HISTORY OF THE SITE
Montgomery County’ s conservation parks are open to the public and typically have trails, but they’ re relatively undeveloped compared to other types of parks. The point is to protect the land and watersheds. Royce Hanson Conservation Park is a unique conservation park, Ciabotti says, because in addition to the stream valleys and forests and other natural treasures, it also has so much historical value, from pre-contact Indigenous times to the Civil War to agricultural history.“ Part of the story we want to tell is how natural and cultural resources are tied together,” says archaeologist Cassandra Michaud, a cultural resources stewardship supervisor with Montgomery Parks.
Archaeologists have been studying the park to understand how people used this land as long as 4,000 years ago, and to make sure artifacts and Indigenous sites are protected. Park staff teamed up with archaeologists from the Maryland Historical Trust to use ground-penetrating radar and electrical resistance surveys to detect underground structures and other signs of human activity. They recently discovered an old mill and what seem to be several 19th century home sites, possibly where enslaved laborers lived.
Joseph White, married to Mary Collinson Gott White, bought the RHCP property in 1856 but lived in Boyds. Their son Thomas White took it over in the 1870s and built a nine-room farmhouse and multiple outbuildings. The farm produced wheat, apples and peaches;
its livestock included cows, pigs, and poultry. It was described as“ one of the most desirable and productive farms in one of the best neighborhoods in the county,” as Jamie L. Ferguson, a senior historian with Montgomery Parks, has discovered in her research on the site.
The Whites’ prosperity was built on the backs of enslaved people. At least 21 people were held in bondage by Joseph and Thomas White as of 1860. It’ s not clear whether enslaved people lived at the park site, but that is one of the questions historians and archaeologists hope to answer. The Whites were Confederate sympathizers. Thomas served as a courier and scout to Robert E. Lee before he was captured by Union troops in 1863 and held as a prisoner of war for two years.
During the Civil War, the Union occupied the Poolesville area and guarded the Potomac River crossing at Edwards Ferry. Park historians and archaeologists have good evidence that there was a Union encampment on RHCP property, and they’ re hoping to establish exact troop movements, which regiments were present, and during which periods of the war. The site“ is relevant to important themes of the Civil War,” Michaud says,“ and it was instrumental in the protection of the capital and Maryland.”
The park is an important site for understanding the agricultural history of the county as well, and that’ s how it got its name. Royce Hanson led the Montgomery County Planning Board of the M-NCPPC from 1972 to 1981 and again from 2006 to 2010, and he created the Montgomery County Agricultural Reserve.( He’ s
Photo: wib middleton Photo: Jane Perini
6 plenty I autumn harvest 2025