Belmont (Baltimore, MD)
Belmont was a house built in 1778 on a 50-acre estate just outside of Baltimore, Maryland. The original owner was Charles François Adrien le Paulmier d’Annemours, Consul General of France for Virginia and Maryland from 1779 to 1793. It was the site of America’s first monument in honor of Christopher Columbus.
Overview
Alternate Names: Barnum’s Hotel; Samuel Ready Orphan Asylum
Site Dates: 1778-1796
Site Owner(s): Charles François Adrien le Paulmier d’Annemours; Archibald Campbell; Zenus Barnum; Samuel Ready Orphan Asylum (from 1887)
Site Designer(s): Charles François Adrien le Paulmier d’Annemours
Location:
View on Google Maps
View the Columbus Monument on Google Maps
History
In addition to building the house, le Paulmier d’Annemours laid out an elaborate formal garden, which appears in Charles Varlé’s Plan of the City of Baltimore, drawn in 1797 [Fig. 1]. Varlé indicated that the garden was laid out in the geometric style, with parterres in circular and triangular formations. An orderly row of fruit trees flanked the garden on one side, complemented on the opposite side by a grove of more naturally dispersed trees. Cite error: Closing </ref>
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tag Le Paulmier d’Annemours sold Belmont to Archibald Campbell in 1796 and thereafter the estate passed through many hands. A writer describing the state of Belmont in 1880 observed, “the grounds around the old mansion house, although sadly out of repair..., are still inviting and picturesque, with their box-wood walks, bordered roadways lined with rows of cedars, fine old fruit trees, and rosebush clusters here and there.” [1] Belmont was demolished in 1936 and in 1963 the Columbus monument was moved to its present location across the street from Herring Run Park on Harford Road in Baltimore.
--Robyn Asleson
References
J.M. Dickey, Christopher Columbus and his Monument Columbia (1892), pp. 73-78. Memoirs by Charles François Adrien Le Paulmier le Chevalier D’Annemours Monument City Blog: http://monumentcity.net/2009/04/12/columbus-obelisk-baltimore-md/
- ↑ Article published in ’’The American’’ (Baltimore), November 19, 1880, quoted in Herbert Adams and Henry Wood, ‘’Columbus and His Discovery of America’’, Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, Tenth Series, vols. 10 and 11 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1892), 34, view on Zotero .