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With an emphasis on elegance, CHARLES CARNAN RIDGELY even employed a
French cook who travelled back and forth between Annapolis, Baltimore and Hampton.
Henry Thompson recorded in his diary in 1812, when he went to Hampton to dine, "Fifty
one People sat down to Dinner in the Hall and had plenty of room." Charles Carroll
mentions attending a party for which 300 invitations were issued.
In Heinrich Buchholz's Governors of Maryland from the Revolution to 1908, he sums
up CHARLES CARNAN RIDGELY's last years at Hampton: "At the close of his adminis-
tration Mr. Ridgely retired to Hampton where he devoted himself to the task of looking
after his property. At home he represented the typical aristocrat of his day. He had the
fortune that enabled him to live like a prince, and he also had the inclination."
The GENERAL and his wife had at least 14 children, 11 of whom reached adulthood:
three sons and eight daughters. CHARLES CARNAN RIDGELY attempted to secure
dynastic marriages with other prominent Maryland families for each of these children.
Two daughters and one son married the children of James Carroll of Mount Clare; two
daughters married two sons of John Eager Howard; another child married a Chew of Phil-
adelphia; another a Dorsey; and another daughter married the son of Alexander Contee
Hanson.
Their eldest son, Charles Carnan Ridgely, Jr., was born in 1783 and married Maria
Campbell in 1809. Charles, Jr., was killed in a riding accident in 1819. His infant son,
born posthumously, lived only three months. Thirty-six years old at the time of his death,
Charles, Jr., had been carefully raised to assume the responsibilities of the estate. How-
ever, his brother, JOHN CARNAN RIDGELY, became the new heir.
John and Eliza Ridgely at Hampton
1829-1867
JOHN CARNAN RIDGELY (1790-
1867), the second son of CHARLES
CARNAN RIDGELY and Priscilla Dorsey,
was of a very different character than his
great uncle or his father. Raised as a youn-
ger son, JOHN'S life was not marked by
the ambition and prominence of Hamp-
ton's first two masters.
In 1812, JOHN married Prudence
Gough Carroll, daughter of James
Maccubbin Carroll (Mount Clare) and
Sophia Gough (Perry Hall). They had six
children, none of whom survived infancy.
Prudence died in 1822, three years after
,the death of JOHN'S older brother.
On January 8,1828, JOHN remarried.
For his second wife, he chose Eliza
Eichelberger Ridgely (1803-1867), the
only child of Nicholas Greenbury Ridgely,
a wealthy Baltimore merchant, and Eliza
John Carnan Ridgely (1790-1867) by Thomas
Sully, 1841. The second son of Charles Caman
and Priscilla Ridgely, and third master of Hamp-
ton. Hampton NHS Collection.
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