Exceptional Boredom, Silly Research, "Hermitage" and "Bradford's Rest"

After some weeks of poring through various old Subdivision Plats and assorted deeds, I found out a few interesting things about the development history of Aspen Hill.

During the very early years of Maryland settlement by Europeans -- mostly by the English, in the early days -- grants of land as large as 5000 acres or so were granted via "patents".

Aspen Hill, west of Georgia Avenue, is split between two such patents. One would be "Hermitage", and the other would be Bradford's Rest.

I've discovered that the line of division is quite nearly west-to-east, starting from Rock Creek across the stream from Meadow Hall, running at roughly 87 degrees East of North, to a bit east of the intersection of Aspen Hill Road and Georgia Avenue.

"Hermitage" lies to the south of this line -- which in the present day is roughly the line of Aspen Hill Road from the Aspen Hill Library to the fence line between Gate of Heaven Cemetery and the Aspen Manor Shopping Center -- and Bradford's Rest to the north.

A map of Bradford's Rest is available. Rotate it 90 degrees to the left to get it pointed north, and start looking at a Google map of the area. A hint, the line-segments marked "42 and 41" are roughly the course of Georgia Avenue from Aspen Hill Road to Bel Pre Road. From there the Astute Reader may calculate the extent of this huge swath of land.

Hermitage runs south to a bit past Wheaton, or "Mitchell's Cross Roads" as it was then known.

In recent days -- or perhaps weeks -- I've been able to determine the rough extents of "Cassell's land" which is often referred to in the deeds of the time and many subsequent deeds which reference the earlier deeds. It seems to be the most southeastern tract in Bradford's Rest, comprising lands now BAE Systems, Home Depot, much of the English Manor and parts of the Wheaton Woods subdivision north of Aspen Hill Road, and the Northgate Plaza shoppiong center.

Also more rigorously determined, the bounds of the "Bauer Tract", the present-day site of the Aspen Hill Library and a narrow strip of subdivision running 6 blocks north. Also, some of the bounds of the so-called Earle Tract, much of the original route of Aspen Hill Road, etc etc.

Given a bit of time, and some walkabout with a GPS, I should be able to generate nice googlemaps and potentially a MPG movie of boundaries over time including the times of subdivision.

By the time I'm done, assuming that anyone in Aspen Hill remains who can speak English -- generally speaking, that may be a sucker bet -- this should be a comprehensive history of land-use pattern changes over time, all as a backdrop to other evolving histories of the place.

Well, I can't be categorized as yet-another frat-boy cut-and-paste term paper writer. I'm actually doing my own research, and doing a lot of walk-around and transcription from onlined microfilm images.

Between this and my UNIX and internet skills, not to mention my ability to read and write English without needing a spellchecker, you'd think I could get a fucking job.

But that's not going to happen... so all I have is a hobby.