American Revolution exhibit at Mount Ida. June 16 - July 1

For HoCo250 a national exhibit is at OEC - American Revolution Traveling Exhibit - in The Inn at Mt. Ida, 3691 Sarahs Lane, Ellicott City. June 16-July 1. DAR and American Battlefield Trust. More about the display HERE

Click to enlarge images

Mount Ida was built by 1834/1836 by William Ellicott (1793-1838) son of Jonathon and grandson of Andrew one of the founders of Ellicott City. William was raised at his father's home beside his Uncle George Ellicott's stone home (which survided the flood that distroyed the Jonathon Ellicott stone home in 1972). His cousin Elizabeth Ellicott Lea, Maryland's first cookbook author (in 1845), was born the same year as William and lived next door (George was her father). Recipe at end.

After William Ellicott's death in 1838, the house was bought by Judge John Snowden Tyson (1797-1864) and his wife Rachel Snowden Tyson (1800-1899). The nearby court house was built by 1843. Their three remaining children, unmarried sisters, owned the house until the death of the last daughter, Ida Tyson (1840-1927/1930), at 90 years old.

It was bought in 1927 by Louis T. Clark (1872-1957) and Rebecca "Desiree" Branch Clark (1878-1963) who had eleven children. Mrs. Clark and her daughter Mary Dorsey Clark (1910–2006) were among the organizing members of the Col. Thomas Dorsey Chapter of NSDAR, founded in 1956. Mt. Ida was the site of a few early meetings. Some current members of the chapter helped with the American Revolution exhibit as daily greeters and more.

The Tyson Square Management Corp. bought it in 1964 with plans to demolish and build new. In 1972, the Miller Land Co. changed the house into various commercial and non-profit uses. Kimberly Kepnes and husband Nathan Sowers bought the house in 2019, remodeled it into The Historic Inn at Mt. Ida. Photos HERE. Howard County bought the house in 2024.

More info at HABS Mount Ida HERE.

Exhibit details

Entrance hall - with informative panels

Double Parlor (one side)

Parlor (other side)

Dining room

Butler's pantry, small kitchen

Last two panels

Original entrance is now the back, from map by E. Sachse & Co, 1854

Interior doors

Second floor windows have curved, plastered jambs that extend down to the floor. HABS

Addition on side of house (right side of house in first picture)

First and second floor view of addition

HoCo 250 events and other groups listings HERE

Some of the period recipes for the reception:

Shrewsbury Cake: American Cookery. Amelia Simmons, 1796 (First American cookbook author)
Half pound butter, three quarters of a pound sugar, a little mace, four eggs mixed and beat with your hand, till very light, put the composition to one pound flour, roll into small cakes [cookies] — bake with a light oven.
N.B. In all cases where spices are named, it is supposed that they be pounded fine and sifted; sugar must be dried and rolled fine; flour, dried in an oven; eggs well beat or whipped into a raging foam.

Chocolate Puffs: The Experienced English Housekeeper. Elizabeth Raffald, 1769 (most cookbooks during colonial period were by British authors)
Beat and sift half a Pound of double refined Sugar, scrape into it one Ounce of Chocolate very fine; mix them together, beat the White of an Egg to a very high Froth, then strew in your Sugar and Chocolate, keep beating it ‘till it is as stiff as a Paste, Sugar your Papers, and drop them on about the Size of a Six-pence, and bake them in a very slow Oven.

Dover Cake: Domestic Cookery. Elizabeth Ellicott Lea. 1845. (cousin of William Ellicott, the builder of Mt. Ida)
One pound of flour, one of sugar, half a pound of butter, six eggs, half a nutmeg, a spoonful of rose brandy; beat the butter and sugar together, adding the other ingredients, the whites of the eggs beaten separately; bake as pound cake.


©2026 Patricia Bixler Reber
Forgotten history of Ellicott City & Howard County MD