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The Nexus that is Riversdale Mansion

Dr. James Gibb will discuss the archaeological findings at the Riversdale Mansion.

Riversdale Mansion in Prince George’s County, for more than a century, was the nexus of some of the most dramatic national and international historical events of the modern era. Built by Belgian emigres fleeing Napoleon in 1799, and occupied by their daughter Rosalie and her husband, George Calvert, it was a stop on Frederick Law Olmstead’s tour of the slave holding states and about which he wrote. It was the childhood home of Charles Benedict Calvert, one of the founders of the University of Maryland in nearby College Park. And it was home to US Senators and Representatives eager to cash in on the property’s “Colonial” cachet, an emblem of the Colonial Revival, patriotism, and nationalism. Archaeological excavations reveal some manifestations of those events, bringing the mansion and the events into greater focus.

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