Johns Hopkins' Childhood Home Heading To Auction In MD

Story By Patch Editor Jacob Baumgart

GAMBRILLS, MD — The childhood home of Maryland native Johns Hopkins — the wealthy businessman who used his fortune in the 1800s to fund the namesake hospital and university in Baltimore — is heading to auction Tuesday.

A report said a nonprofit has struggled to complete its purchase and restoration of Hopkins' birthplace. The Gambrills estate, located at 2173 Johns Hopkins Road, was built in 1780.

Alex Cooper Auctioneers, headquartered in Towson, said it will auction off the home Tuesday morning in Annapolis.

The Capital reported that The Johns Hopkins House Inc., a nonprofit, purchased the 13-acre estate in March 2022 but also borrowed $168,000 from the property seller. Then Gov. Larry Hogan reserved $243,000 for the buyer to pay off the loan from the seller and finish the transaction. That state money was pending the buyer's completion of nonprofit paperwork and a state review.

The Capital said the nonprofit hasn't completed those necessary documents, delaying the payout from the state and holding up the payment to the seller.

The Hopkins estate has been in foreclosure court since January, The Capital said.

Biography Of Johns Hopkins

Hopkins was born on the property, known as Whites Hall, in 1795. He lived there until he moved to Baltimore at age 17.

Hopkins went on to found Johns Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Hopkins was born on May 19, 1795, and raised as a member of the Society of Friends (Quakers), who went from a grocer’s helper to a millionaire banker, and became Victorian Baltimore’s greatest philanthropist, according to a biography by Johns Hopkins Medicine.

Previous accounts portray Johns Hopkins as an early abolitionist whose parents had freed the family’s enslaved people in the early 1800s. New research has uncovered census records that indicate enslaved people were among the individuals living and working in Johns Hopkins’ home in 1840 and 1850, with the latter document denoting Johns Hopkins as the slaveholder.

As his fortune grew, Hopkins began to lend money and shifted his focus from trading to banking. Hopkins was made president of the Merchants’ National Bank of Baltimore, and was a director in the several other banks. He also was a director of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and owned at least 15,000 shares of stock in the railroad, more than anyone other than the City of Baltimore and the state of Maryland.

Because he never married or had a family, Hopkins decided his legacy would be a hospital that linked with a medical school, which in turn was to be part of a university. By 1867, Hopkins had arranged for his bequest to be split evenly between the two institutions.

Johns Hopkins died on Christmas Eve 1873, leaving $7 million to the university and hospital that would bear his name. It was, at the time, the largest philanthropic bequest in U.S. history.

The auction is scheduled for Tuesday at 9:50 a.m. on the steps of the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County, located at 8 Church Circle. More auction details are posted here.

To learn more about the nonprofit's attempt to block the auction and retain its ownership, read The Capital's full story. That article is only available to subscribers of The Capital, however.
Anybody with an Anne Arundel County Public Library card can read the story by clicking here and searching "Whites Hall".