Our first open house of the New Year will feature the Lost Hammond Mansion Display.

An 18th century “lost mansion” on a plantation that later became the U.S. Naval Academy Dairy in Gambrills will be the focus of a display at the Odenton Heritage Society during on Sunday, January 5.The prominent Hammond family of Annapolis completed the mansion by approximately 1730. Generations of descendants, including Matthias Hammond, owner of the Hammond-Harwood House in Annapolis, resided at the plantation, as did an undetermined number of enslaved workers. In 1876 Baltimore businessman George Kirby remodeled the mansion in the Italianate style and made it his summer retreat, underscoring the end of colonial and antebellum ways of life and the decline of the Hammonds’ wealth and influence.

The mansion was added to the National Register of Historic Places in the mid-1970s, only to be unfortunately destroyed by fire in 1978.

Admission and tours at the OHS Historical Center, which includes a community and railroad history museum, is free.

Please consider donating or becoming a member to help our efforts in preserving and protecting the history of your community, Odenton.