Hilton is a historic home located on the campus of The Community College of Baltimore County in

Catonsville Catonsville () is a census-designated place (CDP) in Baltimore County, Maryland. The population was 44,701 at the 2020 US Census. The community is a streetcar suburb of Baltimore along the city's western border. The town is known for its proximit ...

Baltimore County Baltimore County ( , locally: or ) is the third-most populous county in the U.S. state of Maryland. The county is part of the Central Maryland region of the state. Baltimore County partly surrounds but does not include the independent city ...

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It borders the states of Virginia to its south, West Virginia to its west, Pennsylvania to its north, and Delaware to its east ...

. It is an early-20th-century

Georgian Revival Georgian architecture is the name given in most English-speaking countries to the set of architectural styles current between 1714 and 1830. It is named after the first four British monarchs of the House of Hanover, George I, George II, Ge ...

–style mansion created from a stone farmhouse built about 1825, overlooking the

Patapsco River The Patapsco River ( ) mainstem is a river in central Maryland that flows into the Chesapeake Bay. The river's tidal portion forms the harbor for the city of Baltimore. With its South Branch, the Patapsco forms the northern border of Howar ...

valley. The reconstruction was designed by Baltimore architect Edward L. Palmer Jr. in 1917. The main house is five

bays A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a ''gulf'', ''sea'', ''sound'', or ''bight''. A ''cove'' is a small, ci ...

in length, two and a half stories above a high ground floor, with a

gambrel A gambrel or gambrel roof is a usually symmetrical two-sided roof with two slopes on each side. The upper slope is positioned at a shallow angle, while the lower slope is steep. This design provides the advantages of a sloped roof while maxim ...

roof. The house has a -story wing, five bays in length, with a gabled roof, extending from the east end; and a two-story, one-bay west wing. The roof is covered with Vermont

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous, metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade, regional metamorphism. It is the finest-grained foliated metamorphic ro ...

. The house features a small enclosed porch of the

Tuscan order The Tuscan order (Latin ''Ordo Tuscanicus'' or ''Ordo Tuscanus'', with the meaning of Etruscan order) is one of the two classical orders developed by the Romans, the other being the composite order. It is influenced by the Doric order, but wit ...

that was probably originally considered a

porte cochere Porte may refer to: *Sublime Porte, the central government of the Ottoman empire *Porte, Piedmont, a municipality in the Piedmont region of Italy *John Cyril Porte, British/Irish aviator *Richie Porte, Australian professional cyclist who competes ...

. Hilton is situated on the 5000-acre "Taylor's Forest" surveyed in 1678. The first construction at the 511-acre site was a stone farmhouse built between 1818 and 1825 for James W. McCulloh. After defending several charges of conspiracy, the property was sold to John Lewis Buchanan in 1825. In 1827 Dr. Lennox Birckhead, son of McColloh's business partner Soloman Birkhead purchased the property. Birkhead named his home "Hilton" for its high elevation. William Carson Glenn purchased the property in 1837, selling to his politician brother

John Glenn John Herschel Glenn Jr. (July 18, 1921 – December 8, 2016) was an American Marine Corps aviator, astronaut, businessman, and politician. He was the third American in space and the first to orbit the Earth, circling it three times in 1 ...

in 1842. Guests during this period included

Robert E. Lee Robert Edward Lee (January 19, 1807 – October 12, 1870) was a general officers in the Confederate States Army, Confederate general during the American Civil War, who was appointed the General in Chief of the Armies of the Confederate ...

. In 1852, Glenn added several stone outbuildings. The property passed to Marrietta Glen and was managed by newspaper publisher William Wilkens Glenn. William Glenn managed the farm with 26 slaves, sympathizing with the South during the Civil War. Hilton was used as a stopping location for Southerners fleeing Union troops for home. Glenn died in 1876, with the farm falling into disuse. In 1905 the estate was subdivided into 25 lots. In 1907 43 acres were donated by

Russell Sage Foundation The Russell Sage Foundation is an American non-profit organisation established by Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage, Margaret Olivia Sage in 1907 for “the improvement of social and living conditions in the United States.” It was named after her re ...

director John Mark Glenn (1858–1950) to create the first section of

Patapsco Valley State Park Patapsco Valley State Park is a Maryland state park extending along of the Patapsco River south and west of the city of Baltimore, Maryland. The park encompasses multiple developed areas on over acres of land, making it Maryland's largest st ...

. Hilton was purchased in 1917 by National Enameling and Stamping Company owner George Worth Knapp as a summer home and dairy farm reassembling 105 acres of the estate. In 1962

Baltimore County Public Schools Baltimore County Public Schools is the school district in charge of all public schools in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. It is the 25th largest school system in the US as of 2013. The school system is managed by the board of educatio ...

purchased the property to establish a

Community College of Baltimore County The Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC) is a public community college in Baltimore County, Maryland, with three main campuses and three extension centers. Academics CCBC has more than 100 associate degree and certificate programs in ...

branch. In the 1970s lecture halls occupied the mansion. In 2011, a grant was awarded to renovate the building as the Center for Global Education. In addition to the Hilton Mansion, several other slavery-era outbuildings are on the property: two Tudor style stone houses built in 1852, of which one is in ruins; an 1852 stone bowling alley in ruins; and a stone gardeners building. It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1980.

References

External links

*, including photo from 1997, at Maryland Historical Trust African-American history of Baltimore County, Maryland Catonsville, Maryland Houses in Baltimore County, Maryland Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Maryland Georgian Revival architecture in Maryland Colonial Revival architecture in Maryland Houses completed in 1825 National Register of Historic Places in Baltimore County, Maryland Plantation houses in Maryland {{BaltimoreCountyMD-NRHP-stub