The National tribune., 1901-07-04
AN ANCIENT MANOR.
This Historic Old Maryland Home
stead Was Visited by WASH
ington in His Youth.
BY W. EDWIN PRIEST.

OF all the old homesteads within easy
radius of the City of Washington, none
Is more interesting than that of "Clean
Drinking Manor" which lies only seven
miles from the gates of the White
House, just a little beyond the end of the
Chevy Chase Road. Artistically, the
Manor House is such revelation that il
seems to have been set down or to have
grown up amid its venerable trees, on pur-
pose for the brush or the pencil; and it
Is hard to realize that, within so short q
distance of the glory and newness of our
National Capital, so time-honOred a dwell
Ing should still be preserved, with its an
cestral .shrubbery of magnificent box
within the deep repose of the many-ter-
raced, old-fashioned garden.
The house, associated with the memories
of Colonial times, stands today as it was
erected a century and a half ago, the
quaintest assemblage of coZy hooks and
corners, indescribable in their unique COM
binationS of buildings, with sinking, moss
covered roofs, and picturesque windows
and dormerS. The chimneys, four in num-
ber-great old-faShioned affairs-are con-
structed on the outside, tufts of grass and
weeds growing from their moss-filled
chinks, and on the now roofless walls of
crumbling Out-buildings. The ancient
structure is returning to nature and very
tenderly do the elements clothe and care
about it, the woodbine clings around its
base, the grass grows green and smooth
over its broad inclOsing spaces.
The garden of the Manor is curiously
laid out in great square terraces, with
sheltered hooks, and steep slopes in de-
scending from one to the other. Here,
and springing up among the thick grass
of the lawn, may be seen that procession
Of early flowers, the mere mention of
which-snow-drops jOnquils, daffodils,
hyacinths, white viOlets-seem to bring
back the fresh Spring odors of the delight
full old place. The blue-fiowered peri
Wrinkle clothes, in places, large patches
with its rich, dark green; while, to the
rear of the house, gigantic white iilacs,
rising to the hight of 10 or 1S feet, have
usurped generous corner of space, where
they spread and tower and bloom. The
box at Clean Drinking, planted in 1850,
Is said to be among the finest Of the
dwarf variety in the world. There is
much of it that reaches the hight of seven
or eight feet, in great, rounded, even
masses. What once were boarders, have
long since become hedges, over which
even a man may not look.
PRICELESS HEIRLooMs.
The interior of the dwelling is that
Of the homesteads, common in the olden
time through Maryland and Virginia, with
Spacious, square rOOIDS, nOSplIaDle In tnelr
dimensions. The hall, with its antique
stairway, is IN the rear of the house, so
that the two doors opening side
by side from the porch in front, ad
NIT directly to the parlors; great double
doors connecting these rooms. There are
many heirlooms; some of the furniture
which was imported from England, dat
ing back $50 years to the time when the
house itself was erected. In one corner
stands a triangular gilt table, elaborately
ornamented, still bright in its gliding de-
spite its great age. Surmounting the
great old-fashioned fireplace is a long
gilt-framed mirror equally old. Another
fne glass, an upright, hangs between two
Of the front windows; the Furnishing of
both frames remaining remarkably bright.
Two chairs are of particular note. One,
slender, lyre-backed, mahogany piece,
was made in the Mother Country some
years before the French and Indian wars.
Another large, three-cornered chair was
especially priced by the late venerable mis-
tress Of the house, it having belonged to
the parlor set in the homestead of her
grandfather at Macclesfeld, one of the old |
est Of the old Virginia estates. Originally |