Mount Clare, also known as Mount Clare Mansion and generally known today as the Mount Clare Museum House, is the oldest Colonial-era structure in the

City of Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was ...

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

, U.S.A. The

Georgian style Georgian architecture is the name given in most English-speaking countries to the set of architectural styles current between 1714 and 1830. It is named after the first four Monarchy of the United Kingdom, British monarchs of the House of Hano ...

of architecture

plantation house A plantation house is the main house of a plantation, often a substantial farmhouse, which often serves as a symbol for the plantation as a whole. Plantation houses in the Southern United States and in other areas are known as quite grand and e ...

exhibits a somewhat altered five-part plan. It was built on a

Carroll family O'Carroll ( ga, Ó Cearbhaill), also known as simply Carroll, Carrol or Carrell, is a Gaelic Irish clan which is the most prominent sept of the Ciannachta (also known as Clan Cian). Their genealogies claim that they are kindred with the Eógana ...

plantation A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...

beginning in 1763 by barrister

Charles Carroll the Barrister Charles Carroll (22 March 1723 – 23 March 1783) was an American statesman from Annapolis, Maryland. He was the builder of the Baltimore Colonial home Mount Clare (Maryland), Mount Clare (1760), and a delegate to the Second Continental Con ...

, (1723–1783), a descendant of the last Gaelic Lords of

Éile Éile (; sga, Éle, ), commonly anglicised as Ely, was a medieval petty kingdom in the southern part of the modern county of Offaly and parts of North Tipperary in Ireland. The historic barony of Eliogarty was once a significant portion of the kin ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

and a distant relative of the much better-known

Charles Carroll of Carrollton Charles Carroll (September 19, 1737 – November 14, 1832), known as Charles Carroll of Carrollton or Charles Carroll III, was an Irish-American politician, planter, and signatory of the Declaration of Independence. He was the only Catholic si ...

, (1737–1832), longest living signer of the

Declaration of Independence A declaration of independence or declaration of statehood or proclamation of independence is an assertion by a polity in a defined territory that it is independent and constitutes a state. Such places are usually declared from part or all of the ...

and the richest man in America in his later years, also the layer of the First Stone of the new

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was the first common carrier railroad and the oldest railroad in the United States, with its first section opening in 1830. Merchants from Baltimore, which had benefited to some extent from the construction of ...

, just a short distance away in 1828. The City of Baltimore purchased a large portion of the former estate in 1890 as its third large landscaped park. Mount Clare has been maintained by the National Society of Colonial Dames in Maryland, the local chapter of

The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America is an American organization composed of women who are descended from an ancestor "who came to reside in an American Colony before 1776, and whose services were rendered during the Colonial Pe ...

, since 1917. In 1970, it was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

and was designated a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

for its architecture.

Description

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

Palladian window Palladian architecture is a European architectural style derived from the work of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580). What is today recognised as Palladian architecture evolved from his concepts of symmetry, perspective and ...

. 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 horses of the city's park rangers, has been restored and is 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, (1723–1783), in 1754, and was probably eventually incorporated into the larger house. Charles inherited the property after John's death. It was originally named Georgia Plantation, which overlooked the northwestern shore of Ridgely's Cove of the Middle Branch and Ferry Branch of the

Patapsco River The Patapsco River mainstem is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed April 1, 2011 river in central Maryland that flows into the Chesapeake Bay. The river's tidal port ...

, where some wharves and docks existed along with a small iron-making foundry. Charles began construction of the house between 1757 and 1760. This area had originally been near the first selected site by the appointed town commissioners for the new Baltimore Town, laid out in 1729. A different location, further northeast on the Basin, head of the Northwest Branch of the

, was chosen after the landowner John Moale objected to the project on the theory that he had located important iron ore deposits there that he intended to eventually mine and exploit. One hundred and twenty years earlier, during the first explorations and mapping by the famed Captain John Smith, (1580–1631), of the northern

Chesapeake Bay The Chesapeake Bay ( ) is the largest estuary in the United States. The Bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula (including the parts: the ...

, on his 1608 map he had labeled what is now called the Patapsco River as Bolus River, from the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

word meaning clay, usually holding

iron Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in f ...

mineral deposits.

, (1723-1783), began building the present -story

central block, incorporating his brother John's kitchen and flanking it with a wash house and an

orangery An orangery or orangerie was a room or a dedicated building on the grounds of fashionable residences of Northern Europe from the 17th to the 19th centuries where orange and other fruit trees were protected during the winter, as a very large ...

. In 1768, Charles added the projecting bay and

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 Barrister Charles' 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 Federal-style architecture is the name for the classicizing architecture built in the newly founded United States between 1780 and 1830, and particularly from 1785 to 1815, which was heavily based on the works of Andrea Palladio with several inn ...

which is similar to but slightly different from the older

Georgian Georgian may refer to: Common meanings * Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country) ** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group ** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians **Georgian scripts, three scrip ...

. By the 1820s, nearby to the east as the street grid of the city began growing and inching closer towards the southwest with its rows and lines of streets and alleys filled with the dense development of small brick rowhouses of various styles. Under the competitive economic pressure to the City and the

Port of Baltimore Helen Delich Bentley Port of Baltimore is a shipping port along the tidal basins of the three branches of the Patapsco River in Baltimore, Maryland on the upper northwest shore of the Chesapeake Bay. It is the nation's largest port facilities f ...

of the 1825 massive construction project with the opening of the northern

Erie Canal The Erie Canal is a historic canal in upstate New York that runs east-west between the Hudson River and Lake Erie. Completed in 1825, the canal was the first navigable waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, vastly reducing t ...

, with its quicker and cheaper access from the

Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lakes ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

and the proposed

Chesapeake and Ohio Canal The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, abbreviated as the C&O Canal and occasionally called the "Grand Old Ditch," operated from 1831 until 1924 along the Potomac River between Washington, D.C. and Cumberland, Maryland. It replaced the Potomac Canal, ...

along the

Potomac River The Potomac River () drains the Mid-Atlantic United States, flowing from the Potomac Highlands into Chesapeake Bay. It is long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map. Retrieved Augus ...

to the south from Georgetown and

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

to the western

Appalachian Mountains The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, (french: Appalaches), are a system of mountains in eastern to northeastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period. They ...

and

Cumberland, Maryland Cumberland is a U.S. city in and the county seat of Allegany County, Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its s ...

caused a long reaction among leading citizens and leaders of the city. The forming by several businessmen and industrialists, after hearing details of the incredible new transportation technology now being used in

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

from several of its leading merchants, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, was formed in 1827 which included

, (1737–1832), as one of its directors and the important ceremonial position of setting the First Stone for the railroad at the end of the big parade, festivities and ceremonies on Independence Day, July 4, 1828, near the old house. The soon-to-be-famous foundries, shops, forges and other equipment sheds and shacks would be known as the

Mount Clare Shops The Mount Clare Shops is the oldest railroad manufacturing complex in the United States, located in Baltimore, Maryland.United States National Park Service. Washington, DC. Historic American Engineering Record (HAER). "Baltimore and Ohio Railroad: ...

off East Pratt Street near future Arlington Street, where a small Mount Clare Station was erected in the early 1830s as one of its first passenger terminals and joined by its landmark B. & O. Roundhouse in 1884, (future site after 1953 of the Railroad Company's new B. & O. Transportation Museum, later reorganized independently as the

B&O Railroad Museum The B&O Railroad Museum is a museum and historic railway station exhibiting historic railroad equipment in Baltimore, Maryland. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) company originally opened the museum on July 4, 1953, with the name of the Balti ...

), in addition to the main temporary one at the southeast corner of West Pratt and South Charles Streets, near the Basin's waterfront piers. The Mount Clare name was applied to the nearby growing neighborhood in the early 19th century, home to an increasing complex of foundries, shops, mechanics, industries and businesses supplying equipment, workmen, contractors and businesses, all revolving around the business of the railroad. Attracted to the growing industrial capabilities of the area were industrialists, inventors, manufacturers such as

Peter Cooper Peter Cooper (February 12, 1791April 4, 1883) was an American industrialist, inventor, philanthropist, and politician. He designed and built the first American steam locomotive, the '' Tom Thumb'', founded the Cooper Union for the Advancement of ...

(1791–1883) of New York, who designed the first steam engine locomotives for the railroad when it quickly shifted from the horse-drawn power used during its first four years.

Ross Winans Ross Winans (1796–1877) was an American inventor, mechanic, and builder of locomotives and railroad machinery. He is also noted for design of pioneering cigar-hulled ships. Winans, one of the United States' first multi-millionaires, was invol ...

(1796–1877) further developed locomotives and other equipment, followed by his son Thomas Dekoven Winans, with his

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

n contracts and work. Hundreds of workers with specialized industrial skills, both citizens and recent immigrants, worked in southwest Baltimore and lived in the surrounding streets and communities. Other nearby neighborhoods were Poppleton, Union Square, and East Baltimore, along with the earlier Pigtown, (also known by the gentrified 1980's as Washington Village). The mansion left the Carroll Family's ownership in 1840, and the house's flanking hyphen wings were demolished. During the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

, when Baltimore was occupied in May 1861 by northern state militia and then regular army forces, Mount Clare was used as a headquarters by

Union Army During the American Civil War, the Union Army, also known as the Federal Army and the Northern Army, referring to the United States Army, was the land force that fought to preserve the Union (American Civil War), Union of the collective U.S. st ...

forces who fortified the site and named it Camp Carroll, one of a series of earthen forts surrounding Baltimore, then making it the second most-fortified city in the world at that time, after

Washington, D.C ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

. After the War, and a period of use as a beer garden (called the Schutzengarten) by the German community in Baltimore, the house and adjacent acreage facing Washington Boulevard and the Gwynns Falls and Middle Branch of the river 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 City of Baltimore's Department of Recreation and Parks and th
B&O Railroad Museum
and The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America (Maryland Chapter) (a descendants' heritage group. The local Dames had been administering the site since 1917. The

, located a mile northeast of Mount Clare, provides seasonal train rides to and from its

museum complex for visitors, and has developed tours and exhibits noting the

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

and

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

history of the site. The soon-to-be-constructed/restored/renovation of the second small passenger station (Mount Clare Station) to supplement its original, little-known, waterfront first station on West Pratt Street (between South

Charles Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English language, English and French language, French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic, Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*k ...

and

Light Street Maryland Route 2 (MD 2) is the longest state highway in the U.S. state of Maryland. The route runs from Solomons Island in Calvert County north to an intersection with U.S. Route 1 (US 1)/ US 40 Truck ( North Avenue) in Baltimore. The route ...

s 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

. The Colonial Dames with their experienced staff, volunteers, docents and historians will be telling the story of the mansion itself and its furnishings/decorations with the colonial lifestyle of both the Carroll family (and several subsequent owners in the 19th Century), their relatives and visitors, with the slaves/servants employed in the house, gardens, and outlying grounds and plantation outside of old Baltimore Town.

Access

The manor house has been appointed with historically relevant furnishings and is open to the public. Guided tours are preceded by an introductory video and include a walk through the entire house, together encompassing about 45 to 60 minutes.

Gallery

Mount Clare, Bayard & South Monroe Streets, Carroll Park (Baltimore, Independent City, Maryland).jpg, Mount Clare Mansion, October 1958 HABS Photograph

Footnotes

External links

Mount Clare Museum House
– official site

National Park Service, Baltimore:A National Register of Historic Places Travel Itinerary *, including undated photo, at the Maryland Historical Trust * {{Authority control Historic American Buildings Survey in Baltimore National Historic Landmarks in Maryland Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Baltimore Museums in Baltimore History of Maryland Houses completed in 1767 Georgian architecture in Maryland Historic house museums in Maryland Plantation houses in Maryland Carroll family residences Houses in Baltimore National Society of the Colonial Dames of America Southwest Baltimore 1767 establishments in Maryland Baltimore City Landmarks