Hoagland Gates Adulthood · Broadlands Farm

Hoagland Gates does not appear to have felt at 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 18^th-century brick plantation house and began living the life of a bachelor gentleman. Hoagland established a shooting lodge on the property, taking advantage of the 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. 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 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, Anne and Elizabeth.

Anne Gates (1921-2007) was the eldest daughter of Hoagland and Margaret Mackey Gates. Anne was born in Philadelphia but lived for 55 years at Broadlands. This photograph was taken in 1943, the year that Anne graduated from Ohio State University.

Hoagland Gates during the later years of his life. This photograph was probably taken during the late 1930s or early 1940s when Hoagland was in his early 50s and already suffering from the advanced stages of tuberculosis.

The betrothal of Miss Margaret Mackey, “a comely little school teacher and daughter of a humble Chester County farmer” to Hoagland Gates was the social event of the year and source of considerable gossip in the newspapers. One more restrained newspaper wrote concerning its competitor’s coverage of the engagement that “daily newspapers on Tuesday contained long winded write-ups of the above that about reached the limit of frenzied sensationalism.“

Concerning the unwelcome and overblown media attention, Hoagland had this to say, “I think some of the articles published have been pretty raw and placed both Miss Mackey and myself in a silly light. There is nothing romantic in our engagement. We met each other and liked each other and now we are going to be married. My mother is pleased with Miss Mackey and that is all there is to it.”

Photograph of Elizabeth Gates standing with the family dog, Bruehl, in front of a 1942 Mercury Eight Coupe Convertible and the house she shared with her mother at Broadlands.

In 1943, Anne Gates married Lieutenant Harold Eugene Copley of San Antonio Texas. At the time of their marriage, Harold Copley was serving as an instructor at the Army Air Forces Navigation School in Hondo, Texas. Although the couple initially settled in a home in San Antonio, as soon as the Second World War ended, Anne returned to Broadlands with her husband to help her widowed mother and sister run the farm.

Forced to relocate to warmer dryer climates for the sake of his health, Hoagland Gates advertized the sale of a large portion of the herd at Broadlands and much of the farm equipment in 1941.

Margaret Chalfont Mackey Gates (December 24, 1890-December 29, 1981) daughter of Alfred Wilson Mackey and Minerva Spencer Mackey and wife of Hoagland Gates. Before her marriage to Hoagland, Margaret served as “Principal of the Junior Department” at the Ogontz School for Girls in Abington, Pa and later as an instructor at the prestigious Tower Hill School in Wilmington, Delaware.

Hoagland Gates’ daughters, Anne and Elizabeth Gates, with an unidentified friend from the Tower Hill School at Broadlands during the early 1930s.

Listen as Phyllis Copley Machledt talks about her grandfather, Hoagland Gates.

Long Point National Register Nomination Form