Cheverly, Maryland, has been characterized by some as a lovely island of green in a sea of multi-lane highways and by others as a "jewel" among communities. Whatever its image in the Washington metropolitan area, Cheverly exists today because of concerned and caring people. Its civic-minded residents maintain a heritage established by its founder, Robert Marshall, an Ohio investor and stockbroker. Mr. Marshall came to Washington during World War I with the intent of creating a residential community, convenient to the city by rail and road, but retaining the beauty of its natural surroundings through saving as many of its trees as possible, and designing its streets to follow the rolling contours of the land.

The land on which Cheverly stands was formed of parts of several large 17th and 18th-century land grants. In 1805 Fielder Magruder (1780-1840) began to acquire parts of Crawford's Adventure, Hudson's Range, Whitlentine, and other tracts. In 1838, Fielder Magruder, Jr.(1814-1888) acquired the land on which he built his residence, Mount Hope. Before the Civil War the land was exploited as an integral part of the slave-based plantation economy common to the area. A general agricultural depression and abandoned farmland became characteristic of Prince George's County during the rest of the century. Many fields were overgrown with weeds and then with locust and scrub pine. Robert Marshall purchased land for the first sections of Cheverly from the younger Magruder’s heirs.