Perry Jamieson Mary Lee Jefferson Air Force History and Museums Program 2001 1 A Historic Setting ....................................3 2 The Air Force Heritage ...........................19 3 Recent History .......................................43 Acknowledgments ...............................................61 Notes ....................................................................63   In 1878 historian Dawson Lawrence argued that many factors had combined “to make good the claim of Prince George’s County to one of the proudest positions in the sisterhood of counties which con- stitute the good old State of Maryland.” He then enthusiastically sup- Dr. Stewart’s favorite “Old Fishing Hole,” ported his point with a long list of the area’s virtues, among them “its one of two ponds picturesque scenery; its undulating surface; its numerous and abun- behind Belle Chance, to the southwest. dant springs of clear, cold water; its running streams, tributary to its Lying just to their south into the early two grand historic rivers.” Near the center of this pastoral scene that 1980s, was a third Lawrence described stood a beautiful country estate, Belle Chance.1 smaller pond.  Colonial Days: “The Chance” Maryland’s story began in 1632, when King Charles I granted the colony to Cecil Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore. Two years later his brother Leonard brought two ships, the Ark and the Dove, and 140 pioneers to the New World. They bought a village from the native Americans, named it Saint Mary’s City, and made it Maryland’s first European community. The Calverts, Roman Catholics from Yorkshire County, England, wanted their domain to become a religious sanctuary as well as a profitable enterprise, and they encouraged more colonists to join the first group of settlers.2 Maryland grew into a prosperous colony that eventually contained twenty- three counties. Prince George’s originated with an 8 May 1695 Act of the General Assembly and was constituted on 23 April 1696. It consisted of land taken from Detail from a map of the state of Maryland by Dennis Griffith, published in 1794, showing the area around “The Charles and Calvert counties, and was Chance” in Prince George’s County, east of Washington, D.C. named for Prince George of Denmark, the husband of the future Queen Anne of it in honor of John Churchill, the first Duke cultural, and governmental center of Prince England. The first county seat was Charles of Marlborough. This military leader was George’s County.7 Town (which in the 1690s most locals well known to his countrymen at the time To encourage settlement in already were calling “Mount Calvert”), a because just two years earlier he had won a Maryland’s counties and to reward his village on the Patuxent River in Mount decisive victory over the French and Bavar- benefactors in England, Cecil Calvert used Calvert Hundred.3 ians at the Battle of Blenheim.5 The “Up- his charter from King Charles to award Upper Marlborough, shortened by a per” in the town’s name distinguished it patents of land. His descendants continued postal clerk to “Marlboro” in 1893,4 became from Lower Marlboro, an older settlement this practice, and applicants eagerly tried Prince George’s county seat in 1721. that stood about a dozen miles farther to get as large a grant as possible. One Thomas Truman Greenfield surveyed this down the Patuxent River and on the observer of this process reported that village in 1706 and its early settlers named Calvert County shore.6 Upper Marlboro “every man provides beforehand to take prospered and grew to be the social, up so much at the first Patent, that his  great Grandchild may be sure not to want and health changed drastically over three That year he sold this property to “John land.”8 centuries, but tobacco remained a major Da[r]say.” The Darcy or Darcey family In 1719 Clement Hill was awarded crop in Prince George’s County into the (different spellings appeared over the one of these colonial patents. In his forties twenty-first century.12 years) would own the “Chance” estate for at the time, Hill was a landed gentleman In addition to tobacco, the planta- several decades. In 1775, three years after who managed his estates and, like other tions of Clement Hill and his neighbors no Clement Hill sold the property to John men of his station in eighteenth century doubt also supported good-sized herds of Darsay, the Revolutionary War began. America, sometimes practiced as an at- livestock. Cattle and hogs could roam and This conflict probably did not disrupt torney.9 Following the English tradition of forage for themselves on the large tracts of daily life at “Chance,” since little military giving a name to real property, the Cal- empty land that were a feature of every activity took place in Prince George’s verts called the land granted to Hill “The early colonial plantation. During the 1600s County during the War for American Inde- Chance.”10 settlers in Maryland commonly owned pendence.15 Clement Hill’s 1719 patent gave more livestock and ate more meat than the After the Constitution was ratified him 428 acres. In 1721 he sold two hundred farmers in western England.13 in 1789, the new Federal government acres of his new property to two other By the mid-1700s the colonists had conducted its first direct tax assessment. planters. Edmond Henebree purchased a developed Prince George’s County into a This official appraisal depicted the hundred acres for twenty pounds sterling, region that was well cultivated and “civi- “Chance” as no more than a modest resi- and Thomas Price the same amount for lized” by European standards. “By the dence, although it did feature a cluster of eighteen pounds sterling.11 midpoint of the [eighteenth] century,” outbuildings. The assessment reported As for the part of “Chance” that historian Alan Virta summed up, “not a that Darcy owned “a dwelling house, Clement Hill retained, he no doubt planted section of the county was unsettled. . . . 20’x16’; a kitchen 16’x12’; a corn house, much of it in tobacco, which dominated Prince George’s County had become a 12’x10’; a shop, 20’x12’; a meat house mea- the economy of colonial Maryland in populous, well-established agricultural suring 12’x10’; and a [corn] house, 12’x12’ general, and Prince George’s County in community, where all the amenities of for a total tax worth of $125.00.”16 particular. Cultivated by African-Ameri- civilized colonial country life could be can slaves and exported to England, this found.” By the 1750s this area, and the The War of 1812 leaf crop reaped great profits during the Chesapeake Bay and its tidal rivers, seventeenth century. In Prince George’s boasted sizeable populations, while in While the Darcys and other resi- County and throughout Maryland, taxes contrast central and western Maryland dents of Prince George’s County saw little were assessed, debts were paid, and land remained wild country.14 of the Revolutionary War, they witnessed was priced in pounds of tobacco, rather a major campaign of the War of 1812, one than in pounds sterling. Smoking was a The Darcy Family that produced some of the most dramatic common habit in both the Old and New episodes in American military history. Worlds. When colonial artists sketched the In 1772 Clement Hill owned 128 A British fleet commanded by Vice men of Maryland, they typically showed acres of his original “Chance” award, Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane brought them puffing on “church-wardens,” long- acreage that he called “Part of Chance.” about 4,500 soldiers, led by Major General stemmed clay pipes. Ideas about smoking  Robert Ross into the Chesapeake Bay in ”Battalion Old Fields,” perhaps because Old Fields during 23 August. At sundown August 1814. The redcoats sailed up the its open character made it useful as a drill General Winder ordered his outnumbered Patuxent, debarked near Benedict on the ground.21 The surrounding region, in con- troops to withdraw toward Washington. nineteenth and twentieth and marched trast, was densely wooded, which added Shortly after 8 p.m. they crossed the East- north toward Nottingham.17 On 22 Au- to the cleared area’s value as a training ern Branch, today’s Anacostia River, and gust they captured a largely deserted Up- and camp site.22 the exhausted soldiers spent the night in per Marlboro and rested there for over Long Old Fields today is known as the capital.27 twenty-four hours, while General Ross Forestville,23 a community around the General Winder’s command consulted with his informants in the area intersection of Forestville Road and Penn- alone was outnumbered by the British, and considered the best route to his objec- sylvania Avenue (Maryland Route 4), just but on the twenty-third other American tive: Washington, D.C.18 north of Andrews Air Force Base and Belle forces began marshaling along the Eastern Between the American capital and Chance. At least one structure in the Branch. By the end of that day, perhaps the British invaders stood Brigadier Gen- locality still echoes the settlement’s earlier 6,000 soldiers had gathered to defend their eral William Winder and a force of about name: Longfields Elementary School stands capital, and it was the British who stood at 2,000 American troops, who had made a at the end of Orleans Avenue in Forestville. a numerical disadvantage.28 Most of the camp at the Wood Yard. Today rendered About 2 p.m. on 23 August the American force, however, was made up of “Woodyard,” the name refers to the area British ended their rest stop at Upper hastily mobilized militia units, who were around where Rosaryville Road branches Marlboro and started west toward Long short of both food and sleep.29 off from Woodyard Road (Maryland Route Old Fields. The Maryland summer heat, Around 5 a.m. on 24 August the 223). This locality is just off the southeast which at times reached 100 degrees, slowed British left their camp in the Melwood corner of Andrews Air Force Base and less the redcoats. General Ross soon halted and region and began a march that would take than five miles from Belle Chance.19 On 22 camped in the area of—perhaps well to them to Bladensburg and Washington. August General Winder forayed east from the west of—the “Melwood” plantation,24 Feinting toward Alexandria, the redcoats the Wood Yard, learned that the British at an estate over three miles southeast of the at first headed west along a route that car- Upper Marlboro outnumbered him, and Americans at Long Old Fields.25 ried them north of the Darcy plantation.30 retreated north.20 Today the name “Melwood” ap- They then moved north to Bladensburg, On that Monday, 22 August 1814, pears in the vicinity of the intersection of where they arrived about noon.31 the American troops may have passed Marlboro Pike and Woodyard Road. The That same Wednesday afternoon near, if not through, Darcy’s “Chance.” plantation’s identity survives in the Mel- the British attacked and defeated the The estate lay on a direct line running wood Mall, west of this crossroads, and in Americans in the Battle of Bladensburg, from the Wood Yard to Long Old Fields, the names of the Melwood Pond Commu- an engagement witnessed by Secretary where General Winder’s men camped that nity Park, Melwood Elementary School, of State James Monroe and Secretary of evening. The name of the place where the and many other places in the area along War John Armstrong.32 General Winder Americans bivouacked suggested a plant- the Woodyard Road.26 estimated his casualties at 30 to 40 killed ing area that had been allowed to stand Northwest of the British at Mel- and 50 to 60 wounded. The Americans fallow for some time. It was also called wood, the Americans remained at Long also lost 120 men captured,33 including  Commodore Joshua Barney, who was wounded. The British attackers had suf- fered higher casualties, but they had won an open road to Washington.34 The redcoats rested several hours and marched into the American capital that night, after President James Madison and other officials had fled the city.35 The British burned the Capitol, the White House, and other public buildings, setting fires that blazed all night. On the night of 25 August the invaders left the smolder- ing city and began an unopposed return to the ships waiting for them at Benedict. The British withdrew on a direct line from Bladensburg to Upper Marlboro, a route that took them northeast of “Chance.”36 No doubt the Darcy family knew Nineteenth-century headstones marking the graves of Edward Darcey and his wife, Hannah, on the grounds of Belle Chance. at first hand about these stirring events of the Washington campaign and of the one against Baltimore that followed it.37 This Hannah or “Hanner” Darcey died in 1807 This Darcey family burial plot second operation culminated in the Brit- and was buried in the family cemetery, stands less than three hundred feet south- ish fleet’s bombardment of Fort McHenry on the grounds of the present-day Belle east of today’s Belle Chance, and is one of and Francis Scott Key’s composition of the Chance. Mary Darcey, a daughter of several private Prince George’s County “Star Spangled Banner.” The Americans, Hannah and Edward, married Coleman cemeteries that survived into the twenty- despite the humiliating destruction of their Fry in 1821, and the couple had at least first century. The remains of Edward and capital, continued the war against Great one son, William. County tax assessors in Hannah Darcey rest there, surrounded by Britain and negotiated a satisfactory peace 1828 listed the family’s ownership of three a white picket fence over three feet high treaty, which the Senate ratified in 1815. slaves and 193.5 acres.39 and enclosing an area roughly fifteen feet On 8 April 1842, when Edward square. The wife’s stone reads: “Hanner Darcey was seventy years old, he deeded Darsey D.T.L. [“departed this life”] Jany The Civil War Era “Chance,” which by then had grown to a 12, 1807.” The husband’s headstone, more 272-acre plantation, to this grandson, Wil- professionally inscribed, is engraved: In 1818 Edward Darcey inherited liam Fry. Edward Darcey died about three “Sacred to the memory of Edward Darcey the “Chance” estate from his father John.38 months later, on 30 June, and was buried who departed this life June 30th, 1842, aged Edward had married Hannah Peacock in next to his wife, Hannah, in the family 70 years.” A footstone stands a little more 1799, and they had at least three children. cemetery.40 than eight feet away from this marker.41  The Darcy family may have anoth- er twenty-first century legacy, in the name of a Prince George’s County thoroughfare. Darcy Road makes a semicircle of about fifteen miles through an area just north of Andrews Air Force Base. Winding through the community of Little Washing- ton, it connects the Ritchie and Westphalia Roads. This road has followed roughly its present path since at least 1861. In 1967 this route was given the name “D’Arcy Road,” but many signs omit the apostro- phe and the Alexandria Drafting Compa- ny’s maps label it “Darcy Road.”42 In 1848 Edward Darcey’s grandson, William Fry, sold the “Chance” plantation house and 108 acres around it to Charles F. Calvert. A direct descendant of the famous colonial family, the buyer was a member of the prominent Calverts of Mount Airy. Charles F. Calvert acquired land beyond his original purchase and eventually expanded the estate to 360 Chapel 2, Andrews Air Force Base. Forest Grove Church, the chapel’s original designation, was built in 1854 by mem- bers of the Methodist Episcopal Church South. acres. He gave the property the name that it would carry into the twenty-first cen- tury: “Belle Chance.”43 Calvert, like every other American War? It was this controversy that eventu- open only to churches that endorsed of his generation, was engulfed during the ally led to the secession of eleven Southern abolition. Incensed by this position, many 1850s by the debate over slavery. For some states and to the Civil War, the bloodiest churches below the Mason-Dixon line left abolitionists, who were a scorned minor- conflict in American history.44 the General Conference and formed the ity, this Southern institution represented a The slavery debate divided many Methodist Episcopal Church South.45 sinful violation of human rights. The great families, the major political parties, and Maryland lay on the border be- majority of Northerners, however, focused some religious institutions, as well. Dur- tween North and South, and its people held on a narrow political question: Should ing the 1850s mainline Protestant churches divided opinions about slavery and seces- slavery be allowed to spread into the new split along Northern and Southern lines. sion. The state’s laws permitted the “pecu- territories that were opening up in the The Methodist General Conference, for ex- liar institution,” but the legislature voted western United States after the Mexican ample, declared that its membership was against leaving the Union. Maryland’s