After the successful removal of invasive bamboo, we began the reforestation of the “liberated” area in 2024. We planted some 1,000 tree seedlings.
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The Broad Creek Woods
On December 13, 2013, Milton Peterson, developer of National Harbor, donated 72 acres of land along Livingston Road to the The Conservancy of Broad Creek. Mr. Peterson said he was happy to give the land to the historic district’s Conservancy because he believed in the organization’s goals of preserving the land. “This group is absolutely focused and has a purpose to really preserve history,” Peterson said. “When I bought the property I had no idea that it had real, true historic significance. This is the right thing to do.”
Subsequently, the Conservancy renamed the forest from the Fennell Tract to Broad Creek Woods, developed a “Forest Stewardship Plan”with MD Department of Natural Resources and worked with Mr. Peterson to eradicate all trash from inside the Woods. The Conservancy created an easement agreement with Maryland Environmental Trust and had MD Highway Dept. install guard rails along Livingston Road to prevent illegal dumping. It also earned a Community Improvement Grant as well as a Prince George’s County Council “Special Appropriation Grant” and collaborated with the Smithsonian’s National Zoo to harvest the bamboo.
Over he last five years, the Conservancy began a process of removing the invasive bamboo from the property. We are currently contemplating a reforestation plan.
Below some pictures of our progress.
Bamboo overgrowth What we started out with… (2015) 2017 2017 2018 2019 Progress, 2019 -
Harmony Hall Manor
Harmony Hall is a Georgian-style country house built c. 1760, probably by a wealthy merchant named Enoch Magruder. In 1662, the current Harmony Hall property was patented as “Battersea,” and was the site of one of the earliest settlements in the region. According to local legend, the house was renamed Harmony Hall during the 1790s, as a result of the marital harmony that blossomed there when two young couples rented the property after their nuptials.
At the end of the nineteenth century, the house was owned by the Stein family, who founded the community of Silesia. During the first half of the twentieth century, it was owned by a government servant and political author named Charles Wallace Collins, who “restored” the property to resemble an antebellum Old South plantation. The Park Service acquired the property during the 1980s, and leased it to individuals who where later evicted from Harmony Hall (1999). The property was left to stagnate and decline.
Courtesy of the National Park Service A Georgian mansion of red brick set in Flemish bond, Harmony Hall is two-and-one-half-stories and one room deep. It once had north and south wings, which collapsed or were demolished before 1929. The two south wing extensions were built in 1941 and 1987 respectively.
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St. John’s Episcopal Church
King George’s Parish (originally called Piscataway Parish) was established in 1692 as one of the thirty original Church of England parishes in Maryland. The first St. John’s church was built in 1695 on a tract known as Little Hall. The parish came to be known as the “mother church” of many others established in the Washington area. The current brick church building, which replaced earlier frame structure, date from 1766.
The building is a fine example of Georgian architecture. Because of its architectural similarities to Harmony Hall, it was long believed that the two structures were both built around the same time.
St. John’s Church Harmony Hall St. John’s Church at Broad Creek has always served as a community focal point. George Washington worshipped at the church on occasion. Walter Dulany Addison, rector of the church at the beginning of the nineteenth century, opposed the institution of slavery and even freed some of his slaves from bondage. Many of the men and women who lived at Harmony Hall and Want Water worshipped at the church. They, and other prominent historical actors in the region, are buried in St. John’s Church cemetery.
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Want Water
By the late 1600s, the Addison family was an influential Maryland family. In 1706, Addison’s son Thomas patented a tract of land on the northwest boundary of Battersea, which he called Want Water. Want Water, or Lyles House, was constructed (c. 1706).
In 1736, John Addison, the eldest son of Thomas Addison, sold the 35-acre property at Want Water to a shipbuilder named Humphrey Batts. Batts built or completed the house at Want Water and began building ships on the property. In 1746, he advertised for sale “a new Schooner, of about 36 tons, well built for the West-India or Coasting-Trade.”
A global trade emerged. Batts and his neighbors at Broad Creek actively grew and sold tobacco, constructed ships, and bought goods and African slaves.
During the last decades of the eighteenth century, it was occupied by William Lyles, a close friend of George Washington. It was allowed to fall into disrepair during the twentieth century and ultimately collapsed, probably sometime during the 1970s. Thus was destroyed of one of Broad Creek’s greatest historical assets. In 1998, the ruins — the gambrel ends and two brick chimneys — were stabilized by the National Park Service.
