page_title: Belmont Estate
section_title: 17th-19th century
hierarchical_section_title: Belmont Estate / History / 17th-19th century
context_page_description: The Belmont Estate, now Belmont Manor and Historic Park, is a historic estate located at Elkridge, Howard County, Maryland, United States. Known in the Colonial period as "Moore's Morning Choice", it is listed on the Maryland Historic Trust, Inventory of Historic Properties, and is on the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Lawyers Hill Historic District, Elkridge, Maryland.
  From the late 17th century until 1962, the property was privately owned. The property was then successively owned and maintained as the Belmont Conference Center, by the Smithsonian Institution, the American Chemical Society, and Howard Community College. It is now Belmont Manor and Historic Park, owned by Howard County and its Department of Recreation and Parks.
context_section_description: Dr. Mordecai Moore, Society of Friends in Maryland founder, received a tract of 1,368 or 1,662 acres of land above Elkridge Landing called "Moore's Morning Choice", which was granted by King William III's 1695 land patent. Moore's Morning Choice was situated on a ridge from which there are views of the lower Patapsco River Valley. Belmont Estate included part of that land.
  Caleb Dorsey (1710-1722), of Hockley-in-the-Hole on the Severn River, was an early industrialist and farmer. He operated forges and iron furnaces along the Patapsco River, near Elkridge. About 1735, Caleb Dorsey purchased Moore's property, and an adjoining tract Rockburn, for his sons Edward and Caleb Dorsey, Jr. operating it as a plantation with up to 94 slaves providing agricultural labor. Caleb Dorsey, Jr. built his home, "Belmont", in 1738. A pig iron forge was operated onsite along with nearby forges at Avalon and Hockley in a Hole. Caleb Dorsey and his wife Pricilla Hill (died 1781) was buried onsite at Belmont. Caleb Dorsey, Jr.'s son Edward inherited the property and slaves. Edward later gave the property to his daughter, Priscilla, the wife of Alexander Contee Hanson, a United States senator. Following the American Civil War, Belmont became the social center of a new wealthy elite, notably the many lawyers who built homes at "Lawyer's Hill" near the Belmont property. From 1873 to his death in 1880, Charles Grosvenor Hanson allowed the house to fall into neglect following the death of his wife. An original reproduction portrait of George Washington painted by Gilbert Stuart in 1794 or 1795 hung in the mansion for a century and was sold in 1913 to a New York Collector for $15,000-$20,000 by the Hanson family. Howard Bruce, who bought the house in 1918, was the last owner to use it as a private residence.
caption: An original reproduction of George Washington painted by Gilbert Stuart hung in the mansion for over a hundred years.
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