Five thousand Confederate cavalry thundered past the Prettymans’ home in Rockville in June 1863, on their way to take control of the city. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart stopped at the house, admiring the family’s youngest child, 2-year-old Forrest, according to historical documents.
The home, one of the oldest in Rockville with its connection to the Civil War, is now for sale. Listed by Coakley Realty, 104 W. Jefferson St. served as the home for five generations of the Johnston-Prettyman family, which has notable achievements in public service.
“They’re going to find the right buyer. We’ve got people interested,” Rory Coakley said.
Listed at $1,095,000, the home is architecturally noteworthy as an example of an 1840s “vernacular Greek Revival home,” according to Maryland Historical Trust documents. The two-story frame house has 3,550 square feet and sits on a 0.42-acre lot. The house has five bedrooms and three and a half bathrooms.
State tax records show the house was built in 1812, but according to historical trust records, the home was built in 1841, and enlarged in 1876. Although the interior has been updated, many of the original features and the floor plan remain, including the woodwork and fireplace mantels, according to the historic trust.
The house was built for U.S. Navy Capt. Zachariah Johnston, on property inherited by his wife, Anne Holland Johnston, the daughter of Solomon and Matilda Holland.
Originally 1½ stories, the house was remodeled 30 years later, making the structure a full two stories with attic, according to the historical trust. The 1876 remodeling followed a more fashionable Victorian style, widening the porch and adding a dormered mansard roof to a one-story addition.
The L-shaped house has a center hall with wing, and beaded German siding on the north and east and plain German siding on the south and west.
The three- by two-bay main block has a brick foundation and is topped with a low hipped roof covered with shingles. It has wide boxed eaves.
Historical trust documents say the house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.
Johnston served 41 years in the Navy, including a tour of duty patrolling the waters off the coast of California during the 1849 Gold Rush, according to the historical trust.
One of his daughters, Lydia, married Elijah Barrett Prettyman, a teacher when he came to Rockville in 1851 to read law. He eventually became clerk of the Circuit Court for Montgomery County, an office he held for 22 years, according to the historical trust.
Twelve years after coming to Rockville, Prettyman watched as Confederate soldiers marched past his house. As Stuart played with Forrest Prettyman, the general learned of supplies heading from Washington, D.C., to Union soldiers in Frederick, according to The Last Road North: A Guide to the Gettysburg Campaign, 1863, by Dan Welch and Robert Orrison.
Prettyman became the third state school superintendent in 1899. He retired in 1905, and died two years later. Lydia died in 1919, according to the historical trust.
Forrest Prettyman lived in the house as well; he served as the chaplain of the U.S. Senate.
