Bonnie Blink

What today is the site of the Masonic Home of Maryland was in the 19th century a 600-acre tract overlooking the Hunt Valley that in 1858 was purchased by John Jacob Wight [(1822-1900)], a Baltimore tobacco merchant. Mr. Wight, who in winter lived at various places in Baltimore's then-fashionable Mount Vernon district, summered at 'Bonnie Blink' - which he named after an area of Scotland associated with his ancestors -with his family until his death, while farming it in typical gentlemanly fashion. At his death, the property passed to his oldest surviving son, William Howard Wight [(1847-1928)] , an owner of Cockeysville's nearby Sherwood Distillery, but a man who seems not to have been particularly attached to his childhood home. He sold the 350 acres to which the property had dwindled and the 22-room mansion that stood upon it to Frederick W. Wight of New York, a distant relative, and between 1908 and 1927 the property passed through a number of hands. In 1927 the Masonic Grand Lodge of Maryland acquired the tract to serve as a retirement home for its members; in 1935 they demolished the Wight mansion and replaced it with the stone structure that still stands on the land today [2023].

Baltimore Gas & Electric Company's "Power Pictorial", no. 24 (December, 1932) pages 21-23 [Description and view of Masonic Home of Maryland]

Duvall's "Maryland scene" (1943) page 291. Ill.

Hayward's "I remember ... childhood days at 'Bonnie Blink" [in] Baltimore Sun, May 1, 1955, page SM 2. Ill. [Reminiscences of 'Bonnie Blink' by a Wight grandchild].