Archive Record
Images
Metadata
Object ID |
2009.2086.57 |
Title |
Historic Hayes Manor, A Rare Delight |
Object Name |
house history |
Date |
8/4/1997 |
Creator |
Henrietta Fiennes |
Description |
History of Hayes Manor 4101 Manor Road Chevy Chase, MD by Henrietta Fiennes August 4, 1997 Dear Mrs. Joan Marsh, I am writing to thank you so much for allowing me to visit you on July 21, and for spending time with me going over your file on Hayes Manor. It was a tremendous help to me in preparing my "history" of the property, a copy of which I enclose - I hope you will find I have not been too inaccurate! I put it together partly for interest and partly to help me answer the questions I have been getting from my various contacts while helping with the publicity for the NSO Decorators' Show House. There has been such a lot of interest shown in Hayes Manor and its owners since the Show House venue was first announced. I also enclose a flyer about the Bare Bones days, in case you might be interested in seeing the house before it is "transformed" by the decorators! As you probably know, parking is not really possible on Manor Road, but shuttle buses will run from the NIH parking lot at 9000 Rockville Pike (enter from Wilson Drive), and from the "Medical Center" stop on the Metro Red Line. The house openes to the public on September 28 thru October 26. Thank you again for your help. Sincerely yours, Henrietta Fiennes Includes a flyer about the Hayes Manor Bare Bones Days HISTORIC HAYES MANOR, A RARE DELIGHT One of the finest pre-Revolutionary buildings in Montgomery County, Hayes Manor is a graceful and charming example of Georgian Colonial architecture. Between 1762 and 1996 it has been owned by only three families, and it remains tucked away, tranquil and dignified, in 10 acres of lawns, gardens and magnificent trees which is all that is left of the original estate. It is not a grand mansion like Mount Vernon, nor were its owners famous leaders of their country - yet they and Hayes Manor symbolized American values: family, love of country, love of the soil, and service to the community. The story begins in 1762, when the Rev. Alexander Williamson was appointed rector of St. George's Parish, in Frederick and Prince George's counties, by Governor Horatio Sharpe. Williamson, "a witty, learned and eloquent clergyman" who had studied in England, was a man of wealth who enjoyed hunting, horse-racing, and lavish living. Dissatisfied with the piece of land offered by the parish for his parsonage, he purchased from his close friend Charles Jones a 700-acre tract of the royal manorial grant of Clean Drinking Manor, midway between his parish church of St. Paul, Rock Creek, and his chapel at Laytonsville, and on it built a house he considered proper for entertaining "in a manner suitable to his taste and means". The house is believed to have been designed and built by John Arliss, an accomplished local draftsman and master builder, and is constructed of Baltimore brick in the refined and delicate style of true Georgian architecture, with high ceilings, classical fireplaces, and walnut panelling. The woodwork of the stairway and panelling may have been crafted by the renowned colonial carver William Buckland. "The Parson", as he was known, named his new home Hayes after the English home of his friend, Lord Chatham (William Pitt the Elder), then Prime Minister of England. In 1767 when the house was completed the Parson brought his bride, Elizabeth Lyon of Baltimore, to live at Hayes Manor. When the Revolution broke out, Williamson - an ardent Tory who had sworn allegiance to King George - felt unable to swear fidelity to the new American government; nor was his sporting mode of life with its links to the sumptuous days of English aristocratic rule considered acceptable. In 1776 he was deprived of his living and retired to Hayes Manor where he lived until his death in 1786. His will directed that Hayes be sold at auction, and in 1792 it was purchased by his friend James Dunlop. James Dunlop was a Scotsman who had been born heir to the barony of Garnkirke near Glasgow, but had renounced his inheritance at the age of sixteen and come to the New World in 1771 to seek his fortune. He established himself in New York where he quickly prospered and in 1783 he came to Georgetown and engaged in the tobacco business. His cousin and boyhood friend from Garnkirke, Robert Peter, had become the first mayor of Georgetown - indeed the Peter family of Tudor Place, with their connection by marriage to George Washington, were important figures in the community. In 1787 James Dunlop married Robert's daughter Elizabeth, then aged 16, and purchased Hayes Manor as a wedding gift for his bride. The property was operated as a plantation, growing tobacco and Indian corn for export - James Dunlop was interested in agriculture and experimented with limestone and clover to improve his land. He and his family of 11 children used Hayes Manor as a summer residence, returning to Georgetown each winter. His three elder sons studied at Princeton University but his fourth son Henry, who married the sister of Governor Francis Thomas of Maryland, was prevented from going because of the war of 1812. Instead, Henry emulated his celebrated kinsman, Major George Peter, and became a soldier, rising eventually to the rank of colonel. (While still only a captain, Henry led a cavalry troop of Montgomery County men to Bladensburg to escort the Marquis de Lafayette to the city of Washington.) In 1814 the British advanced on Washington and set fire to the White House. President James Madison and his wife Dolly were forced to flee north for safety, stopping for the night at Bradley Farm on Connecticut Avenue (now the Chevy Chase Country Club). Several wagonloads of government documents which had been rescued from the White House were taken to Hayes Manor for safety, and "Postmaster" Monroe and his wife were sheltered nearby at Clean Drinking Manor. When James Dunlop died in 1823, the estate was split. Half the land, including the house, was bought from the other heirs by his second son, Robert P. Dunlop, and half was bought by his eldest son, James Jr., a law partner of Francis Scott Key and later Chief Justice of the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia. (The buying-in of the estate to keep it in the family was to become a Dunlop tradition.) Robert returned from Tennessee where he had been practicing law and took up residence at Hayes Manor. Robert Dunlop, who described himself as "farmer and judge", became an ardent agriculturalist and a leader in agricultural reform. By 1840, farmland in Montgomery County had become exhausted by tobacco which impoverished the soil, the market for tobacco had collapsed, and many farms in the area had been abandoned. Following the lead of Edward Stabler, a Quaker who had discovered the use of guano as a fertilizer, Robert Dunlop pioneered the early use of various fertilizers to improve the soil, switched from growing tobacco to wheat and other grain crops, and was one of the first to use Hussey's new Patent Reaping Machine on his acreage. In 1846 Robert was one of the founders of the Montgomery County Agricultural Society, of which he was the first vice-president and later president. The County farmers' support for an agricultural High School was to lead to the founding of the University of Maryland; and in December 1861, as Civil War delegates to the House of Representatives, Robert Dunlop and his colleagues lobbied for the formation of a U.S. department of agriculture. He remained a bachelor and upon his death his nephew William Laird, Jr. (the son of James Dunlop's daughter Helen) bought in all of the Hayes Manor estate. William Laird lived and worked in Georgetown, where he was cashier of the Farmers and Mechanics Bank (now Riggs Bank) for over 40 years. He used Hayes Manor only as a summer home and in 1890 he sold all but 25 acres of the original 700 acre tract to the Chevy Chase Land Company, who developed it for housing and for the Columbia Country Club. William Laird had no children, and on his death in 1892 Hayes was inherited by his brother, James Dunlop Laird, who had been a "Gold Rush" miner in California in 1849. James, a bachelor and by then an old man, came back from California to take up his inheritance but, deciding he did not want it, deeded it to his cousin George Thomas Dunlop, son of Colonel Henry Dunlop. George Thomas Dunlop had been born at Hayes Manor in 1845, and was an entrepreneur and businessman, with a flourishing agricultural equipment and supplies business in Georgetown. He owned warehouses near the canal south of M Street and became one of the most successful fertilizer dealers in the area. In 1895 he consolidated the Rock Creek Railway Co. and the Washington & Georgetown Railroad to form the Capital Traction Company, with offices at the Car Barns at 3200 M Street. George Thomas used Hayes Manor only as a summer residence, but was the first Dunlop to modernize the house, adding a kitchen wing in 1894 to the east end in matching Baltimore brick. The wing was designed by architect Walter Peter who also skillfully raised the internal stairway in the original Georgian building. George Thomas Dunlop is credited with having brought the game of golf to Chevy Chase in 1894. In 1908 George Thomas Dunlop, Jr., a prominent attorney in Washington, inherited Hayes Manor from his father and went to live there. He continued the modernization of the house, renovating the interior and adding a greenhouse and garage to the east wing, and a conservatory with a high ceiling and nine arched floor-to-ceiling windows to the west end of the house, in matching Baltimore brick. Walter Peter was again the architect. George Thomas, Jr. was an enthusiastic and knowledgeable gardener, who developed the original planting of the grounds and garden and renewed the 18th century boxwood hedges at the rear of the house, propagating the new plants from original bushes still growing in the grounds. Rev. Williamson's original bowling green on the north lawn was also preserved intact. Following the death of George Thomas Dunlop, Jr. in 1960 at the age of 90, his widow remained at Hayes Manor until 1964 when the Dunlop family finally sold the property after 173 years of continuous ownership. The new owner, Mrs. Ellen McNeille Charles, granddaughter of Marjorie Merriwether Post, was used to living in old country houses and she renovated Hayes Manor inside and out with care, sympathy, and great understanding of its historical nature. A keen gardener, Mrs Charles added lush herbaceous borders, and restored the 19th century lily pond, the 18th century bowling green, and the rose garden with its collection of antique grandifloras and hybrid teas. In 1996, following the death of her husband, she sold Hayes Manor to the Columbia Foundation, a non-profit organization, thus ensuring the preservation of the third oldest house, and one of the best examples of Georgian architecture, in all Montgomery County. |