USA > Delaware > Colonial mansions of Maryland and Delaware > Part 8
USA > Maryland > Colonial mansions of Maryland and Delaware > Part 8
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Forty thousand acres of land, two seats alone containing each upwards of 12,000 acres, would now sell at 20 shillings sterling per acre. . . . 40,000 pounds, Sterling.
One-fifth of an Iron-work, with two forges built, a third
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erecting, with all convenient buildings; 150 slaves; teams and carts, and 30,000 acres belonging to the works; a very growing estate, which produces to my fifth annually at least 400 pounds Sterling, at twenty-five years' purchase . . .- 10,000 pounds, Sterling.
20 lots and houses in Annapolis . . . 4,000 pounds, Sterling. 285 slaves on the different plantations, at 30 pounds each . . . 8,550 pounds, Sterling.
Cattle, horses, stock of all kinds on my plantations, with working tools . . . 1,000 pounds, Sterling.
Silver household plate . . . 600 pounds, Sterling.
Debts outstanding at interest in 1762, when I balanced my books . .. 24,230 pounds, Sterling.
You must not suppose my annual income to equal the interest of the value of my estate. Many of my lands are unimproved, but I compute I have a clear revenue of at least 1,800 pounds, Sterling, per annum, and the value of my estate is continually improving.
I propose upon your coming into Maryland to convey to you my manor of Carrollton, 10,000 acres, and the addition thereto of 2,700 acres, now producing annually 250 pounds, Sterling, not one-half of which is let. Also my share of the ironworks, producing at least 400 pounds.
On my death I am willing to add my manor of Doughoregan, 10,000 acres, and also 1,425 acres called Chance adjacent thereto, on which the bulk of my negroes are settled. As you are my only child, you will, of course, have all of the residue of my estate at my death. Your return to me I hope will be in the next fall.
In 1765, young Carroll came home to his promised Doughoregan. He was married three years after his return to Mary Darnall, daughter of Henry and Rachel (Brooke) Darnall, of the same family from which his
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grandfather had chosen a wife. "He came home at twenty-seven years," says J. D. Warfield, the admirable historian of the Carrolls, " an amiable, upright, accom- plished young man, with the polish of European society and the social requirements of studious culture. De- barred by his religion from political honors, he came to occupy in ease and comfort his manorial estates but he was not long to rest in retirement."
Throughout the course of his long and busy life, the most celebrated act that Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, performed was his signing of the Declaration of Inde- pendence, an act that, with him, as with others of the immortal signers, had an especial significance owing to the vast personal wealth which he hazarded upon the stroke of a pen.
Robert C. Winthrop, in his centennial oration at Boston, July 4, 1876, gives a version of the signing:
" Will you sign? " said Hancock to Charles Carroll. " Most willingly," was the reply. "There goes two millions with the dash of a pen," says one of those standing by ; while another re- marks, " Oh, Carroll, you will get off, there are so many Charles Carrolls." And then we may see him stepping back to the desk and putting that addition of " of Carrollton," to his name, which will designate him forever, and be a prouder title of nobility than those in the peerage of Great Britain, which were afterwards adorned by his accomplished and fascinating granddaughters.
This legend of Carroll's adding " of Carrollton " to his name has been repeated frequently, yet it is to be
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GARDEN ENTRANCE TO DOUGHOREGAN
DOUGHOREGAN MANOR
doubted that it has the significance given to it or that it has any real foundation in fact. That he did sign " Charles Carroll, of Carrollton," is not to be questioned, but that this was his ordinary mode of signature hundreds of documents in the record offices of Mary- land stand to prove, and it is to be doubted whether on this one occasion he would vary his usual form and sign in instalments. In 1889 the late J. H. B. Latrobe, biographer of Carroll, wrote to J. D. Warfield, the historian :
I have no recollection of having heard the reason given in Appleton for the attaching the "of Carrollton " to the signature of Charles Carroll to the Declaration of Independence. No such reason was given me by Mr. Carroll in my conversation with him during the preparation of his biography.
Shortly after the close of the Revolution, Mr. Carroll spent more and more of his time at Doughore- gan and towards the end of his life lived there con- tinually, closing up his town house, the Carroll mansion, in Annapolis. During these years he built the chapel which forms the north wing of the manor and within the chapel he was buried after his death in 1832.
The children of Charles Carroll, the signer, and Mary Darnall, his wife, were two daughters and a son, Charles, the Fourth, who never was master of " the Manor " as Doughoregan is familiarly spoken of, as he died before his father. He married, in 1800, Harriet, daughter of Chief Justice Benjamin Chew, of Pennsyl-
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vania, who lived in the historic old colonial mansion known as Cliveden, still in possession of the family. Justice Chew's eldest daughter, who was admired by the unfortunate Major Andre, hero of perhaps the most deplorable incident of the Revolutionary War, married Gen. John Eager Howard, of Belvedere, now part of Baltimore city.
Harriet Chew was a great favourite of Washington, and, when the President had his portrait painted by Gilbert Stuart, often accompanied him to the sittings as Washington said her conversation " would give his face its most agreeable expression." While she was never mistress of Doughoregan her home was an even more luxurious place, though one not nearly so large,- Homewood, in the northern part of the present Balti- more city.
This beautiful old mansion, built by Charles Carroll, the signer, for his son after the latter's mar- riage to the charming Miss Chew, is situated on the fair stretch of land which was donated to the trustees of Johns Hopkins University as the future site of that institution of learning. In the plans drawn up by these trustees for the new home of the university, Homewood has been made the centre of the group of proposed buildings, whose designs have all been modelled on the superb original of its classic design. It is to be known as the Administration Building and is to front on a circle of driveway which leads up from Charles Street Boule-
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HOMEWOOD 1809
DOUGHOREGAN MANOR
vard, the newest and most beautiful of Baltimore's resi- dence thoroughfares.
Homewood was built in 1809, and, while erected after the inauguration of the noisy nineteenth century, is constructed in the best tradition of that type of Georgian building which distinguished the middle part of the eighteenth century. It has a central building with wings, the front portico of the central portion being distinguished by four pillars. One of the great beauties of the house is the exquisite proportion of all of its parts and the interior is elaborately ornamented with wood- carving. In the rear of the house are the remains of an old garden. A mile to the southeast of Homewood, during its first mistress's occupancy, was Homestead, the house in which Jerome Bonaparte and his young bride, Elizabeth Patterson, lived out their year of this first notorious American experiment in international marriages.
Mary Carroll, eldest daughter of Charles Carroll, the signer, and first daughter of the house to be married from Doughoregan, was wed in 1787, at the age of seventeen years, to Richard Caton, an English cotton merchant and geologist, who settled in Baltimore in 1785. Her marriage portion was the land and home- stead on and around which the present-day suburb of Baltimore, Catonsville, grew up. She was the mother of four daughters, three of whom, as previously men- tioned, were so remarkable for their beauty that they
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were known as the " Three American Graces." They married Englishmen of high rank. Her portrait in the study at Doughoregan shows that she, herself, was the possessor of beauty, and tradition asserts that she was distinguished for her fine mental gifts.
Catharine Carroll, the second daughter of the signer, married, in 1801, Robert Goodloe Harper, of South Carolina, from which state he had entered Congress as a representative in 1794, as a member of the Federal party. He removed to Maryland after his marriage and, in 1815, was United States senator from Maryland. His country home was Oakland, in Howard County, not far from Doughoregan.
The Caton beauties, granddaughters of the signer, were the attraction at a grand ball given at Hampton, by the Ridgelys in 1809, and their social conquests were innumerable both in this country and abroad. Mary Caton became the wife of Robert Patterson, brother of Madame Jerome Bonaparte. Louisa Caton married Col. Sir Tilton Bathurst Hervey, who fought under Wellington in Spain and was his aide at Waterloo. She afterwards became the Duchess of Leeds. Elizabeth Caton became Lady Stafford.
After the death of Robert Patterson in 1822, his widow with her sisters Louisa and Elizabeth was at the country-seat of the Duke of Wellington in England, where she met the Marquis of Wellesley, a widower of sixty-three. It proved to be a case of love at first sight,
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and shortly after they were married in Dublin, where the Marquis was living in state as Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. In 1826, the former Mrs. Patterson presided at a ball in Dublin, seated under a canopy of gold and scarlet.
Emily Caton, the fourth of the daughters of Mary Carroll Caton, married John MacTavish, British consul in Baltimore, and spent her life in this country. Mrs. MacTavish lived first at Brooklandwood, in the Green Spring Valley, Baltimore County, Maryland, now the home of Isaac E. Emerson, Esq., but, later, at Folly Quarter, the truly regal home which her grandfather built for her near his home in Howard County, now the home of Van Lear Black and family, of Howard County and Baltimore.
When it was sold out of the family about thirty years ago, after nearly fifty years of wear and tear, Folly Quarter brought the large amount of one hundred thousand dollars. This gives a shrewd idea of the luxury, comfort and splendour of its exterior and interior appointment when new. The house fronts east and is built of granite blocks which average in size thirty- five inches long and nineteen inches in thickness. In the centre of the front and the rear of the house, which are almost identical in appearance, are massive porches with six solid granite columns each. These columns are six feet in circumference at the base and taper slightly as they rise. That cost was little object in building the
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house is shown by the fact that the rain spouts which carry off the water from the metal-sheathed roof are of copper. It is said that among the appointments of the mansion when it was new was a marble bathing pool, located a little distance from the house and connected with it by a subterranean passageway. It is not known where this pool was, if it ever existed, as there is no trace of it now.
How and why Folly Quarter received its name is a question not easy to solve. Says the historian Warfield:
In the surrounding country is a tradition currently believed to the effect that Charles Carroll, son of the Signer, had accumu- lated a considerable sum of money from his allowances. In look- ing about for a good investment his attention was called to a fine tract of land several miles west of Doughoregan Manor. He was pleased with it and purchased it. When he informed his venerable and distinguished father of the fact the latter, accord- ing to the story, exclaimed :
" That is folly ; we have enough land now."
And so, tradition has it, the farm was known ever afterward as "Folly Quarter " or " The Folly."
Mr. and Mrs. MacTavish made their home at "Folly " for many years, and after their death it passed to their son Charles Carroll MacTavish, whose home it was with his family until he disposed of the estate to Mr. Charles M. Dougherty, of Baltimore. Mr. Dougherty made the place a summer home until he re- moved to New Orleans about twenty-five years ago.
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Shortly after his removal he sold it to Royal Phelps, Esq., of New York, father-in-law of the late former Governor John Lee Carroll, of Doughoregan, great- grandson of the signer. The next owner was Gov. Carroll, from whom it passed to his son Charles Carroll, the present master of Doughoregan, and from him to its owner, Van Lear Black, Esq.
After the death of Charles Carroll, the signer, in 1832, the next master of Doughoregan was Charles Carroll, born 1801, at Homewood, grandson of the signer, and son of Charles Carroll, of Homewood, and Harriet Chew, his wife. The other children of Charles Carroll, of Homewood, and Harriet Chew, were: Elizabeth, who married Dr. Aaron Tucker; Mary Sophia, who married Hon. Richard Bayard; Benjamin Chew Carroll; Harriet Julian, who married Hon. John Lee, of Needwood, Frederick County, Maryland; Louisa, who married Hon. Isaac Rand Jackson.
This Charles, known as " Colonel Charles " Carroll, married, in 1825, Mary Digges Lee and had issue: Charles, inheritor of Doughoregan; Mary, who married Dr. Eleazer Acosta; Louisa, who married George Cavendish Taylor, nephew of Lord Waterpark, an Irish peer; and John Lee Carroll, born 1830.
Charles Carroll, son of Colonel Charles, was the sixth Charles Carroll of the line in this country. He married Miss Caroline Thompson, of Staunton, Vir- ginia, daughter of Judge Lucas P. Thompson, and of a
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distinguished lineage, one of her ancestors having been Colonel Ball, grandfather of George Washington. Having no children, Mr. and Mrs. Carroll decided to live in Europe, where Mrs. Carroll became famous for her beauty and social charm. The manor was purchased by John Lee Carroll, brother of Charles.
John Lee Carroll was only three years of age when his father inherited Doughoregan. He studied at Mount Saint Mary's School, Georgetown College, and Harvard Law school. In 1855 he removed to New York, where he met and married Anita Phelps, daughter of Royal Phelps, of the extensive South American importing house. In 1861, because of the feeble health of his father, he returned to Doughoregan, which was his home for the rest of his life. In 1874 his wife died. In 1875 he was nominated and elected Governor of Maryland. In the succeeding summer he was the representative of the state at the great centen- nial exposition in Philadelphia. Two years subsequent to this he married Miss Mary Carter Thompson, of Staunton, Virginia, sister of his brother Charles' wife. He died in 1905, leaving a large descent.
The children of Governor John Lee Carroll and his first wife, Anita Phelps, are: the Countess de Kergo- lay; the Baroness de La Grange; Royal Phelps Carroll, who married Miss Langdon, of New York; Helen Carroll, who married Mr. Herbert Robbins, of New York, and gave recently, in memory of her mother, St.
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Anthony's chapel to St. Matthew's church, Washing- ton; and Charles, the present owner of the manor, who married Miss Susanna Bancroft, granddaughter of the historian, George Bancroft.
In his second marriage, Governor Carroll had but one child, Philip Acosta Carroll, born 1879, an attorney of New York City.
Of the union of Charles Carroll and Miss Bancroft there has been one son, Charles Carroll, the Eighth, born 1891.
There are other branches of the Carroll family in Maryland of equal antiquity with that of the Doughore- gan branch and of almost as great conspicuousness. A distinguished Carroll branch only distantly connected with the Doughoregan Carrolls is that of Dr. Charles Carroll, who came to this country about 1718. That he was related to Charles Carroll, the First, grandfather of the signer, is proved by the fact that both of these men used on their seals the full arms of the Ely O'Carrolls, as Mrs. Hester Dorsey Richardson has pointed out in her valuable " Side Lights on Maryland History," and by the fact that Charles Carroll, the First, made over to Dr. Charles Carroll a portion of his lands. Dr. Charles Carroll married Dorothy Blake, granddaughter of Henrietta Maria Lloyd, god- daughter of Queen Henrietta Maria, of England. He was the father of Charles Carroll, barrister, a notable figure in pre-revolutionary annals in Maryland (con-
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tending for fame with Charles Carroll, the signer) and builder of the Carroll mansion in Carroll Park, one of the parks of Baltimore city.
The Carroll mansion in Carroll Park, Baltimore, is distinguished for the beauty of its outlook over Winans Cove, a portion of the water-front of that city, and for the charming old grounds around it, now kept up in good fashion by the city park board. It is a substantial building to which the two wings now gracing it on either side have been added within the last decade. The house originally had one wing on the west side, which was merely a brick addition without particular grace of design. From the cellar of the house extends a sub- terranean passageway leading no one knows where, though busybodies assert that it goes to the water-front and was used for smuggling in early days, a supposition that hardly obtains credence with those who know the position and wealth of the builder of the mansion. The interior of the house has no particular detail of interest except a staircase which leads off to the left from the front door.
Another Carroll family of distinction was early seated in Saint Mary's County, and the name has been associated with Susquehannah, a historic old homestead of St. Mary's County, Maryland, now destroyed. From Capt. Henry Carroll came Governor Thomas King Carroll, of Maryland, of Kingston Hall, Somerset County, Maryland.
HAMPTON BALTIMORE COUNTY, MARYLAND RIDGELY
T is difficult to deal in superla- tives, but the most cautious and canny of mortals might feel no hesitancy in saying that Hamp- ton, the seat of the Ridgelys (of Robert Ridgely) of Mary- land, is the largest colonial mansion in Maryland; and the historian, whose delving mind cares little for the ordinary distinctions of great or small, would find in the traditions of the old home a store wherein he might learn, amongst other things, how large a part its occupants have played in the development of their state. The title " colonial " may be denied to Hampton by the purist in terms, as its foundations were not laid until 1783-the very last minutes of the colonial era in this county-but it is so purely Georgian in design and so representative in spirit of the colonial era that the lover of things of this period will always wish to have its acquaintance.
Hampton is about thirteen miles due north of Baltimore and about two miles north of Towson, Baltimore County, in which county it is, likewise, situ- ated, and is the centre of a broad and fertile tract of land embracing nearly five thousand acres. The house is approached through an avenue of trees,-as are al-
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most all of the colonial homes of Maryland and the south, generally. The grounds around the building are beautifully terraced and occupy much more space than is usually allotted to the parking around a private dwelling. They contain fine old trees which shade the house at all hours of the day and make it difficult to see it entire,-except from the rear, in which direction lie the famous Hampton gardens.
On the exterior, the first impression that the mansion gives is that of great mass, and then one notices the de- tails-the cupola first, a very distinctive feature of the building and one found in no other homestead of the type in Maryland; and, second, the urn-shaped finials on the parapet of the central portion. The walls are bare and the windows not especially well disposed, while the wings of the house are small and not in good proportion to the central building. The front and rear entrances of the mansion are great porticos with a floor above the first story elevation. Over the rear door which leads out into the garden ivy and honeysuckle have been allowed to grow in a huge mass of green with long, tender, verdant streamers.
The most impressive single feature of Hampton is to be found on the interior and is the great hall which leads from front to back of the building. It is at least thirty feet wide and high in proportion, and the panelled walls are hung closely with family portraits. From this great hall lead smaller ways to the wings, and the
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CENTRAL PORTION OF HAMPTON
1783
HAMPTON
dining-room, sitting-room, reception room, and parlour open upon it. The rooms on the first floor are all panelled and the woodwork throughout the house is of sound and agreeable construction.
Capt. Charles Ridgely, builder of Hampton, was a descendant of Robert Ridgely, of Saint Inigoes, Saint Mary's County, Maryland, whose name is to be found in Maryland records preceding the year 1681. A connec- tion has never been established between this family, the family from which spring the Ridgelys of Delaware, and the family of William Ridgely, of Maryland, a contemporary of the Robert Ridgely aforementioned, yet superficial evidence all points to the conclusion that there is such a connection and the physical resemblance, even, between members of different families is often such as to strike attention.
Robert Ridgely, of St. Mary's County, had a son, Charles Ridgely, of Baltimore County, who married Deborah Dorsey. Their grandson, Capt. Charles Ridgely, whose wife was likewise a Dorsey (Rebecca Dorsey), was the builder of Hampton. Captain Ridgely was a gallant soldier in the Revolution and was a gay blade. His wife was a member of the young society of Methodists then barely established in this country; and it is said that while sober Mrs. Ridgely opened Hampton with a prayer meeting in the parlour, rollicking Captain Ridgely celebrated the same event with a card party in the attic. This marriage was not
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fruitful and Captain Ridgely left Hampton to his nephew, Charles Ridgely Carnan, son of John Carnan and Achsah Ridgely, on condition that his legatee change the order of his name so that he would be known as Charles Carnan Ridgely instead of Charles Ridgely Carnan. Charles Carnan Ridgely, Governor of Mary- land from 1815 to 1818, was thus the second master of Hampton. He married Priscilla Dorsey, of Belmont, daughter of Caleb Dorsey and Priscilla Hill Dorsey and sister of Rebecca Dorsey Ridgely, his uncle's wife.
The master of Hampton to-day is Capt. John Ridgely, grandson of Governor Charles Carnan Ridgely, and son of the late Capt. Charles Ridgely and Margaretta Sophia Howard. His wife is Helen West Stuart, a writer, author of " Old Brick Churches of Maryland " and other historical works. The family circle of Hampton consists of Mr. and Mrs. John Ridgely, Miss Helen S. Ridgely, Messrs. David Stuart and Julian White Ridgely and Mr. and Mrs. John Ridgely, Jr.
Not far from the house is the Hampton burying ground which contains the earthly part of the successive generations that have lived in the old mansion. With the exception of the Lloyd cemetery at Wye House and that of the Tilghmans at The Hermitage, in Queen Anne's County, Maryland, there is no private grave- yard in Maryland so impressive in aspect or so well kept up. It has been described by Mrs. Helen West Ridgely :
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1
CUPOLA OF HAMPTON
SPRING HILL
HAMPTON
In the family vault at Hampton, built of marble and brick, repose six and possibly seven generations of Ridgelys. Captain Charles Ridgely, born in 1733, died June 28, 1790, made pro- visions in his will for the building of this vault. Tradition says that his remains, with those of his father, Col. Charles Ridgely, and other members of his family, were placed here when the city of Baltimore ran its streets through the Spring Garden property, owned by the Ridgelys, and obliterated all traces of an earlier burying ground. A complete record of those buried at Hampton begins, however, with the succeeding generation, and as one looks through the iron grating of the doorway, one sees a wall of marble slabs duly inscribed with the names of the dead. This final touch, by which a charnel house was transformed into a worthy monument to her race, was given by the late Mrs. Charles Ridgely, a granddaughter of Governor Charles Ridgely, with whom the record begins. The inscriptions are:
Governor Charles Ridgely, born Dec. 6, 1760; died July 17, 1829.
Priscilla, wife of Gov. Ridgely, died April 30, 1814.
Charles Ridgely, Jr., eldest son of Gov. Ridgely & Priscilla, his wife, born August 26, 1783; died July 19, 1819.
Rebecca D. Hanson, wife of Charles W. Hanson and daughter of Governor Ridgely, born March 5, 1786; died Sept. 1837.
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