[3] After the Selby heirs suffered financial setbacks, the plantation was owned briefly by the pirate William Cotter and then by assorted members of Colonel Nicholas Gassaway's family (his daughter Jane having married Cotter), including the sons of Captain John Gassaway, Lord High Sheriff of Annapolis.

The Gresham family continued to own the house on rented Gassaway land then known as Cotter's Desire.

Gresham is most associated with Commodore Isaac Mayo, who received it from his uncle who had purchased the property and house from the Cotter/Gassaway heirs around 1765.

[3] He occupied the property beginning in the early 19th century until his controversial death there in 1861[2] at the dawn of the Civil war he openly opposed.

This article about a Registered Historic Place in Anne Arundel County, Maryland is a stub.