Existing comment:
Mount Welby
Dr Samuel DeButts, his wife, Mary Welby DeButts, and their three children lived here in the early 1800's. The house and the property were both known as Mount Welby then, in honor of her family.
The basic design of the house is the same as it was nearly 200 years ago, but many of the details have changed. The drawing at the right shows how the house likely looked in the Debutts' time.
The grounds still have a few features that might have survived from the time of the DeButts family. Some of the boxwoods that surround the hexagonal building behind you could be 200 years old.
Pieces of the history of Mount Welby and the DeButts family remain to be discovered. One document mentions a family graveyard somewhere on the farm. The grave site is unknown.
If you look closely at the house, you can see that the bricks in the wall show two different patterns. On the north, south, and west walls, bricks in the lower sections are laid in a Flemish bond pattern. [Bricks in this pattern have alternating long and short bricks.] Most likely, these are the oldest parts of the house. The entire east wall and the upper sections of the other three are laid in a pattern called common bond. [Bricks in this pattern are all the same size.] No one knows for certain why the walls were rebuilt, but a fire is one possibility. |