A BMW Tour of Mansions, Abandoned and Not

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A BMW Tour of Mansions, Abandoned and Not

Postby Rick F. » Sun Dec 11, 2011 10:52 pm

With a stress fracture in my left foot and strict orders to stay off of it as much as possible, I decided to limit this BMW Z4 tour to just half a day. Carroll County (Maryland) was calling me, and I thought I would see how many mansions I could find in what is practically my own back yard. Despite the abbreviated time, this tour was far more fun than usual. :D

I started from Westminster, MD, and my first stop was the Loys Station Covered Bridge. Maryland was once graced by more than 50 such structures, but now Loys Station is one of only a handful still in existence. General George Meade and his army are believed to have crossed the this bridge in pursuit of the Confederate army following the battle of Gettysburg. It stood for 143 years before an execrable arsonist burned it in 1991. Fortunately, it has been rebuilt using many of the original beams and other materials, and it handles a significant amount of traffic with aplomb. It's a little hard to judge the size of the bridge without having someone there to give it scale, but it's about 90 feet long. Et très élégant, n'est-ce pas?
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I set off for my next stop somewhat reluctantly, after the fun of seeing this "kissing bridge," as they used to be known (since sweethearts could enjoy a close moment while crossing the bridge, unseen by anyone else). As usual, having just washed the patient Z4, I ended up on a dusty, unpaved thoroughfare. (At least it was scenic.)
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Eventually, I arrived at the Chambers Farm, visible here in the distance. This farm is not particularly old, scenic, or otherwise noteworthy, except that it belonged to Whitaker Chambers. As a young man in the 1920s, he joined the Communist Party and wrote for The Daily Worker. By the early 1930s, he had become an espionage agent for the Soviet Union, stationed in Washington, DC. After growing disillusioned by the actions of Joseph Stalin, he quit the Party and informed State Department officials of his role and the people in government with whom he worked—including Alger Hiss, a high-level figure at State. Remarkably, the investigation was ended after President Franklin Roosevelt expressed his belief that Chambers was a crackpot.
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Years later, as fears of Communism increased, the FBI investigated Chambers' story, ultimately finding it to be accurate. A dramatic moment in the investigation came when Chambers led key Congressmen, including a young Richard Nixon, to the pumpkin patch on his farm and retrieved microfilm that had been hidden 10 years earlier in a hollowed-out pumpkin. It contained numerous documents in Hiss's handwriting and typed on his specific typewriter. Hiss was convicted, and Chambers went on to write a best-selling book about his experience, Witness. (Ronald Reagan credited this book as the primary cause of his converting from a Democrat to a Republican.) An excellent summary of the affair is available from the Maryland Historical Trust at Whittaker Chambers Farm.

With history ringing in my ears, I continued on in search of the Solomon Arter farm, which dates back to the late 1700s. I found the farm, right where it was supposed to be, in the background of this photo.
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The pole barn dates from 1872 and appears to be in excellent condition. And that's an authentic 1800s hog pen (in case you were wondering).
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But I was in search of Solomon Arter's original 1810 farmhouse, which is said to be very representative of the life of Pennsylvania Germans (even though this house is in Maryland; this historical stuff gets confusing from time to time…) As I walked down to get a better look (don't tell my doctor), I found two farmhouses, one obviously very old, and the other more recent. However, sometimes looks can be deceiving. In this photo, the white house partially visible on the left is the original one from 1810. Underneath the siding, it's built of logs. The much older-looking frame house in the center actually dates only from 1883; it was the residence for a tenant farmer.
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Okay, but what about the mansions, you ask? A quick dash over to Taneytown revealed Antrim, once the Greek Revival home of Colonel Andrew Ege and now a restaurant and country inn. Not a bad-looking place, as mansions go, and beautifully furnished inside.
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Just down the road from Antrim, you'll find the magnificent Trevanion. Back in 1817, it was built as a relatively simple farmhouse. If you look at the front of the house on the right in this photo, above the veranda, you'll see the upstairs windows and roof section of the original home, which continues to extend behind the tower and adjoining projection. These latter "Italianate" sections were added in 1855 by William Dallas, a prosperous local businessman with a mill along Big Pipe Creek. "Trevanion," incidentally, is Welsh for "meeting of the waters." The house is situated near the confluence of Meadow Branch and Pipe Creek.
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A few years later, Dallas added extensively to the back of the house, as indicated in this photo from the side, and there are somewhere between 27 and 40 rooms in total. The house has changed very little since these additions were made in the mid-1800s, and it is an extraordinary place in the middle of an otherwise subdued rural area. I fell in love with it immediately. It sold recently as a "fixer upper" for about $275,000. The new owners are apparently working hard to renovate Trevanion, and I fervently hope it will be restored to its original glory.
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Did I mention that it was a beautiful day, with bright sunshine and warm temperatures? There's nothing like having a motorcycle on a day like that—although I was settling for "next best" with an open sports car.
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Working my way back east, I went through the little village of Uniontown. (Perhaps to keep Union forces from harming their property, a significant number of towns in this area include the word "union.") I quickly found the Weaver-Fox house and its Italianate-Victorian design. It was built by a local physician, Dr. Jacob Weaver, about 10 years after the Civil War. The "Fox" part of the house's name is for Dr. Grace Fox—the granddaughter of Dr. Weaver. Dr. Weaver's records are housed in the Carroll County Historical Society, and they show that he was paid $0.25 for a house call and $5.00 for delivering a baby.
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The current owners of the Weaver-Fox house had decorated it for Halloween. I especially liked this addition:
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Just down the street in Uniontown, I found the former St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church. It was built in 1874 and operated through 2003 before closing its doors.
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South of Uniontown, the headstones of the massive Pipe Creek Cemetery were casting long stadows, even at 3:00 in the afternoon. The somber setting was fully in keeping with the approach of winter.
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Linwood, MD, dates back to the 1860s when it was a major area of agriculture and an important stop on the Western Maryland Railroad. The town still has its late-1800s appearance, even though the trains no longer stop and the railroad station is gone. This photo of the grain elevator and loading station benefits from having the sun behind me, low on the horizon.
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Conversely, shooting toward the sun and the freight warehouses, the photo is much more "compressed" in terms of its dynamic range—even with a beautiful Z4 in it!
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A little further south, in search of the elusive McKinstry's Mill, I stopped for a photo of this unusual log home, with bricks filling in the spaces between the logs. (Into the sun, once again.)
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You ever have the feeling of being watched? Well, sure enough…
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Just across the road from the log home, the Linwood Brethren Church has presided on its hilltop since 1905.
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In the distance, I spotted another indication of Linwood's former prosperity, in the form of this grand farm mansion. Needless to say, I had to investigate further and was pleased to find a closer location. Now that's a proper house.
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A little further on, I went through Union Bridge, MD, much as I had done a number of times previously by motorcycle and car. I'd stopped once before, to see the railroad station, which is now a museum. This time, however, I felt the urge to stop and look at the houses and other buildings. The town is just barely within Carroll County, and it became a significant commercial center when the Western Maryland Railroad expanded its route here in 1862. The track through Union Bridge is still known as the "Hospital Track," since wounded soldiers were sent by railroad to hospitals in Baltimore during the Civil War. (The track is still in use, incidentally, by the tiny Maryland Midland Railway.)

A nearby farm happened to have a marble quarry in its midst. William Henry Rinehart was born there in 1825 and grew up preferring to work with the marble than in the fields. He became one of the country's most well-known sculptors. This is his depiction of Hero, waiting in vain for the return of Leander. (I believe the original statue is on the left, in plaster, and the other is one of several copies, in marble.)
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As with many such small towns in Maryland, Union Bridge appears largely as it did in the 1800s (or it would if you replaced all the modern cars with horses and carriages).
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I don't know what this old place was—perhaps a hotel?—but it was impressive. Its days may be numbered, however, without a major restoration effort in the near future.
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This house is built around an unusual, octagonal central tower.
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As long ago as 1735, Quakers in the area of Union Bridge held meetings at the home of William and Ann Farquhar. The couple later gave 2 acres of their property so that the Pipe Creek Meeting House could be built. It was completed in 1772 and has served the community well ever since (despite an interior fire in 1934). President Herbert Hoover's great-great-grandfather was a regular member, and the President himself attended at least one service here.
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Even the trees around Union Bridge had interesting architectural features.
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Not all the houses I encountered on my tour of Carroll County qualified as mansions. Some may qualify as haunted…
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At long last I managed to find the hamlet of McKinstry's Mill. I believe this was the home of mill owner Samuel McKinstry, built in 1849. Some years ago, its current owner discovered a 9' by 9' room in the basement, hidden behind a cupboard; to reach the space, all of the cupboard's shelves had to be removed. Since Sam McKinstry was one of the few residents in the area not to hold slaves, the room is believed to have been used to hide escaping slaves as part of the Underground Railroad.
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These buildings sat abandoned and forlorn across Sam's Creek from the mill.
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And speaking of Sam McKinstry's grist mill, it may be well past its prime, but it was quite impressive nonetheless. It was built in 1844, replacing an earlier mill on the same site. Local farmers would drive their wagons under the end of the mill, where their hay and other crops could be hauled up into the mill by pulley.
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Okay, I couldn't resist.
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Imagine how often the mill operators had to replace gears made of wood!
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As it happens, McKinstry's Mill Road becomes Sam's Creek Road at the site of the mill, and Sam's Creek Road is home to my all-time favorite abandoned mansion. Needless to say, I had to swing by there and see how the old place was doing (even if it is in neighboring Frederick County). I was pleased to find the area little changed, although I keep hoping that someone will buy the land and restore the farmhouse. (Someone with a lot more money than I have!)
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The old log house on top of the hill is still inhabited. It looks down on a veritable wasteland of Things Gone Wrong. What may have once been a mill has long since had a catastrophic cave-in, but the walls still manage to stand.
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And, on the other side of Sam's Creek, the poor mansion house is continuing to slowly decay. I've never been able to find any history of this once proud farm. Since the property sits only a couple of feet higher than Sam's Creek, I've assumed that there was one flood too many.
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Further along the creek, the farm's outbuildings are still largely intact. I used to think that the large barn's roof had partially collapsed, but, on this day, I realized that it was actually built as it appears, with the end of the roof considerably higher than the central part. I have no idea why.
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Yep, the new and the old, the bright and the battered.
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By now, the sun was well and truly on its way down, but I had one more stop in mind—the historic Avalon mansion. It was built in the very early 1800s by Francis Hollingsworth and is considered the best example of American Neoclassical architecture in Carroll County, with one and a half stories above an exposed basement level and a separate summer kitchen next to the main building. Jesse Slingluff, a Baltimore banker, purchased the property in 1813 as a safe place for his family to live during the War of 1812. Avalon remained in the Slingluff family until 1935. One of its most notable features is a freestanding or "floating" circular stairway. The only photo I could find of the staircase is from the National Park Service:
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All I knew from my pre-trip research was that the house was about a mile east of New Windsor, at the end of a long, dirt road. Google Maps showed a few possibilities, but I would also need some luck. And a little bit of remaining daylight… I knew that the mansion looked like this (courtesy of the Maryland Historic Trust):
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On my first try, all I found was this former schoolhouse or other small building. Scenic? Yes. Historic? Yes. Avalon? No.
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On my next attempt, with the sun gone altogether, I ended up at an interesting, large old home on the grounds of the Shepherd's Manor Creamery, specialists in sheep cheese. On this late Sunday afternoon, they were closed, but the owner's son and his girlfriend were friendly and let me know that this wasn't Avalon. They knew of another old mansion, down a different dirt road, beyond a farm, and that Michael would know if it was Avalon.


Backtracking yet again and watching the light disappear, I found the dirt road and motored along it slowly, wondering if it was the right road, whether Michael would be around, and generally what in the heck I was doing. I approached the farm with a certain amount of trepidation.
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In the shadows, I spotted a lanky fellow coiling a hose and looking at me suspiciously. I pulled up in front of him and, in my best, Brave Little Toaster voice, asked, "Would you be Michael?" As it happened, he was! Once I introduced myself and referred to his Shepherd's Manor Creamery friends, I was practically part of the family. And he knew that, yes, the old mansion farther down the road was in fact Avalon. He helpfully added that he'd seen a car there, so he thought the owners were home.

With further trepidation at the late hour, I crunched along the road and right up to the railroad tracks, where, at last, I found Avalon. With too little light, and no excusable reason to wander around on private property for a good vantage point, I cranked the Canon up to ASA 1600, aimed it out the window, and hoped for the best.
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And then quickly turned around, drove back through Michael's farm (waving to him as I went), and headed off into the darkness—another anonymous seeker of History, Beauty, and Truth, returning to my den. As these trips go, it was much more fun than usual, despite its brevity and my limited on-foot mobility. Carroll County proved to be a beautiful, engaging, and altogether fun place to tour.

And I'll have to go back soon and find out what sheep cheese tastes like… :D

Rick F.
Last edited by Rick F. on Wed Sep 16, 2015 3:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: A BMW Tour of Mansions, Abandoned and Not

Postby biometrics » Mon Dec 12, 2011 11:35 am

As usual Rick... a GREAT photo essay... thanks for taking us with you...
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Re: A BMW Tour of Mansions, Abandoned and Not

Postby Unity » Mon Dec 12, 2011 2:23 pm

biometrics wrote:As usual Rick... a GREAT photo essay... thanks for taking us with you...

Indeed. Thanks.

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Re: A BMW Tour of Mansions, Abandoned and Not

Postby ChaseH » Mon Dec 12, 2011 3:12 pm

I wonder what happened to the entry stairs for Avalon.
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Re: A BMW Tour of Mansions, Abandoned and Not

Postby Rick F. » Mon Dec 12, 2011 10:52 pm

biometrics wrote:As usual Rick... a GREAT photo essay... thanks for taking us with you...


bio,

Hey, I'm really glad you enjoyed the tour! For reasons that are hard to explain, it really was a lot more fun than average--which is saying a lot.

Thanks for the feedback,

Rick
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Re: A BMW Tour of Mansions, Abandoned and Not

Postby Rick F. » Mon Dec 12, 2011 10:54 pm

Unity wrote:
biometrics wrote:As usual Rick... a GREAT photo essay... thanks for taking us with you...

Indeed. Thanks.

--John
(That barn roof is a puzzler!)


John,

Yep, I'm baffled by it. It's clearly intentional, given the many hatches on the wall beneath the roof. But I can't imagine why it was built the way it is. One of these days I'll have to inquire with the folks living in the log home on the opposite bank of Sam's Creek. Somebody must know something!

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Re: A BMW Tour of Mansions, Abandoned and Not

Postby Rick F. » Mon Dec 12, 2011 11:10 pm

ChaseH wrote:I wonder what happened to the entry stairs for Avalon.


Chase,

Yes, I'm puzzled by that, too. I'm guessing that they needed repair or, more likely, complete replacement, and I caught 'em in the act.

It's also possible that the owners are restoring the mansion to its original configuration--if anyone knows what it is. An older survey of the home from the Maryland Historic Trust states "A porch and stairway on Brick posts replaces an earlier balcony here; the original treatment of this entrance is unknown."

Perhaps one of the lesser "History's mysteries," but intriguing nonetheless.

Rick
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Re: A BMW Tour of Mansions, Abandoned and Not

Postby Dough Boy » Wed Dec 14, 2011 7:09 pm

Very nice Rick!
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Re: A BMW Tour of Mansions, Abandoned and Not

Postby Flash! » Wed Dec 14, 2011 9:47 pm

I was sorry to hear of your stress fracture, Rick, but glad that it didn't slow you down! I loved the mansions, abandoned or not, and the shots of the cemetery stones were hauntingly beautiful. I was especially intrigued, though, by the barns. This one on the Solomon Arter farm Image appears to be a classic forebay barn, possibly posted, though it's hard to tell. The older Swiss/German forebay barns are fascinating, and their history describes the changes in agriculture over time. Robert Entsminger wrote a nice overview, and there are several sources for forebay barns if you're interested:
http://www.dalzielbarn.com/pages/TheBar ... story.html for one, and a pdf file titled "Celebration of Swiss Heritage Barns in USA, Canada and Switzerland" has a nice cross-section of a forebay barn about half way through it. Just google Forebay Barns. The cantilevered forebay on the very old barns was much deeper than that on the more modern ones, but they're all amazing.

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Re: A BMW Tour of Mansions, Abandoned and Not

Postby Rick F. » Wed Dec 14, 2011 10:04 pm

Dough Boy wrote:Very nice Rick!


B'man,

Thanks! Hope you're doing well.

Rick
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Re: A BMW Tour of Mansions, Abandoned and Not

Postby Rick F. » Wed Dec 14, 2011 10:30 pm

Flash! wrote:I was sorry to hear of your stress fracture, Rick, but glad that it didn't slow you down! I loved the mansions, abandoned or not, and the shots of the cemetery stones were hauntingly beautiful. I was especially intrigued, though, by the barns. This one on the Solomon Arter farm Image appears to be a classic forebay barn, possibly posted, though it's hard to tell. The older Swiss/German forebay barns are fascinating, and their history describes the changes in agriculture over time. Robert Entsminger wrote a nice overview, and there are several sources for forebay barns if you're interested:
http://www.dalzielbarn.com/pages/TheBar ... story.html for one, and a pdf file titled "Celebration of Swiss Heritage Barns in USA, Canada and Switzerland" has a nice cross-section of a forebay barn about half way through it. Just google Forebay Barns. The cantilevered forebay on the very old barns was much deeper than that on the more modern ones, but they're all amazing.

Jody


Jody,

You and John continually amaze me with your in-depth knowledge of such an eclectic collection of subjects! I mean, who knew that you are a closet forebay barn fanatic?

Seriously, I appreciate the link. Part of the fun of taking these trips and writing them up is that I end up learning so much about architecture, colonial and Civil War customs, flora, fauna, etc. After skimming through the link you provided, I now understand why fore bays were developed and used. Awesome! However, I'm still working on the specific meanings of "bank" barns, "pole" barns, "posted" barns, etc.

On a prior trip, I ran across this barn. It seemed unusual, with its tapered pillars. It also seems like a much older version of a classic Pennsylvania fore bay barn, given its stone ends. Any thoughts?
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Finally, I'm glad you enjoyed the mansions and other Fun Stuff that I found on this Carroll County trip.

Rick
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Re: A BMW Tour of Mansions, Abandoned and Not

Postby Maria V » Thu Dec 15, 2011 2:19 pm

Well, thanks to this little side topic, I realize that our barn is a forebay barn.
Nice report, Rick - you were in our area and found many things I didn't realize are in my own backyard. (Not literally of course)
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Re: A BMW Tour of Mansions, Abandoned and Not

Postby Rick F. » Sat Dec 17, 2011 11:29 pm

Maria V wrote:Well, thanks to this little side topic, I realize that our barn is a forebay barn.
Nice report, Rick - you were in our area and found many things I didn't realize are in my own backyard. (Not literally of course)


Maria,

How about that! Now you'll have to read Jody's links carefully and figure out whether your barn is Swiss, German, Swiss-German, Pennsylvanian, or Art-Deco. (Okay, I made up the last one...) Does Andi's horse like the barn? That's probably the most important element. :D

I hadn't realized just how many interesting places there are in Carroll County (and that's not even counting your back yard). Next time you're out on the new bike, be sure to get a few pictures to show us.

Rick
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