Bellefields was built after 1720 by Dr. Patrick Sim, who fled Scotland after the 1715 Rebellion to settle in this country. He married Mary, daughter of Thomas and Barbara Dent Brooke of nearby Brookefield Manor. About 1728, Colonel Joseph Sim, their oldest son, was born here and died November 27, 1793. He was a member of the Annapolis Assembly which, June 22, 1744(sic) denounced the British closing of Boston Harbor. He represented his county in 1775 at the Annapolis Convention which framed the Association of Freemen of Maryland. He served in the Convention of Maryland which governed the state at the beginning of the revolution, and on the first privy council of the state in 1777. He was also a member of the General Assembly from July 1779 to June 1781.