Waverly (Marriottsville, Maryland)

Waverly, or Waverley, is a historic home located at Marriottsville in Howard County, Maryland, USA. It was built between 1756 and 1800 by different accounts. It is a  2 ¹⁄₂-story stone house, covered with stucco, with extensions completed about 1900. Also on the property are a small  1 ¹⁄₂-story stone dwelling, a supposed combination storehouse and slave jail, a 2-story frame-and-stone corn crib, and the ruins of a log slave quarter. A newspaper account claimed as many as 999 slaves worked on the plantation at one time. It was a property developed on land first patented by Charles Carroll of Carrollton and later part of the 1703 survey "Ranter's Ridge" owned by Thomas Browne. The land was resurveyed in 1726 as "The Mistake". Nathan Browne inherited half of the land in 1756. It was purchased by John Dorsey and willed to Nathan and Sophia Dorsey as the next owners by 1760.

Colonel John Eager Howard, Governor of Maryland from 1788 to 1791, bought 650 acres and later added more land to "the Mistake" totaling 1,313 acres. He is said to have given the property to his son, George Howard (who served as Governor of Maryland from 1831 to 1833) as a wedding present in 1811, and deeded it to him in November, 1822 where he hosted events such as partridge hunts. The slave plantation was renamed Waverly, (without the e) after the 1814 novel, Waverley by Walter Scott. There is a tombstone onsite for George Howard's son John Eager Howard named after his grandfather dated 1838. The stone was placed against the house, leaving the grave site unmarked and unidentified on the property.

In 1854 297.5 acres of the Waverley estate patented as "Delaware Bottom" were sold by William Howard. He described the land containing for a lime quarry, and lime kiln as heavily timbered without improvements and suitable for wheat and corn. During this time, the nearby Roland Maxwell house was used as a slave quarters for Waverley. Another stacked slate building ruins stands behind an office park next to a pond at 10275 Birmingham Way. Noted with little background in county records simply as the Alexander Hassan ruins after the last property purchaser, the building was part of the 600 acre property when Judick owned the farm, and kept in good condition until Hassan's ownership.

Other owners included Peoples Bank of Baltimore director Joeseph H. Judick who bought the mansion and 300 acres on 23 November 1858 for $15,462.28 adding surrounding parcels totaling 600 acres. It was sold to the Brosennes family on Judick's death until 1964. The property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. The property was purchased by Larry Realty in 1964, and left vacant. Hassan-Glickfield and Larry Reality teamed together to propose the site to become the next Howard County landfill. When Alpha Ridge was selected instead, the site was subdivided from 279 acres down to 25.2 acres, then to 9.8 acres and again to 3.4 acres which were donated in 1975 to the Society for the Preservation of Maryland Antiques. In 1976 The State of Maryland funded $150,000 followed by $150,000 in federal matching money in 1978 for a restoration. Restoration started in June 1979 with a new roof and modern kitchen installation. In 1981 The Maryland Historical trust donated $32,000 to complete the restoration, using Columbia landscape architect Robert Shaw. Historic Waverly, Inc. was formed in 1985 to operate the facility for meetings and receptions. In 1988 Howard County conducted paid Golf Resources Associates to review land for golf course installations. The consultant recommended Larry Realty property with expansion to the east for a low cost facility. The Estate property was sold to Howard County in 1989 for $450,000.

In 1991, 682 acres of the original estate was developed as Waverly Woods. A 932 home development by Donald R Reuwer Jr's company Land Design and Development. He was quoted in the Baltimore Sun at the onset, "If we were pure, greedy developers, the simplest thing for us to do would be to forget the Planned Employment Center and do it as residential. But that would blow the only water-sewer commercial site in the Frederick-Baltimore corridor -- 6,500 (potential) jobs." In 1993, the zoning board later removed 41 percent of the commercial space requirements for the project. The same year planning director Joeseph Rutter extends public water and sewer to the area to confront groundwater contamination at Alpha Ridge Landfill promising the effort was for public safety only, and building density would not increase. In 1999 the land adjacent to the Mansion was slated to build an Exxon gas station, which was cancelled. Later in 2002, a section of the commercial zoned land adjoining Alpha Ridge Landfill was offered for sale to the Howard County Public School System to build Marriotts Ridge High School, which was declined. Former planning and zoning director Joe Rutter joined Land Design and Development, winning approval from his former deputy in 2012 to convert Planned Employment Centers into denser age restricted housing units.

The Howard County Public School System named Waverly Elementary School after the plantation.