USA > Delaware > Colonial mansions of Maryland and Delaware > Part 13
USA > Maryland > Colonial mansions of Maryland and Delaware > Part 13
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In 1810, 1812, 1814, and again in 1820, Robert Wright was elected to Congress. In 1823 he became District Judge of the circuit comprising Queen Anne, Kent, and Talbot counties. He lived at Blakeford with his wife, who was Sarah De Courcy, of Cheston-
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on-Wye, and there, on September 7, 1826, he died. His particular hobby was the breeding and training of thoroughbred race-horses, turning out such famous heroes of the race-track as Blakeford, Uncas, Silver Heels. There was a fine race-track on the place which is still to be seen, and where lovers of the " sport of kings " were wont to gather. Judge Wright-or Captain, or Senator, or Governor, for he was rich in titles as in worldly goods-also did much to encourage farming interests and frequently served in the capacity of dele- gate to farmers' conventions. He was a trustee of the Board of Agriculture for the Eastern Shore of Maryland.
Robert Wright married his distant cousin, Sarah De Courcy, of Cheston-on-Wye, and became the father of William Henry De Courcy, a distinguished public man of Maryland, and grandfather of the present owner of Blakeford, De Courcy Wright Thom, of Baltimore and Queen Anne's County.
The De Courcys, although originally French, came to this country from Ireland. In the early records of the Colony, as has been noted, the name was spelled Coursey, but Capt. Edwin Coursey in his will instructed his sons to resume the original spelling, De Courcy, and this precept has been followed by all succeeding genera- tions of the house.
BLOOMINGDALE QUEEN ANNE'S COUNTY, MARYLAND HARRIS-WALLIS-DUDLEY
HE most magnificent colonial homestead in Queen Anne's County, Maryland, from an ar- - chitectural point of view, is Bloomingdale, about three miles from historic Queenstown, one of the first points of settlement on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay. Of late years the old place has been allowed to fall into a sad condition of disrepair in the hands of tenant farmers, but enough is left to show its state when it was new.
The house is situated on the crest of a hill which overlooks the low, rolling country round about. In the distance are to be seen the blue waters of a little estuary of the bay. Great, ragged trees and an unkempt green- sward are the immediate environs. The approach is through a mile-long avenue of cedar trees, through whose dark tunnel the front of the house beckons on. Originally, great hedges of cedars extended from either side of the house like green pennons half a mile long, but these have been cut down for telegraph posts in these latter days. Even the park around the house has been curtailed in area to make room for the planting of more corn and " crops."
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Bloomingdale is distinguished for the excellence of its brickwork, the bricks being set with an oyster-shell mortar so hard that a cold chisel can with difficulty penetrate it, and so evenly that they look like the bricks ruled on paper in children's toy-houses. Over the main doorway, in the middle of the central front of the house, is a balcony. At the east side of the house is a small, square, covered porch with steps on two sides. The house has but one wing, which is to the west.
On the interior is a very beautiful, broad hallway which extends from front to back, ensuring a cool house whenever any air is stirring. The stairway leads from the rear of the hall and extends straight from the first floor to the attic above the second. Hardwood, once polished until it shone, forms the floor of the hall which is wainscoted to the height of about three feet. The fireplaces in parlour and dining-room are very hand- somely carved but the house as a whole does not contain much interior ornamentation.
Concerning the early history of Bloomingdale, C. Phillips Armstrong, who has spent much time in look- ing into the subject, has written as follows:
The farm bearing the name of Bloomingdale, halfway be- tween Wye Mills and Queenstown in Queen Anne's County, con- tains over 600 fertile acres. The original tract contained over 1,000 acres and was a grant to the old Seth family from Lord Baltimore and included what was known as Harris' Mill. The whole of this vast acreage remained the property of the Seth family of Talbot County for many years and at one time was
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BLOOMINGDALE Built in 1792
BLOOMINGDALE
known as Seth's Mills. In the early records of the State of Maryland and those of Queen Anne's County particularly, fre- quent reference is made to Seth's Mill, and the description there is such as to correspond unmistakably with what afterward came to be called Bloomingdale. Once owned by the late Edward Harris, Bloomingdale was inherited from him in 1835 by Misses Mary D. and Sallie Harris. Upon the death of the latter in. 1874, it went into the possession of Hon. S. Teackle Wallis, of Baltimore. In 1889 it was purchased by Hiram G. Dudley from John Mather Wallis, heir of S. Teackle Wallis.
The main structure was built in 1792, but the wing is much older, though it is not possible to set an exact date to its erection. Not far from the house is the slave quarter, a long, bare brick building which accommodated sixteen negro families, one family to each of the sixteen narrow windows.
The most brilliant part of Bloomingdale's life was that spent during the years when the Misses Harris were mistresses of it. Miss Sallie Harris, the elder sister, was a notable figure in the fashionable world of Balti- more, where the sisters as young ladies spent most of their winters, and when she retired to Bloomingdale after youth had passed she carried with her a devoted court of admirers. Miss Mary D. Harris was of shyer temperament than her sister and did not so greatly en- joy the social successes which filled her sister's life. They entertained generously and caused the old house to be filled with a gay and pleasant circle at all times.
Many stories are told of the Misses Harris by old
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residents of Queenstown. As you drive out to the house, your driver will tell you of how as a small boy he went to Bloomingdale, was taken into the house by Miss Harris, and given sweet cakes. There are many tales of kindnesses done by these two spinster ladies and there is also the pathetic recollection of how broken Miss Sallie Harris was by the death of her sister, who left her alone in the world through which they had voyaged together so bravely.
The paintings at Bloomingdale which were imported from the Old World in the stately Colonial days attracted great atten- tion from distinguished visitors and guests and one was given additional celebrity by being the subject of an animated con- troversy between the venerable Bishop Whittingham and a Catholic prelate. In one room, a little winter parlour, and a dreamer's paradise, were hung most of the family portraits, and here were pictures of the maiden sisters, made in the heyday of their youth and dressed alike in black velvet and pearls, but with only the outline of family resemblance between them. The name of the artist is not known but he gave to posterity the fair patrician faces of two of the rarest beauties of the day. The one looked down in the blue-eyed serenity of a household divinity ; the other with a shade of deeper thought or a trace of hauteur.
It is but fitting that Bloomingdale should have a ghost. The story was printed in one of Queen Anne County's newspapers in 1879 and told by an eyewitness. One night Miss Sally Harris and a guest, Mrs. Nancy De Courcy, had retired, when a rap was heard at the front door. Both ladies were alarmed, but Mrs. De Courcy accompanied the servant to the door and was
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SIDE PORCH AT BLOOMINGDALE
GARDEN ENTRANCE TO THE STEMMER HOUSE
BLOOMINGDALE
confronted by the apparition of William Sterrett, a deceased nephew of Miss Harris. The figure moved down the hall, beckoning to the frightened human beings to follow it, until it came to the door of the room in which it had been accustomed to sleep when in the flesh. Then, without pausing, it went through the door. When the terrified onlookers at last unlocked the door of this room, which had been kept closed for some time, nothing was to be found inside, yet the bed looked rumpled as if somebody had slept in it and just left it. Sterrett's ghost was never again seen, and a thorough search of the house on the night of his one visit failed to disclose anything that would give a reasonable explana- tion of the strange figure which the frightened women and the servant had seen.
After the death of Miss Sallie Harris, the old place was preserved in the style in which she had kept it by her nephew and heir, Severn Teackle Wallis, who lived the last years of his life here. A man of large means, Wallis spent most of his years in Baltimore where he is remembered for his large benefactions, and is memori- alized by a statue in Mount Vernon Place, the most beautiful section of that city. He left the estate at his death to his nephew, John Mather Wallis, from whom it was purchased in 1889 by Mr. Hiram G. Dudley, of Baltimore and Queen Anne's County, who has a country home at Hemsley Farm, not far from Bloomingdale.
MONTMORENCI BALTIMORE COUNTY, MARYLAND WORTHINGTON-CONRAD-LEHR
EAR the hamlet of Glyndon, o Baltimore County, Maryland, in the Worthington Valley, is to be found the old Worthington home- stead, Montmorenci, built about 1760 by Samuel Worthington who married Mary Tolley. From these two a long line with many branches has descended, and from this generous old home have gone forth many sturdy sons who have played conspicuous parts among their fellows. The house is finely situated on the crest of a hill in the centre of the thousand and more acres which remain to it of the vast tracts over which it lorded when it was young, and is as sound and weatherproof to-day as when it was new.
It is of stone and plaster construction, the walls being very thick and the foundations of a mass sufficient to support a battlemented tower. A winding road leads from the entrance of the grounds to the front of the house, and from the rear the ground falls sharply away to the Italian garden which the present mistress of the old home, Mrs. Mary Conrad Lehr, of Montmorenci and Washington, is devising at the foot of this declivity. The exterior of the house is plain, and there is a small
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MONTMORENCI, THE WORTHINGTON HOMESTEAD
THE WINDING STAIR
PARLOUR CORNER
BITS OF MONTMORENCI
MONTMORENCI
wing at the north end which contains the kitchen and pantries.
The interior arrangement of Montmorenci is like that of many another old Maryland home in that it has a broad hallway from front to back of the house, on which as an axis the other rooms are symmetrically dis- posed. The winding staircase, however, with its slender mahogany rail and its slim, patrician mahogany spokes, is a very graceful and unusual feature and is perhaps one of the mansion's greatest beauties.
In Montmorenci may be found a great quantity of rare old furniture which (as is not always the case) has found an appreciative mistress in the daughter of the house of this generation. It would be, perhaps, without interest to mention styles and periods well known or to attempt in any way a description of the furniture, but in each room of the house are to be found pieces to inter- est the lover of things colonial, and so great a quantity has Mrs. Lehr that she is able to furnish her new home in Washington from Montmorenci without seeming to have robbed that place.
Not far from Montmorenci is Bloomfield, another old Worthington place and built by a son of the builder of Montmorenci. It is a brick homestead and is dis- tinguished for the carving which graces the north wall of the living room on the interior. Though long a Worthington possession, it has been for a number of years the home of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Councilmann.
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The Worthington family has already received a brief summary in the chapter devoted to Belvoir, the beautiful mansion on the Severn in Anne Arundel County, Mary- land. The tombstone of the founder of the family in Maryland, Capt. John Worthington, is to be found in a vacant field not far from Annapolis and still in good preservation. From it we learn that Captain John died in 1701. His son, John, styled " Merchant " in his will (in which he disposes of a great fortune), married Helen Hammond, daughter of Thomas Hammond and his wife, Mary Heath, and had, among other children, Samuel Worthington, who married Mary Tolley, daughter of Walter Tolley, of Joppa, Baltimore County, Maryland, and built Montmorenci.
From Samuel Worthington the homestead descended through Edward, his son, to John Tolley Worthington, first, to John Tolley Worthington, second, his great- grandson, who married Mary Govane Hood, daughter of James Hood, of Hood's Mill, Baltimore County, Maryland. From him it descended to his daughter, Mrs. Sarah Worthington Conrad, now an invalid, whose daughter (who married Louis C. Lehr, Esq.) is the present mistress of Montmorenci.
BELVOIR ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY, MARYLAND ROSS-MAYNADIER-WORTHINGTON-POLUYANSKI
N Wyatt's Ridge, overlooking Round Bay, some half a dozen miles up the Severn River from the " Ancient City," Annapolis, is Belvoir, one of the most pictu- resque colonial homes in Mary- land. Belvoir is a brick building with a wide hallway and large, well-proportioned rooms, and was built by John Ross, Register of the Land Office of Maryland in colonial days. This John Ross was the father of Anne Arnold Ross, who married Francis Key, son of Philip Key, of St. Mary's County, and became in due course the great-grandfather of the immortal Francis Scott Key, author of our stirring national anthem, " The Star Spangled Banner." Young Francis Scott Key, who lived with his aunt and guardian, Mrs. Upton Scott, formerly Elizabeth Ross, in Annapolis, and was educated at St. John's College (the endowed William and Mary College of revolu- tionary times), spent many pleasant hours at Belvoir.
From the original owners Belvoir passed to Colonel Maynadier, of Old Windsor, Baltimore County, but it is with the name of Worthington, rather than Ross or Maynadier, that Belvoir is identified. Brice John Worthington, great-grandson of the famous Captain
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John who established the Worthingtons in Maryland, purchased Belvoir in the year 1760, from Colonel May- nadier, thereby extending his Summer Hill estate from Eagle's Nest Bay to South River, a distance of seven miles. The purchase price was $25,000, but that it was an excellent investment is evidenced from the fact that its new owner realized half that sum in the first year from tobacco alone.
Brice John Worthington was an enthusiastic fol- lower of the hounds, like many another of the landed gentry of the day, and it was while on a fox-hunting expedition as a guest of Colonel Maynadier that he met Anne Lee Fitzhugh, whom he subsequently married. He was a son of Nicholas Worthington, son of Thomas, son of Captain John and was fourth in line of descent to serve with distinction in the legislative halls at An- napolis. He was an ardent Federalist, and stood nobly by Samuel Chase, signer of the Declaration of Inde- pendence, and justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, at the time of the latter's impeachment for injudicious utterances from the bench.
The Worthington family is one of the most promi- nent in Maryland, and through marriage is connected with nearly every other family of distinction: Dorsey, Brice, Warfield, Hammond, Goldsborough, Contee, Ridgely, Howard, and Chew. The Worthingtons came to this country from England, where, according to Burke, the town of Worthington in the " Hundred of
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1.2.
ENTRANCE TO BELVOIR
BELVOIR
Leyland," near Liverpool, has been "in high repute from the time of the Plantagenets."
The first Worthington to settle in Maryland was Captain John, that famous old Indian fighter, in 1670. In 1686 Captain John purchased Greenbury Forest from Col. Nicholas Greenbury, and shortly thereafter married Sarah Howard, a daughter of Matthew Howard, his neighbour on the Severn River. In 1692 he was appointed Associate Justice of Anne Arundel County, and in 1699 was a member of the Legislative Assembly. At the time of his death in 1701 he owned, in addition to Greenbury Forest, a number of valuable tracts of land: Lowe's Addition, Howard's Pasture, Pendenny, and Expectation, and many nameless tracts aggregating a vast acreage. His tomb, an immense slab of gray marble, lies opposite the United States Naval Academy, just a few yards from the old home- stead. It is excellently preserved, and the inscription is quite legible :
Here Lieth Interred The Body Of Captain John Worthington, Who Departed This Life, April 9, 1701, Aged 51 years.
Belvoir continued in the possession of the Worthing- ton family until within recent years. The surviving children of Nicholas Brice Worthington are: Joseph Muse, Eugene, Mrs. Gordon Handy Claude (formerly
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Sophia Muse Worthington), and Rear-Admiral Walter Fitzhugh Worthington of the United States Navy, all of Annapolis.
The present owner is Reuben J. Poluyanski, who, by the generous application of brilliant pigments to the walls and woodwork, has made the " green," "yellow " and " blue " rooms of this beautiful old place quite unmistakable.
The mansion is situated on a high ridge and has a beautiful outlook over the blue waters of Round Bay, the head of the Severn River, which it faces. Archi- tecturally its design is that of a capital letter T, the head of the T being the front of the house and the post to- wards the river. At the base of the ridge on which Belvoir is situated and between the old house and the river, is the course of the Annapolis-Baltimore post- road, a very important avenue of travel one hundred years ago but now very rarely traversed.
The doorway of the house is situated about one-third off the middle of the front and is introduced by a very quaint portico with arched ceiling and pointed roof. The door contains a massive old knocker bearing the Worthington coat-of-arms.
When you enter the house, you are struck by the thickness of the walls. The house, being situated on such an exposed height, required even thicker walls than was the custom of the time in which it was erected. There is some very pretty wood-carving, particularly of
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BELVOIR, FROM THE SOUTH
BELVOIR
the mantels in the parlour and dining-room, but the house does not contain a great deal of ornamentation.
The brickwork of the walls is very solid, and the bricks are larger than ordinary. The foundation walls in the cellar are fully five feet thick, and in the cellar, also, is to be found a dungeon constructed by the original - owners for mischievous or unruly slaves. It is safe to assert that a taste of this hole's black recesses would cure any negro of propensity to violence.
That this means of correction was of little use to the Worthingtons, however, we may believe from the statement of Dr. Joseph Muse Worthington, a beloved physician of Annapolis, who was born at Belvoir and who says that in his recollection of his father he knew him only once to deal severely with a servant and that was when a negro woman attempted to kill one of her fellow-workers with a kitchen knife.
The garden of Belvoir lies to the front of the house and even in its desolation to-day shows the beauty that must have been its own when in perfection. It has the outlook over Round Bay that is one of the great charms of the house, and contains many shrubs and flowers which once on a time would have contented an observer near at hand, without his having to look to distance for beauty.
Not far from the garden but to the back of the house is an old barn, very interesting as showing how solidly our forefathers could build these adjuncts to life when
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they chose. Its walls are of brick half-way up and are almost as thick as those of the " big house " itself. One of its especial features is a heavy chimney with a space for an open fire at the bottom. The barn was used as a living room by the slaves of the plantation and, in accordance with the traditions of the place, must needs be comfortable for them as much as for the most honoured guest in the great house.
Not far away are the remains of the slave quarters themselves, which were solid log and mortar structures.
About half a mile from Belvoir, but on the Belvoir grounds, is the grave of Ann Arnold Key, grandmother of Francis Scott Key, composer of the national anthem, whose resting-place has been protected by the Maryland Chapter of the Colonial Dames of America by the placing around it of a heavy chain fence. The fence forms a little square with the insignificant stone which marks the grave as its centre. Standing about are great sycamore trees and tall grass covers the ground. It is a desolate scene, yet the simple action of the Colonial Dames has given a warm touch of humanity to it all.
PLAIN DEALING TALBOT COUNTY, MARYLAND
CHAMBERLAINE-LOCKERMAN-HARDCASTLE
EW old places in the State of Maryland can boast of finer tra- ditions than Plain Dealing, the- homestead of the Chamberlaine family. On Plain Dealing Creek the Indians were wont to trade with the Friends, exchanging pelts, deerskins and things of their manufacture for those things which the white men had brought from the Old World. As the Friends always dealt honestly with the Indians, the latter named the creek " Plain Deal- ing," and it is from the creek on which it is situated that the Chamberlaine homestead gets its name. A large stone now marks the spot at the edge of the water where the Indians traded with the white men. Plain Dealing is in Talbot County, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, across from the town of Oxford (settled in 1695) on the Tred Avon River, one of the most beautiful streams of the Eastern Shore.
Plain Dealing was deeded to the Chamberlaine family during the reign of Queen Anne. This was the first home of the Chamberlaines in America, and was built in 1753 by Samuel Chamberlaine, who was born at Saughall on the Dee, England, in 1697. His father, Thomas Chamberlaine, and his uncle John had for many
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years engaged in trade with the colonies in America, and owned many ships plying between Liverpool, England, and Oxford, Maryland. Coming to the New World in one of these ships, Thomas, in 1714, decided to settle at Oxford. The family derives its name from John, Count de Tankerville, Lord Chamberlain to Henry I, of England, in the early part of the twelfth century. Richard, son of John, succeeded to his father's posses- sion in the royal household, and assumed the patronymic of Chamberlain, but retained the Tankerville coat-of- arms. In 1735, Samuel moved from Oxford to Plain Dealing. At that time he was one of the richest men in the county, owning thousands of fertile acres. For many years he was a member of the Lord Proprietor's Council, Deputy Naval Officer of Pocomoke and Ox- ford, and Collector of the Port of Oxford, to which latter position his son Thomas in due course succeeded.
There is a tradition at Plain Dealing of how Susan Robins of Peach Blossoms married Thomas Chamber- laine, eldest son of Samuel and Henrietta Maria Chamberlaine, and was taken to his lovely home on Plain Dealing Creek. Soon after their marriage the husband died, and for seven years his disconsolate widow sat at a window in her room gazing out upon the grave of her husband in the nearby burying ground. Rumor has it that at night she had a lantern placed upon the grave that her eyes might still rest upon the sacred
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PLAIN DEALING
spot. For seven years the widow refused to be com- forted, and then one day she saw her handsome cousin, Robert Lloyd Nichols, ride past the window at which she sat. Their eyes met, her sorrow vanished, and the beautiful widow shortly afterwards married her dashing young cousin who had ridden between her and the - grave of the husband whom she mourned.
In the old graveyard, now overrun with weeds and bushes, are two large marble slabs, on which the Chamberlaine coat-of-arms is beautifully engraved. One of these marks the grave of Col. Thomas Chamberlaine, whose widow so faithfully kept vigil over his grave during seven long, weary years. The second marks the grave of Henrietta Maria Chamberlaine, wife of Samuel Chamberlaine and eldest daughter of Col. James Lloyd of Talbot County. "She departed this life on the 29th day of March, 1749, aged 37 years, 2 months and 3 days."
Near this historic old graveyard is a large depression in the earth, concerning which there is a story well known to the residents of the Eastern Shore. According to this story, some three-quarters of a century ago Plain Dealing was occupied by two brothers of the name of Valliant. One night one of the brothers had a dream that beneath the spot referred to there was gold buried. The following day the two brothers started to dig. At the sight of the gold which they actually found one of
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