Hampton National Historic Site: A Family of Fortune

By Cheval Force Opp

Hampton National Historic Site

The largest private home in our 1790s American republic sits like a crown jewel on a high hill near Towson, MD. The surrounding estate was originally part of the Northampton land grant given to Col. Henry Darnall, a relative of Lord Baltimore. The colonel’s heirs sold the land in 1749 to tobacco farmer and trader Colonel Charles Ridgely. In 1783, the American Revolution ending, the colonel’s son, Captain Charles Ridgely, broke ground for a summer mansion, determined that “Hampton Hall” reflect his family’s position in fashionable society. The 24,000 square foot Georgian mansion took seven years to complete. The lavish home had more than 25,000 acres bourgeoning with orchards, ironworks, marble quarries, mills, and mercantile interests. The farm produced wheat, corn, beef cattle, dairy products, hogs, and horses, all made possible using the labor of more than 300 enslaved workers. Ridgely enjoyed great fortune, but was, in the end, unfortunate. The captain and his wife, Rebecca Dorsey, moved into the mansion for Christmas festivities December 1788, but sadly at age 69, the captain died from a stroke June 1790. On Capt. Ridgely’s demise, his nephew, Charles Carnan Ridgely (1760–1829), became the second master of Hampton and, in 1816, also became the 15th governor of Maryland. His son, John Carnan Ridgely (1790–1867), inherited the mansion and about 4,500 acres.

Expressing Grandeur

Thomas Sully’s famous 1818 portrait, Lady with a Harp. Photo courtesy of the Hampton National Historic Site, National Park Service.

In 1828, Eliza Eichelberger Ridgely (1803–1867) married John Carnan Ridgely. In case you are wondering, John and Eliza were not related “Ridgelys”; rather, distant fourth or fifth cousins from different family lines. Well-traveled, talented, and known for her elegance, Eliza was a perfect choice for the third mistress of Hampton. The only daughter of an affluent Baltimore wine merchant, Nicholas Greenbury Ridgely, Eliza attended Miss Lyman’s School, the best and most-exclusive such institution in Philadelphia, study ing literature, philosophy, music, Italian, French, natural history, and botany. Eliza poses gracefully in Thomas Sully’s famous 1818 portrait, “Lady with a Harp” on view at the National Gallery of Art. Gazing at the 15-year-old Eliza swathed in a luminescent cream gown, bare-armed, posed mid-pluck on her extravagant European harp, it is easy to imagine her in the same educated social set as the Marquis de Lafayette. After she met Lafayette in 1824, at her father’s Baltimore townhouse, Eliza and Lafayette traded letters for the rest of his life. The Hampton National Historical Site (HNHS) owns one such letter, and others are available at the Maryland Historical Society. Eliza Ridgely, as a member of the American elite, traveled to Europe to buy not only the latest fashions but plants arriving in Europe from global expeditions. Exotic plants were the “bling” of the rich and famous in the 1800s. Flowers enjoyed star status on wallpaper and chintz fabric. Painting flowers on china became a mania. Live flowers adorned hats and cakes. Two technological advances enabled the introduction of newly discovered plants. The glass “Wardian case” placed on the ship’s sunny deck protected plants from destructive seawater, and ocean-going steamships shortened the plants’ perilous journeys from far-flung lands. Eliza’s training in botany, family resources, and horticultural ambition spurred her to create one of the mostfamous landscapes of her times. A meticulous recordkeeper, her account books and receipts for plants from leading American and European nurserymen document her collections. Gregory Weidman, Hampton NHS curator, mounted a 2009 exhibit “The Romance of Nature: Eliza Ridgely and the Garden” giving us snapshots of Eliza’s horticultural acquisitions. She listed purchasing “42 papers flower seeds” during her first trip to Italy in 1834 by employing a purchasing agent. Her purchasing agent in Paris in the 1830s and early 1840s was Mme. M. Omaley. Eliza would send Omaley lists of seeds that she wanted and Omaley would also send Eliza exotic bulbs like Mediterranean Sea lily (Pancratium illyricum). (Omaley was her general purchasing agent, not just for items related to the garden.) Rose plants shipped from Europe included several new introductions, such as ‘Jaune Desprez’ and ‘Gloire de Dijon’, which she successfully grew and then exhibited at the Maryland Horticultural Society: “Two very large boquets [sic] of splendid flowers, consisting of tea and china roses, etc.” Favoring camellias, she ordered over a dozen varieties from the Baltimore nurseryman Samuel Feast. Camillia japonica, a flowering shrub introduced from Japan via Europe, was a rarity, introduced to American gardens in the 1820s. Weidman’s research reveals the extensive range of books and periodicals Eliza collected to guide her success. She purchased Bernard McMahon’s American Gardener’s Calendar, then the most-comprehensive gardening books published in the United States in the first half of the 19th century. Other significant publications she owned included Robert Buist’s The American Flower Garden Directory (1834), William Gilpin’s Landscape Gardening (1832), and John Lindley’s The Theory of Horticulture (1840). By far the most-significant publication and author to influence Eliza’s work at Hampton, however, was The Horticulturalist, the landmark journal edited by America’s leading landscape designer, A. J. Downing.

Falling Gardens Adorned in Tapestries

A prize Cedar of Lebanon, brought back from the Middle East as a seedling by Eliza Ridgely, is one of the largest in the U.S.

The Falling Gardens at Hampton have parterres on descending terraces, positioning the garden pattern for viewing like an ornate, multi-colored tapestry. The parterres, from the French meaning “on the ground,” are on view just south of the main house. In Eliza’s time, the formal gardens spread over about an acre of land, including the Great Terrace and four smaller terraces supporting six individual parterre gardens. Her grand displays incorporated tropical plants, perennials, roses, flowering shrubs, trees, path ways, box hedges, and urns. Work on the gardens began during the Hampton Mansion’s construction but they remained undeveloped until the late 1790s and early 1800s. At that time, Charles Carnan Ridgely, the second master of Hampton, laid 10,590 feet of irrigation pipes from a nearby spring to provide water to the mansion and surrounding gardens. Weidman notes from historical records that: “A prominent Baltimore botanist and designer of the time, William Booth, is believed to have laid out the formal gardens around 1799–1801. There was also input from other noted individuals including Philadelphia artist William Russel Booth, who published the first engraving of the mansion in 1808.” Today, the National Park Service maintains four parterres on the first two terraces. The designs are all based on photos from the 1870s. Parterre I replicates the original pattern of c. 1800. It features a geometric pattern outlined in boxwood with white gravel pathways. Parterre II shows the newer fashion of “Victorian carpet bedding” introduced by Eliza in the 1850s. Parterres III and IV typically display roses, a scattering of perennials, and brightly colored annuals.

Brooke Derr, Hampton’s horticulturist for eight years, joined the newly rehabilitated garden in March 2011. For the first four years, she orchestrated planting about 3,000 annuals in two of the parterres. In 2016, funding supported the planting of the third and fourth parterres. With her team of National Park Service staff and volunteers, she cares for each basketball-court-sized parterre, planting just over a half-acre of living, dazzling living tapestries. Every year, the horticultural team plants around 4,000 annuals into designs reminiscent of the 1850s. Historically, seed geraniums would predominate, but Derr has found vinca, salvia, and lantana attract fewer deer. For Parterre II, the legacy pattern consists of coleus, yellow canna, and an eye-catching winter-hardy banana in the center. Peonies line the center aisle. Parterres III and IV have identical plant choices, but different bed designs. Eliza would be pleased to recognize some of her favorites: begonias, peonies, hollyhocks, zebra grass, snowball viburnum, and boxwood in the beds. Planting and caring for the gardens is a challenging effort with stunning results. The ambitious garden team includes NPS landscape staff, volunteers, partnerships, contracted landscape professionals, and, this year, a part-time horticulture apprentice from Baltimore County Community College and the American Landscape Institute. The generous apprentice support, provided by the Federated Garden Clubs, District III, and the Women’s Committee of Historic Hampton, Inc., is an excellent way to honor Eliza’s horticultural heritage.

Built for the Landscapes

Graceful marble urns adorn the landscape of Hampton, Eliza may have been inspired by those she saw in gardens during her trips abroad.

Maryland’s climate is not kind to the tender plants Eliza collected, studied, and grew. But her expertise and specialized buildings enabled her to display many exotic species, such as spiraxis and babiana (South Africa) and calceolaria (South America). The Hampton Orangery, constructed around 1824, contained large glass windows to bathe plants in the sunshine and a hypocaust furnace to provide heat through flues running under the floor. The tropical plants and potted trees, oranges, lemon, and “shaddock” or pomelo trees, were cossetted in the winter, then rolled out in their wheeled pots to decorate the terraces in the summer. The current Orangery, a reconstruction built in the 1970s, functions as meeting rooms and restrooms. Today visitors can view the two greenhouses from Eliza’s era. The stone 1855 Greenhouse #1, with attached seedling and potting bed building, stands in ruins without glass. Greenhouse #2, built around 1840, has replaced glass and a seedling and potting bed building. Heating pipes and the 1853-era boiler for winter warmth are visible. A vinery (long gone), built in 1852, supported growing ‘Black Hamburg’ and the ‘Chasselas Muscat of Alexandria’ wine grapes. The 1830s two-room gardener’s house was enlarged to six rooms in 1855 to attract professional gardeners to Hampton. The house, described in 1857 as “a beautiful Swiss cottage in fine taste” can be seen, but is not open to the public. Weidman’s research gives insight into the sources of the estate’s eclectic mix of mature trees—many of significant size and age: “... surviving documents record extensive purchases of trees for the estate, from both local and out-of-town nurseries (one as far distant as Maine) and even from suppliers in England and Scotland. These included numerous evergreens, maples, elms, and ash, plus more exotic species such as Cedar of Lebanon (Cedrus libani), Himalayan Cedar (Cedrus deodara), and Saucer Magnolia (Magnolia x soulangiana). Hampton’s orchards were also greatly increased in size at this time, with hundreds of fruit trees added. Eliza exhibited three varieties of ‘remarkably fine’ peaches at the Horticultural Society of Maryland in 1839.” Weidman shares the high praise Eliza received both in plant gifts and print. Her horticultural knowledge and accomplishments were held in such high regard that in 1855, an American in Rio de Janeiro sent Eliza a rare Amazonian air plant with instructions for its care. A correspondent for The American Farmer, writing about Hampton in 1854, summed this up in commenting on “…the honored name of Mrs. Ridgely of Hampton. This lady, I am told, is an accomplished florist, and enters with zeal and taste on the culture of the flowering treasures of her extensive gardens.” Only a handful of others in the Baltimore area were given such accolades, and the Hampton estate became nationally renowned “…as expressing more grandeur than anything in America.” Today, visitors explore this 19th-century garden and the period-furnished mansion at their leisure. It is a fascinating glimpse into the “grandeur” of our history. The Hampton Mansion and the Ridgely estate were designated a National Historic Site in 1950—the first site to be selected based on “outstanding merit as an architectural monument.” Visitors are welcome to admire the landscape, but can also walk in and about the garden buildings, two stone horse stables, family cemetery, farm house, slave quarters, dairy, mule barn, longhouse/granary, ash house, wooden log building, and dovecote.

Upcoming Events

The original orangery had large glass windows to bath plants in sunshine and a hypocaust furnace with flues running under the floor for heat. The orangery was reconstructed in the 1970s.

Event details are at www.nps.gov/ hamp/planyourvisit/calendar.htm

• September 7–October 5; Hampton From “Grandeur” to Green: Life and Landscape Hampton’s landscape tells the story of the many functions of landscaping and the labors used to create landscapes. Join a guided tour of the Hampton gar dens to learn more about the history of the estate’s cultural landscape and its purpose over time. Discover the many functions of the gardens and how the National Park Service preserves the gardens today.

• September 8–29; An Authentic American Document: Art and Architecture of Hampton The Hampton mansion boasts a grand 18th-century Georgian design and a collection of paintings that spans the many periods and styles of American artwork. Join a park ranger for a guided tour of the exterior of the mansion and learn more about the art and architecture of Hampton as examples of American grandeur and style.

Plan Your Visit

The Hampton National Historic Site is at 535 Hampton Lane, Towson, MD. The Hampton Historic Site, managed by the National Park Service, is free to the public, with ample free parking, a gift shop, and wheelchair accessibility at the mansion. Visitors can join a guided tour of the mansion, where the original furnishings owned by the Ridgelys (including Eliza Ridgely’s Erard of London harp) may be seen, along with the family’s collection of oil paintings, silverware, and ceramics comprising some 7,000 objects. In addition to the mansion itself, visitors may view surviving original structures on the grounds built during the 18th to mid-19th century. Self-guided tours of the grounds are encouraged during hours when the park is open to the public. Mansion Tours are available Thursday–Sunday; check www.nps.gov/hamp for details. The interior of the mansion is accessible only through guided tours. There is also a visitor center and museum shop open Thursday–Sunday from 9am–4pm. Restrooms, water fountain, and first aid are available at the visitor center. The park grounds and parking lots are open daily from 8:30am–5pm. Pedestrian access to park grounds is dawn to dusk daily.

Special thanks to Brooke Derr, Hampton horticulturist, and Gregory Weidman, Hampton NHS curator for fascinating details and expert advice, and to the staff at HNHS.

Cheval Force Opp is a garden tourist living in Dunn Loring, VA. She shares her home and garden with husband, Dana, and corgi, Marzipan. If you have a garden you think would be a fun visit, contact her at gardentours@gmail.com.