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NOTES ON HAMPTON MANSION

(in the Hampton National Historic Site)

Towson, Baltimore County, Maryland

A PRELIMINARY REPORT

Compiling Data and Observations on the Physical History

of the Plantation and Its Mansion, including Work

Performed by the Federal Government beginning 1949.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

For the U. S. National Park Service, Northeast Region

Charles E. Peterson FAlA

Architectural Historian, Restorationist and Planner

May 1, 1970

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

PART I PREFACE
A. Purpose of Report 1
B. Hampton and the National Trust- 2
C. The Writer and Hampton 3
D. The Ridgely Papers Today 4
E. Some Published Titles S
F. Other Studies 7
G. Measured Drawings 8
H. Photography 10
I. Acknowledgments 11

PART II ~{E NORTHAMPTON FURNACE
A. Establishment 13'
B. The Revolutionary War 18

PART III BUILDING THE MANSION
A. Design 24
B. Dates of Construction 27
C. Mason's Work 29
D. Plasterer's Work 33
E. Carpenter's Work 37
F. Jehu Howell 45
G. Other Carpenters and Tradesmen 52

PART IV PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT UNDER THE LATER RIDGELYS
A. Governor Charles Carnan Ridgely
(1791-1829) 63
B. Period of John Ridgely 1 (1829-1867) 70
C. Last Years (1867-1947) 73

PART VNOTES ON THE MANSION GROUNDS AND GARDENS
A. Period 1772-1790 75
B. Period 1790-1829 80
C. Period 1829-1867 83

PART VI HAMPTON AS A NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE
A. The Beginnings of the Hampton Project 93

PART VII ILLUSThATIONS 97

APPENDICES:
A. Notes on Agreements for Carpentry at
Baltimore 125
B. Preliminary Report on Stoves at Hampton 128
Second Report 137
C. Shutters 141
Interior Colors 143
D. The Hampton Inventory, 1829 145
E.Hampton and the Founding of the National Trust
(Letter by Ronald F Lee) 169

PART I - PREFACE

A. Purpose of Report

This study attempts, within the limited time available to

the writer: (1) To assemble and arrange into some kind of order

the Hampton data collected by the writer twenty-plus years ago.

(2) To describe the restoration measures taken in 1949--soon

after the National Park Service assumed responsibility for Hampton.

(3) To point out further work needed. Most of this report could

thus be termed a research salvage project. It is not intended

for publication, though it could be rewritten for that purpose

as a sequel to John H. Scarff's valuable article of June 1948

in the Maryland Historical Magazine--still popularly sold in

reprint form.

The collection of information has not been easy. Since

1950 the people directly concerned with the earliest phases of

Hampton's redevelopment have scattered and some key persons are

deceased. Several changes of Federal jurisdiction have come to

pass; the official records have been somewhat dispersed and are

becoming more so.

The writer's first restoration project was on the Moore

House near Yorktown, Virginia, 4n 1931. Four years later he

compiled a history of the operation which was of great use in

- explaining the building to visitors. If I may quote myself:

It is my opinion that any architect who under-
takes the responsibility of working over a
fine old building should feel obligated to
prepare a detailed report of his findings for
the information of those who come to study it
in future years. Such a volume should become
a permanent part of the building - a payment
by the architect for the privilege of learning
and using facts which no other man may evqr
have. How else can we conserve the source
material for the study of antique architecture?

In looking back over my five years' acquaint-
ance with the Moore House, I have come to
realize that a more or less comprehensive
statement about this structure should be com-
piled in order that the abundant data now
available will not be scattered and lost.
This report is being prepared to be placed in
the house so that each visitor to this historic
place can know what changes have been made since
it came into the hands of the Federal Government.1

B. Hampton and the National Trust

One of the extraordinary developments which stemmed

from arranging the Federal acquisition of Hampton by the

generosity of the Avalon Foundation was the organization of

the National Trust for Historic Preservation, now a national

agency with a large membership and a widespread influence.

Much to my surprise I have recently found that people

today know little of that story.

We are fortunate that one of the. participants of that

campaign is with us and has been able to set down from

1. From the Preface, Charles E. Peterson, The Physical
History of the Moore House, 1930-1934, Washington, 1935
(typescript).

memory--and from the record--how it all happened. I am proud

to present the account by Ronald F. Lee (Appendix C) in the form

of a letter dated April 14, 1970. I have urged Mr. Lee to

expand his study into an article to be published in letterpress.

C. The Writer and Hampton

My first encounter with Hampton came in the summer of 1948

while serving as Regional Architect of the National Park Service

at the Region One Headquarters in Richmond, Virginia. Occasional

short visits were made that year and plans begun towards upgrading

the house for opening to the public in line with the hopes of the

Ridgely family, the Avalon Foundation and the Society for the

Preservation of Maryland Antiquities. The first stabilization

measure (propping up the Dining Room floor) had taken place

early that year by Park Service engineers.

In September 1949 enroute to a new assignment in Philadelphia,

the writer was directed to stopoff in Baltimore and expedite

work at the Mansion. Two months were spent in residence. But

the business of building up a day-labor-work force of twenty-

three men, attempting to do a comprehensive search of the

Ridgely manuscripts and get acquainted with the Baltimore

historical community (all at the same time) proved too much.

From overwork he landed in the Union Memorial Hospital for five

° weeks and after a period of convalescence, proceeded on to a

resident assignment in Philadelphia. The Hampton projects were

then picked up and carried (as far as funds would allow)

under the direction of the Washington professional staff

of the National Park Service, principally Chief Architect

Dick Sutton. Walter T. Berrett (afterwards Superintendent
at Fort McHenry) served as clerk-of-the-works in residence.

My deep involvement with the house developed with the

close--if brief--acquaintanceship on the job. The individ-

uality of the main fabric and its dependencies grows on one,

-as does the interest of its human story. The possibility of

learning more from the huge and still growing collection of

Ridgely Papers is even yet intriguing. But only in the

summer of 1959, when the writer dispatched a Historic American

Buildings Survey team for the making of record drawings, did

he have a chance to work on Hampton again.

The opportunity of putting together this report, brief

as it is, is much appreciated. If it serves to encourage

studies in greater depth, the writer will be happy.

D. The Ridgely Papers Today

The writer first saw the Ridgely Papers at the Maryland

Historical Society in 1948 in the shape of about 66 bound

volumes and an estimated couple of bushels of loose papers

of all sizes. Their bulk, lack of identification,and

arrangement made it practically impossible for any two

different persons to readily locate the same item o2? even

for a researcher to refind papers he had previously used.

In the last few years progress has been made in ordering

this rich and important record group. A letterpress catalog

compiled by Avril J. M. Pedley, The Manuscript Collections of

the Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore, 1968, lists the

following:

Collection No. Catalog Title

1304 Ridgely Account Books, 106 vols. 1732-1884

1305 Ridgely D. S. Papers, 1 box 1733-1884

1307 Ridgely Family Papers, 4 boxes 1759-1900

1308 Ridgely, Helen, Collection, 6 boxes, 1832-1918

1309 Ridgely Material, 79 vols. l827-l92Y

1310 Ridgely Papers, 9 boxes, 1740-1880

1311 Ridgely Papers, 14 boxes, 1733-1858

1312 Ridgely-Pue Papers, 2 vols. and c 500 items,
1748-1812

20th century

This writer has not had a chance to see the manuscripts since

they were rearranged but hopes that others will benefit by the

Society's enterprise, a difficult and costly one.

E. Some Published Titles

Through the years numbers of articles have been written about

Hampton. These are usually rich in glamour and nostalgia but at

times questionable as to facts.

Some of the more important titles are:

J. C. Carpenter, "An Old Maryland Mansion,"
Appleton's Journal, New York, Vol. XIII,
No. 320 (May 8, 1775) pp. 577-579.

Lawrence Hall Fowler, "Hampton," House &
Garden, Vol. III, January, 1903, pp. 41-48.

John Martin Hammond, Colonial Mansions of.
Maryland and Delaware, Philadelphia and
London, 1914, pp. 131-137.

William D. Hoyt, Jr., "The White Servants
at 'Northampton', 1772-74," Maryland Historical
Magazine, Vol. XXXIII, No. 2, June, 1938,
pp. 126-133.

"Bills for the Carpenter Work on 'Hampton',"
Maryland Historical Magazine, Vol. XXXIII, No. 4
(December 1938), pp. 352-371.

"Captain Ridgely's London Commerce, 1757 to
1774," Americana, XXXVII, No. 2 (April 1943)
pp. 326-370.

"A London Shopkeeper's Struggle to Recover
a Colonial Debt, 1763-1769," Maryland Historical
Magazine, XLV, 2 (June 1950) pp. 126-133.

"An Autobiographical Application for
Employment, 1788," The William and Mary G:arterly,
3 Ser., Vol, II, No: 4, (October 1945)
pp. 402-405.

Katherine Scarborough, Homes of the Cavaliers,
New York, 1930, pp. 137-149.

Last of all, the late John H. Scarff, FAIA, had published

an article "Hampton, Baltimore County Maryland" in the

Maryland Historical Magazine (June 1948). This was

reprinted under separate cover and widely distributed. It

is a valuable and solid work but much new historicat source

material has been discovered since that time and a great deal

happened to the place physically. Mr. Scarff does not seem to

have investigated the massive collection of Ridgely Papers in

the Maryland Historical Society, nor did he acknowledge any of
the competent works of Dr. William B. Hoyt, Jr., a~member of

the Ridgely family, published previously (and listed above).

F. Other Studies

In 1948 Mrs. Charles Buckner Ray, a volunteer researcher,

then of 2028 Guilford Avenue, Baltimore, was encouraged to read

extensively in the Ridgely Papers where she soon discovered the

richness of that large body of manuscript material. Her informal

reports were rather undisciplined and confusing but she found

many bits of great interest and had flashes of intuition about

their importance. Then her privately-supplied funds finally

ran out, that project was terminated. No connected or systematic

essay ever issued from it.

Among the other kind persons who contributed occasional

research in that period were Mrs. Charlotte Vincent Verplanck

of Lutherville and Edith Rossiter Bevan of Ruxton, whose article

"Gardens and Gardening in Early Maryland" appeared in the

Maryland Historical Magazine, Vol. XLV, No. 4 (December 1950),

pp. 243-270. We had a pleasant time trading our discoveries.

Anne C. Edmonds, The Land Holdings of the Hidgelys of Hampton,

1726-1843, a typescript M. A. dissertation for Johns Hopkins

University, Baltimore, 1959, is a splendid contribution

towards assembling a picture of the Ridgely empire at

high tide.

The typescript report Hampton and Its Masters by
Park Service Historian Lionel J. Bienvenu (Fort McHenry,

March 1963) falls short of its announced "intent of

supplying as full information as possible," but it does

contribute some items to the chronology of the house

construction, as did Mrs. Ray's work. (Note: The detailed

carpenters'- bills transcribed in extenso, pp. 52-67, had

already been published by Hoyt in 1938 though perhaps

Mr. Bienvenu did not know it.)

G. Measured Drawings

The original drawings from whicji the Mansion was built

must have been lost many years ~go; no historian ever

claimed to have seen them.

The oldest set of floor plans we now have is a set of

four ink drawings made by John Laing, Civil Engineer and

Architect dated July 1875. They are reproduced in Part VII.

One floor plan, one elevation and some interior details

of the Mansion were published in Great Georgian Houses of

America (New York, 1933-1937) as drawn for the Architects'

Emergency Committee of New York City.

The next drawings were made a quarter of a century later.

The old outbuildings of the plantation, especially those beyond

the boundaries of the National Historic Site, had become some-

what neglected and threatened to disappear one by one. These

were partly recorded in the summer of 1959 under the writer's
general direction as Supervising Architect, Eastern Office of

Design and Construction, National Park Service, Philadelphia.

A Historic American Buildings Survey team, organized for the

purpose, nade forty-one sheets of measured drawings which included

a floor plan of the Mansion and of many of the outbuildings.

Professor F. Blair Reeves of the University of Florida was in

charge of the team which consisted of Herbert L. Banks, University

of Florida, Charles C. Boldrick, University of Notre Dame, Orville W.

Carroll, University of Oregon, Richard C. Mehring, University of

Virginia, and Trevor Nelson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

These records, at the moment, are in the Office of Archeology

and Historic Preservation, National Park Service, Washington. They

will be filed with the great national collections of the Historic

American Buildings Survey in the Library of Congress, where they

will be available to all. (See Illustration No. 4, 33 Sheets.)

The drawings listed by Architectural Historian Beinke April 13,

1970,are as follows (structure and number of sheets of drawings):

Mansion, 9 Ice House, 2

Carpenter Blacksmith Shop, 1 Long Barn and Granary, 1

Corn Crib, 1 Mule Barn, 1

Cowhouse, 1 Overseer's House, 4

Dairy, 1 Slave Quarters #1, 1

Greenhouse, 1 Slave Quart9rs #2, 1

Horse Stable #1, 6 Slave Quarters #3, 1

Horse Stable #2, 6

A record was made by National Park Service Architect

Norman Souder in December 1963 of the conjectural floor plan

of Stable No. 1 at the time the building was fitted for

modern displays.

H. Photography

The Mansion and its dependencies have never been

adequately recorded photographically, and there appears to

be no central or comprehensive file for those negatives

and prints that have been made. The following notes may be

helpful in starting one:

(1) The Historic American Buildings Survey Catalog of

1941 lists 24photographs made in 1936 and 1937.

(2) A set seems to have been made by National Park

Service Photographer Abbie Rowe of Washington in 1948

when the Ridgelys still lived in the house.

(3) The writer has in his temporary possession a number

of prints from 8" by 10" negatives by sussman-Ochs,

2102 Maryland Avenue, Baltimore, 18 exposed during the

restoration work of 1949.

10 -

(4) Later ones seem to have been made by another govern-

ment photographer. One print I have (a view in the Parlor as

furnished and exhibited) is labeled:

NPS Neg. No. WAS0.C.450

EODC Neg. (COPY) No. 2344

Ph: Ralph H. Anderson, No. 32, July 15, 1955

(5) There are a limited number of old photographs in

various hands which have been copied and recopied through the

years. A bill in the Ridgely Papers dated October 15, 1872,

from Chase 4 Bachrach for $67.00 for "view of house" may relate

to some of them. This may refer to an ancestor of the well-

known Boston photographers.

(6) A set of HABS photographs of various outbuildings was

made in 1959 by Photographer Miyamoto. A selection of prints

is enclosed in this report.

I. Acknowledgments

This report was prepared under a contract with the Northeast

Region of the National Park Service. The encouragement and help

of Ronald F. Lee, George A. Palmer and Murray Nelligan of that

office must be warmly acknowledged. Of my architectural

colleagues,Henry A. Judd and Norman M. Souder must be thanked.

The superintendents of Fort McHenry (to which the governmental

° cognizance of Hampton was early assigned) have been most helpful.

They were the late James W. Rader, Walter Berrett,

George C. Mackenzie and Albert J. Benjamin.

The late John Ridgely of Hampton and Mrs. Ridgely

consistently helped to make early visits to Hampton
worthwhile.

The ladies of the Society for the Preservation of

Maryland Antiquities have aided my studies in many

ways over twenty-two years and always made a stop at

the.old Mansion a genuine pleasure. Let us wish them

well in their devoted work of furnishing the Mansion

and of keeping it attractive and interesting to the

visiting public.

Charles E. Peterson

Society Hill
Philadelphia
1979

12 adequately recorded photographically, and there appears to
€>gw
PART II - ThE NORTHAMPTON FURNACE

A. Establishment

In this writer's opinion the interest and importance of

the Ridgely estate as an early industrial-agricultural complex
has been too much neglected. This is partly due to~the fact

that the furnace was abandoned in the mid-nineteenth century

and its ruins afterwards disappeared under waters of the

Lock Raven reservoir. Some interesting Ridgely buildings,

not on the immediate grounds of the Mansion, do survive and

are worth attention and preservation to illustrate the

economic underpinning of the estate.

According to the late architect John H. Scarff, the first

white inhabitant of the Hampton area was a shadowy frontier

figure--perhaps a hunter squatting on the land--by the name

of Peterson. He gave his name to "Andrew Peterson's Run,"

afterwards called "Long Guarter Branch." As early as 1695

names for the area included "the Valley of Jehosophat" and

"Northhampton."1 Colonel Charles Ridgely (1702-1772), Baltimore

merchant, bought the 1500-acre Northampton tract from Ann and

Clement Hill in 1745.2 This fine plantation lay in the valley

of the Gunpowder River and was to become the seat of an impor-

tant iron works and the nucleus of much larger land holdings.

1. Scarff, pp. 1,2.
2. Anne C. Edmonds, The Land Holdings of the Ridgelys of
Hampton, 1726-1843 (Typescript dissertation for M.A., John Hopkins
University) Baltimore, 1959, p. 37.

The future builder of Hampton Mansion was "Captain"

Charles Ridgely (1729-1790), son of Colonel Charles the

merchant. At the age of twenty-eight we find him master

of the ship Baltimore Town in the London trade. He

crossed the Atlantic at least seven times in seven years
and then settled down to manage his properties ashore,

marrying Rebecca Dorsey of Belmont plantation in 1760.

Under the Captain's direction the family landholdings

3
continued to grow.
About the year 1760 the Northampton Furnace was

erected on the property and put in blast. This was the

tenth iron-making establishment in the Maryland colony,

where it was an important industry. Articles of partner-

ship dated the following year show that Charles Senior

and his two sons, John and Captain Charles, were co-

owners.

When John, the oldest son, offered his share of the

works for sale in 1770 the Maryland Gazette of Annapolis

described the improvements:

The said Furnace, Casting-House, Bridge and
Wheel Houses are all built of Stone, in the
neatest Manner, and on a never failing Stream
of Water, Eleven Miles distance from Baltimore-
Town.. .and on the best Road leading to said
Town. The Lands are well wooded, and abound
in Iron Ore, which is very convenient to said

3. William D. Hoyt, Jr., "Captain Ridgely's London
Commerce." Americana, Vol. XXXVII, No. 2 (April, 1943)
p.349.

Furnace, and is of the best and richest Qualities,
and yields such plenty that I believe no Furnace
on the Continent makes more Metal while in blast.
On the said Land all around the Furnace, is also
a plenty of Lime Stone, which is made Use of for
Flux, the Furnace is now heating, and will be in
blast in a few days; there is already provided
and at the Furnace, a very fine Stock of Ore
and Coals, and growing upon the Lands, as much
Indian Corn as I suppose may supply the Fwrnace
for Twelve Months. At the said Furnace is a
good Coal-House, and all other convenient
Houses in good repair.. .4

In addition to the furnace--which produced pig iron and

castings such as stove plates and hollow ware--the Ridgelys

also owned the "Long Cam" forge on Gunpowder Falls where iron~

was wrought into bars.5

Ridgely was exporting substantial amounts of iron in this

period, as related by Dr. William D. Hoyt, Jr., in his excellent

essay "Captain Ridgely's London Commerce:"6

... much of the output of the furnaces was shipped
in ballast, and every vessel sailing eastward
carried a number of tons. Consequently, there
were no large cargoes of iron, and the individuaL
transactions varied in size according to the amount
of space left after the tobacco and other goods
were loaded. . .Captain Ridgely did not send iron
only in the vessels of his agents, but contributed
pigs and bars for any ships which needed weight
for the ocean voyage.

4. The advertisement dated September 10, 1770,was carried
in the issue of September 20. Captain Charles purchased this
one-third interest in the works. Edmonds, p. 44.
5. Singewald, pp. 150, 152.
6. Americana, Vol. XXXVII, No. 2 (April, 1943) p. 349

In the meantime the furnace tract had grown to
7

- 2,000 acres. Historian Carl Bridenbaugh has shown that
the great size of such an iron-making establishment was

typical:

By its very nature, the iron industry was
easily adapted to plantation economy: a
large tract of undeveloped woodlands was
needed to supply charcoal for a furnace:
a farm had to be operated to furnish
food and other necessaries for the labor
force--altogether, the services of from
one hundred to one hundred and twenty slaves
were needed for such a business; and housing
had to be provided for all. Care of the
wagons, tools, machinery, and other equip-
ment required the work of carpenters, black-
smiths, wheelwrights, cartwrights, millers,
and sawyers to such an extent that an iron
plantation was probably the most self-
sufficient large economic unit in America.8

Hampton can be thought of as one of the pioneers of

the Industrial Revolution in both Baltimore- -where the

iron-steel business is still of-great importance--and in

America. As we shall see later, the Northampton Iron-

works played a part in the logistics of the American

Revolution. It ceased operation in or about the year
9
1850.

7. Edmonds, pp. 37, 38. This tract was acquired
in 1760 by Captain Ridgely by Deed of Gift from his
father.
-8. Carl Bridenbaugh, The Colonial Craftsmen,
New York -~ London, 1950, p. 17.
9. Singewald, p. 177. (Joseph T., Jr. Report on
the Iron Ores of Maryland with an Account of the Iron
Industry, Baltimore, 1911.)

Before news of the peace treaty had reached Baltimore,

Ridgely was converting the production of his furnace and forge

to the domestic markets, as witness the Maryland Journal and

Baltimore Advertiser for January 14, 1783:

C A N N 0 N (from Nine to Two-Pounders)

BAR-IRON, pig iron, pots from 15 gallons to three
quarts, kettles, from 45 to 15 gallons; Dutch ovens,
tea-kettles, skillets, mortars and pestles, waggon-
boxes, stoves, salt-pans, flat-irons, dripping-pans
and bakers, are made, and now to be sold at the
Northampton Iron-Works, and at Ridgely's Forges,
about 10 miles from Baltimore Town.
Specie, State Certificates, passed agreeable to
an act of Assembly of the 10th of May, 1781,
Continental State, black or red Money, pork, corn,
wheat, or tobacco, will be taken in payment, for
any of the above articles; and credit will be
given for any sum exceeding L 200. For terms,
apply to the subscriber, living near the above-
mentioned Works.
CHARLES RIDGELY
N.B. Castings of any kind made on the shortest notice
Baltimore County, Jan. 13, 1783.10

The early operation of the furnace was summed up by iron

historian Joseph Singewald on the basis of data furnished by the

Ridgely family:

In 1765, Captain Charles Ridgely started a general
merchandise business in Baltimore, and in 1766 took
in as partner his nephew, William Goodwin. This
later became the firm of Ridgely, Howard and Lw.

10. The above notice clearly states that Ridgely was living
near the Iron Works in midwinter at the close of the War. Traditionally,
the house was what recent Ridgelys have called "The Overseer's House."
There they probably remained until the Mansion was ready. - The Ridgelys
had evidently not yet begun to enjoy the city-country, winter-summer
cycles of residency that many well-to-do families were to take up
later.

The management of the iron works seems finally
to have devolved wholly upon Captain Ridgely.
Consequently in 1771 he made Goodwin his agent
for handling the output; and, shortly afterward,
he appointed his cousin, Henry Howard, of
Ridgely, Howard and Lux, manager of the
Northampton furnaces. Captain Ridgely finally
obtained complete possession of the iron works,
and in 1775 they were being operated by the
above mentioned firm. The founder at this
period was George Teal, who was paid at the
rate of 2s per ton and charged 6s per week
board. The output of one blast, which ran
from April, 1774, to August, 1775, was 1693
tons of pig iron, and that of the following
blast, from February 6, 1776, to October 22,
1776, was 823 tons. During the year October,
1775, to October, 1776, 2081 tons of ore were
mined and hauled to the furnace.11

B. The Revolutionary War

Colonel Ridgely,the merchant, died in 1772. He had

already disposed of most of his great landholdings as

family gifts. His one-third share of the ironworks he

left to his three married daughters, Plaisance Goodwin,

Achsah Holliday, and Rachael Lux with Darby Lux, his son-

in-law, as trustee.12

Captain Charles, his son, as we have seen, was

already in control with a two-thirds ownership. At this

point he seems to have moved his residence to the iron-

works. To judge by a daybook for the period 1772-1775

11. Singewald, Joseph T., Jr. Report on the Iron Ores
of Maryland with an Account of the Iron Industry, Baltimore,
1911. The author (p.169) also notes that the partners at
Northampton Furnace also owned the Curtis Creek or Marley
Furnace near Baltimore in the period 1758-1773.
12. Edmonds, p. 38.

there was considerable development going on at what he called

the "Plantation in the Forrest." Early in the year 1772 Moses

Dillon was paid L 11.13.0 for "Stone work on my house" which

may have been what is now called "the Overseer's House."13

Thomas Todd provided posts for enclosing a garden and both
Jehu Howell and William Richardson (employed years later to

build the big Mansion) were at work along with other carpenters.14

On February 24, 1773, James Lennox was paid for trimming 722

apple trees. The size of such an orchard implied a commercial--

and perhaps overseas--market for that fruit. The production of

cider and brandy may well have been a factor in the plantation

economy.

The Revolution found Ridgely aligned with the American

cause. In May of 1774 he was chairman of the Baltimore

Committee of CorrespondencelS and on November 9, 1778, his

schooner Camden, Captain Jeremiah Allen, was commissioned as

a privateer.16

During the War the Northampton Furnace was apparently busy

with defense work, though no one seems to have really developed

that story as yet. Four days after the Declaration of

13. Ridgely Account Book XXLV, pp. 23, 33, 87,- 94, 95.
14. Ibid., p. 15
15. J. C. Carpenter, "An Old Maryland Mansion," Appleton's
Journal, Vol. XIII, No. 320, (May 8, 1875). -
16. J Thomas Scharf, History of Baltimore City and County,
Philadelphia, 1881, p. 100.

Independence was signed in Philadelphia the Maryland

Council of Safety, having been informed that the

Northampton Furnace was in blast, notified Ridgely

that they needed "some Swivels and small Cannon from

four Pounders downwards,"17 probably for arming boats.

A week later they contracted for three hundred camp

kettles. 18 Soon afterward the Council urgently needed

"a number of round shott of the different sizes,

particularly 18, 19, 6 6 3, also some Grape."19 Orders

and disbursements continued through November. 20 Salt

pans for Henry Hollingworth's salt works were also cast

at Northampton Furnace by an arrangement shared with

one Henry Howard.21

We know very little of the manufacture of

ordnance at the Northampton Furnace, but the operation

was dangerous to friends as well as enemies. We read of

an order given on September 12th, 1776, to the
Commissary of Stores at Baltimore Town to
deliver to Henry Howard one-half barrel of

17. Archives of Mary land, Mary land Counci 1 of
Safety, Baltimore, 1893, p. 11. Council to Messrs.
Charles Ridgely and John Weston, July 8, 1776.
18. Ibid., p. 47, July 15, 1776.
19. Ibid., p. 73.
20. Ibid., pp. 140, 401, 426, 465.
21. Griffith, p. 87.

powder to "try cannon". This was attended by
unfortunate consequences to one of the men at
the works, who was injured during the test by
the explosion of a four-pounder.22

Griffith's Annals of Baltimore mentions another accident

in 1780 when an artillery officer, Captain Fulford, was

killed and several persons wounded during the testing of
cannon there.23

The extent of these orders by the military may never be

known but it is interesting to note that on November 6, 1776,

the Council ordered payment to Ridgely the large sum of

24
t 1000. Leander James Bishop's History of American

Manufactures states that the pig iron of Ridgely's furnace

was reported to be "the best in the State" and some of it

was even purchased by Massachusetts gunmakers at L 10 per
25
ton. In any case the Northampton Furnace seems to have

made a substantial contribution to the war effort. Miss E4monds

summarizes the expansion of the establishment:

The growth of the Ironworks is shown by a comparison
of the tax lists of the county for 1773 and 1783.
In 1773 a list of taxes recorded by William Hutson
for the Back River Upper Hundred indicated that
there were forty-seven persons at the Northampton
Quarter, owned by Captain Charles Ridgely. Ten

22. Na., "A Politician of Ye Olden Times," Maryland Journal
(Towson), Vol. XXXI, No. 1609 (October 19, 1895).
23. Ibid., p. 3. This was, perhaps, the John Fulford
stationed with a unit of matrosses at Annapolis in February of
1776. (John P. Cooper, Jr., The History of the lioth Field
Artillery, Baltimore, 1953, p.3).
24. Archives, p. 426
25 Philadelphia, 1866, I: 590

years later the assessors returns showed
that ther6 were one hundred and seventeen
slaves on Captain Ridgely's properties in
the Middle River and Back River Upper
Hundreds and ~laced a valuation of B 6500.0.0d
on the four thousand acres of lands and improve-
ments which comprised "The Hampton Estate and
Ironworks" 26

But the capstone to Ridgely's fortune seems to~have

been his speculations in war-confiscated real estate which

must have been aided by his position as "political boss of

Baltimore County."27 At this time each of the Maryland

counties seated four men in the House of Delegates at

Annapolis and Captain Ridgely was elected ten times in the

period l777~l787.28 A combine trading as "Charles Ridgely

and Company," which included the leading politicians

Samuel Chase29 and Governor William Paca, invested over

forty thousand pounds in confiscated British property and

led the legislative fight for cheap paper to pay for it.

Ridgely, like many other Americans, had owed money to

British merchants before the war and took advantage of the

26. Edmonds, pp. 45, 46.
27. Phil lip A. Crowl, Maryland during and after the
Revolution, Baltimore, 1943, p. 96.
28. Ibid., p. 38.
29. Chase's share in these enterprises ended disastrously
and in 1789, to save himself from bankruptcy, had t9 sign his
share "to another of the partners." Edwin S. Corwin in
The Dictionary of American Biography, New York, 1930. The
prominence of these people and the scale of the public issues
involved make it almost certain that documents exist for
writing the whole story.

situation to write off his debts in depreciated currency.30

At the time of his death Captain Ridgely possessed over

twenty-four thousand acres of land. Hampton Mansion was

truly a product of the Revolutionary War.

30. Crowl, pp. 96, 128.

23
PART III - BUILDING THE MANSION

A. Design

Hampton is an example of the well-known five-part early

Maryland house plan of three main architectural units connected

by "hyphens." The size of the fabric is impressive It measures

175 feet long, one of the most pretentious in 18th-century

America. Position on a hilltop adds to its stature.

The great octagonal cupola which crowns the house, rising

nearly thirty-four feet above the main ridge, is its dominating

feature, unique among the great 18th-century houses of this

country. It may well have been inspired by the eight-sided

dome over Castle Howard in Yorkshire, the magnificent country

house begun in 1700 under the joint direction of architects

John Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor. There is a tradition

that Captain Charles Ridgely, the man who had Hampton built,

was emulating the Howards--from whom he was descended through

his mother's family.1

Hampton's design presents some anomalies that grow more

obvious as one analyzes its architectural character. John Scarff

wrote "its design is not altogether successful.. there is.. too

great a discrepancy of scale...." and this writer agrees. It is

1. The only comparable example of a cupola on an American
private house I can remember appears in a 1795 stud~ by Charles
Bulfinch for a house for Elias Hasket Derby at Salem, Massachusetts.
Fiske Kimball, Domestic Architecture of the American Colonies and
of the Early Republic, New York, 1922, figure 160.

almost certain that the exterior was never completed in

accordance with the original design (the drawings have

been lost). Only the first elements to be completed--
outside, the elaborate features from the cornice up;

inside, some of the second-floor rooms; ever fulf£lled

the initial ambitions of grandeur and elaboration. The

plainness of the parts completed later is striking by

contrast.

To understand the discrepancies in decoration one

must remember the economic climate--or climates-- in

which Hampton was built. Construction had been started

in the boom period described in the diary of General

Greene for September 25, 1783:

Baltimore is a most thriving place. Trade
flourishes, and the spirit of building exceeds
belief. Not less than three hundred houses
are put up in a year. Groundrents are a
little short of what they are in London.2

But the outlook changed in the next few years. Samuel

Chase of Annapolis, who had been a partner in some of

Captain Ridgely's ventures--and was, like him, a purveyor

of Revolutionary munitions and a trader in confiscated
3
Tory coal and iron lands--went bankrupt in 1789.

2. J. Thomas Scharf, History of Baltimore City and
County, Philadelphia, 1881, p. 81.
3. Edwin S. Corwin, "Chase, Samuel, 1741-1811" in
Dictionary of American Biography, Dumas Malone, ed.
New York, 1930.

Captain Ridgely evidently had to cut down the decoration of his

house to suit changing circumstances. Certainly, the main rooms

on the first floor do not fulfill the promise of those on the

second.

There is some direct physical evidence of this. During

the repair of plasterwork on the first floor in 1949, it was

discovered that nailing blocks had been built into the brick

partition walls in anticipation of woodwork never installed.

Before any decorative trim could be nailed to those blocks

(there were no nail holes) they had been plastered over

and remained concealed until modern times. It is true, speak-

ing of architectural styles, that after the Revolution large

areas of wooden paneling were about to give way to plain plaster

walls covered with wallpaper. But the 1780's seem too early for

word to have reached the carpenters at Hampton. They were country

builders who had already been on the place ten years before the

Mansion was started.

Hampton--as projected into an elevation drawing--has some

remarkable resemblances to the Apthorp House in New York City

built a few years earlier (see Illustration 18).

The stucco finish of the exterior is early for an American

house; its pinkish terra cotta color ties it to the iron history

of the place.

B. Dates of Construction

Except for certain detailed carpentry documents

considered below, information regarding the construction

of the mansion is scattered and still very incomplete.

It is quite possible that after an orderly arrangement

and thorough sifting, the Ridgely Papers will reveal most

of the story. But the difficulty of deciphering many of

the manuscripts, the fact that business affairs of all

kinds are mixed together and that several houses and

other buildings were going up on Ridgely lands simultane-

ously, makes the task far from easy.

The documents so far examined do not establish the

exact dates of either the beginning or of completion.

In August of 1783 Ridgely refers to "my house now bilding

in the forrest" with a reference to carpenters Jehu Howell

and William Richardson, who had previously erected for him

a house "in the Neck."4 This indicates that construction

was underway soon after the signing of the treaty which

ended the Revolutionary War. In his will of April 7, 1787,

the Captain again refers to "the new house I am now building."5

4. Hoyt, Maryland Historical Magazine, Vol. XXXIII
(Dec., 1938) P. 353. "The Neck" was near Baltimore. This
date may be confirmed by the entry in Account Book XXIX
for August 1, 1783: "Scott's waggons begun this Day~to hall
Stone."
5. Scharf, p. 5.

By November of that year the roofs over the main block and both

wings had already been completed and shingled.6 The traditional
dates of the whole project are 1783-1790 and they may well be

correct. It does seem extraordinary that.more references to

construction progress have not as yet been found. - Twenty years

ago it was said there had been the date "1783" in lead numerals

set in the stucco near the north kitchen door but they have

disappeared and there seems to be no photograph of them.

From the standpoint of the bookkeepers' records house

construction can be divided into three periods:

(A) Early 1783 - November 4, 1784. In this period Howell

had deducted one-sixth of his pay in exchange for board with

Captain Ridgely. On the latter date the Howells seemed to

have moved into a house of their own.

(B) From November 4, 1784, to November 27, 1787, the date

of Howell's death. In this period Howell lived with his own

family and no deduction from his earnings was made for board.

given the terminal date as both 1788 and 1790. It has generally

been assumed that the house was complete when Captain Ridgely

died on June 28, 1790.

There is said to be an entry in Rebecca Ridgely's diary

that shows she moved into the Mansion on December 8, l788,~

6. Hoyt, pp. 364-366.
7. Ridgely-Pue Papers, Maryland Historical Society.
Not seen by the writer.

but that does not prove completion. It was not uncommon

for families to move into a dependency while their main
house was under construction and it would be quite possible

to have inhabited one of Hampton's wings in advance of

total completion.

C. Mason's Work

No references have yet been found for the excavation

of the cellar and foundations. Possible the removal of

earth was done in the rough by horses pulling slip shovels

followed by workmen trimming off with spade and shovel.

Stone

One of the first steps in the construction project

would be to haul the stone for the masonry walls to the

site of the new building, and there are entries for that.

The Mansion is built of a common rough gneiss-schist

type of rock probably from some nearby quarry. There are

references to working a quarry in the Ridgely Papers for

this period, but they may pertain to limestone being got

out for the smelting of iron or for making mortar.8

As mentioned above Account Book XXIX has the following

note for August 1, 1783, "Scotts waggons begun this Day to

hall Stone." These records run for some ten weeks and refer

° to both David and George Scott. The work seems to have been

8. "for 21b Powder dld Willis to blow Stone at Lime
Kiln" May 11, 1784. Account Book XLIV.

halted at that point, possibly by the bad roads of winter, but

they pick up again the following spring.

Hearthstones, which would probably have been neatly cut

if used in a house, are mentioned in the records. Account

Book XLIV shows payments of L3 each on January 31, 1785, to

Charles R. Carnan and John Richards "for bring~ hearthstone."9

Account Book XXX (Ledger E, p. 111) shows that David Scott

was hauling stone again in April of 1784 with four- and five-

horse teams, the quantity delivered amounting to 367 loads an~

196 perches. His bill came to £135.. .19.. .5-1/2 after the value

of four pairs of horseshoes (from Ridgely's blacksmith or from

the Company store) was deducted. It is interesting to note that

Moses Dillon and Jehu Howell (see below) measured the quantities

of stone delivered.

9. Account Book XLIV, page 138. On August 26, 1790,
William McKinley and George Haile, Sr., were also paid L3 each
for "Haul~ 1 Hathstone." Immediately following on the same day
"To Charles R. Carnan for 4.. .5 Horse Teams 3-1/2 days each
Hauling Hath stone from Curtises Creek a 36/pr day equal to haul~
8 Tons Ore 25.. .4.. .0 ditto for 4.. .5 Horse ditto 1/2 day each
haulg Stone from Ouarry as above. . .Joseph Heart for Hau1~ 1 pr
Hathstone from Curtises Creek 3... 0.. .0." (Northampton Rurnace
Journal, 1790, 1791, 1792, 1796.) One suspects that the hearth-
stones mentioned were for iron furnaces.

Maps show a Curtis Creek joining the Patapsco River
opposite Baltimore.

Account Book XLVI (timebook, 1784) gives the

teamster's records daily. David Scott began to be paid

by the day on May 1, 1784, and by the load on May 12. His

work continued to August 20. The record includes such

homely items as "Scotts horse lame," "Scott has 1 af my

horses," "Skots waggon Broake," "Rain London hauled 1

Load Lime," and "Skots waggoner gone home." For July 8

there was no entry "for want of Stone"; the teamsters had

got ahead of the quarry men. On September 16 five out-

fits were hauling brick from Baltimore.10 The record

ends with October 15.

Lime

Captain Ridgely was able to supply lime made on his

own lands.11 Its production was a simple matter according

to the technology of the period.

In Account Book LVII, a daybook for Northampton

Furnace, there is an item "Capt. Chas. Ridgely for 15 Bus

(hels) Lime sent pr Myler to main Building @ 1/.. .15.. .0."

10. The source of the brick supply in Baltimore was
not noted but there was plenty of good brick being made
around the city. See Lee Nelson, Brickmaking in Baltimore,
1798, Journ. Soc. Archt. Hist. Vol. XVIII, No. 1,
(March 1959) pp. 33-34.
11. Local limestone was used in the smelting of iron
at Northampton Furnace. In Account Book XLVII (fo. 17) there
is a reference to Mases Dillon as follows: "your 2 masons
Began to wourk at the Lime Cil (kiln) on Thoursday and Left
of a Thursday folling in the year 1786."

We thus have at least a bookkeeper's valuation of the humble but
essential material--lime--at a shilling per bushel, the common

way of measuring it at the time.

Masonry

Historian Bienvenu cited an item in the Ridgdly Papers for

masonry work done by Jonathan Blaine and Joseph Brearly on a

12
structure which had a "main building" a wing and a granary,

but a careful analysis of the dimensions by Architect Judd shows

that this could not have been the Hampton Mansion. The names of

those masons do not appear elsewhere.

Moses Dillon, who was much about the Hampton premises in

those years, is also credited with some mason's work in

November 1784 (Account Book XL VII), though the item below may

not pertain to the Mansion:

By 68 pr of wall @ 2/ t 6... 16.. .0
By 1 chimney ~ underpinning house 2... 10... 0
By 1 mantle peice 0... 5.. .o13

12. Bienvenu p. 12 and footnote 27.
13. Account Book XLVII (Ledger 1784-85) p. 45. Moses Dillon
was one of Captain Ridgely's most trusted mechanics and spent many
years about the place. He had masons of his own and he measured
materials delivered to the site as well as the work of other
mechanics. Early entries in Ledger Li (fo. 79) well before the
beginning of the Mansion are:

Moses Dillon
hard money
Nov--by underpinning my New Stables t 2-10-0
Rebild~ 2 ovens -15-0
By Still house 7-6
By Chimblys 5- 0-0

Nov 28 1781 l0# nailes

On an undated sheet in Captain Ridgely's hand

(Carpenters' Bill No. 5) attributed by Dr. Hoyt to the

construction of the Mansion, there is this item, seem-

ingly for mason's work:

Mr. Richardsons Bill for
my chimney 47.10.3

Mr. Richds paid Wm Riddle
more than Charged in
Chimney Acct 4.15.--

Mr. Richardson paid Ths
Green for work on the
Chimney more than )
charged in the Acct) 5.15.--

58.--.3

The names Riddle and Green do not appear elsewhere in

the Mansion records and I am inclined to believe that

this work was done on another house.

Ledger K (p. 72) contains an account of John Selby,

a mason, for the year 1790 but the location and nature of

work are not specified.

1). Plasterer's Work

The stucco covering of the stone masonry is one of

the notable features of Hampton and was a part of the

original construction. The masonry of the Mansion--as

revealed here and there through fallen stucco--is of a

rather indifferent character, seeming to indicate that

it was always intended to be covered with a veneer.

Norman Davey, A History of Building Materials, London, 1961,
14

has an excellent chapter on stucco which he traces from Egyptian
and Roman times. There was a revival of its use in Italy of the

fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and it was favored by Palladio
who had great influence in England and America. Henry VIII

introduced it at his Nonsuch Palace and it was taken up in turn

by Inigo Jones and Robert Adam. John Nash by 1782 was building

London houses with stucco fronts.

We do not yet have a comparable reference book on the

technology of early American building but it is easy to observe

that exterior stucco has long been a favored material in the

early Caribbean and it had reached South Carolina in the early

18th century. Thomas T. Waterman, The Mansions of Virginia,

1706-2776, surmises that Mt. Airy, the great stone house of

the Tayloes on the Rappahannock, may have been plastered.15

Fiske Kimball noted that exterior stucco finish was

becoming fashionable here after the Revolution and points out

its use at the well-known house "Solitude" (built 1784) by

John Penn on the Schuylkill above Philadelphia. It may also

be appropriate to note that the Free Ouaker Meeting House,
built 1783-84, has rusticated plasteY arches over its windows

14. New York, 1945, p. 253.
15. Kimball, Domestic Architecture, p. 153. Solitude is
now the office of the Philadelphia Zoo.

in imitation of stonework.16 These buildings are exactly
contemporary with the beginnings of Hampton.

The notable thing about the original Hampton stucco

is that it was of a pinkish terra cotta color resulting

from red (iron bearing) sand in white lime mortar. This

was marked off into an ashlar pattern by white lines,

probably applied with a penciling brush.17 The present

drab gray stucco is the color of modern Portland cement;

no one knows when it was applied.

Samples of the original finish have been found in

protected places. In 1949 the writer located a sample

where the "Schoolhouse" addition had covered part of the

exterior finish of the main house. In later years NPS

Architect Henry A. Judd found some of it under the south

porch. It appears in several places below the water

table and on the older stable building.

On April 7, 1970--as a part of the preparation for

this report--NPS Architect Judd of the Office of

Archeology and Historic Preservation and I visited Hampton

and stripped the plaster in the Schoolhouse hyphen passage-

16. Charles Li. Peterson, Notes on the Free Cuaker
Meeting House, Philadelphia, 1966 (mimeographed).
17. In the Maryland Journal & Baltimore Advertiser
of December 31, 1784, Richard Jones, Oil and Colourman
at Fell's Point, advertised for sale, along with paints,
"All Sorts of Brushes; Painters Tools; Fitches; Pencils,
Sc."

way that leads from the Sitting Room to the garden front
of the Mansion. Superintendent Benjamin and Custodian

McPherson were present. We were most pleased to find a

large area of the original exterior of the house in

excellent condition even after some thirty years of

exposure to the weather when it was still new.

Above the water table the blocks were laid off by

lines of white paint 5/16" wide with blocks varying from

27" to 30-1/2" long and about 8" high. Below the water

table the blocks were somewhat larger. When this wall is

completely laid bare, the pattern can be studied in detail

for evidence to lay out the pattern on the remainder of the

house.

This discovery is a remarkably fortunate break and all

should be happy indeed that a guide has been found for an

unusual but authentic effect that will add character to the

Mansion. It is hoped that this sample will be labeled and

carefully protected for its interest to architects, architec-

tural historians and old house enthusiasts generally.

Incidentally, the taste for artificial wooden ashlar,

best exemplified at George Washington's Mount Vernon, appears

in several places above the cornice line at Hampton)

No plasterer's or painter's bills for this work have yet

been found.

Li. Carpenter's Work

Lumber:

The lumber used by Captain Ridgely came from many

places. It cannot with certainty be stated that most

of that cited in the records was used at the Mansion.

On March 10, 1783, Josias Penington billed

Charles Ridgely for scantling which was apparently

delivered by "Capt. Jehu Howell." The following

July 7 Ridgely bought a large order of lumber from

Hollingsworth ~ Loney of Baltimore as follows:

3351 feet Inch plank @ 15/ t 25.. .2.. .7

6041 Do Inch ~ ~r ~ 17/6 52.. .17.. .0

77.. .19.17

Com @ 2/2 p C l...l8.. .5
L 79.. .18.. .0

On May 3, 1784, Lidward Parker charged t 11.. .9.. .8

for "2756 feet 7 Inches Plank." Later in the month he

made an agreement with the same operator:

This 18 Day of May 1784 I have agreed wt
Lidward Parker to saw the bill of scant-
ling for my large house (italics supplied
by writer of this report) @ 15/ per Ct.
I am to take it from his mill or pay him
for haulg it to be measured side and edge
agreeable to the old custom in Presents of
Wm. Richardson G Wm. Dukes. (signed)
C. Ridgely.18

18. Account Book XLIV.

On June 3, 1785, "Mr. Howel" delivered 134 feet of pine

plank and 206 feet of 1-inch pine plank worth t 3... 3... 11 1/219

and on both October 5 and 26 there were two six-horse teams

hauling plank from Baltimore. 20 On July 1 and 18, 1786, there

were four-horse teams hauling "Shingle Stuff" (prbbably bolts

for splitting) and rafters and laths.21

Account Book LIV carries records for a number of sawyers

by name in the year 1787. It is difficult to read but is full

of items like "To Sawing Sheating plank," "sawing for the mill,"

"Sawing Inch 1/4 popler," "Sawing for the hen house," "Sawing

Joice 16 feet long," "Sawing of rafters," "Sawing Inch oke" and

"Sawing for the brigs." The latter may have referred to lumber

for the use of Ships' carpenters.

The Six Carpenters' Bills:

The six detailed carpenters' lists from the Ridgely Papers

published by William D. Hoyt, Jr., in the Maryland Historical

Magazine, Vol. XXXIII, No. 4 (December 1938) pp. 352-371,

represents a heroic job of transcription, for the original

manuscripts are difficult to read. The spelling--both of

Captain Ridgely and his mechanics-- is partly phonetic and in

some places undecipherable. The meaning of many words and

19. Account Book LII, fo. 16
20. Ibid., fo. 49
21 Ibid., fo. 39

phrases has been long forgotten. The writer's experience

in such builders' documents suggests a number of correc-

tions but on the whole Dr. Hoyt did a very commendable

job.22

There follow some observations on these bills. I

have kept Dr. Hoyt's numbering but I do not believe that

they are in the proper order chronologically. It will be

noted that only one is dated. The true order should

probably be 5-2-3-1-6. As explained below I don't

believe that Document No. 4 belongs to the Mansion; it

probably concerns another of the several Ridgely build-

ings put up in this period.

Much of the work could be called "joiners"' work

in the terminology of the 18th century, but its distinc-

tion from "carpenters' work" has never been clearly drawn--

either in Lingland or America.

"BiLl No. 1"

Bill from Jehu Howell's estate for carpenters' and

joiners' work (12 pp. unsigned and undated except for two

items near the end).

22. NPS Historian Bienvenu, Hampton and Its Masters,
° pp. 57-67, transcribes the documents; I have not checked
to see if he took his material from Hoyt or from the
originals.

From this tremendous and detailed billing which totaled

L 1815. .16... 9, it would appear that the exterior of the

house including dormers and eaves on the roof, as well as

the great "Doom" or cupola, were completed well before Howell"s

death in November, 1787. A great deal of finished woodwork,

both upstairs and down, as well as carpentry in the garret

and cellar, is listed.

None of this would have been installed before the roof

was shingled. On December 16, 1786, there is an item for

"Warner" putting in windows so the roof was probably com-

pleted before then.

Other mechanics mentioned in this document are:

William Richardson, Michael Shannon, Smithson 4 Fuller,

Coffey, and Dodson (or Dotson). These men are discussed in

Section G.

For the period after Howell's decease there is a great

list of minor detail, mostly about the hanging of doors and

shutters and the installation of hardware. Several items

seem worth comment:

(1) References like "dotson's room upstairs" suggest

that carpenters were assigned specific rooms to work out

the trim more or less by themselves.

(2) Items for the framing and shingling of the "pantries"

suggest that these were in what we now call the ''hyphens.''

(3) The original gutters were made of wood lined

with sheet lead and shingled into the roof. (The nature

of 18th-century gutters has generally been obscure; not

many examples have survived).

(4) Items referring to the window frames "cut' out

for weight" suggest that it was decided to substitute

box frames (with counterweighted sash and pullies) for

plank frames during the course of the project. The

familiar modern terms "double hung" and "parting strip"

occur in these bills.23

(5) The floors were of three types--butt joint,

tongue and groove "blind-nailed" and dowelled.

"Bill No. 2"

Bill from Jehu Howell's estate for carpenters' and

joiners' work (3 pp., unsigned, undated). The submission

of the bill was necessarily after Howell's death in

23. The Free Quaker Meeting House at Fifth and Arch
Streets, Philadelphia (built 1783-4) is contemporary. In
opening up the walls of that structure, original window
sash, weights, pullies and cords were found which had been
sealed in since the year 1788--a most unusual find. They
are illustrated in Charles Li. Peterson, Notes on the Free
Quaker Meeting House, Philadelphia, September, 1966
(mimeographed), Illustration No. 22, Drawing Sheets 17 and
18.

November, 1787, but to narrow the period it was for work done

before November 4, 1784, when Howell moved to his own quarters.

There are many items for framing the floors, part of which

would have been simultaneous with the laying up of the masonry

walls. Roof framing and shingling accounts for much of the

bill. Included is work done on the "mane house" as well as

the east and west wings. Some of the work listed is interior

finish work which would hardly have been attempted before the

roof was shingled.

During the period it appears that Howell boarded part of

the tine with Ridgely and part of the time he fed himself and

carpenter Strawbridge. It also appears that Michael Shannon

boarded part of the time with Ridgely (deduction of L 48.. .4.. .7)

as did Ramsey McGee (L 60.. .0... .0).

"Bill No. 3"

Bill to Jehu Howell from Michael Shannon (2 pp., unsigned,

undated).

This is a bill for interior joinery, at least part of

which was done between June 14, 1786, and June 19, 1787.

Because it is unlikely that any of this interior work was

attempted before the shingling of the roof it probably

indicates that the latter was complete by the earlier date.

° Notable items are "a Sett of Pelaster (pilasters) in

Lobby" and "one Bedsted," made for the owner.

"Bill No. 4"

Bill to Captain Ridgely for carpenters' work

"dun on kichen" (2 pp., unsigned, undated).

It seems likely that this short list refers to a

detached or semidetached kitchen at some other place--

perhaps at the house "in the Neck" as suggested by the

endorsement.

An interesting item is "28 feet of hand Railes with

Chenie work," evidently what we now call "Chinese

Chippendale" fretwork. There is some of this on the

second floor of Hampton' s main porches but I see no

place for it on the east or kitchen wing.

"Bill No. 5"

Memorandum by Charles Ridgely (1 p., unsigned,

undated).

This refers at least in part to masonry work on

the chimneys evidently done by William Riddle and

Thomas Green.

Interesting is the statement "Mr. Richardson in

the Spring has Promosed me Shure to make my Doom bilt."

° This suggests a date at least as early as 1786 or 1787.24

° 24. See 1787 dome item on William Phillips'
work as Turner below.

"Bill No. 6"

Estimate by Henry Carlile for "Captain Ridgelys Parlor"

dated November 7, 1787 (unsigned, possibly in Carlile's

own handwriting). Wi;iich room of the Mansion was called

"the parlor" is not known.

The endorsement in Captain Ridgely's handwriting seems

to indicate that the latter made an agreement with Carlile

on November 26 (a few days after Howell's death) to complete

the room.

One mystery presents itself: Thy did Captain Ridgely

get an estimate from Henry Carlile on November 7, 1787, less

than three weeks before Howell's accidental death? It is

easier to understand that Ridgely accepted the estimate by

express on November 26, immediately after news of Howell's

death. The question might be asked, however, why others of

the Howell and Richardson staff~such as Shannon, McGee, Dotson,

Smithson, or Fuller weren't asked to do the work.

It is probable that the various items of work can be

identified in the Mansion but to do this would be a con-

siderable research project in itself. If we had a full set

of measured drawings of the interiors, the quantities could

be taken off from the drawings and compared with the entries

in the Hampton accounts. But even in 1970 we still lack such

a record and the quantities would have to be taken directly

from the woodwork of each of the rooms.

From information gathered in the study of 18th-

century buildings in Philadelphia all--or nearly all--of

the builders' terms used in the Ridgely manuscripts can

probably be identified. 25

F. Jehu Howell, A Very Ingenious Architect

The identification of the mechanics who worked on a

project are a routine concern of the construction histo-

rian; oftentimes such research leads to important

discoveries in the domain of architectural history. First

of all we will consider Jehu Howell, one of the principal

figures at Hampton.

The Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertisers for

November 27, 1787, ran the following sad notice:

Last Friday Morning, Mr. JEHULi HOWELL, a very
ingenious Architect, of Baltimore County, having
Occasion to cross Patapsco River, went from this
Town to the Ferry-Branch, and finding a Boat at
a short Distance from the Shore, he permitted
his Horse to enter the Water, at the Lind of the
Ferry-Point, supposing it shallow--but, alas!
he was fatally mistaken; for the Horse, in a
few Moments, plunged into a Channel many Fathoms
deep, whereby the hapless Rider soon perished,
without the possibility of Relief.--This mel-
ancholy Event hath deprived an effectionate
Wife of a fond Husband, and Two Children of a
kind Parent.--His Body hath since been found,
and respectfully interred.

25. In Philadelphia the fire insurance "surveys" exist
for hundreds of 18th-century buildings in which professional
builders' terms were used to describe the fabrics where and
as insured.

451¾«±yõ$$$$$%
At the time of the accident Jehu Howell, with William

Richardson and others, had been building the Mansion, still

incomplete. Howell, being "a very ingenious Architect,"

was likely the designer. The term "architect" was still

an uncommon one in America at that time and the wor£i generally

referred to what we now call a "carpenter-architect."

A reference to Jehu Howell appears in the records of

the First Presbyterian Church of Baltimore when a man of

that name was listed as a member in 1770, but "out of town"

in 1773.26

On January 29, 1773, Howell's name appears in one of

Captain Ridgely's daybooks. The item is only partly legible

but it involved 7/6 worth of shingles.27 There are subsequent

entries with Howell's name but the greatest number appear in

a tabulation at the end of the volume where it was noted that

our man received an issue of one quart of rum no less than

68 times! On these same pages one Jacob Howell got twenty

issues of rum and John Howell eighteen. At another point in

this bibulous record appears the item "The Carpenters in

General.. .2 qts."

26. John H. Gardner, Jr., "Presbyterians of Old
° Baltimore," Marylond Riotorical Magazine, XXXV (1940)p. 258.
27. Maryland Historical Society, Ridgely Papers, Account
Book XXLV (Daybook, l772-75),p. 94.

It would appear that Captain Ridgely had a

construction project under way at Northampton Furnace

soon after he inherited it from his father and that in

the carpenter corps he had a family of rum-drinking

Presbyterians, one of whom stayed on for twelve years or

more to take an important part in the building of Hampton

Mansion.

The oldest document we have from Howell's hand is a

letter from him to Captain Ridgely dated October 14, 1781,

asking for help in collecting some money owed by Darby
28
Lux. In another letter, May 13, 1782, Howell wanted one

hundred dollars from Ridgely so he could send sixty to his

wife. It appears that in partnership with Richardson and

one Walsh he owned over twenty thousand acres of surveyed

land near Fort Pitt. At that time he had a suit against

one Stevenson (?) for payment for a house worth around

L 96~lOO.29 As we have seen above, Howell and Richardson

had been building Captain Ridgely's house "on the Neck"

before August of 1783.30 In 1784 they seemed to have

28. Np., Riagely Paperz (Loose Mss.)
29. This letter from Howell to Charles Ridgely, np.,
May 13, 1782, stated "The Courthouse I cannot get for some
time." He asked that an answer be left at Moore's (?) with
his brother-in-law or at Moody's. These places have not been
identified.
30. See Carpenter's Bill No. 4.

hopes of also building a courthouse for Baltimore County.

Account Book XLVIII ? (Ledger, 1784-86 ?) itemizes various

goods and services being provided by the Ridgely organization

to Jehu Howell, his family, his household and his employees

and apprentices.

We know that part of the time while work was in progress

at the Mansion Howell boarded with Captain Ridgely and part

of the time he boarded himself. On November 4, 1784, Howell

was charged with a half-day's use of a four-horse team to

remove his "wife a Furniture." Whose wife and fron where to

where is not specified but the distance obviously could not

have been great. Ledger C (WH) shows that in 1787 Howell was

billed t 45 for three years rent of "Hopse 4 Garden," which

would have exactly covered the interval until his death. A

charge for one plow horse for one-third of a day in the spring

of 1785 suggests that he was cultivating a garden alongside a

tenant house.32

31. Note from Richard Ridgely (attorney to Charles
Ridgely) Jan. 15, 1784, R.P. If a new courthouse was considered
at this time plans evidently changed. The courthouse existing
fron the 1770's was underpinned in 1784 to allow the passage of
a street by Leonard Harbaugh. For information on the building
see J. Thomas Scharf, pp. 45, 47, 60, 61, 72, 726, 727. See
also Morris L. Radoff, The County Courthouzee of Maryland, Part
One.
32. Account Book XL VIII?, fo. 76.

Wood, candles, salt, bacon, beef, game, "purtators,"

corn flour, turnips, cider, wine and rum were among the

items received in lieu of cash. Certain entries reveal-

ling details of Howell's household and of his own crew

of builders are worth noting here:

LEDGER E

Jehu Howell, Dr.

1784

March 2 To 1 p£ Shoes for Staybridge 0.. 10.. .0

June 19 To Cash for Ramsey MCGee 6... .... 0

20 To 1 pr Shoes for Staybridge.... 0.10.. .0

Sept 18 To Cash to Ramsey McGee 20.. 16... 0

18 To Cash to Phillips 1.17.. .6

29 To Cash by Straybridge 1.12.. .6

Oct 2 To Cash to Ramsey MCGee... 5... 5.. .0

9 To Jacob Howel .......

ACCOUNT BOOK XLVI I

Jehu Howell, Dr.

1784

Nov 5 To 1/2 days work pr french
J0hn~ 0.. .1.. .3

Dec 31 To on peair of Shoes to your
housekeper potley worn 0... 8.. .0

1785

Jan 5 To 8 Carts Lods of Whod

Feb 26 To 1 pr mended Shoes for your
housekeper 0.. .3.. .0

March 9 To 1 pr of Shoes for your Boy 0.10.. .0

April21 To 1 Bushel of flacksceed 7... 6

1786

Jan 7 To 1 r of Shoes for Robbord
p. r
Strobgard 1 p. Shoes mended for
Mis Polley 11. .6

7 To 1/3 day holling Logs and Straw 12.. .6

Sept 20 To 1 qt of Rum for wornor 1.. .6

26 To 1 pr of Shoes for your prentis
Gorg millemen (apprentice George
Milleman) 0. .11.. .0

Nov 5 To 1 pf of Shoes for dotson 0.. 11.. .0

8 (bacon to Shannon)

8 8 Bushels Brand shorts for dotson 4... 8

Dec 1 To 9-1/2 1b of superfin flower for
nichel Shannon 0... 2.11

6 To 1 p£ of Shoes Sold your prentis
whornor (apprentice Warner) .... 3... 0

6 To 1 peck of Corn for Michael
Shannon 1.. .3

14 To 3 qts of Rum Michael Shannon
at 1/6 4.. .6

14 To the oxcart 2/3 of a day halling
Rales to the Bilding 6... 0

30 To 1 pr of Shoes for your

House keepper 0.. .8.. .0

1787

Jan 10 To 1 pt of Shoes for Richard
pearl 0.. 11.. .0

11 To 1 Bushel of Brand for John
dotson 1.. .2
1b
12 To 5 of Bacon for Smitson 0.. .5.. .0
12 To 5-3/4 lb of Bacon for Fullor0.. .5... 9

17 To 1 pf of Shoes for Gorg your
prentis 0. .11.. .0

In the records a certain number of documents remain

from the closing of Howell's estate. They show that on

March 3, 1788, Joseph Wheeler and Benjamin Bowing were

appointed to appraise the goods and chattels. Their list

was made on May 24 and on June 19 Margery Howell, Acting

Administratrix (and presumably the widow), swore to its

accuracy. The list is not a long one and it consists

mainly of ordinary household items. A parcel of old car-

penter's tools valued at t 4.2s.6d seems to have been all

of the professional equipment left by the builder.

There was also "a parcel of old books" at L l.l0sOd.

We could wish that the titles of the books had been recorded;

they might have suggested some published sources for the
33
° designs of Hampton's interior woodwork. No original

33. Annapolis, Hall of Records (MS).

Hampton drawings are referred to anywhere, nor have any con-

temporary references to the origin of the architectural design

come down to us. Yet they must have existed, when construction

began, and it seems very likely that Howell drew them.

This report assembles what has been discovered of Howell

so far. Undoubtedly, much more can be found. It would be

interesting to know where he got his training. This writer

would not be surprised if Howell came from the Philadelphia

area. He seems to have owned land near Pittsburgh; this may

have been a veteran's bonus for military service. This writer

guesses that further research will identify this man.

G. Other Carpenters and Tradesmen

Besides Jehu Howell no less than seventeen other carpenters

were active on the Ridgely enterprises in the years the Mansion

was built. Some men were closely associated with Howell and

Richardson as journeymen and apprentices. In other cases the

relationship, if any, is not clear. The men are listed alph-

betically below.

1. Henry Bateson

Bates on is identified as a carpenter in the account books

between July 23, 1784, and January 10, 1787. From the nature of

the supplies got from Captain Ridgely he evidently was a family
34
man who kept a garden and bought shoes, food and drink as needed.

34. Account Book XLVIII, fos. 19, 58, 62, 80 and 90.

His name is not connected with Jehu Howell--or work on

the Mansion--in any references so far noted.

2. Henry Carlile

On November 7, 1787, shortly before Jehu Howell's

death, one Henry Carlile submitted a detailed estimate

for trimming out "Capt. Ridgelys Parlor" totaling

t 100... 0... 4. From this he subtracted one-sixth or

t 16... 13... 4 1/2 "for Mr. Howel," apparently planning

to board with the latter at the established percentage.

On November 26, shortly after Howell's death, Ridgely

apparently sent an express message to engage Carlile

for further work but I have seen no evidence that any
35
agreement was actually made.

3. Coffey

In Carpenters' Bill No. 1 is this passage "he

must make a Reduction for the Inside Shottors and back

Laps Coffey made as we have Counted the said to you as

if you had finished the whole."36 This passage suggests

that a carpenter named Coffey executed some of the

35. Hoyt, pp. 370, 371. Abraham and Isaac Carlile
were 18th-century members of the Carpenters' Company of
Philadelphia City and County.
° 36. Hoyt, p. 355. Spelling here revised by the
writer after comparison with original.

finished woodwork about 1786-7. The name was not noted else

where in the Hampton records.

4. John Dotson

Dotson appears as early as January 5, 1785, in the records

37
of the Ridge1y store and six days later in Jehu Hpwell's

38
account when he bought a bushel of bran. Dotson was assigned

to do the trim in what were called "Dotson's North Room" and

"Dotson's South Room" on the first floor.39 Most of his work

seems to have been completed by the time of Howell's death. The

fitting, hanging and adjusting of the doors, windows and shut£ers
40
were the principal items. He also paid lOs for "making a well

Cerb. ,,41

5. Robert Guttery

The name of this man appears once as a carpenter when he was
42
paid t 3 on January 31, 1785. ° The nature of the work was not

specified.

37. Account Book XLVIII.
38. Ibid., fo. 93, January 11, 1787.
39. Hoyt, p. 359, 360.
40. Hoyt, p. 363.
41. Hoyt, p. 362.
42. Account Book XLII, p. 14S.

6. Jacob Howell

As we have seen above, Jacob Howell, quite possibly

a relative of Jehu's, was working (or at least drinking)

at Captain Ridgely's plantation just before the

Revolutionary War. Ledger B (fo. 92) shows that Jacob

by October 9, 1784, had consumed L 47... 13... 0-1/2 worth

of board "from the time he began to work by the Day,"

that this account was settled by Jehu Howell and that in

the period January 4 - October 21, 1784, he performed

"some work on the Great house" as well as work done on

a ~'~~~~~~ a wash House" elsewhere on the Ridgely prop-

erties. The total of work was recorded as t 143.. .4... 5

of which part was paid direct by Jehu Howell. Subtracted

from this large sum was "1 Shingling hammer" valued at

five shillings (fo.83).

Why Jacob Howell's services were discontinued does

not appear.

7. John McClure

Historian Bienvenu names McClure as a carpenter

working on the Mansion.43 He is mentioned in Account

Book XLVII in the period 1784-85. On May 16, 1785, there

is the unexplained McClure item connected with Jehu Howell

43. Bienvenu, p. 12.

"to so much for ~~~~~ up your house...'. 3... 14.. .9" and later

a payment of t 40.. .44

Account Book XLII shows that McClure did a small amount

of work "at Furnace" along with Howell and Richardson who

45
were heavily involved with the Mansion at that time.

8. Ramsey McGee

McGee appears in the Ridgely account books as early as

June 19, 1784, when he received L 6 cash.46 Items such as

"2 pr of Shoes for your children"47 and a pair of "Negro

Shoes"48 suggest that he was a family man with a colored

servant. Other entries for food and drink were few and

suggest that the McGees were either living very simply or

were shopping in Baltimore.

Carpenters' Bill No. 2 49 shows that McGee did t 60

worth of work while boarding wi;th Captain Ridgely. McGee

does not seem to appear in the account books after April 14,

1786.50 It may be that he was employed only for rough work

with the finishing work reserved for others more skilled.

44. Account Book XVII, fo. 8.
45. Account Book XLII (January 1785?).
46. Ledger E, fo. 91.
47. Account Book XLVIII, Feb. 10, 1786.
48. Ibid., December 25, 1784.
49. Hoyt, Carpenters' Bills, p. 366.
50. Ibid., fo. 9

9. George Milleman
Ridgely's account with Jehu Howell mentions

(September 26, 1786) buying a pair of shoes at lls for

"your prentis Gorge Milleman,"51 an item which was

repeated the following January 17.52
How long Milleman remained at Hampton we do not

know. He later appears as the architect of the new

53
Baltimore Court House in 1809. It may well be that

the design and construction of Hampton served as his

professional education.

10. John Noland
There is a single reference (March 31, 1789) to

carpenter John No land in Account Book LVII. It is not

known that he worked on the Mansion.

11. Richard Pearl
Pearl appears in Carpenters' Bill No. 1 as

54
December 16, 1786, for "making Loom Roods," whatever

they are. Jehu Howell's accounts on January 10, 1787,

mention that Pearl bought a pair of shoes for 11 shillings.55

51. Account Book XLVIII, fo. 97
52. Ibid.
53. Scharf, pp. 726, 727; Radoff, pp. 27-29.. The
size of the courthouse was noted as 65' x 145'.
54. Hoyt, p. 362. They may relate to the manufacture
of cloth.
55. Account Book XLVIII, fo. 93.

No further mentions were noted.

12. William Richardson

William Richardson came to Hampton as a partner of

Jehu Howell (q.v.). His name does not appear in the account

books frequently and there is no indication that he. was much

in residence there. It is possible that he lived in Baltimore

and only visited Hampton, with Howell as the partner in residence.

This man is sometimes referred to as "Captain" William Richardson.

There were a number of men by that name in the Revolutionary War

rolls of Maryland but none of these leads were followed up by

the writer.

In Carpenters' Bills No. 1 and 2, it appears that Richardson

specifically did the frames for eight dormer windows and a small

part of the cornice work. I have not been able to attribute any

other parts of the construction to him.

In the Ridgely account books Richardson appears from a least

the period beginning July 2, 1783, (request for a loan of ten
56
pounds) to May 6, 1786. He was a signer of the constitution of

the Carpenters' Society of Baltimore in 1791. There are entries

in a Ridgely account book for him in May of that year for shoes

both for himself and for his horse.57

56. Ledger B, fo. 107.
57. Account Book LIII, p. 136.

13. Michael Shannon

Shannon worked on Hampton in the first period, when

he earned the large sum of '. 108.. .4... 7 from which

58
t 48.. .4... 7 was to be deducted for board. He was

evidently a journeyman carpenter working under the

direction of Jehu Howell (q.v.); their affairs are

entwined in the Ridgely account books.

On December 1, 1786, Shannon got 9-1/2 pounds of

superfine flour59 and five days later a peck of corn.60

In the second period he did elaborate work in the
61
"Hall Rooms" upstairs as well as "a Sett of Pelaster

in Lobby" and "180 pamnels in Pantry."62 During the

period October 11-December 27, 1787, he was building a

kitchen for the Captain's three-story townhouse on Gay

Street, Baltimore, for which he was to receive

t 36.. .8.. 7~63

The Federal census of 1790 shows Shannon living in

Baltimore Town with a family of ten.64 The following

year he subscribed to the Constitution of the Carpenters'

Society of Baltimore.

58. Hoyt, p. 366. Board was figured at 15s per
week. Hoyt, p. 367.
59. Hoyt, p. 367.
60. Account Book XLVIII, fo. 93.
61. Hoyt, p. 356.
62. Hoyt, p. 368.
63. Ledger G, fo. 196.
64. U. S. Bureau of the Census, Heads of Families...
1790, Maryland, ivashington, 1907.

'14. Robert Strawbridge

Captain Ridgely had a bad time spelling Robert strawbridge's

name: it comes out as "Strybridge," "Staybridge," "Strobgard,"

"Strobbge," and other variants. In the books he appears as

early as March 2, 1783, in Jehu Howell's account for a pair of
65
shoes at ten shillings. Whether he was an apprentice, a

journeyman or only a helper doesn't appear. strawbridge was a

steady consumer of shoes, the last pair being purchased on

October 23, 1786.66 He is mentioned finally in the settlement

of Howell's estate on or after 1787 when it was states (Bill

No. 2) that "there aught to be alowanc made Mr Howell for

abording himself and Strawbridge when doing part of the above

work."67

15. and 16. Smithson and Fuller

These men (first names not ascertained) appear to have

worked in unison. Their names always appear together--even on

January 10, 1787, when, according to Howell's account, the

former bought five pounds of bacon and the latter five and

three-quarters pounds.68 The accounts show that these men

65. Ledger B, fo. 92
66. Ibid., fo. 97.
67. Carpenters' Bill No. 2.
68. Account Book XLVIII, Fo. 93. Carpenters' Bill No. 1
° (1784-87). These are the only purchases noted for these two
men.

trimmed out in an elaborate way a "South Room" and a

"North Room upstairs," whichever ones they were. After
Howell's death they completed the work on eight windows

and hung two doors, installing locks on same.

17. John Warner

Warner appears in the records as an apprentice

carpenter on September 20, 1786, when he got a quart of

rum for ls 6d.71 On December 1 he got a pair of shoes for

three shillings.72 On December 16, 1786, Warner did 3/4
73
day's work installing windows.

Turner's Work:

Ledger G74 shows that William Phillips, turner, in

addition to making chairs, tables, spinning wheels and

cogs for machinery, also did architectural work for

Ridgely. The following Phillips items have been noted:

1785 ... S... d

April 2 By his [Phillips' ] Acct for work Done
on the New Bildg to this day 12.. 18... 1

By his Acct for Sundrys for house a
mill to this Day 5.. .1.10

69. Hoyt, pp. 357, 359.
70. Hoyt, p. 363.
71. Account Book XLVIII, fo. 97
72. Ibid., fo. 93.
° 73. Bill One, Hoyt, 262.
74. In possession of Dr. Hoyt in 1949.

1787 L.. S..

Sept. 17 By ~~~~~ 8 Caps for Doom75 2.. .5.. .0

1788

~~~~~ 4 76 77
-- By Nuel post a five Drops 3.. .5...

In return Phillips got cash, flour and rum from the.plantation

stores.

Other Trades:

So far undiscovered in the Ridgely Papers are the bills for

interior plastering and for painting. The work may have been

done by slave labor and not charged on the company books.

The only record of glazing found is in Ledger I.P. No. 1.

On December 19, 1786, there is an entry for cutting glass (ls.)

and glazing (t 1/7/7 1/2) by one John Supp, glazier. In return

fri Supp drew flour, beef, and bacon from the company stores.

Hampton has double-hung windows, and, as might be expected,

the weights were cast on the place. In Account Book LI there is

an item dated September 30, 1786, for eight sash weights weighing

66 lbs. billed to Captain Charles Ridgely at 6d per lb. or

£ 1.. .2.. .0 and more in the following year. Presumably,they were

used in the Mansion.

75. Evidently this explains how "dome" was pronounced by
workmen in that day. The spelling has been noted elsewhere.
76. The main stairway still has four turned ~ewel posts.
77. The five turned "drops" on the stairway--no more and
no less--may still be counted.

, installing locks on same.

17. John Warner

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PART IV - PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT UNDER ThE LATER RIDGELYS

The affluence and the social activities of the early propri-

etors made Hampton a conspicuous place throughout the 19th century.

The industrial origins of the estate faded away. About 1850 the

Northampton Furnace ceased operation but inherited Inoney and some

wealthy brides kept life going on a high plane. But toward the

end of the century, the Ridgely~fortunes waned until

the operation of the property finally became a burden. Oppor-

tunity was taken to sell the property to the United States

Government and in 1947 title passed into public hands. The

National Park Service then assumed the responsibility for upkeep.

Below are offered some notes as to the physical developments

under the various Ridgely proprietors through a century and a half.

The dates refer to the years when each particular Ridgely was the

dominant figure on the estate.

A. Governor Charles Carnan Ridgely (1791-1829)

The builder of Hampton in his will dated April 7, 1786, had

provided for his wife as follows:

I give and bequeath unto my beloved wife Rebecca
Ridgely during her natural life the dwelling house
wherein I now reside together with Eight Acres of
Land thereto Adjoining for a Garden with as many of
the outhouses as she may think necessary for her
Convenience or if she should prefer the new house
I am now building I leave it at her option to Choose
the same and I do also direct that Charles Ridgely
Carnan my nephew and his heirs do and shall provide

for my said dear wife a stable sufficient to
contain Six horses and the same keep in con-
stant Repair, etc.1

To his nephew, Charles Ridgely Carnan, he left two-

thirds of Northampton Furnace with all the land and stock

belonging to it and one-eighth of the furnace and forges

formerly belonging to the Nottingham Company and which he

2
had purchased from the State.

About that time bad feelings seem to have developed

between the two heirs. Widow Rebecca complained in a

letter to "Priscy" who was both her much younger sister

and wife of the next owner:

Now to Acquaint you of some of my troubles,
for they are many, in the first place I have
given up to Charles Carnan, the Greatest part
of my Estate and Now he treats me with the
Greatest Disrespect and Slights, tho I have
not put my self much in his power, wich makes
me Glad, tho I have given up all power over
him, which make it a great time of trial to
me, to be ill used by one I looked on as a
Child.. .you Know I believe I have been as a
3
Mother to them....

1. Baltimore Orphan's Court Records, Wills V1
2?64-1792, Liber W.B. 4, p. 450.
2. Ibid., p. 453.
3. Rebecca Ridgely to Priscy, Hampton Hail,
October 1, 1790, Ridgely-Pue Papers. Charles Ridgely
Carnan (1760-1829) had married Rebecca Ridgely's
sister, Priscilla Dorsey, in 1782. In 1790, to meet
the terms of the Captain's will, his name was changed
to Charles Carnan Ridgely--by act of legislature--and
he soon became the lord of the manor.

In any case Rebecca decided not to remain in the Mansion.

An agreement was finally reached on January 17, 1791, that

Charles Carnan Ridgely would cede to the widow 244-1/4 acres

of land called "Dimite's Delight," build thereon 4 carriage-

house and stable for six horses and deliver thereto five
thousand chestnut Fence rails. In addition, he agreed to

provide a house on Howard's Hill plus one ton of hay and a

barrel of superfine flour. On her part Rebecca agreed "to

give up all her the said Rebecca Ridgely's Right Title

Interest and Claim to the house and The Three hundred Acres

of land Laid of [f] to her out of the dwelling plantation...

by George Fitzhugh Aquila Galloway and Moses Dillon."4

Early in Governor Ridgely's proprietorship we have a

tax list of structures at Hampton. The extent of existing

improvements as of October 1, 1798, is detailed in a

manuscript volume at the Maryland Historical Society titled

Particular List of Houses, Lands & Slaves in Back-River and

Middle River Upper Hundreds in the Eighth Assessment District,

John Orrick, Asst. Assr..

4. Articles of Agreement made and Entered into By
Charles Ridgely of Baltimore County of the one part' and
Rebecca Ridgely of the same County and Relict of Captain
Charles Ridgely of the other part.
S. Bound MS, Maryland Historical Society

1 stone dwelling house, 2 stories, 56 by 80

2 wings to D? 23 by 25 feet each

1 frame dwelling house 1 story 20 by 30

1 D? 16... 20

1 Frame Kitchen 12 by 16

Negro house frame 22 by 32

1 D? log 15 by 23

Ditto 16 by 16

Ditto 12 by 12

Ditto 16... 18

Ditto frame 16 by 18

Ditto Logs 10... 12

Ditto 16... 18

stone milk house 16... 23

1 Log Hen house

2 frame D?

Log wash house 16 by 50

2 meat houses frame

Orrick valued these buildings at $20,000. The principal

assessor cut the total down to $12,000. Most of the above

were minor structures and have disappeared.

Public life at Annapolis (Ridgely was a representative

in the legislature 1790-95, senator 1796-1800, and governor

1816-19) must have kept him away from Hampton much of the

time. Finally retired at Hampton, where he "represented

the typical aristocrat of the day. He had the fortune

that enabled him to live like a prince, and he also had
6
the inclination."

Ridgely's interest in horses and other agricultural

pursuits probably kept him at Hampton during the summer

season. Perhaps he developed the usual city-county,

winter-summer cycle of residence becoming generally

fashionable in America among the well-to-do. This gave

an opportunity of avoiding the city heat and the various

deadly epidemics which often visited our seaports in the

early days.

As an interesting note for the industrial history of

Hampton it should be remembered that the Englishman

6. Heinrich Ewald Buchholz, Governors of Maryland,
Baltimore, 1908, pp. 81-85. Governor Ridgely's involvement
in public affairs probably caused him to maintain a residence
in Baltimore. City directories, beginning with the first one
in 1796, show him living at a number of addresses, which
suggests that he was only renting there. For the period 1819
until his death in 1829 he lived on North Gay Street at the
northwest corner of its intersection with Orange Alley.

° Benjamin Henfrey discovered mineral coal on Governor Ridgely's

land and made some experiments on its use there which resulted
7
in a United States patent.

On the death of Governor Ridgely in 1829 the liquidation

of his estate was a tremendous operation; sales went on for

more than a year. The list of sales items at the auction of

8
October 1, 1829, covers many pages. In view of the fact that

we now know little or nothing of the use of particular rooms

in the Mansion it is interesting to know how the auction clerks

designated the various spaces, which were:

y ~ Cellars: Second Story:
Front
Passage (No. 6)
Small Back Front Room (No. 7)
Middle Back Room (No. 17)
Wine Room No. 18

Lower Floor: Third Story:
7 Passage (No. 8) Front Garret (No. 1)
Front Parlor (No. 9) Back Garret (No. 2)
Back Parlor (No. 10) Back Room (No. 5)
Room No. 11 Passage
Nursery (No. 12)
Room No. 13 Kitchen Yard
Room No. 14
Kitchen (No. 15)'
Washing Room (No. 16)

7. Leander James Bishop, A History of American Manufactures,
Phila., l866,Vol. I, p. 595.
8. Baltimore Records of the Orphan's Court. Accounts of
Sales, LID D.M.P. No. 14, Beginning June, 1832, pp. 1-64. It should
be noted that only nine items in the house were bought by persons
° named Ridgely. Thus few--if any--Ridgely pieces at the Mansion
in the 1940's had descended directly from Governor Ridgely. See
Appendix D.

The "Catalogue of all the Stock, Farming Utensils,

&c., upon the Hampton Farm, the Property of the late

Charles Ridgely of Hampton" printed for the auction sale

of October 13, 1829, lists property in the following

spaces:

Long House Loft

Dairy

Ouarter Loft

Lower Meat House

Upper Meat House

Shoe-maker's Shop

Yard

Overseer's House (Kitchen, Large Room upstairs,
Taylor's Shop, Office, Little
Room upstairs, overseer's
lower room)

Fish House

Cider Cellar

Lower Corn House

Upper Corn House (Chop room)

Cutting Room

South Shop

Barn

Race Horse Stable (loft)

Wash House

Hampton Garden

Hampton Cellar

Dwelling House (cellar)

Coal House

Bridge House

Furnace

Founder's House

New Iron House

Old Iron House

Wheelwright Shop

Mill

B. Period of John Ridgely, 1829-1867

As noted above, nearly all of Governor Ridgely's household

furnishings left the house after the auctions of 1829. The

Memorandum Book of John Ridgely, the new proprietor, for the

period 1830-1851 tells us much about the Mansion, as well

as the grounds and other matters. Some of the more interesting

items are listed here. The classification of some of these

items is tentative: in other words, we cannot be perfectly

certain at this time that they all pertain to the Mansion.

Expenses at the Mansion

1830

March 4 Pd. the insurance on Hampton house [$] 75.00

pd D? on the furniture in D? 18.00

June 9 Pd. R. Stansbury for White washing10.00

1831

March 16 Pd. for anthracite coal [$] 7.37-1/2

Apr 9 P4 for repairing Steam boiler 36.00

May 12 Pd Baldwin Gardiner for lamps 250.00

June 24 Pd Abbett for an oven °30.80

July 21 P4 J. Hindes for walling in oven 6.00

Nov 4 P4 Jacob Kerr for sweepingchimneys 4.18

1834

March 4 To D0. pr Balt0 Fire Ins.~~ C0 Prem
on Policy for $10,000 renewed for
1 yr fr 4 Mar pre c0 (?) 65.00

1836

June 4 Paid note for coal 283.00

1837

April 5 Paid Symington in full for coal 491.75

June 20 Paid Barker's bill for grates 25.30

1838

Jan 29 Paid C. Bryan for stoves 40.59

1839

Jan 24 Paid Stanley S Co 2 stoves 5
fireboards 39.25

Paid Stanley 5 Co 1 stove
fireboard 5 pipe 20.00

May 2 Pd. Alex Brown 5 Brothers for
Turkey carpets 388.51

June 6 Paid C. Bryan for stoves 20.75

June '19 Paid Abner Williams for stove etc [$] 11.81

1841

Feb 1 Paid ten plate stove W. 0. Simmes 13.00

June 2 Paid J. Thomas 5 Son for ball of
dome

June 21 Paid Wm Gist for 500 lbs white
lead @ 10 cts 50.00

July 6 Paid James Shanessy for Guilding
ball 5.00

Dec 20 Paid J Bancroft repairing grate 2.50

1842

Apr 8 Paid Jn9 Boris [?j repairing back
spouts 1.00

June 28 Paid J. H. Hibner hanging bells 10.00

1843

Nov 23 Paid C. H. Armistead for 2 scrapers2.50

1844

Feb 3 Paid Cornelius 5 C? for chandeliers262.50

1846

Jan 5 Pd Pasterfield soldering bath tub 2.00

Mar 5 Pd Bal~.~ Fire Insurance Com Hampton 27.50

Pd Merchant's Free Insunce Com.
Hampton 55.00

Apr 10 Pd Joseph Fall Painting Tin Roof 50.00

1849

Feb. 3 Pd Jacob M Touse [Zouse?],
Tinner [$] 12.18

Mar 5 P. Balt Fire Insurance Com 27.50

Pd Hartford D0 D0 °42.00

Pd Franklin D0 D0 19.00

June 1 Pd 5 Boxes Patent Candles
30-1/4 [?~ at 40 cents 60.04

Sept. 11 Pd Alfred Lipton (painter) in full298.66

1850

Nov 16 Pd Bill for locks 27.75

Nov 20 Pd for velvet carpet 260.23

1851

Jan 1 Pd J. N. Blake for putting down
pipes 26.30

1851

April 24 Pd Johnston for painting Doors 75.00

C. The Last Years

Lack of time--both in 1949 and 1970--has prevented the

writer from continuing his notes to the end of the Ridgely

ownership, though Part V on Grounds and Gardens has some

material and so do the notations on the Illustrations in

Part VIII.

* * * * * * * * * *

As a final item it might be noted that the Hampton lands

became salable for suburban residential use as automobiles and

roads developed apace. The residential future of property

in the Dulaney Valley seemed promising and it was subdivided.

On February 25, 1930, John Ridgely conveyed to the Hampton

Company a parcel of land (Deeds Liber L McL M No. 846,

Folio 57, etc.) subdivided according to a plot. The

seven-page pamphlet issued concurrently stated the restric-

tions on development and names the sales agent as William H.

Gisin, 100 E. Pleasant St., Baltimore.

Some properties were sold and developed but the depression

of the 1930's dampened the promotion. After World War II

suburban life began to boom again. The visitor today finds

that real estate development is continuous from the heart

of Baltimore, nine miles away, and has now engulfed all of

Captain Ridgely's 18th-century iron plantation.

74
PART V - NOTES ON THE MANSION GROUNDS AND GARDENS

The Ridgely Papers offer us a great many bits of information

about the landscaping of Hampton and through the years there

are a number of interesting references made by visitors. The

following are but a sampling.

A. Period 1772-1790

Even before the Revolution there were gardeners on Captain

Ridgely's property. A list of ninety-one "white servants" in

the period 1772-74 includes the gardeners James Barber, English,

and John Fowloe, Irish. Whether they only worked at raising

food for the industrial community or at ornamental horticulture

we do not know. We have record of a payment to Thos. Todd on

March 19, 1773 "for 24 post 9 feet Long for Garding for 5 ditto

post ti Railes," and for "3 Cedar gate post" on May 1. That

there was a huge orchard is shown by the entries on February 24,

1773, when James Lennox was paid ten pounds for "Triming 772

Apple Trees."2

Just after the war, the name of John Willis, gardener,

appears in the Northampton furnace daybooks. On October 30,

1783, Willis was charged for pork and corn flour, in the next

month for making a pair of shoes for his wife and having a

1. Hoyt, "The White Servants at 'Northampton,' 1772-74,"
Maryland Historical Magazine, Vol. XXXIII, No. 2 (June, 1938)
p. 129.
2. Account Book XXLV, Daybook 1772-75, pp. 15, 23, 33.

pair soled for himself. There were afterwards occasional

purchases of whiskey, brandy, beef, bacon, mackerel,

potatoes, tea and sugar, the last entry noted being for

October 1, 1785. Whether or not Willis was an indentured

servant does not appear, though the time of other inden-

tured servants (not named) was charged in the books.3

The next gardener of record, however, is remarkably

well documented.

One of the most interesting items preserved among

the Ridgely Papers is the printed form of indenture by

which Daniel Healy, a gardener, "Voluntarily put himself

Servant to Hugh Lyle, master of the Ship Harmony" at

Cork, Ire land, on March 2, 1784. Healy was bound to

serve Lyle for three and a half years after arrival in

Baltimore. The latter agreed to "find and supply the said

Daniel with sufficient Meat, Drink, Apparel, Lodging and

all other necessaries befitting such a Servant." The

act was performed in the presence of the Right Worshipful

Richard Kellett, Mayor of the City of Cork. These

agreements or indentures were typical means for poor

people to get passage across the Atlantic and a large

3. In addition to the furnace daybooks, Ledger G,
in possession of Dr. H9yt, has some relevant entri&s on
folio 49.

part of our pre-Revolutionary American stock managed to get here

by means of such arrangements.

Endorsements on the reverse show that Lyle made over the

indenture to Robert Ballard at Baltimore on May 12, 1784, and
4
Ballard passed Healy along to Charles Ridgely six m9nths later.

A letter in the Ridgely Papers explains this as follows:

To Capt. Chas. Ridgely 9th Oct. 1784

0. Sir,
I have sent you Daniel Healy a gardner who I believe
to be Master of his Trade, he cost me about 12 Guineas.
As I do not mean to finish my garden I have no use for
him. I promised him if he behaved himself well, to give
him up a year of his time. If you have a garden to make,
he is worth a great deal of money to you. If you take
him please send me word.

I am Dr. Sir
Your most obt. Servt.
(signed) Robert Ballard5

It is not umlikely that Healy worked on the grounds of Hampton

Mansion, then abuilding.6

Lists of indentured servants offered for sale at Chesapeake

Bay ports show that the importation of Irish bondsmen was common

just after the Revolutionary War and gardeners were often included

4. The manuscript is partly destroyed by insects but the
endorsement appears to have been made "5 November 1784."
5. Loose MSS. Robert Ballard, a veteran of the Revolution,
came to Baltimore after the war. About 1788 he was appointed
° Surveyor of the Port of Baltimore. Griffith, 102, 125.
6. What happened to Healy afterwards is not known. He
does not appear in the Baltimore Directory for 1796.

along with mechanics of the building trades. 7 Earlier

there had been discrimination against Ireland under the

colonial laws of Maryland.8

Captain Ridge1y must have been interested in the

landscape for just before he died we find--in a letter

from Moses Dillon of March 17, 1790--fair-sized trees

being moved, perhaps to make a setting for the new

Mansion, perhaps for an orchard:

Frd I will get the trees according to direc-
tion as near as I can I will also Engage
the Rest if I can wich I have not much doubt
of, thee may Send thW wag£ons next Sixth Day

7. For example: FOR SALE/Men and Women SERVANTS,
indented for Four or Five Years, just arrived in the Ship
George, and in good health: The Men chiefly Tradesmen,
amongst which are the following: Blacksmiths, Brick-
makers, Bricklayers.. .Cabinetmakers.. .Gardeners.. Paint-
..... GEORGE SALMON, Maryland Journal and Baltimore
Advertiser, Jan. 2, 1784. -
Just arrived at Georgetown from Dublin - the
scow Anna Maria with upwards of 100 MEN and WOMEN SERV-
ANTS... Their indentures will be disposed of on reasonable
terms for ready money...Ibid., Dec. 30, 1785.
Just arrived in the ship Baltimore from
Liverpool and Dublin a number of Redemptioners and
Servants.. .Gardeners, Masons, Bricklayers, Blacksmiths,
Nailors, Millers, Sawyers.. Maryland Gazette, Oct. 3,
1786.
8. An Act for laying an additional Duty of Twenty
Shillings Current Money per poll on all Irish Servants,
being Papists, to prevent the growth of Popery by the
Importations of too great Number of them into this
Province. Archives of Mary land, Proceedings and Acts
- of the General Assembly of Maryland, Vol. XXXIII,
Baltimore, 1913, 109. Act of 1717.

morning ~ Seventh Day Evening they may get home ~ on
first Day Evening I can come down S Seconday morning
begin to plant if health 5 the weather permit I am
afraid two wag£on will not hold them they are so
large S I should su£ose the would weight 20lb per
tree one with another at tWe Rate 250 would weigh
2-1/2 ton so perhaps three will be best but it will
take the best part of a Day to dig S trim so many
the wa£ons ought to Start to be at my house Early as
possible M D--17 of 3d m0 1790 9

There is no indication as to the type of trees being moved;

whether forest, orchard or other types.

We do not know when the famous garden terraces of

Hampton were constructed. "Falls" is the local term for

such features. At least as far as the showy Governor's

Palace in Williamsburg at the very beginning of the 18th

century, there had been ample precedent in the Chesapeake

region. "Belmont," the Dorsey place near Elkridge (house,

1738) from which came the first two mistresses of Hampton,

and "Mount Clare" (house, 1754) have terraced gardens which

may well have served as precedent for the one at Hampton.

Yankee John Adams described the layout at Mount Clare as

"a beautiful garden and then a fall, another flat garden,

and then a fall, and so on down the river. ,,10 Such gardens

9. Ridgely Papers, WJH. Quaker Moses Dillon was a
witness to Captain Ridgely's will signed July 7, 1790.
10. Mrs. Albert Sioussat, "Mount Clare," Baltimore,
- 1926 (unpaged).

seemed to enjoy a vogue aroumd hilly Baltimore. In

calling attention to a building lot on Jones Falls -

an owner of the period advertised:

... there is a space sufficient for an
extensive garden. From the particular -
form of the ground, it might at no great
expense, be made into several falls,
terminating with the water.11

B. Period 1790-1829

Over the years the new owner, Charles Carnan

Ridgely, evidenced a great interest in making

Hampton a showplace. But we do not have much detail

for the beginnings of this period. Ledger K shows

that one John Willis got t 3... 13... 6 1/2 for working

in the garden from April 12 to June 30, 1791.12 John

Ludley t 26... 7... 6 for 211 days in the garden between

March 18 and December 20, - 1793il3 Various items in an

accoumt book for the period 1796-1808 reflect the

development of the Mansion grounds, though they don't

distinguish between vegetables and ornamental plants.

William Bartlett, gardener, was employed on September 29,

1796, at 45 guineas per annum and received £

for nine months and nine days' services. Edward Nagle,

11. Baltimore Daily Repository, March 28, 1792.
12. p. 126.
13. Ibid., p. 144.

gardener, received t 75 in 1797. In 1798 and 1799 John Lindley

better than t 87 for 440 days "work done in the Garden."

A great project for the years 1800-1801 was the introduction

of water in quantity to the hill crowned by the Mansion. An

account book for the period 1796-1808 gives the fo1~owing details:

August 27, 1800 Samuel Wolf 74... 12... 0 Making 2984 of water
pipe at 6d.

May 23, 1801 " 107... 16... 0 Making and laying down
3696 feet water pipe
a 7d.

July 16, 1801 " 3.. 15 Putting down pipes to
convey the water to the
Garden

1... 4... 7Cash paid for strainers

1801 John Prendergrass 7... 3 Making a Ditch for
conveying the water into
the Garden 25 1/2 perches
@ 5/6

The well-known engraver an4 enamel painter William Russell Birch

of Philadelphia, who left us an old view of Hampton Mansion, seems

to have had a part in the design of the grounds. About 1802 he

paid his

second visit to Gen'l Ridgely at Hampton, after my
introduction to him by my friend Judge Sam'l Chase;
the Gen'ls attention to me was very polite and marked
with every appearance of respect. I stoppe(d) several
days with him, the situation of Hampton is beautiful
and richly deserved the adoption of Art in its improve-
ment, I made several designs for that purpose which
was approved. 14

14. "The Life of William Russell Birch, Enamel Painter,
Written by Himself." Philadelphia Free Library, Typescript
copy, A759.2/B53.

One of the Mrs. John Ridgelys attributed the design

of the flower garden to another man:

The flower beds were laid out about the year
1810, and possibly earlier, by William Booth,
a man of English birth, who, according to the
historian Scharf, "stood high among the earlier
botanists, florists and seedsmen" of the United
States, and laid out some of the finest gardens
attached to the old mansions around Baltimore.
Scharf says: "His own grounds on West Baltimore
Street, extending south to Pratt, were cele-
brated for the care and exquisite culture with
which they were kept." 15

In this period the account books tell us of three

more men working at Hampton:16

Nov. 25, 1802 Bartholomew Flarity 31.. .10... 7 months
work in the

garden @ 9/

Feb. 28, 1803 " 9... 2. .3 3 months and
1 days work
@ 9/

March 31, 1803 " - 3... 1 months
work

April 30, 1803 " 4... 16.0 23 1/2 days
work @ 9/

July 4, 1807 Gerard Gibson 9... 17.. 3 1/2

2 months 5
5 days work
in the Garden
@ 9/

15. Undated Note by Mrs. Wm. F. Bevan, Ruxton.
16. Account Book, 1796-1808.

-'k

C. Period 1829-1867

Shortly after Governor Ridgely's death we have two

somewhat conflicting reports on Hampton. A reporter from

the Baltimore American after a party on July 25, 1832, was

enthusiastic:

You are delighted in beholding the rich profusion
and balmy fragrance of numerous plants and flowers,
adorned with orange trees, and an extensive and
highly cultivated garden.17

On the other hand Charles Varle in A Complete View of

Baltimore, 1833, while allowing the mamsion house to be "a

splendid building," of the pleasure grounds he could only

say that they had once been in admirable order.18

The newspaper account is the first notice I have seen

of the famous orange trees at Hampton. An historical note

on that subject seems appropriate.

Orange and lemon trees- were extensively cultivated in

Genoa in the middle 17th century and their popularity spread

northward. Le Notre collected three thousand specimens for

Versailles and the Dutch became very expert in their culture.19

In the northern climates these trees had to be moved indoors in

winter and special glazed shelters called orangeries were built

for the purpose. As the American colonists became Wore prosperous

17. Baltimore American, November 15, 1832.
18. Published at Baltimore, p. 106.
19. Richardson Wright, The Story of Gardening, Garden City,
1938, 278, 289.

they were able to have such luxuries. Before the

Revolution Charles Carroll of Annapolis ordered from

merchants in Madeira "a Bearing Lemon Tree or two in

Boxes with Earth."20 Phillip Mazzei imported several

hundred Italian orange trees to his Albemarle, Virg~nia,

estate in 1775.21 After the war orangeries appeared in

different places--notably the one at Wye in Eastern Shore,

-Maryland (which still stands), and one at Lemon Hill just

above Philadelphia on the Schuykill River. Susanna Dillwyn

reported that in the greenhouse at Gray's Ferry "the lemons

and oranges in particular appear as my Uncle- Jemmy says,

in as high perfection as in the West Indies."22 The subject

had enough general interest to be included in one of the

first American garden books--one published in Baltimore.23

20. Carroll to Scott, Pringle, Cheap ~ Co., Annapolis,
April 13, 1768, MHM, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 2 (June, l943),l84. See
also No. 4 (December, 1943),365.
21. Edwin Morris Betts, Thomas Jefferson's Garden Book,
Phil. 1944, 77. The orange trees in South Carolina had been
frost-killed in 1771. Ibid., 78. In Virginia there were
orangeries at "Greenspring" on the James and "Mt. Airy" on
the~Rappahannock but the writer has not ascertained their
dates.
22. Susanna Dillwyn to Wm. Dillwyn, Philadelphia,
May 2, 1789, Diliwyn Papers (MS), Library Company of
Philadelphia.
23. An Old Gardener, The Practical American Gardener,
Baltimore, Fielding Lucas, Jr., 1819.

For the owner there is a new series of garden expenditures

as set out in the John Ridgely Memorandum Book, 1630-1851, of

which these are samples:

Dec. 10, 1830 Dan Harris, Gardener $30.00

Jan. 1, 1831 --- 20.00 Rustic seats

Dec. 16, 1833 1. Feast 11.25 Trees

Feb. 24, 1834 --- --- pr Frt a dray of
Trees fr Nyk a ph~...

Apr. 5 --- 4.75 Freight a Dray Trees
fr N York for Roses
ac &c

Apr. 18 M. Perin 5.50 200 flower Pots

May 3 --- 1.75 Freight Trees fr
N York a dray

May 10 W. Prince a Sons 53.49 Trees

May 30 1. Wilk 32.62 1/2 Trees
Asparagus ac ac

May 31 1. Hook 6.90 Lumber for Bee House

June 13 Sinclair a Moore 18.00 Trees

Sept. 20, 1834 1. S. Eastman 23.43 Trees, Int ~ Costs

Dec. 6 --- 2.94 Trees

June 15, 1836 W. 0. Eichelberger 96.35 Trees

Oct. 28 Eichelberger, Sinclair
a Moore 40.00 Trees

Nov. 4 W.0.E. 135.00 Peach Trees etc.
from N.Y.

July 10, 1837 Pat Gardener 1.14

Nov. 17, 1838 Underhille a Levris 100.00 pedistals

Perhaps in 1838 the upper greenhouse near the

Mansion--later known as "the orangerie"--was built.

There is a record of payment November 18 to Wm. Gregory

for $22.00 for "plastering greenhouse."24 We read in

Little Eliza Ridgely's diary two years later that- she

"stayed some time in the two greenhouses where we got

some oranges and lemons."25

Entries for the use of the garden continue:

May 31, 1839 ---- $21.00 Pitcher plant

April 26, 1841 Mauldin Perine 16.25 Flower pots

For this period we have the exquisitely detailed

Joshua Barney map of 1843 which delineates the general

features of the garden and the grounds all the way to

the iron furnace.

Jan. 3, 1844 - Bell a Packer - 38.00 Marble basins

Nov. 23, 1848 Thomas Kellery 23.00 200 peach trees

March 20, 1851 Gaddes 90.00 4 Urns

Dec. 1 ---- 132.00 Trees

Dec. 17 ---- 54.35 Trees act

April 14, 1852 Wm. Corse 36.00 200 apple trees
April 16 John Frederick 20:00 planting trees

16 ---- 3.70 transporting trees
from N.Y.

24. John Ridgely Memorandum Book, 1830-1852.
25. Quoted in Bienvenu, p. 32.

April 16 ---- 24.00 ornamental fruit trees

May 31 2.00 transportation on grape
vines
May 3 ---- 13.63 Pear trees on Quince
stocks etc.
June 8 Feast 21.50 for Mrs. .R.
July 8 James Galbraith 35.00
Gardener

August 3 " 70.00

Sept. 27 ---- 285.76 guano for farm and b&ne
dust for garden
Nov. 5 Galbraith 35.00

Nov. 20 Allison 87.00 sash for greenhouse

In this period a laudatory article by a correspondent

"J.C." appeared in The American Farmer for January, 1854

(Vol. IX, new series, No. 7, p. 212):

Jottings among the Gardens
... Prominent among the improvers of our neighborhood stands
the honored name of Mrs. Ridgely of Hampton. This lady, I
am told, is an accomplished florist, and enters with zeal
and taste on the culture of the flowering treasures of her
extensive gardens. Many elegant improvements were lately
made to the garden at Hampton, and as these desultory
jottings are designed to be practical, I will briefly
notice for the present the new Vinery, and mode of growing
the grape vine, as practiced by Mrs. Ridgely's very effi-
cient gardener, James Golbraith... .The varieties cultivated
at Hampton are the Black Hamburg, and Chasselas Muscat of
Alexandria and had only been planted sixteen months when
the writer saw them. ...

There has also been erected a new propagating house,
50 feet by 12, divided into two apartments by ~ walk in the
centre, heated by hot water on the tank system. This house

is certainly one of the most perfect in its con-
struction, for the uses and purposes designed, that
I have ever seen. The whole place is copiously sup-
plied with water conducted from a spring by over two
thousand feet of lead pipe, to a reservoir at the
mansion, from where it radiates to different sections
of the garden, where hydrants are placed, and by a
hose the entire garden can be watered at pleasure.
Last summer, when all other places in the neighbor-
hood were dry and barren, the flower garden at
Hampton presented a gorgeous array of bloom. The
Petunias, Verbenas, Geraniums and other Summer
flowering plants, looked as though they lacked no
moisture there.

The Memorandum Book continues on:

April 24, 1854 James Cowan, $60.00 2 months wages
Gardener to date

May 1 James Galbraith 140.00

May 26 ---- 17.53 bill of trees,
evergreens from
Bangor

May 26 John Zimmerman,
undergardener 14.00 1 months wages

Nov. Henry Little a t0. 48.64 evergreens, ac.

Dec. 25 James Reid,
undergardener 24.00

1855 Michael,
undergardener 15.00 2 weeks wages

1855 James,
undergardener 15.00

1855 Patrick,
undergardener

1855 Peter Reid,
gardener 105.00

1855 ---- 11.62 pitcher plant from
Philadelphia

Dec. 22, 1855 Joseph Allison $80.00 on account for
building gardener's
porch.

Feb. 24 James Cowan
gardener 90.00

Oct. 18 0. W. Eichelberger 50.00 to pay Ady for
gardener's house

Oct. 25 Geo. Houser 45.62 for plastering
gardener's house

Feb. 18 Joseph Allison 50.00 building gardener's
house

1856 ---~ 108.00 lawn mowing machine
per draft

March 1 ---- 85.00 trees from England and
Scot land

May 7, 1857 John Saul 18.00 300 arborvitae

March 1, 1858 W. D. Brackenridge30.60 ornamental trees

May 20, 1858 James Pentland 19.50 evergreens, etc.

July 8 Robert Buist 13.53 seeds plants

Aug. 4 W. D. Brackenridge73.79 evergreens and plants

Sept. 3 Peter Reid
gardener 105.00

Sept. 10 Frederick Kruter 24.00
undergardener

Sept. 10 Paul Hooper 24.00
undergardener

Sept. 20 McCoy and Fortling 30.50 marble vases

1859 Peter Reid
gardener 105.00

1859 James Reid

undergardener $24.00

April 19, 1860 Waterer a Godfred 74.75 Trees

Sept. 25 W. D. 35.40 pear trees,

Brackenridge plants
Dec. 7 C. Grosbeck
undergardener 108.00
May 3, 1861 W. D.
Brackenridge 72.33 peach trees
1863 W. D.
Brackenridge 18.37

1863 H. Fraser

gardener 105.00
Feb. 2 Alex Frazer 105.00 gardener 3
months

March 16 Alexr Fraser 105.00 gardener to
March 1st 1863

Oct. 1, 1864 R. Buist 7.00 for Mrs. Ridgely

Dec. 28, A. Fraser 150.00 in full to Jan. 7,
1865 a 21/2/board
hands

Jan. 21, 1865 Linton 16.76 flower pots

Feb. R. Buist 2.35

June 1 A. Fraser 72.00 boarding hands in
full, eggs a chickens

March 9, 1866 James Galbraith 7.30 expenses of gardener
from New York

March 9 Henderson a
Fleming 35.60 seeds in full

March 9 N.Y. Herald 6.00 advertisepient for
gardener

D. Period 1867 and After

The entries above could be much amplified by the interpre-

tation of loose vouchers in the Ridgely Papers and by a study

of the record books of later years. The account book continues:

Feb. 2, 1867 Henderson a Fleming 27.57 se&ds, etc.

April 1867 A. Gerisher
gardener 112.50

Nov. 1867 W. D. Brackenridge 4.37 asparagus plants

Feb. 8, 1868 Sisson 20.31 marble slab for -
gre en house

March 21 Feast 5.00 garden seeds

Sept. 29 W. D. Brackenridge 8.00 50 peach trees

Oct. 17 15.95 glass for hot beds,
watering pots, &tc.

Oct. 17 Linton 12.50 flower pots

Sept. 13, 1869 W. D. Brackenridge 49.15 flowers a fruit

J. C. Carpenter, in an article "An Old Maryland Mansion,"

in Appleton's Journal for May 8, 1875 (Vol. XIII, P. 577), was

much impressed by Hampton in this period.

... The approach is by the north front -- the one shown in
the engraving.. .The south front falls away in terraces, and
the lawn and flower garden are flanked on one side by the
conservatories and the orangery, and on the other by a
high and thick wall of clipped cedar, beyond which lie the
kitchen gardens, the orchards, and, in a shady and secluded
spot the family vault, provided for in the will of Captain
Ridgely.

The first terrace, which is merely an extension of the
ground on which the house stand, is broad and~spacious,
ornamented with orange and lemon trees in bearing and

clumping pyramidal Norway spruces of great age.
This terrace is the favorite resort, on summer
evenings of the guests of Hampton.

At the e dgefthe slope, among the grouped
trees seats areplac ed, and from them the out look
over the Itali n garden is most beautiful -- rich
in color and nyel in effect. The area is several
acres, and the terraces have a gentle incline,
while down the middle there goes a broad avenffe of
smooth turf, brhnching off at every side into
smaller avenues The turf is nearly a century old,
and is so soft: and springy to the foot as the
velvety moss of a mountain valley. It is thick,
matted and carpet like, with a depth of green very
seldom seen in the dry atmosphere of America. All
the paths are rendered delightful to stroll along
by this yeilding surface, and on all sides lies
the flower-garden, for which Hampton is noted, and
for which rare plants often come from France and
England. Though laid out in geometrical figures,
the stiffness of the old fashion is relieved and
modernized. The lilacs, the hardy roses, and those
plants which stand the winter, are placed so as
not to interfere with the view, nor dwarf and
obscure the loveliness of the lower flowers.

In terrace aft~r terrace, strictly kept distinct
in masses of color, eight-thousand plants are bedded
out. The scarlet and orange and deep carmine of the
geraniums; the blue and purple and white of the
sweet-scented heliotropes; the tawny gold and red of
the roses; and the ample leaves of the bronsy crimson
and yellow of the coleus; the borderings of vivid
green; the orange and lemon trees, with their sharp
contrast of lustrous leaves and half-hidden burden
of fruitage; the noble old house on its rising knoll,
relieved by its evergreens and backed by its lordly
acres make up a scene more English than American,
but whether English or American, exceedingly beautiful...

Hampton is the "show place" of Maryland. There is
certainly nothing like it south of Mason and flixon's
line. There may be more palatial dwellings; it is easy
-in this age of great industrial wealth to buy an exten-
sive tract of land, and erect a magnificent residence;
it takes a hundred years, however, to make a "Hampton."

92
PART VI - HAHPTON AS A NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE

A. The Beginnings of the Hampton Project

Herewith is a brief chronology showing how the Hampton

project was set up by an offer of the Avalon Foundation to the

National Park Service. The real origin of the story is narrated

by Historian Ronald F. Lee in a letter included in this report

as Appendix E.

These items are taken from National Park Service files.

January 10, 1947

Donald D. Shepard, Co-trustee, the Avalon Foundation, to

Secretary of the Interior J. A. Krug--a gift of $90,000 proposed

if the United States acquires Hampton and agrees to protect,

preserve, maintain, operate, manage and exhibit the premises as

a historic site under the provisions of the Act of August 21,

1935.

April 15, 1947

C. Girard Davidson, Assistant Secretary of the Interior,

to Shepard--The National Park Service believes the property can

be acquired for $45,000 plus. If $15,000 is spent on acquiring

furnishings from the Ridgelys,about $25,000 plus would be

available for repairs, reinforcements and refurnishing.

May 10, 1947

Secretary Icrug to Mr. Shepard--agrees to accept property

and gift of money for rehabilitation and repairs as specified

by the Foundation.

October 20, 1947

Press Release- -Secretary of the Interior announces

that Hampton will be acquired by the United States by

gift of the Avalon Foundation.

December 18, 1947

John H. Scarff, Secretary pro-tem to the Hampt6n

Conmittee--Lists wanted repairs, modern conveniences amd

redecorating preparatory to the operation of the Site

by the Society for the Preservation of Maryland

Antiquities.

December 19, 1947

Cooperative Agreement, Society for the Preservation

of Maryland Antiquities with the United States

Government for preserving and exhibiting Hampton.

United States to pay $5,600 per annum towards costs.

March 22, 1948

NPS Associate Director Arthur E. Demaray to

John Ridgely of Hampton--Title to Hampton is now

vested in the United States.

August 27, 1948

Regional Director, Thomas J. Allen, Jr.
(Richmond, Va.) to NpS Director--new budget sub-

mitted:

I. Purchase of mansion and grounds (spent) $45,515.00

II. Purchase of furnishings ($5,000 spent,
$700 reserved for copy portraits) 15,000.00

III. Repairs, physical improvements for
operation and restoration, main
building only ($1,683.00 already
spent for leveling floors) 25,485.00

IV. Administration, protection and main-
t enance 4,000.00

$90,000.00

October 1, 1948

Scarff to Director NPS--Society for the Preservation of

Maryland Antiquities is "not now prepared to accept custodian-

ship unless a minimum and adequate water supply for use and

for fire protection is provided and unless the second floor

construction [Ghost Room] is stabilized."

December 29, 1948

Shepard to Secretary of the Interior- -Foundation grants an

additional $40,000 for water supply and other items plus matching

fund of $18,000. Museum Administrator J. Paul Hudson has been

working with the Ridgelys on the disposition of furnishings

remaining in the house.

January 5, 1949

Newton B. Drury, NPS Director to Regional Director--cut-off

date of 1825 will be observed for restoration and furnishings.

January 14, 1949

NPS Director to Shepard- - Superintendent James W.

Rader of Fort McHenry designated government liaison

officer for Hampton.

February 8, 1949

NPS Director to President Robert Garrett, SPMA--

Maryland Garden Club has donated $500.00 for a study

of the Hampton Gardens.

February 16, 1949

Memo Regional Director Allen (Richmond, Va.) to

his professional staff (Peterson, O'Neil, Abbott and

Appleman)--agreement on details of work to be done

with hope that Mansion can be opened to the public on

May 5.

February 24, 1949 -

NPS Regional Architect Peterson to Architect

Bryden B. Hyde, SPMA--Estinates: Water supply $27,615.00.

Leveling floor and radiant heat for Drawing Room $9,000.00.

Balance for redecoration and interior repairs throughout

Mansion $3,385.00.

96
APPENDIX A

Notes on Agreements for Carpentry at Baltimore

The nature of the agreement or agreements for carpentry

between Captain Ridgely and his principal mechanics is fairly

evident. Following the tradition of English buildipg, there

were three methods followed in this country: "by Great"

(what we call today "lump sum"), "by the Day" ("cost plus")

and by measure. The latter was common in 18th-century

America and was evidently in use on the Ridgely properties.

For example: In December of 1782 Carpenter William Brown

submitted a bill for work on C. R. Ridgely's house which

"If measured Right" came to £ 32.. .2.. .D.2 Document 6 (p.37)

refers to "the Common Old Prices before the war." Carpenters1

schedules of prices were characteristically kept secret (at

least in Philadelphia) but in the case of Hampton no evidence

has been found that an outside measurer was brought in to

evaluate the work.3

The carpenters of Baltimore were formally organized, as

they were in other American cities and England, and one of

1. Frank Jenkins, Architect and Patron, London, 1961,
pp. 128-129, quotes Sir Christopher Wren on this subject.
2. Le4jer 2, December 23, 1782.
3. Members of the Carpenters' Company of Philadelphia
were liable for expulsion if they revealed their own price
book to outsiders.

125

their most important functions as a group was the estab-

lishment of a standard schedule for pricing construction

work. As early as 1773 "Sundry Carpenteis at Maryland"

had applied to Robert Smith and Thomas Nevell of the

Carpenters' Company of the City and County of Philaflelphia

for a copy of their "Ruels for Measureing.1'4 Whether or

not they got a copy of this very secret document does not

appear.

However, the Baltimore group was successful in formally

organizing by May 1, 1790, and the following year they
published their Con8titution. William Richardson and

Michael Shannon, who had worked at Hampton, were among

the subscribers. The following describes their policy

t about prices:

It shall be the Duty-of a Master-Carpenter so
admitted, to receive any Applications that may be
made to him by Employers, to undertake all Buildings,
or Jobbs of Work, agreeably to the Rules stipulated
in this Constitution, and the Prices established in
the general Bill of Rates for this Society...
These prices, as established and agreed upon by
a Special-Committee, duly appointed for that Purpose,
consisting of the most experienced and oldest Artists
belonging to the Society, are as low generally, and,
in some Particulars, lower than what has been cus-
tomary these Twenty Years and upwards,...any Person

4. Louise Hall,"Artificer to Architect in America,"
° Durham, North Carolina, 1954 (MS) p. B-23.
S. Ibid., p. B-22.

126

who undertakes to execute or accomplish any Pieces
of Workmanship at lower Rates than these established
by said Committee, cannot, with any Shadow of Prob-
ability,6 intend or expect to deal justly either
by himself or his Employers;

No copy of the price book, which was undoubtedly in manuscript

only, has been noted.

6. The Constitution of the Carpenters' Society of
Baltimore, Baltimore, 1791, pp. 7,8. The only known copy
of this pamphlet is in the collection of the Philadelphia
° Company, where it was discovered by Miss Hall. The latter
company had published their prices as early as 1786. See
Charles E. Peterson, "CarPenters' Hall," Historic Philadelphia,
Trans American Philosophical Society, Vol. 43, par? 1, 1953,
pp. lOS, 124, 125.

127

APPENDIX B

August 22, 1949

1. PRELIMINARY REPORT ON STOVES AT HAMPTON

Then Hampton was built, according to an article published

in 1875, "....The country-people soon saw with amazement what

was to them a palace rising in the wilderness... .They called

it 'Ridgely's Folly'. .. .it had too many 'new-fangled notions'

about it. Marble mantels, folding doors, sofas, mahogany

sideboards, and chinaware, were almost unknown immediately

after the Revolution. Yet Hampton must be adorned with all

these.... Stoves in houses or in churches were the rarest of

luxuries... .Prior to 1800 there were not six four-wheeled

carriages in the whole city of Baltimore. And the captain

would have carpets, and stoves, and carriages; drove, indeed,

with a coach-and-four when the fancy seized him."

This article is apparently unreliable in a number of

respects and it is desirable to check all available evidence,

structural and documentary, before proceeding with plans for

restoration using stoves.

1. J. C. Carpenter, "An Old Maryland Mansiom," Appletons'
Journal (New York) May 8, 1875, (Vol. XIII, No. 320), pp. 577-579.
The reference to "marble mantels" is obscure because the wooden
mantels now in place seem to be original. Perhaps piarble cheek
slabs were meant. There are no physical evidences of the use of
folding doors.

128

The use of iron stoves in early America is not

generally realized. The following remarks might be made

on the period before 1790 when Hampton was completed.

Stoves were in common use in French Canada in the 17th

century2 and in wide use in the United States by the

end of the 18th century. In the south it might be noted

that they were to be found in the Governor's Palace in

~illiamsburg before l78l~ and seem to have been not

uncommonly cast in Maryland furnaces in 1782 where they

sold at 95 t per ton, "neat weight."4 Best of all, there

is an advertisement in the Maryland Journal and Baltimore

Advertiser for January 15, 1783, as follows:

C A N N 0 N (from Nine to Two-
pounders)

BAR-IRON, pig iron, pots from 15 gallons
to three quarts, kettles, from 45 to 15 gallons;
Dutch ovens, tea-kettles, skillets, mortars and

2. Ramsay Traquair, The Old Architecture of
Cuebec, Toronto, 1948, 14. A Ouebec ordinance of 1673
required that "The stoves in houses must not be placed
otherwise than in fireplaces."
3. Pickering to Nelson, Nov. 8, 1781. Cal. Va.
State Papers, II:S80. Stoves were used in the new
Virginia Capitol in 1791 (Ibid., V: 248) and could be cast
in Richmond or vicinity in that year (Ibid., V:384). How-
ever, it is stated that "before 1852 stoves were not gener-
ally used south of Washington." Kathleen Bruce, Virginia
Iron Manufacture in the Slave Era. New York and -London,
1931, 299.
4. Elie Williams to Otho Holland Williams,
Hagerst0wn, Oct. 26, 1782. Williams Papers, MS,~Md.
Hist. Soc.

129

'V-

pestles, waggon-boxes, stoves, salt-pans, flat-
irons, dripping-pans and bakers, are made, and
now to be sold at the Northampton Iron-Works,
and at Ridgely's Forges, about 10 miles from
Baltimore Town.
Specie, State Certificates, passed agreeable to
an act of Assembly of the 10th of May, 1781,
Continental State, black or red Money, pork,
corn, wheat, or tobacco, will be taken in pay-
ment, for any of the above articles; and credit
will be given for any sum exceeding . 200. For
terms, apply to the subscriber, living near the
above-mentioned Works.

CHARLES RIDGELY.
N.B. Castings of any kind made on the shortest
notice.

Baltimore County, Jan. 13, 1783.

(In the Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser

of October 21, 1783, and January 2, 1784, Thomas Usher, Sr.,

and Joseph Donaldson advertise with many other items, "Iron

Stoves," "Dutch ovens" and "Franklin stoves.") The status

of stoves in this period is described by iron historian

Dennis C. Kurjack, as follows:

"The actual use of close-iron-stoves (six and ten plate)

and open-iron-stoves (Franklin fireplace, etc.) in the eight-

eenth and early nineteenth centuries was restricted largely
to the rich. (Despite the impression created by advertise-

ments of the period, the poor could rarely afford anything

better than the crude open fireplace.) And as the rich

not only could afford but were often willing to try out

any new idea offered by inventors which promised improve

130

ments to existing-types in the matter of fuel consump-

tion, heat radiation, and ventilation."5

TYPES USED

Nob grates of iron or brass were common in Boston

by 1724, using coal brought across the Atlantic. "Franklin

stoves" or "Pennsylvania fireplaces" were advertised in
6
Boston in 1745.

Whether or not coal was burned in Hampton Mansion is

not certain. Coal was mined on the James River of Virginia

from the middle of the 18th century7 and shipped to many

East Coast ports, including Baltimore.8 It is, of course,

hard to imagine coal being hauled out from the city to

heat Hampton, but we read that coal was actually mined on

the Ridgely estate and in 1801 advertised for sale in the

city.9 This venture, however, was not a success.10 How

long coal may have been mined at Hampton for domestic use

is not known.

5. Kurjack to Regional Director, Hopewell Village,
August 15, 1949.
6. Lewis M. Lawrence, Supervisor, Historic American
Buildings Survey, Notes on the Development of Early Architecture
in Massachusetts (Mimeographed), Boston, 1941, 21.
7. Bruce, 88.
8. J. Thomas Scharf, History of Baltimore City and
County, Philadelphia, 1881, 386.
9. Ibid., 425. The project seems to have been managed
by an Englishman named Benjamin Henfrey.
10. Thomas W. Griffith, Annals of Baltimord, 1833, 74.

131

A derelict half of a large cast iron plate, evidently

part of a stove or a fireback with "NORTHAMTON"11 cast in

decorative scroll was found in an outbuilding at Hampton
Iand was brought to the mansion with the permission of

Mr. John Ridgely. The base of the plate is burned out

in the manner of the back plate in the Franklin stove now

in the second floor bathroom. 12 I am not able to date the

design.

According to Josephine H. Pierce, the oldest known

Franklin stove is a C. 1750 model at the Mercer Museum,

Doylestown, Pennsylvania.13 The first models were meant

to be set inside an open fireplace already built. A

number of old Baltimore stoves were shqwn the writer by

Mr. Wilbur H. Hunter, Jr., Director of the Municipal

Museum of the City of Baltimore. A Franklin-type stove

in the home of a friend of his on Tyson Street may be of

11. The Northamton or Northampton Furnace was operated
as early as the Revolutionary War. It was willed by Charles
Ridgely, builder of Hampton, to Charles Carnan Ridgely, his
heir. Orphans' Court Records, Wills No. D, Liter W. 3.4,
450-481, will dated April 7, 1786. The furnace was operated
as late as 1827 and perhaps later. On the 1843 map of the
Hampton estate it is shown as "Old Furnace." The site is
now covered by the Loch Raven reservoir. In the 1780's the
"Ridgely Forges" seem to have been a separate op&ration.
12. This stove resembles the Postley stove, patented
$1, 1815i illustrated in Pierce, 353.
13. "Franklin-type stoves," Antiques, Vol. LIII, No. 5
(Hay 1948), 351. In 1786 Franklin invented a new coal
burning stove described in Transactions American Philosophical
Society, 22 (1786), 57-74.

132

local manufacture and as old as Hampton. A handsome

stove c. 1795 with Adam decoration is owned by the
14
Metropolitan Museum of Art. English hob grates of

the period are illustrated in Gloag and Bridgewater,
15
A History of Cast Iron in Architecture. Edwin

Jackson, 159 E. 54th St., New York 22, N. Y., deals
in this kind of item.

INVENTORY OF 1829

At the request of the deceased, no inventory was

filed of the effects of Charles Ridgely, the builder

(died 1790, about the time the house was completed),

but there is a detailed inventory of the late Charles

Carnan Ridgely, occupant of the mansion, made in 1829.

Although there is listed only "1 small Stove" valued

at $3.00, there were ten pairs of andirons, six fenders

and two pair of dogs mentioned. Six ten-plate stoves
16
valued at $43.00 are also mentioned, but it is

assumed that these were used for cooking in employees'

quarters on the plantation or at the Furnace. This

evidence is inconclusive. It seems to mean that the

14. Pierce, 351.
15. London, 1948, 71-77.
16. orphans' Court Records, Wills, Liber D.M.P. 38,
32-59, 124-126, 254-255, 408-409, 461-465 and Liber D.M.P. 39,
124-125.

133

heating stoves were not then in use at the mansion. They

may have burned out or have been discarded for other reasons

in the forty intervening years.

i SThUCTURAL EVIDENCE

Only two fireplaces at the mansion have been examined.

ii At the present time the others have not been opened up

I for inspection. Examination made August 9, 1949, revealed

it the following:
The Ghost Room - Condition X prevailed at the time of
I';

4 acquisition. This included a large mid- or late-Victorian

coal grate, which was removed. Condition X-l was a plastered

firechamber with a thin iron lintel 2'-lO" above the hearth.

The lintel and a row of brick soldiers proved to be a later

addition and was removed.

Condition X-2 was a plastered firechamber with a crude

stone jack arch, possibly original, making the opening 3'-2"

above the hearth. This opening is so high that the fire must,

in any case, have been elevated on a grate to prevent smoking.

The hearth consisted of red brick 6" plus square. These

were removed for the reconstruction of the floor and have been

saved for reinstallation.

Master Bedroom - Condition I: A black slate slab front

with an opening 2'-10" square was in place August 9. One of

the side pieces (as well as the hearth) had been broken and

134

the balance was removed. The slate was very obviously

a later addition over the old smoked surfaces.

Condition X-l was a plaster-lined firechamber

3'-3 1/2" high at the opening which was spanned with

another stone jack arch, plastered underneath like

Condition X-2 in the Ghost Room.

The masonry of the left jamb of the firechamber

is much disturbed. Possibly it was rebuilt in con-

nection with the old hot-air furnace flue (1875 or

earlier).

NEXT STEPS

There are three next steps which can be pursued

more or less concurrently.

1. Open and examine the other fireplaces,

especially those on the second floor east which still

have stoves.

2. Complete the examination of the Northampton

Furnace account books in the Ridgely Papers, Maryland

Historical Society. The Daybooks are presumably com-

plete for the period 1783-1790. The sampling of a

few weeks' entries read by me did not mention stoves

but showed that Charles Ridgely,who was not full

owner of the furnace,was charged with any items taken

from the works.

135

3. Consult-collectors and students of the subject and

learn where there are suitable stoves still in existence

which may be purchased or copied.

THE PEALE MUSEUM

The Municipal Museum of the City of Baltimore is

housed in a restored building of the early stoves in

which modern heating units are concealed. Mr. John H.

Scarff was the architect.

Should it be decided to use stoves at Hampton they

might in the same way be a solution to getting rid of

the modern exposed radiators.

Charles E. Peterson
Regional Architect

136

2. SECOND REPORT ON STOVES AT HAMPTON

When I wrote the "Preliminary Report" of August 22,

1949, early American stoves was a new subject with me and

I shared the general distrust of them as furnishings for

restored 18th-century houses. But a few weeks later I

had a chance to note many items in the Ridgely manuscripts

about the castings of stoves at Northampton Furnace and

their sale and distribution.

The earliest stove entry found was the purchase of

"1 Stove Pipe" entered in a Northampton Furnace ledger for

November 18, 1783. Such an item would have been made of

thin sheet iron, more than likely of sheets rolled abroad.

But in the years following there is no doubt that stoves

were manufactured at Hampton in quantity, along with

firebacks, grates, Dutch ovens, kettles, oven stoppers

and even iron mantelpieces.

Here are some relevant items:

Account Book LI, Day Book

1786

Jan. 17 Tempeste Tucker for 1.. .10 plate Stove L 7... 15.. .9

23 Cash received for a Small inside Stove

plate
March 31 Thomas Rossiter receiv'd of him in pt
for stoves 3.. .5...

137

Aug. 29 Henry Fletcher for 2 days work
sawing Timber for the Moulding
house

1787
March 24 Genl. charges for 1 10 plate stove
given to the Meathodice meet~ House
at Amp5. pr Capt.~R. 6... 16 1....

Acct. Book LVII

1788

Nov. 25 Frederick Moss for making and putting
Doors B pipes to a 10 plate Stove...

Dec. 3 Castings for 1 Ten plate Stove
Dec. 11 John Ellicott for 1 Franklin Stove
wt. 4-- 6 4.. .10.. .0

Dec. 16 1 10 plate Stove

Dec. 17 1 fire or Chimney Back

Dec. 23 1-10 plate

1 Chimney Back

Dec. 27 , 4-10 plate Stoves

Dec. 30 a Franklin Stove

30 General Charges Dr. to Charles Jessop
for mak~ Stove patterns Bc. 6...

30 Capt. Chas. Ridgely to Castings for
2 ~r large Andirons B 1 Oven Stopper
wt. 1-21

1789

F ° Jan. 8 hauling a grate to Balto.

March 31 Profit B Loss Dr.

138

To John Norwood for 1 Tenplate Stove charg'd to
him 16th Decemt 1788 which was for the Use of
the Methodist Congregation at the Stone Meeting
House B which Capt Ridgely with the Consent of
the greatest part of the Company agreed to make
them a present of... 5...

Ridgely Account Book (Jan. 1, 1810 - Dec. 31, 1815)

1810

Dec. 27 1 large 10 plate Stove in Casting house 5 ......

Dec. 31 By Error in entring oval Stoves...

1813

March 12 So much paid Elisha Bull making patterns 100.00

July 23 To Jn? Calhoun for moulding 11 large 10
plate Stoves @ $2...

Some years later the writer was confronted with the problem

of the original heating of the 18th-century public buildings

on Independence Square, Philadelphia. The architects' problem

in planning masonry work for the forthcoming restorations was

to learn what provisions were needed in the chimneys.

Samuel Y. Edgerton, then a graduate student at the

University of Pennsylvania, spent two summers under my

direction collecting records of the design, manufacture,

distribution and use of stoves in the Philadelphia area

during the 1790's. The quantity of source material

assembled was so great that it has defied anyone since
to write up the subject. The study did serve to tell the

museum planners what antique stoves to buy or to have

139

copied--and it told the architects what chimney features

were needed.

Apparently the discovery of oxygen by Joseph Priestly

in 1774 had stimulated the philosophers of Philadelphia

to investigate the theory of combustion and the design of

heating devices. Pennsylvania, through its large rural

German population, already had a strong tradition of

making and using iron stoves. The discovery that some

of the principal rooms of the State House, Congress Hall

and Old City Hall, the most imposing public building

group in 18th-century America, were heated with 10-

plate or cooking stoves was quite astonishing!

Mrs. Peirce '5 work was subsequently published as

Josephine H. Peirce, Fire on the Hearth, the Pond-

Ekberg Co., Springfield, Massachusetts, 1951. The book

has since gone out of print and that lady is now work-

ing on another one.

140

APPENDIX C-l

Shutters for the Mansion

I have never seen any manuscript references to the outside

shutters of the Mansion.

The window shutters removed in 1949 were stored in the

cellar and are still there. They are of the fixed slat type

with long iron straps which not only hold the shutter to the

frame, but hold each shutter together in one piece.

These shutters should be examined for details that

would determine their age; they may have been installed

when the house was quite new. I have never seen an essay

on the subject but slat shutters seem to have been intro-

duced to the United States about the year 1800, possibly

from the West Indies. In the rich French Colony of Saint

Domingue (now Haiti) these slat shutters, called Jalousies,

at the end of the 18th century were new there, too.

The type with movable slats stapled to vertical sticks

appeared somewhat later. The earliest documentary reference

I remember is one for installing them inside the First

Presbyterian Church of Princeton, New Jersey. Charles

Steadman's 1835 specification called them "inside revolving,

venitian Blinds." Examples may be seen in the contemporary

(1839) Presbyterian Church in Trenton by the same carpenter

141

I-architect.

In laying out a set of shutters for the Mansion

it should be noted from old photographs:

(1) that the shutters were installed mostly on the

south side

t
(2) some are one panel high and some are two

(3) some were painted a light color (probably

the same as t}£e window frames) but mostly they are dark

(probably green).

I suppose the first step in reinstalling them would

be to bring the old shutters up out of the cellar to

see how many there are and where they fit. If the

window frames are now (1970) all replacements the chance

for identifying pintle holes is probably nil.

I am quite sure the house would be more attractive

with the shutters back in place, to relieve the wide

expanse of stucco. They would probably make the Mansion

more comfortable in the summer period, as they undoubtedly

did in the old days.

S 142

APPENDIX C-2

[Hampton]

- October 27, 1949

Memorandum

To: Chief of Development

From: Architect Peterson

Subject: Interior colors, Hampton National Historic Site

We have so far been fortunate in the weather and
nearly all man hours have been spent on the exterior of the
mansion. But we must plan our indoor work program and this
brings up the matter of interior colors which involves impor-
tant general policy. The explorations we have made for the
original paint colors, although not complete, have been
fairly rewarding. In general, the interiors have had only
two or three coats of paint in 160 years. The bottom coat
is usually very thin, but distinguishable. No prime coat
seems to have been used.

The most important room in the house is the
Drawing Room. It is one of the most available on which
we can begin. It appears that the original decoration
was one coat of light gray Paint over all woodwork. This
remained for some years and then- say 1840- the door and
baseboard were Painted a strong dark green. Still later
the box lock on the door was removed, the door grained
"walnut" and the rest of the woodwork "satinwood". This
latter effect probably dates from the 1850's and has
remained until the present time. It is now in bad shape
due to peeling. The walls were painted in oil colors a
light buff originally. Later, they were papered, which
paper had become worn, faded and loose. We are removing
what is left. The original finish of the ceiling is not
known. Six months ago I asked to have some of the old
ceiling saved for study. If samples can now be found, they
will be studied for evidences of original finish.

The original effect was thus gray and buff, much
like one of the main rooms in Stratford Hall, Virginia,

143

refinished about the year 1800. I recommend that this
effect be restored at Hampton.

I am sending a copy of this memorandum to
Chairman Scarff for his information in case the Hampton
Committee wishes us not to follow the above recommendation.

C. E. Peterson
Architect

144
APPENDIX D

The Hampton Inventory, 1829

This 22-page selection of items from the list of Mansion

contents at the time of General Ridgely's death was compiled

and mimeographed by the writer in 1949 when the policy for

refurnishing the house was still under discussion.

145

UNITED STATES DEPARThENT OF THE INTERIOR NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

Hampton National Historic Site Towson 4 Maryland

December 23, 1949

The attached inventory of the estate of General Charles
Carnan Ridgely (1760-1829) is of great interest as showing the
contents of Hampton mansion after some thirty-eight years of
occupancy. It was found by Mr. Wilbur H. Hunter,~Jr., Director
of the Municipal Museum of the City of Baltimore in the records
of the Office of the Register of Wills for Baltimore County
(Inventories, Liber 38). The inventory was compiled by Allen
Dorsey and James Tucker in August, 1829. The General's will
(April 28, 1828) is to be found in Wills, Liber 13.

The first owner of Hampton, Captain Charles Ridgely, died
in 1790, about the time the mansion was completed. At the request
of the deceased, no inventory was made. The "household and Kitchen
Furniture" were bequeathed to Rebecca Dorsey Ridgely, the widow.
Presumably this included various items imported from England be-
fore the Revolution (see William D. Hoyt, Jr., "Captain Ridgely's
London Commerce, 1757 to 1774," Americana, Vol. XXXVII, No. 2,
April, 1943, pp. 354-363) and certain pieces known to have been
made by the carpenters while building the house. By the terms
of the will, the widow got the use of the silver; after her
decease it was to go to Charles Carnan Ridgely. The Captain's
will (April 7, 1786) is to be found in Wills, Liber 4.

Widow Rebecca seems to have moved out of the mansion in
or after January, 1791. Apparently she was not on good terms
with the next occupants and probably left behind no more than
necessary.

The portion of the 1829 inventory offered herewith is only
a fraction of the total; the listing and appraisal of property
went on well into the following year. There were many buildings
connected with the iron furmace and the farming operations. In
addition, there were other farms, Ridgely's Forges, two houses
in the city, an iron store on Smith's Wharf, stock in various
companies, over three humdred slaves listed by name, a steamboat
valued at $1000.00, some old cannon boring machinery at Mount
Clare, a pew in St. Paul's church, one hundred and nineteen
linen shirts, a seersucker coat and numerous other items running
to many pages.

This list of property in the mansion should be studied along
with the records of the sale which followed. The latter was

146

discovered by Mrs. Charlotte Vincent Verplanck in the
same archives in a volume titled Accounts of Sales,
Liber 14. The latter varies from the inventory in
many pWWticulars and gives the names of each purchaser
and the prices paid. Few items in the mansion were
bought by persons named Ridgely, proving that the
furnishings at Hampton in recent years did~not come
down intact from the builder of the house. The original
pieces were widely dispersed as early as 1829. -CEP

147

Charles Ridgely A true and perfect Inventory of all and

(of Hampton) singular the foods chattels and personal

Inventory estate of Charles Ridgely of Hampton late

of Baltimore County deceased appraised by us the subscribers each

of us having been first legally authorised and duly sworn as will

be seen by the annexed warrant.

Dolls cts
3 Suits white curtains (Bed S windows) 80 00
1 do do S 00
2 do Blue S flowered do 8 00
2 do Calico do 8 00
S Red Moreen Window do Cornice S pins 70 00
3 Blue Silk ditto Yellow S blue drapery 70 00
50 Blankets 100 00
S New pieces patch work for quilts @3$ 15 00
11 Calico quilts 33 00
10 Ditto bed spreads 15 00
5 Leno Curtains S 00
18 Pair Russia Sheeting sheets 18 00
41 pair fine linen sheets 205 00
10 Dimity bed spreads 10 00
6 White Marseilles Bed quilts 42 00
19 White Dufkin quilts 28 50
3 Crib quilts 4 50
12 Fine linen bolster cases 9 00
32 pair fine pillow cases 16 00
15 ditto ditto old ditto 1 50
7 ditto Russia Sheeting ditto 88
8 pieces of drapery 3 00

PORTION OF INVENTORY, ESTATE OF CHARLES C. RIDGELY OF HAMPTON, 1829

Page 1

148

Dolls cts

21 dimity drawer Covers 131
28 damask Napkins ~ 125c 3500
22 Common diaper ditto 30c 660
63 New Towels 15c 945
36 old ditto 37 1/2
1 Arm chair Cushion 5 2 covers I
3 Yards drilling 300
2 pieces domestic Cotton 500
1 Bunch patches 25
4 Remmants Calico 100
3 ditto waist-coating 37 1/2
1 Easy chair 5 2 Red Covers with brass nails 1000
14 dusting cloths ~4c 56
1 Easy chair 1000
37 damask table cloths @10$ 37000
5 diaper ditto 5$ 2500
22 ditto ditto 1.25* 2750
6 Common ditto 50* 300
35 Doylers 3* 1OS
8 plated Chamber Candle sticks 25* 200
6 pair steel snuffers 8* 48
2 " Iron ditto 12
1 pr brass Candle sticks 37 1/2
1 pr tin ditto 12 1/2
1 Mahogany pier table 500
° I ditto Medicine Cupboard 500

PORTION OF INVENTORY, ESTATE OF CHARLES C. RIDGELY OF HAMPTON, 1829

Page 2

149

Dolls cts

1 Bureau 3 00
1 Writing desk 7 00
1 Mahogany Cupboard 20 00
2 Looking glasses 2 50
1 Mahogany table 2 00
3 Rose wood tables @5$ 15 O0
1 pair brass and Irons 2 50
1 pr steel shovel S tongs 1 50
1 Bag of little bags 30
1 Set of pins S Knobs forcurtains 12 00
1 Leather traveling trumk 1 25
2 Old trunks 12 1/2

1 Green table cover 7 00
4 Remmants Baze 5 4 table covers 4 00
13 Feather beds ea 10$ 130 00
12 Hair Matresses 100 00
13 Bolsters 26 00
26 Pillows 26 00
1 Hair sofa 10 00
1 Bureau 3 00
2 High post Mahogany bed steads 25 00
1 Low post French ditto 15 00
2 ditto Mahogany ditto @3$ 6 00
2 Mahogany tables "2$ 4 00
11 Cane seat chairs (Yellow) 50* 5 50
2 Yellow arm chairs 2 00

PORTION OF INVENTORY, ESTATE OF CHARLES C. RIDGELY OF HAMPTON, 1829

Page 3

150

Dolls cts

1 Crib bed 5 mattress 2 00
1 Chamber Looking glass 2 O0
34 Best cut glass Jellys @3.50* pr doz 9 90

62 Common ditto ditto 100* " 5 16

6 Cut glass oval dishes 5 3 round ditto 7 50
16 ditto flat ditto 16 00
4 Sugar dishes 6 00
2 Butter boats 5 stands 3 00
40 pieces Cut glass 16 00
24 pieces Cordial glass 2 00
38 pieces Champagne @2.50 per doz 7 91 1/2

73 Wine Glasses 200* " 12 16 1/2

15 Glass bowls ea 37 1/2* 1 87 1/2
5 Cider glasses 1 25
15 Tumblers 2 50
1 Set English China (42 pieces 80 O0
1 Set French China (68 do 80 00
1 Set tea S Coffee with stars 54 do 50 0O

1 Set ditto Blue 5 gilt 65 do 50 00
10 Blom nonge moulds 2 00
1 Set Blue tea 5 Coffee china 59 pieces 3 O0
1 Common Blue tea set 26 do 1 50
1 Black tea pot 03
3 Mugs 18
6 Glass salts and stands 6 0O
11 Common bowls 1 O0
1 Set Blue Canton China 297 pieces 250 OO

PORTION OF INVENTORY, ESTATE OF CHARLES C. RIDGELY OF HAMPTON, 1829

Page 4

151

Dolls cts

12 Pitchers 7 00
2 Large China punch bowls 2 50
2 French Cake plates 60
9 Tin Canisters S 1 tin box 56

13 White plates S dishes . 75
1 pr sugar nippers S 1 pr spring steel yards 12 1/2
1 Earthern furnace S 1 pr Cast Iron dogs 46

1 Box 5 1 Clothes horse 06
2 paint pots 25

1 Black Walnut table 40
1 Pine ditto 50
3 Pine Cupboards 20 00
1 Eight day clock 15 00
6 Green winsor chairs 2 00

9 Common Jappan waiters 1 00
1 Oil Cloth Carpet 5 00
18 Oyster knives 2 25
2 Stone pitchers 75
36 best Ivory handle knives 19 00
37 do " " Forks )
31 2nd " " knives ) 15 00
28 small " " ditto )
33 do Forks ) 12 00
2 do " " Steels 1 00

1 Buck handle Carver S fork 75
1 Mahogany knife tray 37 1/2

PORTION OF INVENTORY, ESTATE OF CHARLES C. RIDGELY~0F HAMPTON, 1829

Page 5

15?

Dolls cts

1 Marble mortar S pestle 2 00
3 Bell metal skillets 4 00
1 ditto kettle 4 00
5 Copper stew pans 5 6 tops 8 00
1 ditto fish kettle 2 00
4 Tin Coffee pots 1 25
4 pewter warming plates 4 00
4 Ice cream freezers 1 00
7 Tin pans 50
1 do tea kettle 5 stand 75
3 do Water dippers 40
3 Frying pans 2 50
1 Tin Grater 5 Cullender 30
1 ditto mould 5 10 Bred pans 66
2 ditto apple roasters 50
2 Toasting irons 75
13 Muffin bands 13
5 Grid irons 3 50
1 Smoke Jack spit S chains 5 2 dripping pans6 00
2 Tin Spiting boxes 25
3 Iron bowls 25
2 Ladles 1 Skimmer 5 1 flesh fork 50
1 Sifter 5 1 Rolling pin 12 1/2
4 Iron tea kettles I O0
3 pair flat irons 2 50
1 Bell metal mortar 5 Iron pestle 50

PORTION OF INVENTORY, ESTATE OF CHARLES C. RIDGELY OF HAMPTON, 1829

Page 6
153

Dolls cts

3 Pine tables 2 50
18 Iron pots 12 00
6 Bake Ovens 4 00
3 Stew pans 1 50
1 pair And Irons 5 00
2 Shovels 1 pr tongs 6 pr pot hooks 5 4 racks 3 25
1 Coffee mill 5 1 Copper pot 1 25
1 Coffee roaster 5 2 waffle irons 3 00
1 Buscuit brake S 1 paste board 1 50
5 Stone pots 1 50
I Brafs bound bucket 1 00
13 Empty Bbls 5 1 Keg 78
2 Market baskets 25
1 Old Canister 25
8 Hickory brooms 40
1 Box tins 25
1 Bag feathers OS
3 White wash brushes 12 1/2
2 Wooden bowls 5 2 earthen bread bowls 15 1/2
2 Fire 5 2 ash buckets 75
3 Wood leathers 1 00
4 Benches 5 1 pine knife box 52
1 Feed chest & 1 wheel barrow 3 O0

7 Empty boxes 25
1 Tin spice box 25
1 pr nut crackers 5 1 Cork screw ° 12 1/2

PORTION OF INVENTORY, ESTATE OF CHARLES C. RIDGELY OF HAMPTON, 1829

Page 7

154

Dolls cts

2 Tin pepper boxes 02
2 dressers 1 Bbl 5 1 keg 35
1 Box with wax Candles 1 50
3 Hanks yarn 35
4 pieces Table Bazo 1 00
1 Step ladder 1 50
2 Tin Candle sticks 5 Iron snuffers 10
2 Green Bed steads 3 00
1 Low post mahogany ditto 75
1 pine work stand 40
1 Walnut Candle stand 50
1 Mahogany bureau 3 00
1 ditto chest of draws 5 00
6 light coloured winsor chairs 1 00
1 pine table 50
2 warming pans 3 00
1 pr and irons, shovel 5 tongs 1 00
9 tin chamber buckets 5 2 wash basons 1 50
1 Chamber glass 50
1 pine table 50
1 gilt frame 5 picture 50
2 Window blinds 02
3 pine Chests 75
9 stone pots with pickles 15 0O
3 empty stone pots 5 4 earthen milk pots 57 1/2
4 Wooden boxes 8 00

PORTION OF INVENTORY, ESTATE OF CHARLES C. RIDGELY OF HAMPTON, 1829

Page 8

155

- - - -

Dolls cts

2 Bbls with fish 5 1 with oil 10 00
1 Safe 5 6 demmy Johns 2 50
1 Refrigerator 7 00
Fire wood 7 00
4 sweeping 3 dusting 5 1 scrubing brush 1 25
1 Window blind 25
4 paper screens 10 00
2 Close chairs S 1 wood box 55
1 Toilet table 5 dress 25
1 Carriage liquor box 50
1 Mahogany table 1 25
1 Crib 1 50
4 Chests 1 00
1 Straw Carpet S pieces 3 00
1 pair quilting frames 50
5 Brass fenders 50 00
2 Mats 5 2 Window blinds 5 00
1 Steel fender 1 00
3 pair brass And Irons 10 00
1 pair brass top shovel S tongs 75
2 pair steel shovel S tongs 75
1 Bundle Cotton 25
1 Lot paper for blinds 1 00
2 Bed pans 2 00
5 Demy Johns B 30* 1 50
1 Lot empty bottles 8 00

PORTION OF INVENTORY, ESTATE OF CHARLES C. RIDGELY.OF HAMPTON, 1829

Page 9

156

Dolls cts

1 Electrical Machine 5 00
1 Looking glass 50
1 Lot old chairs Se 1 00
2 Mahogany wash stands 4 00
1 Toilet table 20
1 Mahogany knife case 25
1 Lot of flowered paper 30 00
19 gilt frame pictures 70 00
2 Glass Mamtle lamps 50 00
2 Broken ditto 5 1 Bread basket (silvered 1 00
1 Lamp Wt 1 00
4 Brass 5 Glass Candle sticks 5 00
1 Glass still 5 00
1 ditto Eperne 15 00
4 pieces platto glass 75 00
18 Platto Images 12 00
3 Platto blocks 3 00
2 Pine Cupboards 6 00
4 White square bottles 50
2 drawing room window frames OS
1 Lot tin illuminating apparatus 5 00
1 Tam-Boi frame 5 2 pr stays 1 06
1 plate warmer 2 50
1 Box tea 15 00
3 Empty Bbls 25
4 Recess door or Window frames 2 00-

PORTION OF INVENTORY, ESTATE OF CHARLES C. RIDGELY OF HAMPTON, 1829

Page 10

157

Dolls cts

1 pair branches for Candle sticks 50
1 Loaf sugar 5 1 tin canister 2 50
76 Glasses 5 Jars preserves S jellys @30* 22 80
1 Bust S 1 mahogany screen for window 25
3 Bags herbs 2 00
2 Red Cushions 12 1/2
34 Jars S pots 2 00
15 preserving glasses 5 4 stone jugs 3 00
1 - 4 horse carriage 300 00
1 Set 4 horse 5 1 ditto 2 horse harness 40 00
1 Set old harness 5 leather traces 5 reins 3 00
2 old bridles 1 old collar 5 3 baggage straps 1 00
2 Saddles 5 2 bridles 12 00
1 New Carriage 5 harness for 2 horses 575 00
2 pitch forks 5 4 old bridle bits 40
2 Curry Combs 5 1 horse brush 25
1 Mantle glass 30 00

1 Red stool 25
1 Straw Carpet 1 00

3 Leather bottom chairs 75
1 fire board 25
1 Mahogany Cupboard 4 00
1 Lot stair mating (straw 1 00
49 brass stair rods @30* 14 70
1 Venetian stair Carpet 4 00
1 High post mahogany bedstead 12 50

PORTION OF INVENTORY, ESTATE OF CHARLES C. RIDGELY~OF HAMPTON, 1829

Page 11

158

IL---

Dolls cts

2 Green S gold pier tables - 15 00
2 ditto card ditto 20 0O
1 Mahogany Candle Stand 2 50
2 Green S gold lamp stands 4 OO
1 Mahogany wash stand 2 50
1 Piano forte 120 00
1 Music Stool 5 O0
1 Mahogany music stand 5 books 3 OO
1 Back gammon box 50
1 pair brass and irons 20 00
1 pair steel shovel 5 tongs 5 00
1 Large looking glass 100 OO
1 Chandelier 150 00
1 Straw Carpet 15 00
1 Looking glass 80 00
1 Side board 20 00
2 Liquor Cases 1 with bottles the other empty 13 00
20 Mahogany chairs @150* 30 00
2 ditto arm ditto @250* 5 00
1 ditto desk 8 O0
1 ditto Candle stand 1 O0
1 ditto Claw foot breakfast table 10 00
2 Sofas 16 00
-1 Set Claw foot dining tables 60 00
1 dining room lamp 50 00
1 Straw passage Carpet 3 00

PORTION OF INVENTORY, ESTATE OF CHARLES C. RIDGELY OF HAMPTON, 1829

Page 13

159

F Dolls cts

1 Lot oil cloth 25
1 Chicken Coop 5 00
38 Coarse table dusters S plate cloths 1 14

1 Bag Canton thread, twist, tape, silk buttons 1 50
Curtain rings knitg needles S Scissors

5 Remnants linen 15 00
8 Silk Chair Covers 2 00
3 old sheets 1 old bed tick 2 Bags S 1 box 50
10 plated Candle sticks 25 00
2 ditto " " with branches 15 00
2 ditto toast stands 1 00
4 ditto coolers 30 00
5 pieces plated ware belong~ to Eperme 5 00
2 plated snuffer stands 1 00
1 pair snuffers 75
1 Steel 25
1 plated bread basket 4 00

1 Set plated Castors 12 00
2 plated colsters 1 00
1 ditto funnel 25
4 ditto Chafing dishes 4 00
1 Empty box S 1 knife basket 20
26 Table mats @ 2* ea 52
2 Leno ~00~~ Glass Covers 50
1 Table brush 18

PORTION OF INVENTORY, ESTATE OF CHARLES C. RIDGELY OF HAMPTON, 1829

Page 14

160

Silver plate

1 Silver Coffee urn

2 " tea pots S stands

1 " slop bowl

4 old broken pieces

1 Cream pot

1 Tea Canister

2 Sugar dishes 5 1 pr sugar tongs

27 tea spoons ( 1 broken)

17 table ditto 5 1 punch ladle

17 dessert ditto

1 Soup ditto

1 Large Oval waiter

1 Less ditto 163 oz

2 Round ditto

3 ditto Less

3 Punch bowls

2 Coffee urns

1 Bread basket

2 Goblets

5 small cans

2 large ditto

2 Sauce boats

3 Silver pipkins

1 " Salad dish

-1 " Set Castors

PORTION OF INVENTORY, ESTATE OF CHARLES C. RIDGELY OF HAMPTON, 1829

Page 15

161

1 Silver Punch Strainer

6 Silver Colsters

2 " Ladles

2 doz large forks

2 doz small ditto

4 Skewers

1 Fish knife

1 silver marrow spoon

30 " table spoons

30 " dessert do
3 " Tumblers 2387.66
36 " tea spoons
1 " Milk pitcher
1 " Tea Caddy
1 " Cream Jug
1 " Milk bowl stand 5 2 ladles
29 " Knives (1 Broken)
8 " Salt spoons
5 butter ladles 4 gravy spoons 5 1 s£i&king tube
1 Sugar tongs

PORTION OF INVENTORY, ESTATE OF CHARLES C. RIDGELY OF HAMPTON, 1829

Page 16

162

Dolls cts

4 best cut glass qrt decanters 30 00

8 do " " pt do 12 00
4 Cut glass qrt do 6 00

10 do do pt do 10 00
1 Cob-web brush . 25
Weekly Register 12 volumes @so* 6 00

American Farmer 4 do " 2 00
Life of Washington 3 do " 1 50
History of France 4 volumes " 2 00

Livermore on Agency 2 " @100* 2 00
Smiths History of Virginia 2 " 75 1 50
American Revolution 2 " 25 50
Wars of Europe 1 " 50

4 Dictionaries 100* 4 0O
Hutchinsons Xenophon 1 " 75
Ashleys ditto 1 " 50
Blackstones Commentary 1 " 50
Virgilii Delphini 1 " 1 00
Morse's Geography 1 " 50
Quarterly Review 1 " 25
Caesor Delphini 1 " 50
Cicero Delphini 1 " 1 00
Land holder's assistant1 " 1 00
Sporting Magazine 1 " 37 1/2
Port folio 1816 Bound 1 " 50
Ditto pamphlets 13 " 25

PORTION OF INVENTORY, ESTATE OF CHARLES C. RIDGELY OF HAMPTON, 1829

Page 17

163

Dolls cts

Gummere's Surveying 1 volume 1 00
Elements of Geometry 1 " OS
Murray's Grammar 1 " 25
Bud's foot of the horse 1 " 25
Racing Calender 1 " 20
Fool of quality 1 " OS
Recuil Choisi 1 " 25
Abercromby on Catechism 1 " 25
Abbess 1 " OS
Paley's Evidences 1 " 25
Shakespeare 3 " B ~* 15
Histoir Romain 1 " 15
Pope's Works 1 volume 10
Geographical Dictionary 1 " 10
National Calender 1 " 03
Key to Mair 1 " 03
Homers Iliad 1 " 25
Blairs Lectures 1 " 10
Darby's Louisiana 1 " 25
Leusdens Testament 1 " 06
Wanastroct Recueil 1 " 10
Goldsmiths England 1 " OS
Laurens Biography 1 " OS
American Museum 1 " 03
History of the U. States 1 50

French grammar 1 " 12 1/2

PORTION OF INVENTORY, ESTATE OF CHARLES C. RIDGELY OF HAMPTON, 1829

Page 18
164

Dolls cts

American Nepos 1 volume OS
Horace Delphini 1" OS
Prince Eugene 1" 02
Extracts in prose 5 verse 10 " 18
Dictionary of Arts SSciences 6 Voll. 3 00
Elegant extracts 1 " 25
Baily's Ovid 1 " OS
Miscellanie in prose 8 " 40
Letters from St. Helena 1 volume OS
Napoleon in Exile 1 " OS
Philadore's Chess 1 " 06
The Book 1 " 06
Baltimore Directory 1 " 02
Annals of Baltimore 2 " 25
Laws of Massachusetts 8 " 08
Quarterly Review 10 " 1 00
Humes England 2 Volum' s 25
Heedon's Geological Essays 1 do 25
Quarterly Repository 1 do OS
Rambles in Italy 1 " OS
The Inspection house 5 1Atlass 2 " 1 50

The General history of the

late war 1 " OS
Select Review 5 " 10

The Analectic Magazine 3 " OS
Analyses on Mineral water 1 " 12 1/2
Laws of Maryland 1 " 02

PORTION OF INVENTORY, ESTATE OF CHARLES C. RIDGELY OF HAMPTON, 1829

165 Page 19

Dolls cts
A Lot of pamphlets in all 15 Volum's 50
1 small box brass moumted 2 0O
1 small Stove 3 00
1 Gold lever watch 5 seal 150 00
4 Bottles Rose wine 60
12 do with wine B 50* 6 O0
7 do peach brandy 75* 5 25
6 do Catsup 25 1 50
2 do Lima bark 50
1 do Castor oil 25
1 do Cinnamon water 12 1/2
1 Ivory Case 50
1 Bottle Cologne water 15
3 ditto Olives 18
3 ditto Whiskey 75
1 ditto apple brandy 20
2 ditto porter 25
1 ditto charcoal 06
1 Medicine Box 5 medicine 1 00
2 Demy Johns with brandy 12 00
1 demy John with spirits 2 25
1 do " " whiskey 62 1/2
1 small trunk 18
8 bottles mint water B 15* 1 20
2 ditto peach do " 30
1 ditto Capers 25

PORTION OF INVENTORY, ESTATE OF CHARLES C. RIDGELY OF HAMPTON, 1829

Page 20
166

Dolls cts
1 Fly brush
1 paper folder 02
1 Bbl with brandy in it 2 0O
22 bottles port wine @ 25* 5 50
5 ditto Champaign 100 5 00
13 ditto old brandy 8 O0
3 ditto Curracoa 3 00
6 ditto wine 15 O0
11 ditto ditto 16 50
1 Box wine 2 50
1 ditto ditto 2 50
23 bottles Cider 3 50
1 Bbl whiskey 20 O0
1 Demy John with gin 3 00
1 Ditto " vinegar 1 00
1 ditto " whiskey 2 25
4 Demy John wine 15 00
2 ditto " brandy 4 00
2 ditto " empty 1 00
2 ditto " stands 75
5 Large Carpets 240 O0
3 Passage ditto 30 00
1 Stair ditto 15 O0
4 Rugs 5 00
1 Wooden salad spoon 5 fork O6
1 pair bake irons 1 50

PORTION OF INVENTORY, ESTATE OF CHARLES C. RIDGELY OF HAMPTON, 1829

Page 21

167

£1

Dolls cts
1 false and iron 75
1 Wine Cooler 62 1/2
1 Watering pot 25
7 tubs 3 buckets 1 piggin S strainer 4 50
3 Clothes baskets 75
B pieces old carpet 4 00
19 old stair rods 2 85
5 Iron cups S saucers 1 waiter 5 2 lamps 50
3 Phials Mustard seed O6
6 pieces Stair Carpet 8 O0
3 old carpets 5 7 pieces 5 00

1 pr gold spectacles 5 case 1 pr silver do)
1 Ever pointed pencil 5 case 1 Gold )
breast pin, 1 pr Gold sleeve buttons 5 ) 25 00
1 Ivory handl pen knife )
1 pr brass And Irons 6 O0
1 pr shovel shovel 5 tongs 1 50
1 plate box 50
1 Tin 5 2 wooden candle boxes 12 1/2
1 Hamper mineral water 3 12 1/2
2 Patent Cocks 12 1/2
3 bottles Sweet oil 1 50
1 Passage lamp 20 00
Old scales S Wts 25
-1 Portrait picture 50 00
1 Sword 30 00

8282 24

PORTION OF INVENTORY, ESTATE OF CHARLES C. RIDGELY OF HAMPTON, 1829

Page 22
168