Carrollton Hall, Maryland

To commemorate the signing of the Declaration of Independence on August 2, 1776, Carrollton Hall in Ellicott City, Maryland, had an open house and cookout. The Declaration was adopted on July 4, 1776, by the Second Continental Congress but signatures did not go on until August. Charles Carroll of Carrollton was one of the four signers from Maryland. He was also the only Catholic to sign and he lived the longest of any of the signers, dying in 1832.

Carrollton Hall was constructed from 1831 to 1833, so he did not live to see it completed. He did not even plan to live in the house. The area was called Folly Farm, owned by Charles Carroll, who gave it to his granddaughter Emily Caton McTavish in 1831 when she married. Grandpa financed the building of the hall, an extra gift to the young couple. The hall and farm remained in the family until it was sold during the American Civil War to Charles Dougherty. The land went through a number of owners, eventually being sold to the Franciscan Friars Conventual who built the Shrine of Saint Anthony, a friary right next to the hall, in 1928. Only recently has the house been restored enough to be rented out for business meetings or retreats. And for public tours, which we took advantage of.

The day we visited was rainy which made the grilling even more smoky than it otherwise would be. The house looks a bit fog-covered but it's really smoke from the cooks in the back yard.

Carrollton Hall exterior

The house follows the Greek Revival style inside and out, with spacious rooms and amazing views off the "back porch."

Main hall

One of the many fireplaces

A map displays the plan of Folly Farm with the hall taking up only a very small part of the land. 

Plan for Carrollton Hall

The first floor has rooms on each side of the main hall. The pair of left-side rooms have a very wide doorway, allowing larger gatherings. 

Another fireplace

Looking from the front room into the back room

Fancy marble fireplace

View of the back lawn from inside

The back of the house

View from the back porch

The food was supposed to be served outdoors but the rain ruined that plan. We were lucky enough to get in the food line before it became very long. We enjoyed our burgers, fruit salad, and mac and cheese on the back porch. Some people took their food inside.

We saw the food line from the dryness of the porch

Back inside, we were able to go upstairs and see some more rooms. None of the original furnishings are there, resulting in some interesting items that surely were not owned by the McTavishes. 

The stairs

A bit of art

The top of the stairs has a small cupola to let light in.

Two light sources (and a wet camera)

The rest of the room

One room is set up for board meetings, including a monitor.

One of the upstairs rooms

The room's fireplace

A central room overlooking the back lawn is set up for a more causal meeting, decorated with a fancy chess set.

A more casual space

The kind of chess board you want to show off

Hard to get a good close up of the pieces

Yet another fireplace

Our visit was pretty short but enjoyable. 

Wine at the Shrine 2024

We visited the 2024 Wine at the Shrine fundraiser for Little Portion Farm and the Franciscan Center of Baltimore. Little Portion Farm is a small farm run on the grounds of the Shrine of Saint Anthony in Ellicott City, Maryland. They grow food and donate it to the poor through the Franciscan Center, so pairing the charities is natural. The event is hosted at the Shrine with tours of the farm, a stage for live music, food trucks, crafts, and wine sampling from many local vineyards. Other events were held throughout the day. We started with a tour of the farm.

Little Portion Farm display

A guide led us through the farm, showing the various plants and answering any questions.

Pathways in the farm

Wildflowers and beds

Starting an orchard

We were allowed to sample some of the fruits, like the raspberries below.

Raspberry bushes

Guide wasn't sure what these berries were

Squash--not sampled

All the produce is organic, so they take a lot of care in growing the food. The weeding is done by hand! They also use nature-friendly protection for the plants.

Covering the more delicate (and delectable) plants

Bugs can't get in!

Some peppers

We went inside the larger greenhouse tents. Tomato plants were set up along strings tied to the tent structure!

In the tent

Tomatoes!

A cool spider web outside the garden

The Franciscan Center also hands out toiletries. Visitors were able to put together bags of essential items as a way of helping out the center.

My kids doing there part

Special programs were held, like kids in the kitchen and wine appreciation workshops. We did not attend any but saw the kitchen set up inside the shrine.

Kitchen ready to go

I sampled a good variety of of wines. They also had meads and beers!

Charm City Meadworks offerings

Beers from Key Brewing Company

Wines from The Wine Collective

Penn Oaks offerings

I did really enjoy Circe Red from Sugarloaf Mountain Vineyard and bought a bottle to bring home. It was a fun afternoon, though there wasn't as much for the kids to do. We will probably attend again next year.

Geocaching June 2022

The month of June started off with a very easy find called If You Missed the Monday Coffee..., which refers to a group of geocachers who meet at a nearby cafe for coffee Monday mornings from 5:45 to 6:30. That might be too early for me, but maybe someday I will wake up too early and go.

Clearly not the cafe

The next day I found Camo Man, a geocache hidden in a very busy parking lot. I had to pretend to tie my shoe for a long time before I made the find.

A picture from the less busy side of the parking lot

"When You Need One" is the first of a series that I have not started. They have a lot of caches in downtown Laurel. I may be picking them off one by one to fill the calendar.

Over there

Kendal Ridge Stash was just off a trail and starting to get overgrown. The toughest part was the first ten feet from the paved trail. The rest was a walk in the woods.

Doesn't look like it is anywhere near civilization

On a trip to the Maryland City library, I found In the Laurel Oxbow, an EarthCache. EarthCaches are locations that have interesting and unusual geologic features. I had to answer some questions about the formation of the oxbow and observe the effects of nature on the area. I will probably drag the kids off to this location later in the summer. Read more about my visit at this previous blog post, if you haven't already seen it.

At the oxbow

I went to confession at Saint Anthony's Shrine and found Canticle of the Creatures, named after a famous prayer composed by Saint Francis. The spot had some creatures gathered nearby!

View from the cache

Another view from the cache

Cows in shade

I had a quick cache-and-dash at a nearby supermarket's parking lot. Purple Butterflies is a reference to how the cache container (a pill bottle) is decorated. It was in an obvious spot, if you are an experienced cacher.

Only an amateur would think it was in my sideview mirror

Ceonsillicaphobia #5 is a mystery cache that gave me a little trouble. I figured out the way to find the numbers but was off on a couple since there were multiple possibilities. The cache owner let me know which ones were off and I was able to come up with the right combination. The name refers to the fear of having an empty glass, so I had a hunch where the hide was. Too bad I made the find before noon, so I could not partake of the glass-filling goodness.

Need a customer? Take me!

I went back to the Navidad series by finding Clemons Crossing Navidad #3 - Shopping! at, you guessed it, a shopping center in Columbia, Maryland. The find was easy and I was able to buy groceries and check stuff out at the board game shop.

Quiet on a Tuesday morning

A nearby challenge cache is MD - 20 Souvenirs Challenge, where the finder cannot (or is supposed to not) log the find until they've been awarded at least 20 Souvenirs on their geocaching account. Souvenirs are issued for each state and country that you cache in, for special accomplishments or events, etc. It's basically an additional way to gamify the system. I have been awarded 57 souvenirs, so I logged my find.

View from the cache

I went back to Saint Anthony's Shrine to do some First Communion shopping and found another of their caches, F or C. The reference is to trails in the woods. One is called Saint Francis, one is called Saint Clare. The cache is near where the trails meet.

On the trail

A cool sign on the trail

Give Me A Call... is a cache and dash that would have been super-fast if it hadn't been for a muggle parked nearby. I waited a bit and made the find.

View from the cache

Another quick find was Laurel Walking About and it was just barely off the route to the grocery store.

View from the cache--don't come during the school year?

The next day I found Stones in the Gardner, a cache located in the Gardner-Anderson-Duvall cemetery in the middle of an industrial area. Judging by the tombstones, it began in 1882 and the last person was interred in 1930. The burial ground is far enough off the road to be invisible and hardly audible.

Another hidden cemetery in my area!

June is down to two calendar days without caching, so one goal was met this month. July looks very promising.