Todd’s Inheritance became a lasting symbol for Americans, especially Baltimoreans, who stood their ground against invading forces during the War of 1812. As British raiders with superior equipment and well-trained troops struck settlements around the Chesapeake Bay, captured Alexandria, Virginia, and burned Washington, D.C., they then attempted a two-prong attack on Baltimore to destroy the heart of America’s ship building industry. In the early hours of September 12, 1814, a force of 5,000 British troops landed at North Point and marched on this road toward Baltimore. From Todd’s Inheritance, with its strategic view of the Chesapeake, American mounted sentries kept watch for the invading British forces, and two members of the Todd family were among the militia stationed there. The stand made by the citizen militia, together with the British Navy’s failure to subdue Fort McHenry, thwarted the British invasion of Baltimore. After the battle, the retreating British troops burned the original Todd home, and the house standing there today was built on the original farmhouse foundations. For more than 300 years, the Todd family lived and worked this land, passing the property from father to son for 10 generations, and in 1765 the family farms were combined into a single holding named Todd’s Inheritance.