Good Bye Old House

[RJNorton]

Many thanks to Rich Smyth for sending these pictures to post (with Laurie's permission):

Also, thank you to Laurie for sending the history of the house.

THIS OLD HOUSE…

They often say that, if walls could talk, they would tell some fascinating stories about a house and the people who lived in it. The house at 7500 Accokeek Road in the historic village of T.B. is no exception. The following brief synopsis highlights some interesting national history related to “this old house:”

The house began as a story-and-a-half cottage with two rooms down, two rooms up, a roof that continued down to form a front porch and a lean-to addition for a kitchen. It was built during the first half of the 1800s by Jeremiah Townshend, the same carpenter that built Surratt House, now a Civil War museum in Clinton, Maryland. For awhile, the house served as the post office for the hamlet of T.B. as well as the home of Mr. Townshend’s sister.

In 1862, Joseph Eli Huntt of Charles County bought the house and moved there with his wife and young daughter. He took over the postmastership and moved the postal facility to a store that he ran next door to the house. In 1865, the family grew with the birth of a son. In the same year, the Huntts and the house had a small brush with history.

As the Civil War ground to an end in the waning months of 1864, the young actor, John Wilkes Booth, embarked on a scheme to kidnap President Abraham Lincoln, spirit him via carriage into Southern Maryland and cross the Potomac River en route to the Confederate capital at Richmond. According to one source, Mr. Huntt was prepared to provide a fresh team of horses when the kidnappers arrived in T.B.

The kidnap plot failed, and Booth changed his plans to assassination. On April 13, 1865, one of his gang members, David Edgar Herold, who was serving as a scout for the group, was sent into Charles County to make sure that members of the Confederate underground were still in place. On his way back to Washington City, he was caught in a sudden rainstorm. Reaching T.B., he stopped at Mr. Huntt’s store and asked to spend the night by the warm stove. He was well-known to the family, so he ended up spending the night in the downstairs bedroom at the home. When the family got up the next morning, he was gone – leaving behind a nightshirt bearing the laundry mark of John H. Surratt, Jr., Booth’s #2 man in the kidnap scheme. That nightshirt is now on display at Surratt House Museum.

That night, April 14, 1865, Booth shot Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre in Washington. He and Herold fled the city into Southern Maryland, riding hard past the Huntt home shortly after midnight. The family was up feeding the infant and remembered hearing horses and the dogs in the village barking. Later that day, they had federal troops knocking at the door inquiring about riders in the night, but not telling what had happened. When Mr. Huntt found out the story, he was warned to keep the visit from Herold a secret, which he did and likely spared himself from imprisonment.

Over the years, the family grew and so did the house. Mr. Huntt became quite a businessman, owning hundreds of acres, five farms, a new store in T.B. (now the New York Deli), and a funeral business. In the 1870s, after the birth of two more daughters, he enlarged his house to two-and-a-half stories. In 1905, his widow added the large parlor and bedroom above.

In a large field behind the house was the family’s sheep meadow. There’s some history attached to that also. When President Woodrow Wilson was courting his second wife, Edith Bolling Galt, they enjoyed taking drives down into Southern Maryland, using what is now Brandywine Road. They often brought along a picnic lunch and would stop beside the sheep meadow to eat and enjoy the quiet. On the way back, their driver would go to Mr. Huntt’s old store – now run by his son-in-law, Bruce Burroughs – to fill the gas tank. Mr. Burroughs and his son, Huntt, would chat with the President and answer questions about the raising of sheep. During World War I, President Wilson installed sheep on the White House lawn to solve the “mowing” problem. The wool from the sheep went into making uniforms for the U.S. troops. Was the President inspired by the sheep at our old home? We like to think so.

Until 1950, the house sat where the access lane from Brandywine Road to dual-lane Route 5 is today. When the State of Maryland decided to build the “new” Route 5, the house had to go. It was going to be torn down, but Mr. Huntt’s granddaughter fought the State and got them to agree to move the house back to the sheep meadow and to turn it around 180-degrees to face Accokeek Road. The sheep meadow became the lawn, and David Herold’s bedroom became a pantry.

And there the old home has stayed for another 64 years. It has been vacant since 1993, when Mr. Huntt’s granddaughter had to move in with her daughter. Nothing much changed until 2003 when vandals and thieves discovered it. The results of that, demolition by society, has stripped the home of its dignity – but its history remains, at least for the time-being.

Finis: On the night of May 3-4, 2014, vandals completed their work. The Huntt home burned to the ground.


Laurie Verge
Great-granddaughter of Joseph Eli Huntt