HAMPTON
Notes on Hampton Mansion
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NOTES

Part I

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


Part II

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.

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

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

17. Archives of Maryland, Maryland Council 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.

22. N.a., "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 110th Field Artillery, Baltimore, 1953, p.3).

24. Archives, p. 426.

25. Philadelphia, 1866, I: 590.

26. Edmonds, pp. 45, 46.

27. Phillip 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 to 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.

30. Crowl, pp. 96, 128.


Part III

1. The only comparable example of a cupola on an American private house I can remember appears in a 1795 study 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.

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.

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.

6. Hoyt, pp. 364-366.

7. Ridgely-Pue Papers, Maryland Historical Society. Not seen by the writer.

8. "for 2lb Powder dld Willis to blow Stone at Lime Kiln" May 11, 1784. Account Book XLIV.

9. Account Book XLIV, page 138. On August 26, 1790, William McKinley and George Haile, Sr., were also paid £3 each for "Haulg 1 Hathstone." Immediately following on the same day "To Charles R. Carnan for 4...5 Horse Teams 3-1/2 days each Hauling Hathstone from Curtises Creek a 36/pr day equal to haulg 8 Tons Ore 25...4...0 ditto for 4...5 Horse ditto 1/2 day each haulg Stone from Quarry as above. . .Joseph Heart for Haulg 1 pr Hathstone from Curtises Creek 3...0...0." (Northampton Furnace 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.

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 Moses 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."

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 E (fo. 79) well before the beginning of the Mansion are:

Moses Dillon

hard money
Nov--by underpinning my New Stables£ 2-10-0
Rebildg 2 ovens.15-0
By Still house7-6
By Chimblys5-0-0

Nov 28 1781 10# nailes

14. New York, 1945, p. 253.

15. Kimball, Domestic Architecture, p. 153. Solitude is now the office of the Philadelphia Zoo.

16. Charles E. Peterson, Notes on the Free Quaker 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, &c."

18. Account Book XLIV.

19. Account Book LII, fo. 16.

20. Ibid., fo. 49.

21 Ibid., fo. 39.

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.

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 E. Peterson, Notes on the Free Quaker Meeting House, Philadelphia, September, 1966 (mimeographed), Illustration No. 22, Drawing Sheets 17 and 18.

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

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.

26. John H. Gardner, Jr., "Presbyterians of Old Baltimore," Maryland Historical Magazine, XXXV (1940) p. 258.

27. Maryland Historical Society, Ridgely Papers, Account Book XXLV (Daybook, 1772-75), p. 94.

28. N.p., Ridgely Papers (Loose Mss.)

29. This letter from Howell to Charles Ridgely, n.p., 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.

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 from 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 Courthouses of Maryland, Part One.

32. Account Book XLVIII?, fo. 76.

33. Annapolis, Hall of Records (MS).

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

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.

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. 145.

43. Bienvenu, p. 12.

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.

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.

56. Ledger E, fo. 107.

57. Account Book LIII, p. 136.

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, Washington, 1907.

65. Ledger E, 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.

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.

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 newel posts.

77. The five turned "drops" on the stairway--no more and no less--may still be counted.


Part IV

1. Baltimore Orphan's Court Records, Wills D, 1784-1791, Liber W.B. 4, p. 450.

2. Ibid., p. 453.

3. Rebecca Ridgely to Priscy, Hampton Hall, 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.

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.

5. Bound MS, Maryland Historical Society.

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.

7. Leander James Bishop, A History of American Manufactures, Phila., 1866, Vol. I, p. 595.

8. Baltimore Records of the Orphan's Court. Accounts of Sales, LIB 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.


Part V

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.

3. In addition to the furnace daybooks, Ledger G, in possession of Dr. Hoyt, has some relevant entries on folio 49.

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.

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, Brickmakers, Bricklayers. . .Cabinetmakers. . .Gardeners. . .Painters. . .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 SERVANTS. . .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 Redeinptioners 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 Maryland, Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly of Maryland, Vol. XXXIII, Baltimore, 1913, 109. Act of 1717.

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).

11. Baltimore Daily Repository, March 28, 1792.

12. P. 126.

13. Ibid., p. 144.

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

15. Undated Note by Mrs. Win. F. Bevan, Ruxton.

16. Account Book, 1796-1808.

17. Baltimore American, November 15, 1832.

18. Published at Baltimore, p. 106.

19. Richardson Wright, The Story of Gardening, Garden City, 1938, 278, 289.

20. Carroll to Scott, Pringle, Cheap & Co., Annapolis, April 13, 1768, MHM, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 2 (June, 1943), 184. 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 Diliwyn to Wm. Diliwyn, Philadelphia, May 2, 1789, Diliwyn Papers (MS), Library Company of Philadelphia.

23. An Old Gardener, The Practical American Gardener, Baltimore, Fielding Lucas, Jr., 1819.

24. John Ridgely Memorandum Book, 1830-1851.

25. Quoted in Bienvenu, p. 32.


Appendix A

1. Frank Jenkins, Architect and Patron, London, 1961, pp. 128-129, quotes Sir Christopher Wren on this subject.

2. Ledger E, December 23, 1782.

3. Members of the Carpenters' Company of Philadelphia were liable for expulsion if they revealed their own price book to outsiders.

4. Louise Hall, "Artificer to Architect in America," Durham, North Carolina, 1954 (MS) p. B-23.

5. Ibid., p. B-22.

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, part 1, 1953, pp. 105, 124, 125.


Appendix A

1. J. C. Carpenter, "An Old Maryland Mansion," 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 marble cheek slabs were meant. There are no physical evidences of the use of folding doors.

2. Ramsay Traquair, The Old Architecture of Quebec, Toronto, 1948, 14. A Quebec 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:580. 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). However, it is stated that "before 1852 stoves were not generally 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, Hagerstown, Oct. 26, 1782. Williams Papers, MS, Md. Hist. Soc.

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 Baltimore, 1833, 74.

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, Liber W.B.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 operation.

12. This stove resembles the Postley stove, patented 1815, illustrated in Pierce, 353.

13. "Franklin-type stoves," Antiques, Vol. LIII, No. 5 (May 1948), 351. In 1786 Franklin invented a new coal burning stove described in Transactions American Philosophical Society, 11 (1786), 57-74.

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.



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