A man named Abel Brown, whose family came to America from Scotland, lived on the land where the house resides from 1747 till his death in 1796, and owned some 2,000 acres.

According to information collected by the Maryland Geneological Society, Abel's son, Elias, inherited the farm and built the stone house in the 1790s. Elias (1765 to 1837) married Ann Cockey.

Elias and Ann had a son named Thomas (born 1783), a son also named Elias (1793 to 1857), a son Stephen (1791 to 1816), a son William, and a daughter Prudence Ann, who died young.

Elias Brown (second)

The second Elias Brown lived in the house from 1793 till his death in 1857. He was the first Congressman from Carroll County in the U.S. Congress. He was elected three times. He also served three terms as a member of the Maryland House of Delegates, and once as a Maryland state senator.

Thomas Brown

Thomas Brown (brother of the second Elias) had three children, two of whom achieved local and state-wide renown. 

-- His daughter, Prudence Ann Brown, married George Patterson, whose sister Elizabeth married Jerome Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon.

-- His son Stephen Thomas Cockey Brown was the father of Frank Brown, the only resident of Carroll county ever elected governor of Maryland.

The House

The house is about 230 years old. It is well-kept and unoccupied on about 145 acres of land that has been sold and will be developed in the future. The fate of the house is unknown as of 2022.

The Brown Family Cemetery

There are reports of a cemetery on the property, but its exact location is unknown.

Click for video of the house taken in 2022.