Robert Lewis, nephew of George Washington, visited Mount Clare on his way

to his Uncle's first inauguration in New York. He was accompanying Mrs.

Washington on the journey from Virginia. In his diary for May 19, 1789 he

recalled the visit:

Mrs. Carroll expecting Mrs. Washington had made considerable preparation,

we found a large bowl of salubrious ice punch with fruits, etc. which had

been plucked from the trees in a green house lying on the tables in great

abundance;--these after riding 25 or 30 miles without eating or drinking

was no unwelcome luxury, however, Mrs. C could not complain that we had not

done her punch honor, for in the course of 1 Quarter of an Hour, this bowl

which held upwards of two Gallons was entirely consumed to the no little

satisfaction of us all.

The Maryland Society of the National Society of the Colonial Dames of

America announce the successful purchase of a George III silver punch

bowl, circa 1771, which belonged to Charles Carroll the Barrister (1723-1783)

and his wife Margaret Tilghman Carroll (1742-1817).  The bowl which is marked

by an English maker is a foot in diameter and must have made quite an

impression on guests to Mount Clare, the couple's summer residence.

Having been introduced to the English gentry by Robert Adam in the 1760s, the

neoclassical surface decoration was the height of sophistication.  It is

thought that the couple might have ordered the punch bowl and ladle during

a trip to London in the spring of 1771; Mrs. Carroll returned inspired by

the up-to-date Adamesque tastes of Londoners. The Barrister returned to serve

on various committees in Annapolis as the colonies moved closer to war.  By

June 1776 he would help write Maryland's first Constitution, the

Declaration and Charter of Rights for Maryland.

Nineteen years his junior, Mrs. Carroll survived her husband by 35 years;

she made Mount Clare her permanent residence and was known for her gardens

and hospitality.  She also began to update some of the furnishings in the

house to the stylish neoclassical forms of the Federal style, which

reached American shores after the end of the Revolution.  The plinth base

with ball feet is not original to the piece but was a popular form in the

Baltimore area by the 1770s.  Examples of its use can be seen on silver by

Charles Louis Boehme and Standish Barry among other local silversmiths.

Mrs. Carroll died in 1817 and in her will she bequeathed her large

silver punch bowl,to James Maccubbin Carroll, her husbands nephew, who had

inherited the house and moved into Mount Clare for a brief time.  The bowl

descended through this line of the family to the current seller.

WALKING (AND TALKING) CARROLL MANSION & PARK
Sunday, April 28
1pm-4pm
$35 per ticket
Escorted by Myra Brosius and Gloria Pestridge
Few people know this Baltimore treasure: the Carroll Mansion of the Charles Carroll family (the oldest colonial Georgian-style structure in the city,) surrounded by Carroll Park (once part of the extensive plantation, one of the area's largest landholdings at the time.) This tour explores this 1760s historic landmark with its authentic furnishings and traces the 250 years of the estate's rich history from the plantation era through the period of industrialization and urbanization to the acquisition of the property in 1890 to become the city's third-oldest municipal country landscape park. In the early 20th century the landscape firm of the Olmsted Brothers envisioned the 70 acres as a well-designed community park, respecting its history, but also integrating health-promoting recreational facilities. With community input these concepts are being pursued and adapted for today's active use under the guidance of the 2001 master plan. This tour is sponsored by the Friends of Maryland's Olmsted Parks & Landscapes, and is lead by landscape experts who generously volunteer their services.

Note: Meet at Mount Clare Mansion Museum House, accessed by the Carroll Park at 1500 Washington Boulevard, Baltimore, Maryland 21230. Parking is along the upper roadways and parking lot near the mansion. The mansion has no elevators to the three second-floor rooms. Carroll Park has level and gradual inclines on asphalt paths and roadways. Comfortable shoes recommended. Tour is rain or shine. No refunds.

To purchase tickets, contact Roland Park Country School Office of External Programs at 410-323-5500 x 3091.

What do the B&O Railroad Museum and Mount Clare Museum have in common? How do these 18th and 19th century sites share a history?

On a rise in the center of Carroll Park in southwest Baltimore stands Maryland's first house museum and one of the oldest and finest examples of colonial Georgian architecture in the city. Mount Clare is a 1760 colonial Georgian home built by one of Maryland’s leading patriots and one of our first state senators, Charles Carroll, Barrister.

 The barrister’s father, Dr. Carroll of Annapolis purchased the land in 1732 on the Patapsco River, a 2,568-acre tract which was rich in iron ore. This land, now known as Carroll Park, was just west of Baltimore. Dr. Carroll, along with Charles Carroll of Annapolis and his brother Daniel Carroll of Duddington, Daniel Dulany and Benjamin Tasker, formed the Baltimore Iron Works on this land.  Dr Carroll sold all but 800 acres to the Baltimore Iron Works.  At the age of 32 the barrister inherits the property, and in 1756 begins building Mount Clare to serve as his summer residence.  Mount Clare was the center of Georgia Plantation, a self-sufficient plantation with a diverse community.  He named his new summer residence after his grandmother, Mary Clare Dunn, and his sister, Mary Clare Carroll (Maccubbin). The house was built in the Georgian style of soft pink brick, most of which would have been made from the brick pits on the plantation. A series of grass ramps led from the bowling green down shaded terraces or falls. A sweeping view spread across the lower fields to the waters of the Patapsco River, about one mile away. 

The Barrister was a member of the Convention which met June 21, 1776, and voted for "declaring the United Colonies free and independent States". He presided over several conventions and was one of the seven distinguished patriots appointed to prepare a Declaration and Charter of Rights and form of government for the state of Maryland, adopted in 1776. In November 1776, he was elected to Congress in place of his young kinsman, Charles Carroll of Carrollton. Having declined the Chief Judgeship of the General Court of Maryland, he was elected to the first State Senate in 1777 and re-elected in 1781, and served until his death in 1783.

Because the Carrolls had no surviving children, the Barrister's will provided that James Maccubbin, one of Mary Clare Carroll Maccubbin’s five sons, become his heir by assuming the Carroll name. It was during James's ownership that the cornerstone of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was laid on land donated by him in 1829 for a right-of-way and depot, the Mount Clare Station - the first railroad station in the country. A stone viaduct over Gwynns Falls, the oldest railroad bridge in the country, was named the Carrollton Viaduct in honor of James Carroll. In 1848, the Carrolls sold land for the right-of-way for the Locust Point Branch of the B&O railroad, a spur leading from the main line southward to the shipyards.

James Maccubbin Carroll, Jr. and his family, the third generation and last of the Carroll family to live at Mount Clare, departed from Mount Clare in 1845. By 1861 the Civil War effort was gaining energy. Federal troops camped on the property which was called Camp Carroll while the house was maintained as a hotel. In 1870 the Carroll heirs leased the house and 15 acres to the West Baltimore Scheutzen Association as a clubhouse and recreational park equipped with a shooting range, ten-pin alley, drinking hall and bandstand.

In 1890 the Carroll heirs sold the house and 20 acres to the City of Baltimore Park Commission for use as a public park. The Park Commission pursued more acreage expanding the park to 36 acres. In 1903, the firm of Olmsted Brothers Landscape Architects was hired to make improvements to Baltimore's park lands. Work began in Carroll Park in 1904 and today many of the Olmsted features are still in existence.

The museum has one of the finest privately owned decorative arts collections in the country, most of which belonged to the three generations of the Carroll family who resided at Mount Clare. It is renowned amongst scholars and collectors alike. The collection consists of English and Chinese export objects as well as many regional objects and furnishings from Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania. On exhibit are 18 family portraits by notable artists such as Charles Willson Peale, John Hesselius, John Wesley Jarvis and Robert Edge Pine. This exceptional collection allows us to provide a remarkably personal interpretation of life at Mount Clare – a rare treat for historic house visitors.

For more information, visit our web site, www.mountclare.org  

Mount Clare Museum House Lecture Series

 

 Presents The Emily McKim Reed Lecture Series:

 Influence of the Early Chinese Trade on American Decorative Arts  1640-1820

Mount Clare Museum presents three lectures at the Mount Clare Stable by guest speaker, John Danz, local historian.  Mount Clare witnessed three major wars including the War of 1812.  This lecture series examines trade with China from the colonial era through our second war for independence.

            Several major world-wide developments rapidly evolved as the American colonies established. These developments – consumerism, and world-wide commerce – played a significant role in shaping our American decorative arts as well as propelling us toward independence.

            While everyone today is aware of our current trade with China, what was our early trade experience with Chinese goods? Much of the emphasis has been on porcelain because porcelain was the only trade item that has endured, but what else was traveling from this far away land?

            Three lectures will encompass a wider spectrum of the early trade with China – the decorative arts, trade patterns, capitalism, and the movement toward independence. Where do these influences persist today? Find out why a neighborhood in Baltimore is named Canton and the role Tench Tilghman and John O’Donnell played in the early trade of Chinese trade goods.

With the focus on Maryland and specifically Baltimore, much of the vast collection of Chinese goods and the influence of Chinese design in the Mount Clare collection will be highlighted along with other local museum collections. The National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in the State of Maryland is sponsoring this program and owns the collection of decorative arts and furnishings at Mount Clare.  Guests to the series are invited to visit the museum for the 11, 12, or 1:00 tour and enjoy a buffet reception following each lecture.

John Danz, Jr., is a native of Baltimore, Maryland. He graduated from Virginia Tech with a degree in European history. John has lectured widely on the subject of America’s early trade with China based on more than three year’s of research. His focus has been on Maryland’s experiences in the China trade from the viewpoint of both the decorative arts and economics.  Mr. Danz served as Vice President of Towson University’s Asian Arts & Culture Center for more than fifteen years and currently serves as Vice President, State of Maryland’s Sister States program for Anhui Province, China.  Danz is currently the Program Director for the Baltimore County Historical Society. A member of the Rushlight Society, Danz is a collector and lecturer on early domestic lighting devices.

SESSION 1: Sunday, April 22nd

Tempest From a Teapot: The Portuguese Trade to mid-1700s

SESSION 2: Sunday, May 6th

From China to Chippendale, 1750 to 1783:

Influence of China trade on Colonial America

 SESSION 3: Sunday, June 3rd  

Tench Tilghman and Baltimore’s Canton, 1784-1820

Held at the Mount Clare Stable at 2:00 pm.

Carroll Park, 1500 Washington Blvd., Baltimore, MD. 21230.  410-837-3262.  Free Parking.

Tickets:  $25/person includes lecture and buffet reception.  Sign up for all three lectures special price $60.  Seating limited.  To make reservations, please visit http://www.mountclare.org/newsevents/index.html or call 410-837-3262.

 

Mount Clare, the 1760 Georgian summer home built by Charles Carroll, Barrister, is the oldest house in Baltimore City and is located in historic Carroll Park.  Original furnishings of the Barrister, his wife, Margaret Tilghman Carroll, and their heirs have been preserved in the house and provide an accurate interpretation of the grand style of 18^th century colonial living.  The museum is open for guided tours on the hour, Thursday through Sunday beginning at 11 o’clock, last tour at 3 o’clock.  

A Treasure Re-Claimed: George III Silver Punch Bowl

Robert Lewis, nephew of George Washington, visited Mount Clare on his way

to his Uncle's first inauguration in New York. He was accompanying Mrs.

Washington on the journey from Virginia. In his diary for May 19, 1789 he

recalled the visit:

"Mrs. Carroll expecting Mrs. W had made considerable preparation,

we found a large bowl of salubrious ice punch with fruits, etc. which had

been plucked from the trees in a green house lying on the tables in great

abundance;--these after riding 25 or 30 miles without eating or drinking

was no unwelcome luxury, however, Mrs. C could not complain that we had not

done her punch honor, for in the course of 1 Quarter of an Hour, this bowl

which held upwards of two Gallons was entirely consumed to the no little

satisfaction of us all."

The Maryland Society of the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America announce the successful purchase of a George III silver punch

bowl, circa 1771, which belonged to Charles Carroll the Barrister (1723-1783) and his wife Margaret Tilghman Carroll (1742-1817).  The bowl which is marked

by an English maker is a foot in diameter and must have made quite an impression on guests to Mount Clare, the couple's summer residence. Having been introduced to the English gentry by Robert Adam in the 1760s, the

neoclassical surface decoration was the height of sophistication.  It isthought that the couple might have ordered the punch bowl and ladle during a trip to London in the spring of 1771; Mrs. Carroll returned inspired by the up-to-date Adamesque tastes of Londoners. The Barrister returned to serve on various committees in Annapolis as the colonies moved closer to war.  By June 1776 he would help write Maryland's first Constitution, the Declaration and Charter of Rights for Maryland.

Nineteen years his junior, Mrs. Carroll survived her husband by 35 years;

she made Mount Clare her permanent residence and was known for her gardens

and hospitality.  She also began to update some of the furnishings in the

house to the stylish neoclassical forms of the Federal style, which

reached American shores after the end of the Revolution.  The plinth base

with ball feet is not original to the piece but was a popular form in the

Baltimore area by the 1770s.  Examples of its use can be seen on silver by

Charles Louis Boehme and Standish Barry among other local silversmiths.

Mrs. Carroll died in 1817 and in her will she bequeathed her large

silver punch bowl,to James Maccubbin Carroll, her husbands nephew, who had

inherited the house and moved into Mount Clare for a brief time.  The bowl

descended through this line of the family to the current seller.

Model Trains at Mt.Clare: A Tradition

The closing of the Museum’s 2011 annual Holiday Festival of Trains, the biggest and most well attended EVER, continues a long-standing tradition at Mt. Clare initiated by the Public Relations Department of the B&O Railroad in 1936. In the first issue of Model Craftsmen Magazine for 1936 the B&O Railroad announced an “O” gauge “Royal Blue Model Contest” in order to help promote their signature train which operated between Washington D.C. and New York. For the princely sum of $1.00, the magazine offered a set of ¼ scale drawings of the Royal Blue locomotive “Lord Baltimore” and several types of passenger cars. This information was supplemented by a series of articles describing seats, lighting fixtures and other interior and exterior components for the modeler.  Out of some 200 contestants only five submitted completed models for judging-a testament to the complexity of the project.  The winner, chosen in March 1937, was Fletcher G. Speed, an automobile mechanic from New Rochelle, N.Y. who said he spent 30 days planning the project and over 1,500 hours completing it. The prize was $500.00 and the donation of the winning model to the Smithsonian Institution (who still holds the winning model in their collections today

This little marketing scheme drew enough attention to provide the Public Relations Department with an incentive to continue a model railroad program as a marketing tool. A large portable “O” gauge layout was constructed by the employees of the Mt. Clare Shops for use in the contest at the Smithsonian. The layout was rebuilt in 1941, including a full set of shipping crates, after which it traveled throughout many communities along the B&O’s right of way. During WWII the layout was displayed in veteran’s hospitals and used for training in the Army’s Transportation School. During the holiday season of 1944 this “O” gauge layout resided in the lobby of the Baltimore National Bank in support of War Bond sales.  At War’s end it decorated the Howard Street Hutzler’s Department Store in downtown Baltimore for the holiday shopping season.  Ultimately this large-scale layout made its way to the Cincinnati Gas & Electric Co. where it was placed on permanent loan. Refurbished, updated and expanded over the years-this layout still makes an annual appearance every holiday season in the downtown Cincinnati lobby of Cinergy (formerly Cincinnati Gas & Electric Company).

Engineers, draftsmen, pattern makers, painters and electricians who worked for the B&O at Mt. Clare all participated in a growing B&O Railroad model program which produced portable model railroad layouts in “O” gauge, “S” Gauge and “HO” gauge.  These layouts, as a part of a well planned public relations program, were displayed all over Baltimore and throughout the B&O’s operating territory to the delight of thousands each year. In 1946, the B&O Railroad Public Relations Department issued sets of scale drawings of some of its most famous locomotives and cars just for modelers. Ultimately 46 sheets of scale drawings of both historic and modern (at the time) locomotives, tenders, passenger cars, freight cars and a caboose were printed and offered for sale to the public. A stationary “HO” layout was produced shortly after the opening of the B&O Transportation Museum at Mt. Clare in 1953.  On exhibit year round the Museum now boasts a stationary state-of-the-art “HO” gauge model layout and an expansive permanent “G” gauge outdoor garden railroad.

Models, toy trains, contests, and the holidays-a tradition begun by the B&O Railroad’s marketing executives in 1936 is still alive and well at the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum today.  Our annual Holiday Festival of Trains offers children of all ages a glimpse into the world of miniature railroading.  With various gauges and creative layouts; model and toy train displays scheduled throughout the season represent the largest assemblage of train gardens in the region.

Courtney B. Wilson

Executive Director

For more information: Dornette, William H.L., Scale Modeling and the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad: A Unique Venture in Promoting Rail Transportation via the Medium of Model Railroading.  (Baltimore, 2000). This publication includes the 46 scale drawings created by the B&O Railroad Public Relations Department along with a history of the modeling program. Available on-line or in the Museum Store.

Also check out our Television Channel for the corresponding episode. December 2011

Mt. Clare Telegrapher John Edward Spurrier

The period ink inscription on the back of this post Civil War period tin type photograph indicates that this young gentleman is John Edward Spurrier who was the telegrapher at Mt. Clare. In those days the little trapezoidal brick Mt. Clare Depot (which replaced the first 1831 wooden station in 1851 and is still preserved as a part of the B&O Railroad Museum) still served some Baltimore passengers as well as freight trains alongside the new big city depot Camden Station located several blocks east.

John E. Spurrier began his career during the Civil War in 1862 as the telegraph operator along the B&O line near Mount Airy, Maryland before being transferred to the little depot at Mt. Clare in Baltimore. Though physically small, the telegraph office inside Mt. Clare Depot held an important post. It was the only telegraph office for the B&O’s huge Mt. Clare shop complex where, during this period, more than 2,000 workers plied their trades building and maintaining the B&O Railroad.

John Spurrier was not the first of his family to work for the B&O. His grandfather, Thomas, was an engineer on a “Grasshopper” locomotive that operated between Mount Airy, Maryland and Frederick, Maryland in the 1840s and his father, Edward, was an operating official in Baltimore.

It’s rare to find a photograph from this period that has both the subject’s name and occupation. Without someone’s forethought, this wistful young man and his story would have been lost to the ages. Maybe it’s worth going through your box of family photographs one wintry night and jotting down some names and, even, a few interesting facts about your relative’s life and times…you never know.

Courtney B. Wilson

Executive Director