Prospect Hill Estate 

From 1737 to 1785, the land on which McDonogh sits had a number of different owners. In 1785, the property owner was John Cockey Owings. He sold his holdings to Mordecai Gist, a Revolutionary War General under George Washington. The property passed through the hands of various members of the Gist Family for the next 72 years. In 1832, when Thomas H. Gist died, he left his land holdings to his as-yet-unborn daughter Thomasina Gist. Until she was 18-years-old and began to run the estate herself, Thomasina’s guardians bought and sold parcels of land around the property she called “Prospect Hill.” In 1855, Thomasina married George Thrall, and two years later she sold “Prospect Hill (813 acres) to Robert Oliver for $40,000. He eventually changed the name of the estate to Foxleigh, and in 1870 sold it to William G. Harrison for $70,000 (read more about Foxleigh Estate in Story No. 38.)