Hot property: Historic 133-acre Clarksville property lists for $4 million
Address/location: 4730 Sheppard Lane, Clarksville
List price: $4,000,000
Year built: 1781; the earliest section is a log cabin dating to 1719.
Real estate agent: Richard Watson of Long & Foster Real Estate
Last sold date/price: This historic property belongs to a descendant of the original settlers.
Property size: The nearly 133-acre property is on the National Register of Historic Places. It includes a 6,975-foot main house with 6 bedrooms and 5 full bathrooms. Richland Farm also includes several outbuildings: a superintendent’s house, barn, spring house and smokehouse dating from the 1800s, plus a corn crib, a second barn and sheds built around 1900.
Unique features: The purchaser of this property will have the first opportunity in more than 300 years to own a slice of Maryland history. The estate that came to be known as Richland Farm was part of a land grant obtained May 10, 1719, by Thomas Worthington and his brother-in-law, Henry Ridgley, according to a 1905 book by J.D. Warfield.
The oldest portion of the 1781 manor house is a log cabin believed to have been built more than seven decades earlier. The farm’s previous owners include a former Revolutionary War colonel named Gassaway Watkins who was part of the so-called “Maryland 400″ that repeatedly charged a numerically superior British force during the Battle of Long Island, according to state records.
The colonel’s son, Dr. William C. Watkins, is thought to have been the last owner of enslaved people at Richland Farm. One Black worker, Oliver Cromwell Gilbert, later wrote letters to Edwin Warfield, the Maryland governor who also was the son of Gilbert’s former owner, according to a 2011 issue of the Maryland Historical magazine.
Standout features of the manor house include the wraparound porch supported by 22 Doric columns, fan lights, built-in bookcases and hardwood floors.
The walls and ceiling of the original log cabin has been left exposed along with its original oversized fireplace — one of numerous fireplaces sprinkled throughout the historic home.
