Landon House

The magnificent Landon House mansion in Urbana, Maryland is an incredible repository of American history. Built in 1754 along the Rappahannock River in Virginia, the Landon House served as a silk mill for 80 years before being dismantled and moved to Urbana and rebuilt as a girls' school (the Shirley Female Academy) in 1840. From 1850-1860, it became the Landon Military Academy and Institute. Landon was abandoned during the Civil War...becoming world-famous as the host site for dashing Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart's Sabers and Roses Ball held on September 8, 1862 in honor of Anne Cockey, the "New York Rebel". Just a little over a week later, the Union and Confederate Armies would clash at Antietam Battlefield in what remains the single bloodiest day in American history. Civil War "lightning sketches" of Abraham Lincoln, Jeff Davis and Stuart remain to this day on the parlor walls of the Landon House.

After the Civil War, one of Stuart's officers, Luke Tiernan Brien,a Frederick County resident, purchased the abandoned military academy, and lived there with his wife until 1912. Legend has it that, if you stop by Landon on a Fall night, you might see Luke and his beloved wife in their rocking chairs, awaiting the return of their children for a visit.