Rosalie Stier Calvert

Rosalie Stier Calvert (February 16, 1778 – March 13, 1821) was a plantation owner and correspondent in nineteenth century Maryland. A collection of her letters, titled Mistress of Riversdale, The Plantation Letters of Rosalie Stier Calvert, was published by the Johns Hopkins University Press in 1991. The letters range in date from 1795 to 1821, and illuminate the life of Calvert's plantation household, including the events leading up to and during the War of 1812. Early life Rosalie-Eugénie Stier was the daughter of a wealthy Antwerp burgher, Henri-Joseph Stier (1743–1821) and his wife Marie-Louise Peeters. The Stier family fled the Low Countries in 1794 as a French army invaded their home city. Once in America, the family's fortunes recovered from the disasters of European war. Rosalie Calvert became one of the richest women in America, amassing a large fortune, much of which she managed herself, and she owned one of the largest art collections in the country. Riversdale Rosalie Calvert lived at the Riversdale plantation, a five-part, large-scale late Georgian mansion with superior Federal interior, built between 1801 and 1807. Also known as Baltimore House, Calvert Mansion or Riversdale Mansion, it is located at 4811 Riverdale Road in Riverdale Park, Maryland. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1997.