Burnside

Burnside was the estate of William H. Burns (1845 - 1919), a veteran of the Civil War, railroad man, farmer and developer. In the 1890s he built the house on the corner of what is now Burnside street and Bay Ridge Avenue in Eastport, Annapolis, Maryland and resided there until his death in 1919.

History of the Area

The peninsula between Spa Creek and Back Creek descended through the Clarkson and Hill family from the original 300-acre patent, called Horne Point, granted to Robert Clarkson in 1665, to Henrietta Margaret Hill a century later. Henry Margaret Hill married Benjamin Ogle in 1770, and the two of them resurveyed her land and patented it in 1803 as an 809-acre tract they named President. In March 1781, troops under the command of the Marquis de Lafayette camped briefly on Henry Margaret’s land while awaiting transport down the Bay to Yorktown. A contemporary map of their encampment shows troops to the south of what is now Sixth Street.

After Henry Margaret’s death in 1815, her son sold her land to pay the debt she and Benjamin had incurred, most of it owed to his mother, Anne Tasker Ogle, who was still alive. The brothers George and John Barber bought 645 acres of the President at a public sale in 1815 for $35.50 an acre. The Barber family sold several parcels of the land over the next 50 years, but the most of it remained a farm known as Horn Point Farm.

After the death of the last Barber to own the farm, trustees for his estate sold 305.75 acres of The President to William F. Pentz of Baltimore City. Pentz sold 200.5 acres to Henry H. Lockwood in 1867. Pentz also sold two small parcels in 1866 and 1867, and then in 1868, he conveyed to The Mutual Building Association of Annapolis, the 101.5 acres that became Eastport.