During its nearly 200-year history, Linden Place has been the setting of extravagant parties, has hosted visits by four U.S. Presidents, and has amassed an impressive collection of art objects and furnishings. But this historic Bristol centerpiece also has been faced with an uncertain future on more than one occasion when past owners experienced financial hardships.

The mansion’s current owners, the non-profit Friends of Linden Place, have taken steps to assure Linden Place’s financial stability by establishing a permanent fund, The Linden Place Endowment Fund, at The Rhode Island Foundation.

Joan E. Roth, president of the board of directors, explains, “Our endowment was established initially to help us start to build something from which we could get a good return. By transferring it to The Rhode Island Foundation, we are assuring people that it’s being well-managed which, we hope, will encourage others to also support Linden Place.”

Linden Place was built in 1810 for General George DeWolf, a wealthy Bristol merchant who made his fortune in the slave-trading business. He and his family lived in the Federal style mansion for 15 years until the General’s sugar crop in Cuba failed and he was forced into bankruptcy. He and his family fled Bristol one night in 1825.

The house sat empty for nine years, with General DeWolf’s uncle, Captain Jim DeWolf, paying the mortgage and eventually selling the property to his son, William Henry DeWolf. But like his cousin George, William Henry was forced into bankruptcy, but had earlier put the property in his wife’s name. Sarah DeWolf, known in Bristol as “Poor Sarah,” took in boarders in order to remain in the house. Following her death in 1865, the mansion was sold at auction.

The winning bidder, paying nearly $8,000 for the property, was Theodora DeWolf Colt, the daughter of General George DeWolf who had fled the house 40 years earlier when she was five years old. Despite a less-than-warm reception from residents of Bristol, many of whom were owed money when her family had fled town, Theodora worked hard to restore the mansion, planting linden trees and naming the property Linden Place “to sweep the DeWolf name under the carpet,” board president Roth explains.

She raised her four children in the home, including her son Samuel Pomeroy Colt, the mansion’s next owner. First president of Industrial Trust Company (now Fleet Bank) and founder/president of U.S. Rubber Company, Pomeroy further improved and expanded the house and property. He also established Colt Farm (now Colt State Park). He died in 1921 and various family members resided in the home over the next decades, with the mansion eventually becoming the property of his last living grandchild, Elizabeth “Betty” Colt Stansfield, in the mid-1980s.

Shortly thereafter, Mrs. Stansfield put the house on the market. “The feeling was very definite that the house would be sold to a developer who probably would have turned it into condominiums,” recalls Mrs. Roth. A group of concerned citizens formed the Friends of Linden Place and in 1989 purchased the historic home with the assistance of a $1.5 million state bond passed to allow for Linden Place’s preservation.

The volunteer group now numbers nearly 75 individuals who lead tours of the mansion, tend gardens, plan special events, and much more. “We run the place with volunteers and just two paid staff people. We’ve kept it that way to keep our costs down, so that money could be put into running Linden Place and not into salaries. We’re not just interested in maintaining the status quo; we’re always interested in improving what we have,” the board president concludes.