Rose Hill Manor and Catoctin Furnace

Rose Hill Manor Park, on the north side of Frederick City, is an historic colonial period mansion that specializes in educating elementary school-aged children.  As Frederick’s first county park, Rose Hill features three different museums:  a Children’s Museum, Farm Museum and Carriage Museum.

The manor house was built @1790 and once served home to Thomas Johnson, Jr. (1732–1819).  Johnson was a Revolutionary War hero and American jurist with a distinguished political career. He was the first elected Governor of Maryland, a delegate to the Continental Congress and an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.

Johnson was born in Calvert County, Maryland, on November 4, the son of Thomas and Dorcas Sedgwick Johnson. His grandfather, also named Thomas, was a lawyer in London who emigrated to Maryland sometime before 1700. He was the fourth of ten children, some of whom also had large families. (His brother Joshua's daughter Louisa Johnson married John Quincy Adams.)

The Johnson children, including Thomas, were educated at home. Young Thomas was attracted to the law, studied it, and was admitted to the Maryland bar in 1753. By 1760, he had moved his practice to Frederick County, Maryland. He was also elected for the first time to the Provincial Assembly in 1761. Thomas Johnson, Jr. married Ann Jennings, the daughter of an Annapolis judge on February 16, 1766. The couple had four children: Ann, Rebecca, Dorcas, and Joshua.

In 1774 and 1775, the Maryland Assembly sent him as a delegate to the Continental Congress. In the Congress he was firmly in the camp of those who favored separation from Great Britain. He is reputed to have been the individual that nominated George Washington to be the head of the Continental Army in June of 1775. 

In 1775, Congress created a committee of Secret Correspondence that was to seek foreign support for the war.  Thomas Johnson was a committeeman along with Benjamin Franklin, John Dickinson, Benjamin Harrison and John Jay.  

He returned to Maryland and continued his work in the State Assembly.  In doing this, he didn't have a chance to sign the United States Declaration of Independence.  But, in 1775, he did draft a Declaration of Rights adopted by the Maryland Assembly.  The declaration was later included as the first part of the state's first convention at Annapolis in 1776.  He also began his service as Brigadier General in charge of militia units in Maryland.  In addition to his political activities, he and his brothers supported the revolution by manufacturing ammunition.  

As Maryland began to exercise its newly declared autonomy, the state legislature elected Johnson as Maryland's first state governor in 1777.  He served in that capacity until 1779.  In the 1780's, he held a number of judicial posts in Maryland, and served in the Assembly in 1780, 1786, and 1787.  In 1785, he was one of the commissioners of Maryland and Virginia that met at Mount Vernon to agree on jurisdiction and navigation rules for the Potomac river.  Johnson attended the Maryland Convention in 1788, where he successfully urged the ratification of the United States Constitution.

In September of 1789, President Washington nominated Thomas Johnson to be the first federal judge for the District of Maryland, but he declined the appointment. In 1790 and 1791, he was the senior justice in the Maryland General Court system. Then in 1791 Washington appointed him to the U.S. Supreme Court after John Rutledge resigned. He was the author of the Court's first written opinion, Georgia v. Brailsford, in 1792. Johnson served on the court until February of 1793 when he resigned due to poor health. His health also made him decline Washington's 1795 offer to make him Secretary of State, an office that Thomas Jefferson recommended Johnson for. 

On February 28th, 1801, President Adams named Johnson Chief Judge for the territory of the District of Columbia.  As such, he was a member of the Board of Commissioners for the new federal city, which he suggested be named Washington. 

Johnson's Frederick County estate was named Richfield and lies just to the east of today's US15 north of Frederick.  His daughter Ann had married John Colin Grahame in 1788, and in later years he lived with them in their Rose Hill Manor home a short distance south of Richfield. Thomas was in very poor health for many years and did not get the opportunity to add to his already impressive resume further.  He did deliver the eulogy for his friend George Washington at a birthday memorial service on February 22nd, 1800.  Johnson died at Rose Hill on October 26th, 1819, and is buried at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Frederick.

A high school, fittingly named Governor Thomas Johnson High School, is located adjacent Rose Hill on former property belonging to the estate.  Today, Rose Hill Manor is a county park and serves home to The Children's Museum, a prime resource for the study of regional history for elementary school-aged children. Tours focus on the early years of the 19th century, the manors owners, and their lifestyles.  Exhibits include the 200 year old Georgian style manor house; an icehouse; a smokehouse; an herb, vegetable & rose garden; an orchard; a log cabin; and a blacksmith shop.  In addition, the 43-acre property also serves home to The Farm Museum which features exhibits of late 19th and early 20th century agricultural practices and farm family life; and the Robert H. Renneberger Carriage Museum, boasting over twenty restored historic carriages and sleighs.