Throughout the war, Calvert skillfully managed the plantation—including about 80 enslaved people—while enduring wartime hardships. She and her household suffered through a typhoid epidemic in the summer of 1813 that took the life of her 17-month-old daughter.
As the war came to an end, Calvert wrote of a “precarious peace” and expressed uncertainty about the reliability of the still emerging national government and economy of the United States. Her experiences during the war and her life at the plantation are captured in great detail in the book Mistress of Riversdale: the Plantation Letters of Rosalie Stier Calvert.
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You can visit her home and learn more about Rosalie Calvert’s life on a plantation at Riversdale Mansion.
View a five-minute video produced by the Maryland Humanities Council of Maryland actress Mary Ann Jung as Rosalie Stier Calvert.