Assassination Trivia

[L Verge]

Changing the subject a bit, I am offering up some trivia related to the escape of John Wilkes Booth. Not a question - just some interesting history.

For those of you who have gone along with the Surratt Society's bus tours over Booth's escape route, you know that, near the end of the trail, there is a wonderful old home that is now enjoying a renewal thanks to the efforts of new owners. The home is named "Cleydael" and dates to the 1850s when built as a summer home for the very wealthy family of Dr and Mrs. Richard Henry Stuart (descended from the Stuart kings of England). Mrs. Stuart came from a very wealthy and prominent family in Maryland, the daughter of George Calvert (of the Lords Baltimore, proprietary owners of colonial Maryland) and Rosalie Stier Calvert.

It is Rosalie and her lineage that this is all about. Rosalie was the daughter of Henri-Joseph Stier and his wife, Marie-Louise Peeters, who fled Antwerp, Belgium, in 1794, during the French invasion. They settled in Annapolis originally, but began building an elegant Georgian mansion in my home county of Prince George's in Maryland. Baron von Stier and his wife returned to Belgium in 1805, leaving the task of completing the home to their daughter and her husband. It was named "Riversdale" and is a National Historic Landmark and museum. The Stiers left behind a magnificent art collection with many Old Masters, and their daughter became a remarkable essayist and chronicler of events just outside the new capital city of the U.S. Her writings describe visits by such leaders as "Little Tommy Jefferson" (whom she did not care for) and Henry Clay.

Fast forward: On an office wall in the museum is a drawing of an ancient castle on the outskirts of Antwerp. The castle is named "Cleydael" and was one of the ancestral homes of the Stiers. One of their granddaughters, Julia Calvert (b. 1814), would marry Dr. Richard Henry Stuart and move to King George County in Virginia. Their main mansion was on the banks of the Potomac River, but they built their summer home inland and named it after the "Cleydael" in Belgium. It was here that Booth and Herold would come in 1865 to seek food and shelter - only to be turned away and sent to the cabin of a free black man nearby. It was in the 1980s when James O. Hall made the connection between the American "Cleydael" and the European one and shared it with historians at "Riversdale" as well as Surratt House.

Return to the Belgian history of "Cleydael," and you'll learn that its name literally means "clay of the valley," and that is the Flemish motto over its entrance. The castle dates to the 1300s and was visited by Cromwell and the Duke of Alva, only two of the many famous men who stayed there. Legend has it that a guardian serpent with nine silver eyes resides in the moat that surrounds the castle. Today, there is a 65-acre golf course and buildings that surround the castle, but I believe that it is once again a private home.

Here's a short video with no narrative, just lovely music and beautiful views of the Belgian "Cleydael" that inspired the American "Cleydael:" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqjEI_GsVbY

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For a sneak peek at the American "Cleydael," go here: http://www.cleydaelestate.com/