Mansion_rev8.qxd - National Park Service

the significant grading Frederick Billings undertook to
establish his lawn beginning in c.1869.
37
Working back from 1789, when Charles Marsh purchased
Cady’s fifty-acre farm and built a new house on the
adjoining terrace (present site of the tennis court), James
Cady is the only possible builder of the house Dana
describes because the previous owner, Charles Kilham,
was probably a land speculator and owned the land for less
than one year. Prior to Kilham, the property was owned by
John Smith Hoisington, who did not need a house on the
property because his house was on the south side of the
river.
38 Dana, 192; Albers, 102-05.
39 Albers, 107-08.
40
As late as 1797, the land now occupied by the Belvedere
and Terrace Gardens remained forested. Dana, 553.
41 Dana, 192.
PRE-1789
19