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Midway between Simpsonville and Scaggsville on the west side of the Columbia Pike (Rt. 29) and overlooking johns Hopkins Road is the original Montpelier, best known of the Ridgely homes of Howard County.
While Robert Ridgely, the progenitor of the Ridgelys of Baltimore County, arrived in Maryland aboard the ship Assurance in 1634, Colonel Henry Ridgely, first of the family to settle in Anne Arundel County, arrived here in 1659 with his wife, Elizabeth Howard, believed to be the daughter of Matthew Howard, Sr. He had met and courted his bride during a stopover in Virginia enroute to Maryland !
Within a few years Henry Ridgely became a distinguished member of the provincial government, and he began his lengthy service as justice of Anne Arundel County in 1679. In 1683 he was appointed one of three commissioners for "buying, surveying, laying out and administering townes, ports and places at which foreign trade shoud be carried on." On September 4, 1689 he was commissioned "Captain of Foote" by the Associators Assembly, rose to the rank of major in 1694 and before the year ended was commissioned lieutenant colonel. He served in the French and Indian wars.
It was from Montpelier I that "Henry and Anne's daughters went forth as brides. Elizabeth married Charles Alexander Warfield and settled at Bushy Park; Polly, who wed Thomas Sappington of Sappington's Range upon Hammond's Great Branch; Sarah (Sally), who became the second wife of Jesse Tyson, prominent member of the Tyson family of Maryland ; and Ann Ridgely, known as the "heiress", who chose for her husband Major Thomas Snowden of Prince George 's County. Upon her marriage, Ann Ridgely named the Major's house " Montpelier ", after her birthplace."
Excerpts taken from "Old Homes and Families of Howard County, Maryland", Celia M. Holland, 1987, p 345 |
