Living history
read and enjoy an evening drink is a favorite stop on tours.
“Howard called on his butler one evening to bring him a knife, which he then used to carve a notch in the wooden fireplace surround where he could set his glass,” he said.
Grandchildren would sometimes gather in the master bedroom to watch Bruce’s wife Mary, a descendant of Caleb and Priscilla Dorsey, as she combed her luxurious hair.
And yes, as with many historical sites in Howard County, ghost stories abound, Dorsey said.
One tale involves hearing wooden carriage wheels and horses hooves approach the house, followed by a knock at the door.
“But when the door is opened, no one is there,” he said.
There have also been accounts of unexplained chilly air flowing into a conference room and curtains that had been closed before locking up being reopened from inside.
A cemetery at the back of the property contains 17 grave sites and four unmarked graves, which were located using groundpenetrating radar, Dorsey said.
“The story goes that Billy Barton, a champion steeplechase horse that Howard Bruce owned, is buried on the property standing up in full racing tack,” Dorsey said of the famous horse that raced in the1920s.
During the Revolutionary War, iron forges on the property manufactured cannonballs and possibly bayonets, he said.
“Interestingly, few artifacts have turned up” from that time, he noted.
“People are interested in what happened at Belmont, not just in dates,” he said. “It grabs their interest.”
Allen worked as a historian and assistant parks chief for the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission in Prince George’s County for nearly 34 years before retiring and coming to work at Belmont.
The Clarksville resident wanted to be knowledgeable about Belmont, even though that’s not a focus of her job, so she turned to Dorsey for a crash course instead of doing her own research.
“We’re not meant to be a historic site with [regular] tours,” Allen said. “But the county wanted people to appreciate Belmont’s history and having Fred lead these tours for us is exactly what we needed to do.”
For Dorsey, the job is intensely personal and his presentations are far more than rote recitations of information.
“Giving tours is a source of continued excitement for me because I’m always learning something new,” he said. janeneholzberg76@gmail.com
“Howard called on his butler one evening to bring him a knife, which he then used to carve a notch in the wooden fireplace surround where he could set his glass,” he said.
Grandchildren would sometimes gather in the master bedroom to watch Bruce’s wife Mary, a descendant of Caleb and Priscilla Dorsey, as she combed her luxurious hair.
And yes, as with many historical sites in Howard County, ghost stories abound, Dorsey said.
One tale involves hearing wooden carriage wheels and horses hooves approach the house, followed by a knock at the door.
“But when the door is opened, no one is there,” he said.
There have also been accounts of unexplained chilly air flowing into a conference room and curtains that had been closed before locking up being reopened from inside.
A cemetery at the back of the property contains 17 grave sites and four unmarked graves, which were located using groundpenetrating radar, Dorsey said.
“The story goes that Billy Barton, a champion steeplechase horse that Howard Bruce owned, is buried on the property standing up in full racing tack,” Dorsey said of the famous horse that raced in the1920s.
During the Revolutionary War, iron forges on the property manufactured cannonballs and possibly bayonets, he said.
“Interestingly, few artifacts have turned up” from that time, he noted.
“People are interested in what happened at Belmont, not just in dates,” he said. “It grabs their interest.”
Allen worked as a historian and assistant parks chief for the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission in Prince George’s County for nearly 34 years before retiring and coming to work at Belmont.
The Clarksville resident wanted to be knowledgeable about Belmont, even though that’s not a focus of her job, so she turned to Dorsey for a crash course instead of doing her own research.
“We’re not meant to be a historic site with [regular] tours,” Allen said. “But the county wanted people to appreciate Belmont’s history and having Fred lead these tours for us is exactly what we needed to do.”
For Dorsey, the job is intensely personal and his presentations are far more than rote recitations of information.
“Giving tours is a source of continued excitement for me because I’m always learning something new,” he said. janeneholzberg76@gmail.com
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