USA > Delaware > Colonial mansions of Maryland and Delaware > Part 9
USA > Maryland > Colonial mansions of Maryland and Delaware > Part 9
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Chas. W. Hanson, died Dec. 8th, 1853, in the 70th year of his age.
Sophia Gough Howard, wife of James Howard & daughter of Governor Ridgely, b. July 3, 1800; d. April 18, 1828.
Priscilla Hill White, wife of Stevenson White & daughter of Governor Ridgely, born March 17, 1796, died April 10, 1820.
David Latimer Ridgely, 3rd son of Gov. Ridgely, b. Nov. 19th 1798; died 1846.
Mary Louisa, widow of David L. Ridgely, born July 4th, 1808; d. Nov. 8, 1863.
Eight children of D. L. & M. L. Ridgely.
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John Ridgely of H., son of Gov. Ridgely, b. at Hampton Jan. 9th, 1790; died at H. July 17, 1867.
Eliza E., wife of John Ridgely of H., b. Feb. 10, 1803; d. Dec. 20, 1867. 3 infant children of John and Eliza E. Ridgely.
Mr. & Mrs. Nicholas G. Ridgely, the parents of Mrs. John Ridgely, and John Clemm, son of Daniel & Johanna Ridgely, a young cousin who died Sept. 26, 1839.
Charles Ridgely of H., son of John & Eliza E. Ridgely, born March 22, 1838, died at Rome, Italy, on Good Friday, March 29, 1872.
Margaretta S. Ridgely, widow of Charles Ridgely of H., b. Sept. 24, 1824, died March 31st, 1904.
Rev. Charles Ridgely Howard and John Eager Howard, brothers of Mrs. Margaretta Ridgely, her son Charles and her grandsons John Stewart and Charles, complete the number.
The vault yard, inclosed by a high brick wall and entered through an iron gateway, also shelters the dead. Here in one corner is the tomb of Julianna Howard, a sister of the late Mrs. Ridgely and a granddaughter of Governor Ridgely. She was born August 25, 1821 ; died May 22, 1853.
A Celtic cross marks the grave of Eliza Buckler, daughter of John and Eliza Ridgely, and the body of her first husband, John Campbell White, reposes beside her. She was born October 28, 1828; died March 3, 1894.
John Campbell White, departed this life February 6, 1853, in the 28th year of his age. Near him is the grave of an infant son. An antique altar tomb is inscribed :
To the Memory of Eliza Ridgely, wife of N. G. Ridgely and daughter of M. and E. Eichelberger, Departed this life the 10th of February, 1803, a few hours after the birth of an only Daughter aged 19 years and 2 months.
On the opposite side of the inclosure is a modern marble cross to the memory of Howard Ridgely, the third son of Charles and Margaretta S. Ridgely, born January 7, 1855; died Sep- tember 28, 1900.
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HAMPTON
There are also several unmarked graves level with the ground. Periwinkle overruns the whole inclosure and, with the ancient ivy on the walls, enables the spot to retain its beauty throughout the changing seasons of the year.
A summer retreat of the Ridgelys of Hampton was for many years Spring Hill, a very quaint and beautiful little brick homestead in Howard County, Maryland, now the home of Garnett Y. Clark, Esq., an attorney of Baltimore. The house is beautifully situated on a little hill and contains in the interior some very pretty mantel carving. It is not large, but has the charm which comes of years sturdily maintained against the encroachments of the elements.
TULIP HILL WEST RIVER, ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY, MARYLAND GALLOWAY-MAXCEY-MARKOE-HUGHES-MURRAY -PARKER
ULIP HILL is famous for its front and garden doorways, its exquisite interior decoration, and its whole grace and sym- metry. It is a large house, though so well proportioned that its size does not obtrude it- self upon one, and gains its name from the magnificent grove of tulip poplar trees which make up the large park through which the visitor drives to reach the mansion. These trees have been a land-mark to sailors navigating West River for a century and a half, and they tower far up into the air on the crest of the high ridge on which the homestead is situated, showing plainly against the sky. Their dark mass of green seen in silhouette from the water has a grotesque resem- blance to the outline of the roof of a giant's house.
The mansion consists of a central building with wings, and the roof of the main structure is pitched very sharply, giving an unusual emphasis to this por- tion. Another unusual feature is the decorative dis- position of the two great chimneys which grace the central building. Instead of being placed with their
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ENTRANCE TO TULIP HILL 1745
TULIP HILL
longest dimension parallel to the transverse of the house, as most chimneys are placed, they are set with their longest dimension parallel to the longitudinal line of the house and are cut out in the middle so as to give them a very light and airy effect.
The main doorway, seen as one approaches through the grove of great tulip trees, consists of a large portico with four simple pillars. In the cap of the portico is carved a Cupid's figure represented as throwing flowers on those who enter the house. Set in the wall above is a tablet of stone carved in a floral design and this carries the eye on up to the ornamented bull's-eye window in the attic.
From the rear of the house is to be obtained a wide view embracing West River and the hills beyond. The ground falls sharply towards the river and is carried away from the house in three long terraces. The garden is to one side and to the rear.
In the rear of the house is the Tulip Hill garden doorway so widely copied. It is a simple shell portico, not intricate at all in design but beautifully ornamented with floral carving and very light and graceful in effect.
Entering the house through the front doorway one finds oneself in a broad hallway which runs to the back of the house, facing a superb double arch extending across the hall. From the point of this arch hangs a lamp. The stairway commences at the arch. The walls
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of the hallway are wainscoted and the stairs contain much beautiful carving. The newel post is very large and heavy with the banisters and rails of mahogany carried around it in a whirl.
All of the rooms on the first floor are panelled in hard old oak and the fireplaces and mantels contain much beautiful carving.
To get a good idea of the solidity of the construction of Tulip Hill one should make a trip to the cellar, which runs completely under the house. The foundation walls are as thick as the battlements of a castle, and the chimney pillars are at least six feet square. The beams average in measurement, fourteen inches by twenty inches by sixty feet, and show the marks of the axes which hewed them out. Here are to be found a wine vault and a servant's oven for baking bread. The slaves' dungeon is to be found in the right wing of the house.
The history of Tulip Hill takes one back to the early days of the Friends in Maryland. Owing to the liberality of the proprietary in regard to religious be- lief, the province soon became a haven for those op- pressed for their conscience's sake, among whom were the Friends. They came to the province in great num- bers in the seventeenth century and formed two great colonies: one in Talbot County on the eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay; the other at West River where Tulip Hill is situated. The remains of the old Quaker meet-
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GARDEN ENTRANCE TO TULIP HILL
TULIP HILL
ing-house of West River are to be found not a quarter of a mile from the mansion. Samuel Galloway, the builder of Tulip Hill, was a Friend, as were all of his neighbours,-those great families which sent out sons to many states-the Chews, the Murrays, the Mercers, the Chestons, and the Richardsons.
The Galloways in Maryland descend from two brothers, sons of Richard Galloway, of London, Eng- land. Samuel, the second brother, married, first, Sarah, by whom he had four children, one of whom, Sarah (Galloway), married March 9, 1720, Henry Hill; and another, Hannah, married a Ford. By his second wife, Anne Pardoe, who died April, 1723, he had a numerous posterity.
Anne Pardoe Galloway, we are told, was an accept- able minister in the Society of Friends.
John Galloway, son of Samuel, married Mary, daughter of Samuel and Mary Thomas, and had three children: Samuel; Mary, who married June 13, 1747, Benjamin Chew, afterwards Chief Justice of the Su- preme Court of Pennsylvania, and who built that beauti- ful old mansion in Germantown, Philadelphia, known as Cliveden; and Joseph, who married Ann Cookson.
Samuel, son of John, married Anne Chew, sister of that Benjamin Chew whom his sister married, and in 1745, three years after his marriage, built Tulip Hill to celebrate, tradition says, the birth of his first infant,
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Mary, who married Thomas Ringgold, of Chestertown, Maryland.
Other children of Samuel Galloway and Anne Chew, his wife, were: Anne, who married James Cheston; Benjamin, who married Henrietta, daughter of Benja- min and Sarah Chew, of Cecil County, Maryland; and John, inheritor of Tulip Hill, who married Sarah Chew, sister of his brother's wife.
John Galloway was a witness to the burning of the brig Peggy Stewart, in the harbour of Annapolis in 1774. The vessel was loaded with tea and was destroyed by the Sons of Liberty after the passage of the second Stamp Act. Galloway wrote a letter to his father at Tulip Hill, in which he described the occurrence:
The committee then ordered the tea from on board the brig, but some of the mob called out that it should also share the same fate. The committee then with the consent of Mr. Dick declared the vessel and tea, together, should be burnt. . And then Mr. Stewart went on board of his vessel and set fire with his own hands and she was burning when I left.
The sons of Samuel Galloway were educated in England. Samuel, the eldest son, died without issue. John, whose letter about the Peggy Stewart we have read, had an only daughter, Mary. He died in 1810 and was buried in the Friends' graveyard near his home.
Mary Galloway married Virgil Maxcey and had two daughters: Mary, who married Francis Markoe; and
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HALL AND STAIR OF TULIP HILL
TULIP HILL
Sarah, who married Col. George W. Hughes. At Mrs. Hughes' death, Tulip Hill was sold to Mr. Henry M. Murray, of Ivy Neck, West River, who, not long before his recent death, disposed of it to its present owner, Mr. Dupont Parker, a Marylander by birth and now a resident in Nevada, where he is prominently interested in railroad development.
The present occupant uses the old home as a summer place. His family consists of his wife and two daughters.
CEDAR PARK WEST RIVER, ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY, MARYLAND GALLOWAY-SPRIGG-MERCER-MURRAY
OT far from Tulip Hill, the mag- nificent old Galloway mansion at West River, Anne Arundel County, Maryland, is Cedar Park, another Galloway memorial and probably the oldest large dwelling-house in Maryland. It was built between 1690 and 1700 by Richard Galloway, the first of his name in the New World, and is markedly different in appearance from the other colonial mansions in Maryland.
Cedar Park is of the style of an old English farm- house of the period of Queen Anne. It consists of a simple, single building with great chimneys at either end, and a long, low, sloping roof, which is carried nearly to the ground and whose eaves project far from the walls. An addition at the back of the house, wherein is the present-day living room, is of comparatively modern construction, having been erected in the last century. A simple little porch marks the front door and, for the rest, the house with its deep-inset windows and great roof nearly touching the ground has a singularly self- contained and immobile expression, like a terrapin with its head in its shell. The outline of the chimneys is
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CEDAR PARK
very distinctive and these are, no doubt, the most char- acteristic features of the quaint homestead.
The interior of Cedar Park is cheery, cool and airy, though the sun struggling through the little windows in the immensely thick walls has difficulty in reaching all of the corners of the rooms. The ceilings are surpris- ingly high and the walls are without ornament. The whole interior of the house is plain but the solid mahog- any staircase, which runs from the back of the hall lead- ing to the front door, attracts attention immediately. The wood of the stair is as black as old Spanish leather now and every part of it-steps, railing, banisters, and all-is made of the costly material of which our great- grandfathers were so fond.
The grounds of Cedar Park comprise about four hundred acres of park and farming land, though the original estate was larger. In the rear of the house is a level green used as a bowling green in the old days. To the right of this is a garden maintained very beauti- fully by the present-day occupants of the old home. From the bowling green and from the garden may be obtained very enchanting outlooks over a leafy de- scent to the distance where are the waters of one of the arms of West River. Great trees, many decades old, shade the house and the grounds around, and in the floral border surrounding the old bowling green are many rare shrubs whose names are not even known to the majority of people of the present day.
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COLONIAL MANSIONS OF MARYLAND
Cedar Park was purchased in 1893 by Dr. James M. Murray and is now the home of his three daughters, the Misses Alice Maynadier, Margaret Cheston, and Elizabeth Murray. Before this it had belonged to the Mercers, and the Spriggs, from whom we go back to the Galloways, the family of the builder.
Richard Galloway, builder of Cedar Park, became a tenant on the farm of which it is a part some time before 1689, the year in which his marriage was cele- brated to Elizabeth Lawrence, daughter of Benjamin Lawrence, of Marlborough, Wiltshire, England; and in 1697 he purchased the property from his wife's father, who held the patent to it. There seems to have been no children to this marriage, but by a second marriage, he had sons, Samuel and Richard, from the first of whom came the line of which was the builder of Tulip Hill. He died August 8, 1736.
Richard Galloway, the second, married Sophia Richardson, of West River, and died in 1740, leaving a daughter, Elizabeth, who married Thomas Sprigg, of Prince George's County. Elizabeth Galloway was a Quaker, as were all of her family, and this gay Sprigg, her suitor, was not! She refused consistently to marry him until he became a Friend. They had a great quarrel and her lover rode away, vowing that he would never come to see her again. The next month he was at the door of Cedar Park, in the straitest of Friends' garb and with the properest of Friends' dialect.
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CEDAR PARK
" How is thee?" he asked soberly.
" Is thee a Friend?" inquired the fair Elizabeth.
The affirmative answer was all that was needed to signalize the plighting of their troth and they were shortly married.
Thomas Sprigg and Elizabeth Galloway had three sons, only one of whom lived to maturity. This son, Richard Sprigg, married Margaret Caile, of Dorchester County, Maryland, in 1765, and had a daughter, Sophia, born April 23, 1766, at Cedar Park, married Col. John F. Mercer, in 1785, and inherited the homestead. Another daughter married Dr. James Steuart, of Annapolis.
Mrs. Sophia Galloway and her daughter, Mrs. Sprigg, lived for many years as widows at Cedar Park.
The Galloway family of Maryland divided into many branches, every one of which terminated in female descendants, and the name is extinct.
RATCLIFFE MANOR NEAR EASTON, TALBOT COUNTY, MARYLAND HOLLYDAY-GIBSON-HATHAWAY
ENRY HOLLYDAY, the son of Col. James Hollyday, builder of Readbourne, built Ratcliffe Manor for his bride, Anna Maria Robins, whom he married in 1749. It is situated in Talbot County, on the banks of the beautiful Tred Avon River, and is not far from the busy little Eastern Shore metropolis of Easton.
The site of Ratcliffe Manor is such that it has a charming outlook. One sees the windings of the Tred Avon and the fine farms of this rolling, fertile country. To approach the house one drives through a long avenue of trees set in rows about one hundred feet apart, and this avenue is bounded by white bar fences of oldtime appearance. The home grounds are encircled by a fence of this same fashion and in back of the house the land is terraced, falling away to the river in graceful green sweeps. Here, too, are shrubs and flowers, while giant trees give a grateful shade from summer's sun.
In exterior view, Ratcliffe Manor has a great atmos- phere of comfort and content. It is not large but very well proportioned. In design it follows the Maryland convention, consisting of a central building with a wing,
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SHELL CUPBOARD AND ALCOVE WINDOW IN THE LIVING ROOM OF RATCLIFFE
RATCLIFFE MANOR
and the middle of the central portion is distinguished by a simple and beautiful portico and doorway.
In the interior of the house, one is again impressed with an air of comfort and good taste. The hall is small and does not continue to the back of the house. To the right of the door as you enter is the stairs. In the back of the house are two rooms,-a dining and a living room,-the latter of which opens upon the ter- raced garden, its avenue of ingress and egress being a doorway of exactly similar design to that in front of the house. To the left of the front door as you enter, is a little office, or study, wherein the master of the planta- tion in the old days interviewed his overseer and attended to the many small details of management of the place.
The rooms downstairs are panelled in hardwood and the fireplaces are very prettily carved. In the living room is a very beautiful old shell cupboard and an alcove window of rare charm.
The wing of the house contains the kitchen, the servants' rooms, and the pantry.
Ratcliffe Manor, the house, takes its name from Ratcliffe Manor, a survey made in the early days of the Maryland province and part of which was purchased with other lands by Henry Hollyday, the builder, when he was making a home for himself. In his will of 1789, this Henry Hollyday leaves to his wife (Anna Maria Robins) during her life "the plantation and lands where I now live and all my lands adjoining or con-
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COLONIAL MANSIONS OF MARYLAND
tiguous thereto being part of Ratcliffe Manor, part of Tilghman Fortune, Part of Discovery and Turkey Park."
In this will is named a daughter, Henrietta Maria, wife of Samuel Chamberlaine, Jr., and two sons, Thomas and Henry. Thomas, the elder, was to inherit the homestead and lands at the death of his mother. In a codicil, the maker of the will revokes his bequest to Thomas in favor of Henry because " whereas the con- duct and deportment of my son, Thomas, for a consider- able time past, as well towards his Mother and myself and others of my family has been and still continues to be such as has given the greatest anxiety and grief, and being unable to determine in mine own Judgment whether his said conduct and deportment proceed from any injury he may have sustained in his intellects, or are the effect of an obstinate and undutiful Temper of Mind, I think it necessary, in either case, to make some alteration in the disposition of my estate. . ."
Henry Hollyday, the son, lived to a green old age and died in March, 1850, leaving his lands to be divided in three parts, his three sons-Richard C., Thomas R., and William M .- to have choice in the order in which they were named. Richard C., the eldest son, chose as his portion that third which contained the mansion and at his death left the place to his wife Marietta Holly- day, who married again, becoming the wife of former
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GARDEN ENTRANCE TO RATCLIFFE
RATCLIFFE, FROM THE GARDEN
1749
RATCLIFFE MANOR
United States Senator Charles Hooper Gibson. From her it was purchased, in 1903, by its present occupant, A. A. Hathaway, formerly of Milwaukee, Wis .; Mr. Hathaway's family consists of his wife, who was a Miss Finney, of Milwaukee, and five children,-three sons and two daughters.
Ratcliffe Manor has no ghosts and no stories of violent death or suicide. It speaks simply of gentility and good living.
WYE HOUSE TALBOT COUNTY, MARYLAND LLOYD
0 name in Maryland history is evocative of richer historic memories than that of Lloyd. Seven generations of this illus- trious family have lived at Wye House in Talbot County, begin- ning with Edward Lloyd, the First, who established himself there in 1668. Since that time the estate has been handed down from one generation of Edward Lloyd to another.
The first two Edwards returned to England and died there, but in the old family burying ground at Wye, which stands back of the manor-house, there lie four succeeding generations of the name. Edward Lloyd the First and his brother Cornelius settled in Virginia about 1635, in which year each received from Capt. John West grants of land on the Elizabeth River.
Edward Lloyd was a justice and lawyer at Norfolk in 1645, and a member of the House of Burgesses from 1644 until 1649, in which latter year he joined the Puritan Colony in Maryland. On the 20th of April, 1650, the district embracing Providence was erected into a county and given the name of Anne Arundel, and Edward Lloyd was made commander of this county
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WYE HOUSE
by Governor Stone. On the organization of Talbot County in the year 1660, having large landed estates on the Eastern Shore, he removed to that county and built his residence on the Wye River, calling it Wye House.
In the year 1660 Cæcilius Calvert, second Lord Baltimore, commissioned Col. Edward Lloyd-among others-to be Deputy Governor of Maryland in the event of the death of Governor Philip Calvert. Phile- mon Lloyd dying before his father, the estate passed to his son Edward Lloyd, the Second, grandson of the first master of Wye.
The original Wye House was burned by the British in 1776, and was looted of its fine paintings and rich plate and other treasures. All the old records of the Lloyd family up to that time were then destroyed. After the war several pieces of plate bearing the family arms were returned by the crown.
Of the original manor house only a fragment re- mains, and that is now used as an outbuilding. The present Wye House was built just before the end of the Revolutionary War by Edward Lloyd, the Fourth, and remains intact to-day just as constructed more than a century and a quarter ago.
The main building is of two lofty stories, containing the hall, drawing-room, parlour, dining-room and chambers, all of noble proportions, and connects by
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COLONIAL MANSIONS OF MARYLAND
corridors with one-story wings, in which are the library on one side and domestic offices on the other, presenting a pleasing façade of two hundred feet, commanding a superb view of the Wye River and the bay.
Back of the manor-house is an old garden with many winding walks bounded by box-wood hedges. To one side of the garden is a beautiful stretch of lawn bounded on each side by hedges, at the ends of which is an imposing old building, the conservatory-a relic of colonial days. To the left of the structure is an arch of brick flanked on each side by a wall fast crumb- ling away. No one seems to know how old this wall is, but it was probably built when the original house was constructed.
An arch marks the entrance to the burying ground at Wye. On each side of the walk stands a gigantic tree-mute sentinels guarding those who are slumbering in peace in the graveyard, which contains the remains of many illustrious members of the Lloyd family. A number of the gravestones are crumbling, while others have been repaired, and they are interesting not only on account of their great age, but for their quaint inscriptions.
One of the oldest and most interesting in the grave- yard is that over the last resting-place of the famous Henrietta Maria Lloyd, wife of Philemon, son of Edward Lloyd, the First. ' The inscription on this stone reads:
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WYE HOUSE
Henrietta Maria Lloyd,
Shee who now takes her Rest within this Tomb Had Rachel's Face and Leah's fruitful womb, Abigail's Wisdom, Lydia's faithful heart, With Martha's care and Mary's better Part. Who died the 21st day of May (Anno) Dom. 1697, aged 50 years, -months, 23 days.
To whose Memory Richard Bennett dedicates this Tomb.
Of this Henrietta Maria Lloyd it has been said " the name of this beautiful, gracious lady stands for what- ever is gentle in birth and in breeding, for whatsoever is excellent in character and conduct, for whatsoever is of good report of the honorable men and women of old Maryland." She was of foreign birth, and tradition has it that Queen Henrietta Maria of England stood sponsor for her when she was christened.
From the Inventory and Accounts, Liber 15, page 198, Prerogative Court Records of Maryland, Novem- ber 2, 1697, we quote:
" An inventory of all and singular the goods and chattels and credits of Madam Henrietta Maria Lloyd, of Talbot County, in the Province of Maryland, lately deceased."
Among these goods and chattels and credits may be mentioned Madam Lloyd's clothes, which are inven- toried as follows:
1 satin gown and petticoat, 1 silk gown and petticoat, 1 old silk gown and coat, 1 mourning gown and quilted petticoat, 1 silk mantel, 2 silk petticoats and scarf, a good warm gown, 2 smock coats and 2 waistcoats, a parcel of laces, a pair of
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