Know Your Neighbors – Cylburn Mansion
Thank you to Clark Semmes for this 8th installment of his 2,361 part series, Know Your Neighbors:
Today, the Cylburn Mansion sits in the center of the 207-acre Cylburn Arboretum like yesterday’s wedding cake in an empty ballroom. The paint on the walls is peeling, rooms are filled with folding metal chairs or have been appropriated as office space, and the road to the mansion’s front door is closed. But it was not always this way. At one time, the Cylburn Mansion was one of the finest homes in Maryland, and an invitation to a party there was as highly prized as the chromium ore that paid for the home’s construction.
The story of Cylburn’s past begins at the Bel Air market. Sometime around 1808, a young man named Isaac Tyson noticed an unusual, glittery rock being used to prop up a barrel at the outdoor market in Bel Air. Isaac recognized the rock as chromite, a valuable mineral used then to make pigments for paint. Isaac soon tracked down the source of the chromite and eventually bought up a number of chromite mines stretching across Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. In 1845, Isaac, by then a wealthy man, established the Baltimore Chrome Works on 20 acres of land on the west side of Fell’s Point. The company was later sold to Allied Chemical Corporation and today the site sits toxic and unused in the heart of the Inner Harbor.
Two sons, Jesse and James, followed Isaac into the mining and refining business and, like their father, grew fabulously wealthy. Sometime around 1861, Jesse Tyson began buying up hundreds of acres of land along the west bank of the Jones Falls. In 1863, with the Civil War raging, 37-year-old Jesse commissioned work to begin on a grand Victorian mansion intended as a summer home for him and his mother Hannah. Unfortunately, Hannah did not live to see the completion of the mansion in 1888, but by then there was another woman in Jesse’s life. In 1888, the 62-year-old lifetime bachelor married 19-year-old debutante Edyth Johns and together they set about making the house they dubbed “Cylburn” into a home. Once married, Jesse liked to brag that he had “the most beautiful home, the most beautiful wife and the fastest horses in the state of Maryland.”
By all accounts, Jesse and Edyth found great happiness in their marriage. Together they filled their home with European antiques, and socialized extensively. All things must pass and in 1906, at the advanced age of 80, Jesse caught pneumonia and died within a week. A widow at 37, Edyth eventually married an army major named Bruce Cotton from North Carolina. The couple lived happily in the home until 1942, when Edyth passed away and Major Cotton sold the property to the city for $42,300.
Today, Cylburn Arboretum is an oasis within the bustling city of Baltimore. In the shadow of Sinai Hospital, which sits on a nearby hilltop, Cylburn is both a sanctuary of solitude and a reminder of a forgotten time. The mansion is a bit neglected, but if one squints just right, one can still imagine it in its heyday, with cigar smoking businessmen discussing their latest ventures in one room, and elegant ladies in another sipping tea and discussing art and the theater. While the mansion may be decaying, the arboretum is thriving. Vast greenhouses shelter thousands of plants, 2.5 miles of trails snake around the grounds, and a nature museum entertains school children with the wonder of the natural world. Just in time for spring, a brand new Visitor’s Orientation and Education Center is nearing completion. In sharp contrast to the mansion, the glass and stone center has a green roof, composting toilets, and geothermal heating and cooling. A grand opening is scheduled for May 1st, followed by the 42 Annual Market Day on May 8.
For more information, see http://www.cylburnassociation.org.
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Nice piece Clark. When involved with the Cylburn Association I did quite a bit of research on Edyth Johns (she was related to Johns Hopkins, whose mother was a Johns. The Hopkins, Johns & Tyson families were Quakers ). Edyth was a passionate gardener and had a large staff of gardeners. The original gardens at Cylburn were quite incredible examples of late 19th & early 20th century garden design and styles. She hired Frederick Law Olmsted to help with part of its design. None of these original gardens still exist at Cylburn.
Edyth Johns is one of the Baltimore beauties included in the mural in the lobby of Shriver Hall at JHU.
Cylburn was designed by architect George A.Frederick,who was the architect for City Hall.
After Edyth died Bruce Cottcn sold the property. It was used as a orphanage for awhile before being taken over and used an an office building by the City. It has been the main office for the City’s Horticultural Department for many many years.
Thanks! That is great information. So here is the mystery – why did Edyth and Jesse name their estate Cylburn?
You might not know, but for many years in the 1950′s cylburn was used as a home for boys and girls. In 1956 they moved their operation to a new campus on cold spring lane. You might want to add that to the history.
trying to locate a child who we think was orphaned at cylburn
in probably the early 60′s was this in fact an orphange or a place
for poor children like summer camp? how did a child get there?