It is possible that the first person of European descent to live in our neighborhood was a tenant, who paid his rent by clearing land of trees so it could be brought under the plow. The cutting edge of settlement was men of very narrow means, too poor to own or to farm. When his job was done, he just moved on, and his name was forgotten. The name of his landlord, on the other hand, is a matter of record. History prefers owners to renters, and enshrines their deeds in endless rows of musty books called libers, in which one can trace the succession of title to your lot all the way back to the first man who claimed it to be his.

In 1687, when ours was still a distant corner of Charles County, John Evans of St. Mary’s County patented 300 acre “called Salcom, Lying in the ffreshes of Potomack River.” It ran from “a bounded white oak standing near the Patomack River a little above the mouth of Rock Creek,” up to where the Russian Embassy is now. On the same day in 1687, Robert Mason of St. Mary’s County patented 300 acres immediately west of it called Salop. (The name means Shropshire, and Salcombe is a town in Devonshire.)

In 1734, when this was a distant corner of Prince George’s County, George Gordon set up as a tobacco planter and started buying parts of Salcom, now known as Knave’s Disappointment; there were apparently already a few old clapboard tenant dwellings and tobacco houses on the land. Gordon called his enterprise Rock Creek Plantation. To form any idea of it we must remember that plantations of those times always had much more land than they brought under the plow, and always kept in reserve as much virgin soil, and uncut woodland, as possible. Rather than merely growing his own tobacco, in 1745 Gordon built a rolling house overlooking the Potomac (probably west of Wisconsin Avenue, and below M Street) where the tobacco of smaller planters further inland could be weighed and inspected, prior to being shipped overseas. A village was bound to follow.

In 1748 our neighborhood became a distant corner of Frederick County, and Gordon was a Worshipful Justice of its Court, and then a Sheriff. One of the requirements of his office in 1750 was to erect a pair of stocks, near a new warehouse, for the public chastisement of criminals, an entertainment sure to appeal to gawkers on market days. When Georgetown was laid out the following year, part of the new town came out of Knave’s Disappointment.

As was almost invariably the case with planters, Gordon died in debt to a London merchant. Gordon’s son-in-law, Stephen West of Upper Marlboro, seems to have represented both Gordon and his creditor. West sold about 208 acres of Gordon’s land to the developers Beatty and Hawkins, who used it to enlarge Georgetown in 1769 with 300 new lots (and four for the use of churches).

“The subscriber being settled in the House where Mr. George Gordon resided adjoining Georgetown, in Frederick County, and lately the occupation of Mr. Martyr, Tavernkeeper hereby informs all Gentlemen Travellers, that, for Ready Cash will receive good usage of Entertainment for Themselves and Horses, from Cornelius Orme.” Maryland Gazette, April 30, 1767

Regrettably, we don’t know some things about George Gordon that would be nice to know, like where his house stood; some guesses that have been ventured put it in our vicinity, either near Holy Rood, or else near Guy Mason. Such uncertainty should not surprise us; the fact is that sometimes little is known about these early landowners except what they owned.

Henry Threlkeld was from Cumberland. In 1753 he built himself a house he called Berlieth, that stood about where the Visitation School is today, on a part of Knave’s Disappointment. Threlkeld also bought Salop and Resurvey of Salop. Resurvey had enlarged Salop by 265 adjoining acres that had been unclaimed. In 1781 Henry’s son inherited both, plus Addition to Salop. He added to it such tracts as Addition to the Addition to the Resurvey on Salop (1785).

In 1785 John Threlkeld was also taxed for a good dwelling house, a kitchen, barn, and slave quarters that stood on them. Only 250 acres of the new Salop had been cleared, and the soil was deemed “thin and stoney.” He was also assessed for part of Knaves Disappointment, and for 279 acres, part of Dunghill, that boasted three or four old log houses and 150 acres cleared land: “soil thin, land very broken.” The last addition to Threlkeld’s landholdings appears to have been The Scotch Ordinary, in 1811.

All these parcels were consolidated in the tract Threlkeld named Alliance (1791). Its extent can be judged by the fact that Georgetown University, Visitation Convent, Visitation School, Duke Ellington School, the House of the Good Shepherd, Foxhall Village, Burleith, Hillandale, Whitehaven Park, much of Glover Park, Glover-Archbold Park, and Wesley Heights are all out of Alliance.

Unfortunately, like many another man of substance, John Threlkeld had many debts. “In accordance with writs fi-fa of the Circuit Court”, the marshal auctioned 296 acres of Alliance: Threlkeld had been indebted to the banker Clement Smith since 1821, and Smith got land to satisfy the debt (Liber WB20 (1828) f.480). After Threlkeld died in 1830, Clement Smith held substantial parts of Alliance, and when Smith died in 1839, still more went on the market. This is when we see the Weaver, Kengla and Homiller families beginning to expand their holdings in what is now Glover Park.