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Baltimore Architecture:
John Eager Howard (1752-1827), whose "Belvedere" estate originally embraced all that part of modern-day Baltimore north of Saratoga Street, east of Eutaw Street and as far as the Jones Falls, was not particularly interested in sacrificing his rural retreat to development, but his children, who inherited his landholdings at his death, felt quite otherwise. One of them, Dr. Charles Howard (1802-1869), built a three-story Greek Revival mansion just northeast of the Washington Mounment to encourage "nice" people to join him on Mount Vernon Place, a Howard family project. The Howards lived in the house until the early 1850s. Francis Scott Key (1779-1843), who wrote "The Star Spangled Banner," died there on a vist to his daughter, who after 1828 was Mrs. William Howard. Circa 1853 the house was first rented and then sold to Francis B. Hays, who sold off what had been its gardens to the builders of today's #8-10 East Mount Vernon Place. In 1863
Mr. Hays and his wife sold the mansion to Charles A. Gambrill (1806-1869),
a merchant miller, who hired builder Micharel Roche to enlarge and modernize
it for his use. Scarcely had this work been completed when Mr. Grambrill
unexpectedly died, and his family sought a buyer for the property. This
came in the form of the trustees of the Charles Street Methodist Church,
who were was anxious to replace the church's longtime home on the northeast
corner of Charles and Fayette Streetes with an equally impressive structure
in a less commercialized neighborhood. Title having passed to them,
the trustees demolished the Howard mansion. On September 26, 1870,
they laid the cornerstone of their new house of worship, to be be known
as the Mount Vernon Place Methodist Episcopal Church. Working to the
designs of local architects Thomas Dixon and Charles L. Carson, builder
Benjamin F. Bennett produced a three-spired Neo-Gothic structure in
grey-green serpentine sandstone complemented by brown standstone. Legend
claims that Bennett was surprised when the sandstone weathered polychromatically.
Certainly his clients, who had to replace over 5000 pieces of stone
by the time the building reached the half-century mark, must have been
disappointed by his choice of building materials. Nevertheless, the
building today remains the seat of the congregation which commissioned
it, a boast which not every downtown church of its age and size can
make. Baltimore Architecture - Homepage
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