George Maxwell, a Scottish immigrant, was present in Charles County, Maryland, by 1745 and became a successful Chesapeake merchant with many business ventures and partnerships. He purchased Maxwell's Seat from Charles S. Smith in 1764, built Maxwell Hall in 1768, and held property that had originally been part of Calverton Manor. Maxwell owned stores and warehouses in Benedict, Annapolis, the upper Patuxent, and the Eastern Shore, was owner or co-owner of at least 3 ships of trade, and established a landing on Swansons Creek just below the property. Along with other Scottish merchants, he exported tobacco through the cargo consignment system, an approach that helped him build a substantial trading empire. He amassed large landholdings across Maryland, including Trueman's Hope in Hughesville, Jacob's Birthright in Port Tobacco, and Maxwell's Seat in Benedict. He married Elizabeth Emerson, a widow of the Trippe family of Dorchester County, Maryland, and they had 8 children. George Maxwell died on May 14, 1777. Local legend holds that the house later played a role when the British landed at Benedict during the War of 1812, when 4,500 troops camped along 2 miles of shoreline before marching on Washington and one officer briefly used the first floor as temporary headquarters. The house survived while many others along the Chesapeake Bay were burned. Maxwell Hall is regarded as the region's best surviving example of this architectural type, with four-over-four rooms, a short-reach downstairs hallway, a stone-lined cellar under the entire structure, two 36-foot summer beams, a large cellar fireplace that served as the original main cooking area before a 1933 renovation, matching massive end chimneys, and a gambrel roof. Distinctive features include short thin bricks, unusual tilted chimney weatherings, fieldstone or possible ship's-ballast stone in the chimney base and interior fireplace, a wall of riven clapboards in the stairwell, five fireplaces, and two huge chimneys. Set on a hill overlooking the Patuxent River, it is one of only 3 houses of this style remaining from this period of Southern Maryland history. A tobacco barn on the property, with hand-hewn horizontal clapboards on its east wall and beams joined by wooden pegs, is believed to date from the late 19th century.