maryland Medical School.

    At the time of Dr. Bayne's marriage to Mary Frances McDaniel, his father deeded 64 acres of his land to him across the road from Oxon Hill Manor. Ellsworth Bayne had purchased 328 acres of Oxon Hill Manor from Reverend Walter Dulaney Addison in 1811 . Because Dr. John Bayne maintained his office in the south wing of the home, he called the plantation Salubria, which is from the word salubrious, meaning healthful. After the death of his first wife, Dr. Bayne married Harriet Addison in 1841. She was the daughter of John Addison of Cole Brook.

    Tragedy struck the Bayne family in the 1830,s when Dr. Bayne's two sons, George and John, seven and five years of age, were poisoned by their young slave nursemaid, fourteen year old Juda (Judith). She also confessed to setting fire to Salubria in 1833 and the year before had poisoned the doctor's baby daughter, Catherine. She was tried and hanged in Upper Marlborough, thereby earning the dubious distinction of being the youngest female ever executed in American legal history. Dr. Bayne was not only a prominent doctor, but an active participant in horticulture and politics. He farmed his own land and his father's lands and is credited with taking the tomato out of the garden curiosity class and making it a field crop.

    He was also a close associate of Charles B. Calvert of Riverdale, and assisted him in the planning of the College of Agriculture at the University of Maryland. President Lincoln gave Dr. Bayne a commission as a high-ranking surgeon in the Union Army during the Civil War.

    Three successive generations of the Bayne family were physicians. These three Baynes earned the highest esteem of their patients, many of whom were prominent in their day. Dr. J. Breckinridge Bayne received the highest award of Rumania from Queen Marie for his work in her country during the First World War.

    Salubria is a long frame house, painted white, with graceful two story porch columns. It is considered a good example of southern architecture of the antebellum period. The property is also noted for its particularly fine specimens of boxwood and holly. The boxwood from Salubria was used to establish the shrub in the plantings at the present Oxon Hill Manor. Two large stone tablets presented to the family by the Queen of Rumania are still on the front veranda.

    Salubria was in good condition until the late 1970's. It caught fire in 1981 and is no longer occupied. The house and surrounding property were offered for sale and the family had hoped it would be purchased and restored by M-NCPPC. But in September of 1989, Ronald Cohan Investments announced development plans that included an office park and hotel north of historic Salubria.

    Cohen's plans included rebuilding the old house for use as a restaurant and/or small convention center. Phase I, the five story Salubria Office Park is evident at the intersection of Indian Head Highway and Oxon Hill Road directly across from the proposed Port America site.


 
Pauline Collin Along the Potomac Shore.

Copyright 1992 Tanta-Cove Garden Club P.O. Box 44526 Fort Washington, Maryland 20749