USA > Delaware > Colonial mansions of Maryland and Delaware > Part 7
USA > Maryland > Colonial mansions of Maryland and Delaware > Part 7
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
Richard Snowden, the third, son of Richard, the second, married first, in 1709, Eliza, daughter of Wil- liam and Eliza Coale, and four years after her death, in 1713, married, second, Elizabeth, daughter of Samuel and Mary Hutchins Thomas. He lived at Birmingham and, following the lines his father had laid down, be- came one of the most influential and affluent men of his generation. At his death, 1763, he was sole owner of the ironworks his father established and was building a new forge not far from the old one on the Patuxent.
Mr. Julius Snowden, a direct descendant of this Richard, who lives in a home he has built on the site of old Birmingham, found a chimney-back near the river on the site of one of these foundries which is a very curious object. It bears the date 1738 in old-fashioned
101
COLONIAL MANSIONS OF MARYLAND
numerals and, in script equally quaint, on a line below, the word "Potuxon." Beneath this line is a third bearing a capital " O " intertwined with a heart, though just what this means no one has been able to assert; possibly a trade-mark used by the builder of the foundries.
The children of Richard Snowden, the third, by his first wife were: Deborah, who married James Brooke, of Sandy Spring, Maryland-ancestor of Dr. James Brooke, of Sandy Spring; Eliza, who married John Thomas; and Mary, who married Samuel Thomas. By his second wife, his children were: Richard Thomas, who married Mary Wright and was the father of Major Thomas Snowden, of Montpelier, and grandfather of Richard Snowden of Oaklands; Ann, who married Henry Wright Crabbe; Margaret; Samuel, who married Elizabeth, daughter of Philip and Ann Chew Thomas, and who built the quaint old homestead now occupied by Mr. Jeremiah McCawley and wife; Elizabeth, who married Joseph Cowman, descendants of whom are in Baltimore; and John, who inherited Birmingham.
John Snowden was the youngest child and seems to have been his parents' favorite, for in his father's will, drawn shortly before his death in 1763, it was specified that he should stay at home so as to keep his mother company and that if he should marry and wish to have a home of his own, he should be given land near the manor-house, which at his mother's death he was to
102
OAKLANDS
inherit, and to be allowed to erect a small house at the expense of the estate. He did build for himself before his mother's death, though he did not marry until late in life, and the little frame building which he caused to be put up-built in the substantial fashion of even the smallest homes of that day-is still standing near the site of Birmingham after that stately pile has been vanquished by the elements. He did not marry until forty years old, and this fact, coupled with his being the youngest of a large family, makes his descendants almost two generations nearer the founder of the family than descendants of any other branch. He married Rachel, daughter of Gerard and Mary Hall Hopkins, and had seven children, only two of whom had issue. These were Rachel, who married Judge John S. Tyson; and Rezin Hammond Snowden, the youngest son, born in 1796, who inherited Birmingham, and married, in 1829, Margaret, daughter of John McFadon, a rich merchant of Baltimore, who left an estate largely in- vested in Baltimore city property.
Rezin Hammond Snowden, who lived at Birming- ham, died in 1858, leaving seven children, of whom Maria Louise, born in 1843, married Professor Alfred M. Mayer, the distinguished scientist and has children living in Brooklyn, New York; John, the eldest son, married Sarah E. Hopkins, and had a son John who lives at Snowden Hall, near Laurel, Maryland, and a daughter, Mrs. Charles H. Stanley of Laurel; William,
103
COLONIAL MANSIONS OF MARYLAND
inheritor of Birmingham, married Adelaide, daughter of Dr. Gustavus Warfield, of Howard County, Maryland.
Birmingham never went out of the line of the family. Julius, son of William, and inheritor of the estate, has built on the site of the old manor-house and lives in this new home with his family which consists of his wife (who was Miss Estell Bird) and her sister, Miss Anna C. Bird.
To retrace a few steps in Snowden genealogy, Thomas Snowden, of Montpelier, father of Major Thomas, and son of Richard, the third of the name, had a son Richard who built Fairlands, the last of the old Snowden homes that we shall record, now occupied by Dr. Leonard Robert Coates, originally of Coatesville, Pennsylvania, and of the family which gave that place its name, who married Miss Boarman, daughter of the previous owner. He has three children: Roberta, who, in 1910, married W. W. Easterday, of Washington, D. C .; Robert Boarman and Dorothy Wetherill, aged sixteen. The builder of Fairlands died shortly after his marriage and was soon followed to the grave by his wife, who was Elizabeth Rutland. Their orphan daughter, Mary, was brought up at her uncle's home, Montpelier, and because of the large estate in her own right was considered a great catch in marriage. She married John Chew Thomas, of Leiperville, Pennsyl- vania, brother of Evan William Thomas, the then owner of Whitby Hall, Philadelphia.
BURLEIGH HOWARD COUNTY, MARYLAND HAMMOND
URLEIGH, the old Hammond place in Howard County, Mary- land, is not far from Doughore- gan Manor, which it surpasses in grace and beauty of interior decoration, but to which it is much inferior in size and venerability of aspect. It is situated about five miles from Ellicott City, the thriv- ing little county-seat of Howard County, and is ap- proached by the famous old national highway, Frederick Pike, once the national highway. The estate of which it is the seat comprises one thousand acres of fine, fer- tile farming land in this most productive of Mary- land's counties, and the entire property is now the home of Mrs. Mary Hanson Hammond, widow of the late Col. Matthias Hammond, a lineal descendant of the founder, and her daughter, Mrs. Richard Craigh Hammond.
The approach to the house is through a tree-lined avenue which ends in a circle before the front door, and a white bar fence encircles the home lot. The house, itself, consists of a square central building with one wing. The entrance is distinguished with a porch and the doorway is very exquisitely carved. A broad hallway
105
COLONIAL MANSIONS OF MARYLAND
leads from front to rear of the house, and the staircase begins its ascent at the back of the hall.
One of the great beauties of the house is the garden doorway at the end of the main hall. It is an arched doorway with a fanlight over the central portion and the two long narrow windows which flank this part. The structural wooden details are beautifully carved in the decorative design which is carried out through the house.
The beauty of the interior carving of Burleigh attracts many visitors, and it is of unusual character in the originality of the design and in the great delicacy and precision of workmanship manifested in its execu- tion. On mantels, doorways and every available space for decoration this lace-work of cut wood extends.
The garden of Burleigh is not so beautiful now as it was during its late master's lifetime or during the lives of those who lived in the old home before him, as the widowed ladies who now form the household are not so well able to have these details looked after but it is still a very delightful place, especially when a westerly sun throws long shadows through its walks and touches the delicate carving of the old garden doorway with mellow, warm splotches of golden light.
A feature of the grounds of Burleigh which lends much to its romantic atmosphere is the old slaves' quarters a little distance from the house. Great beetle-
106
BURLEIGH c. 1760
BURLEIGH
backed barns and stone buildings make up the out- buildings of the homestead.
Burleigh was built by Col. Rezin Hammond, a revolutionary character-one of the Committee of Safety of Annapolis in pre-revolutionary days-for his nephew, Denton Hammond, son of "Brother Philip." It is said that this Rezin Hammond observed his brother's large family and told him not to worry about the future of at least one of his sons-that he, Rezin, would provide for him; and, being a bachelor and very well endowed with this world's goods, too, there is no doubt that he could afford to do so. Denton was the son who was the recipient of his favors. The estate thus created has not been divided since it became Denton's home.
The family with which this old place is associated has left its imprint in many parts of Maryland and springs from Maj .- Gen. John Hammond, a Royalist commander, who died in Annapolis in 1707. He was a great-nephew of Henry Hammond, D.D., chaplain to Charles I, of England, and great-grandson of John Hammond, M.D., physician to James I. At his death he left a sum of money to St. Ann's Church, Annapolis, and this sum was used to purchase a big, brass-bound Bible which is one of the cherished relics of that church to-day. His tombstone lies in St. Ann's churchyard, though his body was laid to rest on his estate north of Annapolis beside the waters of the Severn. Mr. John
107
COLONIAL MANSIONS OF MARYLAND
Wesley Brown, of Howard County and Baltimore, a son of Mrs. Matilda Ridgely Hammond Brown, has in his possession a tankard which belonged to Maj .- Gen. John Hammond, his ancestor, and, in addi- tion, a brass-bound book of sermons by Reverend Henry Hammond, chaplain to Charles I, which belonged to Maj .- Gen. John.
The children of Maj .- Gen. John Hammond were four-Thomas, John, William, Charles-forming an extensive line of descent. Charles married his cousin, Hannah Howard, and had five sons-Charles, Philip, John, Rezin, and Nathaniel,-and three daughters, Hammutell, Ruth and Hannah. He died in 1713. Philip, of Charles, married Rachel Brice and died in 1760. Charles, of Philip and Rachel Brice, died in 1777, one of the largest owners of land in Maryland, holding large tracts in Anne Arundel, Frederick and the present Howard County. His son, Colonel Rezin, we have already become acquainted with.
Philip Hammond, father of Denton Hammond, beneficiary of his uncle Col. Rezin Hammond, married Elizabeth Wright, daughter of Thomas and Mary Wright, and died in 1822, leaving seventeen children, including this Denton.
Denton Hammond married Sarah Hall Baldwin, daughter of Capt. Henry Baldwin, of Anne Arundel County, and Sarah Hall, his wife, and had three chil- dren who grew up at Burleigh and made its halls ring
108
GARDEN ENTRANCE TO BURLEIGH
BURLEIGH
with their shouts and laughter. Elizabeth, one of these children, married Richard Cromwell, and settled near Burleigh. Camilla, the other daughter, married Dr. Thomas Herbert, and became the mother of the late Gen. James G. Herbert, C. S. A., a man distinguished in many ways in his day, and whose daughter, Mrs. Carlyle Herbert Hooff, is the present-day mistress of Oaklands, another old homestead of Maryland. Col. Matthias Hammond was the third of these children and the last male occupant of Burleigh, of the name. He married Mary Hanson, of Anne Arundel County, and had one child, a daughter, who married her cousin, Richard Craigh Hammond, whom she survives.
There have been many brilliant entertainments at Burleigh, and its tradition of fine hospitality was well maintained by its last master, Col. Matthias Hammond. He was a man of great scholarship, a fluent writer, and a linguist of distinction. Yet he did not occupy himself entirely with his books but found distraction in the society of his fellows, and was host to many a gay and congenial gathering of neighbors and friends.
In Burleigh is a great quantity of rare and beautiful old furniture and china, as well as the extensive library with which Col. Matthias Hammond busied himself, and a visit to it now in its quiet elder days is a delightful excursion into the atmosphere of leisure and dignity which seemed to be a peculiar possession of the genera- tion that passed a hundred years ago.
DOUGHOREGAN MANOR HOWARD COUNTY, MARYLAND (CARROLL MANSION, ANNAPOLIS; HOMEWOOD, BROOKLANDWOOD; CARROLL PARK HOUSE, BALTIMORE) CARROLL
OUGHOREGAN MANOR, the centre of the historic estate from which it takes its name, is the strongest link in the chain which binds Maryland to its colonial past. The home of Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, the longest-lived of the signers of the Declaration, and of many figures notable in the history of the nation and the state, it has for two centuries and more been the seat of one of the most dis- tinguished families in the history of Maryland.
The magnificent old mansion is situated five miles northwest of Ellicott City, Maryland, on the Frederick pike, once the national highway from east to west, and over which many a settler following the counsel epito- mized by Greeley has slowly made his way. The house is situated on the crest of a high ridge of ground com- manding a broad prospect to the east, at the end of a mile long driveway through a beautiful wood from the pike and is surrounded by five thousand acres of fertile land, the present-day extent of the estate.
As the visitor to Doughoregan approaches the house, after a cool drive through its magnificent woods,
110
DOUGHOREGAN MANOR
he is at once impressed with the size of the old mansion and the overpowering dignity of the whole scene of which it is a centre. The house is a long, low structure with two wings and a cupola in the middle and looks more like a section of some ancient wall with watchman's tower than like a dwelling house. It is three hundred, feet in length and not more than thirty feet deep. The right or north wing is the chapel where every Sunday the devout have held services for more than a hundred years; the left or south wing contains the kitchen and servants' rooms. The house is divided through the middle by a broad hallway very heavily and plainly panelled in oak. To the right of this, as you enter, is a parlor beyond which is a study, the walls of which are covered with family portraits, and in which the signer conducted the business of his vast estate. Among the paintings here is one showing the signer as a boy at school in France, standing upon a shore watching a dis- tant ship make out to a distant sea. Other portraits show the late Governor John Lee Carroll and the beautiful three Caton sisters, granddaughters of the signer, who were known as the Three Graces of America. To the left of the hallway, as you enter from the front, are a reception- and a dining-room. Adjoining the re- ception-room is a very charming little breakfast-room. In the dining-room may be seen the old Carroll silver and a rich hoard of old furniture. One of the features of interest of the interior of the house is the Cardinal's
111
COLONIAL MANSIONS OF MARYLAND
room, a richly furnished apartment in which the pre- dominant colors in the scheme of decoration are red and gold, and which is scrupulously reserved for the use of Cardinal Gibbons, or whatever other high dignitary of the Roman church may be entertained at Doughore- gan. The Carrolls have been churchmen for, lo, these many years!
Passing through the house to the garden in the rear one finds one's self at the first of a very beautiful succes- sion of terraces leading from the mansion to the magnifi- cent grove of old trees that protects the place to the west. The southern boundary of the garden is a charm- ingly irregular and moss-grown stone wall that has been standing for a century. The garden itself, laid out when the house was new and tended carefully from that time to this, is an ideally beautiful spot.
The finely planned driveway which leads from the Frederick pike at the entrance of the estate to the house was planned by the late Royal Phelps, Esquire, of New York, whose daughter was the mistress of the old place, and while thus only a comparatively new addition to the estate, as its age is to be measured, is one of its greatest attractions. It is over a mile long and leads by a gentle ascent from the gate to the house through long curves well calculated to show in vistas the wonder- ful old trees of the place.
Doughoregan Manor has always been noted for its hospitality and a delightful picture of one occasion of
112
DOUGHOREGAN MANOR
its generous outpouring has been drawn by J. D. War- field, who wrote of the "Founders of Anne Arundel and Howard Counties," of Maryland.
I have a distinct and delightful recollection of a visit to Doughoregan Manor in my boyhood with my father who was an invited guest of Col. Charles Carroll. The occasion was a . tournament which, as far as my knowledge of tilting extends, was unique. The gentry of the neighbouring counties with their families were present, and the display of beauty and fashion was such as made a lasting impression on a youth of ten years. The joust was out of the ordinary way of such entertainments. Instead of the conventional ring suspended in the air, through which the knights at full gallop were to thrust the spear, the object of their skill was a lay figure of wood representing a man life-size, caparisoned as a knight, and so nicely balanced on a pedestal that a blow in the face from a well-poised spear would unhorse the figure while a stroke against the body was calculated to shiver the spear or unhorse the knight.
Against this figure each knight, handsomely attired and mounted with heavy spears about twelve feet long and one to three inches thick with a strong brass point, was to dash himself at full speed. One knight was dismounted and another had his spear shivered but no injury occurred to man or horse. The victor who overthrew the lay figure three times and so won the right to crown the queen of honour was an officer of the United States Cavalry; but his name, with that of the queen, I have forgotten. After the joust followed the crowning of the queen and then the " menu " and the departure of the many guests.
The Carroll family has, it may be easily argued, been the greatest land-owning family in America. When Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the signer, died in 8
113
COLONIAL MANSIONS OF MARYLAND
1832, he owned 27,691 acres in Bradford County, Pennsylvania, in addition to the 80,000 acres or more he possessed in his own state, and his family, before him, held continually the ideal of the acquisition of landed property. In 1707, Charles Carroll, the first of the name in Maryland, grandfather of the signer, held Clynmalyra, a tract of land of 5,000 acres; En- field Chase, a royal stretch in Prince George's County, Maryland; 1,969 acres in Baltimore County, including Ely O'Carroll and Litterlouna, the old dwelling-house on which burned down in 1913, and other tracts in Maryland aggregating in all nearly 60,000 acres. In this same year he was granted the princely domain of 10,000 acres known as Doughoregan, and ten thousand more acres were added to this in the later grant of land of Carrollton Manor. Charles Carroll, it seems, was given the right to choose ten thousand acres in Frederick County and first fixed on a spot beyond Frederick town but, later, finding the land better on the south side of Frederick, changed to a location in the present Howard County. The record of the property was not made until 1723, if we can believe Charles Browning's "Chief Explanation," published in 1821:
The grant of this land first appears to have been made April 10, 1723, to the Carroll family, some of whom dying there were different assignments from time to time up to 1734, but I under- stand the land was not taken up till just before the Revolution by the present Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, for his father, and
114
H
IE
DOUGHOREGAN FROM THE REAR
DOUGHOREGAN MANOR
the only money that appears to have been given for the land was a rent of $20 per annum which the present Mr. Carroll got rid of by the act for the abolition of quit-rent, 1780.
Portions of Carrollton became the inheritances of the girls of the family in later generations born in the old manor-house of Doughoregan.
Charles Carroll, the first of the Carrolls, of Carroll- ton, in Maryland, was a claimant to the estates of the O'Carrolls, princes of Ely in Kings and Tipperary Counties, Ireland, and petitioned the throne of Eng- land to restore him to his inheritance. While he was successful in gaining the ear of the king, he could not gain his petition but was offered instead 60,000 acres in Maryland.
We first hear of him in Maryland in 1688, and the following year saw the overthrow of the proprietary government in Maryland. When Sir Lionel Copley, later, took possession of the affairs of the province in the name of King Charles II, he charged Carroll, who had been Lord Baltimore's attorney-general, with disloy- alty and threw him into prison. In 1715, with the restoration of the Protestant Charles Calvert, Carroll was liberated and appointed Judge and Register of the Land Office, the highest office in the disposition of the proprietary, succeeding his father-in-law, Henry Darnall.
Like most Catholic gentlemen of his time, Charles Carroll was educated at Douai, France. He married,
115
COLONIAL MANSIONS OF MARYLAND
first, in America, Martha Underwood, daughter of Anthony Underwood, of St. Mary's County, but this first marriage left him soon a widower, as his wife died in 1690. In 1693 he married Mary Darnall, daughter of Henry Darnall, of Portland Manor, whose wife was Elinor Hatton, widow of Major Thomas Brooke, of Brookefield. Of their ten children, three sons and two daughters lived to maturity. Henry, the eldest son, was drowned at sea while returning from school at St. Omer, France, which left Charles, born 1702, the heir- at-law. Daniel Carroll, born 1707, married Ann Rozier, of Notley Hall, and became the progenitor of the Carrolls of Duddington, Prince George's County, now a part of Washington City.
When the second Lord Baltimore died, Charles Carroll, who was in England, became the attorney of the widowed Lady Baltimore. In 1718 he returned to the colonies, where he died in 1720. His will made his three sons, Henry (then living), Charles and Daniel, his executors. In 1729 Charles and Daniel Carroll sold sixty acres of land on which the city of Baltimore was laid out.
Charles Carroll, the Second, was known as Charles Carroll, of Annapolis, to distinguish him from his father. He it was who erected the Carroll mansion in Annapolis, now the home of the Redemptorist Order, on two lots of ground purchased from a widow, to whom tradition asserts Carroll paid many times the lots' value.
116
DOUGHOREGAN MANOR
The house is a solid brick structure, four stories high on the water side, and has a magnificent view of Spa Creek, which it overlooks. The garden, a famous part of the estate, lies between the house and the water. Here, Washington's diary frequently records, the Father of His Country took many a meal beneath the shade of a gigantic old tree in the cool of the evening, and this tree is still standing. In 1783, upon the occa- sion of Washington's resigning in Annapolis his com- mission as commander-in-chief of the armies of the United States, Mr. Carroll gave a great public dinner and dance in his garden, which the conservative news- papers of that day and place spoke of with unwonted enthusiasm, and of which tradition in Annapolis is still noisy.
The house is severely plain inside but very com- fortable. It was used by its builder as a town house and as a centre for his active political and official life, while Doughoregan served him for a country home. In this house at Annapolis, Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, the signer, was born and here he wrote many of the speeches and public letters which rendered him famous in pre- revolutionary days.
In 1870, Mrs. John MacTavish, granddaughter and favourite of the signer, for whom he built the mag- nificent home known as Folly Quarter, deeded the property to the Redemptorist Order, to which it now belongs. The church, St. Mary's, annexed to the old
117
COLONIAL MANSIONS OF MARYLAND
Carroll house, was built in 1858 on land given by the Carrolls, but prior to that time the private chapel of the old home had been used by the Catholics of Annapolis as a place of worship.
Charles Carroll, the Second, had but one son, Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, the signer, born 1737, whose mother was Elizabeth Brooke, daughter of Clement Brooke and Jane (Sewall) Brooke, daughter of Col. Nicholas Sewall, step-son of the second Lord Baltimore. At ten years of age young Carroll was sent to school to a Jesuit college at Bohemia Manor in Cecil County, Maryland, where he was a student with his cousin, John Carroll, afterward Archbishop of Balti- more, and with Robert Brent, who married a sister of John Carroll. In 1748, with his cousin John, he was sent to St. Omers, in French Flanders, whence, in 1757, he went to the College of Louis le Grand in Paris, where he remained about four years. In 1764, Charles Carroll, of Annapolis, wrote to his son in France and gave him an estimate of his estate, which shows at the same time the vast inheritance in land which this next owner of Doughoregan might expect and, also, how compara- tively little a cash revenue it brought in at that period of the nation's history.
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.