belmont history
Belmont - A Gift to the Nation
Dr. Mordecai Moore was a prominent Maryland citizen and a founder of the Friends Society in the colony. In 1695 Moore took out a patent for the land and called it "Moore's Morning Choice."
On part of the original land tract of 1,662 acres is Belmont, the estate that was the home of three influential Maryland families who left their imprints on the history of both the state and the nation. From Mordecai Moore, the Quaker businessman, the land passed into the Dorsey family, settlers in Maryland since the mid-17th century, and from them through their descendants to the Hansons and Bruces. The estate's size has changed several times, but the part kept intact and inhabited continuously by the family was a portion of Moore's original 1695 land patent, "Morning Choice."
Caleb Dorsey, called the Builder, was born in 1710 and married Priscilla Hill in 1738. Caleb and his brother built several iron forges on the creeks that ran into the nearby Patapsco River. The Patapsco was deep and navigable as far up as Elk Ridge Landing, where the clippers and schooners unloaded their cargoes. Because of the wealth of Maryland's shipping trade, the Dorsey forges prospered and Caleb's fortune grew.
The brick and stucco house that Caleb and Priscilla Dorsey began building in 1738 on Dr. Moore's hilltop was elegant and simple, with two wings stepping down the slope of the hill and connected by low, enclosed corridors, or "hyphens," to the central wing. When Caleb and Priscilla Dorsey completed their new home, on either side of the front door were placed two carved plaques bearing the legend "CPD 1738." The family apparently lived in the adjacent Rockburn estate during the construction.
Caleb and Priscilla led a happy life on their estate, rearing three sons and six daughters. The heir of the estate when Caleb died in 1772 was his son, Edward. Edward Dorsey increased his father's wealth. Only a few of the original farm and foundry buildings built before Edward Dorsey's death still stand on the property. One is a small stone and log structure close to the service wing of the house. In 1815 the house and the surrounding acreage went to his daughter Priscilla, who was named for her grandmother, the first mistress of the estate.
The second Priscilla was a strong-willed young woman whose life was often difficult but never dull. After her father died in 1799 and her mother in 1802, Priscilla lived with guardians in Baltimore. In 1805 she met Alexander Contee Hanson, the handsome son of a famous Revolutionary juror who later became Chancellor of Maryland. Hanson was elected to Congress in 1813. Three years later he was appointed to fill a vacant seat for Maryland in the Senate.
During his years in Washington, Hanson met and befriended many famous statesman among them Henry Clay. Priscilla had inherited her father's estate, which she had christened Belmont. While she stayed at home to continue the operation of the farm, Hanson traveled from Washington for weekend visits during Congressional recesses, often accompanied by his colleagues. Friends from Baltimore, Georgetown, and Washington frequently dropped by or stayed for visits.
Because of Hanson's courageous spirit and fiery disposition his life was full of hardships, and it was complicated by distressing money worries and relapses from his old injuries. In 1819, in his thirty-third year, Alexander Hanson died at a time when his financial and political fortunes were beginning to change for the better. His son and heir Charles, was only three years old, and his wife Priscilla was left to mange the estate alone.
Until 1917 the Hansons continued to live at Belmont, although its financial burdens made it far less rich than it was under their great-grandfather, Edward Dorsey. The house changed little over the years, and some of the old furnishings and paintings remained. One visitor to Belmont noticed in one of the upstairs bedrooms a dark and dirty oil painting being used to block drafts from a fireplace with a broken flue. The painting was discovered to be an original portrait of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart, and it was later sold to the Frick Museum in New York. In 1917, Annie Marie Hanson, the last Hanson left at Belmont, passed the property on to her cousin, Mary Bowdoin Bruce, also a descendent of the original builders of Belmont-Caleb and Priscilla Dorsey. Several family members also continued to live at Rockburn.
Mary Bruce and her husband Howard restored Belmont to much of its activity and charm of former days. Howard Bruce was a man who embodied these same virtues in himself. His life is the success story of a hardworking young man brought up in genteel poverty in Richmond, Virginia. The rigors of the Reconstruction had made his father's family land-poor, and his mother had to give music lessons to help put him through school. In 1897, Howard Bruce graduated form Virginia Military Institute after only three years. Bruce went to the vice president and general manger of the Barlett Hayward Company, a small steel factory which expanded under his leadership, especially after the United States entered World War I. His industrial and organizational expertise were sought by the War Department during World War II and he became the first civilian to administer the Army's production, procurement, transportation of vital supplies.
Belmont continued to be a working farm with several tenants who farmed the land, a herd of cattle, and other livestock. Howard Bruce's predominant interest for many years was the training and breeding of thoroughbred hunters. He caught the racing fever, however, when he became the owner of Billy Barton, a horse that was the pride of the Maryland hunt country and that won, in 1926, the coveted Maryland Hunt Cup. In 1928, Billy Barton gained international fame when he ran in the Grand National Steeplechase in England, losing the crown by only inches because his jockey fell off at an untimely stumble over the last jump. The famous steeplechaser died in 1933, and he was buried wearing full tack a few yards from his old paddock His headstone stands with that of a stablemate under the spreading branches of a tree and looks out over the expansive fields of Belmont.
At Howard Bruce's death in 1961 Belmont passed on to his cousin, the distinguished David K. E. Bruce, former ambassador to Britain, France and Germany. David Bruce, in 1962, "sold" Belmont and its 339 acres to the Smithsonian for $5.00 - truly a gift to the Nation.