The Gregg and Smyth Years
After Memminger’s death, his son Edward sold Rock Hill to Colonel William Gregg, Jr., a Confederate veteran. During his ownership, he built new steps at the front of the house, since the originals had been removed during the war for defense. He also installed a bay window and fireplace mantles. The Greggs used Rock Hill as their summer home for about ten years before they sold it in 1900 to Captain Ellison Adger Smyth.
Smyth changed the name of the house from “Rock Hill” to “Connemara,” after his ancestral district in Ireland. The Smyths winterized the house and enclosed the porch to convert it to a dining room. They also painted the house green for a brief period and even installed an eight-hole golf course in the pastures. The captain and his family used Connemara as a summer home until 1925 when they decided to make it their permanent residence. Smyth died in 1942, and the house remained vacant until 1945.
Read more about this topic: Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site
Famous quotes containing the words smyth and/or years:
“The habit some writers indulge in of perpetual quotation is one it behoves lovers of good literature to protest against, for it is an insidious habit which in the end must cloud the stream of thought, or at least check spontaneity. If it be true that le style c’est l’homme, what is likely to happen if l’homme is for ever eking out his own personality with that of some other individual?”
—Dame Ethel Smyth (1858–1944)
“Though her years were waning,
Her climacteric teased her like her teens.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)