Following the death of Benedict William Hall on February 18, 1843, his widow, Ann (Calhoun) Hall, was designated the executrix of her late husband’s estate and guardian to her four minor children: Margaret, Lydia, Ann, and William. Ann Hall remained at Eutaw until her death on April 9, 1858. Information about her ownership of Eutaw comes from a variety of sources, including Guardianship Accounts, newspaper articles, and census documents.
Benedict William Hall died intestate, and four of his eight surviving children were still considered minors (under 21 years of age) in the eyes of the court. As such, the Baltimore County Court was required to identify and assign guardianship over the children. In the nineteenth century, ownership of estates and guardianship of children were not guaranteed to the widow of a deceased man. By law, the estate left by Benedict William Hall did not legally belong to his wife, Ann Hall, but rather to his surviving children, and this may have been the case even if Benedict had left a will. Often, the only provision to a widow in a will included an allowance (widow’s third) and a statement that the wife would be permitted use of the house and furnishings through the remainder of her natural life. This was done intentionally, as a means to protect property for children of the deceased; if a woman remarried, all her property would become the possession of the new husband.
Ann Hall was designated executrix for Benedict William Hall’s estate and guardian of his children by the Baltimore County Court. This gave her the option of renting the house or using it for her own purposes. Her role as executrix also charged her with the responsibility of providing upkeep on the property and distributing her late husband’s estate to his children. At that time, there was a possibility that Ann could have lost the right to reside in the house, if the child who inherited that portion of the estate chose to do so – but records show that Ann remained at Eutaw until she died in 1858.
In her other court appointed role as guardian of her four minor children, Ann Hall was required to maintain their home, Eutaw, and to collect and distribute income from the property for the care and education of the children. During her guardianship, income was usually generated through the lease of property at Eutaw and Benedict’s other holdings in Harford and Baltimore Counties. On occasion, the guardian was given the right to sell property in order to pay for the children’s upkeep, although permission for those sales first had to be obtained by the county court.
Ann Hall’s guardianship of her children provides a glimpse of Eutaw during the 1840s, not available elsewhere in the documentary record. From 1843 to 1849, accounts of her guardianship were recorded in the Guardian Accounts for the Register of Wills in Baltimore County. Thanks to these records, we know which properties at Eutaw and Benedict’s other landholding were leased, as well as to whom. They also detail repairs made at Eutaw, and the merchants or craftsmen provided those services. As such, the records provide a means to further reconstruct some finer details about Eutaw during the mid-nineteenth century.
The first guardian record was filed in March of 1844 and included accounts beginning on March 6, 1843, 16 days after Benedict William Hall’s deadly accident. In the year after Benedict’s death, Ann Hall collected $868.50 in rents, solely from properties at Eutaw. The rents included $136.75 from James Willingham for the lease of the Herring Run Tavern, where he had served as proprietor since 1822. James Willingham passed away on November 18, 1843, so the rents may only include the fees up to that date. Ann Hall also received rent from George Fritz for a lot on Harford Road, near the Herring Run Tavern. It is unclear whether Mr. Fritz resided on the property or just leased the lot for farming. However, later documents indicate at least two tenant houses owned by the Halls on Harford Road, so it seems likely Mr. Fritz was a resident on the property.
Other rents included fees for the cultivation of hay and pasturage, partial rent from Amon Green for the Columbia Cotton Mill, and grinding done at the Eutaw Grist Mill by Michael Kraft and A.M. Fenby. Benedict William Hall built an ice house at Eutaw, along the Herring Run at the north end of his property near Hall Spring (Herring Run Tavern). According to the guardian account, Ann’s neighbor, John Erdman, purchased ice from Ann Hall; the ice was produced behind the mill dam for the Columbia Cotton Mill. The most costly rent collected that year came from Ann Hall herself, for the lease of the mansion house at Eutaw.
As the widow of Benedict William Hall, Ann was entitled to one third of the income from the estate, which amounted to $289.50. The remainder of the profit was typically shared among the children of the deceased. All eight children, both adult and minors, received a portion of the income generated by Eutaw from 1843 to 1844, $72.37 apiece.
From 1843 to 1844, general repairs at Eutaw were done by Michael Kraft at the cost of $144.00. As the widow, Ann Hall was required to pay for one third of the repairs while the remaining cost was shared among the eight children.
Between 1844 and 1849, two additional entries were recorded by Ann Hall in the Guardian Accounts for the upkeep and incomes at Eutaw. The second account encompassed all incomes and expenses from March 1844 to March 1846: an income of $6,239.00 (which would represent approximately $170,000 today). The income from those two years included rent from Eutaw as well as from Benedict William Hall’s other properties in Harford County including Josias Carvel Hall’s former estate, Hall’s Park; a large tract on Spesutie Island; and another tract called Island and Park. Rental properties included the Columbia Cotton Mill, the Eutaw Grist Mill, the farm and gardens at Eutaw, and seven tenant house lots on Eutaw. Other income included the sale of ice from the Eutaw ice house, a percentage of the income generated by the Eutaw Grist Mill, and the hiring out of several people enslaved by Ann. Ann Hall paid $800.00 for the rent of the Eutaw mansion house over the two years.
From 1844 to 1846, Ann Hall commissioned numerous repairs and improvements at Eutaw. Nine individuals were hired to complete miscellaneous work and repairs on the property. At the Columbia Mill, Ann contracted John Cunningham for mason work and L.B. Finley for lime, likely for the purpose of creating mortar for the masonry. Edward G. Simpson was also hired to complete repairs to the Columbia Mill as a result of a fire that occurred at the cotton factory on March 14, 1844 and was reported in the Baltimore Sun the following Saturday. Other repairs to the Columbia Mill included the hiring of laborers for the repair of the Columbia Mill dam. The laborers where contracted through Amos Reed, who was a local Quaker and fellow mill operator located just upstream on the Herring Run, between the Columbia Mill and the Ivy Mill (present-day Morgan State University campus).
During that period, numerous repairs were also made at the Herring Run Tavern: painting, plastering, and the purchase of lime for masonry. At the Eutaw Grist Mill, Ann hired Alexander Paul to construct a new water wheel and purchased a new mill saw from the Baltimore firm of Gillingham and Jessup. Given the purchase of the mill saw and the construction of a new water wheel, it appears Ann Hall decided to expand the services provided at the Eutaw mill to include both milling and lumber processing.
The guardian account from 1844 to 1846 also include details on repairs and improvements at the Eutaw mansion house. They included the purchase of lathes, horse hair, and lime as well as several cases of nails from Baltimore City merchants John Brian and Joseph Willey. The purchase of these items suggest Ann Hall required repairs to walls at this time. Other supplies likely intended for repairs within the house included the contracting of E.P. Gaines for iron work and Zachariah Burgan for lumber. Other expenses incurred during that period included two years of state tax as well as over $200 in grinding done at the Eutaw Mill by the tenant leasing the property. The milling expense incurred by Ann Hall suggests either the family continued to farm at least a portion of Eutaw following Benedict’s death or perhaps the family received grain as part payment from tenants leasing land at Eutaw.
The final guardian account recorded by Ann Hall covered the three years from March of 1846 to March of 1849. In that time, Ann had sold two of the tracts her late husband inherited from his father, Josias Carvel Hall. The sale of one of the properties, Spesutie Island was advertised in the American and Commercial Daily Advertiser on August 24, 1844. As Ann Hall collected rents from the property in the previous guardian account (1844-1846), it appears it took a bit of time to find a buyer. The second property, Hall’s Park, was also sold before March of 1844, although the purchaser of that property is unknown. The final Harford County tract, Parks and Island, remained as part of the estate during this period and Ann Hall collected ground rents amounting to $3,087.00 over the three-year period.
In total, Ann Hall collected $7433.73 in income from the various properties at Eutaw as well as from Parks and Island. The income also includes other miscellaneous revenue from the sale of timber, rents from a Mr. Thomas Hanaway, as well as $120.00 for the income generated from several of the servants enslaved at Eutaw. From Eutaw itself, Ann Hall continued to collected revenue from the lease of the Columbia Mill, Herring Run Tavern, and the Eutaw Mill. She also received income from the various tenant properties on Eutaw over the three-year period. Whereas in previous years, the guardian accounts indicated the name of each individual leasing Eutaw lots, this final account lumped all rents into a single line item of ground rents.
Expenses from the third guardian account indicated far fewer expenditures from the previous account, suggesting the repairs undertaken from 1844 to 1846 likely represented a comprehensive refurbishing of the properties at Eutaw rather than those completed on an as need basis. As such, far fewer repairs were required on the property from 1846 to 1849. Of those maintenance expenses completed during this last three-year period, most seem to indicate general service repairs. They included work done on the properties by Aquilla D. Keen and John Cunningham, lime from Robert Wilson, and the purchase of lumber from Hugh McElderry. Other expenses included work from Thomas Hanney for the rewalling of the well and the purchase of new mill stones for Eutaw Mill from the firm of James Cheston & Son and the hardware from another Baltimore firm, Maellinger & Gorsuch.
One final expense includes the purchase of clover and other seed from Aquilla D. Keen, suggesting Ann Hall chose to cultivate the fields at Eutaw rather than lease the property to tenants as in years past. This possibility is further supported by the absence of rental incomes for the farm in the accounting of 1846 and 1847, although it appears at least a portion of the farmable land was leased to Thomas Hanaway in 1848. One other final item of note from the last guardian account was the absence of rents collected from Ann Hall, herself, for the lease of the Eutaw mansion house. Other contemporary accounts indicate Ann and the family remained residents of Eutaw during this period, so the absence of a rental fee for the house may have been an error, or perhaps the court no longer required her to lease her own home from the estate of her deceased husband.
A year following the filing of the 1849 Guardian Account, Ann Hall and the family were enumerated in the 1850 United States Federal Census. According to the census, Eutaw was valued at $100,000, a little over three million dollars today. Ann resided at Eutaw with five of her children: Sydney, Margaret, Lydia, Anna, and William. Other residents of the Eutaw mansion house in 1850 included the 76-year-old Lydia Calhoun, and the 71-year-old Maria Cattell. Lydia was Ann Hall’s mother. Having lived in South Carolina for most of her life, Lydia chose to relocate to Baltimore in the last year of her life. Lydia Calhoun died at Eutaw on August 8, 1850, a few months after she was enumerated in the 1850 census. The other new resident of Eutaw, Maria Cattell, was Lydia’s sister and Ann Hall’s aunt. She accompanied Lydia Calhoun to Baltimore within the last year and likely remained at the home until after the death of her sister.
A second family was also residing at Eutaw when the census taker came in 1850. Henrietta Gittings was born into slavery at Eutaw in 1814, but was manumitted by the Hall family sometime before 1843. Henrietta had five children, two of whom were born enslaved as the children of an enslaved woman. The oldest, Emeline Gittings (Jones), was sent to live with Elizabeth Hall when she married Horatio Whitridge in 1843. The rest of Henrietta’s children remained at Eutaw. The second eldest, Frederick Gittings, was also manumitted sometime before 1850. The other three children were likely born free (after Henrietta was manumitted), but resided with the Hall family through their childhoods. In 1850, Henrietta and four of her children were enumerated as free, and were employed by Ann Hall.
In addition to Henrietta Gittings and her family, Ann Hall manumitted at least two other people who had been enslaved at Eutaw. John Listen was manumitted by Ann Hall in 1849. John appeared in the 1844 inventory of Benedict William Hall’s estate as a 23-year-old man who was to be freed in 1849. Ann Hall followed through with the promised manumission and on June 25, 1849, additionally issued a certificate of freedom for John. Thirty-four-year-old Abraham Bennett was also manumitted by Ann. Abraham was born enslaved at Eutaw in 1815. He was the son of Mary, a woman enslaved by Josias Carvel Hall, who left to Benedict William Hall in his father’s will in 1814. Mary Bennett was manumitted by Benedict William Hall in 1817, but Benedict continued to enslave one of Mary’s sons for several more decades. Abraham appeared in the 1844 inventory of Eutaw as a 25-year-old man. The inventory indicated he would be set free in 1847. It is unclear whether Abraham received his promised manumission in that year, but on June 25, 1849, Ann Hall issued Abraham Bennett a certificate of freedom which was filed among the records of Baltimore County.
Although Ann Hall manumitted several people before 1850, she continued to enslave m,any more people at Eutaw throughout her lifetime. According to the 1850 slave schedule, 15 people were still enslaved at Eutaw in that year. Their ages ranged from an infant girl to two 76-year-old men. Almost half of the enslaved people at Eutaw in 1850 were children under the age of 15. Given that the quarters for the enslaved in the Eutaw mansion house were most occupied by Henrietta Gittings and her children, the 15 enslaved people in the 1850 slave schedule probably lived in a separate slave quarter on the 315 acre farm.
In 1851, Ann Hall and her deceased husband’s seven surviving children found themselves in a protracted equity case in the Baltimore County Circuit Court. The eighth child, Mary Calhoun Hall, passed away in 1848 at the age of 30. The case involved the future of Benedict William Hall’s Eutaw, and would conclude in 1879, years after the death of Ann Hall and several of the children involved in the 1851 court case. On June 17, 1851, Ann Hall, Sydney Hall, Margaret Hall, Lydia Hall, Elizabeth (Hall) Whitridge, and Janet Smith (Hall) Turner brought suit against Anna M. Hall and William Carvel Hall, the two minor children of Benedict William Hall. In reality the family was not at odds about the disposition of the property, but since Anna M. Hall and William Carvel Hall were still under the age of 21, they were considered minors in the eyes of the court, and as such their welfare was tied to the estate and the income it generated.
According to the court documents, the entire family wished to sell Eutaw, and they were petitioning the court for the right to do so. The court documents from June 17th to June 20th indicated that the house and various other improvement including the Hall Spring Tavern, Eutaw Mill, and Columbia Mill were “in want of repair” and the real estate was “unproductive and produces but a small income.” The court inquired of several parties familiar with the estate, and according to the written interviews, all agreed that the sale of the 315-acre Eutaw would amount to far more income for the family than would the continuing rental of the property and cultivation of its fields. The court also inquired whether it would be more beneficial to the family if the 315-acre farm be divided in equal part among the family members, but following a survey determined that it would be impossible to equally divide and distribute the property among the members of the family.
On August 13, 1851, the court of Baltimore County appointed Benjamin C. Presstman trustee to the estate of Benedict William Hall and ordered him to sell Eutaw in whole or in part. The court further ordered the profits from the sale of the estate would be equally divided among the surviving heirs. On August 15, 1851, a notice of the sale of Eutaw was advertised in the Baltimore Sun.
The notice ran in the Baltimore Sun for three weeks. However, according to court documents filed January 1, 1852, the advertisement failed to obtain any bidders save one. For years, Amon Green and Samuel Green leased the Columbia Cotton Mill from Ann Hall. Following the court ordered sale, the Amon and Samuel Green purchased the Columbia Mill and 25 acres on the west bank of the Herring Run. The sale also included the use of the road leading from the mill, across the run to the Harford Turnpike at Hall Spring. With no other bidders or the remainder of the estate, the equity case continued in the Baltimore County court.
While the fate of Eutaw hung in the balance at the county court, Ann Hall and her family continued to reside at the Eutaw mansion house as income continued to be generated through the lease of farming lots and the rental of the tenant houses, Eutaw Mill and Hall Spring Tavern.
On April 6, 1854, Sydney Hall and her husband, James Morrison Harris, brought suit against Ann Hall and her siblings. Over the last three years, the disposition of Eutaw had languished in the court and the sale or final settlement of the distribution of the estate was no closer to conclusion. Meanwhile, Sydney Hall married the prominent Baltimore lawyer and future congressman, J. Morrison Harris, and the couple were interested in building a new home somewhere on the larger Eutaw property. In order to do that, Sydney and J. Morrison Harris required the court to divide and distribute the property among the Hall family. On September 25, 1856, the case concluded with a partial division of Eutaw among Sydney (Hall) Harris, her mother, and Sydney’s six siblings.
Sydney and her husband received 33 acres of the Eutaw property, located on the southwest side of Herring Run, where they built a stately mansion house they named Ivy Hill. Three other members of the family were also granted portions of the Eutaw estate at that time. Elizabeth (Hall) Whitridge and her husband, Horatio Whitridge, were given 26 acres located between the Harford Turnpike and the Columbia Mill, commonly known as Hall Spring. Along with the property, Elizabeth and Horatio received the Hall Spring Tavern and associated outbuildings as well as the one-acre lot located on the south side of the turnpike containing the natural spring. Janet (Hall) Turner was provided 30 acres located on the west bank of the Herring Run and south of the Harford Turnpike. No improvements, besides a tenant house, was located on the property prior to Janet taking ownership. The fourth division was given to William Hall Turner, the son of Janet. His 34-acre property was located on the east bank of the Herring Run and extended north from Belair Road. The remainder of the property, including the Eutaw Mill and mansion house were allotted by the court to Ann Hall, William Carvel Hall, Lydia Hall, Anna M. (Hall) Blanchard, and M. Louisa Hall. Each of the five were given an equal one-fifth share of the property and improvements. The 1856 decision by the Baltimore County also required the parties to construct two roads through the property, allowing each of the parties’ access to the main roads from their allotted parcels. The first was constructed along the south side of Eutaw, extending from the Harford Turnpike to Belair Road. This road is known today as Chesterfield Avenue. The second road was laid out and constructed on the north side of Eutaw and also extended between the Belair Road and Harford Turnpike. At the time, the road was known as Eutaw Road, but was eventually changed to its present name, Parkside Drive.
Land was not the only property divided among Ann Hall and the heirs of Benedict William Hall’s estate. On October 28, 1851, Ann Hall and the rest of the family divided the furniture and possessions of Eutaw amongst themselves. Although the division of the furniture and other personal items was done in private, a filing in the court specified who among the family would be granted people who were then enslaved at Eutaw. A total of 13 people, many of whom were related, were divided among eight of the Hall family and their spouses. Ann Hall took a 25-year-old man named Tom, a 53-year-old woman named Harriett, and a 27-year-old woman named Lucy. M. Louisa Hall was given Jeanette, a 23-year-old woman. Horatio and Elizabeth (Hall) Whitridge were given a 20-year-old man named Jim. Jim was the second of Benedict William Hall’s human property the couple received, having been given Emeline Gittings (later Jones) when the couple were married in 1843.
The document indicates that a man (not named in the document) was given to William Carvel Hall, and Lydia Hall was given Wesley, a ten-year-old boy. William F. Turner, husband of Janet (Hall) Turner, received two men: 26-year-old George and 15-year-old Middleton. Sydney Hall was given an 11-year-old boy named Henry, and Anna M. Hall received a boy named Jim. According to the document, Jim was the son of Jeanette, who was sent to live with another of the Hall siblings, M. Louisa Hall. All eleven people identified above were to be enslaved for life, according to the court document. The remaining two individuals, 14-year-old John and 19-year-old Stepney, were presented in the court record as being freed at a certain date. The court record does not provide the date they would be freed, but cross-referencing the two names with the 1844 inventory of Benedict William Hall shows that they were to be manumitted 1856 and 1859, respectively. Both John and Stepney remained enslaved not to individuals, but to the estate of Benedict William Hall, until they were granted their manumission papers.
In the years following the 1854 division of Eutaw, the final partition of the estate of the late Benedict William Hall became more complicated. Janet (Hall) Turner, who received 30 acres as part of the 1854 division, passed away in February 1858. Her husband, William F. Turner, predeceased her in 1852. As a result, the claim to the 30-acre parcel was given to her children. William Hall Turner, the infant son of Janet (Hall) Turner, received 34 acres as a result of the 1854 division. However, William Hall Turner also passed away, and his property was shared among his siblings, most of whom also died without heirs. Eventually, the property was given to a brother, Horatio Turner, and a nephew, John Carrere.
Shortly after the 1854 division was finalized in 1856, one of the siblings, Lydia Hall, died on August 15th of that year. She was entitled to one-fifth share of the remaining undivided portion of Eutaw, including the mansion house and mill. Having died unmarried and without heirs, her interest in the remainder of Eutaw passed on to her siblings, including Sydney (Hall) Harris and Elizabeth (Hall) Whitridge. The two sisters were excluded from having rights to the remainder of their father’s estate following the 1854 division as they received their own parcels separate from the other siblings. With the death of their sister Lydia, Elizabeth and Sydney once again regained rights to the remainder of the estate along with the other siblings who had not obtained individual parcels of the estate.
On April 9, 1858, Ann Hall died at the age of 62 and was buried with her husband at Westminster Burial Ground in Baltimore. In the 1854 division, Ann Hall had received a one-fifth interest in the remaining undivided portion of Eutaw and the mansion house where she resided. With her passing, that interest was divided among her four surviving children: M. Louisa Hall who married Alexander C. Robinson in 1857, Sydney (Hall) Harris, Anna M Hall who married Edward Wyatt Blanchard in 1855, and William Carvel Hall. Elizabeth (Hall) Whitridge and the heirs of Janet (Hall) Turner where the only two children not to receive a portion of Ann Hall’s interest as they were the children of Benedict William Hall and his first wife, Mary (Calhoun) Hall, Ann’s sister. Despite these technicalities, all the surviving children of Benedict William Hall retained at least some interest in the remaining undivided portion of Eutaw and the house and improvements by the end of 1858, whether through the court division of 1854, the death of Ann Hall, or the death of their unmarried sibling, Lydia Hall. While all the children were entitled to make decisions regarding the use and lease of the Eutaw mansion house, grist mill, tenant houses, or its grounds after 1858, it appears the siblings chose to leave that responsibility to the discretion of the youngest, William Carvel Hall. The other surviving heirs of Benedict William Hall were all married. With the exception of Sydney (Hall) Harris, all the other sisters resided elsewhere in the city or county with their husbands and families. While Sydney lived on a portion of the former Eutaw estate, she had her own responsibilities associated with the running the household at her new estate and mansion house, Ivy Hill. In 1858, William Carvel Hall was unmarried and Eutaw was the only home he had ever known. In addition, William had served as the de facto manager of Eutaw since the early 1850s. The siblings decided to let William continue managing the estate while serving as the new proprietor of Eutaw.
References
Maryland State Archives (MSA)
1844 1843 – 1844 Guardian Account of Benedict William Hall. Guardian Accounts of the Register of Wills Baltimore County. Maryland State Archives, Annapolis, Maryland.
1846 1844 – 1846 Guardian Account of Benedict William Hall. Guardian Accounts of the Register of Wills Baltimore County. Maryland State Archives, Annapolis, Maryland.
1849 1846 – 1849 Guardian Account of Benedict William Hall. Guardian Accounts of the Register of Wills Baltimore County. Maryland State Archives, Annapolis, Maryland.
1851 Benedict William Hall Account of Sale. Guardian Account of Benedict William Hall. Guardian Accounts of the Register of Wills Baltimore County. Maryland State Archives, Annapolis, Maryland.
1879 Equity Case of the Estate of Benedict William Hall. Baltimore County Judicial Record WMI 65 folio 265. Maryland State Archives, Annapolis, Maryland.
Sidney, J.C.
1850 Map of the City and County of Baltimore. On file Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
The Herring Run Archaeology Project 