Greenbelt cooperator. (Greenbelt, Md.) 1937-1954, 1940-05-30
Pride and Prejudice
Part y
By A. Arundel


Not all the old buildings still standing in An
napolis recall brave historic deeds. The most
beautif full of them we're built homes, and In
of them descendants Of the original owners still live
and guard the inner beauty of the houses for family
eyes alone. One that the public can view today but
perhaps for only few months more will strike
chord In all romantic hearts. The old Hanmond-Har
wood house at the southwest juncture of Maryland
and King George Street, is the most beautt fl
Georgian house in our country.
Old homes romantic curiosit y in almost
ry heart and send the mind wandering down delightful
paths of speculation about people who have lived
within the walls. Who were they? We're their lives
gracious and Well-ordered? Were their love affairs
happily consunmated terminated by tragedy? For
tunately for the romantics the known history of the
Hamond-Farwood house begins with tale of unhappy
love and ends with another blighted love affair
ly $50 years later.
In It'll Matthias Hammond, lawyer, commissioned
William auckland, whose story must find place in
this series at later date, to build him house to
viii Oh he could bring his promised wife. hcldand
died after building operati started. Had he
lived, Mr.. Hammond igt have been content to leave
the supervision to the master archi tect, and he him
self could have married and lived happily after
in true story book tradition. But in l77 his fan
Gee broke their engagement. Ancient gossip blamed
the mansion for occupying so much of Mr. Haumond's
thought and time that he was rem1ss in the galan-
tries OF plighted lover.
The mansion is such beautiful belle among the
famous buildings of that period that it is not
pri sing that Hammond lost his heart to her. Leg
end differs about what happened to the house when
it was finally completed in 1882. Some sources
octagona1 wings his Law office, filled the empty
hours of his bachelorhood in patriotic actions
leading member of the Sons of Liberty, and willed
the property to nephew, Philip Hammond. Another
story relates that he unable to live alone in
the house where he had hoped to find marital felic
ity, and that he sold the property to jeremiah
ToWnley Chase, the Chief Justice of Maryland. Ro-
nantics will prefer the latter story. When the last
of the house died, two keys found under
loose brick in the cellar. One labeled MO
the Camber"; the other, VITO the Secret Bury
ing Placer. These keys revived the faint gossip
that Hamond's Hancee, repenting of her rash ji1t-
ing, had begged to be buried the grounds of the
home she could not wait for Exploration of the gar
den yielded only few lexis but not the type,
enough of them, that associated with crypts.
The crude spade of investigator destroyed this
lovely fancied ending to the Hammond romance.
Standing in front of the house 1T is easy to be-
1ieve the story that Thomas jefferson mpress-
ed when he first it that he sat down across the
street and sketched the front view. The house fol-
lows the general style of the time a large main
section connected by passages wi tn two side
wings lower than the main lding. Oddly enough,
the left wing, supposed to be Hammond office, was
never connected with the main house although the
passage is there. friend of Mr.. Hammond Edward
Lloyd, was already occupying the three-storied Chase
house across the street. Again must choose be-
tween two different stories to decide why the Hammond
house is only two stories high. Some authorities
his home obstruct the view the bay from his own
upper stories and offered defray the expense of
building the wings to make for lost space others
insist that Mr. Hammond decided interfere wi tn
his neighbor's pleasure without being asked. But
this Georgian mansion is the less graceful and
stately with its two floors and scant attic space.
- ITO be continued)