USA > Delaware > Colonial mansions of Maryland and Delaware > Part 16
USA > Maryland > Colonial mansions of Maryland and Delaware > Part 16
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17
Entering the dining-room adjoining, we see a most exquisite old Chippendale table. Our attention will also be attracted by two Sheraton chairs which belonged
268
1
THE RIDGELY HOUSE
RIDGELY HOUSE
to Captain Jones, Commander of the Wasp during the War of 1812; an Adam sideboard which through its history brings you into touch with the Lloyd family of Maryland; two chairs which were brought over to this country from England by Thomas Fisher in the Wel- come with William Penn; and a rich hoard of old china and silverware, which includes the famous Ridgely" silver tea service.
In the hall, where we started our journey through the home, is an old Ridgely clock, a grandfatherly relic, still keeping inexorable count of the seconds. The staircase which we have before noted at the back of the hall leads to a beautifully cool and airy second floor. Perhaps this coolness is partly explained by the fact that the house has two roofs (as we are shown in the attic), one roof having been placed above the other many years ago when the first was beginning to give evidence of its struggle with the elements.
The garden of the Ridgely house is one of its most attractive features, yet one that is somewhat discounted to-day by the fact that a hotel has been built on an ad- joining property and with its high walls overshadows the quiet gravelled walks and cool box-bushes where the Ridgelys for generations have loved to linger in sultry hours.
After all, however, it is not so much the house that speaks to the visitor as the successive generations of human beings who have given it character. The
269
COLONIAL MANSIONS OF DELAWARE
Ridgelys of Delaware, like many other old families of this part of the Union, came to the State from England by way of Maryland. The first Ridgely of whom we have record in the colonies is the Honorable Henry Ridgely, of Annapolis, Maryland, who came from Devonshire, England, in 1659. Just where this Henry Ridgely lived at first we do not know, but he acquired grants of land aggregating nearly six thousand acres, and his eldest son Henry's home was Wardridge, about four miles from Annapolis. Henry Ridgely, the second, married Katherine Greenbury, and his sister married Charles Greenbury, for whose father, Nicholas Greenbury (the first of the name in this country), Greenbury Point, one of the two arms of Annapolis harbour, is named.
Henry Ridgely, the second, was born October 3, 1669, and died March 19, 1699. He had five children -- Henry, the third, Nicholas, Charles, Ann, and Eliza- beth. Of these Nicholas, born at Wardridge, February 12, 1694, removed to Delaware in 1732, and became the progenitor of the distinguished connection with which we have now to do.
The Ridgely family is conspicuous in both Mary- land and Delaware.
The first of the name in Delaware settled at Duck Creek Town and went thence to Dover where he spent the remainder of his life, with the exception of about two years passed shortly after his wedding to Mary
270
RIDGELY HOUSE
Middleton Vining in Salem, New Jersey, his wife's home. He was three times married; first, to Sarah, daughter of Col. John Worthington, of Annapolis, Maryland, a distinguished colonial official; after her death in 1721, at the conclusion of ten years of wedded life, he married, December 5, 1723, Ann, daughter of Robert French, of New Castle, Delaware, his second wife dying November 21, 1733; third, he married, December 23, 1736, Mary, daughter of Hugh Middle- ton, of Salem County, New Jersey, widow of Capt. Benjamin Vining, who survived him. His home place was Eden Hill, about a mile from Dover. He died at home February 16, 1755, and was laid to rest in Christ Church graveyard, Dover, where his tombstone is in good preservation.
At different times in his life Nicholas Ridgely was Treasurer of Kent County and Judge of the Supreme Court of Delaware, and .in 1745 was selected to be the guardian of Cæsar Rodney, so conspicuous later in the revolutionary stir, in whom his papers show his great interest and affection.
It is difficult to form a definite conception of the character of Nicholas Ridgely with such slight material to work with after so many years, yet it has been well said that his spirit memorialized itself in three of the most brilliant figures in the history of Delaware-Cæsar Rodney, his ward; United States Senator Charles Ridgely, his son; and John Vining, his step-grandson.
271
COLONIAL MANSIONS OF DELAWARE
There are many traditions of the beauty and good- ness of Mary Middleton, who was Nicholas Ridgely's third wife. When her first husband was dying he said to her: "I know that you will marry, but you will promise me to make over to our children all of your large estate which you inherited from your father." This promise she gave and kept.
John Vining, one of her children by this marriage, became the first chief justice of the three lower counties, and his daughter Mary was a celebrated belle of revo- lutionary times.
Of the union of Mary Middleton Vining and Nicholas Ridgely was born Charles Greenbury Ridgely, the first Ridgely occupant of the house in Dover which bears the family name.
Charles Greenbury Ridgely was born at Salem, New Jersey, January 26, 1738, and was educated for the practice of medicine in Philadelphia, under the tui- tion of Dr. Phineas Bond, who afterwards became his brother-in-law, each having married a daughter of Wil- liam Moore, of Moore Hall, Pennsylvania. After his graduation from school he took up his residence at his father's home, Eden Hill, near Dover, but his father wishing him to have a larger practice purchased him a home in Dover, the house, substantially unchanged to- day, which we have visited. Concerning the prior his- tory of the house let us consult John Thomas Scharf's invaluable " History of Delaware." Scharf writes:
272
RIDGELY HOUSE, FROM THE GARDEN
RIDGELY HOUSE
Mention is made in the deed of Thomas Tarrant of the lot designed for William Hamilton as adjoining his lot on the west. It was not taken by Hamilton, but was sold prior to 1729 to Thomas Parke, who resided there in that year. In the deed of January 30, 1730, to William Rodney he states that the deed from the Commissioners was never recorded. Errors were made in this document which were corrected in the deed of November 2, 1731. In the meantime Rodney sold it, August 17, 1731, to Thomas Skidmore, inn-keeper. A portion of the lot had been reserved, whereon the widow of Thomas Parke lived in 1735.
-
John Brinckloe, on May 30, 1735, by an article of agree- ment became owner of this lot, which was not conveyed by deed during the lifetime of Skidmore. After Skidmore's death, May 14, 1760, Daniel Robinson, as administrator of the estate, gave deed to John Brinckloe for the property, who, on the 28th of August, 1760, sold it to Nicholas Lookerman, who, on May 23, 1769, conveyed it to Charles Ridgely, by whose descendants it is still owned. The lot lies east of the Capitol Hotel, and the old house upon it, long known as the Ridgely House, is probably the oldest in Dover. A brick in the building bears the date 1728. Thomas Parke owned the lot at that time, and stated in 1730 that he lived there at that date. The original house contained but two rooms, and was added to on the west end and the rear to its present size by the Ridgelys.
During the troublous days which preceded the Revolution, Charles Greenbury Ridgely was an ardent worker in the cause of the colonies, and was a member of the State Assemblies of 1766, 1767, 1768, 1773, 1774 and 1776. He believed in separation from Great Britain, and was a member of the Constitutional Con- vention of Delaware, of 1776.
He married first, June 11, 1761, Mary, daughter of
18
273
COLONIAL MANSIONS OF DELAWARE
Abraham Wynhoop, by whom he had three sons: Abraham, Charles, and Nicholas. Nicholas became Chancellor of Delaware, and is known to-day as the "Father of Chancery " in Delaware. The Chippen- dale table in the dining-room of the Ridgely House was purchased by him.
Dr. Ridgely's second wife was Ann, daughter of William Moore, of Moore Hall, Pennsylvania, by whom he had five children: Henry Moore, George Wemyss, Mary, Ann, and Wilhelmina. He died November 25, 1785; his wife, December 20, 1810. She was noted for her fine intellectual attainments.
A delightful circle made the Ridgely House its headquarters during the lifetime of Dr. Charles Ridgely, when perhaps the old home knew its most brilliant moments. Conspicuous among those who were everyday figures in its halls was Cæsar Rodney, one of Delaware's most famous sons, whose guardian Nicholas Ridgely was. Incidentally, the old Cæsar Rodney home- stead, a sturdy relic of pre-revolutionary building, is still in preservation, about seven miles from Dover, near Delaware Bay.
Concerning the ancestry of Cæsar Rodney we are told in an oration delivered by Honourable Thomas F. Bayard, in 1889, upon the occasion of the unveiling of the Rodney monument in Dover, that-
William Rodney married Alice, the daughter of Sir Thomas Cæsar, an eminent merchant of the city of London, and his son
274
RIDGELY HOUSE
William died near Dover, Delaware, in the year 1708, leaving eight children and a considerable landed estate which was en- tailed and by the decease of the elder sons finally vested in his youngest son, Cæsar, who continued his residence as a landed proprietor in Delaware until his death in 1745. Cæsar Rodney, the eldest son of Cæsar and grandson of William Rodney, was born in St. Jones' Neck, near Dover, Kent County, Delaware, in the year 1728.
Mr. Ridgely caused his ward to be instructed in the classics and general literature and in the accomplishments of fencing and dancing, to fit his bearing and manners becomingly to the station of life in which he was born.
We have a picture of the young man preserved in the letters of Thomas Rodney, his brother: "He was about five feet, ten inches high. His person was very elegant and genteel, his manners graceful, easy and polite. He had a good fund of humour and the happiest talent in the world for making his wit agreeable." Which last, George Meredith might have added a whole para- graph to his definition to tell us, is the finest flower of " wisdom's lightning."
From the pen of this same felicitous Rodney we have a good description of the life of the times:
Almost every family manufactured its own clothes ; and beef, pork, poultry, milk, butter, cheese, wheat and Indian corn were raised for food; cider, small beer and peach and apple brandy were for drink. The best families in the county seldom used tea, coffee, chocolate or sugar, and honey was their sweetening. . They seemed to live as it were in concord, for they con- stantly associated together at one house or another in consider- able numbers to play and frolic, at which times the young people
275
COLONIAL MANSIONS OF DELAWARE
would dance and the elder ones wrestle, run, hop, or jump, or throw the disc, or play at some rustic and manly exercises.
On Christmas Eve there was a universal firing of guns, travelling round from house to house, during the holiday, and all winter long there was a continual frolic, shooting-matches, twelfth-cake, and so on. .
In this lively atmosphere Cæsar Rodney grew up to be a beloved and respected figure. Political honours were showered upon him; when barely thirty years of age he was high sheriff of his native county of Kent and two years later a judge of the lower courts. In 1765 he entered upon that which was to be the absorbing passion of his life by being elected a member of the "Stamp Act Congress," which convened in New York City in that year. As a member of the Delaware Legislature, in 1766, he threw all of his influence into an effort to stop the importation of slaves into the state.
It was while life seemed to have opened most fully before him and the skies were clearest that the shadow of calamity fell upon him. When about forty years of age he discovered the presence of a malady of the nose, which, on examination by Doctor Bond, of Phila- delphia, was diagnosed as cancer, and he put himself in the hands of this physician for treatment. Even at this writing there is no certain resource for the cure of this dreadful affliction. The use of the surgeon's knife was then, as now, the only palliative, so the tortured man submitted to operation after operation through the rest of his life without gaining permanent relief.
276
RIDGELY HOUSE
In 1769 he was Speaker of the Colonial Assembly, and in 1774 and 1776 was a deputy to the Continental Congress called to order in Philadelphia. Mr. Bayard says of him at this time:
He was a man of action in an era of action ; born not out of his proper time, but in it, and being fitted for the hour and its work, he did it well. He was recognized and naturally at once became influential and impressive-distinguished for the qualities which were needed in the days in which he lived on earth. Moved by patriotic impulse, he had counselled the election of Washing- ton as commander-in-chief of the colonial forces, and from the beginning to the end of the conflict sought to hold up his hands and sustain him at all times and in all ways.
Perhaps the most heroic exploit of Cæsar Rodney's life was his dramatic ride from the extreme southern end of Delaware to Philadelphia to be in time to break the tie vote which kept his state from joining her sisters in making the Declaration of Independence the unani- mous expression of the United Colonies of America in Congress assembled. Richard Henry Lee's immortal resolution was offered on June 7, and was passed in secret session by six out of seven states on June 8. Rodney was at home working with his people to strengthen the cause of liberty. Thomas Mckean voted for the resolution, and George Read voted against it. At a second ballot on July 1, nine colonies favored the motion, two were against it, and Delaware was neutral as before. McKean sent a messenger in search of Rodney with instructions to bid him make all haste
277
COLONIAL MANSIONS OF DELAWARE
to be at the Assembly on July 4, when a final ballot was to be taken. In his address before mentioned, Mr. Bayard expresses the opinion that Rodney was at one of his farms, but writings preserved by the Ridgely family seem to point to a different conclusion. They say:
A celebrity of Lewes, the old seaport of Delaware, was Sarah Rowland, who according to tradition almost prevented the Declaration of Independence from having the necessary number of signers.
She was a beautiful Tory, for in the first years of the Revolutionary War there were many friends of England in the lower part of this peninsula. The news of a Tory uprising in Sussex County and Maryland reaching Cæsar Rodney, who was attending the delegates' convention in Philadelphia, he imme- diately mounted his horse and went thundering down the state, using threats and persuasion all along the road. While at Lewes, the beautiful Sarah so infatuated him by her charms that he lingered longer than his business required, and was only aroused to a sense of his delinquencies when he was presented by a loyal servant-girl in the Rowland household with a number of letters which had been intercepted by his enchantress. Then it was that he made his famous ride to Philadelphia.
All one hot July day, Rodney, then in broken health, rode through Delaware and lower Pennsylvania. On the morning of July 4, he appeared at the State House door in his boots and spurs as the members were assembling. When the call came for the vote of Dela- ware, he arose composedly, and said:
" As I believe the voice of my constituents and of all
278
RIDGELY HOUSE
sensible and honest men is in favor of independence, my own judgment concurs with them. I vote for independence."
He lived to see peace established by a definite treaty (signed in 1783), and died in June, 1784, the victim of the malady which had broken the happiness of the last sixteen years of his life.
Though we find Rodney at the home of the fascinat- ing Sarah Rowland on the eve of his immortal ride, the romance of his life is bound up with the name of Mary Vining, of Dover, afterwards Mrs. Charles Ingles. There is preserved to the present day and copied in the American Historical Register, of July, 1895, a letter from Rodney to Miss Vining in his own hand, which gives the secret of his heart, as follows:
Yesterday evening (by Mr. Chew's Tom) I had the un- welcome and unexpected news of your determining to go to Philadelphia with Mr. and Misses Chew. If you remember, as we were riding to Noyontown Fair, you talked of taking this journey and mentioned my going with you; you know how readily I (the letter is torn here) . . . and how willing in this as in everything else I was to oblige and serve you. . . . When I was last down, you seemed to have given over all thoughts of going. This determined me and accordingly gave Mr. Chew for answer that he might not expect me with him; thereby I'm deprived of the greatest pleasure this world could possibly afford me-the company of that lady in whom all happiness is placed. . Molly, I love you from my soul! In this believe me I'm . sincere and honest; but when I think of the many amiable qualifications you are possessed of, all my hopes are at an end ---
279
COLONIAL MANSIONS OF DELAWARE
nevertheless intended (torn) . . . down this week and as far as possible to have known my fate. . . . You may expect to see me at your return. Till then, God bless you. I'm Yrs.,
The " Mr. Chew" mentioned here is that Judge Chew, of Delaware, known as the "fighting Quaker," who afterwards removed to Germantown, Pennsyl- vania, and built the colonial mansion, still standing, known as Cliveden. Of him there is the following couplet :
Immortal Chew first set our Quakers right; He made it plain they might resist and fight; And the gravest Dons agreed to what he said, And freely gave their cast for the King's aid, For war successful, and for peace and trade.
The Mary Vining who was so ardently beloved by Rodney married Charles Ingles, a clergyman, and died shortly after her wedding. She was aunt to a younger Mary Vining, daughter of her brother John, and grand- daughter of Nicholas Ridgely's third wife, Mary Middleton Vining, who was destined to create far wider havoc in men's hearts. This was that belle of the revo- lutionary period, the fame of whose beauty and clever- ness aroused even Marie Antoinette's curiosity in far France. A charmingly written memoir of her life by Mrs. Henry Geddes Banning, a descendant of Thomas Rodney, Cæsar Rodney's brother and executor, has appeared in the American Historical Register.
She tells us:
280
PARLOUR CORNER IN RIDGELY HOUSE The painting shown is that of Mary Middleton Vining
RIDGELY HOUSE
Thomas Jefferson when minister plenipotentiary to France, was proud to assure the lovely young Queen of France that the extravagant admiration of the Delaware belle by the French officers which had reached her ears was no exaggeration, for the American lady was worthy of it all. Marie Antoinette replied that she would be glad to see her at the Tuileries.
Her birth is thus recorded in the Vining family Bible:
Mary Vining, the daughter of Chief Justice John Vining and Phobe Wynhoop, was born at his house near Dover, on Saturday, the 20th day of August, 1756, at four of the clock, in the morn- ing, in the presence of Robana Powell (midwife), Mrs. Mary Wynhoop, and Mrs. Mary Ridgely, and was christened on the 5th day of September following by the Rev. Hugh Niel, missionary for Dover in Kent County.
She was born to great wealth, and could and did indulge herself in many caprices of a luxurious imagina- tion. Never to be seen walking on the street, but in- variably riding, was one of her amiable affectations until financial reverses caused an upset in this, as in other arrangements of life. Another of her fancies was to partly conceal her face with a fan or veil. In old age she wore a ruffle on her cap that reached her eye- brows and completely covered her cheeks.
There is but one portrait of Mary Vining in exist- ence, a miniature, now preserved in the Ridgely House, and this hardly seems to do her justice. Perfectly fashioned, vivacious, with beautiful eyes, and with the personal magnetism for which her family was con-
281
COLONIAL MANSIONS OF DELAWARE
spicuous, it is not hard to understand her vogue. Of this, an instance: When the British evacuated Phila- delphia in 1778, an officer ran the risk of court-martial for absence without leave to make the hazardous journey to Wilmington to see Mary Vining and persuade her to cancel her previous rejection of his love. In one way he was lucky, as his escapade remained undiscovered, but in another way he was not, for his charmer's heart remained undisturbed.
Among the distinguished men who were her guests at her home in Wilmington were the Duke de Lian- court, the Duke d'Orleans, and the late king of the French, Louis Philippe. She numbered General Lafayette among her friends, and corresponded with him until her death.
The romance of Miss Vining's life is connected with the name of "Mad Anthony " Wayne, who stormed Stony Point instead of Hell! After surviving the sieges of the most polished and brilliant men who came to the New World, our beauty at last succumbed to the fascinations of this rough son of Mars. The engage- ment excited great comment in the circle in which she moved. In a letter, still extant, written by Mrs. Cad- walader (widow of the revolutionary general) and addressed to her aunt, Mrs. Charles Ridgely (née Moore), a paragraph reads: "Is it true Miss Vining is engaged to General Wayne? Can one so refined
282
RIDGELY HOUSE
marry this coarse soldier? True, he is brave, wonder- fully brave, and none but the brave deserve the fair."
Preparations for the wedding were being merrily made, and Miss Vining had bought silver for house- keeping when news of the death of her fiance at Presque Isle, Lake Erie, December 15, 1796, was heralded. Mrs. Cadwalader writes: "Miss Vining has put on mourning and retired from the world in conse- quence of General Wayne's death."
Among the gifts which General Wayne gave his fiancée in thought of their approaching felicity was a set of china. Miss Vining could never bring herself to use it after his death, and it is now preserved entire in the Ridgely House, a pathetic and beautiful memorial of this beautiful, socially brilliant woman and her virile soldier lover.
When Cæsar Rodney (the signer) was elected Governor of Delaware in 1777 or 1778, he took a house in Wilmington, and asked Miss Vining, his young cousin, to preside at his table. (The location of this house was at 606 Market Street.) There is suggestion of romance here-at last, one of the name became mistress of his house! Here she entertained the promi- nent men of the day as her cousin's guests. In the cellar of the house Lafayette stored little casks of gold wherewith to pay his troopers and help the cause of freedom.
After the death of General Wayne, Miss Vining
283
COLONIAL MANSIONS OF DELAWARE
never again ventured into society, though she lived twenty-five years longer, and she but once left the seclu- sion of her home in Wilmington to go to another city. This was when in the winter of 1808 or 1809, she spent two weeks in Philadelphia at the house of C. A. Rodney, Esq., nephew of the signer. Once again, then, she conversed with her friends, and it is recorded that her manners, if subdued, retained their charm and her talk still shone as of old. As the years rolled by, she be- came sensitive to the inroads of time, and received her family and the very few intimate friends she retained in a darkened room. Her abundant brown hair never turned gray. When the cap, without which she was never to be seen, was removed after her death, a high, white, very smooth forehead was revealed. She died in 1821, and was laid to rest on Good Friday, almost all of Wilmington attending the simple burial services.
'After Miss Vining's death, her only surviving nephew, William Henry Vining, took charge of her papers, packed them securely, and placed them for safe keeping in the garret of his aunt, Mrs. Ogden, of Wilmington. Some years later Mrs. Ogden's home was attacked by fire, and these papers, among which was a manuscript history of the Revolutionary War on which Miss Vining had spent her declining years, were completely destroyed. William Henry Vining died without issue, and was the last of his name and race. About fifty years ago, the tombstones of the
284
RIDGELY HOUSE
Vining family in the Episcopal churchyard in Dover were stolen by vandals and pounded into dust to make mortar, as if-Mrs. Banning calls to our attention- fate were determined to obliterate the very name off the earth.
Henry Moore Ridgely, son of Charles Greenway Ridgely's second marriage, and second Ridgely master of the Ridgely House, was born August 6, 1779, in the house in which he died, graduated at Dickinson College, and studied law with his relative, Charles Smith, of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He returned to Dover to practise his profession, and about the time he was ad- mitted to the bar became involved in a duel, which nearly resulted in his losing his life. Dr. Barrett, of Dover, had been grossly insulted by a Mr. Shields, of Wilmington, and, in accordance with the spirit of the times, sought redress for the injury to his dignity through the code, and desiring a second, asked Ridgely to serve, which the latter agreed to do. Shields refused to meet Dr. Barrett, but challenged Ridgely instead. The latter fought the duel, was severely wounded, and for a time it was thought that he could not live, though eventually he regained full strength after a long and painful prostration. Public feeling was so much aroused against Shields that he was obliged to leave Wilmington, never to return.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.