News and notes from
NEWS AND NOTES FROM The Prince George's County Historical Society
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NEWS AND NOTES FROMThe Prince George's County Historical SocietyVol. XII, no. 12 December 1984 The Christmas Party at Riversdale: December 15 Come celebrate the Christmas season with fellow members of the Prince George's County Historical Society at the Society's annual Christmas party on Saturday, December 15, at 2 p.m. This year the party will be at Riversdale, the Calvert mansion. The house will be decorated for the season, and the food and drink will be plentiful. Riversdale is a beautiful house in any season, but particularly at Christmas time. Bring along friends and family. And if you have a holiday food speciality you would like to share‑‑a snack or dessert‑‑bring it along too! Riversdale is located at 4811 Riverdale Road in Riverdale. Built by the Calvert family in the first decade of the 19th century, it was the center of one of the greatest plantations in northern Prince George's County. Ring in the holiday season in this beautiful home. Take a break from all the hustle and bustle and join us at the Christmas party, on December 15. Christmas in Prince George's County Celebrate the season in historic Prince‑George's County! Visit our historic sites at their finest. Belair, December 9: There will be tours of the house, and holiday gift items will be on sale, from 2 to 4 p.m. Belair, the Home of Governors, is one of Prince George's County's finest colonial houses. Location: 12207 Tulip Grove Drive, Bowie. Phone: 464‑8619. Fort Washington, December 16; Games, singing, and decorating for Christmas will be the order of the day, from noon until 5 p.m. A Civil War Santa will visit during the afternoon. The fort's ancient gray bastions stand high above the Potomac River, across from Mount Vernon. Location: Fort Washington Road, off Indian Head Highway. Phone: 292‑2112. Montpelier, December 6& 7: The house is closed for restoration, but candies will be in the windows and the celebrations will still go on outside. The Friends of Montpelier will burn a PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, MARYLANDERECTED ON ST. GEORGE'S DAY, APRIL 23.1696Yule log and light a Christmas tree Thursday and Friday evening between 6 and 9 p.m. Entries in a decorations contest will be on display upstairs in the carriage house, and in the gift shop downstairs, crafts and other gifts will be on sale. The decorations and gift shop will also be open on Saturday, December 8, from noon to 3 p.m. Regular gift shop hours are Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday between noon and 4 p.m. Montpelier, a Georgian masterpiece that dates from the 1780s, is located on Laurel‑Bowie Road south of Laurel. Gift shop phone: 776‑0752. Oxon Hill Manor, December 161 "Music at the Manor" and Christmas Open‑House. Noon to 5 p.m. Free. Oxon Hill Manor is Sumner Welles's magnificent mansion, built in 1929. Location: 6901 Oxon Hill Road, Oxon Hill. Phone: 839‑7783. Riversdale, December 8 & 9: The house will be decorated and open for tours from noon to 4 p.m. on Saturday December 8, music will be provided by John Douglas Hall, "an 18th century gentleman," a regular performer at Gadsby's Tavern. On Sunday the 9th, music will be by Carl Schwartz at the virginal, and the “Mostly Madrigals” carolers. The Prince George’s County Historical Quilt Association will display hand-made quilts and the Riversdale Historical Society will offer the Maryland 350th anniversary medallion for sale for the last time. The Gift Shop will be open. Admission: $2.00 for adults, $1.50 for seniors and students and $1.O0 for children. Tour and refreshments (traditional fare of Christmas past) included. The fee supports the restoration fund. Location: 4811 Riverdale Road, Phone: 779‑2011. Surratt House, December 16 to 18: Christmas Candlelight Tours will be offered on Sunday from 5 to 9 p.m. and on Monday and Tuesday from 6 to 9 p.m. Admission fee. Celebrate a Victorian Christmas at the Surratt House. Phone: 868‑11211. Location: 9110 Brandywine Road, Clinton. Also this holiday season, the Prince George's Civic Opera,, will offer Hansel and Gretel, by Humperdinck, on Saturday and Sunday, December 8 and 9, at 3 p.m., at King Auditorium, Bowie State College. Riversdale to Close for Restoration; Montpelier to Open Riversdale will close for restoration after the end of the year and remain closed for quite some time. Most of the work will be necessary exterior repairs, such as the roof, windows, etc. The Gift Shop housed in the mansion will thus be closing, too. Last opportunities to see the house and shop will be during the open house on December 8 and 9 and at the Society's party on December 15. On a bright note, Montpelier‑‑which has been closed for a year for restoration work‑‑will reopen in the early spring. The restoration of the Gazebo is almost finished now. The Winter Break: No meetings in January or February: The next meeting Will be in March Opera in Prince George's County: From 1752 to 1984 The Prince George's Civic Opera will celebrate the holidays with two performances of Engelbert Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel on Saturday and Sunday the 8th and 9th of December, 3 p.m., at the King Auditorium at Bowie State College. This opera is a holiday favorite, especially among children and will feature an outstanding cast. For information call the opera office at 699‑2459 during working hours or 338‑4088 in the evenings. It is worth noting, as this 350th anniversary year draws to a close, that 1984 has been an outstanding year for opera in Prince George's County. There follows a review of the past year in opera from an historian's viewpoint. Prince George's County made history in September, when its own Civic Opera began its fifteenth season with a "brilliant', production of Mozart's Don Giovanni. (The adjective is a direct quote from the Washington Post's music critic, Joseph McLellan.) Don Giovanni is one of the favorites of all operas, a marked contrast to the Prince George's Opera's earlier production this year, the little‑known Beggar's Opera; but The Beggar's Opera, especially in Prince George's County, is historic indeed. The Prince George's Opera performed The Beggar's Opera in June 1984 (to rave reviews) as part of this year's celebration of Maryland's 350th anniversary, and in special commemoration of the performance of the same opera right here in Prince George's County in 1752. In 1752, the Murray‑Kean company (run by Walter Murray and Thomas Kean) made its way through Virginia and Maryland, offering various pieces of comedy and musical theater. After giving performances in Williamsburg and Norfolk, they appeared in Annapolis in June 1752, calling themselves a "company from Virginia," and presented on June 22 the first performance of the tremendously popular Beggar's Opera. The Maryland Gazette announced that as soon as the company finished performing in Annapolis, they would give performances in Upper Marlborough, Piscataway, and Port Tobacco. Accordingly, there soon appeared in the Gazette an announcement of the performance of The Beggar's Opera in Upper Marlborough, on Thursday, August 20, at 7 o'clock in the New Theatre; the company now called itself a "company of Comedians from Annapolis." Another performance at the New Theatre in Upper Marlborough was announced for Thursday, September 14, this time "with Instrumental Music to each Air given by a Set of private Gentlemen." This may well have been the first performance of an opera accompanied by an orchestra in the American colonies. (It is not known whether the company ever went on to perform in Piscataway.) First performed at Lincoln's Inn Fields Theater (London) in January 1728, The Beggar's Opera had been a great success and had introduced a new art form, the ballad‑opera, a light‑hearted burlesque of contemporary Italian opera. Its lyrics were written by John Gay, and its music based mainly on popular ballads newly arranged by composer John Christopher Pepush. It was first rejected by London theaters as being too bawdy and down‑to‑earth. After all, the most popular operas of the day were Handel's, and Handel's stage was peopled with gods and goddesses, and the heroes of myth and literature. The Gay‑Pepush stage, in contrast, teemed with highwaymen, beggars, pickpockets, prostitutes, jailers, and receivers of stolen goods. But in 1728, a London producer named John Rich agreed to produce this strange new ballad‑opera, and it became an instant success. Most of its songs were familiar folk melodies, although one was a direct steal from Handel: the march from his opera Rinaldo. This effrontery delighted the London audience; The Beggar's Opera ran there for sixty‑three performances, and then did a circuit of the provinces, playing forty more performances in such cities as Bath and Bristol. It was, in fact, so successful that Handel's Italian‑style operas, which had been the rage in London for nearly twenty years, could not compete, and the Royal Academy of Music (of which Handel was one of the musical directors) collapsed in bankruptcy. The saying soon circulated in London that The Beggar's Opera “made Gay rich, and Rich gay." Through The Beggar's Opera, Gay introduced to the world the dashing highwayman Macheath and his pretty Polly Peachum; two hundred years later Berthold Brecht retold their story in his Dreigroshenoper (1928) with Kurt Weill's famous musical score; their Three Penny Opera has earned a lasting place in the history of musical theater. When The Beggar's Opera came to Prince George's County in 1752, it was performed in the New Theatre in Upper Marlborough. This building, known also as the Ball Room or Assembly Room, was located on the east side of Elm Street, about half way between Dr. Beanes's tomb and Main Street (approximately where the Barrister Building is now). It must have been newly built in 1752, and it served as a facility for balls, concerts, and theatrical productions for approximately a century. It may have been no more than a glorified warehouse if it was the same structure described by Rev. Andrew Burnaby in his Travels in North America (1760): "I crossed over the Potomac into Maryland... and proceeded on my journey to Marlborough.... I here met with a strolling company of players.... I went to see their theatre, which was a neat convenient tobacco‑house, well fitted up for the purpose." In any case, the Ball Room/Theatre building had ceased to function as such by the mid‑nineteenth century. The lots around it were by then owned by prominent Marlboro attorneys Caleb Clarke Magruder and Thomas G. Pratt. (Pratt had served as Governor of Maryland, 1845‑1848, and later, 1850‑1857, as U.S. Senator.) After the Civil War, Magruder bought up from Pratt (by then removed to Baltimore) the lots adjoining the Ball Room, and in 1870 purchased from the Town of Marlborough Commissioners the Ball Room lot itself. The old building was almost certainly no longer standing at that time; Magruder proceeded to develop the lots into a complex of professional/commercial establishments, and they have remained so to this day. The 1752 performance of The Beggar's Opera must have been a cultural highlight of that year in Prince George's County, as the 1984 production certainly was in this anniversary year. And the Prince George's Civic Opera, a cultural resource of which the county can be tremendously proud, seems to be well on its way to upholding the historical tradition. ‑‑Susan G. Pearl New Officers of the Society The following slate was elected at the November meeting of the Prince George's County Historical Society to serve as officers for the year 1985: President John Giannetti Vice president Alan Virta Corresponding Secretary Margo Ritchie Recording Secretary Warren Rhoads Treasurer Herb Embrey Historian Frederick S. DeMarr Directors Susanna Cristofane Col. Sam Crook W.C. Dutton Anne Ferguson Paul Lanham John Mitchell Don Skarda We take note of two departures from the slate of officers this year. Edith Bagot, after serving for fourteen years as Corresponding Secretary, has elected to retire, and James C. Wilfong, Jr., has stepped down from the post of Historian. Among her other duties, Mrs. Bagot was responsible for the circulation of the newsletter and the maintenance of a mailing list that has grown to over five hundred. Mr. Wilfong is a past president of the society. Our thanks to both, and to the members of this year's nominations committee, Vera Rollo and Jean Speicher. New Members of the Society We welcome the following individuals to membership in the Prince George's County Historical Society: Sponsor Mr & Mrs John A. Williams College Park A. Virta George H. Hayne Silver Spring F. De Marr Joseph J. Sullivan Beltsville F. De Marr L.R. Fox & C.S. Clough Hyattsville C. Headlee Mr & Mrs A.R. McLaughlin Forestville A. Virta Robert A. & Helen C. Neff Camp Springs A. Virta
--Maryland Gazette, Dec. 26, 1782 Until the Woodrow Wilson Bridge was built, the only way to get directly from Oxon Hill to Alexandria, Va., was by boat! New Books on Prince George's County Two new books have just been published on Prince George's County, and both of them would make fine Christmas presents for those interested in our county's history. Shirley Baltz's book, A Chronicle of Belair, is now available by mail‑order. It is a 335‑page hardback volume featuring a history of the Belair estate and its people from 1681 to 1957, an architectural analysis of the l8th‑century Belair mansion (by James T. Wollon), a detailed report on the archeological digs at the mansion (by Susan Pearl), and a genealogy of the Ogle family with names of almost 2,000 descendants of Samuel and Anne (Tasker) Ogle, the first inhabitants of the house. The price is $12.50, with a $2.50 fee for mailing and handling (total, 14.00). Checks payable to: Friends of the Belair Estate, 12207 Tulip Grove Drive, Bowie, Md. 20715. To be released during the second week of December is Alan Virta's Prince George's County: A Pictorial History. This book contains over 350 photos documenting the history of our county from the first exploration in 1608 to the present day. It is a hardbound volume with 250 pages. John Hanson Savings and Loan is sponsoring the first limited collector's edition of the book (each numbered), and the Prince George's Chamber of Commerce is marketing it. The price is $24.95 plus $1.75 postage. Maryland residents please add 5% sales tax ($1.25). Cheeks p. to: Prince George's Chamber of Commerce, 9827 Central Avenue, Largo, Md. 20772. ‑‑John Giannetti More on the Pope's Creek Line The August train trip on the old Pope's Creek Line was advertised as the first passenger trip on that line in more than thirty years. That appears not to be the case. Mr. Charles R. Kilbourne of Upper Marlboro writes that "in 1969, during the Marlboro Fair... there was a steam excursion train that pulled passengers on round trips from Upper Marlboro to Brandywine for a period of about three days." With the county fair now back in Marlboro, it would certainly be nice to institute those excursions again. Furniture in Maryland, 1740‑1940 The Maryland Historical Society has recently published a catalog of its collection of furniture entitled Furniture in Maryland, 1740‑1940. The book is 342 pages long and contains 24 color plates and 283 black and white photos. Price: $32‑50 plus $2.50 for postage and handling. Maryland residents add 5% sales tax. Make checks payable to the Maryland Historical and mail to the‑society at 201 W. Monument Street, Baltimore, Md. 21201. This is the monthly newsletter of the Prince George's County Historical Society. P.O. Box 14, Riverdale, Md. 20737 Dues: $5.00 per year
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