DOUGHOREGAN MANOR AND THE CARROLLS
If I am to be honest about the South, and about myself--and I propose to
be--I must admit that, though I approached the fabled land in a most
friendly spirit, I had nevertheless become a little tired of the
southern family tree, the southern ancestral hall, and the old southern
negro servant of stage and story, and just a little skeptical about
them. Almost unconsciously, at first, I had begun to wonder whether,
instead of being things of actuality, they were not, rather, a mere set
of romantic trade-marks, so to speak; symbols signifying the South as
the butler with side whiskers signifies English comedy; as "Her" visit
to "His" rooms, in the third act, signifies English drama; or as double
doorways in a paneled "set" signify French farce.
Furthermore, it had occurred to me that of persons of southern accent,
or merely southern extraction, whom I had encountered in the North, a
strangely high percentage were not only of "fine old southern family,"
but of peculiarly tenacious purpose in respect to having the matter
understood.
I cannot pretend to say when the "professional Southerner," as we know
him in New York, began to operate, nor shall I attempt to place the
literary blame for his existence--as Mark Twain attempted to place upon
Sir Walter Scott the blame for southern "chivalry," and almost for the
Civil War itself. Let me merely say, then, that I should not be
surprised to learn that "Colonel Carter of Cartersville"--that lovable
old fraud who did not mean to be a fraud at all, but whose naïveté
passed the bounds of human credulity--was not far removed from the
bottom of the matter.
In the tenor of these sentiments my companion shared--though I should
add that he complained bitterly about agreeing with me, saying that with
hats alike, and overcoats alike, and trunks alike, and suitcases alike,
we already resembled two members of a minstrel troupe, and that now
since we were beginning to think alike, through traveling so much
together, our friends would not be able to tell us apart when we got
home again--in spite of this he admitted to the same suspicion of the
South as I expressed. Wherefore we entered the region like a pair of
agnostics entering the great beyond: skeptical, but ready to be "shown."
It was with the generous purpose of "showing" us that a Baltimore friend
of ours called for us one day with his motor car and was presently
wafting us over the good oiled roads of Maryland, through sweet, rolling
country, which seemed to have been made to be ridden over upon
horseback.
It was autumn, but though the chill of northern autumn was in the air,
the coloring was not so high in key as in New York or New England, the
foliage being less brilliant, but rich with subtle harmonies of brown
and green, blending softly together as in a faded tapestry, and giving
the landscape an expression of brooding tenderness.
After passing through Ellicott City, an old, shambling town quite out of
character with its new-sounding name, which has such a western ring to
it, we traversed for several miles the old Frederick Turnpike--formerly
a national highway between East and West--swooping up and down over a
series of little hills and vales, and at length turned off into a
private road winding through a venerable forest, which was like an old
Gothic cathedral with its pavement of brown leaves and its tree-trunk
columns, tall, gray, and slender.
When we had progressed for perhaps a mile, we emerged upon a slight
eminence commanding a broad view of meadow and of woodland, and in turn
commanded by a great house.
The house was of buff-colored brick. It was low and very long, with
wings extending from its central structure like beautiful arms flung
wide in welcome, and at the end of each a building like an ornament
balanced in an outstretched hand. The graceful central portico, rising
by several easy steps from the driveway level, the long line of cornice,
the window sashes, the delicate wooden railing surmounting the roof, the
charming little tower which so gracefully held its place above the
geometrical center of the house, the bell tower crowning one wing at its
extremity--all these were white.
No combination of colors can be lovelier, in such a house, than
yellow-buff and white, provided they be brightened by some notes of
green; and these notes were not lacking, for several aged elms,
occupying symmetrical positions with regard to the house, seemed to gaze
down upon it with the adoration of a group of mothers, aunts, and
grandmothers, as they held their soft draperies protectively above it.
The green of the low terrace--called a "haha," supposedly with reference
to the mirth-provoking possibilities of an accidental step over the
edge--did not reach the base of the buff walls, but was lost in a fringe
of clustering shrubbery, from which patches of lustrous English ivy
clambered upward over the brick, to lay strong, mischievous fingers upon
the blinds of certain second-story windows. The blinds were of course
green; green blinds being as necessary to an American window as
eyelashes to an eye.
Immediately before the portico and centering upon it the drive swung in
a spacious circle, from which there broke, at a point directly opposite
the portico, an avenue, straight and long as a rifle range, and lovely
as the loveliest of New England village greens. Down the middle of this
broad way, between grass borders each as wide as a great boulevard, and
double rows of patriarchal trees, ran a road which, in the old days,
continued straight to Annapolis, thirty or more miles away, where was
the town house of the builder of this manor. As it stands to-day the
avenue is less than half a mile long, but whatever its length, and
whether one look down it from the house, or up the gentle grade from the
far end, to where the converging lines of grass and foliage and sky melt
into the house, it has about it something of unreality, something of
enchantment, something of that quality one finds in the rhapsodic
landscapes of those poet painters who dream of distant shimmering
palaces and supernal vistas peopled by fauns and nymphs dancing amid the
trunks of giant trees whose luxuriant dark tops are contoured like the
cumulus white clouds floating above them.
There is nothing "baronial," nothing arrogant, about Doughoregan Manor,
for though the house is noble, its nobility, consisting in spaciousness,
simplicity, and grace combined with age, fits well into what, it seems
to me, should be the architectural ideals of a republic. No house could
be freer of unessential embellishment; in detail it is plain almost to
severity; yet the full impression that it gives, far from being austere,
is of friendliness and hospitality. An approachable sort of house, a
"homelike" house, it is perhaps less "imposing" than some other
mansions, coeval with it, in Virginia, in Annapolis, and in Charleston;
and yet it is as impressive, in its own way, as Warwick Castle, or
Hurstmonceaux, or Loches, or Chinon, or Chenonceaux, or Heidelberg--not
that it is so vast, that it has glowering battlements, or that it stuns
the eye, but for precisely opposite reasons: because it is a consummate
expression of republican cultivation, of a fine old American home, and
of the fine old American gentleman who built it, and whose descendants
inhabit it to-day: Charles Carroll of Carrollton, last to survive of
those who signed the Declaration of Independence.
The first Charles Carroll, known in the family as "the Settler," came
from Ireland in 1688, and became a great landowner in Maryland. He was a
highly educated gentleman and a Roman Catholic, as have also been his
descendants. He acted as agent for Lord Baltimore.
His son, Charles Carroll of Annapolis, or "Breakneck Carroll" (so called
because he was killed by a fall from the steps of his house), built the
Carroll mansion at Annapolis, now the property of the Redemptionist
Order.
The third and most famous member of the family was Charles Carroll of
Carrollton, "the Signer," builder of the manor house at
Doughoregan--which, by the way, derives its name from a combination of
the old Irish words _dough_, meaning "house" or "court," and _O'Ragan_,
meaning "of the King"; the whole being pronounced, as with a slight
brogue, "Doo-ray-gan," the accent falling on the middle syllable--this
Charles Carroll, "the Signer," most famous of his line, was
"Breakneck's" only son. When eight years old he was sent to France to be
educated by the Jesuits. He spent six years at Saint-Omer, one at
Rheims, two at the College of Louis le Grand, one at Bourges, where he
studied civil law, and after some further time in college in Paris went
to London, entered the Middle Temple and there worked at the common law
until his return to Maryland in 1765.
Although Maryland was founded by the Roman Catholic Baron Baltimore on a
basis of religious toleration, the Church of England had later come to
be the established church in the British colonies in America, and Roman
Catholics were unjustly used, being disfranchised, taxed for the support
of the English Church, and denied the right to establish schools or
churches of their own, to celebrate the Mass, or to bear arms--the
bearing of arms having been "at that time the insignia of social
position and gentle breeding."
Finding this situation well-nigh intolerable, Carroll of Carrollton,
already a man of great wealth, joined with his cousin, Father John
Carroll, who later became first Archbishop of Baltimore (for many years
the only Roman Catholic diocese in the United States, embracing all
States and Territories), in an appeal to the King of France for a grant
of land in what is now Arkansas, but was then a part of Louisiana, this
land to be used as a refuge for Roman Catholics and Jesuits, whom the
Carrolls proposed to lead thither precisely as Cecilius Calvert, Lord
Baltimore, had led them to Maryland to escape persecution.
The Roman Catholics were not, however, by this time the only American
colonists who felt themselves abused; the whole country was chafing, and
the seeds of revolution were beginning to show their red sprouts.
It might have been expected that Mr. Carroll, being the richest man in
the country, would hesitate at rebellion, but he did not. Unlike some of
our present-day citizens of foreign extraction, and in circumstances
involving not merely sentiment, but property and perhaps life, he showed
no tendency to split his Americanism, but boldly threw his noble old
cocked hat into the ring. Nor did he require a Roosevelt to make his
duty clear to him.
In 1775 Mr. Carroll was a delegate to the Revolutionary Convention of
Maryland; in 1776 he went with three other commissioners (Benjamin
Franklin, Samuel Chase, and Father John Carroll) to try to induce the
Canadian colonies to join in the revolt; and soon after his return from
this unsuccessful journey he signed the Declaration of Independence. Of
the circumstances of the signing the late Robert C. Winthrop of Boston
gave the following description:
"Will you sign?" said Hancock to Charles Carroll.
"Most willingly," was the reply.
"There goes two millions with the dash of a pen," says one of those
standing by; while another remarks: "Oh, Carroll, you will get off,
there are so many Charles Carrolls."
And then we may see him stepping back to the desk and putting that
addition "of Carrollton" to his name, which will designate him
forever, and be a prouder title of nobility than those in the
peerage of Great Britain, which were afterward adorned by his
accomplished and fascinating granddaughters.
Some doubt has been cast upon this tale by the fact that papers in
possession of the Carroll family prove that Mr. Carroll was wont to sign
as "of Carrollton" long before the Declaration. Further, it is recorded
that John H.B. Latrobe, Mr. Carroll's contemporaneous biographer, never
heard the story from the subject of his writings.
Nevertheless, I believe that it is true, for it seems to me likely that
though Mr. Carroll used the subscription "of Carrollton" in conducting
his affairs at home, where there was chance for confusion between his
son Charles, his cousin Charles, and himself, he might well have been
inclined to omit it from a public document, as to the signers of which
there could be no confusion. Further, the fact that he never told the
story to Latrobe does not invalidate it, for as every man (and every
man's wife) knows, men do not remember to tell everything to their
wives, and it is still less likely that they tell everything to their
biographers. Further still, Mr. Winthrop visited Mr. Carroll just before
the latter's death, and as he certainly did not invent the story it
seems probable that he got it from "the Signer" himself. Last, I like
the story and intend to believe it anyway--which, it occurs to me, is
the best reason of all, and the one most resembling my reason for being
more or less Episcopalian and Republican.
Latrobe tells us that Mr. Carroll was, in his old age, "a small,
attenuated old man, with a prominent nose and somewhat receding chin,
and small eyes that sparkled when he was interested in conversation. His
head was small and his hair white, rather long and silky, while his face
and forehead were seamed with wrinkles."
From the same source, and others, we glean the information that he was a
charming and courteous gentleman, that he practised early rising and
early retiring, was regular at meals, and at morning and evening prayer
in the chapel, that he took cold baths and rode horseback, and that for
several hours each day he read the Greek, Latin, English, or French
classics.
At the age of eighty-three he rode a horse in a procession in Baltimore,
carrying in one hand a copy of the Declaration of Independence; and six
years later, when by that strange freak of chance ex-Presidents Adams
and Jefferson died simultaneously on July 4, leaving Mr. Carroll the
last surviving signer of the Declaration, he took part in a memorial
parade and service in their memory. In 1826, at the age of eighty-nine,
he was elected a director of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company, and
at the age of ninety he laid the foundation stone marking the
commencement of that railroad--the first important one in the United
States. We are told that at this time Mr. Carroll was erect in carriage
and that he could see and hear as well as most men. In 1832, having
lived to within five years of a full century, having been active in the
Revolution, having seen the War of 1812, he died less than thirty years
before the outbreak of the Civil War, and was buried in the chapel of
the manor house.
This chapel, the like of which does not, so far as I know, exist in any
other American house, is the burial place of a number of the Carrolls.
It is used to-day, regular Sunday services being held for the people of
the neighborhood. An alcove to the south of the chancel contains seats
for members of the family, and has access to the main portion of the
house by a passageway which passes the bedroom known as the Cardinal's
room, a large chamber furnished with massive old pieces of mahogany and
decorated in red. This room has been occupied by Lafayette, by John
Carroll, cousin of "the Signer" and first archbishop of Baltimore, and
by Cardinal Gibbons. It is on the ground floor and its windows command
the series of terraces, with their plantings of old box, which slope
away to gardens more than a century old.
Viewed in one light Doughoregan Manor is a monument, in another it is a
treasure house of ancient portraits and furniture and silver, but above
all it is a home. The beautifully proportioned dining-room, the wide
hall which passes through the house from the front portico to another
overlooking the terraces and gardens at the back, the old shadowy
library with its tree-calf bindings, the sunny breakfast room, the
spacious bedchambers with their four-posters and their cheerful
chintzes, the big bright shiny pantries and kitchens, all have that
pleasant, easy air which comes of being lived in, and which is never
attained in a "show place" which is merely a "show place" and nothing
more. No dining table at which great personages have dined in the past
has the charm of one the use of which has been steadily continued; no
old chair but is better for being sat in; no ancient Sheffield tea
service but gains immeasurably in charm from being used for tea to-day;
no old Venetian mirror but what is lovelier for reflecting the beauties
of the present as it reflected those of the past; no little old-time
crib but what is better for a modern baby in it. It is pleasant,
therefore, to report that, like all other things the house contains, the
crib at Doughoregan Manor was being used when we were there, for in it
rested the baby son of the house; by name Charles, and of his line the
ninth. Further, it may be observed that from his youthful parents, Mr.
and Mrs. Charles Bancroft Carroll, present master and mistress of the
place, Master Charles seemed to have inherited certain amiable traits.
Indeed, in some respects, he outdoes his parents. For example, where the
father and mother were cordial, the son chewed ruminatively upon his
fingers and fastened upon my companion a gaze not merely interested, but
expressive of enraptured astonishment. Likewise, though his parents
received us kindly, they did not crow and gurgle with delight; and
though, on our departure, they said that we might come again, they
neither waved their hands nor yet blew bubbles.
Though the house has been "done over" four times, and though the
paneling was torn out of one room to make way for wall paper when wall
paper came into style, everything has now been restored, and the place
stands to-day to all intents and purposes exactly as it was. That so few
changes were ever made in it, that it weathered successfully, with its
contents, the disastrous period of Eastlake furniture and the American
mansard roof, is a great credit to the Carroll family, and it is
delightful to see such a house in the possession of those who can love
it as it deserves to be loved, and preserve it as it deserves to be
preserved.
Mr. Charles Bancroft Carroll, who is a graduate of Annapolis and a
grandson of the late Governor John Lee Carroll of Maryland, now farms
some twenty-four hundred acres of the five or six thousand which
surround the manor house. He raises blooded cattle and horses, and,
though he rides with the Elkridge Hunt, also keeps his own pack and is
starting the Howard County Hounds, an organization that will hunt the
country around the manor, which is full of foxes.
Of the innumerable family portraits contained in the house not a few are
valuable and almost all are pleasing. When I remarked upon the high
average of good looks among his progenitors, Mr. Carroll smiled in
agreement, saying: "Yes, I'm proud of these pictures of my ancestors;
most people's ancestors seem to have looked like the dickens."
Among these noteworthy family portraits I recollect one of "the Signer"
as a boy, standing on the shore and watching a ship sail out to sea; one
of the three beautiful Caton sisters, his granddaughters, who lived at
Brooklandwood, in the Green Spring Valley, now the home of Mr. Isaac
Emerson; one of Charles Carroll of Homewood, son of "the Signer"; and
one of Governor John Lee Carroll, who was born at Homewood.
The Caton sisters and Charles Carroll of Homewood supply to the Carroll
family archives that picturesqueness which the history of every old
family should possess; the former contributing beauty, the latter dash
and extravagance, those qualities so annoying in a living relative, but
so delightfully suggestive in an ancestor long defunct. If anything more
be needed to round out the composition, it is furnished by the ghosts of
Doughoregan Manor: an old housekeeper with jingling keys, and an
invisible coach, the wheels of which are heard upon the driveway before
the death of any member of the family.
Of the Caton sisters there were four, but because one of them, Mrs.
McTavish, stayed at home and made the life of her grandfather happy, we
do not hear so much of her as of the other three, who were
internationally famous for their pulchritude, and were known in England
as "the Three American Graces." All three married British peers, one
becoming Marchioness of Wellesley, another Duchess of Leeds, while the
third became the wife of Lord Stafford, one of the noblemen embalmed in
verse by Fitz-Greene Halleck:
Lord Stafford mines for coal and salt,
The Duke of Norfolk deals in malt,
The Douglas in red herrings.
As for Charles Carroll of Homewood, he was handsome, charming, and
athletic, and, as indicated in letters written to him by his father,
caused that old gentleman a good deal of anxiety. It is said that at
one time--perhaps during some period of estrangment from his wealthy
parent--he acted as a fencing master in Baltimore.
At the age of twenty-five he settled down--or let us hope he did--for he
married Harriet Chew, whose sister "Peggy," Mrs. John Eager Howard of
Baltimore, was a celebrated belle, and of whose own charm we may judge
by the fact that General Washington asked her to remain in the room
while he sat to Gilbert Stuart, declaring that her presence there would
cause his countenance to "wear its most agreeable expression." The
famous portrait painted under these felicitous conditions hung in the
White House when, in 1814, the British marched on Washington; but when
they took the city and burned the White House, the portrait did not
perish with it, for history records that Dolly Madison carried it to
safety, and along with it the original draft of the Declaration of
Independence.
Charles Carroll of Homewood died before his father, "the Signer," but
the house, Homewood, which the latter built for his son and
daughter-in-law in 1809, stands to-day near the Baltimore city limits,
at the side of Charles Street Boulevard, amid pleasant modern houses,
many of which are of a design not out of harmony with the old mansion.
Though not comparable in size with the manor house at Doughoregan,
Homewood is an even more perfect house, being one of the finest examples
of Georgian architecture to be found in the entire country. The fate of
this house is hardly less fortunate than that of the paternal manor,
for, with its surrounding lands, it has come into the possession of
Johns Hopkins University. The fields of Homewood now form the campus and
grounds of that excellent seat of learning, and the trustees of the
university have not merely preserved the residence, using it as a
faculty club, but have had the inspiration to find in it the
architectural motif for the entire group of new college buildings, so
that the campus may be likened to a bracelet wrought as a setting for
this jewel of a house.