History
John Ireland bought the unimproved property above Havre de Grace in 1787 and began construction on the Sion Hill Seminary, intended as a boys' school. Ireland sold the property with the unfinished house in 1795 to Connecticut merchant Gideon Denison. Denison was apparently a real estate speculator, believing that Havre de Grace would expand significantly, and accumulated 1,820 acres (7.4 km2) around the house. Denison died in 1799, and his daughter Minerva inherited. After her marriage to John Rodgers at Sion Hill, the couple added the house's details. After Rodgers' retirement from active naval service in 1815 he returned to Sion Hill, continuing to advise on naval policy. Rodgers died in 1838. Minerva survived until 1877, but gave Sion Hill and 1,800 acres (7.3 km2) of surrounding land to her oldest son, Robert Smith Rodgers (1809-1891). Robert Smith Rodgers, a civil engineer, enlisted in the U.S. Army as a private and rose to the rank of colonel during the American Civil War. In 1841 he married Sarah Perry, daughter of Commander Matthew C. Perry. The son of Robert S. and Sarah Perry Rodgers, Rear Admiral John Augustus Rodgers inherited the house and lived there until his death in 1933.
The house then passed to Rodgers' widow, Elizabeth Chambers Rodgers, who in 1944 left the property to a descendant of the first John Rodgers, John Meigs, John Rodger's great-grandson and grandson of Montgomery C. Meigs, who had married Louisa Rodgers. John Meigs in turn left the property to Montgomery Meigs Green in 1946.
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