September 19, 2013: It was a slow day at work. Working in a library, sometimes things get very quiet; but when workflow is at a low ebb, it’s easy to indulge in the pursuit of idle curiosities. I had been doing some research, for fun, on the first people to live in my current house back in the 1930s, and decided to look up a Kent County News story of an incident concerning the builder’s father. I was following a trail whose steps I no longer remember, gathering facts that seem trivial now, which gave my mind some mild entertainment in the form of eavesdropping on the past. I found the article I was looking for, detailing an incident of the builder’s father as a teenager, getting into a fistfight with a former teacher on the street in Still Pond, back in the spring of 1883. Typical Kent County stuff, maybe. I dropped a dime into the machine and printed out the page, as my eyes scanned the other headlines on the page. “The strawberry season is not far off.” “The Sale of Bellevue.” And then: “A Madman’s Tragic Act. Killing His Intimate Friend.” Interesting. I read on: “Mr. Charles R. White, of Howard Co., was shot and instantly killed on Wednesday by Mr. Charles Edward Hanson, an intimate friend and neighbor.” Howard County, my home county on the western shore.
That's when I realized that I knew these people.....
Belmont, front stairs and Ballroom wing. Photo, J. Nesbitt
Belmont was built in the 1730s, and was owned and lived in by Dorseys and their descendants, including the Hansons, for more than two hundred years. In 1965, it ended its days as a privately owned estate, and began a second life as a small, exclusive conference center. Whole families of high school-aged sisters and brothers in Elkridge, including mine, became part of the Belmont family, securing coveted jobs as waitresses and houseboys. I spent nearly ten years working there, in several departments, from high school until several years after college, by which time I was sharing the position of Marketing Coordinator which a childhood friend and wife of the former executive chef. People outside of our community knew little to nothing of the existence of this place, with the exception of the lucky groups who came to stay, a large proportion of them connected with Federal and local governments, including foreign dignitaries and even sometimes people important enough to require Secret Service detail. Belmont’s isolation was one of its chief marketing points.
When you first came to work at Belmont, you were scrupulously trained by the senior generation of staff members in how to deliver the highest quality of service. These were the motherly women from town who cooked breakfast and lunch every day; the executive chefs, always from “elsewhere,” who always had very special and entertaining personalities; the gruff, businesslike housekeepers, tending to be past middle age and firmly rooted in the community; and the grounds and maintenance men who seemed to know everything…. and did, since they lived in houses right on the property. Precision, perfection, discretion, and courtesy, doing things “the Belmont way” were required in all aspects of food and beverage service and housekeeping.
Fortunately, it was not only an interesting place to work, but a companionable place, with colleagues feeling like family members and, after a while, the house feeling like home. Very soon after you completed your first shift, as you relaxed in the staff room after dinner with your coworkers, you began to hear the stories, legends, and rumors about the house, and the people who had lived and visited there.
As new employees in the 1980s, my friends and I all heard about the Dorseys during those staff room storytelling sessions: the original builders, landowners, and entrepreneurs who founded this estate and many others, becoming one of the most powerful families in the state. Caleb Dorsey, the builder, was fashionably superstitious, and had installed 6-paneled witches cross doors throughout the home to keep out evil. He met his wife Priscilla while fox hunting in the area, and their initials are still carved in stone beside the front door.
Another Priscilla Dorsey, their granddaughter, eloped with Alexander Contee Hanson, a congressman and later a senator who was nearly killed in a Baltimore riot at the beginning of the war of 1812. It was after his untimely death from his lasting injuries in 1819 that the estate fell upon hard times.
If you were to consult local history sources or books containing descriptions of colonial homes in the region, you would notice that in most histories of Belmont, the years between 1819 and 1913 are barely mentioned. Or, they may be condensed into one or two lines: “Hanson’s son Grosvenor enjoyed gambling, and the estate was nearly lost. Two of Grosvenor’s nine children, Nannie and Florence, still lived in the house in 1913."
Yet, every member of the Hanson family--- Priscilla and the Senator, their son Grosvenor and his wife Annie Maria, the latters’ nine children who had lived to adulthood, as well as four more children who died in infancy, or young--- is buried in the old cemetery at the edge of the woods beyond the formal gardens, surrounded by a wrought-iron fence.
The rumors and tales told in the staff room of this part of the house’s history were darker, and began to intersect with the countless stories of employees and guests who claim to have experienced strange events and even seen uncanny things while staying or working at the house.
The two old Hanson ladies who remained in the house at the turn of the 20th century used the ballroom to store their enormous stock of canned fruits and vegetables. During the same period, a grimy painting was discovered, blocking a drafty fireplace on the second floor. This painting turned out to be an original Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington, and is now part of the Frick Collection.
It was rumored that the family who lived in the house had a son who was either crazy, monstrous, or had severe developmental disabilities, and that he was often locked in the room in the cellar where the extra chairs are kept. This is in the same area of the basement where two employees from the phone company were servicing the telephone connections in the early 1990s, when they suddenly left without completing the job, telling the manager on duty that they wouldn’t be returning. There was something “very wrong” down there, and it didn’t involve the phone lines. None of Belmont’s employees liked going into the basement, which was built of local stone and multichambered, running the length of the five sections of the house.
We were told that somebody was once shot on the front porch because he had borrowed his cousin’s horse without permission. This is the same area of the house that is featured in Belmont’s “official” ghost story, published in several places, of a phantom coach which drives up the circular drive and stops at the front door, horses stamping, while an invisible person stomps up the porch steps, enters the house, and marches toward the kitchen wing. I’ve never met a person who has experienced this “official” phenomenon (although a friend of a friend's mother claims to have heard it, once.)
Instead, kitchen employees are plagued by trays of glasses that smash while safely stored in glass-fronted cupboards, carefully counted silverware and plates which disappear and reappear in a few minutes’ time, mysteriously exploding wine containers, and other frustrating events which seem to escalate when especially important guests are in residence. Objects have even been seen flying across the dining room by employees working alone, with both doors to the room closed.
A woman wearing white has been seen, usually appearing as a real, solid woman clad in Victorian clothing, in a particular bedroom by more than one guest, or sitting quietly in the corner of an adjoining bedroom by an employee who was checking the rooms one evening before the arrival of an important group. She may be the same person whose misty, white-clad form was seen on several occasions standing at a small bridge over a nearby stream in the early morning hours.
September 26, 2013, a week after my discovery in the Kent County News: I don’t remember if this was a slow day at work, but I do know that I took the time to contact several of my Belmont friends, with whom I’ve never lost touch. I couldn’t wait to tell them that by pure chance, I had stumbled upon an incredible story that filled in many of the lost details of the scraps of history we had heard about the “troubled” years of our former workplace. After finding the article about the May 1883 murder in the Kent County News, I consulted the Baltimore Sun from the same time period, where I found a series of articles describing, in true Victorian fashion, full details of the murder, inquest, funeral of the deceased, testimonies of both families, and Ned Hanson’s trial. Along with census records of the decades leading up to and following the murder, these articles helped me piece together a strange, sad story of this family who had lived at the heart of our community a hundred years before any of us had been born, in the very house that, in retrospect, had played a huge part in our coming of age, early adulthoods, and for some of us, even in the formation of our own families. What’s more, the story oddly lined up, in certain places, with some of the strange, unexplained phenomena for which the house had become known.
The following headlines are taken directly from The Baltimore Sun (microfilm, collection of Clifton M. Miller Library at Washington College, Chestertown, Maryland.) Below each headline, I have summarized the contents of the accompanying article. Portions in italics are directly quoted from the newspaper.
Part of the Hanson family in the late 1800s, date and names unknown. From a photo at Belmont Manor and Historic Park.
(The Sun, May 17, 1883; Vol. XCIII Issue 1 Page 1, Published in Baltimore, Maryland.)
A MADMAN'S TRAGIC ACT.
KILLING HIS INTIMATE FRIEND.
REVOLVER AND KNIFE BOTH EMPLOYED.
______________________________________________________
At a little before noon on May 16, 1883, Charles Ridgely White of Elk Ridge, Maryland drove to Belmont to see Charles Edward "Ned" Hanson in order to get some seed corn. With him in his carriage were a young girl and a female visitor to his house, a Miss Worthington from Washington. Mr. White was the owner of a farm named "Argyle", a mile above Ilchester, but is said to have lived at the time at his home "Tutbury", which is now located off of Elibank Road, but at the time had an entrance off of Lawyers Hill Road, before I-95 separated the two neighborhoods. The newspaper noted that White and Hanson lived on adjacent properties, and that their families had been great friends for a long time.
At the time, several Hanson siblings, all adults, were living at Belmont. They included Priscilla Hanson, age 37; Charles Edward Hanson, age 35; Grosvenor Hanson, age 27; Annie Hanson, age 25; and Florence Hanson, age 23. Three other brothers lived and did business in Baltimore. They were the grandchildren of Alexander Contee Hanson, the Congressman and newspaperman famous for his involvement with and near death at the hands of an angry mob during the Baltimore Riots, who died a U.S. Senator. Their father, Charles Grosvenor Hanson, had died 3 years earlier. He and his wife, Anna Maria Worthington, had a total of 12 children while living at Belmont, born between the years 1840 and 1864. Four of these children died at age 21 or younger; two of these were twin girls who died in infancy. Of the 8 remaining children, it looks like only one married, and he was widowed at an early age, with no children.
When Mr. White arrived at Belmont on May 16, only Priscilla and Annie were at home. After waiting for about a half hour for Charles to return, Mr. White prepared to leave, saying that he would return another day to see him. He was getting his horses ready to go when Mr. Hanson entered the house (presumably from a back or side door), asked one of his sisters who had come to call, and was told that it was Mr. White. He then walked into the dining room (now the Foyer, where the big staircase is located, and the little 'telephone closet') and picked up a bread knife which was lying on the sideboard. He walked calmly out the front door and when he was about 10 feet from Mr. White, he pulled out a revolver and fired three shots, all of which hit Mr. White in the head, one first passing through Mr. White's hand. Death was probably instantaneous, but Mr. Hanson then threw himself upon the body and cut Mr. White's throat with the bread knife, partially severing the windpipe. Both of his sisters witnessed this, as well as Mr. White's daughter and friend. Mr. Hanson then walked calmly back into the house, into the kitchen (now the dining room), washed the blood from the knife, and returned it to the sideboard in the dining room (now foyer.) He then went to his room and waited for his brothers John and Grosvenor to return from Baltimore.
When John and Grosvenor returned, Charles gave them a number of strange reasons for the shooting. He said that when his mother was dying (10 years earlier), her last request had been that he should kill Charles White, because he had killed Mr. Hanson's sister (Mary, who had died of an illness at Belmont in 1863, when she was 21 and Charles was 15.) Mr. Hanson had not been present at his mother's death. He apparently spent part of the 1870s in California, and it may have been during this time that his mother died. He also accused Mr. White of "flashing his eyes" to make himself look like Hanson.... a habit that Mr. Hanson had.
A jury of inquest was quickly assembled and met at Belmont at 4 p.m. the same day, where the family was assembled and to which Mr. White's body had been brought after the murder. 12 jurors were present, and two doctors, who made the postmortem examination on site, and testified that instantaneous death had been caused by the third shot, which entered the temple. The postmortem wound to the throat would not necessarily have been fatal. The Hanson sisters, several house servants, and two additional doctors testified that until this day, a very friendly relationship had existed between the two men, and that they often met to discuss farm operations. The only cause that could be assigned for the act was Mr. Hanson's mental state. One of Mr. Hanson's sisters had suffered attacks of insanity, and for some time leading up to this event, some of Mr. Hanson's behavior had made his family uneasy about his mental condition, although he was usually a good-natured person and had shown no signs that he might become violent. One of the farm hands testified that he had acted strangely that morning, walking around singing wildly at the top of his voice. The farmhand had remarked to his wife at home at dinnertime that Mr. Hanson was crazy.
At the conclusion of this investigation, the jury gave the verdict that on May 16, 1883, Charles R. White had died from a pistol wound inflicted by Charles E. Hanson, and that Charles E. Hanson was at the time insane. Charles was given into the custody of one of his brothers who, along with two other men, took Charles to the jail in Ellicott City. Before leaving, Charles wished everyone a good evening, and said that he would return later that evening after making an explanation for his actions.
~
(The Sun, May 18, 1883; Vol. XCIII Issue 2 Page 1, Published in Baltimore, Maryland.)
THE HOWARD COUNTY TRAGEDY.
Hanson's Talk and Appearance --- Much Sympathy Felt for the Family.
_____________________________________________________
'Mr. Charles Edward Hanson, who is confined in the jail at Ellicott City for the killing of Mr. Charles Ridgely White on Wednesday, said yesterday that he had acted in self defense. The spirit of his sister had appeared before him, he said, and warned him to be on his guard, as Mr. White would shoot him on sight. When he saw Mr. White he became convinced that the time had come for action. Consequently he killed him. When questioned on other subjects Mr. Hanson spoke clearly and quietly, but the moment the shooting was mentioned his eyes snapped and his talk was wild and disconnected. He has a pleasant face and a kindly blue eye when in repose. His quarters at the jail have been made comfortable with a new bed. A neighboring hotel furnishes his meals.
'Messrs. Murray, Samuel, and Grosvenor Hanson, his brothers, and several other kinsmen and friends called to see him during the afternoon. His brothers show unmistakable evidence of having suffered a great deal in consequence of the murder. They say that Chas. Hanson had shown signs of a gradual mental derangement ever since he came back from California. He thought at that time that three men were following him, and was frequently excited on account of his vagaries. Afterward he was sun struck, which increased his malady. He was never known to be violent, however. On the contrary, he was looked upon as a jolly good fellow, who was fond of listening to a funny joke, and could tell a capital story himself. Occasionally, when politics was under discussion, he would become excited and it was at such times that suspicions were created as to his sanity. Much sympathy is felt for the other brothers, who are thorough gentlemen. Even the sons of Mr. White take this view of the unhappy affair. Said one of them, "It was a great blow to us, but a far greater one to the Hanson boys. I pity them sincerely, and shall shake hands with them in the future as heartily as we clasped hands in the past. We think there is not the slightest doubt as to Charles Hanson being insane, but of course we cannot understand why his insanity took a turn so unexpected and terrible. The two families have always been intimate. Charles Hanson and my brother Stephenson here were such close friends that when Stephenson married, Hanson came home with him. We were all friendly with him, and were fond of hearing him tell of his adventures in California. Last Sunday Grosvenor Hanson came over to the house and was talking to father about corn planting. It was on business resulting from this conversation that made father go over to Hanson's on Wednesday. He was accompanied by Miss Worthington, who is visiting us, and by my little sister, both of whom were going to call on Miss Hanson. What occurred at the Hanson place is already known. My little sister says that she saw Hanson in the rear of father, but thought at first that he was a colored man going to attend to the horses. She says that when the attack was made Hanson rushed forward raging like a wild beast." The White family were all at the old residence yesterday, and the sons talked unreservedly about the occurrence, but without bitterness, and with frequent expressions of sympathy for the Hanson family.
'Messrs. John J. Donaldson and J. Upshur Dennis have been engaged as counsel for Hanson. It is not unlikely an effort will be made to get him out of jail on a writ of habeas corpus. If this is not done he will remain in prison until the grand jury moves in the matter. The White family will leave the whole thing with the State. If the writ is issued, however, they will try to prevent Hanson's release unless he is immediately put in an insane asylum and kept there, as they think it would be dangerous to let him go about free, especially since he is said to have threatened to kill them.
'The pistol with which Mr. White was shot is a five-barrelled revolver, marked "Red Jacket No. 3." The knife is a large, sharp instrument used for cutting bread. The funeral of Mr. White will take place shortly before noon today.'
~
(The Sun, May 19, 1883; Vol. XCIII Issue 3 Page 4, Published in Baltimore, Maryland.)
LOCAL MATTERS.
Funeral of Mr. Charles R. White.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Charles Ridgely White was buried on Friday, May 18, 1883 in St. John's Cemetery, Ellicott City, following a service held at the White home. The Reverend Hall Harrison of the Protestant Episcopal Church officiated, and a large gathering of friends and family were at the house. The trip to the cemetery "was a long, silent, and dusty drive, and would have been unendurable had not the fragrancy of the wild honeysuckle and the varying tints of the grass and trees given a refreshing yet quiet and beautiful charm to the scene."
Among the friends and acquaintances in attendance were the brothers of Charles Hanson. Hanson's two sisters were unable to attend on account of being ill.
Following the service, the Hanson brothers visited Charles, who was not well, having been attended by a physician for cramps in the stomach. He still spoke disjointedly about the shooting, but denied that he threatened to kill the White boys; in fact, he had expressed fear that they would want to kill him for what he had done to their father, but was misunderstood in the excitement at the house.
~
(The Sun, June 11, 1883; Vol. XCIII Issue 22 Page 4, Published in Baltimore, Maryland.)
CHARLES EDWARD HANSON.
Adjudged Insane by a Jury and Committed to an Asylum.
______________________________________________________________________
On May 30, 1883, upon the request of the Hanson brothers, Judge Miller at Ellicott City signed an order directing that a jury be summoned on June 9 to inquire into the mental condition of Charles Hanson. When Charles was brought into the courtroom, he smiled and greeted his friends, shaking hands with several of them.
Charles' brother Murray testified to his long illness in 1871 from sunstroke, and said that during the illness, Charles became convinced that his attending physician had poisoned him. At another time, he believed that two men were lying in wait for him in Baltimore with the intent of killing him, and he began carrying a pistol so that he could defend himself. He went to California in 1875 and when he returned, he complained that some men had followed him back to Maryland so they could kill him. His family became worried that he was losing his mind, but when a long period of time elapsed during which his hallucinations seemed to have left him, they began to feel relieved at his apparent recovery. Murray told of several incidents which showed the imbalance of his brother's mind, including his uncharacteristic fits of temper when discussing matters of politics, and his belief that he was a Mason, which was based upon his belief that he could tell a man's intentions by looking into his eyes.
After this testimony and two others (one by a physician and one by the prisoner's sister, a witness to the murder,) Charles Hanson made his own statement, which lasted almost an hour and left observers without a doubt as to his mental condition. Two sons of Mr. White also testified to his insanity, noting that they had never considered him so prior to the shooting. The testimony of several doctors followed. The jury retired for only a few minutes, returning with the verdict that surprised nobody.
~
Charles Edward Hanson, in June 1883, was committed to the Maryland Hospital for the Insane, now Spring Grove, in Catonsville. He remained there until his death in 1931 at the age of 83.
A few years later, sometime prior to 1900, his sister Priscilla was also committed to the Maryland Hospital for the Insane. She remained there until her death in 1925 at the age of 78.
Charles' younger sisters, Anna Maria "Nannie" Hanson and Florence Hanson, lived at Belmont until sometime around 1910, when they moved into rented accommodations in Elkridge following the transfer of the property to the Bruce family, relatives of theirs who were also descendants of the Dorseys, the original owners.
Charles, Priscilla, Nannie and Florence, along with their parents, grandparents, and many brothers and sisters, are now laid to rest in the Hanson family burial ground at Belmont.
~
The victim, Mr. Charles Ridgely White
~
POSTSCRIPT
After writing the account above, I noticed something really intriguing while looking again at the 1860 Census.
It turns out that Charles Ridgely White was not the only Charles White who was acquainted with the family.
According to the 1860 census, a young teacher from Massachusetts named C. J. White was living at Belmont. I was able to find a brief biography of a Charles Joyce White from Massachusetts who, after his graduation from Harvard in 1859 at age 20, became a teacher in Maryland. Odds are very strong that this was the C.J. White who was living at Belmont, employed as a teacher, in 1860. He later became a Harvard professor in Mathematics who published some of his work.
~
Charles Joyce White
from Class of 1859. Harvard College Class of 1859 class album of Henry Weld Fuller. HUD 259.704.3, Harvard University Archives.
Mary was 18 when the 20-year-old White came to live at Belmont. Three years later, she died from an illness. Charles Joyce White never married. He died in 1917 at age 81.
20 years after Mary's death, her brother killed Charles Ridgely White, a neighbor and cousin, at Belmont.
After committing the murder, Ned Hanson said that his mother had instructed him, when she was dying, that he should kill Charles White. Her reason, Ned said, was that Charles White had been responsible for the death of Ned's older sister, Mary, who died in 1863 when she was 21 and Ned was just 15. The next day, confined to jail in Ellicott City, he stated that the spirit of his sister had appeared to him, and warned him to be on guard against Charles White, who would shoot him on sight.
Is there a chance that Ned, if mentally unstable, confused one Charles White with another? Did something happen between the teacher Charles and Mary in the years before her death that could have caused Ned and/or his mother to hold Charles (the teacher) responsible?
Did Ned believe that he was visited by the ghost of his mother at the time of her death, and that of his sister prior to committing the murder?
What relationship is there, if any, between mental illness and extrasensory experience?
The driveway through the gates to Belmont. Photo, J. Nesbitt
