Picture This: Fannie Lurman, Horsewoman 1890s-Style

It’s spring and our thoughts turn to horses and the long-standing traditions surrounding them in Maryland. The 118th Hunt Cup steeplechase race was run on April 28 and Pimlico Race Course will host the 137th Preakness Stakes, the second leg in the Triple Crown, on May 19. Pimlico is the second oldest racetrack in the nation, behind Saratoga, in New York.

The Hunt Cup has an equally storied past. According to its website, “In 1894, the members of the Elkridge Fox Hunting Club challenged the members of Green Spring Valley Hounds to a timber race: the first Hunt Cup. Although the first race was limited to members of the two clubs, the next year the race was opened to all fox hunting clubs in Maryland, and in 1903, members from recognized clubs throughout the United States and Canada were invited to participate.”

The Devon Horse Show (and County Fair) has been held annually in Devon, near Philadelphia, since 1896, when it began as a one-day show. It is now the oldest and largest outdoor, multi-breed competition in the United States. According to the show’s Website, “While it draws top competitors from around the world, the show continues to reflect the local traditions and lifestyles of the Philadelphia Main Line.”

This photograph of Frances “Fannie” Lurman (1871–1950) and Col. Edward Morrell, a socialite Philadelphia lawyer, was taken on the occasion of the first Devon Horse Show. The “Picture This” series has featured Lurman on two other occasions—July 12, 2011, and Feb. 14, 2012—as she enjoyed a long and lively presence in Baltimore society.

We have noted that Lurman married late in life, although she claimed to have turned down many a suitor. In a research paper written shortly after her marriage to Dorsey Williams in 1947, Lurman stated that she came close to marrying “once or twice” and made mention of a “snappy looking” but “hot tempered” Philadelphia millionaire.

It would seem that Morrell might have been that suitor as he was frequently in Baltimore on business. He was also Colonel of the First Troop, Philadelphia City Cavalry and later Brigadier General of the Third Regiment of the Pennsylvania Cavalry, Pennsylvania National Guard. He served as a member of Congress from 1900 to 1907.

The two shared a love of horses. Morrell owned a racetrack and Lurman was an accomplished rider. In an oral history, longtime “Farmlands” groundskeeper, Lloyd Lapole, recalled: “She could go across a jump, with a champagne glass in her hand, and not spill a drop.”

Lurman also appears quite comfortable seated on a coach led by a team of four horses in what appears to be procession to the show grounds. The elaborate chapeau Lurman is wearing would have looked equally at home at this past Saturday’s Kentucky Derby. 

Thanks go to Bryce Rumbles, librarian at the Catonsville Branch, and Lisa Vicari, Catonsville Room volunteer and board member, Friends of the Catonsville Library, for their research assistance. Anyone interested in ordering digital reprints of any of the historical images featured in this series, should contact Bryce Rumbles at brumbles@bcpl.net.