Mr. Jefferson Patterson was born in Dayton, Ohio in 1891. He was the son of Frank Jefferson Patterson, a founder of the National Cash Register Company, and Julia Perrine Patterson. In 1932, between Foreign Service assignments in Constantinople and Breslau, Mr. Patterson purchased Point Farm, the Pattersons' name for this property. Researching modern methods of farming, he established a model farm and raised tobacco, soybeans, corn, and a prize-winning herd of Aberdeen cattle. In 1940, Mr. Patterson met and married Mary Marvin Breckinridge in Berlin. Mr. Patterson was a career diplomat with the Foreign Service and became U. S.. Ambassador to Uruguay in 1956.

Mrs. Jefferson Patterson was born Mary Marvin Breckinridge in New York City in 1905. Mrs. Patterson was known as "Marvin" to her family and friends. Her father was John C. Breckinridge of a Kentucky family well known in state and national politics since the Revolutionary era. Her grandfather, John C. Breckinridge, was Vice President under President Buchanan. He later served as a General and then Secretary of War for the Confederacy. Mrs. Patterson's mother, Isabella Goodrich Breckinridge, was the daughter of B. F. Goodrich. Mrs. Patterson began her professional career as a photojournalist and filmmaker. Her first professional film The Forgotten Frontier, made in 1930, tells the story of the Frontier Nursing Service, a nurse- midwifery health service founded by her cousin, Mary Breckinridge, in the mountains of Kentucky. She traveled extensively and published photographs from her world travels in magazines such as National Geographic, Look, Life, and Harper's Bazaar. During World War II she was hired by Edward R. Murrow, and became one of the first women news broadcasters, reporting from seven European countries for CBS.

When Mr. Patterson purchased the property in 1932, he engaged Miss Gertrude Sawyer, one of the first woman architects in the American Institute of Architects, to design a model farm. She oversaw the construction of 26 beautiful farm buildings. The Pattersons used their Point Farm home to relax and entertain between Foreign Service assignments. After Mr. Patterson's death in 1977, Mrs. Patterson continued to live in their Washington, DC and Point Farm homes. In 1983, Mrs. Patterson donated the Point Farm property, 512 acres, to the State of Maryland, under the stewardship of the Maryland Historical Trust. One of America’s most colorful and generous women,Mary Marvin Breckinridge Patterson, died at her home in Washington, D.C. on December 11, 2002 at the age of 97.

Click here to learn more about the history of the property in "A Place in Time" by Michael A. Smolek

Click here to read about the restoration of the Patterson's Estated Gardens featured in Calvert Life Monthly.