Tour
This is the living room or parlor where meetings took place between the Cresaps,
George Washington, and Luther Martin, Maryland's first attorney general.
From this room Captain Michael Cresap called for volunteers to fight with
General Washington. All of the floorboards, doorways and mantles are original.
The interior walls were also made of field stone.
Winding staircases are repeated through all four levels including the spacious
attic. The finely milled trim differs on all four fireplace mantles, except
for the cellar hearth which is field stone and brick. Outside the upstairs
door of this room, soldiers escaped into the mountainside by way of a ramp
that was originally attached to the house.
The upstairs rooms are large and gracious for a home of this period. The
bedroom features a rope-tied bed, or a handyman's bed, which would have been
filled with ticking of straw or leaves. The rug on the bed is a 17th century
reverse loom wool, dyed with natural plants and berries. The chairs in this
same room are from the Cresap family, and the lamp in the window is from
a canal boat.
Michael built his house over a spring, located in the northeast corner of
the basement. This front part of the basement served as a jail and the bars
on the windows are original as well as the hand-hewn chestnut beams overhead.
Captain Michael Cresap led 140 riflemen to Boston to fight with General
Washington. He died on his way home of a fever and was buried in the Trinity
Church graveyard. The stone reads: "In Memory of Michael Cresap First Cap.
Of the Rifle Batalions And Son of Col. Thomas Cresap Who Departed this/Life
October the 18, 1775."
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