Monument City Blog

A friend and I found this strange structure on the western side of Herring Run Park. The empty building is hidden in dense woods near the northeastern portion of Lake Montebello. Possibly once part of the Ivy Mill, a former gristmill purchased by Morgan State University in 1917, the building appears to be constructed of Baltimore Gneiss. Baltimore Gneiss is a gray-green rock formed along this section of the Herring Run over a billion years ago. The oldest material within city boundaries, the abundant stone is said to be stronger than granite and was the primary construction material for the Ivy Mill complex.

The building may have been used by the city park system. At some point the windows and doors were removed and the interior gutted, creating a convenient pavilion for park-goers. Today it stands with a damaged roof and its access is limited by overgrown foliage and yellow caution tape. A complete restoration is necessary to return the historic building to a safe and useful status. Whether or not this will be done is unknown to this author.
• • •
I received an email stating that this building was a Methodist church built around 1850. This book detailing the congregation’s history suggests it was a mission built near Harford Road. A map of Baltimore from 1905 shows the modest structure as M. E. Church or Methodist Episcopal Church. A site labeled Old Quarry is a few hundred yards to the northwest.

The Gwynns Falls Parkway entrance to Baltimore’s Druid Hill Park has recently been renovated and decorated. The project consists of six salvaged iron support columns topped with historic images from the park’s past. Created by artist William Cochran and entitled Oak Wisdom, the monumental structure gives the west entrance a dignified appearance in-line with the nearby Rawlings Conservatory and Botanical Gardens. The entryway’s public works contract was awarded to the Mirable Construction Company at a cost of $276,617. The firm completed the project in early 2011. Further plans are in place to improve the entire complex surrounding the Conservatory.

During the War of 1812, as British troops approached Baltimore aiming to eliminate the bothersome privateer port, Commodore John Rodgers organized his large group of local volunteer soldiers at Hampstead Hill (now part of Patterson Park). Known as Rodgers’ Bastion, the fortified position provided a perfect vantage point during the British invasion of September 1814, allowing the Commodore to see the English flotilla coming up the harbor as well as the foot soldiers marching from North Point. The intelligent organization and courageous execution of Charm City’s defenders resulted in American victory. The Star-Spangled Banner was written by Francis Scott Key during the campaign.

In 1892 Charles H. Latrobe (grandson of Benjamin Henry Latrobe) saw the completion of his monumental Patterson Park Pagoda at the top of Hampstead Hill. The four story oriental style tower is made of fabricated iron supports, wood and glass. The ornamental building has three observation decks with a spiral staircase leading to each. The perspective from the top deck is one of the best in Baltimore, with views of Canton, the Inner Harbor and downtown.

In 1914, during the Centennial Celebration of the Battle of Baltimore, two monuments were placed directly in front of the Victorian pagoda. J. Maxwell Miller’s Star-Spangled Banner Centennial Monument depicts two school children holding a memorial scroll and the Rodgers’ Bastion Memorial Cannon commemorates the land battle lead by Commodore Rodgers. Nearby is a row of five cannon representing the War of 1812 fortification.

The Patterson Park Pagoda was completely restored in 2002 and is operated by the Friends of Patterson Park. The observatory is open from noon to six on Sundays from April to October. The historic location is one of the most engaging in Charm City, offering layers of historical value and intrigue.

Sources:

Originally owned by an unknown farmer, Clifton Park was acquired by wealthy merchant and War of 1812 veteran Capt. Henry Thompson in the late 1790s. The land passed to Johns Hopkins, one of America’s wealthiest businessmen, in 1841. Hopkins bought the estate as a summer retreat. He added countless exotic trees, a lake, an orangery and a garden with over 100 pieces of marble sculpture. When Hopkins died in 1873, his will stipulated that the estate would become the grounds of a University in his name. The University’s trustees chose a different location and the land fell into a period of temporary neglect.

Purchased by the city of Baltimore in 1895 under the mayorship of Ferdinand Claiborne Latrobe, east Baltimore’s Clifton Park was given to the citizens of Baltimore. The city turned the property into a park of recreation, installing Lake Clifton, an 18-hole golf course and twenty-seven tennis courts. The Olmsted Brothers were hired to design the park’s layout. The brothers incorporated the pasture’s existing features into their competent design, complete with meandering paths and splendid arbors. Today the park still maintains qualities from the 18th, 19th and 20th Centuries, its historic buildings and significant landscape architecture bridging the gap between America’s westward expansion period and modern times.

In the early 19th Century Capt. Henry Thompson made vast improvements to the estate’s existing farmhouse, turning the hilltop abode into a stately manor. When Johns Hopkins purchased the property in 1841 he enhanced the mansion house even further. Hopkins hired the architectural firm of Niersnee and Neilson to turn the house into an Italian villa, adding an observation tower and an extended veranda. Made of brick covered in plaster, Clifton Mansion rests on a foundation of stone and has walls nearly a foot thick. The historic building will soon be undergoing a full restoration.

In 1887 the Baltimore Water Board completed the Clifton Park Valve House. The Gothic Revival open-air structure was constructed over Lake Clifton’s valve system. The man-made lake was eventually filled and a high school was built at the location. The Valve House has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Gardener’s Cottage is tucked away in a wooded area off the 16th-hole of Clifton’s public golf course. Designed in the rural Gothic tradition, the cottage was built by Johns Hopkins’ gardener in the late 1840s or the early 1850s. Its design was based upon an Andrew Jackson Downing sketch. Downing’s A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening, Adapted to North America, a popular book at the time, contains a detailed drawing of a very similar cottage. The building appears to be structurally sound and stands ready for renovation.

Mothers’ Garden was dedicated by Mayor William Broening “to all the mothers of Baltimore” in 1926. At the northern tip of Clifton Park, the memorial garden features a stone gazebo and a wood and stone pergola. The gazebo’s eight-sided shape is seemingly inspired by the Valve House. The recently deceased William Donald Schaefer rededicated Mothers’ Garden in 1984.

Other historic buildings at Clifton include the bandstand, the superintendent’s house and the stables (now a maintenance garage). The collection of structures in the park display a wide variety of architectural styles and construction practices. They are presented in their original environment displaying their original intent. Wealth, luck and preservation have kept Clifton Park in a state of perpetual limbo that I can only hope continues for another 200 years.

Sources:

Opened in 1880, the Calvert Street Bridge was a magnificent iron structure that spanned the Jones Falls in Midtown, Baltimore. One of two main northbound arteries, the other being nearby Charles Street, Calvert Street was a heavily trafficked thoroughfare in the days before the expressway was constructed. Countless Baltimoreans passed the noble lions on their way home from work, running errands or traveling to the countryside. The Gilded Age bridge was a monument to post-Reconstruction Era America.

After falling out of public favor, the lions were removed in 1957. For ten years the sculptures toiled away in a Druid Hill Park Storage facility. Eventually three lions ended up in a small park in Bolton Hill adjacent to the Francis Scott Key Monument. The statues have one paw raised, but curiously they are without object. This historic postcard shows the lion paw resting atop a shield with the Battle Monument on its front. The shields and the fourth lion have not been located by this author.

The neighboring southbound Saint Paul Street Bridge was similar in design and possessed four Lady Baltimore statues at each of its corners. The ladies were removed during the span’s 1960 renovation. One resides in Mount Royal Terrace Park, two are on the grounds of Cylburn Arboretum and the fourth was given to County Longford, Ireland, land once owned by George Calvert, 1st Baron of Baltimore.

Sources:

Druid Hill’s Moorish Tower (Map) occupies one of the best vantage points in the city. The hilltop location provides a panoramic view of East and Central Baltimore from Hampden to Downtown. The tower sits at the southeast edge of Druid Lake, one of the largest man-made earthen dams in the country, its sloping bank over-looking the Jones Falls Expressway. Designed by George Aloysius Frederick in the 1860s, the Turkish style building is made of white marble and brick. During renovation in the 1990s the tower’s spiral staircase, with access to the rooftop deck, was taken out and the iron door was once again locked.

This post is the first in the vantage point category, a series of articles that will target specific locations perfect for afternoon sightseeing. Generally high in elevation and separated from city streets, these vantage points represent a wrinkle in the urban environment, secluded destinations providing temporary solace from everyday activities.

The No. 10 Streetcar Line ran from the northern neighborhood of Roland Park down to Highlandtown, with a stop at the once popular Riverview Park. The line’s open air cars were a favorite of Baltimoreans during summer months, the commute offering a brief respite from the exhausting heat. This waiting station, situated along University Parkway in what is known as Centennial Park, is a lasting monument to the No. 10 trolley line. The Roland Water Tower stands at the top of the hill.

Behind Druid Hill Park’s Conservatory & Botanic Gardens is a little used path that once lead to the Music Pavilion. The Promenade (conceptualized by the Olmsted Brothers) was a central feature of the city’s largest and best park, a place where patrons could gather and listen to music by either traveling acts or the park’s string band. The former yellow brick path, once lined with comfortable benches and well-maintained landscaping, is now a parking lot for the conservatory’s workers. The mall’s Moorish style pavilion was designed by George Aloysius Frederick and completed in 1865. The Gazebo eventually fell into disrepair and was torn down in 1961.

Rogers-Buchanan Burial Ground lies within the boundaries of Druid Hill Park across the street from the zoo’s Reptile House. This small north Baltimore cemetery was founded in the 1700s as a typical family estate graveyard.

The estate was acquired by Lord Baltimore in the late 1600s and being prized for its lumber, was sold many times to industrial colonialists. Nicholas Rogers came to own 200 acres of the forest-covered land. When Rogers died in 1709 he left the estate to his daughter Eleanor. Eleanor married George Buchanan, one of the seven commissioners responsible for establishing Baltimore City, and bore him ten children. When George Buchanan died in 1750, his son Lloyd took over the land, adding surrounding properties and enlarging the estate to 625 acres.

When Lloyd Buchanan’s life ended, Eleanor, his four year old daughter, inherited the property. Mrs. Buchanan married Colonel Nicholas Rogers IV, her first cousin once removed, in 1783. The Colonel, an American Revolutionary War participant, had an interest in architecture and worked on city projects with builder/architect Robert Cary Long. Rogers designed the the Assembly Room which stood adjacent to the old courthouse. The building burned down in 1873 in the Holliday Street Theatre fire. In a unique move for the time, his will articulated that his slaves be freed and given monthly salaries upon his passing. Rogers IV died in 1822, outliving his wife by ten years. Their son Lloyd Nicholas Rogers became master of Druid Hill.

Rumored to be a recluse, Lloyd apparently cut off ties with city officials and former family business partners. When Mayor Thomas Swann, along with City Council, wanted to build a turnpike through the Rogers-Buchanan estate, he refused and a lengthy battle ensued. Lloyd Nicholas Rogers died in 1860, just a month and a half after he unwillingly sold the family property. Thankfully the grand estate was turned into parkland.

Through the years the Rogers family modified the estate, adding rolling pathways and adventurous landscaping. Rogers IV made great improvements to the property by adding bays and indentations to the untamed forest. The half-acre graveyard was left in the possession of the Rogers family when the sale of the park was finalized. The burial ground’s last interment was Edmund Law Rogers in 1896.

Sources:

Three Sisters Ponds is situated in the northwest corner of Druid Hill Park. Originally made up of five separate bodies of water, Three Sisters is a network of man-made basins surrounded by strolling paths, elderly trees and a disc golf course. Originally part of the park’s fish hatchery, the ponds were once fed by the adjacent High Service Reservoir (now a baseball diamond). Three Sisters Ponds have been abandoned since the 1960s. The Rogers-Buchanan Burial Ground perches on a nearby hill just off of Greenspring Avenue.

The front pond is small and oval-shaped, its stone wall reinforced with concrete and wood. Structurally sound, it looks like it may hold water if filled. It appears to be the newest basin in the network.

Sea Lion Pond, a fenced-in former zoo installation that once housed two eared seals, is a few paces north. A stone formation sits at the center of the pool and an enclosed fountainhead behind a gated entrance occupies the southern end of the pond. The Friends of Druid Hill Park have been routinely cleaning the neglected area.

Directly above Sea Lion Pond is the largest of the Three Sisters, yet the most difficult to locate. Covered in copious layers of vines and brush, the hidden marsh is well over an acre in size and was known as Lily Pond. Its eastern portion, once on the other side of Three Sisters Lane, has been completely removed.

Further north is the what seems to be oldest basin in the complex, its walls made of uneven dark green rock. It has the appearance of an early 19th Century reservoir and looks very much like a smaller, older version of Druid Hill Lake. All four ponds empty into a rolling creek that leads to the Jones Falls.