Waverly, Jacob Bromwell's wheat fan and Poe's uncle

George Howard at "Waverly" hosted a timed test of Jacob Bromwell's patented fan - it cleaned 26 1/2 bushels of wheat in 7 1/2 minutes. That year, 1819, Bromwell moved to the growing city of Cincinnati, Ohio, where he started a company which is still producing exquisite tin, copper, wire-woven and wooden old-style kitchen tools HERE

Waverly Jumbles

Governor George and Prudence Ridgely Howard named the home and lands that his father, Col. Howard, gave them "Waverly" after the enormously popular 1814 Sir Walter Scott novel Waverley. His brother Benjamin's wife, Jane Gilmor Howard, included a recipe for the rose water flavored cookie in her charity cookbook Fifty Years in a Maryland Kitchen in 1873.

The Dairy - at Waverly and Doughoregan Manor

Gov. George Howard's (1789-1846) large stone dairy was built c1822 according to an early sketch of his "Waverly" buildings and payments to a stonemason. The second story window on the front has been changed into a door, but the side windows look like the sketch. His wife Prudence Ridgely Howard (1791-1847) had been raised at "Hampton" (north of Baltimore) which operated a large dairy operation making over 5,000 pounds of butter in 1822. Howard's neighbor Charles Carroll's lovely dairy at "Doughoregan" was much smaller. 

5 Maryland Governors and Howard County

Four governors lived in the county, and it was named for a fifth governor with extensive land holdings there - Col. John Eager Howard.  When the Revolutionary War hero lived in Jennings House (left) in Annapolis, his son George Howard was born in 1789, and would return to Jennings House (the official residence from 1777-1870) when he too became governor in 1831. Other governors: Thomas Ligon of "Chatham" in 1854; John Lee Carroll of "Doughregan" in 1876 and Edwin Warfield of "Oakdale" in 1904.