Hoaglands Gates Adulthood
Hoagland seems to have never felt completely home in New York society circles. In 1913, he purchased Long Point Farm on the Eastern Shore of Maryland to escape. He settled into the farm’s 18th-century brick plantation house and began living the life of a bachelor gentleman. Hoagland established a shooting lodge on the property to take advantage of the property’s waterfront location on the Chesapeake Bay and began dabbling with raising cattle.
Following the United States’ entry into the First World War, Hoagland Gates enlisted in the army and saw service in France as a Sergent in the Artillary Regiment of the 77th Division. His experience with modern war and his exposure to rural France, left him even more committed to farm life. After the war and a fire that destroyed his shooting lodge, he sold Long Point and purchased a new property, a 600-acre farm and house near West Grove in Chester County, Pennsylvania. While setting about improving his new Pennsylvania property, Hoagland was introduced to his future wife, Margaret Mackey, the daughter of a well-to-do neighbor. Although the newlyweds initially planned to settle in West Grove, instead in 1929, Gates purchased the property in Cecil County, Maryland that he would transform into Broadlands Farm. Hoagland and Margaret had two daughters, Ann and Elizabeth and in 1929 the Gates family purchased Broadlands Farm and constructed the buildings you see today.