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New page: '''Marshall Hall, Maryland''' is the site of the Marshall family mansion. Marshall Hall is located near Bryan's Road in Charles County, Maryland, next t...
'''Marshall Hall, Maryland''' is the site of the Marshall family mansion. Marshall Hall is located near [[Bryan's Road, Maryland|Bryan's Road]] in [[Charles County]], [[Maryland]], next to the [[Potomac River]], more or less across from [[Mount Vernon, Virginia]], the home of [[George Washington]]. The home was one of the finest built on the Maryland shore of the Potomac in the early eighteenth century. The Marshall family were minor gentry and owned as many as 80 slaves by the early 1800s.
Soon after the Civil War, the site became a highly frequented picnic ground. Washingtonians fled the summer heat of the city for all sorts of events at the picnic grounds, from exclusive catered events to popular cultural events such as a swimming exhibition given by the daredevil [[Robert Odlum]] in the summer of 1878, seven years before his death at the [[Brooklyn Bridge]]. [[Marshall Hall (amusement park)|Marshall Hall]] later became one of the first [[amusement parks]] in the [[Washington, DC]] area in the 1890s, offering numerous "appliances of entertainment" (as one deed described them) for visitors who wanted to do more than picnic, many of them arriving by river boat. By the early 1900s, annual jousting tournaments took place at the site. New attractions were added throughout the twentieth century, and [[gambling]] became a major draw for a while after World War II. Between 1949 and 1968, the four-county [[Southern Maryland]] area, including Marshall Hall, offered the only legal slot machines in the United States outside of Nevada.
The [[National Park Service]] gained control of the park after Congress mandated that the views from Mt. Vernon had to be protected and returned to something resembling the days when George Washington sat on his porch and looked across the Potomac. The Park Service tore down all vestiges of the amusement park in 1980, whose popularity had declined due to competition by much larger new parks. A fire destroyed much of the colonial house soon after.<ref>
{{cite web
|url=http://www.marshallhall.org/history.html
|title=Marshall Hall on the Potomac
|author=M. E. Marshall
|publisher=Marshall Hall Foundation, Inc.
|date=1997
|accessdate=2007-10-21
}}</ref> In January 2003, a truck driver slammed his rig through the remaining hulk.<ref>{{cite web
|url=http://www.nationaltrust.org/Magazine/archives/arc_news/011603.htm
|title=Truck Crashes into Historic Brick Mansion
|author=Margaret Foster
|date=January 16, 2003
|publisher=Preservation Magazine
|accessdate=2007-10-21
}}</ref> The damage done to the brick shell was repaired the following year.{{Fact|date=August 2008}}
It is now part of [[Piscataway Park]] operated by the [[National Park Service]].
==References==
{{reflist}}
==External links==
*[http://www.marshallhall.org/ Marshall Hall Foundation, official website]
*[http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=6079 Marshall Hall] Historical Marker Database
[[Category:Charles County, Maryland]]
[[Category:Historic Sites]]
Soon after the Civil War, the site became a highly frequented picnic ground. Washingtonians fled the summer heat of the city for all sorts of events at the picnic grounds, from exclusive catered events to popular cultural events such as a swimming exhibition given by the daredevil [[Robert Odlum]] in the summer of 1878, seven years before his death at the [[Brooklyn Bridge]]. [[Marshall Hall (amusement park)|Marshall Hall]] later became one of the first [[amusement parks]] in the [[Washington, DC]] area in the 1890s, offering numerous "appliances of entertainment" (as one deed described them) for visitors who wanted to do more than picnic, many of them arriving by river boat. By the early 1900s, annual jousting tournaments took place at the site. New attractions were added throughout the twentieth century, and [[gambling]] became a major draw for a while after World War II. Between 1949 and 1968, the four-county [[Southern Maryland]] area, including Marshall Hall, offered the only legal slot machines in the United States outside of Nevada.
The [[National Park Service]] gained control of the park after Congress mandated that the views from Mt. Vernon had to be protected and returned to something resembling the days when George Washington sat on his porch and looked across the Potomac. The Park Service tore down all vestiges of the amusement park in 1980, whose popularity had declined due to competition by much larger new parks. A fire destroyed much of the colonial house soon after.<ref>
{{cite web
|url=http://www.marshallhall.org/history.html
|title=Marshall Hall on the Potomac
|author=M. E. Marshall
|publisher=Marshall Hall Foundation, Inc.
|date=1997
|accessdate=2007-10-21
}}</ref> In January 2003, a truck driver slammed his rig through the remaining hulk.<ref>{{cite web
|url=http://www.nationaltrust.org/Magazine/archives/arc_news/011603.htm
|title=Truck Crashes into Historic Brick Mansion
|author=Margaret Foster
|date=January 16, 2003
|publisher=Preservation Magazine
|accessdate=2007-10-21
}}</ref> The damage done to the brick shell was repaired the following year.{{Fact|date=August 2008}}
It is now part of [[Piscataway Park]] operated by the [[National Park Service]].
==References==
{{reflist}}
==External links==
*[http://www.marshallhall.org/ Marshall Hall Foundation, official website]
*[http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=6079 Marshall Hall] Historical Marker Database
[[Category:Charles County, Maryland]]
[[Category:Historic Sites]]
