Ruscombe Mansion History Project

Some months ago we were contacted by a Tyson family historian named Johnny Johnson regarding the slight inaccuracy we had posted about our property's history on our website. We have since met with Mr. Johnson and he presented us with many fascinating maps and old family photos during a brief history lesson. What you see above is part of the James W. Tyson family posed around their family home which they built somewhere between 1861-68 and which they called "Ruscombe". This is NOT our building, even though it DOES look a little like it.

The James W. Tyson family actually built what we know today as the "Stone Mansion" formerly occupied by Waldorf, and called their home Ruscombe. James W.'s brother, named Jesse Tyson, built his much bigger house on the neighboring plot, and is today known as the Cylburn mansion. Mr. Johnson has connected us to Pat Draisey at Cylburn who forwarded us a brief synopsis of the history of the Stone Mansion which included this summary: "1879 - James moves to Vermont but holds onto property in Baltimore. Of his 110 acres, he had given his daughters some land when they married. Hanna Ann and her husband ended up with about 19 acres and Elizabeth about 5 acres. 5/28/1887 - James sells 37&2/10 acres to Francis J. LeMoyne a retired attorney from Chicago. This acreage contained the Ruscombe Mansion [the Stone Mansion]. James held onto 47.64 acres south east of Lemoyne and north of Hanna. This land had his name on it until after his death (he died in 1900 and on the 1915 map it was labeled the James W. Tyson Estate.)"

We have a copy of this 1915 map referred to above, and have concluded that the plot where our buildings are located were owned at that time by a Charles E. Ellicott. Some further digging on the web has revealed that Charles E. Ellicott was married to a Madelein LeMoyne, so he was probably a son-in-law or other relation of the Lemoyne who bought the Stone Mansion. We are taking on this historical detective work a little at a time and will prepare a binder with the photos and maps and details on what we learn as we progress. The Ellicotts were also a famous Quaker family, of course, and the fact remains that "our Ruscombe WAS built on the original estate of James W. Tyson, a descendant of the famous abolitionist, Elisha Tyson, as we have been claiming. The main correction is that our building was not built by the Tyson family, but probably by an Ellicott. Let us know if you'd like to participate in this historical project to determine who originally erected our buildings and when.

Ruscombe Mansion- 4801 & 4803 Yellowwood Ave. Baltimore, MD 21209

Phone: 410-367-7300