BGuthrie Photos: MD -- Baltimore -- Mount Clare

MD -- Baltimore -- Mount Clare:

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[1] MTCLAR_140309_01.JPG	[2] MTCLAR_140309_10.JPG	[3] MTCLAR_140309_17.JPG
[4] MTCLAR_140309_21.JPG	[5] MTCLAR_140309_24.JPG	[6] MTCLAR_140309_30.JPG
[7] MTCLAR_140309_38.JPG	[8] MTCLAR_140309_43.JPG	[9] MTCLAR_140309_52.JPG
[10] MTCLAR_140309_57.JPG	[11] MTCLAR_140309_67.JPG	[12] MTCLAR_140309_70.JPG

Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. MTCLAR_140309_01.JPG: Mount Clare, the Georgia Plantation In the late 1760's, the Mount Clare mansion was built by Charles Carroll, Barrister and his wife, Margaret Tilghman, as their summer home. The mansion was located on the grounds of the original plantation, Georgia, and included an orangery, orchards, fields of tobacco and wheat, and terraced gardens that fell away from the hillside toward the river -- all, most likely cared for by slaves. Earlier, Carroll's father, Charles, sold a large portion of the plantation to the Baltimore Iron Works Co. in which he was an investor. Later, Carroll's nephew and heir, James Mccubbin Carroll donated land for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's original right-of-way and its first station, named Mount Clare. By the late 1860's Mount Clare was surrounded by clay pits, brickyards and other industries -- a bustling cityscape. At the Point you have a full view of the elegant splendid Seat of Mr. (Charles) Carroll, Barrister. It is a large and elegant House ... looking down the river, into the Harbour on mile from the Water. -- Diary of John Adams, 1777.
2. MTCLAR_140309_10.JPG: Camp Carroll From Plantation to Federal Camp This land was part of a 2,568-acre tract named Georgia Plantation, that Charles Carroll purchased in 1732. By 1760, his son Charles Carroll, a lawyer, had constructed a Georgian summer home, Mount Clare. the Carroll family lived here until 1852. In April 1861, in the first bloodshed of the Civil War, a crowd of Confederate sympathizers in Baltimore attacked the 6th Massachusetts Infantry as it passed through the city en rout to Washington. By summer the U.S. Army had established camps throughout Baltimore. Brig. Gen. John Reese Kenly, of the Maryland militia, opened a recruiting office and a month later took command of the 1st Maryland Infantry as colonel. He converted the pastures to the west of Mount Clare, then a hotel, into a training facility named Camp Carroll. On March 22, 1862 the U.S. Army created the Middle Department in Baltimore to protect rail and communication lines. Gen. James Cooper's brigade, organized in April, including troops stationed here at Camp Carroll near the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad line. The brigade was disbanded on May 25, 1862. Units were trained here in drill, guard, and patrol duties. Officers may have been quartered in the Mount Clare Hotel, which offered an outstanding view of the camp. In the fall of 1862, Camp Carroll was renamed Camp Chesebrough, honoring Lt. Colonel William G. Chesebrough, 17th U.S. Infantry. In 1864 the name reverted to Camp Carroll. The camp remained in use by Federal forces until the war ended.
3. MTCLAR_140309_30.JPG: Mount Clare Freedom Seekers at Georgia Plantation -- National Underground Railroad-Network to Freedom -- In 1760, Mount Clare was built as the summer home of Charles Carroll, Barrister. Mount Clare was the center of Georgia, Charles Carroll's 800-acre Patapsco River Plantation. The estate supported grain fields and grist mills along the Gwynn's Falls, an orchard and vineyard, racing stables, brick kilns, and a shipyard on the Middle Branch of the Patapsco River. Industrial Slavery: When it first went into operation, the Baltimore Iron Works had a labor force of eighty-nine individuals. Forty-seven were white (thirty-eight were free men on wages, nine were indentured servants) and forty-two were enslaved African Americans. At the height of its development in 1763 the Baltimore Iron Works owned one hundred and fifty enslaved African Americans and hired still more free African Americans. The enslaved workers performed a wide spectrum of jobs within ironworks, many of them skilled. By 1737 the forty-three enslaved individuals at the Baltimore Iron Works were listed as performing many duties including miners, colliers, woodchoppers, farm hands, cooks and at least one skilled blacksmith. Conditions for the workers, both enslaved and free were far from desirable. The Baltimore Ironworks periodically suffered from food shortages for the hands, at least during the late 1760's and early 1770's. In 1777 one manager wrote that the people and stock were almost starving. Under these conditions the managers realized that the incentive to escape would be great. Working with the white indentured servants also likely gave the enslaved individuals additional opportunities and contacts and increased their change of successful escapes. Freedom Seekers: Throughout the mid 1700's Charles Carroll posted several ads in the Pennsylvania Gazette, for runaway enslaved men, indentured servants and convict laborers. It appears that planning and group efforts were often involved as most of the runaway postings indicate the escape of multiple individuals simultaneously along with the theft of horses food and supplies. The explosive growth of Baltimore's free African American community from a few hundred in 1790 to more than 10,000 by 1820 played a role in the evolving pattern of runaway destinations. Constituting a majority of Baltimore's African Americans after 1810, free people of color could ally with runaways, harbor them or provide other services. In addition there were many religious and abolitionist groups active in the city that provided support. Two documented instances of Charles Carroll posting ads for enslaved individuals who had runaway from the "subscriber" (Charles Carroll) are in the museum collection. Manumissions: Individual Maryland freed, or manumitted, thousands of enslaved African Americans by individual voluntary acts recorded in deeds or wills. Balancing economic necessity with religious and moral reasons, owners who manumitted their enslaved person often did so by term, meaning they were to be freed at a future specified date. These were called "delayed manumissions." Prospective manumitters also freed their enslaved individuals by will once the state lifted its prohibition against the practice in 1790. The will of Margaret Carroll, the Barrister's widow in 1817, is a perfect example of this trend as its terms state that: I hereby devise all my negroes and slaves To Mr. Henry Brice and Tench Tilghman, my Executors, in trust that they will set them all free in such ages, and on such terms as they deem best under all circumstances, having a view to a provision for the comfortable support of the aged and infirm with which duty my Executors are charged, if either decline acting or die, I vest all these powers in the acting or surviving executor. One specific enslaved person, "my Negro boy Tom" was singled out in the will to be given to Charles Ross with a specific time period for his delayed manumission "til the boy arrives to thirty one years old, when he shall be free." Slavery at Mount Clare: Charles Carroll, and his wife's family the Tilghmans, were among the few slaveholders in Maryland who owned large plantations with over one hundred enslaved persons. Slave at Mount Clare were not only involved in typical agricultural and domestic work but also industrial jobs at the Baltimore Iron Works, and industrial company that produced pig iron in which the Barrister was part owner. Documentation on the life of slaves at Mount Clare during the Colonial and early-Federal period (1760-1817) of Charles and Margaret Carroll has been found in letters, wills and local newspapers. Mount Clare July 10, 1780---RAN away, from the subscriber's island plantation, at the mouth of the Gunpowder, about the beginning of this month, a mulatto slave called JACK LYNCH, about 35 years of age, a short well set fellow, has a down look, is an artful rogue, speaks slow, and appears to be very mild. Had on an took with him, a blue broadcloth coat, country cloth jacket, one Irish linen shirt, one pair of country linen trousers, a pair of half-worn shoes with buckles, and old country made hat, and has lately had a breaking out on his head. Whoever brings him to the subscriber, or secures him, so that we may get him again, shall have the above reward, and reasonable charges. -- CHARLES CARROLL
Wikipedia Description: Mount Clare (Maryland)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Mount Clare" — also known as "Mount Clare Mansion", known today as the Mount Clare Museum House — is the oldest Colonial-era structure in the City of Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A. The Georgian style of architecture plantation house exhibits a somewhat altered five-part plan. It was built on a Carroll family plantation beginning in 1763 by barrister Charles Carroll the Barrister, (1723-1783), a descendant of the last Gaelic Lords of �ile in Ireland and a distant relative of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, (1737-1832), longest living signer of the Declaration of Independence and the richest man in America in his later years, also the layer of the "first stone" of the new Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, just a short distance away in 1828.

"Mount Clare" has been maintained by the "The National Society of Colonial Dames in Maryland, the local chapter of The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America" since 1917, after the City of Baltimore, purchased a large portion of the former estate in 1890 as its third large landscaped park. In 1970, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places and designated a National Historic Landmark.

Description:

"Mount Clare" features a portico on the front facade with a projecting bay above. The upper bay contains a Palladian window.

The City of Baltimore built Palladian pavilions connected by hyphens on either side in 1910 as a concealed public toilets structure, but these do not reflect historical construction that were originally on the estate. They have since been converted to a library and a colonial-era kitchen exhibit. A circa 1912 stable, once used to house the Baltimore City Department of Recreation and Parks' Park Ranger horses, is restored and now used for classroom space as well as a rental facility for-events and meetings.

History:

The first building on the "Mount Clare" property was built by John Henry Carroll, barrister Charles Carroll's brother, in 1754, and was probably eventually incorporated as a portion of the larger house. Charles inherited the property originally named "Georgia Plantation" which overlooked the northwestern shore of "Ridgeley's Cove of the Middle Branch and Ferry Branch of the Patapsco River where some wharves and docks existed along with a small iron-making foundry after brother John's death and began construction between 1757 and 1760 (mistakenly listed for years on brochures and tourist information as 1754).

This area had originally been the first selected site by the appointed Town Commissioners for the new "Baltimore Town" to be laid out in 1729. A different location further northeast on "The Basin", head of the Northwest Branch of the Patapsco River was chosen after the landowner John Moale objected to the project on the theory that important iron ore deposits were located here that he intended to eventually mine and exploit.

Charles Carroll the Barrister began building the present 2-1/2 story Georgian style central block, incorporating his brother John's kitchen and flanking it with a wash house and an orangery. In 1768 Charles added the projecting bay and Palladian window that dominate the entry facade today. The kitchen wing was enlarged and an office wing was added for balance, resulting in a symmetrical nine-part elevation. The house was completed about 1767.

After Charles the Barrister's death in 1783, his widow made further changes, connecting the outbuildings and adding a greenhouse to the orangery and expanding the laundry, resulting in a complex about 360 feet long. These additions, along with other alterations, were in the more current style of Federal architecture which is similar to but slightly different from the older Georgian.

The mansion left the Carroll Family's ownership in 1840, and the house's flanking hyphen wings were demolished. During the American Civil War it was used as a headquarters by Union forces who fortified the site and named it "Camp Carroll", as a series of earthen forts surrounding Baltimore, then making it the second most fortified city in the world at that time, next to Washington, D.C,, the Nation's Capital.

After a period as a beer garden (the Schutzengarten"?) by the German community in Baltimore, the house and 70 acres (28 ha) were purchased in 1890 by the City of Baltimore as its third large landscaped park.

Beginning in January 2012, a collaborative operating agreement between the B&O Railroad Museum and The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America (Maryland Chapter) provides for joint administration of "Mount Clare" by both institutions. The B&O Railroad Museum, located approximately one mile northeast of Mount Clare, provides seasonal train rides to and from its "Mount Clare Shops" museum complex for visitors, and has developed tours and exhibits noting the railroad and Civil War heritage of the mansion site. It is also interesting to note that the soon-to-be-constructed second small passenger station ("Mount Clare Station") to supplement its original, little-known, waterfront first station on West Pratt Street (between South Charles and Light Streets along with an extensive complex of workshops, furnaces, warehouses and foundries to maintain the new growing transportation system a mile to the northeast on the edge of the estate were named the "Mount Clare Shops".
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