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History

CECIL COUNTY, MARYLAND,

AND THE

EARLY SETTLEMENTS AROUND THE HEAD OF

CHESAPEAKE BAY AND ON THE

DELAWARE RIVER,

SKETCHES OF SOME OF THE OLD FAMILIES

OIF CECIL OOTJ2STTY.

BY GEORGE JOHNSTON,

ELKTON :

Published by the Author.

1881.

Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1881 by George Johnston,
in the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C.

.t^"

DICKSON & GiLLING,

PRINTERS,

27 AND 29 SOUTH SEVENTH ST.

PHILADELPHIA.

PREFACE.

The author has no apology to offer for writing this book,
except this : that though certainly the second, and probably
the first settlement made in the State of Maryland, more
than two hundred and fifty years ago was within the limits
of Cecil County, no other person has seen fit to write its
history. For many years, indeed from the time the author
was a school-boy, he has wished for information concerning
the early history of this county ; and being unable to find it
elsewhere, sought for it among the early colonial records of
Pennsylvania and New York which have been published,
and among the dusty and dilapidated colonial records at
Annapolis. After a careful examination of these, and the
early land records of Cecil and Baltimore counties, and the
records of the Orphans' and Commissioners' court of J \ :
former, he was fully convinced that sufficient material cc A
be obtained from which to compile a history of the county
With this object in view the work was commenced. Subso
quent investigation showed that the early history of tin
settlements along the west bank of the Delaware River wa
so closely blended with that of those around the head o
Chesapeake Bay that it was impossible to separate then
without destroying much of the interest of the narrative.

The author believing that others might wish to profit b
his efforts to inform himself, and acting upon the sugges
tions of a few gentlemen whose judgment the public, did
but know their names, would value as highly as the authc
does their disinterested friendship, concluded after muc
hesitation to embody the result of his labor in the wor
which is now offered to the public.

(w)

Of the manner in which the work has been done, the
reader must judge for himself. The author is painfully
conscious that it is far from being perfect. The loss of many
of the early colonial and county records and the miserably
dilapidated condition of many of those extant, have added
greatly to the difficulty and labor of the work, and made it
in some cases impossible to refer the reader to the sources
from which important information has been obtained. Not-
withstanding which, the author has quoted largely from
the archives of the State and county as well as from
the writings and correspondence of many persons mentioned
in the work, believing it better to do this than to obtrude
his own language and opinions upon his readers when it
could be avoided. He has aimed to be impartial and truth-
ful, and hopes if the following pages do not add much to the
general stock of information they may be the means of pre-
serving some portions of the history of the county, much
of which has been irretrievably lost.

The author takes this opportunity to thank the members
of the Elkton bar and officers of the courts of Cecil and
New Castle counties, and the officers of the Historical Socie-
ties of Pennsylvania and Maryland, for the courtesy and
kindness shown him while engaged in his arduous and pro-
tracted labor. He also desires to acknowledge his indebted-
ness to the authors of the Historical Sketches of the Draw-
yers, White Clay Creek, Pencader, Head of Christiana, Rock,
West Nottingham and Elkton Presbyterian churches, for
valuable information derived from them; and the Right
Reverend Bishop Lay. of the Diocese of Easton, for the use
of Rev. Ethan Allen's Manuscript History of the parishes in
this county ; and to Rev. E. K. Miller, rector of North Elk
Parish, and Rev. Charles P. 2 be author of an inter-

esting and valuable series of 3ohemia Manor, re-

cently published in the Cecil 1 whose efforts he is

indebted for much useful infc

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

Captain John Smith, of Virginia, explores the navigable waters of
Cecil County— Smith's account of the Susquehannock Indians — Other
Indian tribes in the upper part of the Peninsula— Their weapons and cul-
inary utensils ,. Page 1

CHAPTER II.

First English settlement on Watson's Island — Edward Palmer — Wm.
Clayborne establishes a trading post on Watson's Island Page 7

CHAPTER III.

George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore — He is a member of the Vir-
ginia Company —Plants a colony in Newfoundland — Obtains a charter
for a colony in Maryland — Is succeeded by his son Cecil, who obtains
another charter — Extracts from the charter — The first colony under
Leonard Calvert settles at St. Maries — War with the Susquehannocks —
Treaty with them Page 11

CHAPTER IV.

Early settlements on the Delaware — Henry Hudson — Captain Mey add
others — Names of the Delaware — Fort Nassau — Swanendale — Peter Min-
uit plants a Swedish colony at Wilmington — Fort Cassimir — Peter
Stuyvesant conquers the Swedes '. Page 20

CHAPTER V.

First permanent settlement in the county — Other settlements —
Spesutia Island — Trouble between the Dutch and English — -Nathaniel
Utie — He is sent to New Amstel — Augustine Hermen and Resolved Wal-
dron visit Maryland — Their meeting with the Governor and Council —
Account of the early life of Augustine Hermen — His Map of Maryland —
Extracts from his will — He obtains a grant of Bohemia Manor and Mid-
dle Neck— Makes a treaty with the Indians at Spesutia Island — First
reference to Cecil County — Thompsontown — Indian forts Page 27

CHAPTER VI.

Council of Maryland meet at Spesutia Island — Examination of persons
who had suffered from the depredations of Indians along the Delaware
River— Interesting correspondence between the Governor of Maryland
and Alexander D'Hinoyossa, Governor of New Amstel — The Council de-
clare war against the Susquehannocks — Instructions to Captain Odber —

Letter from D'Hinoyossa — Augustine Hermen tries to make peace be-
tween the Dutch and English— Council meets at Susquehanna Point and
are shown the commission of Captain Neals recently arrived from Eng-
land—Many of th*e Swedes from Delaware settle in Sassafras Neck.

» Page 42

CHAPTER VII.

Treaty with the Passagonke Indians at Appoquinimink — Copy of the
treaty — Scarcity of corn— Captain Odber gets into trouble— A cowardly
soldier — Trouble with the Senecas — Treaty with the Delaware Bay In-
dians— Capture of a Seneca Indian— Letter from the justices of Baltimore
County respecting the captive — Francis Wright and Jacob Clawson— Tor-
tiu*e of an Indian prisoner —War with the Senecas — Another treaty with
the Susqueliannocks — The Senecas attack the Susquehannock's fort at
Turkey Hill, Lancaster County, and are repulsed — End of the Susque-
hannocks Page 55

CHAPTER VIII.

Augustine Hermen and others naturalized — The Hacks— Hermen has
a dispute with Simon Oversee —He tries to establish a village — Trouble
among the Dutch — Sir Robert Carr conquers them — The name of New
Amstel changed to New Castle— Account of D'Hinoyossa — Efforts of the
Marylanders to extend their jurisdiction to the Delaware River — Durham
County — Road from Bohemia Manor to New Castle — Grant of St. Augus-
tine Manor — Ephraim George, and Casparus Hermen — Original limits of
Baltimore County — Erection of Cecil County — The first court-house at
Jamestown — Augustine Hermen and Jacob Young appointetT'commis-
sioners to treat with the Delaware Indians— Account of Jacob Young.

Page 71

CHAPTER IX.

The Labadists — Sluyter and Danckers — Their journal — They meet with
Ephraim George Hermen and wife — Visit New Castle and Bohemia
Manor — They goon down the Peninsula— Return and purchase the Labadie
tract on Bohemia Manor, and establish a community there — Description
of the Labadie tract and how they got it— Peter Bayard and others—
Description of the community on Bohemia Manor — Augustine Hermen's
quarrel with George Holland — Letter from Hermen — Hermen's patents
of confirmation— He obtains a patent for Misfortune, or the three Bohe-
mia Sisters - Extent of his possessions— He invests his son Ephraim George
with the right and title to Bohemia Manor — A curious deed — Augustine
Hermen's last will — His death and monumental stone— His place of
burial — Codicil to his last will — His daughters Page 84

Vll

CHAPTER X.

Delaware granted to William Perm— Death of Cecilius Calvert, who is suc-
ceeded by his son Charles— George Talbot— Obtains a patent for Susque-
hanna Manor— Its metes and bounds — Courts Baron and Courts Leet — The
name of Susquehanna Manor changed to New Connaught — Extent of
Connaught Manor — Talbot obtains a patent for Belleconnell — Belle Hill —
Talbot lays out New Munster— Makes a demand on William Penn for all
the land west of the Schuylkill and south of the fortieth degree of north
latitude — Runs a line from the mouth of the Octoraro to the mouth of
Naaman's Creek — Lord Baltimore visits England — Talbot presides over
the council during his absence — Presides over the court of Cecil County .
— Account of the court - Talbot makes a raid on the settlers east of Iron
Hill — Builds and garrisons a fort near Christiana bridge —Account of the
fort — Talbot's Rangers — Beacon Hill - Trouble about the collection of
the king's revenue— Talbot murders Rousby — Is carried prisoner to Vir-
ginia— Makes bis escape — Returns to Cecil County — Takes refuge in a
cave near Mount Ararat — Surrenders to the authorities of Maryland— Is
taken to Virginia by command of the King Is tried and convicted of
murder, but pardoned by the King — Returns to Cecil County and executes
a deed for Clayfall — Returns to Ireland— Enters the Irish brigade, and is
killed in the service of the King of France Page 109

CHAPTER XI.

New Munster— Its metes and bounds — The Alexanders— Society — Cecil
Manor — Charles Carroll — Fair Hill — The Scotch-Irish— Christiana Pres-
byterian Church — Rock Church— The English Revolution— Its effect on
the Colony of Maryland — Nottingham — The Nottingham Lots — Original
grantees— Reasons why the grant was made — The first Friends' meeting-
house— The Little Brick or Nottingham Friends' meeting-house— Pop-
pemetto — West Nottingham Presbyterian Church — Treaty with the
Conestoga Indians— Thomas Chalkley visits them^Account of some of
the first settlers of Nottingham — The Welsh tract — Its boundaries — The
Baptist church on Iron Hill — The Pencader Presbyterian Church — Rev.
David Evans — Rev. Samuel Davies — Iron Hill Page 133

CHAPTER XII.

Characteristics of the early settlers — Augustine Hermen succeeded by his
son Casparus — Account of Casparus Hermen — Farms on Bohemia Manor
— Death of Casparus Hermen — Succeeded by his son Ephraim Augustine
— Sketch of Ephraim Augustine Hermen — His wives and children — John
Lawson marries Mary Hermen — Peter Bouchell marries Catharine Her-
men— Peter Lawson — Catharine (Herman) Bouchell — Her death — Joseph
Ensor — Quarrel about the possession of Bohemia Manor — Joseph Ensor,
Jr. — Division of Bohemia Manor — Death of Peter Lawson Paoe 169

Vlll

CHAPTER XIII.

The Van Bibbers — They settle on Bohemia Manor — Their mill — John
Jawert marries Casparus Herman's widow — Keeps Elk Ferry — Wild
stock — Rangers — Collection of the King's revenue — Wild animals —
Trade with England — Bill of lading- — Slave trade — The Jesuit mission
at Bohemia — The Cross Paths — James Heath, the founder of Warwick —
Bohemia a port of entry — Ancient cross— Father Mansell — Peter Atwood
and other Jesuits — The Jesuit school — Efforts to suppress the Jesuit
mission — Labors of the Jesuit Fathers Page 186

CHAPTER XIV.

First Friends' meeting-house — First Episcopal minister — North and
South Sassafras parishes — First vestrymen — Population — Curious lot of
church property — First Episcopal Church — Chapel of Ease in Elk Neck
— Shrewsbury parish — Rev. Hugh Jones — Chapel on Bohemia Manor —
Sketch of Rev. Hugh Jones — North Elk parish — First vestrymen —
Richard Dobson — John Hamm — Rev. Walter Ross — Chapel near Battle
* Swamp — Rev. William Wye — St. Mary Ann's Church, North East — Taring
the Church — Death of Rev. Mr. Wye — Rev. John Bradford — Rev. John
Hamilton— Clayfall Page 205

CHAPTER XV.
William Dare — Bulls Mountain — "Friendship" — Old Simon — Trans-
town — Ye Swedestown — John Hans Stillman — Smith's mill at Head of
Elk — The Jacobs family — Henry Hollingsworth — Quarrel about New-
Munster road — Bridges over the head of Elk River — Road from head of
Elk to New Castle— Sketch of Hollingsworth family— North East— First
iron works — Roads leading to North East — Principio Iron Company —
Samuel Gilpin settles at Gilpin's Rocks — William Black's account of
North East — Immigration — Character of immigrants — Susquehanna ferry
— Road from ferry to Philadelphia Page 223

CHAPTER XVI.

Hundreds — Hotels — Charles Rumsey — Trials by jury — The Justices"
court — Rules of the court — Removal of county seat from Jamestown
to Court-house Point — Court-house and jail — Town at Court-house Point —
Elk ferry traditions — Quarrel among the justices of the court — The
lawyers Page 240

CHAPTER XVII.

Efforts to establish towns — Ceciltown, at mouth of Scotchman's Creek
— Fredericktown-^-Georgetown — The Acadians or French Neutrals — Ac-
count of them — They are sent to Louisiana and Canada — Reasons for
building Charlestown — Its location — Public wharf and warehouse — Its
expoi'ts — Fairs — Introduction of tea and coffee — History of Charlestown
— Population by census of 1880 Page 253

CHAPTER XVIII.

Presbyterian Church at Bethel — Visit of Rev. George Whitefield —
Preaches at Elkton and on Bohemia Manor — Presbyterian Church at Elk-
ton — Disruption of Nottingham Presbyterian Church — Rev. Samuel Finley
— Nottingham Academy — The Free School on Bohemia River — ReV. John
Beard — The present church buildings — Name changed to Ephesus — Rev.
James Magraw — Revival of Nottingham Academy — The Rock Presbyte-
rian Church — Disruption — Rev. James Finley — Murder of Hugh Mahaffey
— Rev. James Finley goes West — Present church buildings — Rev. John
Burton — Rev. Francis Hindman — Lotteries for church purposes — Man-
ners, customs and character of the early Presbyterians— The Alexanders,
and other emigrants to South Carolina Page 275

CHAPTER XIX.

Border war — Davy Evans dispossesses Adam Short — Petition of Sam-
uel Brice — Arrest of Isaac Taylor and others — Agreement between the
heirs of William Penn and Lord Baltimore respecting the settlement of
the boundaries — Proceedings in chancery — Renewal of border war —
Thomas Cresap — Order of the King in Council — The temporary boundary
line — Decree of Chancellor Hardwick — Diary of John Watson — Cape
Henlopen — The trans-peninsular line — Death of Charles Calvert —
Another agreement — Location of due north line — Difficulty of the work
— Mason and Dixon — They land in Philadelphia — Latitude of that city —
Account of their labors for the next five years — Re-location of the north-
east corner of Maryland Page 296

CHAPTER XX.

The Revolutionary War — The Quakers — Convention of 1774 — Commit-
tee of Safety — Delegates to convention of 1775 — First military organiza-
tion in the county — Henry Dobson — Military organizations in the county
— Henry Hollingsworth makes musket barrels and bayonets for the army
— Edward Parker makes linen and woolen goods for the use of the sol-
diers— Invasion of the county by the British— They land at Court-house
Point — Sir William Howe's proclamation — Part of British army march
to Head of Elk — Another part overrun Bohemia Manor — Account of the
invasion — Court-house not burned — Doings of the American army — Skir-
mishing on Iron Hill— Robert Alexander — Disloyalty of the citizens of
Newark — Tories trade with the British — The Quakers refuse to perform
military duty, and are court-martialed — Brick Meeting-house used for a
hospital — Burglary at Head of Elk — Interesting correspondence — Lafay-
ette's expedition to Yorktown passes through Head of Elk — His route
through Cecil County — Journal of Claude Blanchard — Forteen Stodder,
the negro soldier — Confiscated property — The Elk Forge Company —
John Roberts hanged for treason — The Principio Iron Company — Susque-
hanna Manor — Lots in Charlestown — Property of Rev. William Edmisson.

Page 318

CHAPTER XXI.

Removal of seat of justice to Charlestown — Reasons of the removal —
Interesting correspondence — Charlestown Ferry — Condition of society —
Stephen Porter kills Thomas Dunn — Escapes from jail, etc. — Is tried at
Charlestown and convicted of manslaughter — Unsuccessful efforts to
build up Charlestown — -Removal of county seat to Head of Elk — Rev.
Joseph Coudon's address to citizens of Elk — Opposition of the citizens
of Charlestown to the removal of the county seat — Act of Legislature
authorizing the erection of public buildings at Elktown — EJkton incor-
porated— Court meets in Elkton — Members of the Elkton bar — Trouble
about roads — The first almshouse — Sale of free school farm — Rum-.
sey's steamboat — The Susquehanna Canal — Rivalry between Havre de
Grace and the town of Chesapeake — First arks on the Susquehanna
River — Malignant fever in Elkton Page 352

CHAPTER XXII.

Octoraro forge — -Cecil Manufacturing Company — New Leeds — Chesa-
peake and Delaware Canal — Benjamin H. Latrobe — The canal feeder —
Riot at Elkton — " Treeket the Loop" — Supplementary Act — Work re-
sumed on the canal — John Randel — He sues the canal company — Com-
pletion and cost of the canal — Difficulty of construction — Port Deposit —
Philip Thomas — Port Deposit Bridge Company — Bridge burned — Sale of
Susquehanna canal — The log pond — Susquehanna and Tide Water canal.

Page 381

CHAPTER XXIII.

County divided into election districts — County commissioners — Loca-
tion of boundary line between Cecil and Harford — Number of mills in
Cecil County — Elkton wheat market — Manufactories — Charlestown—
Elkton bank — Line of packets between Baltimore and Philadelphia via
Elkton — Frenchtown and New Castle Turnpike Company — Curious pro-
vision in the charter Page 401

CHAPTER XXIV.

War of 1812 — British fleet in Chesapeake Bay — Camp of observation
on Bulls mountain — General Thomas M. Foreman — Forts Hollingsworth
and Defiance — Colonel William Garrett — Persons employed in building-
Fort Defiance — British land on Spesutia Island — Visit Turkey Point —
Burn Frenchtown — Zeb. Furgusson — British fail to reach Elkton — Inci-
dents and anecdotes — Burning of Havre de Grace — Poetical extract —
Pillaging — British burn Principio Furnace — Destruction of Frederick-
town and Georgetown — Brave defense of Colonel Veazey — List of militia
under him — Treaty of Ghent — Rejoicing — Accident at Fort Hollings-
worth.... Page 408

CHAPTER XXV.

First steamboats on the Elk River — Lines of transportation — French -
town and New Castle Railroad Company — Construction of Frenchtown
and New Castle Railroad — First locomotives and cars — Telegraphing —
The Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad — Riot at Charles-
town — Sale of Frenchtown and New Castle Railroad Page 424

CHAPTER XXVI.

Clergy of the Established Church — Their powers and duties — They in-
cur the displeasure of the common people — What Rev. William Duke
says of them — Presbyterian clergymen — Spiritual condition of the peo -
pie — Introduction of Methodism — First Methodist society — Character of
the early Methodist preachers — Rev. Francis Asbury visits Bohemia
Manor — He refuses to take the oath of allegiance — Methodists favor the
royal cause — Retrospective glance at the history of the Episcopal
Church — North Elk parish — Rev. John Thompson — Rev. Joseph Cou-
don — St. Augustine parish — Progress of Methodism — Cecil circuit —
Hart's meeting-house — First Methodist meeting-house at North East —
First parsonage — Bethel meeting-house — Goshen — Revival at Bethel —
North Sassafras and St. Augustine parishes — Richard Bassett joins the
Methodists — Rev. Henry Lyon Davis — Death of Rev. Joseph Coudon —
Rev. William Duke — His life and labors — Methodism supplants Episco-
pacy— First Methodist society at Elkton — Methodism and Presbyterian-
ism at Charlestown — Hopewell and Asbury — Methodist Protestant
churches Page 433

CHAPTER XXVII.

Miscellaneous information — Newspapers — Fisheries — Chrome — Granite
quarries — Iron — Iron Works — Paper mills — Free schools — Population.

Page 4G3

CHAPTER XXVIII.

The Hall family — The Evans family — Dr. Amos A. Evans — The
Mitchell family — Colonel George E. Mitchell — The Rumsey family — The
Mauldin family — The Gilpin family — The Rudulph family — The Leslie
family — The Hyland family — The Churchman family — The Defoe family
— The Hartshorne family — Colonel Nathaniel Ramsay Page 480

ERRATA.

On page 13, seventh line from bottom, for George read
Cecil. On page 142, eleventh line from top, for May read
Mary. On page 243, fifth line from bottom, for 1659-60 read
1650-60. In foot note on page 344, for chapter XVIII
read XXVIII.

CHAPTER I.

Captain John Smith, of Virginia, explores the navigable waters of
Cecil County -Smith's account of the Susquehannock Indians — Other
Indian tribes in the upper part of the Peninsula —Their weapons and cul-
inary utensils.

The first white man that visited Cecil County was the
illustrious John Smith, of Virginia. In the summer of the
year 1G08 he fitted out an expedition at Jamestown, and
proceeding to the head of Chesapeake Bay partially explored
the Susquehanna, North East, Elk and Sassafras rivers.
The Indian name of the Sassafras River was Toghwogh.
.Smith and his companions ascended it for some distance
and were received by the native Indians with much kind-
ness, he and his companions being the first white men they
had ever seen. Smith says, in his account of the expedition,
that the white people had much trouble to keep the natives
from worshiping them as gods. Smith tried to ascend the
Susquehanna River, but could get no further than two miles
up on account of the rocks. He states that the Indians
could ascend it in their canoes for the distance of about two
days' journey. He gives a wonderful account of the size
and prowess of the chief of the Susquehannas,* and says

* The name of this tribe, like thai
different ways by the early historians
from which the original has been fo!

he others, is spelled in
trial records, in quoting

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

that the "calves of his legs were three-quarters of a yard
about, and all the rest of his limbs so answerable to that
proportion, that he seemed the goodliest man he ever saw.
The Susquehannas met them with skins, bows, arrows, tar-
gets, beads, swords and tobacco pipes, for presents. They
seemed like giants, and were the strangest people in all theje
countries, both in language and attire; their language well
becomes their proportions, sounding from them as a voice
in a vault." " Their attire is the skinnes of beares and wolves,
some have cossacks made of beares heads and skinnes, that a
man's head goes through the skinnes neck and the ears of
the beare fastened to his shoulder, the nose and teeth' hanging
down his breast, another beares face split behind him, and
at the end of the nose hung a pawe, the half sleeves coming
to the elbows were the necks of beares, and the armes through
the mouth with pawes hanging at their noses. One had the
head of a wolf hanging in a chaine tor a Jewell, his tobacco
pipe, three-quarters of a yard long, prettily carved with a bird,
a deare, or some such device at the great end, sufficient to
beat out one's braines, with bowes, arrows, and clubs, suitable
to their greatness." Smith states that the Susquehannocks
numbered about six hundred able men, and that they lived in
palisaded towns in order to defend themselves against the
Massawomekes, who were their mortal enemies, and lived on
Bush River, which he named Willowbye's River. To the
Susquehannock's River, Smith gave the name of Smith's
Falls. The North East River be called Gunter's Harbor,
and says that "the highest mountain we saw northward we
called Peregrine's Mount." Mr. Bozman expresses the
opinion in his History of Maryland that Peregrine's Mount
and Gray's Hill, just east of Elkton, are identical. But a
careful examination of the map accompanying Smith's
history seems to indicate very conclusively that the moun-
tain referred to by him as Peregrine's Mount is the highland
just east of the town of North East, now called Beacon Hill.
Many persons 1i;,tt" b disposed to doubt the account

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

which Smith gives of the size and prowess of the Susquehan-
nocks, but recent discoveries made by the workmen while
digging the foundations of the bridge of the Columbia and
Port Deposit railroad across the Octoraro Creek of a num-
ber of human skeletons, which were evidently the remains
of persons of extraordinary size, seem in some measure to
confirm his account. :"

The Susquehannocks belonged to the Iroquois stock, as
did the famous confederacy of the Five Nations, which at
this time inhabited the country north of them and included
the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagos, Cayugas and Senecas,
which were afterwards joined by the Tuscaroras, after which
the confederacy was called the " Six Nations." The Massa-
womekes, who seem to have been the onty other tribe in
Maryland that were capable of competing with the Susque-
hannocks, probably belonged to the same stock ; while the
Tockwoghs, who were of a more gentle disposition probably
belonged to the Algonquin or Muscogee stock. The Min-
quas inhabited the banks of Christiana and Brandywine,
and like many of the smaller tribes, of which there were
twelve in the State of Delaware,* belonged to the Leni Le-
nape, which in our language means the original people.
These tribes seem to have been the principal ones that in-
habited the country within the original limits of CecilCounty
when Smith explored the Chesapeake Bay. Half a century
later the colonial record,: and correspondence between the
Dutch settlers along the Delaware River and the authorities
of Maryland contain many references to other tribes whose
history is unknown, and whose location it is impossible to
determine. The Passayontke Indians who are sometimes
mentioned among other tribes that inhabited the shores of the
Delaware River, there are many reasons to believe, lived
near Passyunk Creek, which is in the southern part of the
city of Philadelphia.

* Vincent's History of Delaware, page 66.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

At the beginning of the last century the Chauhannauks
lived on the banks of the Susquehanna about fifty miles
above its mouth, and numbered about forty men. The Sus-
quehannocks once had a fort at the mouth of the Octoraro
Creek and are believed to have had at an early day a town
near the mouth of the Coi estoga Creek, in Lancaster County.
Smith, on his map of the bay, locates a fort of the Togh-
woghs a few miles above the mouth of the Sassafras River.
The Shawanese originally lived in the south, but being
threatened with extermination by the surrounding tribes,
left their original location, migrated northward, and appear
to have been finally absorbed by the more powerful tribes
near which they settled. Some of them stopped in Elk
Neck, and for a long time after it wTas settled by the Euro-
peans that part of it along the North East River was called
"Shawnah." Many of the tribe that settled there are said
to have been industrious basket-makers and successful fisher-
men. They had a village a short distance south of Arundel
Creek, which was the name once applied to the run in the
southern part of North East. There is a tradition of a bat-
tle having been fought between these Indians and another
tribe, probably the Susquehannocks, a short distance from
the site of their village. Some of them remained in this
part of the county for many years after it was settled by the
whites, as is shown by the fact that a few of them were bap-
tized as members of the Episcopal church at North East.
There is also reason to believe that at least one of them was
employed by the Principio Iron Company ; the name of
Indian James being found upon the books of that company
for the year 1726. There was also, as is shown by an old
petition on record in the clerk's office at Elkton, an Indian
village called Poppemetto, not far from the mouth of Rock
Run and probably near the Indian Spring, which is not far
from the site of the old chapel east of Port Deposit. But
they were a wandering people and frequently migrated from
one place to another, and their villages being composed of
rude huts and their forts of poles or stockades set in the

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY

ground, soon rotted away and left no trace of their existence.
The Susquehannocks retained possession of the country
between the North East and Susquehanna for many years
after they had ceded the land west and south of those rivers
to the English. They probably did this in order to enjoy
the privilege of fishing in the head of the bay. That part
of the county between the two last-named rivers is very rich
in the remains of their weapons and utensils; many thou-
sand of them having been found within the last few years.
Their darts and spear-heads vary from less than an inch to
five and six inches in length; some of them are made of
flint, others of a finer stone resembling cornelian. They are
found to some extent in all parts of the county, but are more
plentiful along the branches of the Elk, North East, the
Octoraro and its tributaries. In a few cases as many as a
hundred of them have been found together, indicating that
they had been buried in the ground and remained undis-
turbed perhaps for centuries. Occasionally flint implements
have also been found of a few inches in length, and not un-
like a rude knife-blade, which were probably lashed to a
wooden handle and used for cutting. Many implements
designed for grinding corn have been found along the head
of the bay and in the Eighth District. These are made of a
grayish stone which is somewhat harder than soapstone, but
easily worked. Some of these implements are about four
inches in diameter and in shape similar to an oblate sphe-
roid ; that is, a globe much flattened at the poles. Others are
from ten to fifteen inches in length, cylindrical in form, and
from an inch and a half to two inches in diameter in the
middle, and tapering towards the ends. They are not un-
Jike an ordinary rolling-pin, and were probably used for
pestles to mash or grind corn. Many stone axes have also
been found in the county. They are made of the same kind
of materials as the pestles, and are generally about eight
inches in length and not often more than three or three and
a half inches in width on the edge, of an oval shape, and
grooved near the other end so as to retain the handle, which

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

was split, and to which the axe was J ashed with rawhide
thongs or the sinews of* animals which they used for that
purpose. A few curiously-shaped implements or weapons,
for it is hard to tell to which class they belonged, have been
found in the northwestern part of the county. Some of
them are made of a whitish stone that is not found in th-it
part of the country. They were evidently intended to be
used on a handle, for they are perforated in a very skillful
manner with a round hole a half or three-quarters of an
inch in diameter. They slightly resemble a double-bitted
axe, which has led to the belief that they were used in battle.
Though somewhat like the other stone axes, they were not de-
signed for cutting, but were admirably adapted for breaking
a man's skull. The Eighth District is particularly rich in
the remains of their culinary utensils, which consisted of*
rude pans, cups and dishes, made of the soapstone which
abounds in that part of the county. Some of these are well
finished and nicely shaped and give evidence of much
artistic skill, but many of them are unfinished and others
have evidently been broken while in course of construction.
Not the least curious of their works are the sculptured
rocks, which are to be found in the Susquehanna River a
short distance above the mouth of the Conowingo. These
rocks contain a large number of hieroglyphics and a few
pictures of animals of the cat kind, the signification of
which are known only to those who placed them there.
Their manner of making darts or arrow heads has been a
matter of much inquiry and curiosity. For this purpose they
wrapped their left hand with buckskin and used a rib bone
of some of the animals they killed, holding it between the
thumb and fingers of the left hand — in which they also held
the arrow head — and used it as a lever, applying the power
to the other end with their right hand. This statement may
be controverted ; but such is the method now in use by the
Indians on the Western plains who make arrow heads simi-
lar in shape to those found in this county from pieces of
irlass bottles.

CHAPTER II.

First English settlement on Watson's Island — Edward Palmer — Wm.
Clayborne establishes a trading post on Watson's Island.

Historians are unanimously of the opinion that the first
settlement of the English, within the present limits of Cecil
County, was upon Palmer's Island (now called Watson's
Island), near the mouth of the Susquehanna River, and just
above the railroad bridge at that place. There certainty
was a trading post on that island before the arrival of the
Pilgrims of Maryland under Leonard Calvert, brother of the
second Lord Baltimore, in 1634. To William Clayborne,
who was a member of the Council of Virginia, and who
there is reason to believe had established a trading post on
Kent Island as early as 1627, is accorded the credit of estab-
lishing this trading post; but investigations recently made
by Mr. Neil, and published in his book entitled "The Found-
ers of Maryland," seem to indicate very clearly that there
may have been a settlement or trading post on that island
before Clayborne established himself upon Kent Island. Mr.
Neil says, "the letters of John Pory, secretary of theVirginia
< bmpany, which are yet extant in London, and which are
dated anterior to the time of Clayborne's settlement on Kent
Island, inform the Company of a discovery made by him
and others into the great Bay northward, where we left set-
tled very Jiappily nearly a hundred, Englishmen with hope of a
Mood trade injurs."

The island was called Palmer's Island after Edward Pal-
mer,* a nephew of the unfortunate Sir Thomas Overbury,

* When and by whom it was so named has not been ascertained. But
it bore that name as early as 1652.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

who was poisoned by the malicious arrangements of the
wanton wife of the Earl of Somerset some time between the
years 1612 and 1616. Palmer was a man of learning and
culture, and contemplated the establishment of an academy
in Virginia. One writer of the time in which he lived,
says Mr. Neil, connects the purchase of the island with this
enterprise, from which it may be inferred that he engaged
in the fur trade, which was very lucrative at that time, with
a view of getting the means to carry out bis laudable enter-
prise. It is said to have failed on account of some of the
agents he employed. When Palmer's Island was first taken
possession of by Lord Baltimore's agents in 1637 four ser-
vants were found there, and some books as follows: a statute
book, five or six little books and one great book. The find-
ing of these books at a trading post away in the wilderness
indicates that Palmer resided there at one time, for only a
gentleman and scholar would have been likely to have had
them.

The fact that Clayborne had a trading post on Palmer's
Island is established upon a firmer basis. Clayborne was
an ambitious man, and some time after the arrival of the
Pilgrims in the Ark and Dove, who, soon after their arrival,
took pains to dispossess him of Kent Island, presented a
petition to the King of England, in which petition he refers
to the fact that "he and his partners, while acting under a
commission from under his Majesty's hand divers years past
(which divers years Bozman believed were the years 1627,
28, and 29), discovered and planted the island of Kent in
the Chesapeake, which island they bought of the kings of
that country; that great hopes for trade of beavers and other
commodities were likely to ensue by the petitioner's dis-
coveries," etc. It is further stated in the petition that the
petitioners "had discovered and settled a plantation and
factory upon a small island in the mouth of a river, at the
bottom of the said bay (at the head of the bay was what they
meant), in the Susquehannocks' country, at the Indians' de-

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

sire, and purchased the same of them; by means wh 3reof
they were in great hopes to draw thither the trade of beavers
and furs which the French then wholly enjoyed 'in the
Grand Lake of Canada.' The petitioners then propose to
pay to his Majesty the annual sum of £100, viz., £50 for the
isle of Kent and £50 for the said plantation in the Susque-
hannocks' country; and they further pray to have there
twelve leagues of land from the mouth of the said river on
each side thereof down the said ba}^ southerly to the sea-
ward, and so to the head of the said river and to the Grand
Lake of Canada."* From these facts it is plain that the set-
tlement on Watson's Island was a place of importance before
the arrival of Lord Baltimore and his colonists, and that it
was made about twenty-five or thirty years after the bay
was first explored by the adventurous Smith. It was no
doubt the first settlement made within the present limits of
Cecil County. Although Cecil County was not erected into
a county till 1674, its history commences at the time of the
establishment of the "Plantation" on Watson's Island by
Clayborne, which is probably about two hundred and forty-
four years ago. It is the intention of the writer to trace its
history as well as the scanty data the ravages of time have
left will afford him the means to do; to tell of the bold and
daring men whose courage and enterprise led them to these
shores, and whose industry and perseverance have made
our county one of the foremost in the State; to recount as
well as circumstances will permit their early struggles and
the hardships they met with ; to speak of their manners and
customs, and note the changes that education and refine-
ment from time to time wrought in them.

The configuration of the country at the time of the first
settlement so far as the hills and streams are considered,
was much the same as it is at present. But the primeval
forests that then covered it have disappeared ; and owing to

* Bozman's Hist. Md., Vol. II., p. 69.

10 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

this the surface of the country has changed very much —
large swamps and morasses have dried up, and the channels
of the streams have changed; indeed some of them have
entirely disappeared. Deer, bear, wolves, opossums, hares,
squirrels, wild turkeys, pheasants, wild pigeons, and many
other kinds of animals abounded in the forests, and the
creeks and rivers were well stocked with beavers, otters,
muskrats, and all kinds of water fowl.

CHAPTER III.

George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore — He is a member of the Vir-
ginia Company —Plants a colony in Newfoundland — Obtains a charter
for a colony in Maryland — Is succeeded by his son Cecil, who obtains
another charter— Extracts from the charter — The first colony under
Leonard Calvert settles at St. Maries — War with the Susquehannocks —
Treaty with them.

George Calvert, the first Baron of Baltimore, was the
founder of Maryland. He was a Catholic and distinguished
for piety and learning, and filled many important offices
under the government in the reign of James the First.
Like many of the public men of that time, he saw the im-
portance of the Western continent and the facilities it
afforded for the acquisition of wealth. In 1609 he was a
member of the Virginia Company of planters.* He after-
wards became interested in Newfoundland, and planted a
colony there in 1021. He subsequently obtained a patent
from King James I. for a territory in that island which he"
called Avalon. His reason for calling his grant by that
name, as given by Scharf in his History of Maryland, is as
follows : " Tradition reports that Joseph of Arimathea,
having come to Britain, received from King Arviragus
twelve hydes of land at Avalon as a dwelling-place for
himself and his companions, and here he preached the
gospel for the first time to the Britons, and built an abbey,
in which he was afterwards buried, and which long re-
mained the most renowned and venerated monastic estab-
ment in the island. As Avalon had been the starting point
of Christianity for ancient Britain, in pious legend at all

* Scharf s Hist. Md.. Vol I., p. 31.

12 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

events, so Calvert hoped that his own settlement might be
a similar starting point, from which the gospel should
spread to the heathen of the Western World ; and he
spared neither labor nor expense in his efforts to carry out
this noble and devout purpose."

The climate of Newfoundland was found to be entirely
different from what might have been anticipated ; and after
spending some time and much money in the vain effort tq
sustain his colony by developing the resources of the
country, he was forced to abandon the enterprise. He sub-
sequently visited Virginia in search of some more desirable
situation for his colony, and no doubt would have settled
there; but upon being required to take the oath of supremacy
and allegiance, he, as a conscientious Catholic, refused to do
so, and had to look elsewhere for an eligible location for his
colony. He therefore returned to England, and applied to
his Majesty Charles the First for a grant of land lying to
the southward of James River, in Virginia, between that
river and the bounds of Carolana,* now called Carolina.
A charter lor a large territory south of the James River
was actually made out and signed, in February, 1631. But
some of the prominent men of Virginia, among whom was
William Clayborne, before mentioned, who has very aptly
been called the " evil genius of Maryland," were in England
in the spring of that year, and so violently opposed the
planting of the new colony within the limits of Virginia,
that Calvert besought his Majesty to grant him, in lieu of
the other, some part of the continent to the northward,
which was accordingly done.

Lord Baltimore, it is said, drew up the charter of Mary-
land with his own hand, and left a blank in it for the
name, which he designed should be Crescentia, or, the land
of Crescence, but leaving it to his Majesty to insert, The
King, before he signed the charter, asked his lordship what

*Scliarf's Hist. Md., Vol. I., p. 50.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 13

be should call it, who replied that he desired to have it
called something in honor of his Majest}7's name, but that
he was deprived of that happiness, there being already a
province in those parts called Carolina. "Let us, there-
fore," says the King, "give it a name in honor of the
Queen ; what think you of Mariana?"- To this his lordship
expressed his dissent, it being the name of a Jesuit who
had written against monarchy. Whereupon the King pro-
posed Tera Marias, in English, Maryland ; which was
mutually agreed upon and inserted in the charter. And
thus the proposed colony, or rather the land it was expected
to settle upon, was named in honor of Henrietta Maria,
daughter of Henry IV., King of France and Navarre, and
sister of Louis XIII., usually called Queen Mary by writers
of that day.

The charter of Maryland was different from any other
granted for a similar purpose in this: that it was more
liberal than they, as were also the laws made under it, and
the policy pursued by the illustrious men who received it.

Before the charter had been finally adjusted and sealed,
Lord Baltimore fell sick and died, in London, in the fifty-
third year of his age. His eldest son, Cecil Calvert, succeeded
his father, and inherited his titles as well as his fortune and
spirit. Another charter, differing in no essential particular
from the first one, was made out, published and confirmed,
on June 20th, 1632, investing him with all the rights and
privileges which his Majesty had intended to confer upon
his father.

The preamble to the charter of Maryland, after reciting
the fact that Geeerge Calvert, " treading in the footsteps of his
father, being animated with a laudable and pious zeal for
extending the Christian religion, and also the territories of
our Empire, hath humbly besought leave of us, that he may
transport by his own industry and expense a numerous
colony of the English nation, to a certain region, hereinafter
described, in a country hitherto uncultivated in the parts of

14 HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY.

America, and partly occupied by savages having no knowledge of
the Divine Being, and that all that region, with some certain
privileges and jurisdictions appertaining unto the whole-
some government and state of his colony and region afore-
said, may by our Royal Highness be given, granted and
confirmed unto him and his heirs." The language used
in the sentence which we have italicised was most unfortu-
nate, and was used many years afterwards with powerful
effect in circumscribing the territory of Maryland. The
metes and bounds of the province as set forth in the charter,
were as follows: All that part of the Peninsula or Chersonese,
lying in the parts of America between the ocean on the east
and the bay of Chesapeake on the west ; divided from the
residue thereof by a right line drawn from the promontory
or headland called Watkin's Point, situated upon the bay
aforesaid, near the river Wighco on the west, unto the main
ocean on the east; and between that boundary on the south,
unto that part of the bay of Delaware on the north, which
lyeth under the fortieth degree of north latitude from the
equinoctial, where New England is terminated ; and all the
tract of that land within the metes underwritten (that is to
say), passing from the said bay, called Delaware Bay, in a
right line by the degree aforesaid, unto the true meridian
of the first fountain of the river Pattowmack, thence verging
towards the south, unto the further bank of the said river,
and following the same on the west and south, unto a
certain place called Oinquack, situate near the mouth of the
said river, where it disembogues into the aforesaid bay of
Chesapeake, and thence by the shortest line unto the afore-
said promontoiy or place called Watkin's Point."

Cecil or Csecillius Calvert, for he was baptized by the first
name and confirmed by the second one, intrusted the com-
mand of the first expedition he sent to Maryland to his
brothers Leonard and George, constituting the former lieu-
tenant-governor or general. This expedition, which con-
sisted of two vessels, the Ark and the Dove, and nearly two

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 15

hundred persons, reached Virginia safely, and after spend-
ing a short time there proceeded to the Chesapeake Bay, and
ascending the Potomac River landed at Saint Maries, where
the first town in the State was founded on the 27th of March,
1G34. It is not within the scope of this work to give the
history of that settlement in extenso ; we shall therefore only
refer briefly to such parts of it as are calculated to throw
some light upon the history of this county.

The Pilgrims found the Indians (Yoacomacoes), from
whom they purchased the site of their town, in great dread
of the Susquehannocks, who were their mortal enemies and
who never ceased to make war upon them and ravage their
country. The Yoacomacoes for this reason received and
treated the Pilgrims kindly at first, but in a short time be-
gan to show symptoms of hostility, being, as is alleged, insti-
gated to do so by William Clayborne, who, as before stated,
had possession of Kent Island and had established a trading
post on Palmer's Island, at the mouth of the Susquehanna
River. This hostile act on the part of Clayborne was the
commencement of a protracted struggle between him and
Lord Baltimore, which lasted till 1G37, when his property
was confiscated and he was attainted of high treason. A
few years afterwards (in 1642) this man Clayborne and one
Richard Ingle, who is called a pirate and rebel, and some
others from Virginia and elsewhere, engaged in a conspiracy
to overthrow the authority of Lord Baltimore. They seized
Kent Island and invaded the western shore and forced the
lord proprietary to seek refuge in Virginia. The causes of
this rebellion as well as its history, owing to the destruction
of the records of the colony during that period, are very
imperfectly understood ; but there is no doubt that Clayborne
took advantage of the political and religious trouble which
then agitated the mother country to avenge himself upon
Lord Baltimore for the loss of his possessions and prospec-
tive trade in the Chesapeake Bay. Owing to this rebellion
and also to the hostile attitude of the natives which was

16 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

occasioned by it, the growth of the colony was slow. The
Susquehannocks gave the colonists much trouble in the early
days of the settlement at St. Maries, and in May, 1639, the
Council resolved to invade their country, and to that end
passed the following order, which shows the condition of
society and the mode of warfare at that time : " Whereas, it
is found necessary forthwith to make an expedition upon
the Indians of the Eastern Shore upon the public charge of
the province ; it is to that end thought fit that a shallop be
sent to Virginia for to provide twenty corslets (steel plates
for the covering and protection of the chest), a barrel of
powder, four round lets of shot, a barrel of oat meal, three
firkins of butter, and four cases of hot waters ; and that five
able persons be pressed to go with the said shallop and
necessary provisions of victuals be made for them, and that
a pinnace be pressed to go to Kent (Kent Island) sufficiently
victualed and manned, and there provide four hogsheads of
meal ; and likewise that a pinnace be sent to the Susquehan-
nocks sufficiently victualed and manned, and thirty or more
good shott, with necessary officers, be pressed out of the
province, and that each of the shott be allowed after the
rate of 100 pounds of tobacco per month," etc., etc. The
colonists appear to have spent the summer in making
preparations for this warlike expedition against their foes,
but their courage was not equal to the task of invading their
country amid the storms and snows of the following winter,
and the enterprise was abandoned. There appears to have
been many hostile incursions of the Indians into the terri-
tory occupied by the early settlers about this time and many
rumors of wars that no doubt kept them in a state of almost
constant excitement and alarm.

Some of the writers of that period assert that the Swedes
then settled on the Christiana, where Wilmington now
stands, sold firearms to the Susquehannocks, and hired
some of their soldiers to them to instruct them in the art of
war as practiced by the Europeans; but the evidence of this

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 17

is not conclusive, and it is quite as likely, if the Indians
had firearms at all, that they got them from the French in
Canada, or the Dutch at Manhattan, or from some. of the
tribes of the Five Nations, who may have obtained them
from the French or Dutch, with whom they traded.

But little else worthy of note occurred in connection with
the Susquehannocks until 1652. In that year a treaty was
made with them, which is the first of which any record has
been preserved. This treaty was made "at the River of
Severn," where Annapolis now stands. It may be found at
length in the appendix to Bozman's History of Maryland,
in which it is stated that a blank occurs in the first article.
A critical examination of the old Council Book will con-
vince any person familiar with the peculiar chirography of
that time that there is no blank in it, and that the word
which Mr. Bozman says in another place is illegible, is in
reality the word trees. The first article of this treaty is as
follows : "Articles of peace and friendship treated and agreed
upon the fifth day of July, 1652, between the English
nation, in the province of Maryland, on the one party, and
the Indian nation of Susquesahanough on the other partie,
as folio weth : First, that the English nation shall have,
hould and enjoy to them, their heires and assigns forever,
all the land lying from Patuxent River unto Palmer's
Island, on the westerne side of the baj^e of Chesepiake, and
from Choptank River to the northeast branch, which lyes to the
northward of Elke River, on the easterne side of the said baye,
with all the islands, rivers, creeks, trees, fish, fowle, deer,
Elke, and whatsoever else to the same belonging, excepting
the Isl of Kent and Palmer's Islend, which belong to Cap-
tain Clayborne. But nevertheless it shall be lawful for the
aforesaid English or Indians to build a house or forte for
trade or any such like use or occasion at any tyme upon
Palmer's Island." The treaty further stipulated for the
return of fugitives escaping from either of the contracting
parties, and provided that when the Indians desired to visit

18 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY,

the English they should come by water and not by land,
and that not more than eight or ten of them at one time,
and that each party, when visiting the other, should carry
with them and exhibit the token, which they appear to have
mutually exchanged with each other, so that they could be
recognized and entertained. And, after pledging the con-
tracting parties to a perpetual peace, which ivas to endure
forever to the end of the world, provided that if it should so
happen that either party should grow weary of the peace, and
desire to go to ivar, they should give twenty days' notice by sending
in and delivering up this writing. This treaty was signed by
Richard Bennett, Edward Lloyd, Thomas Marsh, William
Fuller and Leonard Strong, commissioners on the part of
the English, and on the part of the Indians by "Sawahegeh,
Auroghtaregh, Scarhuhadig, Ruthchogah and Nathheldi-
anch, warr captaines and councillors of Susquesahanough,
commissioners appointed and sent for the purpose by the
nation and State of Susquesahanough;" and was witnessed
by William Lawson and Jafer or Jasper Peter, the last
individual signing it for the Swedes governor. Why it
was that Jasper Peter witnessed this treaty on behalf of the
Swedes governor, will forever remain a mystery. He most
probably was an Indian trader from the Swedish settlement
at Christina,* which will be referred to in the next chapter.
It will be seen from the first article of this treaty that the
Susquehannocks, in the interval since Captain Smith ex-
plored the Chesapeake Bay, had extended their territory on
the western shore from the west bank of the Susquehanna
to the Patuxent River, and on the eastern shore from the
northeast to the Choptank River. The probabilit}^ is that
the tribes that Smith found south of the mouth of the Sus-
quehanna and northeast were tributary to the Susquehan-
nocks, and that the latter had long claimed the country and
enjoyed the privilege of hunting and fishing along the

* Where Willmington now stands, afterwards called Christiana.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 19

shores of the bay in the territory mentioned in the treaty.
The great accumulations of oyster shells found near the
mouth of Fairlee Creek, in Kent County, and at other places
further down the bay, which are believed to have been
placed there by migratory Indians, seems to favor this idea.
The reader will notice that Kent and Palmer's islands are
said to belong to Captain Clayborne. The facts are that at
this time the government of Maryland was in the hands of
his friends, and that he had re-entered and taken possession
of them a short time before the treaty was made.*

* Hanson's Old Kent, page 7.

CHAPTER IV.

Early settlements on the Delaware — Henry Hudson — Captain Mey and
others — Names of the Delaware — Fort Nassau — Swanendale — Peter Min-
uit filants a Swedish colony at Wilmington — Fort Cassimir — Peter
Stuyvesant conquers the Swedes.

The reader will bear in mind that it is not the purpose
of this work to give a history of Cecil County solety ; the
history of the settlements immediately surrounding it, being"
so closely interwoven with its own, that its history would be
incomplete without a glance at their origin and contempo-
raneous doings. Such idea is embodied in the title of this
book ; and inasmuch as Maryland, by the terms of its char-
ter, extended to the Delaware Ba}r and river, and to the
fortieth degree of. north latitude, which is some distance
above the mouth of the Schuylkill, it is highly important in
order that the reader may properly understand the history
of the early settlements in Cecil County and elsewhere near
the head of the Chesapeake Bay, that he should be informed
of the efforts that were made from time to time by other
nations to plant colonies along the Delaware. From a period
commencing with 1659, and continuing for at least half a
century, the history of what transpired along the western
shore of the Delaware bay and river as far north as Phila-
delphia, is so closely blended with that which transpired
within the present limits of Cecil County that it is impossi-
ble to give an intelligible account of one, without having a
correct knowledge of the other. During this period was
laid the foundation of that intimacy between the. j^eople of
the upper part of the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and the
settlements along the Western Shore of the Delaware, the

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 21

-effect of which may yet be seen, in the diversion of much of
the trade that legitimately belongs to Baltimore City, to
Philadelphia and Wilmington. For the reasons already
mentioned, and from the fact that many of the early settlers
of this county came here from the settlements on the Dela-
ware, it will be necessary, from time to time, to refer to the
colonies on that river, and trace their history, which will be
done as briefly and succinctly as the importance of the sub-
ject wrill permit.

The Delaware River was discovered by Henry Hudson,
an Englishman in the employ of the Dutch East India
Company, in 1609; but no steps were taken to effect a settle-
ment along that river or bay until 1614. In that year the States-
•General of Holland, the government of which was deeply
interested in maritime discoveries, passed an edict granting
exclusive privileges to any persons who should make any
important discoveries in the New World. Under this edict
five vessels, fitted out by merchants of Amsterdam, sailed
to the mouth of the Manhattan River, as the Hudson was
then called. One of the vessels, the Fortune, commanded
by Captain Cornelius Jacobson Mey, subsequently sailed
south and entered the Delaware Bay. It is from him that
the eastern cape of the Delaware Bay derives the name of
Cape May.

One of these vessels was burned, and to supply its place a
smaller one was built, in which, after the return of the
others, Captain Hendrickson who was left in charge of the
new vessel, proceeded to explore the Delaware Bay and
river. He ascended the latter as far as the mouth of the
Schuylkill, and is believed to have been the first white man
that,ever trod upon the soil of the State of Delaware. While
here he purchased three native inhabitants from the Min-
quas, who held them in slavery, for whom he gave in ex-
change kettles, beads and merchandise.* This happened in

* Vincent's History of Delaware, Vol. I, page 103.

22 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

1616. The Delaware River has been known by many
names. Vincent, in his history of the State, informs his;
readers that the Indians called it by no less than five. The
Dutch called it Zuydt, or South River ; by which name it
is frequently mentioned in the early records of this county ;
they also called it Nassau River, and Prince Hendrick's or
Charles River; the Swedes, New Swedeland stream; the
English, Delaware, from Lord De-la war, the title of Sir
Thomas West, who occupied a prominent position in the
early history of Virginia.

The privileges of the first Company having expired,
another one called the West India Company was chartered
for the purpose of effecting settlements and trading with the
natives along the shores of the South River. Under the
auspices of this Company a settlement was made and a fort
called Fort Nassau constructed, a short distance below Phila-
delphia on the other side of the river, near where the town
of Gloucester, New Jersey, now stands. This was done in
1623. The history of this fort is shrouded in obscurity-
Some of the early Swedish writers affirm that it was aban-
doned by the Dutch after they had conquered the Swedes,.
and was found in possession of the Indians in 1633. Other
writers assert that the Dutch at New Amsterdam maintained
a trading post there for many years, and till after the Swedes
had established themselves on the other side of the Dela-
ware River.

The next effort to effect a settlement on the Delaware was
probably made in 1631, for the time is not very certain.
This settlement, which the Dutch called Swanendale, was at
Lewes, and was made by a company of Dutchmen who ex-
pected to realize much gain from catching whales in the
Delaware Bay. The colony was brought over by David
Peiterzen De Vries, a Hollander, who, after leaving it com-
fortably located under command of one Gillis Hossett, re-
turned to his native country. The next year De Vries re-
visited Swanendale and found that some time during the

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 23

interval the whole colony had been massacred by the In-
dians. De Vries learned from the Indians that the colo-
nists had erected a pillar on which they had fastened apiece
of tin, upon which was traced the coat-of-arms of the united
provinces. One of the chiefs wanted the tin to make into
tobacco pipes and took it away, which gave offence to the
officer in command, who complained to the Indians so bit-
terly that to appease his wrath they slew the offender. The
Dutch regretted the death of the chief, and told the Indians
they had done wrong to kill him. Subsequently, some
of the friends of the murdered Indian resolved to avenge
his death, and taking advantage of a favorable opportunity
when all the Dutch, except a sick man, were at work in the
field, attacked and slew them all.

The planting of this colony of unfortunate people at the
mouth of the Delaware Bay, had a very important bearing
upon the history of Maryland ; and owing to the phrase-
ology of the charter of that province had more to do with
circumscribing the territory of the State of Maryland than
all other circumstances combined.

To Peter Minuit belongs the credit of planting the next
colony in the State of Delaware. He had been appointed
Director-General of New Netherlands, which then included
New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and part of Connecticut,
in 1624, and had been recalled eight years afterwards, hav-
ing quarreled with the company who had employed him.
Probably with the view of avenging himself upon them, he
offered his services to the crown of Sweden, with the inten-
tion of effecting a Swedish settlement on the South River,
and offered to conduct the enterprise. His offer was accep-.
ted. and the expedition sailed from Sweden, as is supposed,
in the fall of the year 1637. The: expedition, it is supposed,
consisted of about fifty persons, many of whom, it is said,
were criminals.* Judging from their history as gleaned

* Vincent's History of Delaware, Vol. I., page 145.

24 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

from the correspondence between their governors and the
authorities at New Amsterdam after the Dutch conquered
them, morality and religion were at a low ebb among
them, though they always seem to have made great preten-
sions to the latter. The expedition reached this country in
April, .1638, and sailing up the Delaware Bay and river,
entered the Minquas Creek, which they called the Christina,
and landed at the foot of Sixth street, in what is now the
city of Wilmington. They at once commenced the erection
of a fort, which, in honor of their young queen, they named
Fort Christina. A small town called Christinaham or
Christina Harbor was also erected near the fort.

About this time (1638) the Dutch, who had established a
trading post at New Amsterdan, which was on Manhattan
Island, where New York now stands, in 1610, began to look
more diligently to their interest on the Delaware,* and
complained loudly to the government of Holland of the
injury done to their trade by the Swedes on the Delaware.
The history of the quarrels between the Dutch and Swedes,
and their efforts to outdo each other and obtain control of
the country along the Delaware during the next seventeen
years,' is too intricate to be given in this place. But it is
important that the reader should be informed that during
this time the Swedes had extended their possessions by
purchase from the Indians from their first settlement on
the Christiana up the Delaware to a point within what is
now the city of Philadelphia. During this period they
erected forts on Tinicum Island, where the Lazaretto is now
located, and at the mouth of Salem Creek, in New Jersey,
with the intention of commanding the navigation of the
Delaware River and ultimately preventing the Dutch from
visiting their fort at Gloucester. They also had established
a trading post on an island in the Schuylkill River, and
were so successful in their trade with the Indians on the

* Ferris's Original 'ettlcmeats on the Delaware, page 52.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 25

west bank of the Delaware as to excite the fears of the
Dutch that they would ultimately supplant them and force
them to abandon their trade altogether.

Peter Stuyvesant, a man of great energy and decision of
character, was made Governor of New Amsterdam in 1647,
and soon afterwards set about devising measures to regain
some of the lost prestige of his countrymen on the Delaware.
To this end he purchased from the Indians all the land be-
tween the Christiana and Bombay Hook, and erected a fort,
-called Fort Cassimir, on a point of land then called Sand-
huken, now New Castle. This fort was erected in 1651. It
was only about four miles from the Swedish fort at Chris-
tina. Shortly after it was finished an armed vessel arrived
from Sweden and summoned the garrison to surrender.
Being in no condition to stand a siege, they did so, and the
Swedes took possession of the fort and garrisoned it, The
capture of this fort no doubt added to the jealousy and
rancor of the Dutch ; but Stuyvesant bided his time, and
having made ample preparation, sailed from New Amster-
dam in August, 1655, in command of a squadron of seven
armed ships, containing between six and seven hundred
men, for the purpose of conquering the Swedes and taking
possession of the country. Fort Cassimir, the name of
which the Swedes had changed to Fort Trinity, capitulated
without resistance. Rising, the Swedish governor, defended
Fort Christina as well as he could, but was soon forced to
surrender, and in a short time the wdiole of New Sweden,
as the country on the west bank of the Delaware was then
called, fell into the hands of the Dutch. By the terms of
capitulation of Fort Christina, Rising, and all other Swredes
who wished to do so, were allowed to return to Gottenberg,
a/port in the North Sea, in a ship to be furnished by the
Dutch. They seem to have been afraid or ashamed to go
back to Swreden. Those who chose to remain were tendered
the oath of allegiance, which was taken by most of them.

After the conquest of New Sweden it was divided into

26 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

two colonies, one of which included Fort Christina and the
land immediately around it, and extended from Christina
River down to Bombay Hook. This was called "The Colony
of the Company." The other extended from the north boun-
dary of the Company's colony up the Delaware to the
extent of the settlement, and was called "The Colony of the
City." It belonged to the city of Amsterdam, and was
governed by the burgomasters and council of that city,
through Peter Stuyvesant and his council.

Before the erection of Fort Cassimir, in 1651, all business
was transacted in the name of " The States-General and the
West India Company," jointly. Now their concerns were
divided. Lands lying within the territory of the city were
conveyed in Amsterdam by the burgomasters and council.
Deeds for those within the limits of the Company were ex-
ecuted by directors and commissaries.* Nowithstanding
this diversity of interest, both colonies were under the
jurisdiction of Stuyvesant, who appointed the governors
and commissaries, and exercised a general surveillance
over the affairs of each of them. New Amstel, now New-
Castle, which was founded about this time, was the residence
of the governor of the colony belonging to the Company.
Altona, now Wilmington, was the capital of the other
colony. The Swedish families are stated by Ferris as num-
bering one hundred and thirty. Such, briefly stated, was
the condition of affairs along the Delaware in 1659, when
the.authorities of Maryland took the first steps to dispossess
the interlopers.

* Ferris's Hist, of the Original Settlements on the Delaware, page 106.

CHAPTER V.

First permanent settlement in the county - Other settlements—
Spesutia Island— Trouble between the Dutch and English — Nathaniel
Utie — He is sent to New Amstel— Augustine Ilermen and Resolved Wal-
dron visit Maryland — Their meeting with the Governor and Council —
Account of the early life of Augustine Hermen — His Map of Maryland —
Extracts from his will— He obtains a grant of Bohemia Manor and Mid-
dle Neck— Makes a treaty with the Indians at Spesutia Island— First
reference to Cecil County — Thompsontown — Indian forts.

The first permanent settlement in Cecil County, so far as-
the writer has been able to learn from laborious and patient
investigation of everything calculated to throw any light on
the subject, was made in 1658, upon the farm which for
more than a century and a half has been in the possession
of the Simcoe family of this county. This farm may be
found on the mapof the county, and is located a short distance
northwest of Carpenter's Point fishery, and not very far
from the mouth of Principio Creek. It appears from papers-
in possession of Mr. George Simcoe, of Bay View, the present
owner of the farm, that it was part of a tract of four hundred
acres taken up and patented on the 20th July, 1658, by one
William Carpender, under the name of Anna Catharine
Neck. It is described as butting on Bay Head Creek, now
called Principio Creek. George Simcoe, who was a felt-
maker from Prince George's County, purchased two hundred
acres, part of the original tract, from Carpender Littington,
in 1720, which is described as adjoining the land of Francis
Clay, who, there is little doubt, sought to perpetuate his
name by applying it to the historic tract of land called
"Clay Fall," which included a large part if not all the land

"28 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY

in Carpenter's Point Neck. It is probable that other settle-
ments were made about this time, along the Bay shore west
of Principio Creek, and that a few straggling settlers from
Kent Island had settled on the main land in the south-
western part of Kent County, which, as we shall see, was
.afterwards for a period of thirty-two years included in this
•county. There is also reason to believe that a few settle-
ments had been made along the Sassafras River near its
mouth, but no record of any of them has come down to the
present time. Judging from the fact that the Susquehan-»
nocks reserved the country between the North East and Sus-
quehanna rivers, in the treaty of 1652, and there being no
evidence that they ever ceded it to the English, it is reason-
.able to conclude that the first settlers at "Clay Fall" were
Indian traders, located there for the purpose of trafficing
with the Susquehannocks, who continued to frequent this
part of the county for many years after this time.

Spesutia Island had been settled for some time before this,
for there is evidence that the Dutch at Altona knew of it
the next year and called it Pearson's Island.

Many of the Swedes and Finns — for many of the latter
had settled along the Delaware — not liking the government
•of the Dutch, took refuge among the English settlements be-
fore named, and among them were six soldiers, who had
deserted from the Dutch service. At a meeting of the Coun-
cil of New Amstel, on June 20th, 1659, it was resolved to re-
quest the governor of Maryland to return these deserters. The
Dutch did not know the governor's name, nor where he lived,
but they were acquainted with Nathaniel Utie, who then resi-
ded upon Spesutia Island, and who no cloubt was in the
habit of visiting the Dutch settlements ; and so they sent the
letter to Utie, who agreed to forward it to the governor,
though he informed those who delivered it to him that he
had a commission in his house authorizing him to visit the
Dutch, and had delayed starting upon his mission because
Lord Baltimore had arrived and ordered a survey of the

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. ' 29'

country to be made, with a view of convincing the Dutch
that they were located within his province. Utie told them
if that was the case, that measures would be taken to reduce
the Dutch and make them acknowledge the jurisdiction of
Maryland, and that Lord Baltimore had no intention of
abandoning any part of his territory. The assertion made
by Utie that Lord Baltimore had arrived was not true, and
he probably made it to intimidate those who composed the
embassy.

Nathaniel Utie was one of the most prominent pioneers
of civilization at the head of Chesapeake Bay. ' The time of
his settlement upon Spesutia Island is unknown, but it was
probably made soon after the treaty with the Susquehan-
nocks, in 1652. The beautiful island opposite Turkey Point
derives its name from him. The word means Utie's Hope.
He probably came from Virginia, and was, no doubt, a rela-
tive of John Utie, whose name occupies a conspicuous position
in the history of Virginia from 1623 till 1635. In the-
former year he and ten others addressed a letter to the king-
in reference to the affairs of that colony. He was at that
time a member of the Council of Virginia. He afterwards
got into political trouble and his property was confiscated.

Nathaniel Utie was appointed councilor, May 6th, 165S.
The next day he was licensed to trade with the Indians in
the province for beaver and other furs. He seems to have
been a member of the last Assembly, and to have been made
a councilor on account of " the great ability and affectionate
service done in that Assembly by him." He was authorized
in his license to arrest all persons trading in the upper part
of the bay not having license. On the 12th of July follow-
ing he was commissioned as captain of all the forces be-
tween the coves of Patuxent River and the Seven Mountains,
and was to command as his own company all the forces
from the head of Severn River on the north side thereof to
the Seven Mountains. This is the only time the Seven Moun-
tains are mentioned in the colonial records. It is impossible

SO HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

to ascertain, with certainty, what highlands were thus digni-
fied by the name of mountains ; hut the name was evidently
applied to seven of the largest hills near the head of the bay,
and there is little doubt that Bulls' Mountain and the other
eminences in Elk Neck are the mountains referred to. In
1661 the council of the colony met at Spesutia ; and Utie,
who had been a member of a bogus Assembly that met at
St. Clement Manor in 1659, in the time of Fendall's rebellion,
and which had indulged in legislation hostile to the Lord
Proprietary, petitioned the council "to add a further act of
grace, that his former offences may not be prejudicial to
him hereafter." It seems from this that he had already
been pardoned, but the council very graciously granted his
petition. He represented Baltimore County in the House
of Burgesses in 1665; and the next year was one of a num-
ber of commissioners appointed to negotiate with the gover-
nors of Virginia and North Carolina in reference to the dis-
continuance of the planting of tobacco in those provinces
and Maryland for one year, in order to enhance the price of
that article. He owned a considerable quantity of land
near the mouth of the Gunpowder and also owned land
along the Sassafras River.

George Utie and Richard Wells were ordered to be sum-
moned before the provincial court in 1661, " for not sending
letters down to the Governor according to the acts of Assem-
bly, and for contemptuously nailing up a letter of the sheriff
directed to the governor." They probably lived on Spesutia
Island, and the former was, no doubt, a relative of Nathaniel
Utie. It seems from his treatment of the sheriff that he
was as stubborn and courageous as Nathaniel. He repre-
sented Baltimore County in the House of Burgesses in 1661,
and was also commissioned sheriff of Baltimore County in
1666.

This meagre sketch contains all the particulars of interest
that we have been able to glean from the colonial records of
this period of the Utie family.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 31

The bold stand taken by Utie gave great alarm to the
Dutch, and so many of the settlers in consequence removed
to Maryland and Virginia that scarcely thirty families re-
mained in New Amstel.

Governor Fendall on the receipt of the letter containing
the extraordinary demand for the return of the deserters,
being anxious to carry out Lord Baltimore's instructions,
called a meeting of the council at Anne Arundel (now An-
napolis), on the 3d of August, at which meeting it was
" Ordered that Colonel Nathaniel Utie do make his repaire
to the pretended Governor of the people seated in Delaware
Bay, within his Lordship's Province, and that he do give
them to understand that they are seated within this,
his Lordship's Province, without notice given to his Lord-
ship's Lieutenant here, and to require them to depart
this Province." ..." That in case he find opportunity,
he insinuate unto the people there seated, that in case they
make their application to his Lordship's government here,
they shall find good conditions, according to the conditions
of plantation granted to all comers into this province, which
shall be made good unto them ; and that they shall have
protection in their lives, liberty and estates, which they
shall bring with them." Whereupon a letter was sent from
Governor Fendall to the Dutch on Delaware Bay, in which
he acknowledges the receipt of the letter from the Dutch
governor there, and recites the fact that the Dutch colony
is located south of the fortieth degree of north latitude and
within the limits of Lord Baltimore's grant, and requires
him (the Dutchman) to depart " or to excuse him (Fendall)
if he should use his utmost endeavor to reduce that part of
his Lordship's Province unto its due obedience under him."

This letter was intrusted to Utie, who, accompanied by his
brother, his cousin, a Major Jacob de Yrintz, and servant,
and four fugitives, arrived at New Amstel on the 6th of
September, 1659.

It seems that the fugitives went voluntarily, for three of

32 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

them were arrested by the authorities at New Amstel. The-
accounts of this visit which have come down to us, warrant
the belief that Utie was a cunning and skillful diplomatist,
and that he fully carried out the instructions which had
been given to him by the council. His actions during the
course of the negotiations with the Dutch are said to have
been both boisterous and aggressive ; so much so that Stuy-
vesant censured Governor Beekman and Alrichs for not
arresting him. But his efforts to induce the Dutch to ac-
knowledge the authority of 'Lord Baltimore Avere unsuccess-
ful ; and this attempt to extend the jurisdiction of the gov-
ernment of Maryland to the Delaware River, like many
others that were subsequently made, proved to be a failure.
The Dutch were very badly frightened by Utie's behavior,,
and immediately sent messengers overland to Manhattan,
to inform Stuyvesant of the demands he had made. Fear-
ing that the messengers might meet with some disaster, the
next day they dispatched a vessel for the same purpose.
Governor Stuyvesant upon being informed of the condition
of affairs on the Delaware, dispatched Augustine Hermen
and Resolved (or Rosevelt) Waldron upon a mission to
Maryland for the purpose of adjusting the difficulty. They
came by the way of New Amstel and left there on the 13th
of September, 1659. They kept a journal during their
journey, in which they state that they were accompanied by
some guides, mostly Indians, and convo};red by a few sol-
diers. They traveled by land, taking the first day a course
west northwest from New Castle. They continued this
course for four and a half Dutch miles (about thirteen and
a quarter English miles), when they took a due west course,
and after traveling three more Dutch miles, the Indians re-
fusing to proceed any further, encamped for the night. On
the first of October they continued their journey, going
west by south, and then directly south. The country at first
was hilly and then low. They soon arrived at a stream,
which the Indians informed them flowed into the Bav of

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 33

Virginia — the Chesapeake Bay. They followed this stream
Until they found a boat hauled upon the shore and almost
dried up. Dismissing four of their guides and retaining
only a man named Sander Boj^er and his Indian, they
pushed off, but were soon obliged to land again, as the boat
became full of water, whereupon they turned the boat up-
side down and caulked the seams with old linen. They thus
made it a little tighter, but one was obliged to sit continu-
ally and bail out the water. Proceeding clown this stream,
they soon reached the Elk River. There must have been
great changes in the branches of the Elk River since that
time, for none of them are now navigable. The probability
is that they reached the North East, which they mistook for
the Elk. Here they made a fire and remained till evening,
when they proceeded, but with great trouble, as the boat had
neither rudder nor oars, but only paddles. Going clown the
bay they arrived at the Sassafras River, where they stopped
at the plantation of a man named John Turner. Here they
met a man named Abraham, who was a Finn, and had been
a soldier at Fort Altona, and who had run away with a
Dutch woman from the settlements on the Delaware and
taken refuge in Maryland. They proceeded clown the bay
and soon reached Kent Island, where they were entertained
by a Mr. Wicks for a short time, and soon afterwards had
their first interview with the governor and council of Mary-
land at Patuxent. At this meeting Herman and Waldron
presented the governor and council with a letter and their
credentials from Governor Stuyvesant, in Dutch, and which
were Englished by Mr. Simon Oversee, by order of the coun-
cil. In this letter Stuyvesant speaks of being much aston-
ished when he understood that Colonel Utie had served the
notice upon the Dutch in Delaware, requiring them to va-
cate their settlement there, and argues the case at some
length, and takes exception to the instrument, because it
wras not dated. He calls it " a seditious cartebell, in form of
an instruction, without any time or place, or where or from

34 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY..

whom, or in whose name, order or authority it was written,""
etc. ; and concludes by stating that he sent his agents and
ambassadors, Hermen and Waldron, to remonstrate against
the proceedings of the governor and council of Maryland.
The credentials of the ambassadors were of much greater
length and contained a great deal more protestation and
argument than the letter. The ambassadors also delivered
a paper of considerable length, in which the arguments in
favor of the claim of the Dutch on the Delaware are very
succinctly set forth.

During the progress of, their deliberations, which were
protracted for several days, the Dutch ambassadors were
shown a copy of Lord Baltimore's charter, whereupon they
called the attention of the council to the fact that his lord-
ship was invested with a country not before inhabited, only
by a certain barbarous people called Indians. And inas-
much as the country on the Delaware River was settled be-
fore the patent was issued, his Royal Majesty's intention wras
not to invest him with title to the settlements on the Dela-
ware. Upon the ground taken by these ambassadors at this
early stage of the dispute between Lord Baltimore and the
Dutch, his claims to all the land between the Delaware and
Chesapeake bays and as far north as the fortieth degree of
north latitude was ultimately defeated. The fact that Her-
men and Waldron were the first to call attention to this
matter proves them to have been persons of great ability t
and shrewd and cunning diplomatists. Col. Nathaniel Utie,.
who was a member of the council at this time, appears to
have shown a great deal of temper. He was probably some-
what vexed at the want of success that attended his efforts
when at New Castle. This attempt to settle this difficulty,,
like the one that preceded it, proved to be a failure in its
main object ; but was productive of good in this particular,,
that it caused the English and their neighbors along the
Delaware to become better acquainted. It was also the
means of bringing Augustine Hermen to settle in this county.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 35

After the negotiations were over, Waldron returned to New
Amsterdam with an account of them, and Hermen went to
Virginia, as he expresses it, " to inquire of the governor
what is his opinion on the subject, to create a division be-
tween them both, and purge ourselves of the slander of
stirring up the Indians to murder English at Accomac." It
seems from this, that the Dutch had made themselves
obnoxious to the Virginians as well as to the Mary landers ;
but as the two latter were upon the best of terms at this
time, it may have been that the Virginians had espoused
the cause of the Marylanders and slandered the Dutch, as
Hermen asserts. It is probable that Hermen remained in
Virginia for some months on business connected with the
map which he afterwards made of that province and Mary-
land ; for the authorities at New Amsterdam, on dispatching
Captain Newton and Varlett to that colony " on a mission,
in February, 1660, instructed them to inquire in Maryland
if danger threatened the South River," and to avail them-
selves of the " aid and tongue of Augustine Hermen," at
that time in Virginia.

The history of this distinguished man, and that of his
numerous descendants, is so closely interwoven with that of
Cecil County for a quarter of a century after this time that
some account of his previous life will be interesting. He
was a native of Prague, a city of Bohemia ; but at what time
he came to New Netherlands is not precisely known. He
was in the employ of the West India Company, and was in
company with Arent Corssen in 1633, at the time of the
Dutch purchase from the Indians of the lands which in-
cluded the site of Philadelphia, on the Schuylkill, near the
mouth of which Fort Beversrede was subsequently erected.
He probably returned to Holland and came back again to
this country under different auspices than those of his first
adventure here. In June, 1641, he was with Laurens Cor-
nelisson, an agent of Peter Gabry & Sons, and Mr. Broad-
head says he " came out under the patronage of the Chamber

36 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

of Encklmysen as agent of the mercantile house of Gabry
of Amsterdam." The same year he was established in trade
of the general character common at the time, and afterwards
made several voyages to Holland in the prosecution of his
commercial enterprises. Some years later we find him in-
terested in privateering, and one of the owners, in 1649, of
the frigate La Garce, engaged in depredations on the Spanish
commerce. He was unfortunate in his business enterprises,
and in September, 1652, " a fugitive" from his creditors, his
affairs in the hands of assignees, who were finally discharged
as such March 18th, 1653. In May following he was granted
"liberty and freedom" by the council, and excused for
having broken the company's seal ; " having settled with his
creditors," the same month he was bearer of dispatches from
Governor Stuyvesant to the New England authorities at
Boston, respecting an alleged conspiracy of the Dutch and
Indians against the English. In December, 1658, he obtained
permission to make a voyage, doubtless for trade to the Dutch
and French islands in the West Indies, and arrived at the
Island of Curacao, April 18th, 1659. In his public positions
he rendered useful and important service to the colony. He
was one of the Board of Nine Men then organized, September
25th, 1647, and held the office in 1649 and 1650. One of
the ambassadors to Rhode Island in April, 1652." *

Augustine Hermen married Jannetje (Jane) Varlett, a na-
tive of Utrecht, in New Amsterdam, December 10th, 1651.
They were the parents of five children : Ephraim George,
Casparus or Caspar, Anna Margaretta, Judith and Francina,
all of whom were baptized in the Dutch Reformed Church at
New Amsterdam, of which their parents are believed to have
been members. The map generally called Hermen's map
of Maryland, in consideration of the making of which he
obtained the grant of Bohemia Manor and Middle Neck,

*From Ancient Families of New York, by Edwin R. Purple, in the
N. Y. Gen. and Bio. Record, April, 1878, page 54.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

includes all of Delaware and considerable portions of the
other States contiguous to Maryland. It was engraved and
published by Faithorne, of London, in 1672, and contains
a medallion portrait of Hermen, probably the only one
extant. The map is very authentic, so far as it represents
the western shore of the Chesapeake and the peninsula be-
tween the Chesapeake and Delaware bays. A tradition has
long been current among the people of Bohemia Manor that
upon a certain occasion after Hermen settled in Maryland
he went back to New Amsterdam where, for some reason
now unknown, he was arrested and confined -by order of the
authorities there. In order to escape he feigned insanity
and requested to be allowed the company of his horse, a
splendid gray charger. The favor was granted, and Hermen
mounting the horse seized a favorable opportunity, and dash-
ing through one of the windows of his prison, which were
twenty feet from the ground, started for New Castle, which
he reached in safety, though closely pursued by his enemies.
His horse is said to have swam the Delaware River and
carried his master safely across, and to have died from over-
exertion shortly after reaching the shore. There is probably
some truth in this story, for Hermen had a painting com-
memorative of some adventure of that kind. Two copies
of this painting are yet extant,, one of which is in the
possession of one of his descendants, a member of the Troth
family, of Camden, New Jersey. He made a will which is dated
November 8th, 1665, and though never proved, is recorded
among the land records of Baltimore County, in Book I. S.,
number I. K. Among many other interesting things, it
contains the following clause : " I do appoint my burial and
sepulcher, if I die in this bay or in Delaware, to be in Bohe-
mia Manor, in my garden by my wife Johanna Yarlett's,
and that a great sepulcher stone shall be erected upon our
graves three feet above ground, like unto a table, with
engraven letters that I am the first seater and beginner of
Bohemia Manor, Anno Domini, 1660, and died," etc. This

38 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

will shows that he had at that time property in New York,
which if his children left no heirs he directs shall be applied
to the erection of a free school. He directs that his sons
shall have at eighteen years of age, and his daughters at
marriage, six milch cows, six breeding sows, and six breed-
ing hens, with a male of each one of those species. His son
Ephraim George 'and his friend John Browning, with whom
he afterwards had a bitter quarrel, were to be executors of
this will.

Augustine Hermen aforesaid seems to have become
enamoured of the rich soil and genial climate of this lati-
tude during his visit to Maryland and Virginia, in 1659.
His mercantile speculations had not proved as profitable as
he expected, and he resolved to leave the barren shores of
Manhattan Island and take up his residence on the fertile
plains of what was afterwards called Bohemia Manor. His
motive was a laudable one, namely, to acquire a princely
domain for himself and his children, and thereby to per-
petutate his name. With these ends in view he proposed
to Lord Baltimore to make the map before mentioned.
This was a work of some magnitude, and cost him "no
less than the vaiue of about two hundred pounds ster-
ling, beside his own labor." It also required much time,
and was not finished until the expiration of some years
after he had received his first patent, which was dated June
19th, 1 662, which was the year after he moved his family from
New Amsterdam to Bohemia Manor in Cecil County. This
patent is a legal as well as a literary curiosity. After greeti ng
all persons to whom it should come, in the name of the Lord
God Everlasting, and referring to the "conditions of planta-
tions," which were certain regulations in regard to the terms
upon which titles to plantations could be acquired in the
province, it " grants unto Augustine Hermen all that tract of
land called Bohemia Manor, lying on the east side of Chesa-
peake Bay and on the west side of a river in the said bay,
called Elk River, on the northernmost side of a creek in

HIST071Y OF CECIL COUNTY. 39

the said river, called Mermen's Creek. Beginning at
the easternmost bound tree of the land of Philip Calvert,
Esq. (who had previously obtained the grant of a thousand
acres at Town Point), and running south by east up the
said creek of the length of two thousand perches to a marked
•oak, standing by a cove called Hermen's Cove, and from
the said oak running northeast for the length of three hun-
dred and twenty perches until it intersects a parallel line
running west for the length of two thousand perches, to the
said land of Philip Calvert, Esq. On the west with the
said land, on the south with the said creek, on the east with
the said line, on the north with the said parallel. Contain-
ing and now laid out for four thousand acres, more or less,
together with all royalties or privileges thereunto belonging
(royal mines excepted)." This manor of Bohemia was to
be holden of " Cecilius, Lord Baron of Baltimore, and of his
heirs, as of his manor of St. Maries, in free and common
socage, by fealty only for all manner of service, yielding
and paying therefor yearly unto us and our heirs, at our
receipt at St. Maries, at the two most usual feasts in the
year, viz., at the feast of the annunciation of the Blessed
Virgin Mary, and at the feast of St. Michael, the Archangel,
by even and equal portions, the rent of four pounds sterling,
in silver or gold, or the full value thereof, in such commo-
dities as we or our heirs shall accept in discharge thereof."
By patent bearing the same date, and for the same consider-
ation mentioned in the other patent (the making of a map
of the province), Hermen became the owner and proprietor
of Little Bohemia, or Bohemia Middle Neck. The fact that
Hermen obtained two patents for two distinct tracts of land,
thai/were only separated from each other by a small stream
of water, may seem strange and unusual at this day.
People now would have made one patent include the whole
tract ; but the manners and customs of that day were quite
different from those of the present. Hermen intended
Bohemia Manor for an inheritance for his eldest son, and

40 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

in view of this fact there is nothing strange in not in-
cluding Little Bohemia in the same patent.

It will be seen, from an inspection of the foregoing quota-
tion from the patent for Bohemia Manor, that its boundaries
differ very much frcm what they are at present.

The probability is that neither of the tracts were ever
located according to the metes and bounds set forth in the
original patents, for Hermen states in his journal that dan-
ger from Indians prevented an accurate inspection and sur-
vey of his lands, and that he made a treaty with the Indians
at Spesutia Island and purchased this land from them. He
states in his journal that " there was an imaginary survey
recorded the 13th of September, 1659, for Philip Calvert,.
Esq., of a one thousand acres on the point between Elk
River and Oppoquermine River (now Bohemia River), ad-
herent or includent to Bohemia Manor, his Honor did let it
fall to the said Augustine Hermen, who, having proposed
to his Lordship in England the erecting of a town thereon,.
Ids Lordship promised all reasonable privileges to him, the said
Augustine Hermen, and first undertaking, willing to have the
town called Ceciltown and the county Cecil County, sending (to
that purpose) in a charter, as a foundation to all other toivnships-
in this province, remaining in the office under the great seal
dated January 24th, 1661," which charter above referred to
was issued more than a year before Hermen received the
first patent for Bohemia Manor. This is the first reference
to Cecil County in the early records of the province. It indi-
cates that Hermen originated the name. Calvert's land, as
the reader will perceive, was located at the junction of the
Elk and Bohemia rivers ; and though Ceciltown was not built
upon it, it still bears the name of Town Point.

This year (1659) a tract of land, containing four hundred
acres, was taken up and patented at French town, on the Elk
River, under the name of Thorn psontown. At this time
there was a fort garrisoned by the English on Watson's
Island, and probably one on Spesutia Island. A few years

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 41

after this there is reason to believe the English had a fort
or block-house in Sassafras Neck, not very far in a south-
westerly direction from the junction of the Great and Little
Bohemia River. The Indians also had a fort on Iron Hill
and one on the west bank of the Susquehanna River some
miles north of the State line, and were in undisputed pos-
session of all the country between the head of Chesapeake
Bay and the Delaware River, except the places we have
named and perhaps a few others along the Elk and North
East rivers.

CHAPTER VI.

Council of Maryland meet at Spesutia Island — Examination of persons
who had suffered from the depredations of Indians along' the Delaware
River — Interesting correspondence between the Governor of Maryland
and Alexander DTIinoyossa, Governor of New Amstel — The Council de-
clare war against the Susquehannocks —Instructions to Captain Odber —
Letter from D'Hinoyossa — Augustine Hermen tries to make peace be-
tween the Dutch and English — Council meets at Susquehanna Point and
are shown the commission of Captain Neals recently arriyed from Eng-
land— Many of the Swedes from Delaware settle in Sassafras Neck.

On account of the troubles with the Indians and Dutch,
the council of Maryland frequently met at and near the head
of the bay for the purpose of investigating the facts, mak-
ing treaties with the Indians, etc. It met at Spesutia for the
former purpose on the 13th of May, 1661, when it was or-
dered that all persons who have suffered any damage by the
Indians, or have engaged with them in an hostile manner,
be summoned to appear at that place on the 15th instant.
This summons was directed to be sent from house to house
as low as Patapsco River. Then follows the information of
Peter Meyer touching the death of four Englishmen in their
passage between Delaware Bay and the head of Chesapeake
Bay by Indians, upon Wednesday, in Easter week last, to
the effect that upon Friday, in Easter week, coming at the
Sand Hook, there came unto him one Foppo Yanson (called
by the Dutch Foppo Jansen Outhout) and told him that he
feared some Englishmen were killed by the Indians, because
seeking his horse in the woods he saw an Indian pass by
with a gray hat with ribbons tied upon a pack at his back ;
that a while afterwards the said Foppo Yanson showed him

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 43

the Indian that had the hat at his back ; that by the assist-
ance of Mr. William Hollingsworth, of New England, and
some others, he did apprehend the said Indian with his
companion, whom, upon demand of justice, the governor of
the same place committed to prison ; whereupon the rest of
the Indians in the town fled and left one pack behind them,
in which pack he found an English red war coat, with a
hole in the back, wet, and a canvas bag, all bloody, and an
English pair of shoes; that one of the prisoners was re-
leased, that he might go and fetch their king; and that the
next day the others were released, but upon what ground,
he knows not. And the said Peter Meyer further informs
the council, that, demanding of the said Indian how he
came by that hat, he answered it was given him by another
Indian, called Oconittka, who had killed an Englishman ;
that he had desired the pack of goods in which the war coat
and bloody bag were found to be arrested, which was accord-
ingly done ; but that coming the next day to inquire for it,
the man of the house where it was deposited answered that
it was given to the Indian again, and that he was told by the
Dutch that the Indians did threaten him as being an Eng-
lishman for to kill him. This man Peter Meyer had a quar-
rel about this time with Mr. Lears, a Finnish priest, who lived
on the Delaware River not far from where Chester now
stands. He had struck the reverend gentleman in the face
and mutilated him in a shameful manner. For this offence
the authorities at New Amstel had attempted to bring him
to trial. It also appears that they had fined him for selling
liquor to the Indians, and no doubt he was glad of the op-
portunity to vent his wrath upon them, by giving the fore-
going information to the Marylanders.

Robert Gorsuch was then examined touching the engage-
ment with the Indians at Gunpowder River. He stated that
the Indians came to his house on the 11th of April, 1661,
some dressed in blue and some in red match coats, who
killed his wife and plundered his house, and about four or

44 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

five days after came to his house again and killed some five
cows and a steer, and some hogs, as he supposeth.

John Taylor said that upon Easter eve, in the afternoon,
there came two Indians to his house, but he not understand-
ing their language, pointed at them to be gone ; he not hav-
ing heard before of a murder committed upon Robert Gor-
such's wife, and they accordingly departed. The next day
these same Indians returned with seven more and one
woman, who, coming near his landing, shot off a gun to
give him notice, as he considered ; whereupon he went to
the landing to them, and they asked him for some tobacco,
which he did give them, and upon sight of another canoe
of Indians, bid them be gone; one of them understanding
and speaking a little English, upon which they went away,
and steered, as he thought, toward a plantation hard by,
where two bachelors lived, named Edward Fouster and John
Fouster ; that John Fouster coining in a canoe toward the
Indians, shot at said Indians and came immediately away
to this informant's house ; whereupon the said Indians shot
three guns at the said Fouster, and immediately went and
plundered his house, and came round about two weeks after-
wards and plundered his tobacco house, where his goods
then lay for want of room in his dwelling-house, to the value
of one thousand pounds of tobacco ; that upon notice given
of this plunder, William Wigwell, John Fouster and Edward
Swanson went forth after the said Indians, to know why
they plundered the said tobacco house, and coming up to
them in the woods, where they were sitting round a fire,
they immediately surrounded the said English and dis-
charged a volley of ten shots, killing the said John Fouster,
and' at a second volley wounded William Wigwell, notwith-
standing which shot, they fought them three hours and
made their retreat good, since which time the said Indians
have killed eleven head of cattle and twenty head of hogs.
Demanding of the Indians who they were, they answered
they were all Susquehannaughs, as all Indians used to do
that come to his house.

HISTORY OK CECIL COUNTY. 45

Thomas Overton and William Hallis saith that, about the
25th of April last, Thomas Sampson and Richard Hayes,
seeing two canoes with nine Delaware Bay Indians coming
down Bush River; watching their canoes, did discern that
they steered toward their plantation, upon which the said
Sampson and Richard Hayes came and brought these infor-
mants news of their coming ; so upon that, they took to
their boats and arms and met the Indians, and inquired of
them whether they were Susquehannaughs, yea or no, and
they answered no ; and whilst that these informants were
talking with one of the said companies in one of the canoes,
the other canoe with Indians went ashore ; and as soon as
they were on the shore, one of the informant's dogs bit one
of the said Indians, and upon that the Indian turned him
about and shot the dog and killed it, and immediately
another of the said Indians that was on the shore shot at
these informants and their company, and the bullets came
through the boat; then the said informants and their com-
pany shot at the Indians that Avere in the other canoe and
killed five of them — that is all the Indians that were in that
canoe; and further, these informants saith, that the Indians
on the shore did kill one of their company, called John
Spurn e ; and further knoweth not.

At this meeting a letter was read to the council from
"William Hollingsworth, directed to his most respected
friend Col. Nathaniel Utie, from the Sand Point, in Dela-
ware Bay, written some time in April, 1661, about the
murder of four men who left the Sand Hook on the seven-
teenth of April, and whose names he did not know, but
who were murdered by the Indians while on their way from
Sano! Hook (New Castle) to the head of the bay, and whose
bodies, he had been informed by the Indians, lay at a place
called Saquosehum. Twenty Indians had come to Sand
Hook, and he had caused two of them to be arrested and
placed in the guard-house, but afterwards sent one of them
to inform their sachem. Both Dutch and Indians, he writes,

46 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. ■

are much displeased at the arrest of the Indians. He there-
fore asks the advice of Utie, and prays that some person
may be sent to inquire further into the matter. In a post-
script he adds that the Indians threatened to kill some
Englishmen, then at the Sand Hook, when they started
home to their families in Maryland. Philip Calvert there-
upon, on the fifteenth of May, 1661, addressed a letter to
Alexander D'Hinoyossa, then Governor of New Amstel, as
follows :

" I understand from Mr. Hollingsworth of the murder of
four men belonging to this province by the hands of some
Indians, your neighbors; and further, upon his accusation v
you had committed them to guard. I send this express to
you, to be informed of the true state of the matter. It is
not our custom to put up (with) the injuries of Indians, nor
to bury the blood of Christians in forgetfulness and oblivion ;
therefore I request you to deliver me the Indian prisoners,,
that I may deal with them according to our justice in like
cases. I am now at Spesutia, and there shall remain till I
have provided for the safety of the people and the honor of
our nation, and shall expect an answer from you to such.

" Your servant,

"Phil. Calvert."

To which D'Hinoyossa replied as follows :

" Right Honorable Yours,

15th May, Old Styleward,

the 26th of New Style.
" Out of which we have seen that, upon the advice of
Mr. Hollingsworth, you are come to the islands of
Nathaniel Utie for to examine the lamentable murder done
by the Sanhican Indians unto four Englishmen. (It is
thus): For as much as hath appeared to us that how have
been four persons, out of the province of Maryland, which,
after two days' stay, departed from hence to their plantation,.
as they said, and by the way are met by the said Indians,,
by whom they are murdered. And on Marettico, on the
Iron Hill, met them two Indians coming from the Minquas
country; to one of them they did give a hat, and nothing-
else; to the other they gave nothing. The same two In-
dians came to the town, imagining nothing; but the mm*-

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. AT

derers, which killed the man, did very secretly and speedily
pass this place up to the river; two or three inhabitants of
New Amstel did, in the meanwhile, lay hold of these Indians,
and I caused them to be brought to the fort; but after-
many examinations, found them not guilty, but that it was
done by another nation; therefore we have released them,,
because the innocent cannot suffer for the guilty; otherwise
it would be a case grounded of no reason, besides there is
some time past between, and would have occasioned between
us and the Indians a difference which might damage us
with them to an open war, whereby the culture of the-
country and the advancement of the colony would be much
hindered, in which, apparently, your Honor would take no'
comfort nor content with the two Indians, which have not
been actually in the fort; and therefore let your Honor be
assured that the releasing of the two Indians hath not been
done out of any ill intent, nor to the prejudice of so good
Christians, our neighbors, in favor of the heathens, which
have committed from time to time divers murders and rob-
beries upon our nation, also wishing that we could lay hold
of this good opportunity in revenging ourselves. upon the
murderers also. To conclude, your Honor may be confident
that the shedding of Christian blood is most detestable unto-
us, assuring yourself that we shall contribute in all things
to the preservation of friendship with neighbors of our
belief, for as much as might be done without prejudice to ■
our own nation. So I commit your Honor to God's keeping,,
who will give his blessing to your government, so just.
" Your serviceable friend,

" Praise God in all things, 1661,

"Alexander D'Hinoyossa."*

What the old Hollander meant by " Marettico on the Iron*
Hill " has not been ascertained. It was probably an Indian.;
name applied to some part of the country between Iron Hill
and Grey's Hill, now called Red Hill. The reader will ob-
serve that, like some of his countrymen of the present time,.
D'Hinoyossa had a rather limited command of the English
language.

Following this, on the same page, is to be seen the follow-
ing letter, which was evidently presented to the Council at
this meeting at Spesutia, and which speaks for itself:

48 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

" Mr. Wright:

" Be pleased to do so much as to let me know how it is with
you at the west for trade. The Indians threaten to kill me,
and that is the reason I cannot come. I must march in my
house with seven or eight guns loaden, and I have no
comfort Irom the inhabitants here, Indians and Dutch both
saying that I am an Englishman. I wish I could have time
to speak half an hour with you. Mr. Hollingsworth is very
sorry he hears no answer of his letter. Give everybody
notice, and look to yourself night and day. The Indians
are very strong and not far from you. I would have written
more, but I dare not dare. Warn James at Turkey Point
to remove.

" Your loving servant,

" Garratt Rutten.

" May 15th, 1661."

Then follows the commission of Captain John Odber,
authorizing him to take command of fifty soldiers and to
march with them to the Susquehannaughs' fort. This fort
was probably just above the junction of the Octoraro Creek
and Susquehanna River. There is no doubt whatever about
the Susquehaunaughs having a fort at that place, because
John Hans Stillman testified that he had seen it there.
Stillman was an Indian trader, and at one time had a trading
post at the junction of the Big and Little Elk Creek. He
also had a trading post at the mouth of the«Susquehanna
River, and was well acquainted with the Indians. His evi-
dence, taken many years afterwards, when he was a very old
man, may be seen in Penn's Breviate, which was submitted
to the English Court of Chancery when Penn and Baltimore
were -quarreling about their boundary lines.

Vincent, in his History of Delaware, says this fort was
upon Iron Hill; but had he consulted the colonial records
of Maryland he would probably have formed a different
opinion. It was the Minquas who lived along the Christiana
which flows at the base of Iron Hill, that had the fort on it.
There is no evidence now extant tending to prove that the
Susquehannocks ever exercised control over that part of the
country.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 49

The instructions to Captain Odber are : " Imprimis : You
are to choose some fit place either within or without the fort,
which you are to fortify for your own security, and to de-
mand the assistance of the Susquehannaughs to fetch tim-
ber and other necessaries for the fortification, according to
articles now concluded between us ; and further, to cause
some spurs or flankers to be laid out for the defence of the
Indian fort, whom you are, upon all occasions, to assist against
the assaults of their enemies.

" Second : Upon your arrival at the fort, immediately press
them to appoint some one or more of their great men, to
whom you shall make your applications on all occasions —
that is, either of demanding assistance to help fortify, or of
provisions, or upon any orders received from us.

"Third: Procure that certain persons be appointed, who
are to be messengers between you and us, according to
articles, and be sure advise us of every accident of import-
ance that shall befall you or the Susquehannaughs, and of
the proceedings of our affairs.

" Fourth : You are carefully to inform yourself of the pro-
gress of the war between them and the Cinaqoi Indians,
and if you find them, start in it, to press them discreetly
to a vigorous, prosecution of it.

" Fifth : You are carefully to avoid all quarrels with the
Indians ; and therefore, permit not the soldiers (to) sit drink-
ing or gaming with them, but keep them to exact military
discipline, and, to avoid idleness, often exercise them.

" Sixth : Make diligent inquiry touching the murderers of
the woman in Patapsco River, and of John Norden and his
companions on their way from Delaware Bay, &c; and if
you find they have any of the said murderers in the fort,
see them shot to death, or send them down to us to be pro-
ceeded against according to our laws.

" Seventh : Lastly, you are to have a very wary eye upon
all Dutch that come to the fort, observing their actions and
treaties with the Indians, but show not any animosity against

50 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

them; if you find any close contrivances to our prejudice,
give us speedy notice, and oppose, with discretion, any open
actions that may tend to our loss."

The council met at Spesutia again on May 21st, 1661.
(Present as before). Then was presented this letter:

" New Amstel,

28th of May, 1661.
Stilo Novo.
" Right Honorable :

" My last, the six and twentieth of May, was in haste, be-
cause the Indians would not stay by the same. I did assure
your Honor of the upwright affection which we have for
the keeping of a good neighborship. I have by this occa-
sion, Abraham Van Naas* going that way by instruction,
ordered and authorized for to declare by word of mouth,
that license to depart to the two Indians that were appre-
hended was not in favor of the barbarous heathens, nor to
the prejudice of good neighbors, they having not been ac-
cessory to the murder; wherefore, I would not keep them,
such proceedings not being agreeable with our nation's cus-
toms, being a case that will bring us into great danger of
a war and a quarrel with the Indians; it being now 16 days
past before we had any intelligence from the province of
Maryland, in that behalf; we therefore, do assure your
Honor that we will be, upon all occasions, willing. We hope
that, in time to come, there will be a good traffic between
us, though this present difference betwixt you and the
Indians of this river are something disfavorable to it. Yet
we hope that the Almighty God will show an expedient way
that these differences might be composed, for wars are pre-
judical to commerce and uncertain how they might fall out,
nor what time they may take, that the whole nation for five
or six evil doers should suffer, is a thing to be lamented,
yet needful that the murderers should be punished for an
example. I have, in general, understood from the Indians
that they (trade) with the English upon very advantageous

* Abraham Van Naas was secretary and notary public at New Amstel.
D'Hinoyossa afterwards quarreled with him because he would not praise
him when writing the minutes of the council.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 51

conditions (and desire) with the English (to) make peace,
that such faults be no more committed. In case I can serve
your Honor in the business, I shall be willingly inclined to
it; and, so wishing your Honor a happy government and a
good end of these troubles, shall rest,

" Your Honor's affectionate friend and servant,

"Alexander D'Hinoyossa."

D'Hinoyossa was induced to write this letter of explana-
tion and apology by information received from Augustine
Hermen, who, as stated in a previous chapter, that year
settled upon Bohemia Manor, and seems to have acted as a
peace-maker between the old Hollander and Philip Calvert,
the Governor of Maryland. Hermen wrote to D'Hinoyossa
that the English foster the opinion that the inhabitants of
New Amstel and the Hoernkill secretly instigate their sav-
age neighbors along the Delaware to commit murders and
robberies upon the Marylanders. The instructions given to
Captain Odber prove that in this, as in most other things,
Hermen was right. After which was called in Abraham
Van Naas, in the said letter mentioned, who, being desired
to declare what he had in commission to say from the gov-
ernor, Alexander D'Hinoyossa, declares that they had done
their endeavors to detain the Indian murderers ; but could
not, for want of power to defend themselves, any longer keep
them; that in revenge of what they had done the Indians
had burned them a mill, which they were forced to pass by
for the present till they should be better able to avenge
themselves of the injury; that the governor of the Sand
Hook did send for the king of those Indians that had com-
mitted the aforesaid murder, and demanded of them the
reason why they did it. Answer was made that it was done
by a company of vagabond rangers that delighted in mis-
chief, and run from nation to nation, whom, if they could
catch, they would deliver them up to justice ; but, that
since they had done it, they were fled.

The council met at Susquehanna Point (which was no

52 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

doubt the point just below Perryville), on July 1st, 1661.
There is reason to believe that the governor and secretary
came to Susquehanna Point to meet Captain James Neals,
who came there from England via New Amstel, where he
probably landed shortly before. Captain Neals brought a
letter from Lord Baltimore, which was read at this meeting
of the council. This letter was dated at London, December
14th, 1660.

At this time the New Englanders claimed all the Atlantic
coast from New England to Virginia; and many years be-
fore had actually effected a settlement on the Delaware near
the mouth of the Schuylkill, but from which they had been
ousted by the Dutch. Captain Neals, who had been in Hol-
land the year before as agent for Lord Baltimore, had been
instructed " to inquire of the West India Company if they
admitted his (Baltimore's) right on the Delaware; if not, to
protest against them, and to demand the surrender of the
lands on the Delaware Bay." Neals had an interview with
the representatives of the West India Company, who asserted
their right by possession under the grant of the States-Gen-
eral, for many years, without disturbance from Lord Balti-
more or any other person. They resolved to remain in pos-
session and defend their rights, and if Lord Baltimore
persevered and resorted to violent measures, to use all the
means God and nature had given to protect the inhabitants.
Lord Baltimore, however, took care to obtain from the king-
soon after a confirmation of his patent.* Lord Baltimore,
in speaking of Captain Neals, uses the following language :

" I hope when he comes you and he and my other friends
will think upon some speedy and effectual way for reducing
the Dutch in Delaware Bay. The New England men will
be assisting in it, and Secretary Ludwell, of Virginia,
assured me before he went from here that the Virginians
will be so, too. But it were well to be done with all celerity

* Scharfs Hist, of Md., Vol. I., page 251.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 53

convenient, because, perhaps, the New England men, falling
upon them at Manhattans, may take it into their head to fall
upon them at Delaware, too, and by that means pretend
some title to the place," etc.

"Whereupon the council took a view of his Honor's com-
mission to Captain James Neals, which was granted for the
levying of men to make war upon " certain enemies, pirates
and robbers that had usurped a part of Delaware Bay lying
within the fortieth degree of northerly latitude."

This commission was quite lengthy, and authorized the
captain to make war upon the Dutch in Delaware Bay and
everywhere else that he could find them, and to capture
and destroy them both upon the land and on the sea, and
not only them, but their aiders and abettors ; in which
work all his lordship's officers, both civil and military, were
to assist. They were to drive them from the bay and cap-
ture their ships and vessels, and after bringing the vessels
and cargoes to the province of Maryland, and having them
appraised, were, upon payment of one-twelfth of the ap-
praised value to his agents, to be allowed to retain them.

The council took the commission and the whole subject
into consideration, and came to the conclusion that in-
asmuch as it was uncertain whether the town of New
Amstel was within the fortieth degree of north latitude,
they had better wait until that was ascertained, inasmuch
as his lordship had not authorized a war with any but such
as had usurped some part of the province. They thought
it was not likely that the Virginians and New Englanders
would take part in the war, because " the Dutch trade was
the darling of the people of Virginia, as well as of this
province," and indeed all other plantations of the English;
and this province alone not being able to bear the charge
of the war that will thence ensue with the West India Com-
pany in Holland, upon any attempt upon that place, which,
not only from their protestation, lately made at Amsterdam,
but also by late letters from Holland, appears to be resolved

54 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

upon by them in case any force shall be used by us against
the said colony of New Amstel. They therefore resolved
that all attempts be foreborne against the said town of New
Amstel until such time as letters from his lordship may
again be had in answer to what hath been written to his
lordship concerning this affair, and that observation may
be taken at the head of the bay of Chesapeake, thereby to
find certainly whether the said town of New Amstel do lie
within the fortieth degree of northerly latitude or not ; and
further, that trial be made whether assistance from Virginia
and New England may be had for the reducing and main-
tenance of that place against the Dutch.

This year the Dutch authorities on the Delaware at-
tempted to force the Swedish part of the population, who
seem to have incurred their displeasure by their sociability
with the English settlers at the head of Chesapeake Bay, to
take up their residence above the mouth of the Schuylkill.
This many of them refused to do ; and probably also being
afraid of a war between England and Holland, Peter Meyer,
Oloff Stille, and fifteen others, applied for and had patents
of naturalization issued to them. Many of them settled in
Sassafras Neck. The Dutch governor (D'Hinoyossa) and
Hermen were now on the best of terms, and the former was
accused by his contemporaries of selling the public stores to
the latter, and appropriating the money he received for
them to his own use. The colonial records for this period
show that the Indians of this county and the Dutch settlers
were sources of much annoyance to the authorities of Mary-
land. Nobody had been punished for the murder of the
four Englishmen upon Iron Hill ; and, as we have seen, a
war with the Dutch was imminent.

CHAPTER VII.

Treaty with the Passagonke Indians at Appoqninimink — Copy of the
treaty— Scarcity of corn— Captain Odber gets into trouble— A cowardly
soldier — Trouble with the Senecas— Treaty with the Delaware Bay In-
dians— Capture of a Seneca Indian — Letter from the justices of Baltimore
County respecting the captive — Francis Wright and Jacob Clawson — Tor-
ture of an Indian prisoner — War with the Senecas— Another treaty with
the Susquehannocks — The Senecas attack the Susquehannock's fort at
Turkey Hill, Lancaster County, and are repulsed — End of the Susque-
hannocks.

Probably with a view of securing the co-operation of the
Indians in case of a war with the Dutch, Governor Calvert,
accompanied by his secretary (Henry Coursey) and John
Bateman, one of the councilors, had a meeting with the
Passagonke Indians, who, at that time, lived on the Dela-
ware River above Chester, probably where Philadelphia
now stands. This meeting took place at Appoquinimi
(which is now called Appoquinimink), on Thursday, the
19th of September, 1661. The minutes in the council book
for that year, in reference to what was done at that meeting,
are so much more interesting than an}^ abridgment of them
that it has been deemed best to insert them here.

"Then came Pinna, king of Picthanomicta, in Delaware
Bay, showing that, whereas there had been divers men slain
by the English belonging to the Passagonke Indians, now
under his command, and among them his own brother, in
revenge of which divers English had been slain by those
Indians; yet that he did believe all those outrages were
committed by the English without orders from the governor
and council ; that those revenges were taken by his Indians
without his or any of his great men's knowledge; therefore
(he) did desire that all might be forgotten, and that from

56 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

henceforward his Indians might live in peace with the
English.

"To which the governor answered that he did desire
peace, so he did desire justice also, and provided that they
would deliver up those Indians that killed John Norden
and Stephen Hart, with his companions, to be proceeded
against, according to our justice, he would come to articles
of peace with him.

"Whereunto the said Pinna answered that the English
had begun the war and first killed one of his men as he was
peaceably coming by their plantation, and overset their
canoes, out of which they lost three guns; afterwards pur-
sued them into the woods and there shot at them ; that his
Indians fled, having lost one man and their goods. In their
way home they met the said Norden- and Hart and com-
panions, and, contrary to the advice of an old man of the
company that stood weeping by and persuading them to
speak with the great men of the English first, did kill the
said Norden and Hart and companions, saying that the
English would have Avar; but since that time the English
had set upon two canoes of Indians and killed five of them,
and amongst them his own brother, all which, notwith-
standing, he was willing and desirous to make a peace be-
tween us and his Indians, forgetting the blood of his own
brother.

"Then did the governor demand satisfaction for the cat-
tle and hogs of John Taylor. To which he answered that
they were not killed by his Indians, for they immediately
fled, but by Minquas and Sinigos (Senecas).

"Whereupon was taken into consideration the informa-
tion of John Taylor, Thomas Overton and others, taken at
Spesutia the 13th of May last, and considering the relation
of Pinna in the main to agree with the said information,
and the governor and council calling to mind that the said
John Taylor, since information in writing taken, had often

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 57

said that John Foster,* who shot at the Indian (as per in-
formation), affirmed that he had killed him, resolved to
come to articles with the said Pinna upon this consideration,
that the English had begun the war by the said John Foster
killing the said Indian upon Easter days. And for as much
as it is certain that the said Indians, whom Foster shot at,
immediately fled after they killed Foster in the woods, and
upon the 17th day of April, met Norden and Hart near the
Iron Hill, and there murdered them, and that the Minqua
or Sinigo Indians were about that time doing mischief and
killing cattle about Patapsco River and those quarters, as
appears by the information of Robert Gorsuch, taken the
13th of May aforesaid, resolved that all further demand of
satisfaction for these cattle be waived, and that sufficient
provision in the articles be made for the security of our
stock of cattle and hogs for the future, and that the treaty
be immediately begun, lest General Stuyvesant at the Man-
hattans make an advantage of those Indians against us, it
being doubted whether there be a war between Holland and
England or not."

The treaty was headed in the council book, from which it
was copied as follows:

" Articles of peace and amity concluded between the Hon.
Philip Calvert, Esq., Governor, Henry Coursey, secretary,
and John Bateman, councilor, on behalf of the Lord Proprie-
tary of this province of Maryland, and Pinna, king of
Picthanomicta, on the behalf of the Passagonke Indians
on the other part (viz.) :

" Imprimis: That there shall be a perpetual peace betwixt
the people of Maryland and the Passagonke Indians.

"Second: It is agreed between the above said parties that,
incase any Englishman for the future shall happen to find
any Passagonke Indian killing either cattle or hogs, then it
shall be lawful for the English to kill the said Indian.

* Called John Fouster in the preceding chapter.

58 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

" Third : It is agreed betwixt the above said parties that,
in case any Indian or Indians shall happen to kill any
Englishmen (which God forbid), then the said Indian, with
all that company of Indians with him which consented to
the said murder, shall be delivered to the English, there to
be proceeded against, according to the laws of this province.

" Fourth : It is further agreed betwixt the above said par-
ties that, in case any Englishman shall happen to run
amongst the Passagonke Indians, the said Indians bring
them to Peter Meyers; and then for every Englishman that
they shall deliver, they shall receive one match coat.

" The mark (M) of Pinna."

The above said articles were signed interchangeably by
the governor and council and the Indian commissioners,
and delivered this 19th of September, in thirtieth year of
his Lordship's dominion over this province of Maryland,
1661.

The Dutch account of this treaty is to the effect that only
one Indian chief " from the east end of the river " appeared,
and that the English offered to deliver annually two or
three thousand hogsheads of tobacco to them at Appoquini-
mi or at the head of Bohemia.

Corn was very scarce in 1661, and it is worthy of remark
that William Hollingsworth, who helped arrest the Indians
in New Castle, who had murdered the Englishmen on Iron
Hill, though licensed by the council of Maryland to trade
with the Indians, was prohibited from exporting any corn
he might obtain from them. The petition of one Hannah
Lee, widdy, states that she had been granted the privilege of
keeping ordinary at St. Mary's during the session of the
General Assembly, but had no corn to maintain her said
promise, and craves to be allowed to trade with the Indians.
She was licensed to trade with the Indians for corn only.
The next meeting of the council was held at St. Mary's on
the 12th of October, 1661. At this meeting the case of Cap-
tain John Odber was taken into consideration, and he was

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 59*

required to give an account of his expedition to the Susque-
hannaughs' fort. The council asked him why he came
down without orders from the governor. To which he re-
plied that the Susquehannaughs came to him and told him
that they could not compel their men to furnish the soldiers
with provisions according to treaty stipulations, and had
advised him to transport his troops and ammunition down by
water. This seems to be what he meant to say ; but the-
scribe who made the record used such obscure language,
that it is by no means certain what the captain did say,
and there is reason to think that the Indians offered to
assist him in transporting his men and arms to the settle-
ments some distance down the bay. There is reason to
think that the captain may have been troubled with
cowardice or conscientious scruples, and that he purposely
mystified his narrative to conceal his cowardice. His story
was by no means satisfactory to the council, and they re-
quired him to give a written account of the expedition, at a
meeting of the council, on tlie 27th of the ensuing Novem-
ber, at which time Jacob Claw ^on, Francis Stockett and
Samuel Palmer, who lived at the head of the bay, were to
be summoned to give information. John Everitt was also
before the council at this meeting to answer for his con-;
tempt in running from his colors. He pleaded that he
could not bear arms agains tthe Indians for conscience' sake-
He was committed to custody till the meeting in November,
at which time he was to be tried by a court-martial. Cap-
tain John Collier, who had impressed Everitt, was sum-
moned to testify in the case. Captain Odber probably
made good his escape from the colony before the meeting in
November, for when he was called at that meeting he ap-
peared not. This is the last time his name appears in the
record. After the case of Odber was disposed of at the
November meeting, that of Everitt was taken up, and it was
ordered that he be tried " at the next provincial court for
running from his colors, and, in the interim, be committed.

CO HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

into the sheriff's hands, and that the sheriff impannel a
jury against that time, and in the meantime the said Everitt
was to be kept in chains and bake his own bread." The
records of the provincial court are not extant, consequently
the result of the trial is unknown.

The records of the province for the year 1662 show that
the Indians still continued to be troublesome. But not-
withstanding this the Marylanders seem to have turned
their attention to the development of the resources of the
•colony. This year the council passed a law for the encour-
agement of tanners of leather, in which the exportation of
hides Avas prohibited under severe penalties. The Mary-
landers and Susquehannaughs were at peace with each other
at this time, but the former were at war with the Senecas,
who now begun to make raids upon the few scattered settle-
ments of the English along the western tributaries of the
Chesapeake Bay. In the spring of this year they penetra-
ted as far south as the head of South River in Anne Arun-
■dle County, which appears to have alarmed the council
very much, for they ordered all the powder and shot in the
•colony to be seized for the use of the country, and that
scouts be sent to the heads of all the rivers and the head of
the bay, with orders to arrest or kill all Indians found
there. The governor of New Amstel was informed of what
had been done, and was requested to inform the Passagonke
and Delaware Bay Indians, with the former of which tribes
the reader will recollect the Marylanders had made a treaty
of friendship the year before. The troubles with the Sene-
cas continued to grow worse and worse, and on July 4th,
1663, the council were informed by letters from the inhab-
itants of Baltimore County, at the head of the bay, that the
Indians had recently murdered two of the inhabitants at
the head of the bay, and one other in Patapsco River, with
two youths also, which the Indians had either carried away
or killed.

In the August following, the council met at Goldsmith's

'»>

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 61

Hall, which is believed to have been on Bush River, and;
gave instructions to Samuel Goldsmith to notify the Sus-
quehannaughs to come down and treat with the commis-
sioners of Baltimore County. It is evident from the instruc-
tions given to Goldsmith, that the council had framed the- \
articles of the proposed treaty and had authorized the com-
missioners to have the treaty executed and signed by the
Indians. At this time the Susquehannaughs, though until
recently upon peaceable terms with the English, seem to
have been intimidated by the Senecas ; and, from what
follows, it seems that no treaty was made at this time with
them. But in August, 1663, Governor Charles Calvert,,
attended by three of his councilors, made a treaty with
three kings of the Delaware Bay Indians at New Amstel.
The Indian kings were represented by their ambassadors —
Monickle, Chehoock and Tichecoon. The treaty was very
similar to that made with the Passagonke Indians at Appo-
quinimi (now Appoquinimink) two years before, except that
the Indians agreed, when they had occasion to visit any
Englishman's house, that they would lay down their arms
and cause some white thing to be held out before they
approached the said house. It was also stipulated that the
Indians would inviolably observe these same articles toward
the Dutch in Delaware Bay ; from which it is plain that the
English no longer regarded the Dutch and Swedish settlers
as a band of " murderers, pirates and robbers." Probably
the hostile incursions of the Senecas had caused them both
to forget their own differences and to cultivate feelings of
friendship.

In the early part of June, 1664, a Seneca Indian was taken
prisoner at the house of a Mr. Ball, which was somewhere
or/ the Patapsco River, under the following circumstances :
Twenty-one of the Senecas came to the house under pretence
of a friendly truce ; but the inmates of the house, suspecting
a possibility of treachery, began to provide for their defence,
which, being perceived by the Indians, they fled, except

•

62 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

one, who, being more valiant than his comrades, remained
behind and was captured. The Indian was taken to Major
Goldsmith, who sent him to Francis Wright, who lived on
the North East River, near the mouth of Prineipio Creek.
Mr. Wright and three other persons examined the captured
Indian, who stated that the Senecas had no hostile feeling
against the Christians, but had brought them a present of
forty beaver skins and belts of peake for the Susquehan-
naughs that desired peace ; that the boys that were taken
and the men that were killed at the mill were captured and
killed by the Senecas. He further said, that if he had been
taken by the Susquehannaughs, he should not have been
put to death by them, and that all the joints of his body —
using the figurative language of his own countrymen —
were belts of peake that he had laid out for desire of peace
and quietness. On being questioned of the strength of the
Susquehannaughs, he said there were seven troops of them,
and that the party he belonged to numbered two hundred ;
and, when asked why so many of them were out on a mission
of peace, he answered nothing, but that their fort did not
desire any war with Christians; that the troops were come
out for revenge of the death of his son and two Indians more
that had been taken and burnt by the Susquehannaughs.
The first part of his story not agreeing with the latter part,
those who had him in charge sent a letter to the authorities
at St. Mary's, stating that they were unable to understand
who or what he was, but that their Honors would be con-
vinced that he and his party bore no good will to the
English. They stated that he was the first Indian taken,
and by God's providence without the shedding of Christian
blood. They appear to have been much alarmed, and the
next day, the 7th of June, 1664, held a court at ye house of
Mr. Francis Wright, as we learn from the following letter,
which throws so much light upon the history of these
troublesome times, that we publish it verbatim :

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 63

" From Clayfall, this 7th of June, 1664.

"May it Please Your Lordship :

" Since our first, a court hath been held for this county at
ye house of Mr. Francis Wright, where ye Indian being
again had, and in some measure re-examined, nothing ap-
pearing to any purpose but what we have in our first given
your Honors to understand. Yesterday, when ye prisoner
was here, there was several Susquehannaughs to ye number
of forty, and "two of Civilitye's uncles, who made show of
much joy at his being taken, for they very well knew him,
and were sensibl'e of his warlike exploits, and would per-
suaded us to have burnt him, but we certified them it was not
our manner to torture our prisoners, but that happily he
might be sent home to his country both ior their good and
others. But we cannot find yet what this prisoner did
allege in his own behalf (as to matter of beaver and peake
which he has said they brought with them to purchase
peace) to be true, whether had they any good intentions.
We have done our utmost endeavors, according to our abili-
ties, for ye obtaining a full discovery and perfect relation,
that your Honors might have more full intelligence of what
did and was very likely to happen. What we have and do
understand, herein is inserted, and do conceive that your
Lordship should have thoughts for (to send) this prisoner
with a present to his own country, in hopes of purchasing
thereby a peace, which, by every one we think, is much re-
quired and most earnestly desired, Jacob Clawson hath vol-
untarily and of his own free will declared to us his readi-
ness to go upon your command ; and shall, to ye utmost of
his ability (for ye country's sake), aid and assist any one that
your Lordship shall think fit to employ in a matter of so
great consequence, and further that he is verily persuaded
that if such a thing were to be acted, Civilitye, in ye behalf
of all ye Susquehannaughs, would also go, and that thereby
a peace might be procured. Ye Susquehannaughs, we know,
would willingly embrace a peace if obtained, but are un-
willing (through height of spirit) to sue for it. We have
credible information by a gentleman from Manhattoes, now
here present, who is thither with all expedition returning,
that many of the Cenacoes will (through a customary trade)
from ye last of June until ye middle of July, be at ye fort
at Avanis, to whom, once desired, he would give this

64 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

relation, that he saw one of their countrymen (naming his
name) that ye English had taken, attempting to do mischief,
and that he was well and fairly by ye English dealt withal,
not after ye manner and cruelty that they showed to some
of us which they did formerly take, and that there was great
hopes that he would, in some time, come amongst them
again, for by his kind usage hitherto he conceived no less.
If what we have done appears to your Lordship too much or
too little, we have nothing to plead but our ignorance, hum-
bly craving pardon.

"Your Lordship's in all due obedience,

" Thomas Stockett,
" Samuel Goldsmith,
"Francis Wright."

Francis "Wright and Jacob Clawson were formerly from
the settlements on the Delaware. They are mentioned in a
letter from Beekman to Stuyvesant, dated April, 1660, in
which he refers to some property belonging to an orphan
child whose mother had died either at Colonel Utie's or
Jacob Clawson's, and states that he (Clawson) took over to
Holland, besides other property, according to the letter of
his partner, Francis Wright, " two silver key chains and
two or three silver knife handles belonging to the child."
In the letter Beekman calls Clawson his friend. The child
was then at New Amstel. Its name was Amstelhoop, or
hope of Amstel.*.

This man Francis Wright obtained a patent for a tract of
land afterwards called Clayfall, it being part of what is now
called Carpenter's Point Neck, on the 19th of September,,
1659, and, as will be seen from the above extract from Beek-
man's letter, was a partner of Jacob Clawson. Like the
other settlers on Carpenter's Point Neck, referred to in a
preceding chapter, they were no doubt Indian traders.
Wright died in 1667, and left no heirs, in consequence of
which the land escheated to the lord proprietary, which led

*See documents relating to the Colonial History of New York, Vol. XII.,
page 307.

HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY. 65

to a very interesting lawsuit nearly a century afterwards.*
The Senecas, which was probably the name given by the
English to all the different tribes of the Five Nations, con-
tinued to be troublesome, and Thomas Mathews informed
the council, by a letter dated at Patapsco the 7th of June,
1664, that he had been sent for to visit the north side of the
Potomac River, and that he went there and found the
English had taken two Indian prisoners ; " that they put
one of them to the torture, and he confessed there were
sixty Indians in his company on the north side of the
Potomac River, and that they intended to make war and kill
the English, and that they had cut off one house, and the
English had killed six of them." They stated there were a
hundred more who had gone to the head of the bay to kill
Englishmen and Susquehannaughs too if they came nigh
them. The endorsement upon this letter was as follows.
It fully explains the object of Mr. Mathew's visit : " For
ye Right Honorable the Lieutenant-General. These from
ye Indian interpreter, Mr. Thos. Mathews, for ye safety
of this province, from house to house, post-haste."

On the 27th of June, 1664, Lewis Stockett was com-
missioned colonel and commander of all the forces to be
raised between the coves of Patuxent River and ye head of
ye bay, on both sides of the bay and the Isle of Kent. The
council, on the same day, took into consideration the in-
cursion of the Cenego (Seneca) Indians, and proclaimed war
against them, and offered a reward of a hundred arms'
length of Roenokef to any person, whether English or
Indian, that should bring in a Cenego prisoner, or both his
ears if he be slain ; and that all the kings of the friendly
Indians be sent to to order out their people in pursuit of
the Cenegos, and that the respective military officers be
authorized to press arms, provision and men to go in com-
pany with the friendly Indians. "And that the Indian

* See Harris and McHenry's Maryland Reports, Vol. I., page 190.
j Rough bits of shell rudely shaped and pierced for stringing.

66 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

taken at Patapsco be sent down to St. Mary's and kept in
irons ; and that a letter be written to General Stuy vesant to
request him to give notice to ye Cenegos trading at Fort
Range that we have such a person prisoner, whom we shall
keep alive till we see whether they desire a peace or not,
because no present come. And if they desire not a peace, as
he alleges, we shall put him to death ; and that Jacob
Clawson do give notice to ye Susquehannaugh Indians of
this, our intention, and to require them to declare whether
they are willing to join with us in this message ; till which
answer come this live shall be deferred." What came of
the Seneca we are unable to say. If he was sent back to
his countrymen upon a mission of peace, lie most certainly
failed in it; for the next year, in June, 1665, we find the
English again preparing for war with the Senecas. Captain
William Burgess was commissioned colonel and military
commander of the forces of the colony, and a long list of
instructions were given him, in which he was Ordered to
" keep several parties ranging the woods as well to the head
of Patuxent as Patapsco and Bush rivers, and even up to
the utmost bounds of the. province upon the Susquehanna
River." He was instructed to report to his commander-in-
chief once a week, and for this purpose was authorized to
press messengers expressly to bring letters to the governor.
He was to take special care of the people in Patapsco and
Gunpowder rivers, and was to associate with him any
friendly Indians, but was to take special care that his troops
did not game or wrestle with them, and thus to avoid all
cause of quarrel. The sheriffs of the counties were ordered
to see that the neighbors of those who were pressed to go
upon the expedition attended to the crops of the soldiers.
The instructions given to the sheriffs were elaborate and
interesting. We make the following extract : " You are
straightly charged and commanded to issue your warrants
to the several constables in your county to take notice
what persons have been pressed for this present expedition,

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 67

and what crops they have standing of corn and tobacco,
and what ground they have prepared for tobacco, and the
same to cause to be tended and planted as the seasons do
present and need shall require by the people of the neigh-
borhood, for and during the term of six weeks next after his
departure, if he or they shall be so long absent upon ye
service." These orders were addressed to the sheriffs of St.
Mary's, Calvert, Anne Arundel, Kent and Charles counties.
On July 26th, 1665, the council ordered that the soldiers
now ready be sent forthwith to the frontiers ; that is to say,
that the parties drawn out of St. Mary's, Charles and Kent
counties be sent into Baltimore County, there to secure that
county as well on the eastern as on the western side of ye
bay, and to be commanded by Colonel Lewis Stockett or
some other fit person of an abler body to endure the hard-
ships of the woods being in that county, and to be ap-
pointed by him. Whether the troops were sent upon the
contemplated expedition or not is uncertain, for the record
for that year contains no further information on the subject.
Quiet seems to have prevailed along the frontier till the next
June (1666), when three war captains of the Susquehan-
naughs met the council at St. John's, in St. Mary's County.
The war captains desired the continuance of their league
with the English, and stated that they had always been
ready to have delivered Wanahedana (which was the name
of the Indian that had murdered the men at the mill in.
Baltimore County) to the English, and desired that the vil-
lainy of one man might not be imputed to the whole nation.
They also requested the aid of the English, they having lost
a considerable number of men while ranging the country
around the head of the Patapsco and the other rivers. They
further stated that the Senecas intended to storm their fort
in August next, and afterwards they intended to fall upon
the English and exterminate them. This treaty differed
slightly from those previously made, in this respect, that it
was stipulated in it that the Susquehannaughs should de-

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

liver the Indian accused of murdering the men at the mill,
who was then in captivity among the Senecas, if he ever
returned, and all other Indians hereafter guilty of murdering
any of the English. It was also stipulated " that any Indian
hereafter convicted of killing any hog or cattle belonging to
the English, should pay for every hog fifty fathoms of peake*
and for every head of any other sort of cattle one hundred
fathoms of peake for satisfaction to the owners of every such
beast ; " and that the king of Potomac and his two sons
were to be delivered up prisoners to Samuel Goldsmith with
all convenient speed.

The Senecas seem to have commenced hostilities a little
earlier than usual the next year (1667), for measures were
taken at a meeting of the council, on the 8th of February, to
raise as many men as possible to march against them with
all expedition possible. The quota of troops assigned to
Baltimore County indicates the sparseness of its population
at this time, its quota being only thirty -six men. George
Utie and Major Goldsmith were ordered to procure fifteen
barrels of corn and 2,200 weight of meat out of Baltimore
County for the use of the troops. This expedition probably
never was sent against the Senecas, for we learn from the
minutes of a meeting of the council held at St. Mary's on
the 24th of the next August that " Mr. Francis Wright of
Baltimore County being sent by the Susquehannaughs, was
. called in, who declared that the said Indians did require
assistance and ammunition from the council sufficient to go
against any Indians and likewise declared enemies to the
inhabitants of this province according to one of the articles
of a treaty of peace made by the English and said Susque-
hannaughs." Whereupon it was ordered that so many men
be pressed as the Susquehannaughs shall require to their

* Small cylindrical pieces of clam or mussel shell, like the bugles now
used for trimming ladies' dresses. They were strung upon strings, and
used by the Indians for money.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 69

aid and assistance, and that they be sent up forthwith. Also
that a quantity of powder be delivered with Mr. Francis
Wright, and the said Indians to be supplied out of the same,
as the said Wright shall see requisite and convenient.

The governor and council further determined to go up
into Baltimore County, and there to give the Susquehan-
naughs a meeting about the 15th day of September next to
treat with the said Indians about the peace and safety of
this province and how to proceed (with the Susquehan-
naughs' assistance) against any Indians now held and de-
clared enemies of this province.

The volume containing the minutes of the council for the
succeeding years is not to be found, and the preceding
chapters contain nearly all the authentic history of the
troubles between the English and the Susquehannaughs
that is now extant ; though tradition tells of a fearful fight
between the Susquehannaughs and the Five Nations at a fort
belonging to the former. This fort was on the east bank of
the Susquehanna River, a short distance above the mouth
of the Conestoga Creek, in Lancaster County, near a hill
called Turkey Hill. Large quantities of Indian arrow heads
and some small cannon balls have from time to time been
found in the vicinity. The fight at the fort probably oc-
curred in 1682, for the lower branch of the Legislature in
that year made provision for the daughter of a Swede who
had been killed at the Susquehannaughs' fort. Eight hun-
dred warriors of the Five Nations are said to have invested
the fort on Turkey Hill and made several assaults upon it,
but were repulsed. They finally resorted to a stratagem
which also failed. They sent twenty-five of their young
men to the fort for provisions, stating that they would return
^s soon as they were supplied. The Susquehannaughs knew
their treachery and seized them in the fort and burnt the
whole of them alive. Those on the outside retreated hastily,
but were pursued by the Susquehannaughs and nearly all
killed. The Five Nations and the Susquehannaughs were

70 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

constantly at war with each other for some years afterwards,
when the latter, becoming much reduced, were nearly all
exterminated in Western Maryland by the English. The
few that were left were incorporated with the odds and ends
of other tribes, and for some years lived along the Susque-
hanna River, near the Conestoga Creek, in Lancaster Coun-
ty. They probably were, from the fact that they lived near
the creek of that name, called the Conestoga Indians.

CHAPTER VIII.

Augustine Hermen and others naturalized — The Hacks— Hermen has
a dispute with Simon Oversee— He tries to establish a village — Trouble
among the Dutch— Sir Robert Carr conquers them — The name of New
Am stel changed to New Castle — Account of D'Hinoyossa — Efforts of the
Marylanders to extend their jurisdiction to the Delaware River — Durham
County — Road from Bohemia Manor to New Castle — Grant of St. Augus-
tine Manor — Ephraim George, and Casparus Hermen — Original limits of
Baltimore County — Erection of Cecil County— The first court-house at
Jamestown — Augustine Hermen and Jacob Young appointed commis-
sioners to treat with the Delaware Indians — Account of Jacob Young.

Of the history of Augustine Hermen for some years after
he came to Bohemia Manor very little is known ; but he
was probably engaged in making the map before mentioned,
and there is reason to think that he followed his profession
of surveyor, and also engaged in trade. In 1660 he applied
to the council for a patent of naturalization for himself and
his children, which was granted. He and his five children,
and John Jarbo, Anna Hack and her sons, George and
Peter, were all naturalized the same year, and were the first
persons of whose naturalization any account has come down
to us. These Hacks were no doubt the Hacks whose name
has been perpetuated by being applied to Hack's Point,
which is on the south side of Bohemia River, nearly oppo-
site where the manor house stood.

The proceedings of council upon this occasion show that
'/ Hermen had of long time used the trade of this province,"
from which it may be inferred that he continued to trade
after he came here to reside permanently. The council book
of this year shows that he had had a dispute with Simon
Oversee (no doubt the same person who had translated the

72 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

credentials of Hermen and Waldron upon the occasion of their
embassy to Maryland in 1659), and had entered into bonds
for settling it by arbitration. It appears from the record,
that the bonds had been forfeited for non-performance of
the award, and he wishing to bring suit upon them, alleged
that the umpire, one Robert Slye, unlawfully detained them.
He therefore prayed to have the bonds delivered to him to
make good his demand in court.

The sheriff of St. Mary's County was directed to obtain
the bonds and deliver them to the clerk of the provincial
court.

It appears from the records of the council for 1662 that
Hermen had surveyed land on Ceciltown River (the Elk
River), in Baltimore County, for one Nehemiah Coventon
and others, of Accomac County, Virginia ; but they having
failed to enter the lands and pay the fees and costs of sur-
veying, the council ordered that any other persons might
take the lands and pay him his cost and charges.

In 1661 (as is supposed, for the letter is without date) he
wrote to Beekman, then governor of Altona, as follows : " I
visited my colony on the river (the Bohemia), and dis-
covered at the same time the most proper place between
this situation and South River. I am now engaged in
encouraging settlers to unite together in a village, of which
I understand that a beginning will be made before next
winter. From there we may arrive by land in one day at
Sand Hoeck, and may perhaps effect a cart road about the
same time. The Maquas Kill (creek) and the Bohemia
River are there only one mile distant from each other, by
which it is an easy correspondence by water, which must be
greatly encouraging to the inhabitants of New Netherlands."*

There is no reason to believe this village was ever built,
the above extract being the only reference to it in any
writing of that period. Its proposed location will forever

* Hazard's Annals of Pennsylvania, page 321.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 73

remain a matter of doubt ; but it probably was intended to
have been built near the head of Bohemia, or on Bohemia
Manor near where Hermen erected the manor house. Mr.
Vincent in his History of Delaware confounds it with Port
Herman, a village on the Elk River, which was founded
about thirty years ago.

The difficulties between the officers of the West India
company at iUtona and the colony at the city of New
Amstel culminated in 1663, in the cession of the territory
of the company to the city of Amsterdam, the authorities of
which continued D'Hinoyossa as governor of the whole of
their possessions on the Delaware. The next year D'Hino-
yossa resolved to establish himself at Appoquinimink, where
Odessa now stands, evidently with the intention of enjoying
the advantages to be derived from the trade with the Mary-
landers, which at that early day was carried on by means
of the facilities afforded by the navigation of the Bohemia
Eiver.*

But in this he was destined to be disappointed, for the
next year King Charles II. determined to dispossess the
Dutch of the settlements they had made on what the English
claimed as their territory. To this end he granted to his
brother James, Duke of York, a patent for all the country
from the Connecticut to the Delaware Bay. Shortly after
this grant was made war was declared between the English
and Dutch, and the same year New Amsterdam surrendered
to an expedition under command of Colonel Richard
Nichols, and the name of that place was changed to New
York.

Shortly after the surrender of New Amsterdam an expe-
dition under Sir Robert Carr was sent to Delaware Bay,
which without much bloodshed took possession of the
country according to Carr's instructions, in the name of his
Majesty the King of England. The name of New Amstel

* Vincent's History of Delaware, page 413.

74 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

was now changed to New Castle, and Altona was called by
the name of Christiana.

New York and the country along the Delaware remained
in possession of the English till 1673, when war again
breaking out between the Dutch and English, they were
conquered by the former. In the interval the government
of New York was administered by Richard Nichols and
Francis Lovelace, under both of whom Captain John
Carr was deputy governor of the settlements along the
Delaware. The downfall of the Dutch in 1664 termin-
ated the connection of D'Hinoyossa with the settlement
at New Castle. He first appears in the history of that
place in 1656, at which time he was lieutenant under
Captain Martin Krygier, who was commander of the
military force of the Dutch. In 1659 he succeeded Jacob
Alricks as vice-director of the company in Amsterdam,
under whose auspices the colony at New Castle then was.
He appears to have been quite as hard-headed, stubborn and
vindictive as Peter Stuyvesant, the Dutch governor of New
York, to whom he should have been subordinate, but whose
authority he did not hesitate to set at defiance whenever he
chose to do so. In 1662, William Beekman, who was also
vice-director of the company and the peer of D'Hinoyossa,
complained to the authorities at New York that D'Hinoyossa
had suddenly departed to Maryland. This sudden depar-
ture of D'Hinoyossa was in answer to a letter which he re-
ceived from the governor of Maryland, inviting him to
meet him at the house of Hermen, on Bohemia Manor.
What took place at that meeting, or why it was held, cannot
now be ascertained ; but a short time after the meeting was
held, Beekman accused him of selling every article for
which he could find a purchaser, even powder and musket
balls from the magazine. Beekman states that Augustine
Hermen was one of the purchasers.

It seems plain that D'Hinoyossa studied to advance the
interests of Maryland more than those of Delaware. He

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 75

probably had reason to apprehend the ultimate extinction
of the Dutch authority, and wished to have an asylum in
which to take refuge when the time of need arrived. After
the conquest by Sir Robert Carr, D'Hinoyossa took refuge
in Maryland, and his property, including an island in the
Delaware River, was confiscated and given to Carr. D'Hin-
oyossa received a grant of the whole or part of Foster's
Island which is a part of Talbot County, in the Chesapeake
Bay, from Lord Baltimore. No doubt this was on account of
the favor he showed the English in Maryland during the
latter part of the time he was in authority in Delaware. He
was a soldier of fortune, and is said in his early life to have
been in Brazil. He returned to Holland and engaged in the
war against Louis XIV., and died in Holland.

Ten years had now elapsed since the fruitless attempt had
been made to adjust the dispute about the possession of the
west bank of the Delaware. During this time little or no-
thing had been done to extend the jurisdiction of Lord Bal-
timore to the eastern limit of the territory named in his
charter. But the country along the Delaware being now in
possession of the English, the council of Maryland took ad-
vantage of this and renewed their efforts in behalf of the lord
proprietary. At a council held July 28th, 1669, it was "order-
ed that the country from the Whorekill (which was the name
applied to Lewes Creek, and seems also to have been the name
by which the eastern part of Kent County was called), to the
degree forty of northerly latitude be erected into a county
and called by the name of Durham County, and that the
surveyor-general do make out the northerly bounds of this
province as near as possible at the degree forty northerly
latitude, and return his observations to the deputy-lieuten-
ant in council, and that Mr. Brooks, the governor's steward,
be desired to provide the governor's sloop with men and
victuals for the accommodation of the surveyor-general up
the Bay by the 29th instant, October."

This is the only reference to Durham County that has

76 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

been found in the records of council, and it is not likely that any
effort was made at that time to locate the northern boundary of
the province. But on the 26th of the next November, one
Jerome White went to New Castle in the interest of Lord
Baltimore, and finding by observations that the town was
■south of the fortieth degree of north latitude, he thereupon
wrote to Governor Lovelace, saying "he could do no less than
acquaint him with the fact." He also made demand
for the town of New Castle and all the islands and territories
thereunto belonging, lying on the west to the main ocean
and Delaware Bay, from the bounds of Virginia to the for-
tieth degree of north latitude.* But as the disputed terri-
tory had been granted to the Duke of York, Lovelace was
precluded from acceding to this demand and continued to
hold the territory in the name of his Majesty.

Hermen seems to have always been on the best of terms
with his neighbors on the Delaware, and in 1671 the au-
thorities at New York ordered those at NeAv Castle to clear
one-half of a road from that place to Hermen's plantation,
the Marylanders having offered to clear the other half. This
year Hermen obtained the grant of St. Augustine Manor
from Lord Baltimore. It extended from the mouth of St.
George's Creek southward along the Delaware River, to the
mouth of Appoquinimink Creek, and west from the Dela-
ware River to the ancient boundary of Bohemia Manor, and
included the country east of Bohemia Manor from the Chesa-
peake and Delaware Canal to the head of Appoquinimink
Creek, and from the ancient eastern boundary of Bohemia
Manor eastwardly to the Delaware River.

A canal to connect the waters of the Chesapeake and
Delaware bays was already talked of, and Hermen no
doubt selected this land because his knowledge of the topo-
graphy of the country led him to think the canal would be
made through this part of the Peninsula, and he wished to
receive the benefit that would follow its construction.

*See council book of that year, in possession of Md. Hist. Society.

HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY. 77

Though the manor of St. Augustine was within the limits
of Lord Baltimore's charter there is reason to believe that
Hermen never had possession of any part of it, except a few
hundred acres on the river bank opposite Reedy Island, and
probably a small tract lying near the head of the branches
of Drawyers Creek. For it appears from an examination
of a paper in the- volume of Penn manuscripts in possession
of the Pennsylvania Historical Society, that Hermen the
next year took possession under a license from Governor Carr,
of a tract of land on the river side opposite Reedy Island,
and that his sons, Ephraim George, and Casparus, settled
there. Their object seems to have been by so doing to claim
possession of the whole manor, if Lord Baltimore succeeded
in making good his claim as far east at the Delaware River.
Ephraim George, and Casparus Hermen, sons of Augustine,
continued to reside in the territory along the Delaware for
some years, probably till after the death of their father.
The former was clerk to the court of Upland (now Chester)
and New Castle, in 1676 ; vendue-master at New Castle the
next year, clerk of customs and collector of quit rents in the
jurisdiction of Upland and New Castle courts in 1677. Cas-
parus, in connection with Edmund Cantwell (one of the
ancestors of the Cantwell family of this county) obtained a
grant of two hundred acres lying on each side of Drawyer's
Creek, for the use of a water-mill, in 1682. He represented
New Castle County in the General Assembly of Pennsylva-
nia from 1683 to 1685.

The authorities of Maryland having failed to extend their
jurisdiction over the country claimed by Lord Baltimore by
peaceable means, resolved to try the effect of force. Accord-
ingly a military expedition was fitted out in the year 1672
ami placed under the command of one Jones, who proceeded
to the settlement at the Whorekill and laid waste the country
and devastated it terribly. The Dutch settlers there were
more successful in their agricultural pursuits than the
colonists in Maryland. And while the latter devoted all their

78 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

energies to the production of tobacco, the former turned
their attention to the cultivation of wheat, and were in the
habit of supplying the Marylanders with it. It is said that
this malignant and vindictive expedition led to the punish-
ment of those who sent it, and that the colonists of Mary-
land suffered much for want of food a few years afterward
when their crops failed. Indeed a woman is said to have
killed and eaten her own child during the time of this
severe and terrible famine. She was executed for the crime,
and when upon the scaffold declared her belief that the
famine was a retributive act of justice sent by infinite wis-
dom in punishment of the raid upon the Whorekill.

A certain Henry Ward, gentleman, as he is called in the
act that was passed for his punishment, was a member of
this expedition to the Whorekill. He was also a member
of the council, and, though he was called a gentleman, he
took advantage of his position, and represented to the
council that he had lost a valuable horse while upon the
expedition in the service of the country. The council
allowed him eighteen hundred pounds of tobacco to in-
demnify him for the loss he had sustained. But somehow
it came to the ears of the council, in 1674, that Mr. Ward
had not lost a horse, and had been lying about the matter,
in order to get tobacco to which he had no right.

This is the first instance on record of an official of the
province attempting to cheat the public. The council very
promptly fined him four thousand pounds of tobacco, which
appears to have taught fraudulently-disposed people a
wholesome lesson, for no other record is found of occur-
rences of this kind among the ancient archives of the
province.

Soon after the settlement of his sons on the Delaware a
road was constructed from Hermen's Manor plantation to
their residence. This was probably the first road on the
Manor. The west part of this road was on or near the
track of the present road leading from St. Augustine to

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 79

Bohemia Bridge. For many years after Hermen's death
this road was called the old maul's path. Its construction
was a work of no small magnitude, for it was said to have
been twenty-two miles in length. The ordinary roads in
use at this time did not deserve the name of roads, for they
were only spaces or paths cleared of trees, and often so nar-
row and obscure that it was very difficult to follow them.
It was not till 1704 that it was enacted that the public roads
should be cleared and grubbed at least twenty feet wide,
and that overseers should be appointed to keep them in
repair, and erect bridges over heads of rivers, creeks,
branches and swamps where they were required. This act
also directed that all roads leading to the court-houses in
the several counties should be marked " by two notches cut
in the trees on both sides of the roads aforesaid, and another
notch a distance above the other two. . . Roads leading to
a church were to be marked at the entrance into the same ;
and at the leaving of any other road with a slip cut down
the face of the tree, near the ground." Roads leading to a
ferry were to be marked with three notches. When roads
ran through old fields they were to be marked by stakes
discernible from each other, and notched like the trees.
Even after this great improvement upon roads our fore-
fathers must have labored under much difficulty when
traveling after nightfall.

In the year 1678 Hermen and Jacob Young were ap-
pointed commissioners to treat with the Indians. Their
commission is as follows, and may be found in the first
book of the land records of Cecil County :

"by the lieutenant-general.

" Thomas Nottey, Esq., Lieutenant-General and Chief Gov-
ernor of the Province of Maryland, under the Right Hon-
orable Charles, our Lord and Proprietary of the same, to
Augustine Hermen and Jacob Young, gentlemen, greeting:

" Whereas, Complaint to me hath been made that several

80 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY,

injuries and abuses have been frequently offered to divers
the inhabitants of this province as to their stock of hogs,
horses and cattle, by the Delaware Indians hunting upon
their lands and driving away their stocks, pretending as
just, right and title they have to the land, by reason whereof
the inhabitants are very much molested and damnified; for
prevention whereof for the future I have, by and with the
advice and consent of his lordship's council, authorized and
appointed you, the said Augustine Hermen and Jacob
Young, to treat with the said Indians touching the prem-
ises, and to know of them what part and what quantity of
the land in Baltimore and Cecil counties they pretend to,
and what satisfaction they may demand to quit their claim
thereto, to the end that the same may be duly executed and
paid, and the inhabitants of this province quietly and
peaceably enjoy their possession without any further moles-
tation. An account of the proceeding herein you are to
transmit unto myself and his lordship's council with all ex-
pedition possible. Given under my hand and seal this
14th day of June, in the third year of his lordship's
dominion over this province, Anno Domini, 1678."

This Jacob Young, there is reason to believe, was the same
man who was charged some years before with seducing the
wife of Lears, the Swedish priest at Altona, but it was
afterwards proved that, at the time he and Mrs. -Lears abscond-
ed, the reverend gentleman had broken open Young's trunk
with an axe, during the time he was stopping at his house,
and most likely he had not used his wife as well as he should
have done, and the court fined him heavily for assuming to
exercise judicial as well as priestly functions. The court
were of the opinion that the fugitives had fled to Maryland,
and sent an express there to search for them. The priest
did not take the loss of his wife very much to heart, for, a
few weeks after she ran away with Young, he married him-
self to another woman, which called down upon him ,the dis-
pleasure of the dignitaries of the government, who censured

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 81

him severely, not so much for performing his own marriage
ceremony as for doing so on Sunday.

At the date of his commission Young lived somewhere
along St. George's Creek, probably on the north side of it,
for the Dutch claimed that he was under their jurisdiction.
At this time, and for many years afterwards, there was a
cart road leading from where Chesapeake City now stands
past his house to the Delaware River, near Delaware City or
Port Penn. This road was called, in the old writings of that
period, Jacob Young's cart road.

In 1680 the governor of Delaware issued a warrant to
sheriff Cantwell of New Castle, " requiring him to summon
Jacob Young to appear personally before the governor and
council cf New York, to answer for presuming to treat with
the Indians in this government without any authority."

This indicates that the treaty was made, and that Jacob
Young lived on Hermen's Manor of Augustine.

The Albany records, from which has been obtained much
valuable information respecting the history of this period,
contain no evidence to show that the warrant was ever
served upon Young. For this and many other reasons it
seems probable that he fled to the wilderness between Prin-
cipio Creek and the Susquehanna River and secreted him-
self in that part of the county east of where Port Deposit
now stands, and where a certain Jacob Young was living
nine years afterwards.

Thirteen years had elapsed since the project of establish-
ing a county to be called Cecil County had been proposed
by Her men and assented to by Lord Baltimore, and yet the
county had not been erected. For fifteen years before this
time, that is to say, from the year 1659 to 1674, the land
that had been taken up and patented on the Western Shore
from the mouth of the Patapsco River to the head .of the
bay, and on the Eastern Shore from the head of the bay
as far south as Worten Creek, as well as that along the
rivers on the Eastern Shore was described as being in Balti-
more Countv. f

82 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

The first volume of Land Records of Cecil County con-
tains a number of deeds for land along Sassafras River and
elsewhere on the Eastern Shore, in which the land for which
they were given is described as being in Baltimore County.
The same may be said of the first volume of the land
records of Baltimore County, in. which it is stated that Bohe-
mia Manor is located in East Baltimore County. If more
evidence is wanting to convince the most skeptical that
Baltimore County at first included the upper part of* the
Eastern Shore, it may be found in the fact that Augustine
Hermen for some years after he came to Bohemia Manor and
probably till the erection of Cecil County was one of the
justices of Baltimore County. The same may be said of
Captain Thomas Howell, who owned large quantities of land
at Howell's Point on the Eastern Shore, where there is no
doubt he resided. Indeed, there is reason to believe that
the court for Baltimore County frequently met on the East-
ern Shore, which was certainly the case in 1664, when it was
held at the house of Francis Wright, at Clayfall, in refer-
ence to the case of the captive Seneca.

The original boundaries of Cecil County, as created in
1674, by proclamation of Governor Charles Calvert, are de-
scribed as follows : " From the mouth of the Susquehanna
River down the eastern side of the bay to Swan Point, thence
to Hell Point, and so up Chester River to the head thereof."*
Nothing appears to have been said about the eastern or
northern bounds of the county, because they were in dispute,
nevertheless the lord proprietary still claimed to the Dela-
ware and to the fortieth degree of north latitude. These
bounds were slightly varied by another proclamation issued
a few days afterwards, which there is reason to believe threw
a small part of what is now the extreme southwestern part
of Kent County under the jurisdiction of the authorities of
Kent Island.

* McMalion's History of Maryland, page 92.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 83

The first court-house was erects 1 on the north side of Sassa-
fras River, a short distance east of Ordinary Point, at what was
afterwards called Jamestown, and is now designated on the
map of Cecil County as Oldtown. At this time, probably not
a dozen persons inhabited that part of the county north of the
Elk River, and they lived along the North East River and so
near to other navigable water as to have easy access to the
court-house by that means. Very little is known of the first
court-house, except that it was built by Casparus Hermen
in 1692. It seems to have been a small structure, from the
fact that it is stated in evidence taken before a land com-
mission many years afterwards, that the jurors were in the
habit of leaving it and holding their deliberations under
the shade of an oak tree which stood on the river bank
near by, and which for this reason was called the Jury Oak.

Before the court-house was built the court met at public
and sometimes at private houses, as is shown by the minutes
of the court. Some time in the ye.ir 1690 it met at the house
of Thomas Jones, and on the 12th of April, 1692, it met at
the house of Shadrack Whitworth. At the next court,
which was held at Matthias Matthiason's, this same Shad-
rack prayed the court to be admitted an attorney to practice
in the court. His petition was granted and he was ad-
mitted and took the oath. One William No well also
prayed to be re-admitted, and promised to remove the cau-
ses that had led to his suspension, which seemed to be the
fact that he had refused to take the oath of alliance and su-
premacy. On the 10th of August, 1692, the court met at
Matthias Matthiason's. At this court, the same Shadrack
was sued by one Robert Davidson, planter of Kent County.
From the entries made in the minute book for this session
of court, we learn that Shadrack was a churgeon. He was
probably one of the first surgeons that practiced his profes-
sion in Cecil County.

CHAPTER IX.

The Labadists — Sluyter and Danckers — Their journal — They meet with
Ephraim George Hermen and wife — Visit New Castle and Bohemia
Manor — They go on down the Peninsula — Return and purchase the Labadie
tract on Bohemia Manor, and establish a community there — Description
of the Labadie tract and how they got it — Peter Bayard and others —
Description of the community on Bohemia Manor — Augustine Hermen's
quarrel with George Holland — Letter from Hermen — Hermen's patents
of confirmation — He obtains a patent for Misfortune, or the three Bohe-
mia Sisters — Extent of his possessions — He invests his son Ephraim George
with the right and title to Bohemia Manor — A curious deed — Augustine
Hermen's last will — His death and monumental stone — His place of
burial — Codicil to his last will — His daughters.

The Labadists were a sect of Christians that flourished in
the latter part of the seventeenth century and took their
name from their founder, John Labadie, who was at one
time a Jesuit priest, and afterwards embraced the doctrines
of Calvin. He seems to have been hard to please in matters
of religious faith ; and, probably because he did not find the
creed of any religious sect adapted to his peculiar views, he
originated one himself, which was better adapted to his
wishes and wants. One great distinctive feature of the
Labadie creed was, that the believers in his doctrine should
live in communities by themselves. In accordance with
this tenet of their faith, they had established a community
at Wiewert, in Denmark, and being full of zeal and mission-
ary enterprise, had established, or tried to establish, another
community at Surinam ; but the climate and country proving
unfavorable, they were soon forced to abandon the enterprise
at the latter place. The community at Wiewert sent two of
their number, Peter Sluyter, alias Vorsman, and Jasper
Danckers, alias Schilders, to America, in the latter part of

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 85

the year 1679, where they spent a part of that and the fol-
lowing year in " spying out " a good location for the colony.
They traveled together, and kept a journal during this visit,
in which they described the country through which they
passed and speak of the people with whom they were thrown
in contact. Their journal was found in the possession of a
bookseller in Amsterdam a few years ago. In what manner
it had been preserved could not be ascertained, but it is
probable that it passed from the hands of some member of
the community of Labadists at Wiewert, and after the lapse
of many years ceased to be appreciated and fell into the
hands of the bookseller, where the secretary of the Long
Island Historical Society found it. The Society had it trans-
lated and published, and as the Labadists at Bohemia Manor
were so intimately connected with the early history of Cecil
Comity, and were the only colony of these strange people
that was established in the United States, the reader, it is
hoped, will pardon the author for quoting largely from it,
and for saying much about the Labadists and their doings
upon Bohemia Manor when they lived there nearly two
hundred years ago.

Sluyter and Danckers landed in New York, where they first
met Ephraim Hermen, the eldest son of Augustine Hermen,
who had recently been married and had not yet taken his
wife to New Castle, where he then lived. They state that
Ephraim and his wife rode upon the same horse while mak-
ing the journey from New York to New Castle.

Ephraim Hermen's wife's maiden name was Elizabeth
Van Rodenburgh. She was the daughter of John Van Rod-
enburgh, at one time governor of the island of Curacoa, in
the Caribbean Sea. Ephraim's father had long sought the
hand of her mother in marriage, but was not successful.
The two Labadists appear to have been on intimate terms
with young Hermen soon after they first met him. They
traveled in company with him and his wile, as before stated,
from New York to Chester, and afterwards stopped at his

86 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

house during their sojourn in New Castle, he having left
them at Chester and arrived at New Castle first.

During the sojourn of these travelers at New Castle they
appear to have ingratiated themselves into the good graces
of Ephraim Hermen, who become a convert to their religion.
They also speak of his sister Margaretta, who then lived
with him, in a way that indicates they hoped to proselyte
her. Whether she became a member of the community on
the Manor has not been ascertained, but it is probable she
did not, because her father, who at first treated the Labadists
with respect, and who, it appears, gave them some encourage-
ment, had reason to regret having done so. They speak of
Ephraim Hermen's wife as having the quietest disposition
of any person they met with in America, and no doubt
their efforts to convert her to the Labadie faith and the
influence they had over her had much to do with the con-
version of her husband. They represent him to have been
very godless and wild in his early life, but say he had
become reformed at the time of their visit.

After obtaining a passport or letters of credit and intro-
duction from Mons. Moll, Mr. Alricks, and Ephraim Hermen,
who were the dignitaries of the court at New Castle, they
left there in company with Mr. Moll to visit his plantation,
which was about fifteen miles from New Castle, in the direc-
tion of Casparus Hermen's place, which they state was on
the Delaware River, near the head of the bay. Speaking of
Mr. Moll's plantation, they say : " There was no person
there, except some servants and negroes, the commander
being a Parisian. The dwellings were very badly appointed,
especially for such a man as Mons. Moll. There was no
place to retire to, nor a chair to sit on, or a bed to sleep on.
For their usual food the servants have nothing but maize
bread to eat, and water to drink, which sometimes is not
very good, and scarcely enough for life. Yet they are com-
pelled to work hard and to spend their lives here in Virginia
and elsewhere in planting that vile tobacco, ivhicli, vanishes

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 87

into smoke, and is, for the most part, miserably abused. It
is the chief article of trade in the country. If they only
wished it, they could have every thing for the support of
life in abundance, for they have land and opportunity
sufficient for that end, but this insatiate avarice must be
fed and sustained by the bloody sweat of these slaves. After
we had supped, Mr. Moll, who would be civil, wished us to
lie upon a bed that was there, which we declined ; and as
this continued some length of time, I lay down on a heap of
maize, and he and my comrade afterwards did the same."*

After leaving Mr. Moll's place they went to Casparus Her-
men's place, which was then called Augustine, and was on the
Delaware River just south of the mouth of Appoquinimink
Creek, where they spent the night. The next day they pro-
ceeded on towards Maryland, which they soon reached, and
" speakof it as being the most fertile part of North America,"
and say it " is to be also wished that it was the most healthy."
No doubt the fever and ague prevailed in Cecil County at that
itme, and that there was much of the country in a swampy
condition and covered with water. Augustine Hermen's map,
made a few years previous to this time, has a note upon it,
stating that the solid land between the head waters of Back
Creek and Bohemia River and the streams that flow into
the Delaware Bay is but a few miles wide. This accounts
for the commissioners, Waldron and Hermen, taking a
northwest course from New Castle when going to the Chesa-
peake Bay some years before. They undoubtedly took this
course to avoid the swamps and stagnant water they would
have had to cross if they had gone directly from New Castle
to the head of Elk. Danckers remarks that "there are few
Indians in comparison with the extent of the country,"
arid that they " lived in the uppermost part of Maryland
—that is, as high up as it is yet inhabited by Christians."

* The journal, though called by both their names, seems to have been
written by Danckers.

88 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

When they reached Augustine Hermen's, they presented
to him the letter from his son Casparus, and he received them
with much kindness. " His plantation was going into de-
cay as well as his body for want of attention. There was
not a Christian man, as they term it, to serve him ; nobody
but negroes. All this was increased by a miserably, doubly
miserable, wife, but so miserable that I will not relate it
here. All his children have been compelled, on her account,
to leave their father's house." This is the only evidence
extant tending to show that Augustine Hermen married a
second wife. He makes no reference to one in his will and
it is probable the Labadists were mistaken in regard to this
matter, or they may have willfully misstated it. Their jour-
nal is one of the most bilious and splenetic works ever pub-
lished. But though they seem to have been depraved
enough to have lied when it suited their purpose, they
probably told the truth about the appearance of the country
through which they passed. The genealogical record in
Hanson's "Old Kent" in regard to Hermen's second wife is
proved to be incorrect by the records of the Reformed Church
in New York, where his children were baptized.

The two travelers relate that they wTere directed to a place
to sleep, but the screeching of the wild geese and other wild
fowl in the creek (the Bohemia River) before the door pre-
vented them from having a good sleep. The next morning
after Hermen had signed the passport* which Mr. Moll,
Alricks and Ephraim Hermen had given them, they pro-
ceeded on down the peninsula and crossed the Sassafras
River at a place where there was an ordinary. Their pas-
sage over the river cost them each an English shilling. This
ferry was either at Ordinary Point or at Oldtown iust
above it.

These disciples of Labadie went on down the peninsula,
and spent a week in looking for a favorable location. They
appear to have intended to visit the eastern shore of V.ir-

* Augustine Hermen was a justice of the court at tins time.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

ginia; but the settlers in the lower part of Maryland
advised them not to proceed further in that direction, and
told them there were so many creeks and marshes there
that they would find it difficult 'to travel. On their way
back Danckers speaks as follows of the multitudes of wild
fowl they found in a creek, which, as near as we are able to
judge, was a tributary of the Sassafras : " I have nowhere
seen so many ducks together as were seen in this creek.
The water was so black with them that it seemed, when
you looked from the land upon the water, as if it were a
mass of filth or turf; and when they flew up there was
a rushing and vibration of the air like a great storm coming
through the trees, and even like the rumbling of distant
thunder, while the sky over the whole creek was filled with
them like a cloud, or like the starlings fly at harvest time
in fatherland." A little further on he speaks of the wild
geese they saw in the Sassafras on their return: "They rose
not in flocks of ten or twelve, or twenty or thirty, but con-
tinuously, wherever we pushed our way ; and as they made
room for us there was such an incessant clattering made
with their wings upon the water where they rose, and such
a noise of those flying higher up, that it was as if we were
all the time surrounded by a whirlwind or storm. This
proceeded not only from geese, but from ducks and other
water fowl ; and it is not peculiar to this place alone, but it
occurred on all the creeks and rivers we crossed, though
they were the most numerous in the morning and evening,
when they are most easily shot." They were greatly im-
pressed by the majestic appearance of the noble forest trees
they saw in this part of Maryland. These were no doubt
fine specimens of trees, and perhaps many of them were
many centuries old when they gazed upon them. The
location of an ancient tree that stood at or near the north-
west corner of the Labadie tract is marked upon Griffith's
Map of Maryland, which was published in Philadelphia in
1793. It was called the "Labadie Poplar'' and was noted

90 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

for its great age and size, and must have been of much
notoriety, as it is the only tree located on that map. They
also spoke of the abundance of wild grapevines they saw
while upon this journey. ♦ There was a considerable number
of Quakers in this part of Maryland at this time, and
a little further on in the journal it is stated that they
visited the place of Casparus Hermen with a view of pur-
chasing it for the use of their community, and say that "it
was objectionable only because it lay. on the road, and was
therefore resorted to by every one, and especially by these
miserable Quakers." They had met a Quakeress at Upland
(Chester) some time before, who, they state, was the " great
prophetess from Maryland." She was traveling in company
with two other women, also Quakers, who had " forsaken
husband, children, plantation and all, and were going
through the country in order to quake." They came to the
house where Danckers and Sluyter were stopping, and drank
a dram of rum with each other, after which they began to
shake and groan, so that the Labadists wondered much
what it all meant and what was about to come of it. She
did not quake much at that time, however ; but the next
day she sat next Danckers at dinner and quaked very hard,
so hard that she shook the bench upon which they and a
number of others were sitting.

William Edmunson, a traA^eling preacher from England,
also' visited the Quakers on the Sassafras River a few years
after this time, and speaks of stopping at the house of one
William Southerly, a Quaker, who lived there. These
thrifty people were no doubt attracted there by the fertility
of the soil and the easy terms upon which they could
acquire titles to plantations, and the freedom to hold any
religious opinions they pleased. The great thoroughfare
between the Delaware and Chesapeake at that time was
along the Bohemia and Sassafras rivers and Appoquinimink
Creek, and this no doubt led to the early settlement of that
part of the county ; and the Quakers were the first to see

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 91

the advantages to be derived from being located upon the
route or in close proximity to it. These two Labadists
found a Quaker near the Bohemia River and alongside of
the road leading from Augustine Hermen's to his son's
place on the Delaware, who was living in a little shed not
much bigger than a " dog's kennel," but who was engaged
in building a house, which he intended to use as an ale-
house. It is plain from these facts that these Quakers were
among the earliest settlers of our county, but they do not
appear to have remained here long or to have been numer-
ous enough to have left any enduring marks or monuments
of their sojourn.

There is a remarkable difference between the journal of
William Edmunson and that of Danckers ; the former says
but little about the country and was wholly engrossed in the
work in which he was engaged — the spread of the Gospel;
while the latter rarely refers to this matter, but speaks of
everything else. The journals are evidences of the truth
of the Scriptural maxim, that " out of the fullness of the
heart the mouth speaketh."

The Labadists gave the planters of Maryland and Virginia
a very bad character. How they were able to speak of the
planters of the latter State does not appear, for they did not
visit it. Their austere and rigid doctrines had biased or
prejudiced their minds, and most likely the description
is a great deal too highly colored. If the truth were
known, the men they speak so disparagingly of were prob-
• ably as good, if not much better, than themselves. Their
conduct afterwards proves them to have been men of poor
character and of little or no piety. They speak of the
planter as "godless and profane, and say they listen neither
to/God nor his commandments, and have neither church
nor cloister. Sometimes there is some one who is called a
minister, who does not, as elsewhere, serve in one place — for
in all Virginia and Maryland there is not a city or village
— but travels for profit (precisely what they were doing

•92 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

themselves, as their subsequent actions and conduct abund-
antly shows), and for that purpose visits the plantations
through the country and addresses the people ; but I know
of no public assemblage being held in these places." "When
the ships arrive with goods, and especially with liquors,
such as wine and brandy, they attract everybody (that is,
masters) to them, who indulge so abominably together, that
they keep nothing for the rest of the year, yea, do not go
away as long as there is any left, or bring anything home
with them which might be useful to them in their subse-
quent necessities."

After their -return from their journey down the peninsula,
the two Labadists visited New Castle again, and probably
induced Ephraim Hermen to persuade his father to sell them
part of Bohemia Manor, for about this time they speak of
Ephraim Hermen and Mr. Moll visiting Augustine Hermen,
who had made his will and left Ephraim, his eldest son, heir of
his rank and title, in other words "Lord of the Manor," and
they thought that "Augustine wished to make some change
in his will, because he had offered some of his land which
he had entailed upon Ephraim to them."

The Labadists were miserably mistaken in the supposition
they made ; for if the old man, then tottering upon the verge
of the grave, wished to see his son and confer with him in
regard to his lands, or his will disposing of them, it was
that he might remonstrate with him about his connection
with the Labadists, for a year or two afterwards he made a
•codicil to his will, in which he appointed three of his neigh-
bors his executors, assigning as the reason for their appoint-
ment in place of his son Ephraim, that he adhered to the
Labadie faction and was using his best endeavors to
proselyte his brother and sisters, and he feared the Labadists
would become, through Ephraim's efforts, the owners of all
his lands.

Having concluded the business for which they came to
America, the two pioneer Labadists returned to Wiewert.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 93

They revisited this county in 1683, bringing with them
from Wiewert a few of the sect to which they belonged, for
the purpose of organizing the community on the Manor.
Hermen refused to consummate the sale to them, and only
did so when compelled by the court. The deed for the
Labadie tract was executed by Hermen on the 11th of Au-
gust, 1684, to Peter Sluyter (alias Vorsman), Jasper Danckers
(alias Schilders, of Friesland), Petrus Bayard, of New York,,
and John Moll and Arnoldus de la Grange, of Delaware, in
company. The land conveyed embraced the four necks
eastwardly from the first creek that empties into the Bohe-
mia River from the north, east of the Bohemia bridge, and
extended north or northeast to near the old St. Augustine
or Manor church. It contained thirty -seven hundred and
fifty acres. The land is of good quality and will compare-
favorably with the best land on the peninsula. The selec-
tion of this tract of land did credit to the judgment of the
two Labadists who selected it for the establishment of their
community. They appear to have been better judges of
land than they were of matters pertaining to' religion and
piety. It adds nothing to the credit of a disreputable per-
son to assume a name to which he has no right ; what then
must be thought of these men who set themselves up as re-
ligious teachers and expounders of the Word of God, and
who were so zealous in the cause they had espoused as to
cross the ocean in order to promulgate their religious faith
and establish a new community of their proselytes, when
they start with a lie upon their lips and travel under
assumed names. There may have been some reason un-
known that satisfied their consciences for acting in this man-
ner ; but the means they used to obtain the title to their land
ar/d their subsequent doings while upon the Manor, indi-
cate that they were men that made a cloak of their religion,
and who were governed by sinister and mercenary rather
than by philanthropic and Christian principles.

John Moll was a Dutchman and chief judge of the court

94 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

at New Castle. He was in business in Bristol, in England,
at one time, but failed and migrated to Virginia, and traded
there and in Maryland for a time. La Grange was probably
a Frenchman. He lived in New York at one time, and the
two Labadists appear to have had letters of introduction to
him. Danckers, in his journal, speaks of him as a great fop,
and when he first met him had a very mean opinion of
him. He was in the habit of trading to New Castle, and
professed to be a convert to the Labadie religion. Bayard
is said to have been a hatter, and probably was the most, if
not the only, sincere and honest man among the original
grantees of the " Labadie Tract."

These three men, who no doubt were friends and associ-
ates of Ephraim Hermen, who seems to have been a man of
not very superior mental ability, appear to have let them-
selves be used as willing tools in the hands of these Laba-
dists to aid them in the consummation of the conspiracy to
obtain part of the Manor, of which the weak-minded Eph-
raim was cognizant. No doubt they expected to reap much
benefit from the establishment of the Labadie community
so near them, which was probably the reason why they pro-
fessed to believe in the new religion, for immediately after
the company received the deed from Augustine Hermen,
Moll and La Grange conveyed their interest to Sluyter and
Danckers, who appear to have been at that time, and for
some time afterwards, the leading spirits in the community.

Ba3^ard retained his interest in the land till 1688, when
he probably became disgusted with the doings of the Laba-
dists and quit the community. Both he and Ephraim Her-
men were at one time very strong in the Labadie faith.
They both deserted their wives in order to follow the teach-
ings of these strange fanatics, who entertained strange views
in regard to marriage, of which more will be said hereafter.
The misguided and un dutiful Ephraim is said to have re-
pented of his folly and returned to his wife, but in less than
two years was taken sick, became crazy, and died, fulfilling

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 95

by his untimely end the malediction of his father, who, as
it was said, pronounced the curse upon him that he might
not live two years after uniting himself with the sect.

The community was composed of a few emigrants from
the community at Wiewert and a few persons from New
York, together with a few more converts and probationers
from the vicinity of the community in Maryland.

Sluyter sent to Friesland for his wife, who came over and
was installed as a kind of abbess or Mother Superior over
the female part of the establishment. In 1693 Sluyter be-
came the head of the community, Danckers, then in Hol-
land, having in that year conveyed his interest in the land
to him. Sluyter and his wife seem to have been rigid discip-
linarians as well as mercenary and grasping people. They
had many slaves, and did a thriving business in the culti-
vation of tobacco, notwithstanding Danckers spoke so con-
temptuously about it in his journal a few years before.
Slavery was against the doctrines of the Labadists; but
Sluyter found it profitable, and introduced it into the com-
munity on the Manor, where it prevailed while the commu-
nity lasted. Probably there was no one who had the cour-
age to report his bad practices to his superiors at Wiewert.

The community on the Manor was under the surveillance
of the mother church at Wiewert, and before a person could
become a full member of the former community their case
had to be referred to the mother church. Sluyter acted his
part so well that he was requested to go to Wiewert, in order
that he might take an important place made vacant by the
death of an eminent brother, but he preferred to remain on
the Manor and traffic in slaves and tobacco, and lord it over
the poor dupes he had under his control. This suited him
better than a subordinate position at Wiewert, for he was a
man better fitted to rule than to be under the control of
others. A few years after he became proprietor of the
Labadie tract, he sold the uppermost of the four necks to
John Moll, Jr., who was no doubt a son of John Moll, who

96 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

had helped him and Danckers in their efforts to- obtain the
land from Augustine Hermen. The conduct of these men in
this transaction about this land looks bad, after the lapse of
nearly two hundred years, and indicates that if they
were not positively dishonest, they were very far from
being good Christians. The consideration named in the
deed from Sluyter to Moll is £112 10s. sterling money of
old England ; but the great probability is that he got the
land* for nothing, and that it was the price of the duplicity
of his father, the elder Moll. If the Dutch judges and
officials at New Castle a few years before were no better
than Moll, it is no wonder that the Swedes and Finns about
New Castle were driven to take refuge in the wilderness in
Maryland ; indeed the wonder is that any of the inhabitants
remained under the control of the Dutch, and that their
province along the Delaware was not depopulated.

Two accounts of the Labadie community upon the Manor
have come down to modern times. Samuel Bo wens, a
Quaker preacher who visited them in 1702, thus describes
their curious ways : " After we had dined, we took our leave,
and a frisnd, my guide, went with me and brought me to a
people called Labadists, ivhere we were civilly entertained in
their way. When supper came in it was placed upon a long
table in a large room, where, when all things were ready,
came in at a call twenty men or upwards, but no women.
We all sat down, they placing me and my companion near
the head of the table, and having passed a short space, one
pulled off his hat, but not so the rest till a short space after,
and then they, one after another, pulled all their hats off,
and in that uncovered posture sat silent, uttering no words
that we could hear for nearly half a cpaarter of an hour ;
and as they did not uncover at once, so neither did they
cover themselves again at once, but as they put on their
hats, fell to eating, not regarding those who were still un-
covered, so that it might be ten minutes' time or more
between the first and last putting on of their hats. I after-
wards queried with my companion concerning the reason of

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 97

their conduct, and he gave for an answer, that they held it
unlawful to pray till they felt some inward motion for the
same, and that secret prayer was more acceptable than to
utter words, and that it was most proper for every one to
pray as moved thereto by the Spirit in their own minds. I
likewise queried if they had no women amongst them. He
told me they had, but the women ate by themselves and the
men by themselves, having all things in common respecting
their household affairs, so that none could claim any more
right than another to any part of their stock, whether .in
trade or husbandry ; and if any had a mind to join with
them, whether rich or poor they must put what they had in
the common stock, and afterwards if they had a mind to
leave the society, they must likewise leave what they brought
and go out empty handed. They frequently expounded the
Scriptures among themselves, and being a very large family,
in all upwards of an hundred men, women and children,
carried on something of the manufacture of linen, and had
a large plantation of corn, tobacco, flax and hemp, together
with cattle of several kinds."

The colonists conformed in most respects to the mode of
living adopted at Wiewert. They slept in the same or ad-
joining buildings, but in different rooms, which were not
accessible to each other, but were ever open to the father or
such as he appointed for the purpose of instruction or exam-
ination. Their meals were eaten in silence, and it is related
that persons often ate together at the same table for months
without knowing each other's names. They worked at
different employments in the houses, or on the land, or at
trades, and were distributed for that purpose by the head of
the establishment. Their dress was plain and simple,
eschewing all fashions of the world. Gold and silver orna-
ments, jewelry, pictures, hangings, lace and other fancy work,
were prohibited, and if any of the members had previously
worked at such trades, they had to abandon them. They
worked for the Lord and not for themselves. The product of

98 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

their labor was not to satisfy their lusts and desires, but like
the air, simply for theirphysical existence, and hence all their
goods and productions should be as free and common as the
air they breathed. They were to live concealed in Christ.
All the desires or aversions of the flesh were, therefore, to
be mortified or conquered. These mortifications were to be
undergone willingly. A former minister might be seen
standing at the washtub, or a young man of good extrac-
tion might be drawing stone or tending cattle. If any one
had a repugnance to particular food, he must eat it never-
theless. They must make confession of their sinful thoughts
in open meeting. Those who were disobedient were pun-
ished by a reduction of clothing, or being placed lower
down the table, or final exclusion from the society. There
were different classes among the members, which were to be
successively attained by probation, in conforming to the
rules of the establishment, and the final position of brother
obtained by entire severance from the world. Their peculiar
belief about marriage was, that a member of their com-
munity could not live in the marriage relation with a per-
son who was not a member of it. While it was all right in
their opinion for Labadists and unbelievers to marry, it was
very wrong and sinful for a Labadist to marry an un-
believer. It was owing to their efforts to enforce this
peculiar doctrine that Ephraim Hermen deserted his young
and amiable wife and called down upon himself the dis-
pleasure and maledictions of his aged and infirm father,
who no doubt was shocked and mortified by his conduct.

One of their converts, who lived in the vicinity of the
community, met with a tragic death. It happened in this
wise: He had been induced to leave his wife, and had lived
with the community for a time; when they supposed him to
be sufficiently confirmed in their doctrine to remain stead-
fast in the faith, permitted him to reside with his wife again;
he was still in the habit of attending their meetings, and
one day, whether Sunday or not is not stated, while going

HISTOKY OF CECIL COUNTY. 99

to attend the Labadie meeting, he met with a stray horse,
which he took with him for the purpose of delivering it to
its owner. The horse pleased Sluyter so well that he im-
mediately began to covet it, and after service was over he
placed the man upon it, in order to try its speed, intending,
if that pleased him as well as its appearance did, to try and
effect a trade with the owner. The horse ran away with
the man, and, making a short turn in the road, he struck
his head against a tree and was killed.

The colony, in a few years after it was established, appears
to have been both detested and despised by the people in
the vicinity.

In 1698 there appears to have been a division of the land
of the Labadists among the principal members of the com-
munity, for Sluyter in that year conveyed, for a merely
nominal rent, the greater portion of the land which, as
before stated, he then held, to Hermen Van Barkelo, Nicho-
las de la Montaigne, Peter de Koning, Derick Kolchman,
Henry Sluyter, and Samuel Bayard, and, as before stated,
sold another portion to John Moll, Jr. Sluyter retained one
of the necks himself and became very wealthy. He died in
1722, and though there seems to have been some kind of an
organization of his followers kept up while he lived, it is
said that the Labadists were all scattered and gone five years
after his death.

The Labadists gave Augustine Hermen a great deal of
trouble, of which no account has come down to us, but there
is abundant evidence extant to show that he bitterly re-
gretted having given them any countenance. Nor was this
the only trouble he met with. In his case the accumu-
lation of wealth brought an accumulation of care and
trouble with it. Though he had been successful in acquir-
ing a very large estate, and held it by an indisputable title,
from the lord proprietary of the province, yet, notwith-
standing this, he was put to much trouble to keep covetous
people from encroaching upon his dominion and depriving

100 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

him of part of it. On the second day of November, 1680,
he presented a petition to the governor and council of the
province, in which he recites that one " George Holland,
with other envious persons, had coveted, and were K'one
about privately to take away part of his children's land in
Bohemia upon false allegations and untrue bounds." These
false allegations appear to have been, that the metes and
bounds of Bohemia Manor and Bohemia Middle Neck in-
closed a great many more acres of land than the patents
called for. The petition recites that he had obtained a
warrant for a re-survey, and that the deputy-surveyor, one
Joseph Chew, after he had surveyed the land and made a
plot of it, for which Hermen paid him nineteen pounds of
tobacco, had run away; that he had kept a plot himself,
which he had returned to the office of Mr. Painter, who, it
would seem, was at that time in charge of the surveyor-gen-
eral's office, and who had promised to send him a new
patent in consideration of six hundred acres of land which
he had relinquished to him for it. The petition refers to
several other persons, and closes by stating that the peti-
tioner " had no other refuge left than his Lordship's favor,
and that he therefore prayed his Lordship's goodness would
be pleased to grant, and command that his patent might be
issued forthwith without any longer delay," and that he
had been at " great charges and trouble about it already,
and hoped his Lordship would not suffer his estate to be
consumed by unjust officers that work by the rule of right and
wrong for private gain." It was thereupon "ordered by the
council that their clerk notify Mr. Painter to produce the
papers in his office, and that a letter be sent to the petitioner,
acquainting him therewith, and desiring him to transmit
the certificate and plots, which he had by him, to ye clerk
of ye council at ye city of St. Maries, with all expedition,
who is to present the same to this board for perusal, when
his Lordship will give further answer to the prayer of the
petitioner."

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 101

These proceedings of the council did not produce the
effect that Hermen desired. Probably the council, like many
that have succeeded it, was trammeled by red tape, and
was more concerned about "how not to do it" than it was
about how to settle the dispute and end the difficulty between
Hermen and his grasping and covetous neighbors, for he
■sent the following letter, among several other letters and
papers, to some one, probably the clerk of the council, who
read it at a meeting of the council held at St. Mary's, on the
16th day of August, 1681, nine months after the writer had
presented the petition before referred to. This letter is valu-
able, as showing the peculiar style of phraseology that pre-
vailed at the time it was written.

"Rt. Hon'ble — My Lord: — My weakness and hindrance in
my domestic affairs, having no overseer, makes me defer
my coming down to your Lordship's until some time in
.September next. Meanwhile, John Browning and George
Holland, having surveyed privately fourteen hundred acres
of land out of my Middle Neck, which I have appointed a
portion for my son Casparus Hermen, I have sent an exact
journal to Mr. Lewellin, in your Lordship's land office, of
my first foundation and seating of Bohemia Manor, to
maintain my right and claim against those deluding alle-
gations which false intruders may fill your Lordship's ears
withal. If your Lordship would be pleased to peruse, at
some leisure time, it will perhaps put your Lordship in mind
of things your Lordship noiv not thinks on. I have also
entered a caveat against John Browning and George Holland,
desiring Mr. Lewellin to pass nothing in my predjudice.
I humbly pray your Lordship be pleased to second it by
your Lordship's commands. I have not, at present, troubled
your Lordship with any other of my grievances, having
given your Lordship too great a trouble with the above1,
which I hope your Lordship will excuse.
" Rt. Hon'ble, your Lordship's most

faithful and obedient servant,

"Augustine Hermen.
"June, ye 13th, 1681."

102 HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY.

The caveat referred to in the above letter is as curious
and unique in its phraseology and style as is the letter, and
concludes as follows, written in a bold, large hand across
the page: "Every One Beware of a cheate." Immedi-
ately following this letter, and running through a period of
several months, several other letters appear upon the records
of the council, in which he speaks of his journal, a copy of
which he submitted to their inspection and guidance, and
which was entered upon their journal.

After much tribulation, the governor and council ordered
a resurvey to be made, which most likely was done, and
the patents of confirmation were made to Hermen. These
patents were dated the 14th of August, 1682. In them is
recited the fact of the quarrel between Hermen and Hol-
land; and it is stated that within the original bounds, as
recited in the first patents, there were contained 2,000 acres
of swamps, barrens and pocosons* from which it may be in-
ferred that, as the forests were removed, the water in the
swamps dried up and the appearance of the surface of the
country changed. The tract called "Misfortune" (probably
so called on account of the trouble he had about his other
land) was granted to Hermen the same year and day. This
is the tract that he afterwards called the "Three Bohemia
Sisters" (it included the land upon which the northern part
of Chesapeake City stands), and contained by estimation
1,339 acres and rented for 27s. Qd. It was north of Bohemia
Back Creek and bounded on the west by Long Creek. It
would seem that Hermen was successful in establishing his
title to Little Bohemia, and that right and justice were upon
his side, and that the old gentleman had reason to congrat-
ulate himself upon the successful vindication of his title.
Probably he died in the belief that his son Casparus was le-
gally invested with a good title to Little Bohemia; but such

*An Indian word, meaning low wooded grounds or swamp?, mostly-
dry in summer, and covered with water in winter; usually covered with.
white oak or other timber.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 103

was not the fact, for it will be seen by reference to the land
records of the county, that in 1715, thirty -three years after
Hermen obtained his patent of confirmation for Little
Bohemia, his grandson, Ephraim Augustine (son of Cas-
parus), and his wife, Isabella, conveyed 883 acres of the
same Little Bohemia or Middle Neck to Thomas Larkin, of
Anne Arundel County. The deed recites the fact that John
Larkin, the father of the said Thomas, had patented the
land before Augustine Hermen had obtained his patent for
it, " and that the said Thomas Larkin had made his right to the
said land appear to be prior to the right of the Hermens ; for
these reasons, as stated in the deed, and for clivers other
good and valuable considerations, E. A. Hernien, who was
then lord of Bohemia Manor, and his wife, conveyed their
interest in the land to Larkin. This appears to have been
the end of the quarrel, and proves conclusively that at least
one grant was made inside the lines of Little Bohemia pre-
vious to 1662, which is the date of Hermen's original patent
for the land called by that name. The boundaries of the
land, which Hermen at this time held by patents from Lord
Baltimore, were, as well as can now be ascertained, as fol-
lows: Starting from Town Point, at the junction of the Elk
and Bohemia rivers, and following the Elk River and Back
Creek to the mouth of Long Creek; up Long Creek to some-
where near the Delaware line ; thence south along an old
road, the location of which is now unknown, to near the
Chesapeake and Delaware Canal ; thence eastwardly along
the course of the canal to the mouth of St. George's Creek,
near where Delaware City now stands; thence down the
Delaware River to the mouth of Appoquinimink Creek ;
thence up that creek and across the intervening land to the
bead waters of Little Bohemia River, and down it to the
place of beginning. The reader will observe that this tract
contained many thousand acres. The land is probably the
best on the peninsula.

The eventful life of the founder of Bohemia Manor was

104 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

now near its close, and on the 9th day of August, 1684,
he invested his son, Ephraim George, with the right and
title to the manor aforesaid by a deed of feoffment, which
was executed upon that day. This deed, like many legal
papers of that time, contains many curious provisions. The
consideration mentioned in it is as follows : " Five thousand
pounds of good, sound and merchantable tobacco and casks,
and also six barrels of good beer or strong beers, one anchor
of rum or brandy, one anchor of spirits, two anchors or
twenty gallons of good wine, and one hogshead of the best
cider out of the orchard, and one cwt. of good Muscavado
sugar for my particular private spending ; and lastly, if I
should resolve to remove with my abode to any other
place in the country from off the Manor, then he, my said
son, is obliged to pay towards my said board the sum of
2,000 pounds of tobacco and casks; and if I should happen
to go to New York, then my son is to furnish me with £25
in money."

The quantity of licpuors mentioned in the aforesaid con-
sideration appears to be very large at the present day, but it
must not be forgotten that at the time this instrument was
executed the manners and customs that prevailed in -Eng-
land in feudal times, when the lords and nobility kept open
house and dispensed alms and charity with a munificence
that would put to shame the generosity of modern civiliza-
tion, prevailed to some extent in Maryland; and it was only
fitting and proper that the founder of the manor should
have the means to entertain his friends in a manner suited
to the dignity of the position he formerly occupied. At that
time, and for a century afterwards, liquor was considered as
one of the necessaries of life.

On the 27th of September, 1684, Hermen made his will.
This will, as stated in it, "was written with his own hand
signed with his own hand, and sealed with his own seal,"
and proves him to have been a man of much learning and
great ability. The ruling passion of his life, the great object

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 105

for which he toiled and strove, appears to have been to found
.a family and, by doing this, to perpetuate his name. When
he obtained his patent, more than twenty years before, for
his beautiful and magnificent manor of Bohemia, he no
•doubt intended it for the possession of his eldest son, and
expected and hoped that in the ages to come his descend-
ants would trace their descent from him with satisfaction
and pride. "He directs, in his will, that his monument
stone, with engraved letters of him, the first seater and
author of Bohemia Manor, anno 1660,* shall be placed over
his sepulcher, which was to be in his vineyard, upon his
manor plantation upon Bohemia Manor, in Maryland." The
plantation is situated a few miles above the mouth of the
beautiful Bohemia, where the old ferry was once kept, and
where the bridge of more modern times is now located. On
this farm, though in a dilapidated condition, may be seen his
" Monumental Stone." It contains the following inscription :

AVGVSTINE HERMEN,

BOHEMIAN,

THE FIR S T FOVNDER.

SEATER OF BOHEMEA MANNER,

ANNO 1661.

His monument stone is a slab of oolite, the kind of stone
from which the line stones along Mason and Dixon's line were
wrought. This kind of stone is very durable, and is proba-
bly better able to resist the action of the elements than any
other kind of stone. The slab is about three feet wide and
seven feet long. No doubt the provision of Hermen's will
in reference to this stone was carried into effect, and that it
once covered the place of his sepulcher ; but many years

* The reader will notice the discrepancy between this date and that on
the tombstone. This one was taken from a copy of the will, the other
from the stone itself*.

106 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

ago Richard Bassett, who was a relative of Hermen and who
was once governor of Delaware, erected a vault on the manor
plantation for the safe keeping of the remains of his family,
and removed this ancient historic slab from Hermen's grave
and converted it into a door for the vault. This vault was
erected some distance from the original burying-place upon
the manor plantation, and in it were deposited the remains
of the members of the families of the Bassetts and Bayards.
The remains of James A. Bayard, one of the commissioners
that negotiated the treaty of Ghent, were deposited in this
vault, where they remained till a few years ago, when Rich-
ard H. Bayard had them all removed to another vault in the
cemetery on thebank of the Brandy wine. The slab in memory
of Augustine Hermen was then suffered to lie neglected near
the site of the vault, and by some means was broken into three
pieces ; which were gathered up and placed in the yard of
the house on the farm near the bridge. The bank or ditch
around an inclosure, which is said to have been his deer-
park, is quite plain and is about three feet high. The view
down the Bohemia from where the manor house stood, the
site of which is yet quite plain, is magnificent and delight-
ful. Bulls' Mountain and the hills of Elk Neck loom up
many miles distant, while at the base of the eminence, upon
which the manor house stood, the waters of the beautiful
Bohemia sparkle in the sunlight as they flow onward to
mingle with the waters of the Chesapeake Bay. Owing to
the removal of the slab, the exact place of Hermen's sepul-
cher, like the place of the sepulcher of Moses, is unknown.

The will directs that all and every one of the inheritors
or possessors, lords of Bohemia Manor, shall add to their
Christian name and subscribe themselves by their ancestor's
name "Augustine" or forfeit their inheritance to the next
heir. He devised his Bohemia Middle Neck to his second
son, Casparus, and his tract called "Misfortune," or the
"Three Bohemia Sisters," he divided among his three
daughters ; and, lest the great object which appeared to

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 107

have been the ruling passion of his life should be defeated
for want of heirs male to perpetuate his name, he orders in
his will that, in that case, the custody of his estate shall be
committed " to the Rt. Honorable Lord and Proprietary and
most Honorable General Assembly, from time to time sitting
in this province of Maryland, for the use, propagation and
propriety of a free donature school and college of the English
Protestant Church, with divine Protestant Minister, in free
alms and divine service, hospitality arid relief of poor and
distressed travelers, etc., under the perpetual name of the
Augustine Bohemia, to God's praise and glory forever."

Reference has been made to a codicil to Hermen's will,
which was made, as before stated, on account of the adherence
of his son Ephraim to the Labadie faction. This curious
document, a copy of which is in the possession of the His-
torical Society of Maryland, was evidently written by
Hermen or at his dictation. No new bequests are made in
it; but "Edward Jones, William Dare and Mr. George Old-
field, his loving friends and neighbors, were jointly and
severally appointed overseers and trustees" to see his said
will executed ; for the trouble of which execution he allows
them the use of 100' acres of his land, then not cultivated,
for twenty-one years, for the sum of 10s. sterling per an-
num. This codicil was signed by John Cann, James Wil-
liams, John White, Samuel Land and William Hamilton,
neither of which names occur in any of the old documents
or public records of this county at that period ; neither was
the codicil ever admitted to probate ; for which reasons and
some others it is probable that the document was executed
at New Castle, Delaware.

The time of Hermen's death is uncertain, but it probably
took place in 1686, as his will was admitted to probate in
that year. Though the place of Hermen's sepulcher is un-
known, and the memorial stone that once marked his last
resting-place lies broken in the dooryard of his descend-
ants ; though perhaps few of them know aught of the last

108 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

provision of his will, the one in reference to the charity
school and house of entertainment, still his name and
nationality have been perpetuated by being applied to
Bohemia River, Bohemia Manor, St. Augustine Church, St.
Augustine Manor, and the pretty little town of Port Hermen.
Anna Margaretta, the oldest daughter of Augustine Her-
men, married Matthias Vanderhuyden. His name indicates
that he was a native of Holland, and the old colonial laws
-show that he was naturalized in 1692. He was a prominent
man, and for a long time was one of the justices of the
quorum. He probably died in 1729, for his will was proved
in that year. He left three daughters, the eldest of whom
married Edward Shippen, of Philadelphia, of whom the
wife of Benedict Arnold, the traitor, was a descendant.
Augustine Hermen's second daughter, Judith, married John
Thompson, a descendant of whom, Samuel Thompson, now
lives upon part ot the land devised to her by her father,
the founder of the manor. Francina married a Mr. Wood.
She left children ; but the family is believed to be long
since extinct.

CHAPTER X.

Delaware granted to William Perm — Death of Cecilius Calvert, who is suc-
ceeded by his son Charles— George Talbot — Obtains a patent for Susque-
hanna Manor — Its metes and bounds — Courts Baron and Courts Leet — The
name of Susquehanna Manor changed to New Connaught — Extent of
Connaught Manor — Talbot obtains a patent for Belleconnell— Bellehill —
Talbot lays out New Munster — Makes a demand on William Penn for all
the land west of the Schuylkill and south of the fortieth degree of north
latitude — Runs a line from the mouth of the Octoraro to the mouth of
Naaman's Creek — Lord Baltimore visits England — Talbot presides over
the council during his absence — Presides over the court of Cecil County
— Account of the court— Talbot makes a raid on the settlers east of Iron
Hill— Builds and garrisons a fort near Christiana bridge —Account of the
fort — Talbot's Rangers— Beacon Hill — Trouble about the collection of
the king's revenue — Talbot murders Rousby — Is carried prisoner to Vir-
ginia— Makes his escape — Returns to Cecil County — Takes refuge in a
cave near Mount Ararat — Surrenders to the authorities of Maryland — Is
taken to Virginia by command of the King— Is tried and convicted of
murder, but pardoned by the King — Returns to Cecil County and executes
a deed for Clayfall — Returns to Ireland — Enters the Irish brigade, and is
killed in the service of the King of France.

In 1672 war was again being waged between the English
and Dutch, and New York and its dependencies along the
Delaware came under the jurisdiction of the latter, and Gov-
ernor Lovelace was succeeded by Anthony Clove, who re-
mained in office until 1674, when he was succeeded by Sir
Edmund Andross, who was commissioned by the Duke of
York ; the country from the Connecticut River to the Dela-
ware Bay having in the meantime fallen into the hands of the
English, where it remained until 1681, when William Penn
received his charter of Pennsylvania from King Charles
II. In 1682 Penn received a grant from James II., then
Duke of York, of the land on the west bank of the Delaware

110 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

River and Bay, now included in the State of Delaware, and
took possession of it the same year, having in the meantime
appointed his cousin, William Markham, governor of Penn-
sylvania, and instructed three commissioners who he ap-
pointed for that and other purposes, to lay out the city of
Philadelphia.

Cecilius Calvert, second Lord Baltimore, the founder of
Maryland, died on the 30th of November, 1675. He was
succeeded by his son, Charles Calvert, who had been gover-
nor of the province since 1661. He returned to England in
1676, where he remained four years, and came back to
Maryland in February, 1680, to resume the management of
his government,* probably bringing with him his kinsman
George Talbot,- who for a few years was destined to play a
conspicuous part in the history of this county.

This warm-hearted, courageous and impetuous Irishman,
about whom so much has been written and of whom so little
is known, was the cousin of the second Lord Baltimore, and
is supposed to have been a relative of that infamous Dick
Talbotywho was his contemporary, and of whom Lord
Macaulay draws such a revolting picture in his History of
England. It is probable they were both from the same part
of Ireland, and. so far as bluster and devil-may-care courage
was concerned, they appear to have been much alike. How-
ever, no skillful limner like Macaulay has drawn the por-
trait of George, and probably there are not sufficient data
extant to enable any one to accomplish it successfully if
they had the ability to execute or disposition to attempt the
task. While there appear to have been many traits in the
characters of these two men that "were common to each of
them, the preponderance of virtue appears to have been in
favor of George; for, while Dick was contented to remain in
England and play the sycophant to a corrupt and imbecile
monarch, whose want of manhood alone prevented him

* Scharfs History of Md., Vol. I., pages 283-84.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. Ill

from being the tyrant that his imperious disposition and
superstitious education led him to think his duty and eter-
nal happiness demanded he should be, George chose the
more manly occupation of planting a colon}' in the wilder-
ness that then skirted the wild and romantic Susquehanna.

George Talbotjs first mentioned in the records of the
council for the year 1680, in which year he obtained his
first patent for Susquehanna Manor. The unsettled bound-
ary of Mainland had been a source of vexation and annoy-
ance to the Lords Baltimore, and no doubt Charles Talbot
flattered himself that his cousin wras just the man to extend
his dominion and sustain his authority in the territory in
dispute. Had Talbot been less fiery and impetuous, he
would probabhy have been more successful; as it was, his
zeal in behalf of his illustrious cousin defeated the object he
had in view; indeed, it is thought that an unfortunate effort
he made to vindicate Lord Baltimore's authority — the mur-
der of Rousby — was the principal cause that led to his loss
of influence at the court of the English monarch and his
ultimate loss of the territory along the Delaware.

Talbot, during the few years he was in authority in Cecil
County, acted a more conspicuous part in its history than
any of his contemporaries or any one of those who had pre-
ceded him, except perhaps its illustrious founder, Augustine
Hermen.

The reasons that induced Lord Baltimore to grant unto
Talbot the exten^ye_manor- of Susquehanna are stated in
"TrTeTpatent as follows : After the greeting of all persons to
whom it should come in the name of the "Lord God ever-
lasting," wThich was the form in which such instruments
"were written at that time, it proceeds as follows: "Know ye
thai, for and in consideration that our right trusty and right
well-beloved cousin and councilor George Talbot, of Castle
Rooney, in the county of Rosscommon, in the kingdom of
Ireland, Esq., hath undertaken, at his own proper cost and
charges, to transport, or cause to be transported into this

112 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

province within twelve years from the date hereof, six hun-
dred and forty persons of British or Irish descent here to in-
habit; and we not only having a great love, respect and
esteem for our said cousin and councilor, but willing also to
give him all due and lawful encouragement in so good a
design of peopling and increasing the inhabitants of this
our province of Maryland, well considering how much the
same will contribute and conduce to the strength and de-
fence thereof, and that he may receive some recompense for
the great charge and^. expense he must necessarily be at in
importing so great a number of persons into this, our pro-
vince, as aforesaid, and the better to enable him to do us,,
our heirs and our said province further good service and for
divers other good causes and considerations, etc., etc. . . .
we have thought fit to grant unto our dear cousin and
councilor all that tract or dividend of land called Susque-
hanna, lying in Cecil County, in our said province of Mary-
land, butting and bounding as follows, viz. : Beginning at the-
furthest northeast head of North East River, by a line drawn
northwest till it intersects the Octoraro River, then by the
said river till it falls into Susquehanna River, and by the
said river to the mouth therof, from thence by the head of
the bay of Chesapeake to the mouth of North East Riverr
and by the said river to the head thereof, containing, by
estimation, 32,000 acres, be the same more or less." By this
patent, which was dated at St. Maries, June 11th, 1680, Tal-
bot was also authorized and empowered to hold courts baron
and courts leet.

A few words descriptive of the character and power of
these courts may be interesting and instructive. The king,,
by a legal fiction which the peculiarity of the case required,,
could do no wrong, and justice was supposed to flow' in
copious streams from him to his superior courts, and being
subdivided into smaller channels, says Sir William Black-
stone, the whole and every part of the kingdom was plenti-
fully watered and refreshed. Hence that justice might be-

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 113

brought even to each man's door, every manor created by
the crown had, as incident thereto, courts for the trial of
causes therein arising. The manorial court, having civil
jurisdiction, was known as the court baron, the principal
business of which was to settle controversies relating to the
right to land within the manor. In it also were tried causes
where the matter in controversy was less than forty shil-
lings. The court was so called because every three weeks
the barons or freeholders met at the castle or manor house
to assist the lord of the manor in dispensing justice. The
court leet was a court of record held once a year within a
manor. The term leet comes from the Latin word lis, a law-
suit, and leet court is the court at which the suit of the king
was instituted, it being a court having jurisdiction over
criminals or breakers of the crown law. The business
transacted in it was very similar to that which is daily
transacted before the courts of quarter sessions and police
courts in our larger cities, the design being to convict therein
every variety of offenders and criminals, as well those of
the highest grade known to the law, and also eaves-droppers
and tattlers. We have not found anything in the records
of Maryland that leads us to believe that any other person
was ever authorized to hold courts of this kind in Cecil
County. Hermen, though he was here twenty years before
this time and fourteen years before the organization or
erection of the county, was not empowered to do so by his
patent. Indeed, it is not probable that courts baron or
courts leet were ever held in the province, though many of
the early proprietors of manors in other parts of the province
were invested with the authority necessary for holding
them.

Nothing more is said of Talbot in the journal of the
council of Maryland during the three following years, and
it is probable that he spent a part of that time in visiting
his native country upon business connected with the settle-
ment of his manor. On the 4th of April, 1G84, he presented

114 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

a petition to the council, which was then sitting at St.
Mary's, in which he stated that lie had brought into the
province since 1682 about sixty persons, which leaves 580
yet to be made good, or in lieu thereof £58 sterling; and
offers to his lordship 13,920 pounds of tobacco, being the
value of £58 sterling at one penny per pound of tobacco.
It is plain from this statement in Talbot's petition that he
was to pay twenty-four pounds of tobacco yearly per capita
for the number of emigrants not yet imported into the
province. There is no mention of this matter in the original
patent, but it is probable that there was an agreement or
understanding to this effect. He also states in his petition
that the bounds of his manor of Susquehanna are suscep-
tible of a doubtful construction, and prays for a confirmation
of said patent, in which the bounds may be specified as fol-
lows : Beginning at the furthest and uppermost source and
fountain head of North East River (henceforth to be called
Shannon River), and all the lines to be as they are in the
first patent, with mention of satisfaction received for the
rights wanting (which refers to the payment of the tobacco
for the persons not yet brought into the province), whereby
your petitioner may be encouraged to build,, improve and
inhabit that desert and frontier corner of your lordship 's province.
This petition was granted, and Talbot was invested with
authority over one of the largest grants of land ever made
to an individual in the province of Maryland.

Although Talbot characterizes his manor as a desert and
frontier corner of the province, and although the patent is
silent on the subject, yet it appears that there were a few
settlers on it as before stated, prior to 1680, who had ob-
tained grants from the lord proprietary, whose rights were
duly respected by Talbot. Though Talbot's manor is called
Susquehanna in the patent, for some reason the name was
changed to New Connaught. For what reason or at what
time it was changed, has not been ascertained; but for some
time about this period Susquehanna Manor and the country-

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

lying east of it was called New Ireland, no doubt because
other large grants of land were made to Irishmen there ;
and it is probable that when this section of country was
first called New Ireland, the name of Susquehanna Manor
was changed. Talbot, as the reader will recollect, tried to
change the name of North East River, and prayed that it
might thereafter be called Shannon River, but in this he
was unsuccessful, and the wildly rushing creek and quiet,
placid river now bear, and for more than a century past
have borne, the original name (North East) that was given
them, in all probability, by the early settlers very soon after
the adventurous Smith had explored the bay, more than two
hundred and fifty years ago. Talbot, like many of the other
early settlers in Maryland, had a desire for the acquisition
of land that was hard to satisfy ; nor is this to be wondered
at, for in Ireland lie had seen the advantage that the pos-
session of land gave to the aristocracy and was familiar with
the prestige and power of the nobility, hence it was quite
natural that he should wish to possess a large rather than a
small manor. In the only deed from Talbot now on record
in Cecil County, dated the 10th of June, 1687, the imagi-
nary northeast line for the northeastern boundary of his
manor is described as beginning at the farthest northeast
fountain head of Shannon River. This is the second, and
probably the last time that that boundary was changed.
By what authority the change was made can only be con-
jectured, but it was probably done while Talbot was one of
the deputy-governors of the province, which will be noticed
further on. By changing the starting point of the imagi-
nary northwest line "from the furthest and uppermost source
and fountain head of North East or Shannon River" to the "fur-
thest northeast fountain head of that stream," Talbot suc-
ceeded in adding many thousands of acres to his manor and
extended its limits about three-fourths of a mile further up
the Octoraro, or to about five and one-quarter miles above
the line as now established between Maryland and Pennsyl-

116 . HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

vania. Susquehanna or New Connaught Manor now in-
cluded about one-half of the Fifth, all of the Sixth and
Seventh, and nearly all of the Ninth districts of Cecil
County, and all of West Nottingham, about one-half of East
Nottingham, and one-third of Lower Oxford township, in
Chester County.

Talbot, who was now located somewhere west of head of
Elk River, probably near the head of North East or the
mouth of Principio Creek, seems to have been very active
in trying to extend the authority of Lord Baltimore as far
eastwardly as possible during the year 1683, for on the 16th
of April of that year he obtained a patent in his own name
for two thousand acres at the head of Elk, under the name
of Belleconnell. This tract was situated just east of the
Big Elk, and extended forty perches in an easterly direction
from the bend in the creek, called the " Half Moon," to near
the top of Grey's Hill ; thence two hundred perches north
by a line parallel with the creek ; thence west to the Big-
Elk Creek, which was its western boundary. Belle Hill is
on the northern part of this tract, and no doubt was so
named for that reason. On the 29th of August of the same
year he, then being surveyor-general of the province, loca-
ted the tract called New Munster, which was further up the
Big Elk and extended a short distance beyond the bounds
of Maryland as determined many years afterwards by
Mason and Dixon, and which will be more fully described
hereafter. On the 17th of September he was commissioned
to make a formal demand on William Penn for the land
west of the Schuylkill River and south of the fortieth de-
gree of north latitude, and seven days afterwards appeared
at Philadelphia for that purpose.

Shortly after Penn's arrival in America he dispatched two
messengers from New Castle to Lord Baltimore, " to ask of
his health, offer kind neighborhood, and agree upon a time
the better to establish it."* No record of the reception these

* Hazard's Annals of Pa., page 605.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 117

messengers met with exists, but judging by the subsequent
action of the authorities of Maryland, it was not a very
cordial one. Talbot's mission in Philadelphia was attended
with no success. Having failed to induce the authorites of
Pennsylvania to comply with his demands, he ran a line
from the mouth of the Octoraro to the mouth of Naaman's
Creek,* in the latter part of this year, which he marked by
notching the trees in the woods through which it passed.
This line, which was intended to mark the northern limit
of the province, deprived him of about one-half of his
manor of Susquehanna ; and it is hard to understand why
he should apparently relinquish his claim to the northern
part of it. But he probably doubted his ability to main-
tain his right to the whole of it, and resolved to defend his
claims to the southern part by force of arms.

In 1684 Lord Baltimore went to England upon urgent
business connected with his colony in Maryland. His son,
Benedict Leonard Calvert, a minor, was appointed governor,
but in the same commission nine persons were appointed
deputy-governors under him. George Talbot is the first one
of the deputies named in the commission, and it is probable
that he presided at the meetings of these deputy-governors.
He had previously been a member of the privy council of
the governor, and was at this time surveyor-general of the
province. In addition to his other duties, Talbot at this
time presided over the court of this county. Inasmuch as
the method of transacting legal business at that early day
is interesting, a brief account of the transactions of the court
during his administration is inserted here.

" Att a court held for Cecil County ye 8th day of January
inutile 9th year of the dominion of ye right hon'ble Charles
«c, Annoq Dominic 1683. Present George Talbot, Esq.,

* This creek, so called from an Indian chief of that name, empties
into the Delaware River a short distance above where the northern
boundary of that State strikes the Delaware River.

118 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

one of his lordships councellrs, & Nathaniel Garrett, gent.
The said Geo. Talbot & Nathaniel Garrett appear in court
& adjourn the same for want of commissioners to make a
full court till the 12th day of March next ensueing."

" Three accounts" in the language of the record, " were
agreed at this court & 12 accounts were continued till next
court."

The next entry in the old record book is as follows :.
" March ye 11th, 1683. All actions dye and abate upon the
Doquett for want of an adjournment. Wm. Pearce, Nathan-
iel Garrett, Wm. Dare, Geo. Wardner, gents, only being
present, and they not of the quorum."

The meaning of the latter part of the last sentence is
rather ambiguous, but the writer probably meant that there
was not a quorum present, though he does not say so.

"Wm. Dare, of Cecil County, gent, appointed and put in
to be high-sheriff of the said county by the Rt. Hon. Charles
Absolute, lord and proprietor of the province of Maryland
and Avelon lord baron of Baltimore, May ye 23d, 1684.
Then came William Nowell and took the oath of an under-
sheriff in usual form before Nathaniel Garrett, of Cecil
Co. gent,"

At the next court, which was held on the 10th day of
June, 1684, George Talbot and seven justices were present.
Talbot presided over the court, and the justices, who are also
called commissioners, took the oath of office; their commis-
sions were issued in the name of the lord proprietary, on the
26th day of the April previous. The commission of George
Oldfield, as county attorney for the lord proprietary, is re-
corded immediately after the record of the administration
of the oath of office to the justices. It is the first commission
of a State's attorney that we have been able to find upon
record in this county. As such it is invested with much
interest that it would not otherwise have, and for this reason
we copy it :

" Charles Absolute, lord, &c, &c. To Geo. Oldfield, gent,.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 119

greeting: Out of the trust and confidence we have in your
integrity and honesty and in your skill & insight in the
laws and in the practice of courts, we have thought fit to
constitute and appoint you the said Geo. Oldfield to be
our Attorney in all causes civil and criminal wherein we
shall be concerned & which shall fall within the cognizance
of a county court, and courts which shall be held for our
county of Cecil hereby Impowering and streightly enjoining
you to appear & prosecute for us in all civil causes and ac-
tions in the said court wherein we shall be plaintiff & to
appear and defend us in all civil causes and actions in the
county aforesaid wherein we shall be defendant, as also to
present, indict, and prosecute in the said county all break-
ers of the peace & transgressors of the laws and acts of As-
sembly within the county aforesaid; you are also to observe
all such orders as you shall from time to time receive from
us or our leftenent-General in our abscence & from our At-
torney-General for the time being, to have hold and enjoy
the said office of our county Attorney for Cecil County with
all fees, benefits and perquisites thereunto belonging for
and during our will and pleasure & no longer. Given
under our hand and lesser seal at arms this 19th day of
March, 1683."

George Oldfield was one of the "loveing friends and
neighbors" that Augustine Hermen appointed in the codicil
to his will as a trustee or overseer, to see his will " duly exe-
cuted." He lived in Elk Neck, and a point of land, a short
distance below Welch Point, is yet called by his name. He
is believed to have been a Catholic, and was suspended from
practicing his profession in the court of Cecil County because
he refused to take the oath of supremacy and allegiance in
1690, which was just after the revolution in England, which
ended in the flight of James II., and also firml}'- established
the Protestant religion in England.

Just after the record of Old field's commission the follow-
ing petition appears upon the record: "To the worshipful,

120 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

the commissioners of Cecil Co. The humble Petition of
Thomas Joce humbly sheweth that your Petitioner humbly
prays and craves the favor of this worshipful court that you
would be pleased to admit your petitioner to practice as an
Attorney of, this court and your petitioner shall ever pray."
" Admitted and sworn this 10th of June, 1684."

Then follows this order of the court : " Whereas there is
not as yet any seal for this county for writs & processes
which do issue out of this court we do therefore for the ease
of the inhabitants of the same order John Thompson, clerk,
for the time being to sign all processes and writs which do
issue from this court with his own hand."

After noting that seven accounts upon the docket were
agreed the court adjourned till ye 12th day of August, 1684,
on which day it again met, George Talbot and the seven
justices before named being present. This court, after being
in session two .days, during which time fifteen civil cases of
no interest to the general reader were disposed of, adjourned
till the 9th day of September, 1684.

These brief extracts from the dilapitated old book contain
all the record of the civil administration of George Talbot
in Cecil County.

After the departure of Charles Calvert for England, Tal-
bot seems to have assumed almost dictatorial powers in the
northeastern part of the province. In the early part of
April, 1684, he made a raid upon the plantation of one
Joseph Bowie, who lived somewhere east of Iron Hill, about
eight miles from New Castle. Bowie's testimony may be
found in the proceedings of the council of Pennsylvania ;
it was taken on the 12th of the 4th month, 1684, and is as
follows : " About ten days since, Colonel Talbot ridd up to
my house and was ready to ride over me and said d — n
you, you dog whom do you seat under here, you dog? You
seat under nobody ; you have no warrant from Penn no my
lord ; therefore get you gone or else I'll send you to Saint
Marie's; and I being frightend, says he you brazen-faced

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 121

impudent, confident, dog, I'll shorten Penn's territories bye-
and-bye." It is added in the record, that, " the neighbors
said they saw Bowie's land surveyed away."

About this time Talbot built a fort, which is described as
being near Christiana bridge, on a spot of land belonging
to the widow Ogle, which indicates that it may have been
near Ogletown, which he garrisoned with a few of his re-
tainers, not so much for any warlike purpose, as to establish
and maintain possession of the country west of it. This
fort- was built of logs, and was described by those who had
seen it, as "about thirteen or fourteen feet long, ten feet wide,
and covered with slip wood." The garrison consisted "of
six or seven men," (Irishmen no doubt) "who were esteemed
Catholics, and behaved peaceably towards the inhabitants,
among whom they frequently went," The garrison was
commanded by one Murray, and was supplied with provis-
ions pressed from the people living on Bohemia Manor, by
one Thomas Mansfield, who at that time was press master,
an officer whose duties seem to have been similiar to those
of the captains of press-gangs of England in more modern
times. The garrison continued to hold this fort for about
two years, and till after Talbot went out of power, when they
got drunk and layed out in the cold, from the effect of
which they were so badly frost-bitten that some of them
died, and others lost their limbs.* Shortly after the occu-
pation of this fort the sheriff of New Castle County sum-
moned a posse of the citizens, and accompanied by divers
magistrates and other dignitaries, repaired to the fort and
demanded of Talbot, who seems to have been in command
at that time, by what authority he appeared in that posture?
Whereupon "Talbot, with divers of his compamT, bid them
stand off, presenting their guns and muskets against their
breasts, and he, pulling a paper, commander-like, out of his
bosom, said, ' here is my Lord Baltimore's commission for

*See testimony in Penn's Breviat.

122 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

what I do.' " Proclamation was then made in the king's
name for them to depart according to law, "but in the same
war like posture they stood, and in the Lord Baltimore's
name refused to obey in the king's name."*

During the palmy days of Talbot's administration in this
county he had a company of mounted rangers whose duty
it was to scour the country and repel the attacks of hostile
Indians, a few of whom still lingered in the country north
of New Ireland. A line of block-houses at convenient dis-
tances extended from one end of it to the other, and signals
were established for the purpose of calling his clan together.
Beacon fires on the hills, the blowing of horns, and the
firing of three musket shots in succession, either in the day-
time or at night, gave notice of approaching danger and
called this border chieftain's followers around him, who,
with strong arms and stronger hearts, were read}7 to do his
bidding. There is no doubt that Bacon Hill, which was
originally called Beacon Hill, was so called, from being the
site of one of these signal fires. Talbot had much trouble
with the affairs appertaining to the extreme northeastern
part of the province in the years 1683 and 1G84; but there
were other troubles that grew out of the unfortunate con-
dition of affairs in England. The weak and vacillating
Charles the Second, then king of England, was near the end
of his inglorious reign, and for a long time had viewed
with jealous eyes the powers and franchises with which the
charter of Maryland invested the lord proprietary. So
jealous indeed was Charles, that, in the last year of his
reign, he threatened to institute proceedings in the court of
chancery, with a view of wresting the charter from Balti-
more. No doubt his cupidity was increased and his jeal-
ousy aggravated by the fact that that instrument shielded
the people of Maryland to some extent from his rapacity.
Parliament, which for a long time was excessively loyal to

* Perm sylvania Archives, Vol. I., page 88.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 123

the House of Stewart, had passed an act in his reign for the
collection of a tax or duty upon the products that were ex-
ported from the southern colonies; and Maryland being-
much interested in the culture of tobacco at this time, this
tax was considered by the inhabitants as being onerous and
oppressive.

The collectors of this tax were appointed by the king, and
were in no wise amenable to the government of the colo-
nies. The office of tax collector has always been a thank-
less one, and these collectors, representing as they did the
royal authority, were no doubt as tyrannous and arbitrary as
they dared to be. Years after this time the records of this
county show that they were in the habit of farming out the
offices they held. They were each supplied with a vessel,
in which they cruised upon the navigable waters in their
districts while in the prosecution of the business apper-
taining to their offices. At this time, and for some time
before, one Christopher Rousby was one of the collectors of
the king's customs in Maryland, and there is the record of
a letter sent by Lord Baltimore to the president of the king's
council, in which he speaks of Rousby as " having been a
great knave and a disturber of the trade and peace of the
province."

In 1684, a few months after the departure of Lord Balti-
more for England, an armed ketch or brig, commanded by
Captain Thomas Allen, of his Majesty's royal navy, arrived
from England and cruised for some time in the lower parte
of the Chesapeake Bay contiguous to St. Mary's, which, at
that time, was the capital of the province. This Captain
Allen, while he was upon good terms with the collectors of
the king's revenue and quite willing to carouse and riot
wiih them, treated the representatives of the proprietary
with a haughtiness and contempt that soon produced a dis-
astrous result. He went on shore and visited Mr. Blackistom
who at that time appears to have been chief collector of
Maryland, and who resided at St. Mary's. His marines also

124 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

went ashore and probably got drunk ; at all events they
acted in a boisterous and swaggering manner, and did not
hesitate to appropriate some of the property of the citizens
of the town, which they carried away with them.

After spending a few days in this manner the swaggering
captain went on board of his ketch, weighed anchor and set
sail towards the Potomac, and thence sailed down the
bay along the coast of Virginia. Not content with the mani-
festation of his authority upon land "he annoyed the cap-
tains of many of the bay craft and other peaceful traders
that he met with, by compelling them to heave to and submit
to be searched. He also overhauled their papers and
offended them with coarse vituperation of themselves and
of the lord proprietary and his council." Virginia was at
this time governed by a royal favorite, Lord Howard of
Effingham, who no doubt was ready upon every occasion to
play the sycophant to his royal master, or to entertain any of
his underlings who, no matter how remotely, represented
Ids authority. There is no doubt, judging from what sub-
sequently happened, that Allen went to Virginia and spent
the intervening time between his first and second visit with
Lord Howard, the governor, and that they discussed the
governmental affairs of Maryland and the prospects of the
ultimate success or failure of Baltimore's efforts to sustain his
authority and maintain his rights.

In about a month after his first visit Allen returned to
Maryland. This time he anchored near Rousby's house,
which was on or near to Drum Point, As yet Captain
Allen had not condescended to make any report of his
arrival in the province to any officer of the proprietary, or
in any way to recognize or acknowledge his authority.
Upon the occasion of this second visit of Allen, Talbot it
seems was at St. Mary's, or in the vicinity, whether by acci-
dent or design has not been ascertained. He doubtless
heard of the contemptuous conduct of Allen and Rousby.
No doubt the knowledge of their conduct, aggravated by

HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY. 125

the treatment that his illustrious kinsman had received
from his royal master, caused his indignation to overcome
his judgment, and he went on board the ketch, which was
called the Quaker, for the purpose of enforcing some little
show of respect to, or obtaining some acknowledgment of,
his own authority. Be this as it may, he and the two
royal officers pretty soon got into a quarrel, which waxed
hot and continued for some time; and when he wished to
go on shore he was prevented from doing so, whereupon he
drew his dagger and stabbed Rousby to the heart. This
sad and unfortunate event took place on the 31st of October,
1684, less than three months after the last time that Talbot
presided over the court of Cecil County, and fully accounts
for the absence of his name from the records of our court
subsequent to that date. Talbot's fellow-members of the
council made a fruitless effort to get Allen to surrender him
to the authorities of Maryland, ostensibly that he might be
punished for murdering Rousby, but really no doubt in
order to shield him from the vengeance of Allen and his
crony, the sycophantic Howard.

After parleying for a short time Allen set sail for Virginia,
and carried Talbot, whom he detained in irons on board
his warlike vessel with the peaceful name, with him and
handed him over to the governor of that province, who
incarcerated him in Gloucester prison. Then began a cor-
respondence between the remaining members of the council
of Maryland and the governor of Virginia, in which the
weakness and humiliation of the former and the strength
and vindictiveness of the latter are strikingly exemplified.
Considering the treatment that the lord proprietary had re-
ceived from the crown of Great Britain, and the fact that
the prestige and power of the House of Baltimore had for
some time before this been waning, it is much to the credit
of the council that they made the feeble efforts they did to
effect the release of their fellow-member. Having no means
by which to enforce their legitimate demands, they were

126 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

disregarded, and Talbot remained a prisoner in Virginia,
whose arrogant governor treated the demands of the Mary-
landers with contempt and set their authority at defiance.
But Talbot had a wife, who all this time was at home,
where good wives and mothers are always found, in the
house of her lord, on Susquehanna Manor, which there is
every reason to believe was at the falls of Back Creek, now
Principio Creek, just above where the railroad crosses that
stream. She, good woman, no doubt was sadly grieved by
the unfortunate occurrence that deprived her of the com-
panionship and protection of her husband. Talbot also
had a few faithful friends, who did not desert his cause in
this time of extremity, as the sequel will show. Among
these faithful retainers of Talbot were Phelim Murray, a
cornet of cavalry under the command of Talbot, and Hugh
Riley. The latter has descendants that bear his name
living in the Eighth district of this county ; and the
McVeys and others in the Ninth district are also remotely
connected with him. These men and Mrs. Talbot now
planned and put in execution a scheme for the rescue of
this brother chieftain, in which English arrogance and vin-
dictiveness were defeated by Irish friendship and ingenuity.
To Murray has generally been accorded the credit of this
scheme, but there is little doubt that it was suggested by
the love and affection of the wife of the prisoner. Mrs.
Talbot, accompanied by her youngest child, a boy of two or
three years of age, and attended by two Irish men servants,
repaired to St. Mary's, while Murray and Riley followed her
in the shallop of Talbot, which was navigated by one Roger
Skreen, a celebrated seafaring man of that day, who took
the shallop to the Patuxent River and anchored it at a
point about fifteen miles from St. Mary's, whither Mrs.
Talbot repaired, and the party set sail for the Rappahan-
nock River and landed at a place about twenty miles dis-
tant from Gloucester prison, in which Talbot was confined.
This was about the last of Januarv, 1685. If the winters

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 127

at that time were as severe as they generally are now, it
must have required an amount of courage and fortitude
which few of the women living at this time possess to have
enabled this woman to endure the cold, anxiety and priva-
tion incident to this perilous expedition. Immediately after
the arrival of the shallop, Murray and Riley each mounted
a swift horse that was furnished them by a confederate in
Virginia, and started for the prison at Gloucester, where, by
some means, of which Irish wit and suavity doubtless com-
posed a part, they effected the release of the captive Talbot,
and returned with him safe and sound to the shallop early
the next morning. It is to be presumed that with as little
delay as possible they sailed toward the eastern shore of the
bay and continued to hug it closely, while, like many other
fugitives of a later period, they made the best speed they
could toward the north.

Without any mishap Talbot and his friends reached Sus-
quehanna Manor in safety. This happened in the early
part of February, 1685, and a few days afterwards Lord
Howard made a demand upon the authorities of Maryland
for the surrender of the fugitive, and the council of Mary-
land made a great show of trying to arrest him ; and as
stated in the chronicles of the times, the air resounded from
one side of New Ireland to the other with the " hue and cry'1
that was raised. Proclamations were made and every means
were exhausted to effect the arrest of the fugitive, but with-
out success. Why the council were now so anxious to se-
cure the arrest of their former president, when they a few
months before had protested so energetically against his re-
tention in A7irginia, is one of the many strange things met
with, in history ; but no doubt they acted wisely and as cir-
cumspectly as circumstances permitted them, and under all
this show of obedience and submission to the representative
of royalty in Virginia, there was probably concealed a de-
termination to shield rather than capture the fugitive. Tal-
bot was provided with a flaxen wig and other means of dis-

128 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY,

guise and kept himself well informed of the whereabouts
of the officers of the law, any one of whom would probably
have given him timely warning of their approach and aided
him in effecting his escape, if they could have done so with-
out jeopardizing themselves.

It was at this critical time in his life that Talbot took
refuge in the cave that, while it was in existence, was called
by his name. This cave was a short distance below Port
Deposit, on the east side of the Susquehanna River, close by
the water's edge and immediately above the mouth of Her-
ring Run. One hundred and ninety-two years ago the place
and its surroundings were quite different from what they
are to-day ; then the waters of the river were ssldom dis-
turbed save by the fragile canoes of the savages as they came
from the regions of the great lakes and pine-covered moun-
tains of the far north to exchange their peltries for the trink-
ets that the white man kept for that purpose at Palmer's
Island, a few miles further down the river.

Mount Ararat, whose base on the northern side is washed
by the limpid waters of the boisterous little stream, then, as
now, stood silent and alone in the magnificence of its gran-
deur and beauty ; but the busy, bustling town, whose com-
merce and industry now wakes the echoes among its granite
hills, was not dreamed of by the anxious fugitive as he
stretched his weary body on his lonely couch to seek in the
sweet oblivion of sleep the rest that a troubled mind pre-
vented him from obtaining while awake. Talbot's cave was
a natural formation in the granite bluff, and was about
twelve feet wide and extended back from the river into the
rock about eighteen feet ; it was about ten feet high, and
was in a good state of preservation sixty years ago, and
traces of it remained distinctly visible till a much later
period ; but about thirty years ago the modern march of
improvement in this utilitarian age destroyed all trace of it,
and the granite rocks that sheltered the lord of Susque-
hanna Manor now lie submerged in Chesapeake Bay, where

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 129

they were placed to effect an improvement upon its naviga-
tion in the vicinity of the "Rip Raps " many years ago.

Tradition, with its usual inaccuracy, says that Talbot
dwelt in this cave for a long time, and that he had a pair
of falcons or hawks with him, by means of which he ob-
tained his subsistence, his falcons catching the wild fowl on
the river. This is not at all probable, for there is evidence
extant to prove that he was seen and recognized by Robert
Kemble while at the house of George Oldfield, in Elk Neck,
whither he had gone in his shallop, which was beating about
in Elk River during the brief period he was sojourning at
the house of his friend. This Robert Kemble is one of the
witnesses of Augustine Hermen's will; he probably resided
in Elk Neck or on Bohemia Manor. We know but little
more of him ; but he probably was a man of some distinc-
tion, though nearly every trace of him has been lost and
the tide of oblivion has nearly covered and concealed his
memory.

After fleeing from place to place, now hiding for a while
in the cave, and anon lying concealed in the houses of his
friends, the courageous Irishman, probably to save his
friends further trouble and anxiety on his behalf, voluntarily
surrendered himself to the authorities of Maryland and was
committed for trial in the provincial court ; whereupon the
arrogant Howard renewed his demand that the culprit be
sent to Virginia in order to be tried there. The council of
Maryland were in no haste to reply to this demand, and it
was not till after the lapse of several weeks that they made
any reply to it. The news of the accession of James the
Second had reached their ears a short time before, and he
being of the same faith as Lord Baltimore, they had reason
to hope that his influence with the king might mitigate or
neutralize the displeasure of their new sovereign, which
they feared he might otherwise visit upon them. They
probably never would have surrendered Talbot had not the
lord proprietary written to them, under" date of July 30,

130 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

1685, "that it formerly was, and still is. the king's pleasure
that Talbot shall be brought over in the Quaker ketch to
England to receive his trial there; and that, in order there-
to, his Majesty had sent his commands to the governor of
Virginia to deliver him to Captain Allen, commander of
said ketch, who is to bring him over."

This letter was received on the 7th of October, 1685,
nearly a year after the unfortunate occurence upon the
Quaker ketch. Talbot was thereupon sent under guard to
the governor of Viriginia, where he was tried for the mur-
der of Rousby on the 22d of April, 1686. He was con-
victed, but his kinsman, the lord proprietary, no doubt
seconded in his efforts to that end by Dick Talbot, who
probably was a still nearer kinsman of the culprit than he,
was prepared for the emergency and had obtained a pardon
for him, which, he had transmitted to Virginia before the
conclusion of the trial.

Of Talbot's history subsequent to his trial very little is
known, but he is believed to have returned to this county,
for in June, 1687, he executed the only deed given by him
for land in this county, that is upon record.

The deeds that were written two hundred years ago are
very curious documents. The conveyancers of that time
never left any thing out of a deed that there was any prac-
tical method of putting in it, hence they contain many
strange covenants and provisions. This deed from George
Talbot to Jacob Young, for the tract of land called Clayfall,
contains much valuable historical information in regard to
the manners and customs of the early settlers upon Susque-
hanna Manor. The consideration named in it is the " Iron
work of a Swedes mill, 200 young apple trees now growing
near the present dwelling house of the said Young & lastly
for and in consideration of a bargain and sale which the
said Young promiced to make to me and my heirs forever
for 5s. sterling of ye seat of a mill that he formerly caused
to be built at the head of Piny creek vulgarily called Mill

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 131

creek in ye county & manor aforesaid & fifteen acres of land
contiguous to ye said mill seat, &c." This mill was on the
creek that is yet called Mill Creek and probably Jacob
Young had settled at the head of that creek before Talbot
obtained his grant. However this may have been, this is
the first mill we find mentioned in the early history of the
county. No doubt it was a water-mill. The Swede's mill,
the iron work of which is mentioned in the deed as part of
the consideration, was probably a hand mill.

In the grant of Clayfall, " all mines of metals, waifs,
estrays, wild unmarked horses, mares, colts, neat cattle &
hogs of all sorts are excepted, and a yearly rent of 10s. ster-
ling was to be paid by Young and his heirs at ye Rock of
Essenewee alias Kannegrenda at ye falls of Back creek (now
Principio creek) in ye manor aforesaid, on 1st day of Octo-
ber yearly & every year forever." Then came the proviso,
that " Jacob Young & all his heirs and assigns living upon
Clayfall shall send from time to time forever to ye mill or
mills of me ye said George Talbot my heirs & assigns upon
or near adjacent to ye said manor to be there ground all ye
malt & bread, corn that shall be spent by the families in-
habiting or resident upon any part of Clayfall aforesaid, ex-
cept such times as they shall not be in good running condi-
tion." Young also covenants not to erect any mill upon
Clayfall, and Talbot reserves the right to demolish any mill
that Young might erect there. And Young agrees to attend
court whan required and to do such "suit & service to and
at ye said court as is costomary & usual on manors in Eng-
land."

This instrument of writing is of great length and
covers six pages of the book in which it is recorded, and
concludes with a proviso which indicates, as do several
other things mentioned in it, that the parties had but little
faith in each other's honesty, for the whole thing was to be
void if Young dug up and carried away tne two hundred
young apple trees. It is very hard to conceive how any-

132 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

thing else could have been incorporated in this deed, or how
a stronger or better one could have been made, but Talbot
covenants to make Young another one, such as his counsel,
learned in the law, might suggest, but he was not to be com-
pelled to go more than twenty miles from the manor to exe-
cute it. This curious document is dated June 10th, 1687,
and is signed by George Talbot and witnessed hy Henry
Brent, James Lynch and Thomas Grunwin. The rock of
Essenewee or Kannegrenda, there is no doubt, was at or
near where the iron works of George P. Whitaker are now
located, and no doubt that is where Talbot's house or castle
then stood.

After laborious and patient investigation it has been ascer-
tained that Talbot returned to Ireland and took part in the
struggle between James the Second and the Prince of
Orange.

After the downfall of the house of Stewart he joined the
Irish Brigade, in which he was commissioned as an officer,
and with it entered the service of the King of France,
where he was afterwards killed.

Castle Rooney for many years has been in ruins. There
is some reason to believe that a relative of George Taibot
owned land and resided for a time at Perry Point,* below
Perryville ; for in 1710 James Talbot, of Castle Rooney, in
the kingdom of Ireland, sold a tract of land which is de-
scribed as being upon that point.

* So called from having been owned by Captain Richard Perry, of
London, in the early part of the last century.

CHAPTER XL

New Minister — Its metes and bounds — The Alexanders— Society — Cecil
Manor — Charles Carroll — Fair Hill — The Scotch-Irish — Christiana Pres-
byterian Church— Rock Church — The English Revolution — Its effect on
the Colony of Maryland— Nottingham — The Nottingham Lots — Original
grantees— Reasons why the grant was made — The first Friends' meeting-
house— The FLittle Brick or Nottingham Friends' meeting-house — Pop-
pemetto — West Nottingham Presbyterian Church — Treaty with the
Conestoga Indians— Thomas Chalkley visits them — Account of some of
the first settlers of Nottingham — The Welsh tract — Its boundaries — The
Baptist church on Iron Hill — The Pencader Presbyterian Church — Rev.
David Evans — Rev. Samuel Davies — Iron Hill.

The certificate of survey of the New Minister tract, which
may be found in the old colonial records at Annapolis, is as
follows: "Surveyed for Edwin O'Dwire and fifteen other
Irishmen by virtue of a warrant from his Lordship, dated
7th of August, 1683. Laid out for him and them a certain
tract of land, called New Munster, lying and being in Cecil
County, on the main fresh of Elk River, on both sides of the
said fresh, beginning at a marked poplar on a high bank
over the west side of the said main fresh, and about a pistole
shott to the mouth of a rivelett, called the Shure, and run-
ning west, . . . containing and now laid out for six thou-
sand acres more or less, to be held of the manor of Coecill,
which is hereby humbly certified to your Lordship, this 29th
day of August, 1683, by George Talbot,

/• " Surveyor-General."

The poplar tree mentioned in the aforesaid certificate
stood upon the west bank of Big Elk Creek, a short distance
above where the stream originally called the Shure, but now
called Fulling Mill Run, empties into that stream. The
Shure was no doubt called by that name because it was

134 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

not easily affected by drouth. It is a pretty little stream
that rises near Fair Hill, and flows in a southeast direction
thorugh a section of country most of which, until quite
recently, was thickly covered with forest trees, which pre-
vented the evaporation of the water from the earth, so that
the springs that fed it flowed nearly as strongly in the sum-
mer months as in any other season. It still sustains its
ancient reputation as a Sliure and reliable stream, and once
supplied enough water to turn two mills that stood upon its
banks. The poplar tree that marked the place of the beginning
of the survey has long since disappeared, but the place where
it stood is marked by a rough, undressed stone, with the
letters W. S. on its south, the letter B. on its east and the
letters N. M., and underneath them the letters N. I. on the
north side, rudely chiseled on comparatively smooth places
on its otherwise rough surface. What these initials mean
we are unable to say. Their meaning, as well as the history
of those who placed them there, is lost. But the water of
the babbling stream still dances down its rocky channel, as
if it was impatient to join the larger and quieter stream
that flows so placidly at the base of the rugged declivity,
midway up which this stone was planted in the long ago.
There can be no doubt that the stone is near the place where
the poplar stood, because the configuration of the country is
is such that the course of the streams must necessarily be
nearly the same now as they were two hundred years ago.

Without attempting to give the accurate courses and dis-
tances of the boundary lines of New Munster, it is sufficient
to state that the southern line, which started from the poplar
tree, ran about a mile west until it reached the southwest
corner of the tract, and then ran northwardly for about five
miles until it reached the northwest corner, which was
about a mile north of Mason and Dixon's line, where the
northern line commenced and ran in an easterly course,
and crossed the Elk a short distance above Mackey's (now
Tweed's) mill, which is the first mill on that stream in

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 135

Pennsylvania above the State line. The northeast corner
was nearly two miles east of Big Elk and a little south of a
direct line joining the aforesaid mill and the village of
Strickersville, in Pennsylvania. The east line ran south
from the last-named corner until it reached the southeast
corner of the tract, which was about a mile east of the place
of beginning, from which the southern line ran west to the
poplar tree that marked the beginning of the survey. The
tract was about five miles long and two miles wide, and
consequently contained about ten square miles. The Big
Elk divided it into two nearly equal parts. Within the
limits of the tract are some of the best water-powers in the
county, no less than five of them being on the Big Elk.

Edwin O'Dwire, to whom the patent for New Munster
was granted, sold it to one Daniel Toas, of Chester River, in
Maryland, when, we have no means of ascertaining, for the
deed is not on record, who died and left a son (John Toas),
who inherited it as his heir and devisee. This John Toas,
it would seem, was not a very thrifty nor a very well-to-do
man, for he induced one " Robert Roberts, of Queen Anne's
County (glover), to become bound for ye sd. Toas for ye
sum of £200 and upwards, which the said Robert Roberts
was obliged to pay and did pay, the said John Toas ab-
sconding himself from justice, for which there did an act of
Assembly pass and was confirmed, thereby empowering the
said Robert Roberts, by virtue of the same, to make good
and valuable sale and absolute title of inheritance in fee
simple of, to, and in four thousand five hundred acres of the
New Munster tract." By virtue of this act of Assembly the
said Robert Roberts sold to Daniel Pearce, of Kent County,
407 acres of the said tract for 6,000 pounds of tobacco, the
deed for which is dated the 4th of September, 1713. This
407 acres was located in the southwest corner of New Mun-
ster, and contained the site of the mill near the mouth of
the Shure, now owned by Howard Scott. Roberts also sold
to Thomas Stephenson, of Bucks County, Pa., nearly three

136 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY,

thousand acres of the same tract, a large part of which was
east of the Big Elk, for the sum of =£300 current money of
Maryland. The deed from Roberts to Stephenson is dated
April 1st, 1714.

On the 18th of May following, Stephenson sold the tract
on the east side of the Big Elk, containing upwards of 1100
acres, to Mathias Wallace, James Alexander, farmer, Arthur
Alexander, farmer, David Alexander, weaver, and Joseph
Alexander, tanner. The deed recites the fact that the tract
of land then conveyed to Wallace, and the Alexanders "had
for some years last past been improved and possessed by
them, and had been by them divided among themselves,
each man according to his holden, and that he, the said
Stephenson, being minded to sell the said tract of land,
thought it most equitable, honest and right, that they, the
said possessors thereof, should have the first offer to buy or
purchase each man his holden or division of ye same."
There is no doubt, judging from the facts recited in the deed
from Stephenson to Wallace and the Alexanders that they
were part of the " 15 other Irishmen" mentioned in the cer-
tificate of survey, and that they located upon New Munster
many years prior to the time at which they obtained the
deed to their farms. The first deed from Stevenson to the
Alexanders contained a covenant that the grantor, Stephen-
son, would make them another and better one if they de-
manded it any time during the next seven years ensuing
after the date of the first deed. In accordance with this
covenant, Stevenson, by eight deeds, each of which is dated
August loth, 1718, reconveyed his interest in nine hundred
and three acres of the New Munster tract to Joseph, James,
David, Arthur, Elijah and Mary Alexander. This woman,
Mary, was the widow of James Alexander, deceased, who
probably was the son of one of the other Alexanders before
mentioned. By two other deeds of the same date he also
conveyed certain parts of the said tract to John Gillespie
and Mathias Wallace, Jr. The land conveyed to the colony

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 137

of Alexanders embraced the northeast part of the New Mini-
ster tract and extended from a short distance north of Cow-
antown to the extreme northern boundary of New Munster,
which, us before stated, was about a mile north of the State
line, as it was located by Mason and Dixon fifty years after-
wards. It was bounded on the west by the Big Elk and
the wrest branch of Christiana' flowed through it for about a
mile, near the northeast corner of that part of it that is now
in Maryland.

In 1701 James Carroll took up a. survey of 2,104 acres of
land west of New Munster, and in 1713 conveyed his interest
in it to Charles Carroll. The tract was called " Society,"
and the deeds given shortly afterwards for certain parts of
it, recite the fact that the survey, which was unfinished
before, was completed in the latter year by Henry Hollings-
worth, who was then deputy-surveyor. Morgan Patten,
John Bristow, Joseph Steel, and Roger Lawson were among
the first purchasers, and there is every reason to believe
they were the first settlers upon this tract of land, which
then, 1718 and '19, no doubt was covered by the prime-
val forest. " Society," like New Munster, was to be held of
the manor of Cecil. This manor was just west of Little Elk,
and extended from near the head of Elk River some miles
northward. It was probably several miles wide, and like
some of the other manors is believed never to have been
surveyed or bounded. The southeast corner of " Society"
was about a mile north of the southwest corner of New
Munster, and the western boundary of the latter formed the
eastern boundary of the former. The tract probably ex-
tended as far north as New Munster did. The deed from
Carroll to Lawson warranted to defend his title " against all
persons claiming title, or pretended title, under ye govern-
ment of Pennsylvania or ye territories thereunto belong-
ing." This was because the long and bitter controversy
between the Penns and Baltimore about the boundaries of
their respective provinces was then raging.

138 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

The Charles Carroll who owned Society was judge and
register of the land office, and also agent and receiver of
rents for Lord Baltimore. A part of this tract remained in
possession of the Carroll family till 1805. In that year
Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, sold 184 acres of it to Alex-
ander Jackson for £183.

Fair Hill, which originally extended to the east side of
Little Elk Creek, was taken up about the same time that
Society was settled*. New Castle at this time was a town of
considerable size and much importance,;- then and for many
years afterwards, it was probable that more Irish emigrants
landed there than any other port on the eastern seaboard
of the colonies. These people found their way to New Ire-
land and the southern parts of Chester and Lancaster
counties.

The Alexanders, and probably most of the other original
settlers on New Munster and the parts of Pennsylvania and
Delaware contiguous to it, were Scotch-Irish ; and as this
class of settlers acted a conspicuous part in the early as well
as in the subsequent history of the county, a short account
of them may be interesting and profitable.

During the reign of Elizabeth, the people of Ulster, a
province in the north of Ireland, rebelled against the gov-
erment of England ; and, as was always the case with the
people of that country, they were subjugated and subjected
to a vigorous and severe regime. Though they were obliged
to submit to the English government, they ^ did so with
reluctance, and were ever ready for revolt. Though the
fire of their patriotism was apparently extinguished, it was
not wholly quenched, and soon after the accession of James
I. another conspiracy was entered into between the Earl of
Tyrone and the Earl of Tyrconnel against the English gov-
ernment. It was soon suppressed, and the two earls were
forced to fly. Their estates, containing about 500,000
acres, were confiscated. A second insurrection soon after-
wards gave occasion for another large forfeiture, and nearly

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 139

six entire counties in the province of Ulster were confiscated.
This large territory of confiscated land was nearly depopu-
\ted by the efforts of the English in reducing its inhabit-
ants to obedience. It soon became a favorite project of the
English sovereign to repeople this depopulated territory
with a Protestant population, hoping they would be more
peaceable, and consequently less likely to rebel. Many in-
ducements were held out to the people of England and Scot-
land to settle in this vacant territory in Ireland. The
principal emigration, however, was from Scotland. Its coast
is near the coast of Ireland, and the emigrants had only a
short distance to travel to reach their new homes. The
Scotch emigrants brought with them their habits of industry,
and their strong Calvinistic faith and rigid adherence to
the Presbyterian religion. This was the first Protestant
population that settled in Ireland. The first Irish Presby-
terian church was established by the Scotch-Irish in 1613.
But owing to the unstable character of the House of Stewart,
these emigrants were destined soon to undergo a fiercer and
more cruel persecution than the Catholics whom they had
succeeded. The persecution of the Scotch Presbyterians
which soon afterwards took place, in which Claverhouse
and his dragoons won for themselves an eternal infamy,
drove many of the persecuted Scotch to take refuge in the
secure retreats of Ulster.

This is the origin of the Scotch-Irish, a race that has been
noted in the history of the United States for their love of
religious and civil liberty; -a race to whose exertions, sacri-
fices and valor we are much indebted for the successful issue
of the Revolutionary war and the establishment of our
present system of government. Their forefathers had been
taught in the school of adversity and many of them had
sealed their faith with their blood. When the long course
of oppression and cruelty practiced by the arbitrary govern-
ment of Great Britain upon the people of the colonies had
culminated in the war of the Revolution, these Scotch-Irish

140 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

Presbyterians, whose forefathers had long before proved the
truth of the adage that " the blood of the martyrs is the
seed of the church," so in like manner did their sons attest
their faith in the justice of the cause that they almost uni-
versally espoused, and hesitated not to shed their blood in
maintaining it with the sword upon many a sanguinary
field. Emulating in civil affairs the example their fore-
fathers had set them in ecclesiastical matters, many of them
became martyrs in the cause of liberty.

This race did not intermarry with the native Celtic popu-
lation, and to this day, after the lapse of two centuries and
a half, is as distinct as when the pioneer settlers first immi-
grated to Ireland. They were called Scotch-Irish simply
because they were the descendants of Scots who had taken
up their residence in the north of Ireland. The wretched
policy of the House of Stewart, which had an unlimited
capacity for tyranny and oppression, soon drove these peo-
ple to seek an asylum in the wilderness of America. Here
the ancestors of many of the members of the Presbyterian
churches in the northern part of Cecil County settled in the
early days of the history of our county. They brought with
them their habits of industry, self-denial, frugality and
economy that are yet retained ami practiced by their de-
scendants.

The Alexanders and the other Scotch-Irish settlers upon
New Munster and the surrounding country were the
founders of the old Presbyterian churches at " Head of
•Christiana " and " The Rock."

It is a singular fact that the first meeting-houses in which
these congregations worshiped were outside of the .boun-
daries of Maryland ; the former being on the -triangular
part of Pennsylvania that extends south of Mason and
Dixon's line, and only about two hundred yards east of the
due north line which, lor all practical purposes, is considered
as forming the boundary between Maryland and Delaware.
The latter was located in the "old stone graveyard" in

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

Lewisville, Chester County, and is about the same distan
north of Mason and Dixon's line. Whether this was the
result of accident or design is not known, but inasmuch as
Maryland was a Catholic colony, and the interests of the
first settlers in New Minister were identified with those of
the people at New Castle, it was probably the result of the
latter. The Presbyterian church at the head of Christiana
was organized some time previous to 1708, by a few persons
who had previously worshiped in New Castle. The first
house of worship, which stood in the graveyard north of
the present house, was probably built about the time of the
organization of the church.

The first pastor of this church was Rev. George Gillespie.
He was born in Scotland, in 1683, and was a son of the Rev.
George Gillespie, a prominent member of the Westminster
Assembly of divines. Among the names of the first elders
of this church, which were equally divided among the three
States, are those of David Alexander and Andrew Wallace,
of Cecil County. David Alexander was no doubt one of
the original settlers of New Minister, and there is little
doubt that Andrew Wallace was a relative of Mathias Wal-
lace, another of the original settlers upon the same tract.
His grave is marked by a headstone, which shows that he
died on ye third of March, 1751, aged 79 years. Many of
the graves of the Alexanders are marked by headstones in
a good state of preservation, which show that they generally
lived to a good old age.

The Rock Church was founded in 1720, by members of
the Head of Christiana living in the northern part of New
Munster, and in Society, who wished a church nearer to
their homes. For a short time this congregation was sup-
plied by Rev. George Gillespie and other ministers of New
Castle Presbytery, until in 1724 the congregation secured
the services of their first pastor, Rev. Joseph Houston. He,
like most of the early Presbyterian ministers, was a native
of Ireland. The original name of the congregation was the

HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY.

urch Upon Elk River. Theopliilus and his brother, Amos
Alexander, both elders of the Rock Church, are buried at
Head of Christiana. They lived in the northeastern part of
New Munster and were much nearer the churches at Lewis-
ville and Sharp's graveyard, which is a short distance north
of Fair Hill and near the site of the second church build-
ing, than they were to the old church at Head of Chris-
tiana, where they at first worshiped.

It is not within the scope of this work to give an extended
account of the Revolution in England that resulted in
placing William and May on the throne of that kingdom but
inasmuch as it had a great effect upon the history of Mary-
land, and particularly on the history of Cecil County, it has
been deemed important, in order to properly understand
the latter, to call the reader's attention to it.

The liberality of the charter of Maryland had excited the
cupidity of James II., who contemplated instituting pro-
ceedings to wrest it from Lord Baltimore, and who, had he
continued to wield the sceptre of England, would most likely
have found means to have wrested the rights and franchises
which it conferred upon Lord Baltimore from him, and
appropriate them to his own use. But it was not so ordered
by Providence, and the Proprietary of Maryland escaped
this ignominous treatment from the tyrant James, only
to be made to endure it from his successor. He was in Eng-
land when William and Mar}^ were proclaimed, and at once
gave in his adherence to them and sent orders to Mr.
Joseph, who had succeeded George Talbot as President of
the Council and chief Deputy Governor, to proclaim the
new sovereigns in Maryland ; but unfortunately the messen-
ger died on the way and the council hesitated to act on
their own responsibility till the new sovereigns had been
proclaimed in most if not all the other colonies.

The Protestants of Maryland thereupon inaugurated a
revolution on their own account, and in April, 1689, formed
" an association in arms for the defence of the Protestant

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 143

religion, and for asserting the rights of King William and
Queen Mary to the province of Maryland and all the English
dominions." John Coode was placed at the head of this
association. But little more was done till the following-
July, when the revolutionists marched upon the city of St.
Mary's, which was then held by the council which remained
loyal to the Lord Proprietary. The revolutionists were the
stonger party, and the others evacuated the city without
firing a gun. Whereupon Coode issued a declaration of the
reasons which had actuated him and his party to usurp the
government. In this declaration they speak of the tyranny
and injustice of Lord Baltimore, and refer to the obstacles
thrown in the way of the collection of the king's tax and the
murder of Rousby " by one that was an Irish papist and our
chief governor," etc., at great length.

The authorities of Calvert County alone made some op-
position to the revolutionists; but they soon surrendered
without bloodshed, and the others became masters of the
province. They celebrated their triumph by sending an ad-
dress to their Majesties in England, in which they reiterate
the charges against Lord Baltimore in a more covert way
than in the declaration, and seek to justify, or at least to
palliate, the course they had pursued. The revolutionists,
feeling secure, issued writs in their Majesties' names for an
election of delegates to a convention to be held at St. Mary's
in August, to which the people of Calvert County objected,
and issued a declaration of their objections to choosing del-
egates. They also met with opposition in other parts of the
province; notwithstanding which the convention met, and
on the 4th of September drew up an address to their Majes-
ties, which is remarkable only for the cunning method in
which they seek to justify their own revolutionary proceed-
ings by the laudatory way in which they speak of their
Majesties' achievements of the same kind. This address was
accompanied by others from Kent, Somerset, Talbot, St.
Mary's, Charles, Calvert, Cecil, and Baltimore counties, some

144 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

of which were numerously signed, and a few of which speak
well of Lord Baltimore and his illustrious father. The citi-
zens of Cecil County sent a petition which was signed by
nineteen of the inhabitants, of none of whom anything
is known at this time, except George Oldfield, Casparus
Hermen, William Nowell, and York Yorkson. George
Oldfield has already been referred to ; he was an attorney,
and a few years later refused to take the oath of allegiance
and supremacy, from which it is inferred that he was a
Catholic and still adhered to the House of Stewart. He re-
moved to Pennsylvania, as it was then called, where he
probably still owned land, he being one of the landholders
in St. Augustine's Manor as early as 1682, in which year
William Penn addressed him and some others upon the sub-
ject of the dispute between himself and Lord Baltimore. Cas-
parus Hermen was at that time lord of Bohemia Manor,
having succeeded his brother Ephraim George, and in ac-
cordance with the provision of his father's will had assumed
the name of Augustine.

William Nowell was a lawyer. He refused to take the
oath of allegiance and supremacy, for which the courts
stopped him from practicing ; but probably readmitted him
for the minutes of the court show, as before stated, that he
promised to remove the cause of disability. York Yorkson,
there is reason to believe, came to this county from the
Swedish settlements on the Delaware. He was probably a
Swede or Finn. Some years after this time he leased a few
acres of land on the north side of Bohemia River just east
of the ferry. He is designated in the lease as innholder, and
was probably the first person who kept an inn at Bohemia,
ferry. The addresses of the Protestants of England were
not without effect upon King William, and he thought
seriously of depriving Lord Baltimore of his charter. Legal
proceedings were instituted for that purpose; but the facts
upon which his advisers relied were not susceptible of
proof, and Lord Baltimore was allowed to retain the charter

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 145

upon consenting to allow the province to be governed by
Protestant governors, appointed by the king. This con-
tinued to be the case till 1715, when his son Benedict
Leonard Calvert embraced the Protestant religion, and the
rights and franchises conferred by the charter were restored
to him.

During the interval from 1689 to 1715 the members of
the House of Baltimore were under a cloud, so to speak,
and in no condition to defend the province from the en-
croachments which the proprietor of Pennsylvania made
upon it. This brief reference to the English Revolution it
is hoped will enable the reader to better understand the
reason why the Nottingham lots and the Welsh Tract,
large portions of which are in Maryland, were granted by
William Penn and his agents, and why no efforts were made
to repel their encroachments.

Nottingham was the outgrowth of the settlements on the
Delaware around New Castle, which, at the time of the
settlement of the former place, was second only to New
York in commerce and population. The pioneer settlers of
Nottingham were two brothers, James and William Brown,
who, on pack-horses, boldly started out from New Castle in
the summer or fall of 1701 into the wilderness to make for
themselves a home. They were said to have been in-
fluenced in their opinion of the fertility of the soil by the
great size of the forest trees with which it was covered.
They stopped near a large spring, which is yet to be seen
on the north side of the road lending from the Brick Meeting-
house to the Rising Sun, and a short distance east of the
road which forms the boundary between the Sixth and
Ninth election districts. It is on the farm now owned by
William Cameron. Near this spring was a favorite camping-
ground of the Indians. Their trail from the great valley of
Chester County to the head of the bay, whither they were
accustomed to resort for fish and also to trade at the post
on Palmer's Island, led directly past it. Here the brothers

146 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

Brown unloaded their weary horses and went to work fell-
ing the forest trees and clearing the land for the purpose of
making room for dwelling-houses and engaging in agricul-
tural pursuits. The small amount of provisions brought
with them were soon exhausted, and they were obliged to
return to New Castle for a fresh supply. Other Friends
accompanied them on their return to Nottingham, and by
the next spring they had accommodations for several fami-
lies. The first house, erected by William Brown, is said to
have been built on the site now occupied by the house of
William Cameron. This is the traditional story of the first
settlement in Nottingham that has been handed down from
generation to generation of their descendants, some of whom
yet occupy part of the land upon which their forefathers
settled.

It is very probable that the brothers Brown preceded the
other settlers a short time, and that the others were ac-
quainted with them and admired the fertility of their land
and the beauty of the location, and were for these reasons
induced to ask for the privilege of taking up the Notting-
ham lots. This name was applied to Nottingham Township
after the Revolutionary war by the Legislature of Maryland,
in an act for the relief of the owners of the land, which,
though granted by Penn, was found to be in Maryland
when the dispute between him and Baltimore was adjusted
in 1768. It was called Nottingham Township by the au-
thorities of Pennsylvania, and was divided into thirty-seven
parts ; hence the name, " Nottingham lots."

In compliance with the provisions of this act of Mary-
land, which was passed in 1788, the then proprietors of
Nottingham, in order to show the validity of their title,
procured copies of the minute of their application to the
commissioners of propert}r of Pennsylvania, and also their
warrant for the survey of Nottingham, which they caused
to be recorded among the land records of Cecil County.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 147

The minutes of the commissioners, like all the writings of
the Friends, is laconic and concise. It is as follows :

"At a session of the Commissioners at Philadelphia, 14th
of the 11 th mo., 1701. Present — Edward Shippen, Griffith
Owen, Thomas Story, James Logan, Sec. Cornelius Empson,
for himself and several otners, to the number of twenty fam-
ilies, chiefly of the county of Chester, propose to make a
Settlmt. on a tract of land about half-way between Delaware
and Susquehannough, or near the latter, being about twenty
miles distant *from New Castle, on Otteraroe river, in case
they may have a grant of twenty thousand acres in said
place, at a bushel of wheat per 100 (acres), or five pounds pur-
chase, to be after at a shilling sterling per annum, which
being duly considered and the advantages that might arise
thereby, by rendering the adjacent lands more valuable and
encouraging ye settlement of Susquehannough river, 'tis
proposed that they shall have 15 or 20,000 acres at £8
pounds per 100 acres, or at 2 bushels of wheat rent per an-
num, the first year for their encouragement to be free of rent,
or one year credit to pay the purchase money. He agrees
to the price of purchase or to a bushel and a half per an-
num, But it is referred to thee in further consideration."

The application of Empson, as set forth in the preceding
minute of the commissioners who were appointed by Penn
and authorized to have charge of his land and to look after
his interests in the province, met with the favorable consid-
eration of the proprietary, or the commissioners concluded
to act on their own responsibility, for on "ye 7th of ye 1st
mo., 1701," they issued the warrant of survey to Henry Hol-
lingsworth, at that time a citizen of Pennsylvania. This
warrant contains the names of the original settlers for which
the survey was made. They are as follows : Henry Reynolds,
Cornelius Empson, John Empson, John Richardson, James
Brown, William Brown, Henry Bates, Edward Beson, Jas.
Cooper, (of Darby), Randal Janney, Andrew Job, John

148 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

Churchman, Ebenezer Empson, John Guest, of Philadelphia.*
These were to have one thousand acres each. Joel Bayley,
Robert Dutton, Samuel Littler, and Messer Brown were to
have five hundred acres each. The whole township was to
be divided into eighteen several divisions of one thousand
acres each, three of which the proprietor reserved for his
own proper use. The choice of the several divisions was to
be disposed of by lot. The warrant directed the surveyor to
begin at the northern barrens, between the main branch of
North East and Otter aroe Creek, and further specified that
the southern boundary was to be an east and west line pa-
rallel with the southern line of the province, and that the
£8 were to be paid within one year after the date thereof.
It also provided for the payment of an annual quit rent of
one shilling sterling for every one hundred acres, or, in
case of failure to pay the first sum, they were to pay two
bushels of good winter wheat for every one hundred acres,
to be delivered at some navigable water or landing place on the
Delaware River. Following the record of the certificate of
survey is a plat of the township, accompanied by a certifi-
cate certifying that it is compiled from data in the office of
the surveyor-general of Pennsylvania. The plat shows the
tract to have extended two and a half miles east of the com-
mon on part of which the Brick Meeting-house now stands,
from which it ran due west nearly nine miles. West of the
common, for a distance of three miles, it was three and a
quarter miles wide; for three miles further west it was three
miles wide, while from the southwest corner there extended

* Cornelius Empson, John Richardson, Henry Reynolds, Ebenezer
Empson, and John Guest, each of whom are mentioned in the warrant of
survey, and all of whom were among the original grantees, never resided
in Nottingham. The reader will notice a slight discrepancy between the
names in the warrant and those on the plat. The original record has been
followed in each case. The Reynolds and Janney families of this county are
the descendants of the above mentioned Henry Reynolds and Randal
Janney.

3.
2,

A Draught of the Township of Nottingham
according to the survey made thereof in the
3d month, A. D. 1702. Copied from the original
on page 55, Book No. 16, one of the land record
books of Cecil County.

Edward B

eson.

Henry Reynolds

5. Henry Reynolds.

19.

John Richardson

20.

6. John Richardson.

Proprietor.

21.

7. Proprietary.

Eb. Empson.

22.

8. Cor. Empson.

Wm. Brown.

23.

9. Proprietary.

Cor. Empson.

24.

10. Eb. Empson.

Proprietor.

2.5.

11. Joel Bayley.

Jas. Cooper.

26.

12. James Cooper.

Jas. Brown.

27.

13. Proprietary.

Wm. Brown.

28.

11. James Brown. "

Robt. Dutton.
Sam'l Littler.

29.

15. Randal Janney.

Common.
Meeting-House

30.

16. John Churchman.

Robt. Dntton.
Sam'l Littler.

31.

17.

Andrew Job.

32.

Wm. Brown.

1 33.

37.

' Randal Janney

31.

John

Bates.

56.

Andrew Job.

35.

150 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

a parallelogram a mile a quarter long and a half mile wide,
which included what is now known as Vinegar Hill. The
whole township contained thirty lots, the most of which
were a mile and a half long and half a mile wide, which
shows that the instruction in the warrant, authorizing the;
surveyor to lay out the tract into eighteen several divisions
of one thousand acres each, had been disregarded. The-
names of Robert Dutton and Samuel Littler appear upon
each of the lots immediately east and west of the meeting-
house, while the names of John Churchman and Randal
Janney are found upon the lots immediately north and
northwest of it. Andrew Job's name appears on the lot at
the southeast corner of the tract, which was a short distance
southeast of the Blue Ball tavern ; and those of Edward Be-
son and Henry Reynolds upon the two most westerly lots,,
as will be seen by reference to the map. The lots are. sepa-
rated by what seems to be intended to represent a road, but
which, by the scale accompanying the plat is an eighth of
a mile wide. The lots, as before stated, were to contain
a thousand acres each ; including the road, they did actualy
contain, as shown by the plat, about five hundred acres. It
was intimated in the warrant that the four persons that were-
to have five hundred acres each were to divide a thousand
acres between them ; this accounts for the township being
divided into thirty-seven instead of eighteen lots, as directed
in the warrant. The plat also shows that several of the per-
sons who were to have a thousand acres each took up two
of these five hundred acre lots, and that in some cases they
were several miles apart.

The reader will recollect that Talbot's grant of Susque-
hanna Manor, which was made twenty years before by Lord
Baltimore, included the whole of Nottingham and extended
some miles north of it into Pennsylvania. Talbot was
charged with the maintenance and extension of the au-
thority of Baltimore as far north and east as circumstances
warranted him in believing it was possible to extend it.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 151

Although his manor extended many miles above the mouth
of the Octoraro, he probably had little hope of maintaining
his title to all of it, and probably extended it northward
simply to acquire a claim and to hold it in behalf of Lord
Baltimore. He saw with what tenacity the settlers along
the Delaware maintained possession of the land there,
though it was covered by Baltimore's patent, and he re-
solved to profit by their example. Talbot's line, from the
mouth of Octoraro to the mouth of Naaman's Creek, is the
line referred to by the commissioners of Penn in their war-
rant of survey as the southern line of the province.

The religious and political difficulties that prevailed in
England in the reign of James the Second, as before inti-
mated, had a disastrous effect upon the prosperity of Lord
Baltimore. His misfortunes were increased by the efforts
his kindness prompted him to make in behalf of his kinsman
Talbot, in order to shield him from the consequences of the
murder of the unfortunate Rousby. He was a Catholic,
and the Puritanical spirit that raged in the time of Crom-
well was not yet extinct. William of Orange and Anne
owed too much to the Protestants of England to be disposed
to look with much favor upon the claims of Baltimore,
created as they were by a prince of an exiled family and a
member of the church which they despised. Talbot, the
courageous and irrepressible Talbot, whose brilliant career
in Cecil County atones for its shortness, had long since dis-
appeared, and the proprietor of Maryland, shorn of every-
thing but the nominal possession of his right in the soil of
his splendid domain, languished in neglect and obscurity.
These were the reasons why the princely domain of Susque-
hanna Manor was cut in twain by the commissioners of
Penn. Had George Talbot been alive and at the head of
his rangers, the quiet Quakers would never have thought
of asking the commissioners of the courtly Penn for the
Nottingham grant, nor is it probable he would have granted
their request. It was a masterly stroke of policy on the

152 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

part of Perm to cut Susquehanna Manor in twain, and plant
a settlement of his followers in the midst of it. This was
the surest way of thwarting the efforts of Lord Baltimore
and his agents to extend his jurisdiction to the 40° of north
latitude should that experiment be tried in the future.
This view of the case is strengthened Iry a tradition among
the Friends that the original settlers of Nottingham had at
first intended to settle in the rich valleys of Pequea or Con-
estoga, but were influenced by the earnest solicitation of
Penn to settle in Nottingham in order to strengthen his
claim, and that in the spring of 1701 he rode over the
ground in company with the leaders of the party to view
the " lay of the land." During this visit he is said to have
marked with his own hand a spot he selected, from which
the water descended in all directions, as the site of the
present brick meeting-house, which was built upon part of
the forty acres he donated to them for that purpose, and
which is yet in their possession.

When Mason and Dixon's line was located, it cut upwards
of 1,300 acres off those lots that extended farthest north, and
in 1787 their owners presented a petition to the government
of Pennsylvania, stating that owing to the unsettled condi-
tion of the boundary between that State and Maryland, the
original grantees had not complied with the terms of sale,
and praying that those parts of the lots in Pennsylvania
might be surveyed raid their titles be confirmed. Their
request was granted and a warrant was issued to George
Churchman, who the same year surveyed them.

The Friends that settled upon Nottin (ham were frugal
and industrious, and soon the forest disappeared beneath
their sturdy strokes, and grass and the waving grain suc-
ceeded it. The brothers Brown, like their father, were min-
isters of the gospel, and in 1704 a meeting was organized at
the house of James, which was the origin of the Quaker
congregation that now worships in the Brick Meeting-house.
The first meeting-house was erected in 1709 or 1710. ' It

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 153

was built of hewn chestnut and yellow poplar logs, which
were very durable; some of them are to be found at the
present time in an old building on the place where Susannah
Reisler now lives. Authorities differ about the time of the
erection of the brick house; some of them place it in 1724,
others in 1735. There is also a difference of opinion as to
whether the brick used in its construction were imported
from England or made in the neighborhood. Elisha Rowls,
who died some forty years ago, at the age of eighty, said his
father did the carpenter work of the building in 1750, after
the first fire when the addition was built. From informa-
tion obtained from him some of the old residents are of
opinion that the bricks were made near the house ; others
think they were imported from England. It is a curious
but well authenticated fact that the first building was roofed
with slate obtained somewhere along the Octoraro Creek,
but where, no person now living knows. In 1751 the wood-
work of this house was burned, and in the following year a
stone addition of equal size with the original structure was
erected — thus its capacity was doubled. In 1810 the wood-
work was again burned, and in the following year it was
replaced. Strange to say, though half of the walls of this
old house are stone, it still bears its original name of " the
Brick Meeting-house," and though the bricks have stood the
test of two fires in addition to their original burning, and
though the frosts and snows of one hundred and fifty-four
winters have spent their fury upon them, they appear to be
none the worse and look as though they might last for
many centuries longer.

The meeting-house called the Little Brick, standing on
the north side of the P. & B. Central Railroad and about
one mile and a quarter southwest of Rising Sun, was built
on a lot embracing five acres and a few perches, granted on
the 11th day of first month, 1727, by James King and
William Harris, " To the people of God, called Quakers,
members of the month! v meeting of Nottingham and New

154 HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY.

Garden," and the money paid therefor was declared to be
the money of that people. This lot was a part of Penn's
lot No. 20.

The present brick building was erected in 1811. The
frame 'building previously occupied was removed to the
eastern side of the Rising Sun, and was there used by Ben-
jamin Reynolds for a carpenter shop and afterwards for a
stable.

In 1730 the monthly meeting of Nottingham and New
Garden, mentioned above, was divided into two, viz., Not-
tingham, held at the Brick Meeting-house; East Notting-
ham, and New Garden, held at New Garden, Chester County,
Pennsylvania, and at the same time a preparative meeting
was established at Little Brick. In 1732 Edward Churchman
was buried in the bury ing-ground at that place, showing that it
was then occupied for that purpose. He died of smallpox,
at the mill of Henry Rejmolds, on Stone Run.

It is probable that upon the erection of this last meeting-
house, the names of East and West Nottingham were first
applied to the respective parts of the original Nottingham
Township. In 1729 many of the inhabitants of Susque-
hanna Hundred petitioned the court for a road to be laid
out " from the church road by the Indian town, called Pop-
pemetto, until it joins unto the road leading unto the
Quaker meeting-house at the west end of Nottingham."
They give as a reason why they wanted the road, that the
country was settling so fast that the old road was about to
be closed up. The church road referred to in the petition
was a road leading from some point near the mouth of the
Octoraro to the Episcopal church at the head of North
East, or to the chapel connected with it, that stood a short
distance east of Port Deposit. Nothing is known at
this time about the location or history of the Indian town.

The people who were settling the country so fast as to ex-
cite the apprehension of the inhabitants of Susquehanna
Hundred that their road would be closed, were the Scotch-

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 155

Irish Presbyterians who settled contiguous to Nottingham
and who were the founders of the Nottingham Presbyterian
church. The road they speak of was the one they traveled
from the upper ferry (now Port Deposit) to Philadelphia,
and was a continuation of the old Philadelphia and Not-
tingham road which ran from the former place to Darby,
thence to Chester, thence past Concord meeting-house to
Kennett and New London X roads and reached Nottingham
at the Brick Meeting-house. Many of these Scotch-Irish
settled on the romantic hills among which the beautiful
Octoraro rushes so impetuously to meet and mingle with the
more stately Susquehanna. Others of them settled imme-
diately south of the western part of Nottingham. In the
course of time, and as opportunity offered, many of them
became residents of the original Nottingham grant. The

E wings, Moores, Evanses, Pattons, Maxwells and many others
whose descendants are now members of the West Nottingham
Presbyterian church, settled on or near the west part of Not-
tingham about this time. As early as 1724 they had organ-
ized a church, and it is probable, judging from the fact that
in 1720 their meeting-house is called the old meeting-house,
they were numerous enough to have organized a church
and erected a house of worship several years prior to the
year 1720. It is a matter of doubt where the first house of
worship stood. Even tradition, with its contradictory
stories, is silent upon this subject. The name of the con-
gregation, as it first appears on the records of the Presbytery,
is the Mouth of Octoraro Afterwards it was called Lower
Octoraro. In 1730 it received the name of Nottingham, by
which it has been known ever since, notwithstanding there
was an effort made in 1803 to change the name to Ephesus,
and in 1844 to change it to Kirkwood, both of which efforts
failed. The history of this church and the distinguished
divines that have been connected with it, as well as the his-
tory of the Nottingham academy, will be given more at
length in a subsequent chapter.

156 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

The Quaker settlement of Nottingham was frequently
visited by itinerant Friends when they were journeying
from place to place to proclaim the gospel.

It is worthy of remark that at this time the Indians still
lived in Lancaster County, and that a few traders were
stationed at or near the mouth of the Conestoga. These
Indians were the remnant of the Susquehannocks that had
taken refuge there with theSenecas andShawnees, from the
•encroachments of the settlers along the head of the bay.
In 1705 they were visited by the dignitaries from Penn's
plantations along the Delaware, who made a treaty with
them. The same year Thomas Chalkley visited Notting-
ham and as he expresses it, " had a concern upon his mind
to visit the Indians living near Susquehanna, at Conestoga.
He laid it before the elders of Nottingham meeting, with
which they expressed their amity and promoted my visiting
them." Accordingly, having secured the services of an in-
terpreter he, accompanied by about a dozen of the citizens,
set out through the forest to visit the Indians. The party
traveled on horseback and carried their provisions with them.
The}7, spread their food upon the grass and dined under the
shade of the trees in the primeval forest refreshing them-
selves and horses with water from- the river, upon whose
banks they had stopped to enjoy the midday meal. The
Indians received them kindly, and some of them gave evi-
dence that the preaching of this humble Quaker, whose zeal
was only equaled by his meekness, had touched their hearts
and prepared them for the reception of the divine grace and
light, an abundant measure of which appears to have been
vouchsafed to him. There were two tribes of these Indians?
Senecas and Shawansee. One of the tribes was governed
by an empress, so Chalkley calls her, whose advice the
Indians sought before they consented to hold the meeting.
She appears to have been a woman of age and experience,
.and had had a remarkable dream a short time before the

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 157

visit of the Quakers, which seems to have left a deep im-
pression upon her mind. Though the Friends sanctioned
the preaching of women, they were surprised to find this
tribe under the government of a woman, and inquired why
it was so. The Indians replied that some women were wiser
than some men."

Inasmuch as many of the descendants of the first settlers
in Nottingham are yet living in this county, and this ac-
count of it would otherwise be incomplete, we append a few
brief sketches of some of the most prominent of them.

Benjamin Chandlee, the emigrant who planted the family
name at Nottingham, was the son of William Chandlee, of
Kilmore, in the county of Kildare, Ireland, probably born
about 1685. The next notice we find of him is on the 25th
of the 3d month, ] 710. On that day he was married at
Friends' meeting, in Philadelphia, to Sarah, daughter of
Able Cottey, "watch maker of Philadelphia." It appears
that Benjamin at the time was engaged with Able Cottey in
business, probably as an apprentice or journeyman.

In 1706 Able Cottey had purchased one of the Notting-
ham lots from Randal Janney, some four hundred acres..
This lot Able conveyed to his son-in-law upon his marriage
to his daughter. This fortunate event induced Benjamin to
remove to the property soon after his marriage. He estab-
lished his trade in a small way, doing also iron work for the
neighbors.

It seems that Able Cottey had also became possessed of a
small farm adjoining the Brick Meeting-house lot. This
property his widow, Mary Cottey, left by will (" being aged
and infirm ") to her daughter, Sarah Chandlee, dated 6th
mo^lSth, 1712, and proven and registered at Chester, 3d
month 3d, 1714. She also mentions grandsons Able Cottey
and Cottey Chandlee, and leaves £10 to John Cottey, " if he
comes into these parts again." Benjamin Chandlee, the first,
seems to have been a man who, had opportunities offered,
would have risen to distinction in his profession. As it was,

158 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

located in a new country where the indispensable necessities
of life claim the most prompt attention, and the demand
for the exercise of his skill limited to the most simple pro-
ducts of domestic use, he could do little more than act as a
pioneer for succeeding artisans. In 1741 he removed with
his younger children to Wilmington, Delaware, where he
became the ancestor of the respectable citizens of the name
in that vicinity.

Benjamin Chandlee, founder of the celebrated firm of
Chandlee & Sons, of Nottingham, manufacturers of clocks,
surveyors' compasses, and mathematical instruments of all
kinds, was the son of Benjamin Chandlee, the emigrant, born
at Nottingham about 1728, and resided on his father's farm
till it was sold on his removal, to Joseph Trimble, in 1741,
when he took up his residence on the lot left by Mary Cottey
to his mother, adjoining the meeting-house land. Here he
lived, and died 9th month, 18th, 1794, in the 69th
year of his age. In 1749 he " proceeded in mar-
riage with Mary Fallwell, daughter of Goldsmith Ed-
ward Fallwell, of Wilmington, according to the good order
established among Friends." Mary survived him, and after
a life spent in the fulfillment of Christian duty, died 10th
month 6th, 1806, in the 78th year of her age, both being
interred in East Nottingham Friends' graveyard. The em-
inence attained by Benjamin Chandlee in the manufacture
of scientific, mathematical, and chemical instruments, was
probably not surpassed during his time by any other firm
in America. After his decease the business was continued
with credit and success by his sons, Isaac and Ellis, who
inherited their father's taste and zeal, applying their inge-
nuity to the production of most of the then known instru-
ments used in the various measurements of time, the prop-
erties of the magnet, electric currents, engraving, etc.

Isaac Chandlee was a member of the Society of Friends,
taking part in its deliberations and laboring quietly in the

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 159

moral and religious duties assigned him. He lived unmar-
ried, but having secured the services of Susanna Fallwell,
his mother's sister, as housekeeper, his domestic comforts
were such as to occasion few regrets on that score. This
excellent lady survived him, and died in the 2d month, 1816.
Isaac departed this life, much regretted by his neighbors,
the 10th of the 12th month, 1813, aged 62 years.

Ellis discontinued the business after the loss of his bro-
ther. He had lived to see it rise, flourish and expire, and
to note the departure of many of his generation. He died
about the year 1820, leaving a family.

Cottey Chandlee, son of Benjamin, the emigrant, born at
Nottingham about 1713, and died there in 1807, aged about
94 years, was a quiet, unobtrusive Quaker, and lived
unmarried.

Joseph England was an approved minister in the Friends'
Society ; son of " John England and Loue his wife ;" born
in 1680 at Burton, on the river Trent, in Staffordshire. In
1710 he married Margaret, daughter of Samuel and Joanna
Orbel, born at Deal in Kent, in 1685. They settled first
at Deal, but removed to Burton, whence, in 1752, they
came to America, bringing their children, John, Samuel and
Joanna, with them ; Joseph and Lydia were born after their
arrival. Joseph and Margaret departed this life, the latter
in 1741 and the former in 174S. The fine tract of land on
North East Creek that they called "Springfield" is still oc-
cupied in part by their descendants, and by Joseph Hamilton,
whose residence is on the site of the original homestead.

Among the early Friends who settled at Nottingham was
Jehu Kay. He purchased a tract of land called "Hind-
man's Legacy," which corners at Colora. The residence of
the late John Tosh is upon it ; also the depot and railroad
buildings at Colora. The Friends have a tradition that
this Kay was a descendant of the first male child born of
English parents on the site of Philadelphia after it was laid
out for a city. In consequence, Penn presented him with a

/
/

1G0 HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY.

square in the new town. His appreciation of this present
was such that when he arrived at manhood he exchanged
it for a horse, saddle and bridle.

The Browns, before spoken of, were noted as well for their
zeal as ministers as for their enterprise and industry. The
mill on North East Creek, known as Hurford's mill, was
built by them ; and one of the sons of James Brown, who
married and lived near Principio iron works, had an inter-
est in them as early as 1718, in which year he died. In
1751 six of the Brown family, four men and two women,
were ministers of Nottingham monthly meeting. A sub-
stantial stone house built b}r Messer Brown is now (1881)
standing about a mile southwest of the Brick Meeting-
house, and is occupied by the descendants of John Church^
man, one of whom intermarried with a descendant of Messer
Brown.

Andrew Job established the first tavern in Nottingham on
lot number 35, about 1710, in a small brick house which is
believed to be yet standing a few rods north of the house
formerly called the Blue Ball inn, of which it was doubtless
the forerunner. The Blue Ball tavern being at the junction
of the Lancaster County and Nottingham roads, which were-
the great thoroughfares between those places and New Cas-
tle a century ago, was well patronized, and for a long time .
was one of the most celebrated hotels in the county. The
Henry Reynolds who settled in Nottingham, is the reputed
founder of the village of Rising Sun, the original name of
which was Sumner Hill, by opening1 a public house near the
X Roads in the village. If tradition is to be relied upon,
John White, who purchased lot number 29 from Robert
Dutton about 1717, established at that time the X Keys
tavern, near the Brick Meeting-house, on the spot where his
grandson, Abner White, many years after erected the present
brick edifice.

Although but a part of Welsh Tract is in Cecil County, it
seems proper to give a short sketch of its early history,

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 161

because of its close proximity to our county and intimate
connection with and influence upon it. It was granted to a
colon}'; of Welsh Baptists in 1701. Talbot had disappeared
• some fifteen years before that time, and Penn was no doubt
quite as anxious to interpose a barrier on the east of New
Ireland by granting the Welsh their tract as he was to cut
Susquehanna Manor in two by his grant of Nottingham to
the Friends, which he did about three months afterwards.
The three agents who, for themselves and the company for
which they acted, obtained the grant of the Welsh Tract
from William Penn were at that time residents of Radnor
Township, then in Chester County, Pennsylvania., where for a
short time most of the original Welsh settlers on the Welsh
Tract lived. The agreement between Penn and the agents of
the Welsh stated that they were to have " thirty thousand
acres, if there be so much vacant in the place hereafter ex-
pressed. That is to say, behind the town of New Castle
westward, extending northward and southward ; beginning
to the westward, seven miles from the said town of New
Castle, and extending upward and downward, as there shall
be found room by regular, straight lines, as near as may be."
The purchasers were to pay £12 10s. for every hundred
acres, and were to pay for 7,000 acres at the expiration of
the two years next after the purchase, and for the remainder
of the tract at the end of the three following years ; and if
they failed to make the payments at the time specified, they
were to pay one English pound for every one hundred
acres as a yearly rent till such time as the other payments
were made. They were also to pay one English silver
shilling for every hundred acres as a yearly rent forever.
The/ northeast corner of the Welsh Tract is a few hundred
yards northeast of the depot of the Philadelphia, Wilmington
and Baltimore Railroad at Newark, Delaware, from which
the north line extended 1,446 perches, or about four and a
half miles, west to the northwest corner; from which the
western line ran due south upwards of a mile, and then by
a number of angles continued south, gradually bearing east,

162 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

to some distance south of the Chesapeake and Delaware
Canal. The southern and eastern boundaries were quite as
irregular as the western, the only straight line being the
northern one. The northwest corner of the tract was not
very far from the Big Elk Creek, and there is some evidence
in the land records of New Castle County of that period
that the land west of the upper part of the tract, and be-
tween it and Big Elk Creek, was granted by Perm's agents,
and for a time was considered as being part of New Castle
County. The northwest corner of the tract is mentioned in
the report of a commission which marked and bounded the
lands of Samuel Wilson, who was the proprietor of the cele-
brated place called Wild Cat Swamp in 1784, but owing to
the division of the lands then marked and bounded, and
the length of time since it was done, it is not easy to ascer-
tain the location of the said corner at this time. Wild Cat
Swamp has been known in modern times by the name of
"Cat Swamp." It is located a short distance west of where
the road from Elkton to Newark crosses Persimmon Run.
Some of the residents of that locality had rather an unenvi-
able reputation in former times, and at least two murders
were committed on or near it. Owing to the bad reputation
of the place it was hard to locate, and in time the name was
applied to a large section of country extending some miles
in every direction from the original Wild Cat Swamp.
This section of country now contains some of the best farms
and the most industrious, enterprising and moral people in
the county.

Certainly one-eighth, possibly one-fourth, of the original
Welsh Tract is now in Cecil County, a part of it being west
of the boundary line located by Mason and Dixon more
than half a century after it was granted by Perm to the
Welsh. The object of Penn in granting this tract to the
Welsh was the same he had in view when he granted Not-
tingham to the Friends, viz., to extend his domain as near
the navigable water of the Chesapeake Bay as he possibly
could, and at the same time to circumscribe the limits of

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 163

Maryland as defined in its charter, or rather to counteract
and destroy any right that Lord Baltimore might have
acquired by virtue of the erection and occupation of the
fort before spoken of, which Talbot had erected on the
Christiana Creek.

The Welsh found a few settlers on their tract when they
took possession of it. These persons claimed under titles
from Lord Baltimore, and the Welsh had some trouble in
dispossessing them. One of them had planted a peach or-
chard upon Iron Hill, and, as was very natural, he was loth
to leave his home. The Welsh threatened to put some of
these people in New Castle jail, and owing to causes hereto-
fore mentioned, Lord Baltimore was unable to aid them in
maintaining their rights, and the Welsh appear to have had
an easy victory.

Why the Welsh located where they did has long been a
mystery, for much of the land is too swampy now to be of
any use for any purpose, and it must have been much worse
a hundred and ten years ago. But probably the land in
Welsh tract was better than the land in Wales, and very
likely some inducements were offered the Welsh of which
we are ignorant.

Prominent among the original settlers upon the Welsh
Tract were the founders of the old Baptist Church upon Iron
Hill, which was founded one hundred and seventy-seven
years ago by residents of Pembroke and Carmarthenshire,
South Wales.

The original entry in the church record is as follows : " In
the year 1701 some of us who were members of the churches
of Jesus Christ in the counties of Pembroke and Carmar-
thenshire, South Wales, in Great Britain, professing believers
baptism, laying on of hands, election, and final perseverance
in grace, were moved and encouraged to come to these parts,
viz., Pennsylvania, and after obtaining leave of the church,
it seemed good to the Lord and to us, that we should be
formed into church order, as we were a sufficient number
and as one of us, Thomas Griffith, was a minister;" which

164 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

was accomplished, and they brought letters commendatory
with them, so that if they met with any others of like faith,
they might be received by them as brethren in Christ.

Among the names of this pioneer band of Baptists are
those of Thomas Griffith, Enoch Morgan, Mary Johns, Mar-
garet Matthias, and James David. In June, 1701, this little
band of Christians sailed from Milford Haven in the ship
James and Mary, and landed in Philadelphia the September
following. After their arrival the old church record states
they lived much scattered for about a year, but like good
Christians they were not forgetful of the apostolic injunc-
tion, but kept up their weekly and monthly meetings.
During this time their number was increased by the arrival
of twenty-two other members, among whom are the names
of Reese and Catharine Ryddarcks, Peter Chamberline, and
Thomas Jones, all of whom, except the first, have left de-
scendants who yet reside within the bounds of this ancient
congregation.

Reese Ryddarcks lies buried in the old church-yard be-
longing to the church on Iron Hill. Tradition saith he was
an officer and served in Cromwell's army during the trouble-
some times that preceded the trial and execution of Charles
I. -A modest and unassuming tombstone marks the last
resting-place of the hero of many battles, who sleeps his
last sleep on the northern slope of the Iron Hill, near which
the murmuring waters of the Christiana have sung his re-
quiem for more than a century and three quarters. He
seems to have been a man of distinction, for his tombstone
has on it a Latin inscription, the only Latin one in the
graveyard. It is as follows:

RICEUS RYTHROUGH

NATUS, APUD. FFANWENOG

IN. COMITATU CARDIGAN

ET HIC SEPULKUS FUIT

AN. DOM. 1707

yETATIS FUSE 87.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 165

of which the following is a translation: ''Reese Ryddarcks,
born at Han wen og, in the county of Cardigan, and was
buried in the year A. D. 1707, being 87 years of age."

This church was the third Baptist church founded in
America. The present meeting-house was built in 1747,
and is yet in a good state of preservation. It is said that
the floor and ceiling joists of this building were taken from
the first house, which was a log structure and. stood near
the site of the present house. The bricks used in the con-
struction of this old house were imported from England,
and transported from New Castle, where they were landed,
in panniers upon mules. The difficulty of obtaining bricks
probably caused the adoption of the peculiar style of archi-
tecture that prevailed at this time in this country. The
gables of this and some other old churches stop short of the
height of the apex of the roof, a small part of which is
pitched so as to throw the water falling upon it towards the
end instead of the side of the building. This peculiarity
gives the buildings a curious and unique appearance. Many
of the original settlers on the southern part of Welsh Tract
were Presbyterians, whose religious opinions and doctrine
differed but little, except in the ordinance of baptism, from
that of their countrymen who settled on the northern part
of it. These Presbyterians were the founders of the Penca-
der Presbyterian Church at Glasgow, which in organization
is probably nearly as old as the Baptist church at Iron Hill.

David Evans and William Davis, two of the persons who
acted as agents in procuring the grant of the Welsh Tract
from Penn, are believed to have been Presbyterians. At
what time they erected their first house of worship is not
knbwn. The Welsh did not remain long at Radnor, where
they first stopped, but some of them soon afterwards located
at Trediffrein, in the great valley of Chester County, about
the same time that others of them settled upon the Welsh
Tract.
• The Rev. David Evans was the first pastor of the Pen-

166 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

cader Presbyterian Church. He was a native of Wales, and
a son of the David Evans before referred to. He com-
menced preaching without license or authorit}^ but was
promptly stopped by the Presbytery of Philadelphia, in
whose jurisdiction the Pencader Church then was, which
ordered him to cease preaching for one year and devote
himself to study under the direction of one of the ministers
of that body. He obeyed their order and went to Yale Col-
lege, where he was graduated in 1713. He was licensed the
next }rear, and had charge of the united congregations of
Pencader and Trecliffrein until 1720. It seem,s strange, now
when churches are so near together, that two churches so
far apart should be in the charge of the same pastor. But
the pioneers of Presbyterianism were men that delighted in
missionary labor, and were prepared to make any sacrifice
or undergo any hardship in order to preach the gospel to
those who then resided in the wilderness. It is said of some
of them that they spent one-fourth of their time in work of
this kind. They were eminently devoted and pious men,
who, with a zeal and energy not unlike his who heralded
the coming of our Saviour in the wilderness of Judear
Avere ever ready to spend their strength in their Master's
service. To have offered them a vacation would have been
to have offered them an insult. They fully recognized the
fact that the warfare in which they were engaged would ad-
mit of no truce and would only end when their Captain
called them to go up higher ; hence it was not strange that
this Welsh preacher, who probably was the only Presby-
terian preacher in the colonies that spoke the Welsh lan-
guage, should have charge of two churches fifty miles apart,
and that he endured the hardships and labor incident to the
faithful performance of his duty. David Evans was a man
of much learning and ability, though eccentric and high-
spirited. He was the first stated clerk of the Presbytery of
New Castle, and was pastor of the Pencader and Tredifrrein
churches for about six years. His successor was the Rev.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 167

Thomas Evans, who was a native of Wales and a relative
of the first pastor. His pastorate extended over a period of
about twenty years, until his death, which occurred in 1742.
He was an excellent scholar and had an academy at Pen-
cader. Near the close of his pastorate the Pencader Church
was rent in twain by the controversy that grew out of the
preaching of Whitefield. This division in the church led
to the organization of the Presbyterian church at the Head
of Elk, now Elkton. The gospel was preached in the Welsh
language to the Pencader congregation till 1776. The same
language is said to have been used for nearly a quarter of
a century later in the Baptist church.

This brief sketch of Welsh Tract would be incomplete
without a short reference to Rev. Samuel Davies, who was
born there on November 3d, 1723. He received his classical
education under the tuition of Rev. Able Morgan, a Welsh
Baptist minister, who had received his education from Rev.
Thomas Evans, at the academy at Pencader. He was of
Welsh extraction, became President of Princeton College,
and was one of the most learned and eloquent divines of the
times in which he lived. He was the pioneer who planted
Presbyterianism in Virginia, and was sent, at the request
of the Synod of New York, to Europe to solicit contributions
in aid of Princeton College. He was a true patriot, and like
all the early Presbyterian divines, he was always found on
the side of civil and religious liberty.

Pencader, which name is now applied to one of the Hun-
dreds in New Castle County, is a Welsh name, and is said
to mean "the highest seat." If that is the meaning of the
word, it was probably applied to the Hundred because Iron
Hill, which is so high as to have been called by the early
Sweedish settlers "a great and 'high mountain" is in the north-
ern part of it.

Iron Hill is so called from the large quantities of iron ore
which it contains; and it is not improbable that the first
settlers were induced to locate on the Welsh Tract that thov

168 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

might be near this deposit of useful metal. They had a
furnace and forge in operation on the Christiana Creek, near
the mine, about 1725. Abundant evidence is yet extant to
show that their method of mining differed from that now
in vogue, in this, that they sunk a shaft till they struck a
vein of the ore, and then followed it for long distances, many
feet under the earth's surface.

A few years ago the miners employed in the ore pit on
Iron Hill, came upon one of the galleries made by the
Welsh miners, and discovered a rude shovel and pick and
a small tallow candle, the wick of which was made of
flaxen yarn. The candle, though probably a century old,
was in a good state of preservation, but the shovel and pick
were so badly rusted that the former could be readily picked
to pieces with the thumb and finger.

CHAPTER XII.

Characteristics of the early settlers — Augustine Hermen succeeded by his
son Casparus — Account of Casparus Hennen—Farms on Bohemia Manor
— Death of Casparus Hermen— Succeeded by his son Ephraim Augustine
— Sketch of Ephriam Augustine Hermen — His wives and children — John
Lawson marries Mary Hermen — Peter Bouchell marries Catharine Her-
men— Peter Lawson — Catharine I Hermen) Bouchell — Her death — Joseph
Ensor — Quarrel about the possession of Bohemia Manor — Joseph Elisor,
Jr. — Division. of Bohemia Manor — Death of Peter Lawson.

It is worthy of note that, although several of the centres
of civilization in Cecil County were settled two centuries
ago, the manners, customs and religion of the original set-
tlers have been transmitted from generation to generation
of their descendants ; and although not as distinctly marked
now as they were at first, still they are yet easily distin-
guished and readily noticed by the close observer.

Augustine Hermen and George Talbot differed in many
respects from each other, but they were not more different
than those who now live upon their respective manors. The
Bohemian and the Hollander; the Irish Catholic; the En-
glish Episcopalian; the Scotch-Irish Presbyterian; and the
meek and unassuming Quaker, have each left the well-de-
fined impression of their nationality and religion upon that
part of the county where they settled. With few exceptions,
wherever a church was planted by the early settlers, one of
the same denomination yet exists. The old Catholic Church
in Sassafras Neck, which is called Bohemia, though it is
some miles south of Bohemia River, the Episcopal churches
of St. Stephen and St. Mary Ann, and the Nottingham
and Rock Presbyterian churches, are notable examples
in proof of the truth of this assertion. The early extinction

170 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

of the Labadists is an exception ; but they were more mer-
cenary than religious, and their community, like most sys-
tems of religion which have been founded upon a false basis,
having had nothing but the cupidity of its devotees to hold
it together, soon disintegrated and iell to pieces. It is also
worthy of note that many of the leading families of the
county at the present time can trace their connection back
to the leading families of two hundred years ago. This is
especially the case with the descendants of Hermen, many
of whom have occupied positions of honor and responsi-
bility.

It would be neither interesting nor profitable to give the
exact date of the smaller grants of land in the county. It
suffices to state that with the exception of a few tracts along
the Sassafras River and the Elk Neck, which were taken up
about the time that Augustine Hermen settled upon Bohe-
mia Manor, the other portions of the county were not exten-
sively settled until after the beginning of the seventeenth
century. Probably nearly all of the land in the county had
been patented previous to 1750, though much of it still re-
mained uncultivated.

The reader's attention is now directed to the conclusion
of the history of Bohemia Manor. The time of the death
of Augustine Hermen, as before stated, is unknown, but it
probably occurred in 1686. His oldest son, Ephraim George,
survived him only a short time, when the vast estate which
his father had been at such pains to acquire passed into the
possession of his second son Casparus, who, in accordance
with the will of his father, assumed the name of Augustine.
He took possession of the Manor house on the 3d day of
June, 1690, but did not long enjoy the honor of being Lord
of Bohemia Manor. A law enacted in 1697 by the colonial
legislature, empowering his widow Catharine to dispose of
some of his real estate, shows that he died about that time.
It is probable that there was some contention about the
occupation of the Manor house, for there may be seen among

HISTOEY OF CECIL COUNTY. 171

the papers in the Hermen portfolio in possession of the
Historical Society of Maryland, a sheet of paper with this
certificate upon it :

" Possession of the Manor house of Bohemia Manor de-
livered by Daniel O'Howry, the tenant in possession, to
Casparus Hermen, the lawful and undoubted heir of Augus-
tine Hermen, lately deceased, before us, this third day of
June, 1690.

" William Dare,
" Edward Jones,
" John Thompson."

Immediately after this is the following entry on the same
sheet :

" Quiet possession of the Manor house of Bohemia Manor
accepted and received, this 3rd day of June, 1690.

" Casparus Augustine Hermen.

" In presence of us — Wm. Dare, Edward Jones, John
Thompson, clerk to the Commissioners of Cecil county."

The two first-named gentlemen were no doubt justices of
the quorum, who with the clerk had been authorized to
invest the new lord of the manor with the rights and fran-
chises belonging to him. He represented this county in the
legislature in 1694, and in the same year entered into a con-
tract with the General Assembly for the erection of the parish
church, school-house and State-house at Annapolis ; the
seat of government having been removed from St. Mary's to
that place a short time before. He was thrice married ;
first to Susannah Huyberts, secondly in New York, August
23d, 1682, to Anna Reyniers, and thirdly in Cecil County,
August 31st, 1696, to Catharine Williams. He left three
daughters, Susanna, Augustina, and Catharine, and one son,

172 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

Ephraim Augustine, to whom the manor descended by the
terms of the deed of enfeoffment given to Ephraim George
by his father shortly before his death, and which has been
referred to before ; and also by virtue of his grandfather's
.will, which entailed the Manor upon his descendants.

The land records of the county warrant us in believing
that, at the time of Casparus' death, the Manor was but
very sparsely settled, for up to 1733 seventy-five plantations
had been sold or leased by the Hermens, most of which
were disposed of by Ephraim Augustine, the grandson of
the founder of the Manor. A few of these plantations were
in Elk Neck and elsewhere, for Casparus was not exempt
from the mania for the acquisition of land that almost
.always attacked the leading men of that time, and had ac-
quired a thousand acres — part of St. John's Manor, which
was located in the above named place, and another large
tract between the Conowingo and Octoraro creeks, in the
Eighth district. This tract was called the " Levies." It con-
tained upwards of a thousand acres and included the farm
of William Preston, which for that reason he calls "Her-
.mendale." The legal papers of this period contain many
allusions to hawking and hunting, fishing and fowling,
wild cattle, etc. And the considerations in many of them
refer to the customs of manors in England. These leases
were made for three lives or during the lives of three per-
sons then living, and the tenants were to demean them-
selves according to the manners and customs of tenants of
manors in old England.

In 1715 one of these farms on the Manor was leased for
£1 15,s. current money of Maryland, or value thereof in
good, sound, bright tobacco, winter wheat, barley or Indian
corn, at the current merchant price in Maryland. The rent
was generally made payable at the Manor house in the
month of November. In many cases a good fat capon or
two dung-hill fowls were exacted of the tenant as part of
the annual rent. One of the most curious and suggestive

HISTORY. OF CECIL COUNTY. 173

considerations mentioned in these leases, is that in the lease
for the tract on which Port Hermen stands. It was executed
in 1713, and the consideration was one ear of Indian corn,
payable annually, if demanded in the month of November,
and the further consideration that the lessee was to "keep1
two hunting hounds, that were to be part of the cry of
hounds that the lord of the manor then kept." This was a
low rent for 160 acres of land, but probably the tenant was
expected to devote some of his time to the entertainment of
his lordship, and it might have cost him more in time and
trouble than at first sight is apparent.

Casparus Hermen died in 1^97, and, as before stated, was
succeeded by his son Ephraim Augustine, who was a minor
at the time of his father's death, and who arrived at matu-
rity about the year 1713. He seems to have been a man of
business, and represented the county in the legislature in
1715, 1716, 1728 and 1731. He died in 1735. His personal
property was appraised at £875, and consisted of a large
amount of household goods and eighteen negro slaves. His
manor plantation, consisting of 350 acres of land, is repre-
sented as being in a very bad condition. The house and
out-buildings were in a dilapidated condition, the fences
were down, and judging from the return of the appraisers,
which is recorded among the land records of the county, it
must have presented a forlorn and doleful appearance.
The land was divided into four fields, and there was on it
an orchard of about 450 old apple trees. The rental value
placed upon it was only £10, Maryland currency, after the
quit rent was paid. The disparity between the value of
the personal and real estate is very notable, and it is more
than likely that the proprietor of the Manor had neglected
his estate while attending to the public business, and sacri-
ficed his individual interest to the public good. The miser-
able condition of his plantation was probably owing to the
existence of slavery and the baneful effect which invariably
followed its introduction. He was twice married and left

174 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

two daughters, Mary and Catharine, by his first wife. The
name of his first wife, and also the family name of his
second wife, are unknown^ The given name of his second
wife was Araminta. The records of the county show that
she was married at least four times ; first to Hermen,
secondly to Joseph Young, thirdly to William Alexander,
and fourthly to George Catto. She is said to have been very
aristocratic and haughty. She lived to a good old age and
was buried in the lot a short distance southeast of the
dwelling-house, near Elkton, now occupied by Daniel Brat-
ton. By his second wife he had one son, who survived his
father, but died before reaching maturity.

A paper in the possession of the Maryland Historical
Society, but which has no date upon it, shows that E. A.
Hermen sought to obtain the king's dissent to the act of the
legislature of the colony confirming his grandfather's will.
This will, to which reference has been made before, was
properly proved and recorded, but some malicious person
tore out the leaves of the book upon which it was written.
A copy of the will being afterwards produced, it was legal-
ized by an act of the colonial legislature and admitted to
record. Ephraim's object probably was to acquire a fee
simple title to the Manor, as he did to Little Bohemia, as
Middle Neck was then called, in 1724, by an act of the
legislature passed at his solicitation, and which broke the
entail of that part of his grandfather's estate. There is
reason to think that his motive was a mercenary one, but it
probably would have saved his family much trouble had he
succeeded in accomplishing his purpose, as the history of
the disputed succession to the Manor will show. Mary,- or
Mary Augustine Hermen, as she is sometimes called, because
she assumed the Christian name of her great-grandfather,
was of very weak mind ; indeed, if tradition is true, she was
almost, if not altogether, an idiot. Now it so happened that
a cunning and designing lawyer, one John Lawson, made
the acquaintance of this idiotic girl and fell in love, not

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 175

with her, but with her fortune, and resolved to marry her
that he might obtain it. In order to accomplish his pur-
pose he sought every opportunity to be thrown in contact
with the young lady, and was in the habit of taking her
carriage-riding with him for long distances. Nor was this
all, for upon these occasions, in order to secure the success
of his well-laid scheme, he taught her to repeat, much like
a parrot would have done, the proper answers to such ques-
tions as he believed a jury would ask her when empaneled
to ascertain whether or not she was compos mentis. It is
highly probable, indeed it is almost certain, that during
this time she was under the care of her stepmother, Mrs.
Alexander, who probably was not cognizant of Lawson's
nefarious scheme to entrap her, and who, if she was, may
have been gratified with the prospect of being relieved of
the responsibility of taking care of her. Owing to the
strenuous and persistent efforts of the designing Lawson,
the young lady was so well instructed when the proper time
arrived, which was probably when she reached maturity
and was about to take possession of her share of the Manor,
that she answered the questions propounded by the jury so
intelligently that they pronounced her to be of sound mind,
and she was legally invested with one-half of the rents and
profits of the Manor. Lawson soon afterward sought anoth er
opportunity to take her out carriage-riding. During this
ride he and the heiress were married, and the deep-laid
scheme that put him in possession of one-half of the princely
domain that Augustine Hermen obtained in order to per-
petuate his name was successfully accomplished. This hap-
pened some time previous to the year 1751, for the records
of fihe county show that in that year Peter Augustine
Bouchell, who was of an ancient family that came to the
Manor while the Labadists were in the heyday of their
power and prosperity, and who had married Catharine
Hermen, the sister of the simple-minded woman, and John
Augustine Lawson, jointly leased several plantations on the
Manor.

176 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

These two persons, the reader will observe, both assumed
the name of " Augustine," in accordance with the will of
their wives' great-grandfather. Young Hermen, the half-
brother of these ladies, being dead, they were, or were sup-
posed to be, the sole and rightful heirs of the Manor, which
then was divided into upwards of fifty plantations, most of
which had been leased by former proprietors for long terms
of years, for what now would be considered very low rents.
These rents were generally made payable at the Manor
house, semi-annually, at Christmas and Whitsuntide. All,
or a large number of them, were payable in grain or tobacco,
and frequently a pair of good fat capons or dung-hill fowls
were added as part of the rent, so that the table of the lord
of the Manor might be well supplied with poultry.

The widow of Ephraim A. Hermen (then Mrs. Catto) was
living at this time and was in the enjoyment of her share
of the income derived from the Manor. During the life of
Catharine, her husband, Peter Bouchell, (as appears from a
bill filed in the court of chanceiy, by Joseph Ensor, in 1760,
a copy of which is in possession of the Maryland Historical
Society), received the rents from the lessees of the Manor
plantations, and kept the accounts incident to the business
transactions between himself and the other heirs, whose
agent he seems to have been, and the tenants.

John Lawson and Peter Bouchell and their wives were in
the enjoyment of the Manor as joint tenants for several
years, and no doubt had a fine, time; but the designing
Lawson was at length brought face to face with an enemy,
in combating whom his legal knowledge and cunning
availed him nothing. He seems to have done the best he
could to secure the property he so meanly acquired to his
brother Peter Lawson. This Peter Lawson had received a
power of attorney from his brother John and wife in 1751,
which empowered him to transact all business appertaining
to their share of the Manor, and it is probable that he con-
tinued to be their attornev until the time of his brother's

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 177

death. John Lawson's will is dated September 3d, 1755.
It was admitted to probate on the 13th of the following
October. He devised all his property, real and personal, to
his brother Peter, and the records of the Orphan's Court show
show that his wife gave notice on the day his will was proved,
that she would not abide by it, and that she demanded
her third of the property, agreeable with the act of Assembly,
from which it is inferred that her husband had presumed
to dispose of her share of the Manor in his will. On the 4th
of December, 1755, this simple-minded Mary Lawson leased
her share of the Manor to the aforesaid Peter Lawson* " for
21 years, or during the lives of Judith Bassett and Michael
and Richard Bassett, her sons." This is the first reference
in the records of the county to Richard Bassett, who became
a distinguished lawyer, and was a member of the conven-
tion that framed the Constitution of the United States ; after-
wards a member of Congress and Governor of the State of
Delaware. He was also a warm friend of Francis Asbury,
and a leading and influential member of the Methodist
church.

On the day following the date of this lease, the widow of
John Lawson gave her brother-in-law, Peter Lawson, a spe-
cial power of attorney to act for her in all business matters
pertaining to the management of her share of the Manor.
In this instrument she convenanted not to interfere with
him in the management of her estate; from which it seems
plain that she had unlimited confidence in him, or that she
was certainly the simple-minded mortal that tradition states
her to have been. At all events, Peter Lawson seems to have
been as securely invested with one undivided half of the

* Peter Lawson was never married ; about fifty years previous to 1787
he went to live with the Bassetts, who were his relatives and who kept
a tavern at Bohemia Ferry, and continued to reside with them for many
years, until the time of Mrs. Bassett' s death. For some reason Mr. Bas-
sett deserted his wife, and Lawson seems to have acted as clerk in the
tavern. See Cecil Co., Land Kecords, book 17, page 273.

178 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

Manor as circumstances permitted him to be. He is de-
scribed as " inn-holder " in the lease from Mary Lawson,
which indicates that lie had succeeded the Bassetts as pro-
prietor of the tavern at Bohemia Ferry, which still continued
to be a place of much importance. A short time after this,
in 1760, Peter Bayard, who was probably inspector of tobac-
co, refused to repair the inspection house at the ferry, that
place being one of the places designated for the inspection
of that staple, which was then cultivated to a considerable
extent upon the Manor and in that part of the county south
of the Bohemia River.

Catharine Hermen, the reader will recollect, married Peter
Bouchell. She died about the year 1752, leaving two daugh-
ters, Mary and Ann. Mary married Joseph Ensor in 1757 ;
and Ann, being quite young, was raised by her grand-
mother, Mary Holland. This is so stated in a bill filed in
chancery to compel Joseph Ensor (who had been appointed
her guardian in 1757) to pay her her share of the rents. This
Mary Holland must have been the mother of Peter Bou-
chell, who had married a gentleman by the name of Hol-
land.

Joseph Ensor was a member of the Ensor family who set-
tled in Baltimore County very early in the history of the col-
ony. At this time he was called Joseph Ensor, merchant, of
Baltimore County. The family at one time owned a large tract
of land just east of Jones' Falls, upon which part of the city
of Baltimore. has been built. Joseph Ensor is believed to
have resided in North Elk Parish in 1760, for the birth of
his eldest son, Augustine Hermen Ensor, may yet be seen
upon the register of that parish, and was recorded in that
year. In 1760 " he and his wife and Ann Bouchell, an in-
fant by the said Joseph Ensor, her next friend," instituted a
suit in chancery against Peter Lawson and Mary Lawson,
alleging that they and John Lawson, for a long time had
collected the rents of the Manor, as had also Peter Bouchell,
and that Peter Bouchell had kept a book of memorandums

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 179

of the rents received from the said Manor and leased lands,
and "which rents amounted to the sum of £1,000 or some
other large sum of money, besides a very great number of
dung-hill fowls received as rent on the said leases," and that
the said Mary Lawson had actually felled, cut down, and
carried away, off and from the Manor plantation sundry
and great quantities of wood and timber, insomuch that
there is not left on that plantation any quantity of timber
to support the same, nor fire-wood sufficient therefor for any
number of years, etc.; praying that they might be compelled
to make discovery of the book kept by Bouchell and of the
rents since received, and be enjoined to desist from the
waste of the timber, etc.; to which the defendant replied at
the April term of court, 1761, that on the death of Ephraim,
their half brother, Catharine and Mary had possession of
the said Manor, claiming and taking the same in right and
quality of joint tenants in tail in remainder, according to
express words and stipulations of Augustine Hermen's will ;
that the two sisters continued to hold the Manor till the
death of Catharine, when her husband Peter Bouchell, took,
his wife's part as tenant by courtesy, and continued to re-
ceive one half the rent during his life, and that no parti-
tion of the Manor had ever been made ; that the joint ten-
ancy continued to exist till the time of the death of Catha-
rine, and that Mary was entitled to hold by right of sur-
vivorship, and that they were not obliged to make any dis-
covery, etc. In other words, that Mary Lawson was the
heir of her sister, Catharine Bouchell's part of the Manor.
As for the rents, arrearages and profits, the dung-hill
fowls, etc., and the book of memorandums, they, the said
defendants, demurred thereto, alleging that, inasmuch as
the plaintiffs had no title to the Manor they were not re-
sponsible lor those things, and furthermore that the plain-
tiffs had instituted three several suits at common law for
the recovery of the rents, etc. The demurrer was not sus-
tained, and the cause remained in court till the September
term, 1763, when it was stricken off the docket.

180 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

In 1762 Ensor and wife suffered a recovery of all the
Manor, the effect of which was to break the entail and give
them a fee-simple title to the half of the Manor claimed by
Mrs. Ensor under the will of her great-great-grandfather.
Mrs. Lawson, who was no doubt instigated by her brother-
in-law, Peter Lawson, some time afterwards, probably in
1765, resorted to the same legal proceeding, with a like re-
sult as to her share of the Manor. It is worthy of remark
that Samuel Paca, one of the signers of the Declaration of In-
dependence, once resorted to this legal fiction or process in
order to effect a recovery, and b)r that means became in-
vested with a fee-simple in that part of the Manor known
as Town Point. Mary Lawson had resorted to the same
proceeding in 1760, but Ensor resisted her in the provin-
cial court, where the proceedings were had, and the
court, after a full hearing of the witnesses on both sides,
was unanimously of the opinion that she was not capa-
ble of " suffering a recovery, by reason of her insanity
of mind." However, in 1766 she gave Michael and Richard
Bassett a deed for a thousand acres of land each for the
small consideration of " five shillings, and on account of the
love and natural affection she bore toward the said Michael
and Richard Bassett, the sons of her loving cousin, Judith
Bassett." This fact indicates that Judith Bassett was a descen-
dant of Judith Hermen, the second daughter of the founder
of the Manor. On the 9th of December, 1766, she executed
a deed in favor of Peter Lawson for her undivided half of
the Manor, excepting the 2,000 acres which she had con-
veyed to her cousins the Bassetts. The consideration named
in this deed is five shillings and an annuity of £100 Maryland
currency. One of the witnesses to this deed was George Catto,
her stepmother's husband. This deed effectually accom-
plished what John Lawson's will had failed to do, and per-
fected that which the Lawsons had vainly tried for many
years to accomplish, namely, the acquisition of Mary Law-
son's share of Bohemia Manor.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 181

The before-mentioned recoveries were made without any
reference to the deed of enfeoffment given to Ephraim George
Hermen, by the founder of the Manor, on the 9th of August,
1684 ; indeed it is stated in a legal opinion by Thomas
Johnson, Jr., a distinguished lawyer of that day, which may
be seen among the Hermen papers now in the possession of
the Historical Society, that the said deed was not known to
be in existence when the aforesaid transactions took place.
The discovery of this deed put a new phase upon the mat-
ter; and Ensor, following the advice of Daniel Delaney,
another eminent counselor, who was of the opinion that the
descendants of Casparus Hermen's daughters were legally
entitled to the Manor by virtue of the provision of this deed
of enfeoffment, set to work to hunt them up and purchase
their rights.

This view of the case makes it necessary to refer to the
daughters of Casparus Hermen, who the reader will recol-
lect was the grandfather of Ann Bouchell and Mary Law-
son. This gentleman, as before stated, left three daughters,
Susanna, Augustina and Catharine. The first named mar-
ried James Creagear, the second Roger Larramore, the third
Abel Van Burkelow. Each of them was dead at this time,
but two of them had left heirs. The heirs of Susanna Gra:
venrod* lived in New Castle, those of Catharine Van Burke-
low in Virginia. But Joseph Ensor seems to have been a
man of determination and he sought them out, and in
order to make his claim to the Manor doubly sure, he pur-
chased any right they had or were supposed to have in it.
It is curious to observe the old English custom that still
prevailed when these purchases were consummated. A
large number of these heirs constituted Samuel Beedle,
(Biddle) their attorney, to invest Ensor with possession of

* The genealogy of the Gravenrods has not been ascertained, but they
were evidently the descendants of one of the daughters of Casparus Her-
men.

182 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

the Manor. And it is shown by papers in the possession of
the Maryland Historical Society, that " Samuel Beedle
attorney for Catharine Gravenrod, having taken possession
and livery of all Bohemia Manor, or of some part thereof
in the name of the whole, for Catharine Gravenrod, did
deliver the same to Joseph Elisor, on the 27th day of Feb-
ruary, 1767."

The Van Burkelows have been mentioned before, and it
may be interesting to our readers to know that they were
the descendants of Herman Van Burkelow, who lived with
the Labadists in 1683, at which time he was twenty-one years of
age. He was probably one of the original colony. The name
has been applied to a small stream on the Manor now called
Burkalow Creek. After Ensor purchased the rights of the
heirs of Casparus Hermen, he, as was very natural, wished
to get possession of all his lands. To this end he consulted
his attorn ey, Daniel Delaney, and made the following state-
ment : " Col. Peter Bayard and Dr. Bouchell were guardians
to my wife and Ann Bouchell, her sister. After their father's
decease, they kept the Manor plantation one year, and then
divided it with Mrs. Lawson and Mrs. Catto, who had her
dower in it." " Catto rented his wife's part to Lawson and
kept it till Mrs. Catto's death, and now refuses to give up
the half of her part to me, and has, ever since he had her
part, stopped up the road to the Manor house. I want to
know how I shall get possession of that part that falls to us
at Mrs. Catto's death and get the road opened," etc.

This was in 1766, and it seems to indicate that Mrs.
Catto was dead at the time. Delaney recommended a re-
sort to legal proceedings, in the prosecution of which Ensor
was probably successful. In 1768 Joseph Ensor seems, after
long continued litigation and much expense, to have been
in the undisturbed possession of one undivided half of the
Manor, for in that year he mortgaged it and some other
land in Baltimore County, a part of which was called by the
curious name of "Seed Ticks Plenty," to Charles Carroll, of

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 18i

Carrollton, for the sum of £3,191. In 1774 he became
afflicted with the mania that often prevailed in the early
history of the county of building a town at Court House
Point. But the land was heavily mortgaged, and no person
would invest in town lots so encumbered. Ensor accord-
ingly induced Carroll to release twenty-five acres at the
aforesaid point for this purpose, and gave him his bond con-
ditioned for the execution of a mortgage on the ground
rents of the town lots, which were to be leased for ninety-
nine years, renewable forever for a yearly rent of not less
than forty shillings per acre.

This brings us to the troublesome time of the Revolution,
when the people of this country were no doubt thinking
more about defending the towns they already had than they
were of building others, and Ensor met with no better suc-
cess than his predecessors. Joseph Ensor and wife were the
parents of at least three children, the oldest of whom bore the
Christian name of Augustine Hermen,and was accidentally
killed, while celebrating his twenty-first birthday, by being
thrown from his horse while fox hunting, on January 28th,
1781. His other son, whose name was Joseph, was an idiot,
with probabty still less sense than his grand-aunt, Mary
Hermen. He is said, by old residents of the Manor, whose
parents were well acquainted with him, to have been very
fond of dogs, and to have always been accompanied by
several of them. He had a habit peculiar to man}*- simple-
minded persons of wandering about in an almost nude con-
dition, without any definite object in view, and frequently
slept in fodder houses, which were rude structures much in
vogue in those days, built of poles and covered with corn
fodder. Frequently in the mornings, after spending a
night in one of these houses, he would awake, and finding
the dogs had left him, in search of food, he would call them
in stentorian tones and a curious nasal twang that could be
heard for a long distance. Simple though he was, he knew
that he was lord of the Manor, or at least the heir of one-

184 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

fourth of it, and it is said be would often draw a circle
round him on the ground with his cane, and defy any per-
son who disputed his right to the title to cross it. Joseph
Elisor's other child, Mary, married Colonel Edward Oldham,
who was an officer of great bravery and much distinction,
and who served in the Continental army under General
Greene, in the campaign in the Carolinas.

The time of Elisor's death is uncertain, but it occurred
about the close of the Revolutionary war. He lived on the
Manor for some years previous to his death, and was prob-
ably buried there. Peter Lawson is believed to have oc-
cupied the Manor house near Bohemia Ferry, as before
stated, at the time of his death. In 1791 he sold one un-
divided third part of his share of the Manor to Richard
Bassett and Dr. Joshua Clayton for £2,300. He had
previously sold to Bassett a plantation on the Manor, con-
taining 450 acres, for the small sum of twenty shillings. A slip
of paper to be seen among the Hermen papers, in possession
of the Maryland Historical Society, contains several mem-
orandums, among which it is stated that he was at that
time "deranged in his understandings," which is not
strange, considering that the greater part of his life seems
to have been spent in litigation.

Richard Bassett, the reader will recollect, had received a
gift of one thousand acres of the Manor i'rom Mary Law-
son, which in addition to the portions purchased from
Lawson, probably was equivalent in extent to the share of
Mary Lawson.

About the close of the Revolutionary war Charles Car-
roll instituted legal proceedings to foreclose his mortgage
upon Joseph Elisor's share of the Manor. But the Manor
had never been divided, and Elisor, who was then dead, had
during his lifetime continually resisted a partition of it.
Part of it being in Delaware, it is easy to comprehend the
difficulty of foreclosing a mortgage under such circumstances,
but the legal talent of that day was equal to the emergency,
and accordingly, in 1780, the legislature of Maryland passed

HISTORY Or CECIL COUNTY. 185

an act empowering the Court of Chancery to appoint two
commissioners to act in conjunction with two others to be
appointed by the Court of Chancery of Delaware (the legis-
lature of which State passed a like act in 1790) to divide
the Manor between Peter Lawson, Charles Carroll, Joseph
Ensor, Esq., his guardian, and Edward Oldham, and Mary,
his wife, whose approbation and consent to this method of
settling the dispute had been obtained. Stephen Hyland
and Tobias Rudolph were appointed by the court of Mary-
land and Isaac Grantham and Robert Armstrong by the
court of Delaware. These gentlemen caused the Manor to
be accurately surveyed, and found that it contained about
20,000 acres. They divided it into four parts, two of which
they assigned to Peter Lawson. One-fourth part they gave
to Charles Carroll, and the other to Joseph Ensor and Ed-
ward and Mary Oldham, to be held by them in severalty,
except the share of the Oldhams. These proceedings were
ratified and confirmed by the courts of the respective States,
and the litigation that had lasted for more than half a cen-
tury was ended, as was also the legal existence of Bohemia
Manor, that had continued for a period of one hundred and
twenty-eight years. Charles Carroll sold his share in 1793,
for £9,827 10s., to Joshua Clayton, Richard Bassett and Ed-
ward Oldham, who were then in possession. It contained
3,931 acres, and was bounded on the north by Back Creek
and embraced a portion or all of that part of the Manor that
was in Delaware.

James A. Bayard afterwards married the only daughter
of Richard Bassett, and in this way came into possession of
that part of the Manor that his descendants still own.

Peter Lawson's will was proved in 1792. He claimed one-
half of the Manor and devised the bulk of his estate to Rich-
ard Bassett, who was the executor of his will, and directed
that he should "support and maintain Mrs. Mary A. Lawson
with everything that is necessary during her natural life, or
pay her or the person who may take and provide for her as
above, the sum of £100 annuallv in gold or silver."

CHAPTER XIII.

The Van Bibbers — They settle on Bohemia Manor — Their mill — John
Jawert marries Casparus Hermen's widow — Keeps Elk Ferry — "SYild
stock — Rangers — Collection of the King's revenue — "Wild animals —
Trade with England — Bill of lading — Slave trade — The Jesuit mission
at Bohemia — The Cross Paths — James Heath, the founder of "Warwick —
Bohemia a port of entry — Ancient cross — Father Mansell — Peter Atwood
and other Jesuits — The Jesuit school — Efforts to suppress the Jesuit
mission — Labors of the Jesuit Fathers.

Prominent among the early settlers of Bohemia Manor
were two brothers, Isaac and Matthias Van Bibber. Their
father, Jacob Isaacs Van Bibber, was a Hollander, and was
one of the first settlers of Germantown. His sons, the two
brothers before mentioned, were -natives of Plolland, and
were naturalized in Maryland in 1702. Previous to coming
to Maryland they had been engaged in merchandizing at
Philadelphia. In 1702 Mathias Van Bibber bought part of
John Moll, Jr.'s land, which the reader will recollect was the
easternmost of the four necks which comprised the Labadie
Tract. Two years afterwards he bought another portion of
the same tract, and in 1708 his brother Isaac bought 130
acres of it, which he and his wife Fronica sold to Matthias,
in 1711, for £150, which, it is stated in the deed, had been
expended in the erection of a mill then occupied by the said
Isaac. This mill was located upon a branch of the Bohemia,
called Mill Creek, on the site of what was formerly known
as Sluyter's mill, every vestige of which has long since dis-
appeared, even the land once covered by the dam now being
cultivated. This is the first mill mentioned in the history
of that part of the county. It was built a short time before
the date of the deed.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 187

Matthias Van Bibber appears to have been fond of the
acquisition of land, for in 1714 he purchased St. Augustine
Manor of Ephraim Augustine Herrneh for £300. This Manor
was directly east of Bohemia Manor and was separated from it
by an old cart-road, which was known then and for many years
afterwards as the " Old Choptank Road." It was originally
an Indian path that led from the Choptank River along
the dividing ridge between the two bays, probably far up
into Pennsylvania, but was laid out and cleared from the
head of St. George's Creek to the Chester River, twelve feet
wide, for a cart-road, in 1682, by Casparus Hermen and
Hugh McGregory, who were appointed for the purpose by
the court. The road had been used so little that it was
then overgrown with young timber and its location was
doubtful, consequently the boundaries of the Manor were
unknown. Van Bibber claimed that the road from the
head of Elk to the head of Bohemia, which ran near the
head of Back Creek, was the boundary between the two
Manors. Whereupon Hermen obtained a commission from
the court to ascertain the eastern boundary of Bohemia
Manor, and in this way to settle the dispute. The commis-
sioners, who were John Dowdall, Captain Benjamin Pearce,
Francis Mauldin and William Dare, met in September, 1721,
and after taking the testimony of several witnesses, fixed
the location of the Choptank Road, and thus ended the dis-
pute. The alienation fee claimed by the Proprietary of
Maryland was paid when the sale of St. Augustine Manor
was consummated, showing that it was then claimed as part
of Maryland. Matthias Van Bibber also became the proprie-
tor of Van Bibber's Forest, which was patented to him in 1720.
TKis was a large tract of land in the Third district, near
Mechanics' Valley, containing 850 acres. In addition to
this he owned another tract, which is described in his will
as his plantation at the head of Elk. It was located a short
distance southeast of the mansion of Hon. J. A. J. Creswell.
Matthias Van Bibber was for a long time chief justice ol the

188 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

county and occupied that responsible position when the
court-house was built at Court House Point.

Isaac Van Bibber's will was proved in 1723. He left
three sons, Jacob, Peter and Isaac, and three daughters,
Hester, Christiana and Veronica. Matthias Van Bibber's
will was proved in 1739. Pie left four sons, Jacob, Adam,
Matthias and Henry, and four daughters, Sarah, Rebecca,
Christiana and Hester. He bequeathed his land at Head of
Elk to his son Jacob ; his dwelling plantation, which was
part of the Labadie Tract, to his son Adam ; Clifton, in
Middle Neck, he devised to his sons Matthias and Henry,
and his part of St. Augustine Manor to his daughters, Sarah
and Rebecca.

Henry Van Bibber, brother of Isaac and Matthias, came
to Cecil County about 1720. His will, which was written in
Utrecht, is to be found among the records of the Orphans'
•Court, and being a literal translation from the original Dutch
is probably the most curious document in the archives of
the county.

These members of the Van Bibber family wTere contem-
poraries of the grandson of Augustine Hermen, and proba-
bly occupied a more conspicuous place in this part of the
history of the county than any other family then residing
in it. The descendants of these Van Bibbers intermarried
with the Petersons and acted a conspicuous part in the his-
tory of St. Augustine Manor. They continued to hold some
of the land there as late as 1840, when Henry Van Bibber,
of Virginia, sold it to Robert Cochran, father of J. P. Coch-
ran, late governor of Delaware, who yet owns it.

Dr.W. C.Van Bibber, of Baltimore, and his brother, Thomas
E. Van Bibber, the distinguished author of the "Flight into
Egypt," are descendants of the Van Bibbers of Bohemia
Manor, many members of which were noted for their pat-
riotism in the Revolutionary war. Their grandfather, Isaac
Van Bibber, was commercial agent of the colonial govern-
ment in the West Indies at that time. He was a son of one

HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY. 189

of the three Van Bibbers who have been referred to as
being among the early settlers on the Manor.

John Jawert, who was surveyor of the county in 1707.,
married the widow of Casparus Hermen. He is believed to
have lived at Germantown before he came to Bohemia
Manor. He was one of the justices of the quorum, that is to
say, he was one of the number of justices specially commis-
sioned to hold courts, which at that early day appear to
have been somewhat like the ancient English courts leet.
These justices were frequently called commissioners. In
1714 Jawert and his wife relinquished their right to the
Manor brick house, which they occupied in common at that
time with Ephraim Augustine Hermen, the son of Casparusr
in consideration of which he was to build them a house
"five and thirty feet long and 20 feet wide, with two chim-
neys and two windows." The houso was to be plastered,,
and in addition to it they were to have the use of one hun-
dred and fifty acres of land. The Manor brick house re-
ferred to is the old brick house which was built by the foun-
der of the Manor, on the bank of the Bohemia River, and
which, with its contents, including many valuable paintings,,
were afterwards destroyed by fire.

Jawert's will was proved in 1726. No real estate is men-
tioned in it, and he is believed to have left no children. He
was keeper of Elk Ferry, between Elk Neck and Court House
Point, in 1720, and was accused of leaving it to the manage-
ment of negro slaves, who neglected it. The citizens of the
county, after much trouble, had him removed, and Herman
Kinkey, who kept a tavern and had a plantation on the Elk
Neck side of the river, was appointed in his place. In 1713,.
Jawert purchased a large tract of land from his stepson
Herman, called Town Point Neck or " Jawert's Delight," for
£33. This land was adjoining the tract upon which Port
Herman now stands.

At this time the stock of the early settlers was allowed to
run wild in the forests, and after the lapse of years became

100 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY

very plentiful. The county was very sparsely settled and
but little of it was under cultivation, and much of it being
covered with the original growth of timber, which afforded
shelter for these animals, they increased very fast. It was
customary for the owners of this stock to mark it in some way,
commonly by making a number of slits, notches or holes in
one or both the animals' ears. This cusiom was recognized by
an act of the legislature, which provided for the registration of
these marks among the records of the county. Some pages
of the record books are yet extant in which are to be found the
names of the marks used by our forefathers. A swallowtail,
which appears to have been made by shaping the end of
the ear like the forked tail of that bird, was one of the
favorite marks. The under-keel which was made by cut-
ting a long oval strip from the ear, was another ; a number
of notches, slits or holes, and every conceivable combination
of under-keels and swallow tails are among the number of
recorded marks. As early as 1687 George Talbot, it will be
remembered, speaks of the wild horses and neat cattle upon
Susquehanna Manor, and in 1705 the Quaker preacher,
John Churchman, speaks of the trouble he experienced from
wild horses enticing away the colt which accompanied the
mare upon which he rode while upon an errand for his
father. Many of these cattle and horses were unmarked
and ran wild in the forests, and owing to the fact that some
of the land was yet in the possession of the lord proprietary,
he claimed them as his own.

In 1715 an act was passed by the legislature in reference
to these animals, which provided for the appointment of an
officer in each county where they prevailed, whose duty it
Avas to capture this wild stock. He was called the ranger,
and was appointed by the governor and council upon the
recommendation of the justices of the quorum in the county
where he resided. His compensation was one-half of the
stock he captured. John Ryland is the first person men-
tioned in the records of the county as ranker. In 1722 he

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 101

petitioned the court to be discharged from the office; but
the court not having appointed him, rejected the petition.
In 1724 Thomas Johnson presented a petition to the court,
stating that he was a person of "good name, fame and re-
pute," and prayed the court to recommend him for ranger
of the county, which they did.

A fragment of book two of the original land records of the
county, containing forty-seven leaves, is yet extant, in which
is to be found the copy of a power of attorney from "Peter
Coode, commander of his majesties' advice boat, the Mes-
senger, attending the province of Maryland," to John Fowke,
then belonging to the said advice boat, authorizing him to
"collect from all persons in Maryland or any of the terri-
tories thereunto belonging, be ye same in any manner of ye
production of the growth of ye said province, as tobacco,
Indian corn, peas, beans, and all manner of cattle whatso-
ever for and in my name but to his own proper use." This
document was given in 1701, and bears upon its face evi-
dence that the collector of the king's revenue was farming
out the emoluments of his office. A detached leaf of another
book contains an account of the receipts of taxes for part of
the year 1696. Among the items in it are the following:

" Received of Mr. James Couts, for importing seven hun-
dred and fifty-two gallons of rum, £28 lis. Qd.

"Received of John Smith, for 124 gallons of rum, £4 13s.

" Received of Capt. Deane Cook, for exporting of 30 cubbs,
30 bears, 100 deer skins, 100 racoon, 30 fox and cat, and 10
fishers, £1, 18s. 9cl.

" Received of Matthias Clements, for import of two negro
boys and one woman, £3. - -

'^Received of Col. Wm. Pearce, for import of two negro
men, £2.

"Received of Capt. Wm. Surting. for export of 12 racoon,
14 fox, 2 otter, and 2 muskrat skins, 2s. 3Jd"

The tax levied upon the skins exported from the province
was for the support of free schools, the act for the establish-
ment of which was passed in 1695.

192 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

The foregoing is only a small part of the account, but it
serves to show the character of the exports and imports of
the county at that time. The great staples of importation
were rum and negroes; the staple articles of export were
skins of animals, which were still abundant, and tobacco.
What kind of a "varmint" the fisher was has not been as-
certained. His hide, however, appears to have been valuable,
else it would not have been exported. As late as 1724 Ben-
jamin Allen prays the court for an allowance due him for
one wolfs head and thirty-eight squirrels' heads which had
been omitted in the levy for that year. The same year Cor-
nelius McCormack prays to be allowed for eighty-six squir-
rels' heads and a large number of crows' heads. These ani-
mals were so numerous and destructive for a long period,
that the legislators of the colony set a price upon their heads
for the purpose of keeping them in subordination. This
served a good purpose, for money was scarce and squirrels
and crows were plenty, and the taxpayers were allowed to
pay their taxes in squirrels and crows' heads, which was a
great advantage to them, as well as to the commonwealth.
In 1680 wolves seem to have been very plenty in the adjoin-
ing county of New Castle, for the court ordered "fifty wolf
pits or houses to be made," and enjoined the constables to
see that they were well baited and tended.

From 1700 to 1720 Bohemia Manor and the country as
far south of it as the Sassafras River, far exceeded the other
portions of the county in wealth and importance. Tobacco,
the great staple of the colony, was extensively cultivated
there, and yielded a large return to the planters. The land,
but little of which had been cultivated long enough to become
impoverished, was well adapted to the production of wheat,
some of which was raised, though probably not in very large
quantities. The tobacco was packed in hogsheads for ship-
ment to England, and the inspectors were obliged to see that
each hogshead contained a specified amount. If a hogshead
fell short they were enjoined to "prise" it — that is, to pack

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 193

or press it by means of a " prise " or lever — till it would con-
tain the maximum quantity. From this custom the in-
spection houses came to be called prise houses. The name
is yet applied to a few old buildings on the Sassafras River.

The planters in the southern part of the county at this
time shipped their tobacco directly to England, and were
supplied with slaves (many of whom they owned) by slave
traders, who carried cargoes of tobacco from the Chester and
Sassafras rivers and the upper part of the Chesapeake Bay
to London and Liverpool, and then visited the coast of
Guinea and procured cargoes of slaves, which they disposed
of to the planters when they returned for another cargo of
tobacco.

The old record books of the county, a few of which are yet
extant, contain many allusions to the commercial transac-
tions of this period. Bills of lading, notices of freight, and
bills of exchange, for some reason, were recorded, and are
to be found in the old books, sandwiched between indentures
of servants and deeds for land.

The planters in the southern part of the county not only
shipped their tobacco from the wharves of the county, but
they also shipped some of it from the South River, which
name was still applied to the Delaware, as the following bill
of lading will show, which is inserted in this connection to
indicate the changes that time has wrought in instruments
of this kind :

" BILL OF LADING.

" Shipped in good order & well conditioned by Mr.
George Huddleston on his proper accompt & Resque in &
upon ye good ship Vesilla, whereof is master under God for
this present voyage James Bradly & now riding at anchor
in South river, and by God's Grace bound for London, to
say 3 Hhds of Md. Tobacco, being marked & numbered as
in ye margin & are to be delvrd in ye like good order and
well conditioned at ye afd. port of London, danger of ye sea

194 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

only excepted. Mr. Micajah Perry & Co. Merchts in Lon-
don or the assigns, he or they paying freight for ye said
goods after ye rate of £15 per ton, & Maryland duties, with
primage & average accustomed. In witness whereof the
master or purser of ye said ship hath affirmed to two Bills
of Lading all of this tenor and date ye one of which two
bills being accomplished ye other to stand void & so God
send ye good ship to her destined port in safety. Dated
in Md. Nov. 20th, 1705.

" Quantity recorded but quality unknown. Marked (C.
H. Nos. 1, 2, 3.)

" James Bradly."

At this time and for years afterwards a law was in force
obliging the masters of all vessels carrying goods from
Maryland to ports in England to publish their freight ; that
is, to give notice of the rate they charged per ton, and to
record it in the records of the county. This law existed, or
at least this custom was observed, as late as 1744, for in
that year Captain Henry Elves published his freight £9
sterling per ton. His ship was in Sassafras River, which
indicates that the direct trade with England existed at that
time. The following notice of freight is from among several
others of like tenor. It shows that the direct slave trade
between the Sassafras River and coast of Guinea existed at
the time it was written :

"For London Directly, July ye 8th, 1705. This is to
give notice to all gentlemen, merchants & others, that ye
Dorsett, barkentine, John Hayes Commander, mounted
with Tenn guns, navigated with Twenty men, Burmudas
bilt, prime Saylor, Lately arrived from giny, now Riding att
Worton Creek, will be Reddi to take in goods by ye 12th of
this Instant for Sixteen pounds per Tunn, and will depart
in sixteen days If convoy is gon without Compinni.

"John Hayes."

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 195

England and France were at war at this time, and the
owners of merchant vessels were in the habit of arming
them in order that their crews might be able to defend
themselves against the attacks of the French cruisers.
Sometimes a fleet of merchant ships would be accompanied
by an armed vessel for their protection, but the Dorsett no
doubt was engaged in the slave trade, and had brought a
cargo of slaves to this county and disposed of them to the
planters near where she then rode at anchor.

The archives of the Order of the Society of Jesus, now in
possession of the faculty of Loyola College, in Baltimore,
show that the Jesuit mission near the head of Bohemia
River, was founded by the Rev. Thomas Mansell,
and that he lived there in 1704. Two years afterwards,
July 10th, 1706, he obtained a patent for a tract of land
containing 458 acres. This land had never been patented
and was granted to him upon the usual terms, under the
name of Saint Xaverus. It is worthy of note that the
records of the Society call him Mr. Mansell only, and do
not mention his Christian name or title. No doubt this
omission was caused by a desire to conceal the character of
the enterprise in which he was engaged, owing to the oppo-
sition and persecution that the Jesuits then met with, not
only in Maryland but in the mother country also.

James III. (so called by the House of Stewart), the
son of James II., there is reason to believe, was recog-
nized by the Jesuits at this time as the rightful sovereign of
England. Certain it is, that a rebellion was inaugurated in
Irelandta few years after this time (in 1715) for the purpose
of placing him upon the British throne.

The effects of this rebellion were felt to a certain extent
in the colony of Maryland, and the property in Maryland of
the Irish subjects of the British crown, who participated in
it was confiscated, and the sheriff of Cecil County was en-
joined to seize it for the use of the crown. So it was no
wonder that Father Mansell made no reference to the fact
that he was a member of the Society of Jesus.

196 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

Part of the said tract of St. Xaverus had been formerly-
surveyed by virtue of the power contained in a warrant
granted for Mary Ann O'Danieh and Margaret, her sister,
March 18th, 1680, by the name of Morris O'Daniel's Rest,
containing three hundred acres, as by the original survey
appears.

This survey was never recorded, nor any grant issued
thereon to the said sisters. Of the two sisters Margaret died
first, and the whole right to the said land was vested in
Mary Ann, who dying, bequeathed the same to Messrs.
Thomas Mansell and William Douglass, which said William
having made over all his right and title thereunto to said
Thomas Mansell, he, the said Thomas, petitioned for and
obtained a special warrant to resurvey the said tract and
take up the same as vacant land, together with what sur-
plus or vacant land was thereunto contiguous; which was
done accordingly, and patent granted, as before stated.

The Jesuit mission of Bohemia is a few miles southeast of
the junction of the Great and Little Bohemia rivers, and is
probably about half a mile west from the State of Delaware
and about the same distance from the village of Warwick.
At the time, and for a long time subsequent to the founda-
tion ot the mission, the Head of Bohemia was one of the
most important places in the colony. Bohemia Landing,
which was at or near the junction of the two branches of
that river, was only a few miles from the navigable waters
of Appoquinimink Creek, and owing to the short distance
between these points, nearly all the trade between the
people living along the shores of the two bays was carried
on by this route. There were probably at the time several
landing places upon each of the branches of the Bohemia
River, and probably quite as many upon the Delaware
and its tributaries.

The streams at that time were navigable for much greater
distances than they are at present, and there is reason to
believe that there was once a landing upon one of the tribu-

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 197

taries of the Little Bohemia, not very far from where the
mission chapel now stands. The roads between the differ-
ent landings, on the tributaries of the Chesapeake and Del-
aware bays, were known by the expressive name of "cross
paths" and many references are made to them in the land
records of Cecil County a century ago, but it is impossible
at this time to describe their exact location. The feasibility
of connecting the waters of the Chesapeake and Delaware
bays by a canal between the Bohemia and Appoquinimink,
had been apparent to Augustine Hermen a quarter of a
century before the mission was founded. No doubt most if
not all the merchandize passing between the settlers on the
west side of Delaware River and those living near the
shores of Chesapeake Bay was transported along the " cross
paths," at the time that Thomas Mansell founded the mis-
sion. A few years afterwards, namely, 1715, it was enacted
by the colonial legislature, that "all Importers of Rum, Spirits,
Wine, and Brandy" (which seem to have been the principal,
if not the onty, articles of traffic) " from Pennsylvania and
the territories thereunto belonging by land, should pay a
duty of 9 pence per gallon, and should bring the said li-
quors into this province to the place commonly called Bohe-
mia Landing, and to no other place or landing, till the
duties thereof be paid, under pain of forfeiture to the King's
majesty."* The duty was afterwards fixed at three pence per
gallon, and continued to be collected for many years at
Bohemia Landing. The northern part of Cecil County being
at this time a wilderness, with only a few settlers scattered
here and there along the Elk River and other streams, it is
easy to see the prospective advantages that induced Mansell
to locate where he did.

Father Mansell appears to have remained in charge of the
mission till 1721, for in that year the records of the Society

* See Bacon's Laws of Maryland, Session 1715, chapter 36.

198 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

show that he purchased of Mr. James Heath* a parcel of
land bounding upon St. Xaverus and containing three hun-
dred and thirty-five acres. This purchase comprised the
whole of a tract called St. Inigo, which had been taken up
and patented by James Heath, under the name of St. Igna-
tius, in 1711. How or why the name had been changed
does not appear. The aforesaid additional purchase of 335
acres embraced a part of Worsell Manor, which had been
taken up and patented by one Colonel Saver (when, we have
no means of ascertaining) and also a part of a tract called
Woodbridge, which was originally taken up by David Mac-
Kenzie, by him sold to Darby Nowland, and by his son
Dennis sold to James Heath, (that is to say) his part thereof,
containing 75 acres, adjoining St. Inigo, and by Mr. Heath
sold, as above stated, to Mr. Mansell. Some of the names
of these tracts of land, as well as the names of the persons who
owned them, indicate the nationality as well as the religion of
the proprietors, and warrant the conclusion that the first Jesuit
Father that settled at Bohemia was induced to do so from

* James Heath was the father of John Paul Heath, the founder of
Warwick. He was a member of the old Catholic family of that name,
and the owner of " Heath's Range," and other large tracts of land near
Warwick. His grave is about two miles from Warwick, in Appoquini-
mink Hundred, New Castle County, and is covered by a stone slab con-
taining the following inscription : "Here lyes the body of James Heath,
who was born att Warwick, on the 27th day of July, 1658, and died the
loth day of November, 1731, in the seventy-fourth year of His age."
The Warwick mentioned in his epitaph is no doubt the name of his native
town in England.

His son, John Paul Heath, probably died in 1746. His will was
proved in that year, and shows that Warwick had been laid out by him
some time before. He refers to a brew-house and tavern which were in
the town. He was a large landowner, and was engaged in merchandis-
ing at Warwick ; and at the time of his death owned one-half of a vessel,
engaged in trading between the Sassafras River and the West Indies.
Daniel Delaney and Charles Carroll were two of the executors of his will.
He was a zealous Catholic, and directed that his sons, James and Daniel,
should be educated at St. Omers, and that his children should be brought
up in the " Roman Catholic religion."

HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY. 199

the fact that it was a settlement of Irish Catholics who were
no doubt zealous members of that church. The Jesuits at
this time, and for many years previous had a mission in St.
Mary's County, on the Western Shore, and as the mission at
Bohemia was the first one established on the Eastern Shore,
there can be little doubt that Father Mansell came there
from the former place. It is highly probable that he
brought with him the ancient cross, which has been at Bo-
hemia ever since. This cross is about five feet high and is
said to have been brought to St. Mary's by the first settlers
who came there from England. It is made of wrought iron
and certainly looks ancient enough to have been brought
over by the Pilgrims who came in the Ark and Dove. It
has been at Bohemia from time immemorial, and save this
tradition, nothing more is known of its history.

Little if anything is known of the history of Rev.
Thomas Mansell. The rules, or, at least the customs of the
Society prohibited the erection of any monuments over the
graves of its members and if he died and was buried at
Bohemia, this custom precluded the erection of anything to
distinguish the place of his sepulcher. A few of the early
fathers that labored there, were buried in the garden, but not
even a grassy mound has been raised over their moldering
remains, and their last resting-place would no doubt long
since have been forgotten, had not some pious person en-
closed it, many years ago, with an edging of boxwood that
has now attained the height of five or six feet. Father
Thomas Hudson lived at the mission in 1713. Whether he
had charge of it during the temporary absence of Father
Mansell or sojourned with him for a time doth not appear.
The records of the Society only show that he was at Bohe-
mia in that year. He seems to have been succeeded by
Father Peter Atwood, for the records of the Society show
that in 1731 he (Atwood) was involved in a dispute with
Joseph George, who was then the proprietor of Middle Neck,
which he had purchased from Ephraim Augustine Hermen,
the grandson of the founder of Bohemia Manor.

200 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

After Joseph George purchased Middle Neck he obtained
an order from the provincial court to have it surveyed. This
survey took in all of St. Xaverus and part of several other
tracts adjacent to it, and George had already ejected one
Reynolds from the land by him claimed, it being included
inside the limits of the new survey, when Atwood and
George compromised the matter by the former paying him
" 35 pounds for a deed of release to all the right or claim he
might have to any or all the lands I hold between the two
branches of the St. Augustine's creek." This quotation is taken
from an old memorandum book in the possession of the
Society and was kindly copied for the author by Father
Lancaster, the Proctor of the Society in Maryland. This
dispute grew out of the fact that Augustine Hermen had
taken up a tract of land including the site of what was
afterwards called " The Priests' Mill," the site of which may
yet be seen in the meadow in front of the chapel. In all
the broad domain of Augustine Hermen there were very
few locations where it was practical to obtain sufficient fall
for the purpose of erecting water-mills. So he very wisely
took up this tract for the purpose of erecting a water-mill
thereon, as he states in his first will, though there is no reason
to believe he ever obtained a patent for it.

In 1732 Peter Atwood, who is then said to be of St. Mary's
County, purchased another tract of land called " Askmore,"
from Vachel Denton. This tract was supposed to contain
550 acres, and had been granted to John Browning and
Henry Denton in 1688. Denton claimed it by right of sur-
vivorship, and from him it descended to his son Vachel
Denton, who, as before stated, sold it to Atwood. The Jesuit
Fathers now had quite an extensive tract of land, comprising
nearly thirteen -hundred and fifty acres.

Father Thomas Pulton was at Bohemia in 1742. He
probably remained there most of the time till 1748. Rev.
John Kingdom was also there in 1748. From a few de-
tached entries in the old memorandum book before men-

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 201

tioned, tliere is reason to believe the school, which was kept
at the mission for some years, was started in 1745 or 1746.
John Carroll, a distinguished member of the Society, after-
wards Archbishop of Baltimore, and founder of Georgetown
College, attended this school in 1745-6, and also in 1748.
There is some reason to believe that his cousin, Charles Car-
roll, of Carrollton, the last surviving signer of the Declaration
of Independence, was a pupil there at the same time; but
the records now in the possession of the Society contain no
proof of it. This school was the only one in the colony
under the control of the Jesuits or any other order of the
Catholic Church, consequently it was patronized by many
of the leading Catholic families in the colony, who sent their
sons there to receive the rudiments of their education, after
which they were sent to St. Omers, in French Flanders, to
finish it. This was the case with John and Charles Carroll,
both of whom afterwards took such a prominent part in the
history of the State.

It is impossible, owing to the loss of a portion of the records
■of the mission, to ascertain how long the school continued to
exist. Though it is considered to have been the germ from
which Georgetown College grew, it seems probable that it
was discontinued before the college was organized. Every
vestige of the school-house has long since disappeared, but
it is well known that it stood in the lawn, a few feet south
of the manse, and that the bricks of which its walls were
composed were used in the walls of the dwelling-house,
which was built about 1825. The chapel, which is in a
good state of preservation, was partly finished in 1795.
Tradition says that Rev. Ambrose Marechal, third Arch-
bisncp of Baltimore, then resident at Bohemia, during his
hours of recreation turned the banisters used in inclosing
the sanctuary in the chapel.

It is probable that the school was in a flourishing condi-
tion in 1754 ; so much so, indeed, as to have excited the
cupidity of the members of the Established Church. Rev.

202 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

Hugh Jones, who was a zealous churchman, was then rector
of St. Stephen's Parish, and his correspondence as early as
1739 shows that he was bitterly hostile to the Jesuit Fathers.
The records of the colonial legislature for the year 1754
show that a bill passed the lower house in that year creat-
ing a commission to inquire into the affairs of the Jesuits in
the colony, and also to ascertain by what tenure they held
their land. Nicholas Hyland, a zealous churchman and
resident of North Elk Parish, and six other delegates, were
designated as members of the commission. They were also
enjoined to tender the oaths of " allegiance, abhorrence and
abjuration " to the members of the Society. The bill did
not pass the upper house. A bill was introduced in the
lower house at the session of 1755 intended to prevent the
" importation of German and French papists and Popish
priests and Jesuits and Irish papists via Pennsylvania or
the government of New Castle, Kent and Sussex, on the
Delaware." The bill did not become a law.

There is reason to believe that the Protestants of Sassafras
Neck, Middle Neck and Bohemia Manor petitioned the
legislature at the session of 1756, praying that stringent
measures might be taken against the Jesuits. At all events
the lower house at this session was about to pass a very
stringent bill prohibiting the importation of Irish Papists
via Delaware, under a penalty of £20 each, and denouncing
any Jesuit or Popish priest as a traitor who tampered with
any of his Majesty's subjects in the colony; but the bill did
not pass, the governor having prorogued the legislature
shortly after it was introduced.

These measures may now seem harsh and unjust, but it
must not be forgotten that at the time of which we write
the excitement produced by the French and Indian war
was at its height, and the Jesuits of Maryland, probably
very unjustly, were accused of being in league with the
French and of inciting the Indians to massacre the Protes-
tants.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 203

The few meagre records of the mission for the period be-
tween 1756 and 1764 contain little of interest to the general
reader. They show, however, that Rev. Joseph Greaton
died there in 1749. He was probably succeeded by Rev.
John Lewis, who is known to have been there in 1753.

Rev. John Lewis was probably succeeded by Rev. Joseph
Mosley, who came there in 1760, and probably remained
continuously till 1787. Rev. Mathias Manners was also
there in 1771, and died and was buried there in 1775.
During the long period that Mr. Mosley was in charge of
the mission he traveled all over the eastern and southern
part of the Western Shore, and baptized about six hundred
persons, many of whom were negro slaves. His journal
contains some entries which warrant the opinion that some
of the old Quaker families of the Eastern Shore embraced
the Catholic religion, as he speaks of baptizing Thomas
Browning, who was probably a descendant of John Brow-
ning, whom Augustine Hermen accused of trying to fraud-
ulently obtain part of Middle Neck after he (Hermen) had
obtained a patent for it.* The Hollands, one of whom was
accused by Hermen of aiding Browning in his design on
Middle Neck, seem also to have embraced Catholicism, for
the successor of Mosley speaks of baptizing one of them.
During the period between the years 1766 and 1787 the
journal kept by Rev. Mr. Mosley shows that the accessions
to the Catholic churches to which he ministered numbered
one hundred and eighty-five. During this period he per-
formed the marriage ceremony for members of the several
congregations in his charge one hundred and seventy times
and officiated at about one hundred and seventy-five
funerals. In 1764 he organized a church at St. Joseph's, in
Talbot County, and probably with a view of founding
another mission similar to the one at Bohemia, purchased
about three hundred and fifty acres of land in that county.

* See page 101, ante.

204 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

The next year he placed eight negroes, which he brought
from Prince George's Count}' at a cost of £10, on the farm.
These negroes are supposed to have been in charge of an
overseer.

Mr. Mosley's journal contains many curious entries illus-
trative of the manners and customs of society at the time
they were made. Among them are the following: "4th
November, 1770, 1 married Jeny, a negro of ours, to Jenney,
a negro belonging to Mr. Charles Blake, but afterwards
bought by us. Test, — many negroes, both ours and others,
-at St. Joseph's, Talbot. 23d July, 1777, I married Davy, a
negro of ours, to Hannah, a negro of John Lockerman, by
his consent; many negroes of his and our family being present.
September, 1795, married at home a wench of John Connell
(Senior) named Hannah, to a fellow of Tullies Neck, by
note.'"

There are many entries in Mr. Mosley's journal of mar-
riages of negroes by note, which meant that the sable
couples had notes from their owners requesting or author-
izing him to perform the marriage ceremony.

CHAPTER XIV.

First Friends' meeting-house — First Episcopal minister — North and
South Sassafras parishes — First vestrymen — Population — Curious lot of
church property — First Episcopal Church — Chapel of Ease in Elk Neck
— Shrewsbury parish — Rev. Hugh Jones — Chapel on Bohemia Manor —
Sketch of Rev. Hugh Jones — North Elk parish — First vestrymen —
Richard Dobson — John Hamm — Rev. Walter Ross — Chapel near Battle
Swamp— Rev. William Wye— St. Mary Ann's Church, North East — Taring
the Church — Death of Rev. Mr. Wye — Rev. John Bradford — Rev. John
Hamilton — Clayfall.

Augustine Hermen, and probably many of his cotempo-
raries who settled on Bohemia Manor, were members of the
Reformed Dutch Church. George Talbot, George Oldfield,
and many of the first settlers along the Elk and Susque-
hanna rivers were Catholics ; and the Labadists, as we have
seen, had a faith peculiar to themselves. These various sects
lived in harmon}7 and peace together, under the mild gov-
ernment of the province as administered by the first pro-
prietor and his successors. Even the then persecuted and
despised Quakers found an asylum in the province, and were
permitted to enjoy their peculiar belief in peace and quiet-
ness. They are believed to have been the first denomination
that erected a house of worship in the county. As early as
1698 George Warner and seven other Quakers prayed the
court that their meeting-house at the head of a branch of
Still Pond Creek might be registered according to the act of
Parliament, and promised " ever to pray for the eternal hap-
piness of the court." This is the first reference to a meeting-
house that has been found in the records of the county.

The first clergyman of the Church of England, of whom
there is any account in the history of the early settlements

206 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

in our county, is the Rev. John Yeo. He came from Mary-
land to New Castle in 1677, and exhibited his credentials as
a licensed minister of the Church of England, and was well
received by the court.* In 1676 he had written a letter to
the Archbishop of Canterbury, from Pautuxent, Maryland,
in which he gives a sad account of the religious condition of
the province. At this time there were only three ministers
of the Established Church of England in the province of
Maryland. Mr. Yeo seems to have exercised the duties of
his calling at New Castle for a year or two, for in 1679 he
presented a petition to the court, in which he prayed to be
remunerated for preaching the gospel and for baptizing
children, marrying people, and burying the dead. The
court refused his request, and nothing more is heard of him
till 1681, when he was tried at New Castle " for mutinous
expressions against the Duke of York, the town, the court,"
etc., for which he was tried before a jury and acquitted.
He had, no doubt, been attracted to Bohemia Manor by the
prosperous condition of the people residing thereon, and by
its close proximity to New Castle, near which he afterwards
settled, which was at that early day a town of much im-
portance. He was the first clergyman of the Established
Church that visited Cecil County.

In 1692 the legislature of the province, which was
thoroughly Protestant, passed "an act for the Service of
Almighty God and the establishment of the Protestant
religion in the Province." This act was passed previous to
the 9th of June, 1692, and on the 22d of the November fol-
lowing the commissioners of this county, who were Captain
Charles James, Colonel Casparus Hermen, Mr. Humphrey
Til ton, Mr. William Ward, Mr. Henry Rigg, Mr. John
James and Mr. William Elms, with some of the principal
freeholders of the county, in pursuance and compliance with
the act of Assembly, laid out and divided the county into

*See Hazard's Annals of Pennsylvania, page 448.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 207

two districts or parishes, that is to say, one parish for Wor-
tori and South Sassafrax Hundred and the other for North
Sassafrax, Bohemia and Elk Hundreds. These parishes
were called North and South Sassafrax. The Rev. Lawrence
Vanderbush was then officiating in North Sassafras, and
had probably been there for some time, for it is a matter of
record that he administered a baptism on the 2d of July
previous, and during the year he baptized eighteen others.
But little more is known of his history, only that he died in
\ 3 696, at which time he was also in charge of South Sassa-
fras parish.

About this time Peter Sluyter seemed to think that the
scepter he wielded as " Grand Mogul" of the Labadists was
about to depart from his hand, and so he petitioned the
governor for license or authority to perform the rite of mar-
riage. No doubt he feared that the organization of these
parishes and. the settlement of other ministers near him
would lessen his authorhy, which was already beginning to
wane, and deprive him of ■ influence over his followers.
His petition was granted with the proviso that he was only
to marry people of his own denomination.

The first vestrymen of North Sassafras parish were Cas-
parus Hermen, William Ward, John Thompson, Edward
Jones, Henry Rigg and Matthias VanderhuydenT" The tax-
ables in 1693 were 321, which was the number of persons
then assessed within the present limits of the county, and are
supposed to have been equal to one-fourth of all the inhabi-
tants in the county, which, by this estimate then contained
a population of 1284. At a meeting of the vestry, the next year,
it was ordered that the 12,440 pounds of tobacco collected that
year should be disposed of as follows : To the minister,
8000 pounds; to the sheriff for receiving it, 620 pounds; to
Thomas Pearce, clerk, 800 pounds ; the residue, 3018
pounds, to be lodged in the hands of Edward Jones for the
defraying of some necessary charges in fitting and repairing
the present meeting-house "which we have procured for the
present till God shall enable us to build a church."

208 HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY.

In 1694 the Bishop of London sent over some books by
Governor Nicholson for distribution in the colony, and the
records of this parish contained a list of things which Cas-
parus Hermen then had, a part or all of which are supposed
to have been the distributive share assigned to this parish.
The list was as follows : Two Bibles, two books called the
Duties of Man, two books of Common Prayer, two books of
Church Catechism, two books of Christian religion ; also, two
books of martial discipline, two books of the articles of war;
one dark lantern, one prospective glass and one pocket com-
pass. The five last-mentioned articles in the list were ■
curious articles to be mixed up with the former ; but the
warlike Susquehannocks still infested the northwestern part
of the county and the dark lantern and spy-glass were no
doubt intended to be used in repelling their attacks.

The next minister mentioned in the records of. the parish
was the Rev. James Crawford, of whose history but little is
known, only that he stopped for six weeks with Edward
Larramore and that the vestry allowed Larramore 400
pounds of tobacco for boarding him. In 1712 he was in-
cumbent of South Sassafras Parish, where he died in 1713.

In 1694 the number of taxables in the parish was 337,
and the amount of tobacco raised for ecclesiastical purposes
was 13,480 pounds.

Previous to this time the congregation worshiped in an old
meeting house, the location and history of which is entirely
lost; but in 1696 the vestry concluded that it was absolutely
necessary to purchase some land in a more convenient loca-
tion and build a church thereon. They accordingly pur-
chased 100 acres of William Ward for 5,000 pounds of to-
bacco and agreed with Casparus Hermen to build a church
of brick or stone 25x35 feet, the walls of which were to be
two feet thick at the foundation and eighteen inches above;
walls to be twelve feet high ; to have four windows, a fold-
ing door, six feet wide, etc., for 18,000 pounds of tobacco.
Still there was no minister in the parish, but in 1697 the

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 209

vestry ordered that Robert Cook be allowed 800 pounds of
tobacco for the accommodation and funeral charges of one
Mr. William Davis, a certain minister of the gospel, who,
having newly come to tender his services to them, was taken
sick and died.

In 1697 the taxables had increased to 346. A year had
now passed away and still the church was not built, and the
vestry questioned Casparus Hermen why he had not ful-
filled his contract, to which he replied : First, that the
building of the State-house took longer than he expected;
secondly, that he was prevented by unseasonable weather
and losing a sloop load of material; and thirdly, being a
delegate to the General Assembly he had to attend to public
concerns, by order of his Excellency the Governor. This
year the vestry purchased two hundred acres of land as a
glebe, for 7,000 pounds of tobacco, so that it now had three
hundred acres of glebe land.

This year the Rev. Richard Sewell, who had been sent
to Maryland by the Right Rev. Henry Compton, Lord
Bishop of London, was appointed or presented to the two
parishes of North and South Sassafras by Thomas Nichol-
son, governor of the province. The last General Assembly
had provided for paying the expenses of clergymen coming
over to the province, and the treasurer of the Eastern Shore
was ordered to pay Mr. Sewell £20 for that purpose.

In 1698 the taxables numbered 329, yielding 13,160
pounds of tobacco. At the March session of the General
Assembly Mr. Sewell had preached before it, and it was cus-
tomary for the General Assembly to make an appropriation
to pay for such service, but on this occasion the lower house
refused to do this, and when asked by the other house the
cause of this refusal, they replied that Mr. Sewell did not
give that satisfaction to the country that was expected of
him. The other house, and his Excellency, the Governor,
thought they were as good judges of the merits of the case as
the lower house, and said that he ought to be paid.

210 HISTOEY OP CECIL COUNTY.

There had been some talk of building a chapel of Ease a
year or two before this time (1698), and the vestry this year
agreed for the building of one by the Elk River, to be of
wood, twenty feet square and ten feet in height, to have two
windows, a pulpit and reading-desk, large door, etc., and
were to pay for the building of it 2,G00 pounds of tobacco.
They purchased an acre of land on which to build it from
Peter Clawson, for 400 pounds of tobacco. There is no doubt
that this chapel, if it was ever built, was upon St. John's
Manor, in Elk Neck, for the records of the county show that
the next year Peter Clawson sold a hundred acres of land
which is described as being part of St. John's Manor, on the
west side of Elk River. The land is described as lying upon
Church Creek, which no doubt was so called because the
chapel was near to it. If the land that was bought upon
which to build the chapel had been on the other side of the
Elk River, the vestry must necessarily have bought it from
Casparus Hermen, for no other person owned any land there.
In 1698 Hermen having died without building the church,
the vestry agreed with Matthias Hendrickson and James
Smithson for the building of a church (about the same size
of the one Hermen was to have built) for 18,000 pounds of
tobacco. In 1699 the taxables of the parish amounted to 352.

In 1701 the inhabitants of North Elk and Bohemia Hun-
dreds presented a petition to the upper house of Assembly,
complaining that Mr. Sewell had neglected them, and the
matter was referred to Col. John Thompson, but there is no
record of his report. The parish at this time was quite large,
embracing the territory included by the present boundaries
of the county. The reverend gentleman had married the
preceding year, so it is no wonder that he failed to visit the
northern part of the county, which George Talbot twenty
years before had called "that desert and frontier corner of
the province," and which was probably but little improved
at the time of which we write. In 1703 the church floor,
gallery, etc., were agreed to be made for <£20 sterling and

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 211

5,000 pounds of tobacco, being equal to about $225. In 1704
it was ordered that eight gallons of rum be paid for, it hav-
ing been used for drams in the morning while the workmen
were building the church. The people of that day used
rum, and for many years afterwards it was customary to
allow in the levy for a gallon or two of rum and some sugar
to sweeten it upon the occasion of a pauper's funeral, the
expense of which was borne by the county.

On March 8th of this year Matthias Van Bibber was made
a vestryman. The church was not dedicated until 1705. It
was called St. Stephen's, which name it still bears, and
which has also long been applied to the parish, the legal
name of which is North Sassafras. In 1706 North Elk Par-
ish was constituted. It embraced all that part of the county
north of the Elk River, and lessened to that extent the size
of North Sassafras Parish.

Shrewsbury, or South Sassafras Parish, which now is in
Kent County, was erected, as before stated, in 1692. The
names of the vestrymen in 1695 were William Pearce,
William Harris, Edward Blay, William Elms, Edward
Skiddimor, and George Shirton. The records of Cecil
County show that this vestry obtained a deed from Charles
James, in 1700, for 181 acres of land, for which they had
paid 7,000 pounds of tobacco to Charles James, the father of
the grantor, then deceased. This land is described as being
near a valley at the head of a branch of Churn Creek.

In 1702 one Richard Lugg was indicted for disturbing
public worship at Shrewsbury Parish Church, and found
guilty and fined one hundred pounds of tobacco. In 1695
the taxables in Shrewsbury were 350, thirteen more than
Were assessed in all the other parts of the county. The total
population of the county at this time was 2,852, that is, on
the theory that the taxables were equal to one-fourth of the
people. During the few years that this parish was under
the jurisdiction of this county, it was under the care of the
rectors of North Sassafras, except for a short time in 1702,

212 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

when the Rev. Stephen Boardley, the rector of St. Paul's
Parish, adjoining it on the south, served it one-third of his
time.

In 1714 the taxables in North Sassafras, which now em-
braced the country between the Elk and Sassafras rivers,
had increased to 520 ; and in 1721 the}'- numbered 726. In
1723 Dr. Sewell resigned the charge of North Sassafras,
having had charge of it more than twenty-six years. In 1724
the parish was vacant, and Thomas Parsley was appointed
reader by the vestry, and was to put up the greens in the
church at the usual time. He was to have 2,000 pounds of
tobacco for his compensation.

In 1723 the governor of the province inquired of the com-
missioners of the county how many parishes there were in
it and the number of taxables in them, and they replied
that there were two parishes, and that St. Stephen's (North
Sassafras) was thirty miles long and sixteen miles in breadth,
and contained 1,011 taxables ; that North Elk was about
twenty miles long and was about the same width, and con-
tained 569 taxables; and that St. Stephen's Parish had a
glebe of 310 acres.

In 1724 the Rev. John Urmston was inducted into the
parish. He was an intemperate man, and the records of
the parish show that, upon one occasion, he was " so over-
taken with liquor in the church that he could not read the
service, so that the people went out." So they complained
of his bad conduct, and some of the neighboring rectors and
other officials of the adjoining parishes tried him on a libel
exhibited against him by the church wardens for many
wicked and immoral actions, which were proved before the
said commission. The crimes for which he was deposed
were so glaring that the reverend gentlemen did not think
fit to appeal from the decision of the commission that tried
him, but being instigated by the Papists, as was alleged by
the presiding officer, he sought legal advice, and was about
to bring suit for the recovery of his salary and also to pros-

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 213

ecute the president of the commission that tried and deposed
him for acting without a commission from his Majesty, the
king, when he, in a drunken fit, as was supposed, fell into
the fire and was burned to death. A sad but fitting end for
one who had disgraced the holy office, and had probably as-
sumed its duties in order to prostitute it to his own aggrand-
izement. The vestry considered the parish vacant and
petitioned the governor to appoint another rector, and in
response he sent them the Rev. Hugh Jones, who took
charge of the parish in 1731. He was a graduate of the
University of Oxford, and came to Maryland in 1696. He
was then in the twenty-sixth year of his age. He had been
engaged in the ministry in Calvert County, Maryland, and
also in Virginia. He was a zealous churchman and was
much annoyed by the Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, Jesuits
and Quakers who were residents of the parish. In 1733,
an act having been passed by the General Assembly for the
purpose of raising the requisite funds, the vestry agreed
■with John Babenhime and James Bayard for the building
cf a new church at or near the place where the old church
stood for 75,000 pounds of tobacco. The vestry also bought
from Benjamin Sluyter two acres of land on the Manor upon
which to build a chapel, and agreed with him for the build-
ing of one 30x50 feet, with a semi-circular chancel with a
radius of ten feet. This was the old St. Augustine Church
which was standing at St. Augustine when the Hessians,
under Knyphausen, visited the Manor in 1777. It is worthy
of remark that when the building of the church was con-
templated four of the vestrymen voted for it to be built at
Newtown, which probably was the name then given to Cecil-
town, at the mouth of Scotchman's Creek, which had been
laid out in 1730.

The following extract from a letter from Hugh Jones to
the secretary of the Society for the propagation of the Gospel,
shows the character and zeal of the man in an admirable
manner, and for that reason is inserted here:

214 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

" St. Stephen's Parish, "j
in Cecil county, Md., V
July 30th, 1739. J

" May it Please Your Reverence: — To excuse the presumption
of me and my vestry in making application to you for the
donation of a library to this parish; for though this place
belongs not to any of your missions, yet it may have as just
a claim to partake of your pious favors as any, being the
chief mark at which the virulent darts of the Pennsylvania
deists, Quakers, Presbyterians, &c, are aimed, we being al-
most surrounded by them and having continual trade and
intercourse with them. You are no stranger to the cunning
and diligence of these people in perverting their neighbors,
especially the licentious and the ignorant. So that I need
only to mention that I am obliged to be continually on my
guard to defend my weak but large flocks against their
attacks in one quarter or other, in which, with God's help, I
have hitherto well succeeded. But this being a populous
and very growing place, 'tis feared that, without the aid of a
competent number of books to be lent out on all occasions,
their insinuating wiles will seduce many in a small time.
Since the Jesuits in my parish with them they favored and
settled in Philadelphia seem to combine our ruin by propa-
gation of schism, popery and apostacy in this neighborhood,
to prevent the danger of which impending tempest 'tis hoped
you will be so good as to contribute your extensive charit-
able benevolence, by a set of ,,such books of practical and
polemical divinity and church history as you shall judge
most suitable for the purpose, but especially the best answer
to Barclay's apology, the independent Whig, and all the
other favorite books of the Quakers, Deists, Presbyterians,
Anabaptists and Papists, with books of piety and devotion
and vindication of the doctrines and discipline of our Es-
tablished Church against all sorts of adversaries."

In this letter Mr. Jones speaks of his ministrations at
Appoquinimy, and states that many of the people there
were his auditors when he was officiating in his other church.

The petition book for the year 1731, which is yet extant
among the records of the county, contains a petition from
Hugh Jones to the court, which is also characteristic of the

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 215

man, and shows the state of society at that time. " The
petition of Hugh Jones, clerk, humbly sheweth that, Where-
as, the road now running by your petitioner's door was for-
merly moved that way, before the minister's house was
built, for the convenience of the marsh plantation (the
marsh plantation was probably the free school land on the
Bohemia, east of Scotchman's Creek), which very much in-
commodes the settlement at the glebe by rendering the habi-
tation of the incumbent public, which ought to be private
and retired, and turns the pasture into common, and ex-
poses your petitioner and his family to the troublesome com-
pany and insults of many drunken, swearing fellows, and
makes us unsafe in our beds, and gives opportunity for
thievish negroes and ordinary people, who continually pass
that way, to corrupt and hinder our servants, and to pilfer
anything that is left out at night — nay even to break open
doors that are locked, as I have already found by experience."
Therefore he prayed that the road might be moved to its for-
mer track, at some distance from the house, which was
granted.

In 1743 the taxables in this parish had increased to 1/443.
The next year the northern part of the parish, including all
of it between Elk River and Little Bohemia, was erected
into a new parish, under the name of St. Augustine. In 1755
there was much fear of a Popish plot, as before intimated,
and the manuscript history of Mr. Allen contains a letter
from David Wetherspoon* to Major John Veazey, then com-
manding officer of the county, calling his attention to the
French and Irish Papists, and begging him to bestir him-
self in behalf of the rights and liberties of the people and
We interests of the Protestant religion. Mr. Jones this
year preached a sermon called a pretest against Popery,
which was published in the Maryland Gazette at Annapolis.

* David Wetherspoon was a native of Londonderry County, Ireland. He
was probably the founder of Middletown, and died April 7th, 1763,
aged fifty-eight years. His grave may be seen at Middletown.

216 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

Mr. Jones was a firm friend of Lord Baltimore, and was
accused by William Penn's lawyers of inducing him to re-
fuse to carry out the agreement for the settlement of the
boundary, for the reason, as they alleged, that he feared it
would lessen the extent of his parish. Under his rector-
ship the parish reached the highest degree of prosperity
that it ever attained as an Episcopal parish.

In 1757 Mr. Jones bought 480 acres of land in Middle
Neck from Matthias and Henry Van Bibber, for which he
paid £882, from which it is plain that he had found time to
acquire some of this world's goods. The record of his deed
shows that it was written upon stamped paper the duty
upon which had been paid. He died September 8th, 1760,
at the great age of ninety years. His will is recorded in this
county. He left his beloved godson, Edward Pryce Wilmer,
his lot in Charlestown, one silver half pint can, one silver
soup spoon and four hunting pictures then hanging in his
parlor. .3 residue of his estate he left to his nephew,

Pev. William Barroll. His remains are interred at St.
Stephen's, and a marble slab erected to his memory by his
nephew, William Barroll, marks the site of his grave.

Mr. Jones had resigned the rectorship of St. Stephen's be-
fore his death ; at least it is stated in his will that his
nephew, William Barroll, was then rector of that parish.
William Barroll was a native of Wales, or of Hereford, on
its borders. He was ordained by the Bishop of London for
Maryland, March 4th, 1760, and came to Maryland shortly
afterwards. This year the small-pox prevailed in the vicinity
of the church to such an extent that the vestiy feared to
meet on Easter Monday to transact the usual business of
filling vacancies, choosing church wardens, etc. This dis-
ease appears to have been very prevalent about this time,
and the records of the county show that in many cases al-
lowances were made to people who had nursed poor per-
sons who were afflicted with it. The rector and vestrymen
of North Sassafras therefore petitioned the General Assembly

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 217

to confirm the action they took at a subsequent meeting.
Owing to the increase of population in the county the
General Assembly at the session of 1706 passed an act
erecting the parish of North Elk, which embraced all that
part of the county north of the Elk and east of Susquehanna
River. Though the legal name of this parish is North Elk,
it has been called St. Mary Ann's Parish since the erection
of the church at North East, which is called by that name.
The early history of this parish is involved in obscurity,
from the fact that all the records previous to 1743 were
many years ago destroyed by fire. It is stated, however, in
Dr. Ethan Allen's manuscript history of this parish that
some time during the first nine years after it was erected
the vestry sent a petition to the Bishop of London, under
whose care the Established Church in Maryland had been
placed, pra\Ting for the services of a minister and a donation
of books for the use of the parish. They state ^ the peti-
tion that they had erected a church and that the"! enue of
the parish was about £40 per annum ; that the population
was a mixed one, and all sorts of religion prevailed among
.the people. The petition was signed by Nicholas Hyland,
Joseph Young, Samuel Vans, Samson, George, Francis
Mauldin and John Curer. It was probably in response to
this petition that Queen Anne presented the vestry with a
large Bible, which is used in the church at this time (1881).
The good bishop was unable to comply with their request,
and it was not till 1722 that they obtained 'the regular
service of a minister. In this year the vestry presented a
petition to the court praying for a levy of tobacco "to finish
the church and repair sundry things relating to it." This
petition was signed on behalf of the vestry by William
Howell, who was the first clerk of this parish that is alluded
to in the records of the county. In 1724 the vestry, by
Richard Dobson, who was register of the parish, petitioned
the court for a levy of five pounds of tobacco per poll to
enable fcliem to finish an addition to the parish church.

218 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

There being no rector for a number of years after the
organization of the parish, there was no legal method of
obtaining the much-sought-for tobacco, only to levy it for
the repair of the church ; and year after year the same old
petition appears upon the records, and the same old story
of needed repairs is rehearsed, and never rehearsed in vain,
for the tobacco was always granted.

The churchmen of that time seem to have been very
zealous, for we find a petition of John Hamm to the court
in 1721 stating that he had stood godfather to a child whose
father had since died, and the child was then kept among
Roman Catholics, " contrary to the Intention of his Baptism ; "
he therefore prayed that he might be removed to where he
might be brought up in the " Church of England religion."
The court ordered the child's mother to bring it into court,
but the record tells nothing more of the case.

The Rev. Walter Ross appears to have been the first
Episcopal minister that regularly labored in this parish.
He was a missionary of the Society for the Propagation of
the Gospel,* and had been at New Castle some time pre-
vious to the year 1722, when he commenced his labors here,
still continuing his work at New Castle. The Rev. "Walter
Hackett was inducted into this parish in 1733, though Mr.
Ross still continued to serve it. It is probable that this
anomalous condition was caused by the efforts of the pro-
prietors of the respective provinces to extend their juris-
diction.

The controversy between the heirs of Penn and the pro-
prietary of Maryland was raging at this time, and no doubt
Lord Baltimore thought it both wise and politic to give the
parishioners of North Elk a rector. A.t this time Rev. Hugh
Jones was in charge of North Sassafras Parish, and Mr.
Hackett was probably quite as strong a partisan as he. It

* This Society was organized in London, and was under the control of
the bishop of that city.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 219

was probably owing to the efforts of Mr. Ross that the
chapel near Port Deposit was erected. This chapel was east of
that town and not far from Battle Swamp. It was built upon
part of nine acres of land (which was no doubt a gift of the
lord proprietary), near a fine spring of water, which was
known as the Indian Spring. Every vestige of this chapel
has long since disappeared, but the land is still in the pos-
session of the vestry of the parish, and is now overgrown
with briars and bushes. A very few ancient tombstones
mark the site of the graveyard. One of them bears the
date of 1742, which indicates that the chapel had not then
fallen into the neglect that has since overtaken it. It is
worthy of remark that Mr. Hackett stated in his first report
to the Society " that his baptisms were numerous, one of
which was an Indian and four others colored persons."

Mr. Hackett, who died in 1735, was succeeded by the Rev.
William Wye, who took charge of the parish in 1736, and
under whose administration the venerable old church now
standing was built. The parish now seems to have been in
a prosperous condition and contained 928 taxables.

The reader must remember that the eastern and northern
boundaries of the county were still in dispute, and that Not-
tingham was claimed by Penn and the inhabitants of that
township, and those of Welsh Tract were not included in the
above number.

In 1742 an act was passed authorizing a levy of £800 to
be made to enable the vestry to erect a church and vestry-
house, and in 1743 they entered into articles of agreement
with Henry Baker for that purpose. The names of the
vestrymen were Captain Nicholas Hylancl, Captain Zebulon
Hollingsworth, Henry Baker, Edward Johnson, Thomas
Ricketts, and John Currer.

The church stands on or near the site of the first one and
is a well-constructed brick building, of the same style as the
old Baptist church on Iron Hill, which was built four
years afterwards. Very probably the brick used in its con-
struction were brought from England.

"220 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

The following inscription is distinctly legible on the cor-
ner-stone of the church :

Rd WYE: HB: NH: DEI: ZH: TR: IC: 1743.

This inscription, as the reader will see, begins with the
name of the rector. The initials, except the letters DEI,
are those of the vestrymen of 1742.

There is reason to believe that Henry Baker employed
Samuel Gilpin to do the carpenter work of the church and
vestry-house ; for the vestry-book shows that in 1751 Gilpin
was ordered to have the vestry-house finished as soon as
possible.

The church seems not to have been quite finished in that
year, for Baker was ordered to deliver to the sexton a dozen
bolts for the church windows.

In 1752 one Dominie Fanning was allowed to keep school
in the vestry-house, Robert Cummings becoming surety that
he would not injure it.

It was customary for many years after this church was
built to tar it, that is, to apply tar to that portion of the
wood-work and roof that was exposed to the weather. This
custom was in vogue in 1763. In that year John Neal con-
tracted with the vestry to make a ladder thirty feet long,
and to tar the church and vestry-house.

In 1743 the vestry agreed to purchase a tract of land con-
taining two hundred and fifty acres from Robert Cummings,
then in possession of it, for £250. He to have the use of the
Pot House and wood for the same for two years. This land
was intended for a glebe; it was near the church.

It is supposed that the old church that stood in the grave-
yard, in the Ninth district, on the road from Kirk's Mills to
Bay View, was built about this time. Tradition, indicates
that it was built by the Episcopalians, but its history is still
more obscure than that of the old chapel near Battle Swamp.
Mr. Wye died November 16th, 1744, and was buried, it is

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 221

said, at the Wye Chapel, in Queen Anne's County. TheWye
River was most likely so called because his family resided
near it. His funeral sermon was preached by the Rev.
Hugh Jones, then rector of North Sassafras Parish, who
charged his estate two pounds and ten shillings for doing it.
The following petition will speak for itself: '

"The petition of the vestry, church-wardens and parish-
ioners of St. Mary Ann's Parish, in Cecil County, most hum-
bly sheweth, That whereas the Rev. Wm. Wye departed this
life about thirty-six hours past, which makes a vacancy for a
minister in said parish of which your petitioners are inhabi-
tants, who humbly pray your excellency would please to
allow us the liberty of choosing or making tryal of a minis-
ter to supply his place, that may be most agreeable to our
inclination, before your excellency suffers one to come in,
as on the death of Mr. George Hacket, formerly minister of
the said parish, such a petition was referred to the Hon.
Samuel Ogle, Esq., then governor of this province, who
thought proper to grant it, we hope your excellency will
show us the same indulgence and your petitioners as in duty
bound shall ever pray, &c. The foregoing petition was sent
to Thomas Bladen, Esq., His Excellency, Governor and
Commander-in-chief in and over the province of Maryland."

On the 4th of December following, the Rev. John Brad-
ford appeared before the vestry and read his induction for
this parish, dated the 20th of November, from which it is
plain that notwithstanding the very humble petition which
had been sent to the governor with such unseemly haste,
he had appointed the reverend gentleman only four day&
after the death of his predecessor. At this meeting two of
the Residents of Charlestown were summoned to appear
before the vestry to answer the charge of unlawfully cohab-
iting together. At a subsequent meeting of the vestry on
the 7th of the following January, "the said Elizabeth ap-
peared and declared that she and the aforesaid John will
part and live assunder between this and next vestry day,"

222 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

which promise, though exceedingly vague and indefinite,
seems to have been satisfactory to the vestry, for no further
reference is made to the case. The records in the old vol-
ume from which these extracts are taken contain many
references to cases of this kind, and disclose a remarkable
degree of laxity in the morals of the people. Not only the
lower classes of society, but in some cases those high in au-
thority, were charged with this or similar offences. Gen-
erally the culprits made the amende honorable, and produced
certificates of marriage given by clergymen of other denomi-
nations who resided out of the parish. Mr. Bradford died
in 1746. His successor was the Rev. John Hamilton, who
had charge of the parish from 1746 to 1773. Nothing re-
markable occurred during his rectorship ; but it may be
mentioned as a matter of interest, that in 1754 the taxables
had increased to 1,030, and the return for 1755 shows an
increase of 97 during that year. For the ensuing five years
the taxables in this parish varied, and in 1762 only
amounted to 1113. It is worthy of note that during Mr.
Hamilton's incumbency the church was robbed of the
communion service, and that a destructive fire occurred in
Boston, to ..the sufferers from which, at the request of the
governor, the charitably disposed persons in the county con-
tributed £79, of which the people of this parish contributed
£37. It was also during the rectorship of Mr. Hamilton
(1748) that the vestry purchased one hundred acres of land
(part of "Clayfall") from John Curer, for £180, for a glebe.
They continued to hold this land till 1784, when they sold
it to Jeremiah Baker for £605.

CHAPTER XV.

William Dare — Bulls' Mountain — "Friendship" — Old Simon — TrE.ns-
town — Ye Swedestown — John Hans Stiliman — Smith's mill at Head of
Elk — The Jacobs family — Henry Hollingsworth — Quarrel about New-
Munster road — Bridges over the head of Elk River — Road from head of
Elk to New Castle — Sketch of Hollingsworth family — North East — First
iron works — Roads leading to North East — Principio Iron Company —
Samuel Gilpin settles at Gilpin's Rocks — William Black's account of
North East — Immigration — Character of immigrants — Susquehanna ferry
— Road from ferry to Philadelphia.

William Dare, who the reader will recollect was one of
the cotemporaries of George Talbot, was one of those who
very early in the history of the county took up land at the
head of Elk River. As early as 1681 he became the propri-
etor of a tract called the Grange, which extended for some
distance in a southeast direction from that part of the Big-
Elk called the Half Moon, and contained about one hun-
dred and fifty acres. He was also the proprietor of seven
hundred acres in Elk Neck, called Rich Mountain, which
he sold in 1702 to Francis Mauldin, the founder of the
Mauldin family of this county. This land was adjoining
the land of Thomas Bull. There can be no doubt that these
tracts of land were afterwards called by their owners' names,
and thus originated the names of Bull's and Mauldin's
Mountain. Shortly after this time (1681) most of the land
or, /the east and south side of the Big Elk between the
Orange and Frenchtown was taken up and patented, as was
much of the land in Elk Neck and along the east side
the Susquehanna River for some distance north of the
mouth of the Octoraro Creek. But many of the original
its, probably owing to the inability of the grantees to

224 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

comply with the condition under which they were made,
reverted to the lord proprietary, and their bounds and the
date of the patent were lost.

The land upon which Elkton was built is part of the tract
of fourteen hundred acres which was patented to Nicholas
Painter in 1681, under the name of Friendship. The south-
east corner of the tract is marked by a stone which may be
seen close by the roadside, between Mitchell's mill race and
the Far Creek; it extended down the Big Elk to a point some
distance below the bridge at the causeway, and north for the
distance of a mile or more. This tract came into the posses-
sion of Philip Lynes, as did the large tract of Belleconnell,.
which, as before stated, was patented to George Talbot two
years later. Philip Lynes, devised these tracts to his wife
Anne Lynes, his cousin Mary Contee, and his friend William
Bladen, by his last will dated 1709, and they by a deed ex-
ecuted in 1711 conveyed it to John Smith, the son and heir
of William Smith, to satisfy a claim which his father had
against Philip Lynes for money loaned him by said William
Smith in his lifetime. This deed is for three parcels of
land, comprising about one thousand acres, parts of Friend-
ship and Belleconnell. Reference is made in it to the " man's
tenement, known and called by ye name of old Simon."
This Simon was surnamed Johnson. He owned a tract of
land that extended from what is now known as the "Hollow "
(but was formerly called " Simon's Gut ") as far down the
river as the bridge at the causeway, and far enough north
to include fifty acres of land. " Old Simon " is evidently
the man Avhose name has been given to Simon's Tussock,
which is a massive tussock situated on the north side of the
river a short distance from where Ben's Gut empties into
the river. " Ye tenement " in which he lived probably
stood on or near the east end of the depot lot. The records
of the court show that old Simon lived to be eighty years of
age, and that this plantation was in the possession of his
son Simon in 1742.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 225

Friendship and Belleconnell are described in the deed
from Lynes and others to Smith as "lying at ye Swedes-
town ;" but inasmuch as those tracts contained three thous-
and four hundred acres, it is hard to fix the location of the
town. In 1697 two Swedish missionaries on their way to
the settlements on the Delaware, sailed up the Chesapeake
Bay and Elk River and landed at a village which they said
had been founded by their countrymen. It was called Trans-
town, and was probably located at Elk Landing. In 1698,
a certain John Hans Stillman loaned the Rev. Ericus Biork,
one of the missionaries before referred to, £100 of silver
money for the use of the congregation in building the old
Swedes church yet standing in Wilmington. Eight years
afterwards he released Biork from the payment of the
bond, and is described as John Hans Stillman, merchant of
Elk River in Cecil County.* He is known to have owned
land on Big Elk Creek just above Elk Landing, from which it
seems almost certain that Transtown was at or very near
the junction of the Big and Little Elk. Mr. Ferris, in
his History of the Original Settlements on the Delaware,
locates Transtown on the site of Frenchtown, which has been
done on the map accompanying this volume. Stillman was
naturalized in 1695. In 1697 and probably for many years
afterwards he was engaged in trading with the Indians at
the mouth of the Susquehanna River. He is no doubt the
person referred to in the colonial records of a subsequent
period as Captain Hans, and appears to have had much in-
fluence with the Indians.

John Smith was the son of William Smith, who is sup-
posed to have been the person who erected the first mill at
the Head of Elk. This mill is known to have been there
as early as 1706, and the next year one William Anderson
petitioned the court for leave to retail strong liquors at the

* For an account of Transtown and Stillman, see Ferris's History of
the Original Settlements on the Delaware, pages 156 and 177.

226 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

Head of Elk, "he being a poor man and much incumbered
with people passing and repassing to the said mill along the
Queen's road," which then ran from the lower ferry at
Perryville via North East and crossed the Big Elk Creek at
or near where the bridge now stands at Mitchell's mill, and
ran down the peninsula east of the heads of Back Creek,
Bohemia and Sassafras rivers.

Three months after John Smith received the deed for the one
thousand acres before referred to, he and his wife and father-
in-law sold the mill and eight acres, on part of which it
stood, to Thomas Jacobs, bolter, who is described as being
of Middletown, Chester County, Pa. This land is that south
of Main street and west of the road by the mill. Jacobs
also bought another tract containing twenty-one acres on
the west side of the creek and running a considerable dis-
tance up the stream above the breast of the dam. It was
stipulated in the deed that Jacobs was to have the right to
cut as much timber as would be required to build a dwell-
ing-house and also to rebuild the said mill and no more
upon the other land of Smith free of charge. It is worthy
of remark, as showing the condition of the country and the
customs of the people, that "the fishings, fishing places and
fowling ways" are specified as being conveyed to Jacobs.
This mill continued in possession of the Jacobs family till
1784, at which time it was in a very bad condition, and
Thomas Jacobs, the grandson of the person who purchased
it from Smith, entered into a copartnership with Zebulon
and Levi Hollingsworth for the purpose of carrying on the
milling business. It was at this time that the old mill now
standing was built by the Messrs. Hollingsworth, who built
the mill and furnished it with a pair of French burr mill-
stones and put £700 into the business. The third story of
the mill, which is frame, was subsequently added to it.

This man John Smith did business in a curious manner.
His deed to Jacobs shows that he had previously bargained
to sell the mill to Allen Robinet, for he mentions an agree-

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 227

merit between that person and himself in the deed, and
Jacobs covenants to indemnify him for any breach of the
said agreement. Reese Hinton lived at that time on the
Orange. In 1711 Smith sold seventy acres north of the
Grange and adjoining the land of Jacobs to Hinton, and the
next year he sold ten acres of marsh (which is the marsh
west of the gas works) to Henry Hollingsworth, who, in
1711, had bought fifty acres of land from William Sluby, of
New Castle, for £28. This last tract is described in the deed
as being south of and adjoining the land of Simon Johnson.

Hollingsworth also purchased some acres of marsh which
was between Hollingsworth 's Point and the mouth of Mill
Creek. It is described as being near Glover's Hill, which is
the hill near the west end of the causeway, across Little Elk,
just above Elk Landing. In 1713 Smith, who had been
absent from the county for some years, returned and took
up one hundred and seventy-one acres of land, called Elk
Plains, near the head of Elk River, on the south side of a
path leading from head of Elk River to the town of New
Castle.

In 1720 the inhabitants of New Munster and one Lewis
Jones had a quarrel about a road from New Munster to the
head of Elk. This road seems to have run some distance
east of where the road is now located, and the quarrel ap-
pears to have been long and bitter. The petitions presented
to the court in reference to it are interesting and curious.
Jones owned a large quantity of land extending from Gil-
pin's bridge north of Elkton, to some distance north of Belle-
hill. The quarrel seems to have been caused by the desire
of the people of New Munster to obtain a better fording of
Big Elk Creek.

In 1721 many of the inhabitants of the upper part of the
county presented a petition to the court, in which they state
that " Whereas, the great and main King's road, leading
through his lordship's province of Maryland, passing over
the dangerous & swelling falls of the two heads of Elk River,

228 HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY.

whereby many good people both inhabitants of this county
& strangers are not only stopt & often disappointed in their
journeys to their loss & damage, but likewise often in dan-
ger and perill of their lives, wherefore they pray that the
court would order good & sufficient horse & foot bridges to
be built over the said two falls of the two heads of Elk River
at the public charge of the said county ;" which petition was
granted, and John Thomas was given the contract for build-
ing the bridges which he constructed some time during that
or the following year, for he presented a petition to the court
at its session just a year afterwards, in which he states that
" not well considering the value of building the said bridges
at the time of agreeing for the building of the same, he finds
a great deal more work than he expected, & humbly prays
that the court would order two discreet persons to view the
said bridges & make report of the same to the worshipful
court of the value of building them," with which report he
promised to be contented. The court, after " maturely con-
sidering " the petition, ordered that he be paid 7,000 pounds
of tobacco, in accordance with his agreement. These were
the first bridges built at the expense of the county that are
referred to in the records of the court.

It is a singular coincidence that forty-two years after this
time George Catto, Tobias Rudolph and Joseph Gilpin, who
were appointed by the court to rebuild the bridge over the
Great Elk at the same place got into a similar difficulty. The
court levied the sum of £125 for the building of this bridge,
and the commissioners state in their petition that they had
thought it most advantageous to the public to have the
greater part of it built of stone, and had contracted for the
building of it for £250, and pray for an additional allowance
of £125.

In 1723 some of the influential citizens of the county peti-
tioned for a road " from the head of Elk to New Castle and
Christine Bridge," and state in their petition that "the road
to those places not having been laid out by order of court

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 229

was so stopped up and turned that carts were forced to go
by the New Munster Road (which then ran near where
Newark now stands), and that strange travelers often went
by Frenchtown instead of the head of Elk River, the Welsh
having cleared and marked a road as far as their supposed
bounds." The petition, which was signed by Stephen
Onion, Richard Dobson, and eighteen other citizens of the
county, was granted, and William Bristow, overseer of
Bohemia Hundred, and Thomas Jacobs, the proprietor of
the mill, were ordered to make the road.

"The Henry Hollingsworth who bought the land from -^
John Smith came to Pennsylvania, as did also his brothers N^
Valentine and Thomas, in the ship Welcome, with William
Penn, in 1682. Their father, Valentine Hollingsworth,
married the daughter of Henry Cornish, who was one of
the sheriffs of London (London then had two sheriffs with
co-equal power) in the troublesome times of James II., and
who was executed in 1685 for alleged complicity with Mon-
mouth in his efforts to usurp the royal authority. Cornish
was believed to have been entirely innocent of the charges
against him, and although he was executed with all the
barbarity of the times, Parliament, a few years afterwards,
in the reign of William and Mary, reversed the act of
attainder, and did all in its power to atone for the wrong that
it had brought upon an innocent family. Valentine Hol-
lingsworth represented New Castle County in the legislature
of Pennsylvania for several years. He was the cotemporary
of George Talbot.

Henry, who was named after his maternal grandfather,
was a man of much distinction, and assisted Thomas
I^olmes in laying out the city of Philadelphia, being at that
time about eighteen years of age. After the death of Cor-
nish his son-in-law, Valentine Hollingsworth, removed to
Ireland, where his son Henry made the acquaintance of
Lydia Atkinson,/whom he married in 1688, having in that
year returned to Ireland for that purpose. He represented

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

New Castle County in the Assembly in 1695, and was also
sheriff of Chester County the same year ; was deputy mas-
ter of the rolls in 1700, and coroner of the last-named
county in 1706. He removed to Elkton about 1712, in
which year he was appointed surveyor of Cecil County.
He was the founder of the Hollingsworth family in this
county, and the grandfather of Colonel Henry Hollings-
worth, who was so intimately identified with the cause of
the colonies during their struggle for independence. He
died in Elkton in 1721. Valentine Hollingsworth was a
Quaker, and his son Henry is believed to have been brought
up in that faith, but afterwards joined the Episcopal church.
His life gave evidence that he never forgot the pacific prin-
ciples of the faith in which he had been educated, for he
would not suffer the life of any animal to be sacrificed for
food, and lived for some years wholly upon a vegetable
diet. Once, when returning from a fair at New Castle, he
saw a rattlesnake coiled up by a log not far from his house,,
but passed on without killing it. Next day a peddler was
found near the same spot stiff and dead from the bite of a
snake. This gave Henry great pain, and he afterwards
thought it right to kill snakes.

The Hollingsworth family were noted for their enterprise
and industry and many of them were largely engaged in
the manufacture of flour, they being the owners of a number
of mills on both branches of the Elk. Zebulon Hollings-
worth, the father of Henry, of Revolutionary fame, was pre-
siding justice of the court of this county, and one of the
commissioners appointed to lay out Charlestown, in 1742.
He was a prominent member of St. Mary Ann's church, at
North East, and was one of the vestrymen in 1743, when
the present church was built. He died in 1763, aged 67
years, and is buried in the old graveyard, on the bank of
the Elk, southwest of the Episcopal church in Elkton, and
near the house in which he lived, a part of which is yet
standing. He was the great-grandfather of Mrs. Dr. Mack-

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 231

all, Mrs. Dr. Jamar, Mr. John Partridge and his sisters,
and Mrs. Pinkney Whyte, the wife of ex-Governor Whyte,
of Baltimore. His son Jacob kept a hotel in the house now
occupied by Col.. George R. Howard, when the British were
here in 1777. And very early in life his son Henry built
the venerable old mansion now occupied by the Partridge
family, and in which he resided at the time of the Revolution-
ary war. It is worthy of remark in this connection that
the British carried away the theodolite which Henry Hol-
lingsworth used for surveying when they left here previous
to the battle of Brandywine. The earliest landholder in
the immediate vicinity of North East of whom any infor-
mation has been obtained from the records of the county,
was a millwright, named Robert Jones, who had twenty
acres of land condemned for a mill site at the junction of the
east and main branches of North East Creek in 1711. This
was probably the site of the Shannon mill, but may have
been further down the stream, where the other iron works
are located.

The next mill at North East of which we find any record,
was owned by Robert Dutton, who is believed to have been
the person referred to in the chapter upon Nottingham.
Some time previous to 1716 he had a mill on or near the
site of the iron works, which he sold, together with fifty
acres of land upon part of which it stood, to Richard Ben-
nett, of Queen Anne's County, in that year, for £100 silver
money. This mill was near the "bottom of the main falls
of North East," and there seems to have been a forge or fur-
nace upon it, for iron works are among the many things
mentioned as being conveyed by the deed. It is very likely
that Dutton had the land upon which this mill was built
condemned by a writ of ad quod damnum, as the legal pro-
cess was called, for the early legislators of the colony were
so sensible of the use of mills that they very soon passed an
act providing for the condemnation and valuation of land
for the use of those who were disposed to build them. This

232 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

process was much the same as that now in use for obtaining
private property for public use. The party obtaining the
site for a mill in this manner had the use of it for the term
of eighty years at a given annual rent. Many of the mills
in the county, in its early days, were built upon land obtained
in this way.

Among the petitions presented to the court in 1719 was
one from some of the citizens of Susquehanna Hundred, in
which they state that they had " settled in a remote part of
this county and were destitute of convenient roads both to
church and court and also for rolling tobacco to any con-
venient landing;" they therefore prayed for a road to be
laid out from the head of North East River to the plantation
of Roger Kirk.* The petition was signed by Robert Dutton,
the proprietor of the mill, and about twenty others.

In 1721 John Cousine, an orphan, thirteen years of age,
was bound to John Pennington, of North East. Mr. Pen-
nington was a cordwainer (which was the name given to
shoemakers at that time), and he obligated himself to teach
the orphan " to read, write and cast accounts and to get his
catechism by heart, and to teach him thecordwainer's trade,
and to give him, at the expiration of his time of service, a
set of shoemakers' tools, two new suits of clothes and a
young breeding mare."

In 1723 many of the inhabitants of Milford Hundred,
which then embraced the northeastern part of the county,
petitioned the court for a road from the New Munster Road,
at David Alexander's, across the main fresh of Elk River at
Stephen Hollingsworth's mill, (which was the mill on Big
Elk, west of Cowantown) to the church at North East. A
few months afterwards they presented another petition,

* Roger Kirk was the founder of the Kirk family, which is one of the
most numerous in this county. His plantation was on the great North
East, in Nottingham, and included the site of the mill on that stream,
next above the road leading from the Brick Meeting-house to the Rising
Sun.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 233

stating that this "road was difficult, dangerous and trouble-
some to maintain by reason of crossing the east branch of
North East twice, and that it was only intended for a bridle
path, and that a cart road was much needed and might be
made by a much nearer route," &c. This petition was granted
and Stephen Hollingsworth was ordeied to see the road
laid out, so that it would not damnify any of the inhabitants
of said Hundred.

In 1724 Daniel Davis presented a petition to the court,
stating that he had settled on the main road, near the iron
works at North East, and was often oppressed with strangers
and travelers, and humbly prayed for a license to keep a
public house of entertainment, which was granted.

These few references in the records of the county to North
East show that it was a place of some importance as early as
1720, and most likely it was of much greater importance
then than it was half a century afterwards. Charlestown
was not then built ; perhaps it was not even thought of, and
the iron works which, as we have seen, were located here as
early as 1716, added much to the importance of the place.

In 1722 Stephen Onion & Co. leased from Ebenezer Cook,
(the agent of the lord proprietary) two tracts of land, called
Vulcan's Rest and Vulcan's Trial. The former tract joined
Dutton's mill-dam on the south, and probably extended
down the river some distance below the present limits of
the town. The annual rent for this tract, which contained
one hundred and fifty acres, wras 15s. Qd., sterling and two
fat capons. The rent for Vulcan's Trial, which was still
further down the river, was 4s. and two capons. The lease for
this tract, which contained thirty-seven acres, contained a
covenant obliging' the company (which at that time con-
sisted of Stephen Onion and Thomas and William Russell)
to plant an orchard of forty apple trees. Two days after
this, on the 31st of May, 1722, they leased a tract of two
hundred acres in Susquehanna Manor, called " Diffidence."
It was on the north side of the main branch of the North

234 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

East. On this tract they were to plant an orchard of two
hundred apple trees. The annual rent was 20s. and two
capons. This' seems to indicate that the proprietors of the
North East iron works were not a part of the Principio
Company at this time, though Onion is mentioned as one of
the latter company in the purchase of a mill on Back Creek
(now Principio Creek) the same year, and Joshua Gee,
Joseph Farmer, William Russell, and John Ruston are
mentioned as the other members of the Principio Company.
The large tract of Geoffarison, which was no doubt so called
in honor of Mr. Gee, was purchased in 1722 by Onion & Co.,
it having been patented in 1721. The probability is that
Onion was a member of each company, and that they were
afterwards united. The Principio Company was one of the
first companies organized in the county for the manufacture
of iron. The father and brother of General Washington
had an interest in this company, which some of the family
retained till after the close of the Revolutionary war. At
what time the Washingtons first became connected with the
company is uncertain, but it was probably after the settle-
ment of Samuel Gilpin at Gilpin's Rocks, which was in
1733. The Gilpin and Washington families had inter-
married in England and were intimate at this time, which
may serve to explain why the Washingtons became inter-
ested in an enterprise of this kind in Cecil County. For a
long time after the erection of these works they were sup-
plied with iron ore obtained in the neighborhood.

The forges used at that time, and till a comparatively
recent period, were very rude affairs. The blast was made-
by means of a curious circular bellows, which was operated
by means of a water-wheel, very little machinery or gearing
being used. So rude were these forges that there was a
water-wheel for each bellows and hammer, consequently one
forge building often contained several water-wheels.

In 1744 William Black, who was secretary of the commis-
sioners appointed by the Governor of Virginia to unite with
those of Pennsylvania and Maryland in treating with !]

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 235

Six Nations of Indians at Lancaster, visited this place in
company with the commissioners of Virginia and Maryland.
While on their way to Philadelphia to join the commission-
ers of that province, he says : " We sailed up the bay and
landed at Turkey Point, and I never saw a country so over-
grown with woods. About sundown we came to anchor
before North East town, which is composed of two "ordi-
naries, a grist mill, baker house & two or three dwellings..
Notwithstanding we were lying before a town, the commis-
sioners and all the rest of the company chose to be on board,
as the place by its appearance did not promise the best of
entertainment. The next morning we went on shore and
breakfasted at the public house, where I drank the best cask
cider for the season that ever I did in America." After
visiting the Principio Company's iron works, which were
then in charge of Mr. Baxter, which he says were thought
to be as complete works of the kind as any on the continent,,
they started on horseback towards Philadelphia, and were
met at the State line by the high sheriff, coroner, and under-
sheriff of New Castle County, with their white wands, who
accompanied them to Chester, where they were met by trie-
officials of Chester County. He does not mention Elkton,
but speaks of dining at Ogletown, and says he drank some
more good cider there.

So great was the desire of many persons in England and
Ireland to emigrate to Maryland, that in the early days of
the colony many of them entered into contracts with people
in England, who owned plantations in Maryland, to serve
them as servants or laborers in the new country for a term
of years, in consideration of their transportation and main-
tenance. Many of the early settlers who afterwards became
distinguished in the history of the State, reached the colony
in its early days in this manner. Some time later in the his-
tory of the colony, the captains of vessels engaged in the
transportation of passengers, would effect arrangements to
transport them to America, for which service they would
bind themselves to serve any person who would pay the-

236 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

captain the price of their passage, until such time as the
debt was liquidated. This custom prevailed until the time
of the Revolutionary war. The emigrants imported in this
way were called " Redemptioners." For some time before
this system of emigration was discontinued, it was customary
for the captains of the passenger vessels to dispose of large
lots of the Redemptioners to a class of persons called " Soul-
drivers," who marched them through the country and dis-
posed of them to the farmers. As late as 1795 this practice
prevailed in Chester County, and it no doubt prevailed in
Cecil quite as long. An amusing story is recorded in the
history of Chester County of a shrewd Irishman, who, by a
little good management, contrived to be the last of the gang.
His master, the Soul-driver, and he stopped all night at a
tavern, and the next morning he arose early and sold his
■master to the landlord, pocketed the money and made his
escape, telling the landlord that though clever in other
respects, he was rather saucy and a little given to lying.
That he had been presumptuous enough at times to endeavor
to pass for master, and that he might possibly represent
himself as such to him ! Like most persons held in bond-
age, either voluntary or enforced, these servants, in many
cases, gave their masters much trouble.

The minutes and records of the court that are yet extant
show that much of its time was spent in hearing and set-
tling disputes between masters and servants. The servants
would run off and give their masters trouble in other ways;
and the records of the court show that many of them were
not as virtuous as they should have been, and that the
morals of the people of the county were by no means well-
developed. Matthias Van Bibber, who was at one time chief
justice of the county, complained to the court in 1724 of his
servant Garrett Bonn ; that he was unruly; that he set him
at defiance, and would do nothing but what he pleased. It
appeared that Bonn came to the colony in 1722 without
being indentured, and the cause of the quarrel appeared to
be in regard to the time he should serve. The court sent

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 237

the constable, Daniel Huckle, after Bonn, and ordered that
he should serve his master five years from the time the ship
which brought him over landed in Virginia, and that the
sheriff take him to the whipping-post and give him twenty -
five lashes well laid on upon the bare back. In 1729 Nathan
Phillips presented an account and petition to the court
about his servant George Williams, who had ran away and
was absent four times. His master had found him at Welsh-
Tract once, twice at New Castle, and once at Chester. He
had absented himself twenty-nine days from his master's-
service and put him to an expense of £3 8s. 3d. The court
ordered Williams to serve six months additional to re-
imburse his master. These servants were bought and sold
somewhat after the manner of slaves, as shown by the peti-
tion of Ephraim Thompson, presented to the court as late-
as 1784. Ephraim had purchased one Timothy Rouck, a
'four years servant." Timothy proved to be a bad invest-
ment, and he shipped him on board of a sloop, the property
of Thomas Wirt, to be sent to Virginia and sold. Upon the
return of the sloop he learned that he had not been sold,
and he waited upon the skipper Isaac Vanlaman for the
indentures of the said servant ; when it appeared that some-
time during the voyage to Virginia, Rouck had stolen the
indentures, and the skipper, for want of them, was unable
to dispose of him. Mr. Thompson prays the court to take
the premises into consideration and grant him such relief
as it thought right.

As early as 1695 there was a public ferry across the Sus-
quehanna at or near Watson's Island. The great thorough-
fare between the north and south then as now crossed the
Susquehanna River at that place.

In. 1715 the legislature of the colony took the matter of
absconding debtors and runaway servants into consider-
ation, and enacted a law obliging all persons who intended
to leave the province to give three months' notice of their
intention to do so by affixing a notice to that effect upon
the door oi the court-house in the county where they lived

238 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

after which, if no persons objected, they were to be furnished
with passes. The act recites the fact that " Whereas several
ill- minded people, inhabiting and residing at the head of
the bay, have commonly set persons over the head of the
bay and Susquehanna River, being either felons, debtors or
runaway servants from the more remote parts of this prov-
ince, for some small advantage they have in buying or get-
ting such money, goods or apparel, as such persons so
absenting or flying from justice aforesaid have with them
generally money, goods or apparel, by them feloniously
purloined from their masters and other owners," therefore it
is enacted "that no person shall be allowed to transport any
one not having a pass over the said Susquehanna River or
head of the bay north of the Sassafras River unless they
have a certificate from two of the justices of the county
where they formerly resided certifying that they were free-
men." This is the first enactment in reference to the under-
ground railroad that was made in the legislation of the
colonies. The servants referred to were generally white
servants, and it was not till many years after this, when
slavery was abolished in the Northern States, that the
slaves of Maryland and the Southern States availed them-
selves of its use.

It is probable that the ferry at the mouth of the Sus-
quehanna was the only one on that stream at this time. A
few years afterwards Thomas Cresap was proprietor of a
ferry near where Port Deposit now stands ; this for a long
time afterwards, in contradistinction to the one at the
mouth of the river, was called the Upper Ferry. In 1727
Richard Touchstone was proprietor of Mount Ararat; he
states in a petition, presented to the court in that year, that
he was then seventy years of age and had served the coun-
try forty-three years. He no doubt is the man whose wife,
tradition says, supplied George Talbot with food when he
took refuge in the cave, which was at the base of Mount
Ararat. He certainly was in the county at the time that
Talbot was in the cave, and the tradition is not improbable.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 239

In 1731 the inhabitants of Susquehanna upper ferry
petitioned for a road from the ferry toward Philadelphia.
They say the ferry was much used by the lower inhabitants
of this province, and there was nothing but small paths by
which to reach it. They, therefore, prayed for this road to
" extend towards Philadelphia as far as the jurisdiction of
this court doth extend." The inhabitants of the county
about this period became much interested in the subject of
roads, and many of the most important ones in the county
were laid out. This was especially the case with the people
along the Susquehanna.

The same year some of the uppermost inhabitants of
Cecil County on Susquehanna River presented a petition,
which sheweth "that a ferry is kept at a place called the
Upper Ferry and merchants' mill near by, at a place called
Rock Run, which place being the nearest navigable water
that any vessel of any considerable burden can come up to,
to which place the}'' were obliged to roll their tobacco, in
order to be shipped off;" they therefore prayed for a road
from Peach Bottom to the said Rock Run mill, and from
there to the said ferry place. The petition was granted and
Randall Death was appointed overseer of the road. Many
of these people resided several miles north of where Mason
and Dixon's line was afterwards located. Wagons and
other wheeled conveyances were scarce in the early days of
the colony ; indeed, ox carts, which were quite common a
few years ago, were very rare and scarce at the time of the
Revolutionary war. For want of a better method the early
settlers were in the habit of rigging their hogsheads in such
a manner that they could hitch a horse to them and roll
them to the landings on the navigable streams, from which
they were transported to Europe. Many references are
made to this custom in the petitions for roads which were
presented about this time. In many cases they are called
rolling roads. This method of transportation prevailed to
some extent in North Carolina and Virginia until quite
recently.

CHAPTER XVI.

Hundreds — Hotels— Charles Rumsey — Trials by jury — The Justices'
court — Rules of the court — Removal of county seat from Jamestown
to Court-house Point — Court-house and jail — Town at Court-house Point —
Elk ferry traditions — Quarrel among the justices of the court — The
lawyers.

Cecil County was at first divided into five hundreds ; of
these, South Sassafras, as its name implies, and Worten Creek
were south of the Sassafras River. North Sassafras Hun-
dred included that part of the count)7 between the Sassafras
and Bohemia rivers. Bohemia Hundred included the ter-
ritory between the Elk and Bohemia rivers, while that part
of the county north of the Elk River was called Elk Hun-
dred. In the course of time, when most of the land in the
county was taken up and the population had increased, it
became necessary to divide these hundreds for the conven-
ience of the inhabitants, for each hundred had its constable,
who in addition to the business now done by officers of that
name, had to make an annual return of the taxables in his
hundred and to collect the tax. The constable also had to
look after the negro slaves, and suppress any riotous or
tumultuous assemblages of them that came under his
notice. There is reason to believe that each constable re-
ceived an annual allowance of tobacco in consideration of
the services of this kind he might be called upon to per-
form, for there are several certificates to be found among
the papers appertaining to the levy of 1763 and other
years, certifying that certain gentlemen who held the
office, "to the certain knowledge of the writers, had gone
out of nights several times to negro quarters and other
places, in order to hinder and suppress their tumultuous

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 241

meetings." The constables were appointed by the justices'
court, and were commissioned by the county clerk for one
year. The justices' court (or the court of many duties, as
it might have been properly called) also appointed one or
more overseers of roads in each hundred, whose duty it was,
under an act of Assembly heretofore mentioned, to "make
the heads of rivers, creeks, branches and swamps passable
for horse and foot." The overseers were commissioned for
one year; and their commissions, like those of the con-
stables, contained a clause requiring the holder to return it
to the justices at the next annual meeting, and stating that
if they failed to do so, they would suffer the penalty of
being continued in office another year. To the credit of
most of the constables and overseers, their commissions
show that they returned them with the names of some of
their neighbors indorsed on them, with a recommendation
that they be appointed as their successors. It has been aptly
remarked by a modern statesman, when speaking of a cer-
tain class of officials, that none of them resigned and very
few of them died, and probably nothing so well illustrates
the difference between the officers of the present day and
those of a century ago than the curious clause that we have
just mentioned as being in their warrants. That which was
a penalty then would now be considered by most office-
holders as a fee simple deed or patent, and probably not one
of ten thousand commissions like those issued a century
ago would now be returned. No record of the bounds of
the other hundreds in the county, or the time of their
erection, has been found and probably none was ever kept,
except in the minute books of the commissioners' court,
very few of which are now to be found, and these are so
dimmed by age that the writing in them is not legible. But
it has been ascertained from papers in the county commis-
sioners' office, that in 1770 the county was divided into
thirteen hundreds, as follows : North Sassafras, West Sas-
safras, Bohemia Middle Neck, Bohemia Manor, Back Creek,

242 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

North Milford, South Milford, North Susquehanna, South
Susquehanna, Elk, Charlestown and Octoraro.

The keeping of ordinaries, or hotels, as they are now
called, was a business that seems to have possessed much
attraction for many of the people of the county in the last
century, and many of the most respectable families were en-
gaged in it. The reasons given by many of them are curi-
ous and laughable. In 1710 Charles Rumsey* presented a
petition to the court, "shewing that he was a liver at the
head of Bohemia River and that he had a wife and several
small children to maintain, which to him were very charge-
able, and continual passengers coming to his house, travel-
lers from this province for Pennsylvania and from Pennsyl-
vania to this province, and to whom he in modesty gives
entertainment and lodgings, victuals, &c, without pay,
which in time may amount to considerable sums of money,"
therefore he prayed to be licensed to keep an ordinary.
Howell James lived, a few years later, at Back Creek mill,
and stated in his petition that "he was much oppressed by
travellers and others, he being located on the road from
Head of Elk to Bohemia Ferry." He, therefore, applied for
license to keep an ordinary. The court in those days, and
for a long time afterwards, not only licensed ordinary-keep-
ers, but the law obliged them to require the persons so
licensed to give bonds that they would keep well regulated
houses. The law also obliged the court to fix annually the
price of meals, lodging and liquors, a list of which was to be
exposed to view in the public part of the licensed premises.
The rates for liquor fixed by the court in 1717 are as follows:
"Rum, per gallon, 10 shillings, or 120 lbs. of tobacco; punch,
per gill, with three parts rum, 4 shillings, or 48 lbs. of to-
bacco ; flipe, per gill, with three parts rum, 4 shillings, or 48
lbs. of tobacco ; cider, per gallon, 1 shilling, or 12 lbs. of to-
bacco; quince drink, per gallon, 1 shilling, or 12 lbs. of
tobacco; beer, per gallon, Is. 4d., or 16 lbs. of tobacco."

* See sketch of Rumsey family in last chapter.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 243

It was also the duty of the justices' court to appoint a
proper person for ferryman at each of the public ferries in
the county and to fix the rates to be changed for the passen-
gers and stock and vehicles of all kinds. In addition to
these regular rates, the county gave the keepers of the ferry
a subsidy of tobacco, probably because the amount of busi-
ness was not sufficiently large to properly remunerate the
proprietors.

Parties who thought themselves aggrieved by the decisions
of the justices' court had the right of appeal to the provincial
court, which was held at the capital of the colony. One
Thomas Hitchcock, who was convicted of stealing a horse
from Owen Hughes in 1700, and was sentenced to pay him
fourfold and stand two hours in the pillory, appealed to the
higher court, which affirmed the judgment. The following
order may be found among the minutes of the court for the
year 1689 : " Ordered by the court that all accounts arising
upon issue be henceforward in this court tried by a jury,
and that the attornies of this court are enjoined to take
notice thereof." This is the first reference to trial by jury
that has been found in the records of the court. It is prob-
able that prior to that time all causes were tried before the
court. A few of the old minutes of the court are yet extant,
and contain much information in reference to the doings of
the gentlemen who composed the courts. In 1688 two of
the justices refused to sit with the others unless they would
send for Matthew Pope, to answer the charge that James
Wroth, who was one of the justices, had prepared against
him. This the justices refused to do, and for want of a
quorum the court was forced to adjourn.
/'The Wroths are one of the oldest families in the county.
They came to Maryland somewhere between 1659-60. They
were a distinguished family in England, John Wroth being
high sheriff of London in 1351, and lord mayor of that city
in 1361. Sir Thomas Wroth, another one of the same
family, was "groome of the stole " to Edward VI. Elizabeth

244 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

Wroth was a woman of martial spirit and attended her
husband in King William's campaign. She died in 1718.
The Cecil branch of the family intermarried with the
Walmsleys, Penningtons, Rothwells and Morgans of Sas-
safras Neck.

In 1720 the General Assembly passed an act empowering
the county courts to make such rules and regulations for
the government of the officers of the court and those having
business to transact before it as they should think requisite,
and under such sums as they should think fit, not exceeding-
one hundred pounds of tobacco. By virtue of the authority
contained in this act the court, on the 7th day of September,
1701, promulgated the following "Rules of Court, made to be
observed by all suitors and others that shall have any business
at court : "

"Firstly. When the justices meet together at the court-
house to hold a court one of them shall order the crier to
stand at the court-house door and make three '0 yeses,' and
say all manner of persons that have any business this day
at His Majesty's court draw near & give your attendance,
for the court is now going to sit ; God save the King, &c.

"Secondly. That the Sheriff and Clarke meet the court
day in the morning, or sooner, before the sitting of the
Court, and the Clark make out his Dockett, that the court
may not be delayed, on the penalty of 100 lbs. of Tobacco
for every default therein adjudged by the court.*

"Fourthly. That all declarations be filed with the Clark of
the Court within twenty days after the return of the writ,
and that all pleas be filed with the Clark within fifteen
days after the days as aforesaid, and all Demurrers, Replica-
tions, Rejoinders & all other answers and issues made up to
come to trial, the morning before the trial at farthest, except
otherwise ordered by the court, on the penalty of 100 lbs. of
Tobacco.

* Thirdly does not appear in the original.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 245

11 Fifthly. All actions to come to trial the second Court of
(after) the return of the writ except the laws direct other-
wise and the Court order.

"Sixthly. That the Clarke call the actions in course, as
they are on the Docket entered, except the Court order it
other ways, on the penalty of ]00 lbs. of Tobacco.

" Seventhly. That the plaintiff's Attorney standing up and
Direct himself to the court & then to the jury if any, and
open his client's case, after the Clark's reading the Declara-
tion & other papers in course relating to it, & pleading to
it, and when done he to sitt down and then the Defendent's
Attorney to stand up and answer him as aforesaid & not to
speak both together, in a confused manner or undecently, nor
to interrupt one another in their pleadings, in the penalty
of 100 lbs. of Tobacco, to be adjudged by the court then
sitting.

" Eighthly. That no man do presume to speak in court to
smother man's business, except leave of the Court first had,
on the penalty of 100 lbs. of Tobacco adjudged by the court.

"Ninthly. That no man presume to come into court with
their hats on when the court is sitting, except any of the
•Gentlemen of his Majesty's Honerable Councell, on the pen-
alty of one shilling, his hat being taken off by the crier or
under-sheriff and the said fine to be paid before the delivery
of the hat, except the court order to the contrary.

" Tenthly. That no one presume to smoke Tobacco in the
Court House while the Court is sitting, without leave of the
Court, on the penalty of one shilling to the crier for taking
away his pipe from him, the penalty to be paid before he
departs the court.

/ "Eleventhly. That no man presume to use 111 Words or
Indecent Language, or misbehaving words or discourse, in
court sitting, on the penalty of 100 lbs. of Tobacco, and to be
bound to the good behavior at the discretion of the court.

" Twelfthly. These rules to be hanged up & affixed at the
'Court House as the law directs for the public view of all

246 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

persons — according to the law, and not to be taken down
by any person without order of the court first had, on the
penalty of 100 lbs of Tobacco.

" William Wivel, Clerk."'

In a petition presented to the court in 1721, it is stated that
these rules were transcribed and probably somewhat modi-
fied in that year. William Rumsey states in his petition
" that whereas he had by their worships' orders transcribed
certain rules of court, and had further by their orders at-
tended at court this five days, on expense & charges in order
to have the same rules settled and agreed on, which now are
concluded on, and only remain again to be fairly tran-
scribed in order to be affixed at the court house door, which
your petitioner is ready to do, therefore desires your wor-
ships to allow him the sum of six hundred pounds of tobacco'
for his trouble aforesaid, which petition being read and
heard and duly considered, ordered it was by the court that
the same be presented & and he be allowed 300 lbs. of
tobacco." It may be inferred from this that the court did
not act hastily and that those employed to serve the public,,
then as now, expected to be liberally paid.

The most remarkable part of these rules is the statement
in the heading of them, that the}' were "made to be ob-
served ! " For what other purpose they should have been
made is beyond comprehension. The reference to the gentle-
men of his Majesty's Council shows the deference and re-
spect that was accorded to royalty. At this time the gov-
ernor and council were commissioned in the name of her
Majesty Queen Anne, and represented the royal authority;
hence the exception in their favor.

The critical reader will observe the negative proof con-
tained in them of the existence of a turbulent spirit, and
the practice of much bad conduct, which they were intended
to curb and reform.

On account of the organization of Kent County, which
included that part of Cecil lying between the Sassafras and

HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY. 247

Chester rivers, which was effected in 1706, it became neces-
sary for the convenience of the inhabitants having business
before the court to remove the seat of justice to a more cen-
tral location. In order to accomplish this, at the August
term of court, in 1717, Col. Ephraim Augustine Hermen was
" allowed 300 pounds of tobacco for and in consideration of
two acres of land lying and being on Long Point (now
Court House Point), on Elk River, upon Bohemia Manor, for
ye building of a court-house in said county."

Shortly afterwards, in the same year, he was ordered to
lay out a road from Bohemia Ferry to the site of the new
court-house, and to clear all convenient roads leading to the
same. M. Van Bibber and John Jawert were appointed to
see the road laid out. Of the size or character of this court'
house but little is known, for the records of the county con-
taining the contract cannot be found. There are many
reasons, however, for believing that it was built of brick
and floored with mortar. Tradition saith that it was torn
down, and the brick of which its walls were constructed used
in building the court-house in Elkton. The author, after
much inquiry, has been unable to find any person who ever
saw it. E. A. Hermen obtained the contract for building it,
for which he was allowed 35,000 pounds of tobacco. The
order for this allowance was passed at the November court,
1717. He was allowed 3,000 pounds more after the house
was finished " for his extraordinary expenses defrayed about
building it."

The court met in the new building for the first time on
the 8th da}^ of March, 1719. At this court it was ordered
that " a clause be put into the warrant of the overseer of
^orth Elk Hundred for clearing the path that leads out of
Turkey Point main road to the directest and best way that
goes to Elk River Ferry." Abel Van Burkaloo was allowed
300 pounds of tobacco for bringing the records and stocks
from the old court-house on Sassafras River. He was then
sheriff, and wTas probably the son of the Van Burkaloo
whose name is now applied to a creek on Bohemia Manor.

248 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

The following order in reference to the jail at Court House
Point is extant : " Ordered, that Col. E. A. Hermen be
allowed 1,000 lbs. tobacco for building a 15-feet prison and
ten feet wide at ye court-house, on Elk River, with hewed
logs, and a substantial pillory and stocks near ye same. It
is further agreed between ye said county and ye said Her-
men, that if ye said Hermen should make it fully appear,
by a just account, that he should be at more charge in ye
building and finishing of ye said works than what he is out
more than is already allowed him, he be allowed ye next
year at ye laying the then lev}r — the said prison to be floored
with good substantial hewed logs, lofted with ye same at
least seven feet high between flore and flore." Old people
who were familiar with the buildings on Court House Point
in their childhood, state that the jail was standing there fifty
or seventy-five years ago, and that it was about twenty feet
square, one story high, and very strongly built of yellow
pine logs.

The same .year M. Van Bibber, Col. John Ward and John
Jawert, were appointed by the court to sell the old court-
house at Jamestown, on Sassafras River, which they did by
public auction, on the 9th day of February, 1719, to Col.
John Ward, for 5,700 pounds of tobacco, he being the highest
and best bidder. There was some land belonging to the
county sold at the same time, the quantity and location of
which are not stated, nor is there any deed on record con-
veying the same to Ward.

Court House Point would now be considered a bad loca-
tion for the seat of justice; but the reader must not forget
that when it was selected for that purpose many of the res-
idents of the county were in the habit of going to court by
water. The first settlers located along the navigable streams,
and when they wished to go to court, they got aboard their
shallop or smack, hoisted sail, and if the wind was favorable
soon reached their destination. There were few roads and still
fewer vehicles in the county at this time, and the custom of

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 249

going to court by water had been common while it was held
on the Sassafras, and the people were loth to abandon it.
Considering the customs which prevailed and the geography
of the county, Court House Point was admirably adapted
for the purpose for which it was chosen, and was the best
selection that could have been made. New Minister and
the country along the Susquehanna and North East was
rapidly being settled at this time, and no doubt the wishes
and convenience of the people living in those parts of the
•county were consulted and respected.

In 1721 John Jawert was authorized by the court to lay
out the court-house land at his discretion in lots, and
" agree with those persons who were inclinable to build on
the same for such lots as they shall take up not exceeding
100 lbs. of tobacco for each lot beside surveyor's fees."
Shortly alter this time Aaron Latham purchased two of
these lots, upon one of which he erected a small wooden
house. Subsequently he wished to exchange them for
another lot near the river, upon which he proposed to erect
& larger house. The reason he gave for wishing to be nearer
the river was that he was afraid of a conflagration that
might consume his house. The house, which now stands
upon this point, is very old and was no doubt considered a
fine specimen of architecture when it was built. The cor-
nice is very elaborate and probably is entirely different from
any other now extant in this county. The house is said to
have been occupied by the sheriff of the county during the
time that the court met there, and its appearance and arch-
itecture indicate that such may have been the fact.

After the removal of the court to Court House Point the
ferry across the Elk River became one of the most import-
ant ones in the county. A brick house was erected on the
north side of the river, which was used for a tavern for
many years. Every trace of it has long since disappeared,
but a part of the wall of the ferry house still remains. It is
close by the river and partially covered by the vines of

250 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

several trumpet flowers which cling to the ruined old walls
as if anxious to conceal the ravages which time has made
upon them.

There are many traditions concerning the execution of
criminals at Court House Point ; how they were drawn and
quartered, as was the custom at that time, and how their
ghastly remains were exposed to public view, different
parts being placed upon different sides of the river. There
is also a legend current among the old citizens of Elk Neck,
which may properly be called the legend of the "Bloody
Holly Bush," which originated from a murder committed
on the ferry farm while it was occupied by Hans Ru-
dolph, the proprietor of the ferry. Rudolph had a
negro slave who, for some reason, was confined in the jail at
the Point, and who made his escape and swam across the
river and procured a gun and hid himself beside a log about
a mile from the old ferry- house. His master, while hunt-
ing for him, approached his place of concealment and he
shot him, his blood bespattering the green leaves of a holly
bush near which he stood. The leaves of a holly bush still
growing there are flecked with crimson spots, as is alleged,
from some supernatural cause. There is no doubt of the
truth of the red spots being on the leaves of the holly bush,
but they are caused by some peculiarity of the soil in which
it grows.

The legal machinery of the county seems to have been in
a very bad condition for several years subsequent to 1719.
At this time Matthias Van Bibber was presiding justice of
the court, and his nephew, James Van Bibber, was sheriff of
the county. For some reason they seem not to have been
on good terms with each other, for in 1720 James presented
a petition to the court alleging that he had bought a large
tract of land from his uncle, who had caused the trees that
marked the boundary lines of it to be cut down, and he
prayed the court for a commission to re-establish the
boundaries.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 251

This was certainly bad conduct, and a very bad example
to have been shown by the highest officer of the court; but
shortly afterwards his nephew, the sheriff, was accused of a
still worse crime, in a petition signed by fifty-three of the
freeholders of the county, in which they allege that he "did
exact levy and unlawfully take from the inhabitants of the
county the sum of 8,601 lbs. of tobacco," for which he was
indicted, but under color of friendship, relationship or
otherwise, the said indictment was stifled and the culprit was
not punished. They therefore prayed the court to bring the
said Van Bibber before it and take measures to restore the
said tobacco to those from whom it had been wrongfully
taken. The petition was favorably received and James came
into court and promised to refund the money to the county,
whereupon the court ordered the same to be inserted in the
levy for the current year.

On the 14th of June, 1720, John Jawert and Col. John
Ward met at the court-house, but there not being a quorum
present, they ordered that Gavin Hutchinson, one of the
under-sheriffs, "go to the house of Matthias Vanderhuyden
and desire him to give his attendance." The sheriff returned
and stated that Vanderhuyden would not come. They then
sent Hugh Watson for Francis Mauldin, who returned and
reported that Mr. Mauldin was away from home. James
Wood, one of the constables of the court, was then sent for
Matthias Van Bibber, who was presiding justice of the court.
Wood returned and said Van Bibber " wanted sooner notice
in the day," besides he was indisposed and could not come.
So the two justices, after waiting until 12 o'clock at night,
departed to their homes, first causing this mournfully curi-
ous/fecord to be made : "That the said court with all actions,
pleas & causes depending in the same was miscontinued &
dropt, and the court fallen."

The trouble, whatever it may have been, seems to have
continued until 1723, for on the 12th of April of that year
Matthias Van Bibber, presiding justice, and Benjamin Pearce

252 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

and William Alexander, complained to the council at An-
napolis "that they had been insulted and vilified in the exe-
cution of their office by one John Ward, and others, his as-
sociates, both by words in open court and libels dispersed
all over the county ; in so much as the county by their
means is in danger of running into riots and unlawful
tumults." They therefore asked the opinion of the council
as to how they should act in the matter. The council re-
ferred the subject to the attorney-general and desired him to
investigate it, and if necessary prosecute the offenders.

The lawyers of that period were probably as ignorant of
the law and as unskillful in the practice of it as the courts
were in the dispensation of justice. In 1717 the court
passed an order in reference to John Sloan, who was one of
the attorneys, in which it is stated that he had misbehaved
himself in his office, "and finding him altogether unskilled
in the law they discarded the said John Sloan from ever
practicing in this court anymore."

The reasons given by some of the applicants for admis-
sion to the bar are quaint and curious. One of them states
in his petition to the court that he had procured several law
books and spent much time during the last year in studying
them. Another aspirant for admission to the bar bases his
■claim upon the importunities of his friends,who had besought
him to take charge of their cases. And Abel Van Burkaloo,
who was ex-sheriff at the time, bases his claim upon his in-
ability to secure the services of a competent attorney to at-
tend to the business he had before the court, and thought if
he was admitted he might transact his own business and in
time be employed by others. The court admitted him, with
the understanding that he would qualify himself.

CHAPTER XVII.

Efforts to establish towns — Ceciltown, at mouth of Scotchman's Creek
— Fredericktown — Georgetown — The Acadians or French Neutrals — Ac-
count of them — They are sent to Louisiana and Canada — Reasons for
building Charlestown — Its location — Public wharf and warehouse — Its
exports — Fairs — Introduction of tea and coffee — History of Charlestown
— Population by census of 1880.

Though the early settlers along the James and Delaware
rivers turned their attention to the erection of towns, and
Jamestown and Newcastle early sprung into existence as the
result of their efforts, the other early colonists appear to
have been wholly absorbed in the culture of tobacco, and
had no time to devote to the erection of towns. Except in
the single case of St. Maries, there appears to have been no
effort made, previous to the year 1683, to erect a town in the
province. The necessity of having some protection against
the Indians led the colonists at St. Maries to erect a town, or
at least to place their dwelling-houses in close proximity to
each other ; but as the other colonists became better acquaint-
ed with the Indians, they had less cause to apprehend dan-
ger from them, and do not appear to have thought of build-
ing towns. But in 1683 the legislature appears to have
become aware of the fact that there were no towns in the
province, and they set themselves to work with much energy
to supply a want the existence of which seems suddenly to
have /Obtruded itself upon their attention. But their zeal
defeated the object they had in view, and they made so many
imaginary towns that not one of the number attained any
magnitude or distinction as a town or city. Indeed, but few
people, at present residing in the immediate neighborhood
of some of the sites of these imaginary towns, ever heard of

254 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

their existence, though it is quite probable that each and
■every one of them were used for a time as a port of entry,
the erection of which ports was probably the great object the
legislators had in view when the law was passed that called
them into existence. The act of 1682 provided for the erec-
tion of thirty-three towns or ports of entry in the province.
At that time there were ten counties in the province, and the
act provided for the erection of at least two towns or ports in
each county, though some of the counties had as many as
five of these imaginary towns erected within their limits.
The places named in Cecil County were as follows: "At
Captain John's Creek, William Price's plantation in Elk
Biver; in Sassafras River; at William Frisby's plantation in
Worten Creek ; and by two supplementary acts passed in
1684 and 1686, at the plantation of John West, in Sassafras
River, and in Elk River, at a place called Ceciltown, at the
mouth of Bohemia River."

Commissioners in each county were named in the act to
oarry out the many curious provisions it contained, but
their names do not appear in the abstract given in the
ancient laws of that day. One hundred acres of land were
to be purchased by the commissioners at each of the loca-
tions mentioned in the act, provided the owner was legally
able and willing to dispose of it. In case he was legally
incapacitated or unwilling to do so the commissioners were
empowered to summons a jury and have the land con-
demned and valued. The commissioners were to cause
these tracts " to be surveyed and staked out and divided
into convenient streets, lanes and alleys, with open places to
be left for erecting church, chapel, market-house or other
public buildings, and the remaining part of the said one
hundred acres to divide into one hundred equal lots, the
owner of the land to have his first choice for one lot; no
person to purchase more than one lot during four months
after the 25th of March, 1684, and the lots to be purchased
by inhabitants of the county only. But if not taken up by

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 255

them within the said four months, then to be free to any
person whatsoever to take up the same, paying the owner
proportionately." Although the commissioners appointed by
the act were enjoined to purchase the land from the owners,
such does not seem to have been the practice of the times
nor the meaning of the legislators ; on the contrary, those
who wished town lots were to pay the owner of the land for
them, and they were to be holden of the lord proprietary
and his heirs forever, under the yearly rent of one penny
current money for each respective lot. Each person who
became proprietor of a lot was to erect a "twenty foot
square house on it before the last day of August, 1685;"
and in case he did not erect the house he forfeited his right
to the lot, and any other person might enter the same in
the clerk's book upon the payment of eighty pounds of
tobacco, which was the clerk's fee in cases of that kind.

The act provided " that the owner of any store-house
within such towns, his said store-house not being full, and
having no occasion thereof for his own proper tobacco,
shall, on request, suffer the owner of any tobacco brought
there in hogsheads to put in and secure it as if it were his
own in such store-house, the owner of the tobacco paying
the owner of the store-house ten pounds of tobacco per
hogshead, which the store-house keeper shall secure for
twelve months or less, casualties by fire only excepted."

The legislators were fearful that they had taken pains
to erect too many towns, and in order to neutralize or
remedy the bad effect which they apprehended might fol-
low, they close the act with a proviso as follows : " Lest the
great number of towns may in time become burdensome to
the /public by increasing the number of burgesses, no town
shall hereafter be capable of sending a citizen or citizens to
any Assemby till such time as the said town shall be actually
inhabited by so many families as shall be sufficiently able
to defray the expenses of such delegate without being
chargeable to their respective county by reason thereof; but

256 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

the said charges to be defrayed by the respective inhabit-
ants of the towns sending such delegates." The act
provided "that from and after the 8th of August, 1685, the-
towns, ports and places therein mentioned shall be the
ports and places where all ships and vessels trading into*
this province shall unload and put on shore, and sell, bar-
ter, and traffic away all goods, etc., imported into this-
province, and all tobacco, goods, etc., of the growth, produc-
tion, or manufacture of this province intended to be sold
here or exported, shall be for that intent brought to the said
ports and places." Planters were, however, allowed to pur-
chase provisions for themselves and workmen at their own
plantations, and the citizens of the towns were allowed to-
traffic in goods in their respective towns if they purchased
them from vessels arriving there. These towns, notwith-
standing the pains taken to bring them into existence, did not
flourish. The legislators appear to have had a mania for
making and unmaking towns about this period in the his-
tory of the province, for in the year 1684 they made twelve
more towns. The same act contained many other curious
enactments to remedy supposed or imaginary defects and
omissions in the original act. In 1686 they made thirteen
more, and enacted that four of those that were then in exist-
ence should cease to be towns or be untowned, as they express-
it. Those places that were untowned were no doubt badly
located and probably were unsuitable for the purpose for
which they were designed, and probably the legislators of
that day thought if they thinned them out, those that
were left would flourish with more vigor. It appears to
have been a favorite project of the early settlers of Cecil
County to found a town to be called Ceciltown.

The following extract from the land records of the county
of that date will show the method they pursued in thosa
days, when they wished to try the experiment of buildin
town :

" At a session of Assembly began and held at Annapolis,
Thursday, the 21st day of May, 1730, among other laws, x

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 257

enacted, viz. : An act for the laying out of land and erect-
ing a town at a place called Broxen's Point,* in Cecil County.

" August 6th, 1730. At a meeting of the commissioners
empowered by the said act for laying out a town on Broxen's
Point, in Cecil County, and on the south side of Bohemia
River, were present, Col. Eph. Aug. Hermen, Col. Benjamin
Pearce, Mr. Thos. Colvill, Mr. Stephen Knight, Mr. Nicholas
Ridgely, Mr. Joshua George, Mr. Alphonso Cosden, Com-
missioners.

" And the Commissioners do order that the Clerk of the
said county set up notes at the said Broxen's Point, John
Segars, at the Church of this Parish and at Col. Benja-
min Pearce's Mill, signifying to all persons whom it may
relate to, that the said Commissioners will proceed according
to the direction of an act of assembly for laying out the said
town. Notes set up according to said direction. Then the
said Commissioners adjourn until the 7th of September,
1730, at which time they met again and the Sheriff of said
county being present makes return of a warrant directed to
him to summon a jury."

The warrant recites the fact that the commissioners were
unable to agree upon the price of the land,, and that agree-
able to the provision of the act in that case a jury was to be
summoned for the purpose of valuing the land. A majority
of the commissioners were of the number of those who after-
wards took up lots in the town, but whether this had any-
thing to do with their inability to agree upon the price of
the land does not appear; at this age of the world it
would probably have much to do with the matter.

The sheriff's name was John Baldwin, and the warrant
for /Che summoning of the jury is dated the 24th of August.
From this it would seem that they had a meeting upon that

* Broxen's Point was at the junction of Scotchman's Creek and the
Bohemia River. Scotchman's Creek was then called Omealy Creek. The
town was called Ceciltown.

258 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

day, but there is no record made of it. The following were
the names of the jurors : Nathan Hynson, John Coppen,
John Veasey, John Price, Philip Barret, Isaac Caulk, John
Pennington, George Childs, Daniel Benson, John Roberts
and John Bateman, who were said in the warrant " to be of
the most substantial freeholders of the county." This jury
assessed the value of the twenty acres of land at £47 10s.
current money of Maryland, which was £2 7s. 6d. per acre.

The commissioners met again on the 16th and 17th days
of September and they and William Rumsey, the deputy-
surveyor of the county, completed the laying out of the
town. Then follows the surveyor's certificate, which shows
that the streets were sixty feet wide and that the principal
one of them was called Baltimore street.

Following the surveyor's certificate in the ancient book
is a record of the numbers of the lots and by whom they
were taken up, from which it appears that seventeen of the
twenty lots were taken up before the 26th day of September,
which was only a week after the date of the certificate of
survey; which shows that an enthusiasm then prevaded the
projectors of the town that does not seem to have lasted
long.

The record shows that two of these lots were retaken in
1731, five in 1732, and four in 1733. Those who had taken
them at first had failed to comply with some of the provis-
ions of the act of Assembly and had forfeited their right to
them.

The name of John Ryland, Jr., stands at the head of the
list of names of lotholders, which indicates that he was the
owner of the land. The names of William and Edward
Pumsey, Benjamin and Sarah Pearce, John and William
Knight, Walter Scott, and Rev. Hugh Jones, who at that
time was rector of St. Stephen's Parish, appear upon the list
of lotholders.

In 1733, Edward Rumsey, carpenter, who had taken up
lot No. 20 on the 19th day of September, 1730, sold it to

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 259

Robert Pennington, inn-holder, for £36, current money of
Maryland, which was a reasonably good speculation, con-
sidering that it cost him, three years before, only £2 7s. Qd.
and the clerk's fees for recording his title to the lot, what-
ever they msLj have been.

It is very likely that a desire to speculate in town lots had
much to do with this effort to erect Ceciltown. However
that may have been, the effort was as fruitless as the one to
establish it at Town Point. The enterprise was probably a
total failure, and it is not likely that a half-dozen houses
were erected on the site of the town. Provision is made in
an act passed in 1763 for the inspection of tobacco at Bo-
hemia Ferry, and it is not probable that the ferry would
have been named as the place at which the inspection was
to be made if the town was at that time in existence.

On the 11th of December, 1736, Fredericktown, on the
Sassafras River, was laid out. Previous to this time the
place was called Pennington's Point, or Happy Harbor.
Though this town still exists, the records relating to
it are lost; all the information obtained concerning it is
derived from a plat taken from a copy of the original one
made by William Rumsey, the surveyor who laid it out
many years ago, by Edward W. Lockwood. This plat shows
that it contained about thirty acres, which was divided into
sixty lots of about three-fifths of an acre each by six streets,
which with a few small alleys contained six and a half acres.
The river at Fredericktown runs in a southwest direction,
and the streets run east and west, and north and south,
crossing each other at right angles, which causes the town
to be very irregular and ill-shaped. Ogle street, as did
Frederick and Orange streets, which were next below it, ex-
tended north from the river. Baltimore, Prince William,
and George streets extended west from the river.

Georgetown, which is opposite Fredericktown, on the other
side of the Sassafras River, was laid out the same year.
These towns were of very slow growth. In the early years

260 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

of their existence they seem to have derived some little ad-
vantage from travelers who were passing between the
northern and southern parts of the country.

In 1759 the Rev. Andrew Barnaby, while traveling from
Annapolis to Philadelphia, passed through Fredericktown,.
and in a journal which he soon afterwards published,,
speaks of them as follows : " Fredericktown. is a small village-
on the western side of the Sassafras River, built for the ac-
commodation of strangers and travellers; on the eastern side,,
exactly opposite to it, is another small village (Georgetown),.
erected for the same purpose."

Fredericktown was the residence of part of the Acadians-
or French Neutrals who were exiled from Acadia in 1755..
Inasmuch as some thirty or forty of these unfortunate people
resided in this county for several years, it is proper that some-
reference should be made to their history. In the ever
changing fortunes of the several nations that contended with
each other for the possession of different portions of the
eastern seaboard of North America, Nova Scotia, originally
settled by the French, had been transferred or ceded to Eng-
land by the treaty of Utrecht in 1713, and the inhabitants
took the oath of allegiance to the British government, with
immunit}^ of not bearing arms against their countrymen.
They were a frugal, industrious and persevering people and,,
consequently, were prosperous and happy. But the French
and Indian war broke out in 1754, and the Acadians were
accused of furnishing arms and provisions to the French
cruisers, in violation of their oaths of allegiance to Great
Britain. Just previous to the departure of the unfortunate
General Braddock upon his ill fated expedition to Fort Du
Quesne, he and the colonial governors held a consultation
at Alexandria, Va. The result of the conference was that a
warlike expedition was sent against the Acadians, and, as is
always the case when individuals or nations resolve to per-
petrate an outrage, the commanders of this expedition readily
found an excuse with which to palliate the infamous deeds

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 261

they had resolved to accomplish. It is worthy of remark
that the disastrous and overwhelming defeat that Braddock
shortly afterwards sustained seems like an act of retributive
justice inflicted by Infinite Wisdom, in punishment of the
cruelly unjust treatment of the innocent Acadians. The
British fleet left Boston on the 20th of May, 1755, and on the
3d of the next month the British army landed upon the
shores of Nova Scotia. Their advent was as startling to the
Acadians as a clap of thunder from a clear sky.

The Acadians made comparatively no resistance at all,
for the great mass of them were quite as loyal to the British
government as the army that was sent against them. A
few of them had been guilty of giving aid and comfort to
the French cruisers, who, much against the wishes of the
Acadians, occasionally visited them, and for this offence the
whole of them wrere made to suffer. After their surrender
their captors offered to condone their offence if they would
take the oath of allegiance ; but they were Catholics, and
the oath was so framed that they, as consistent Catholics,
■could not take it. Indeed, the New Englanders, many of
whom were probably the immediate descendants of the
Puritans of Cromwell's army, and who composed in great
part the army of the invaders, very probably were glad of
the opportunity to do this, in order that they might have a
pretext for the infliction of wrongs that they would not
have dared to inflict without it. Yankee shrewdness was
pretty much the same one hundred and ten years ago as
now. After the Acadians were conquered, or rather after
they were disarmed, for they never made any resistance
that amounted to anything, their conquerors were for a
little while perplexed to know what to do with them.
However, English vindictivenesss and Yankee ingenuity
were equal to the emergency and it was resolved that they
should be carried into exile, and this barbarous and infernal
resolution was immediately carried into effect.

It is upon an incident connected with the banishment of
the Acadians — the burning of the village of Grand Pre, a

262 HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY.

peaceful hamlet on the shore of Acadia, the home of Gabriel
and his bretrothed — that Longfellow has founded the beau-
tiful and touching story of " Evangeline." Before recount-
ing the story of Evangeline's wanderings he speaks of the
total destruction of the settlement and banishment of the
Acadians^as an

" Exile -without an end, and without an example in story.

Far asunder, on separate coasts the Acadians landed ;

Scattered were they, like flakes of snow, when the wind frorn the
northwest

Strikes aslant through the fogs that darken the banks of Newfound-
land.

Friendless, homeless, hopeless, they wandered from city to city,

From the cold lakes of the North to sultry Southern savannas, —

From ' the bleak shores of the sea to the lands where the'Father of
Waters

Seizes the hills in his hands and drags them down to the ocean.''

Three thousand of these inoffensive farmers and artisans
were scattered throughout the then thirteen colonies of
Great Britain. To some extent, probably to a very great,
extent, this despotic exercise of power, this transcendent
consummation of vindictiveness and cruelty, brought its
own punishment with it. The unfortunate Acadians were
reduced at once from a state of affluence to a state of beg-
gary. Families were separated and friends forever parted.
The climate of their place of exile was different from that of
their native country, and being beggared, dispirited, and
many of them heart-broken, they became a burden upon
the people among whom they were forced to reside. Many
of these poor people were brought to Maryland, and so
miserable was their condition as to excite the pity of the
legislature, which in 1756 passed an act authorizing the
justices' courts in the counties where they were quartered
" to take care and provide for such of them as should be-
real objects of charity, and to bind out such of their chil-
dren as they were unable to support; provided, the king.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 263

did not order their removal to some other colony." The
constables of the hundreds where they resided were enjoined
to return to the court an exact list of all of them annually,
and they were not allowed to travel more than ten miles
from their residences without a pass from a magistrate.

The following petition found among some old papers in
possession of the county commissioners, in connection with
several other papers, throw some light upon the history of
those of them who lived in Cecil and Kent counties: "To
the "Worshipful, the Justices of the Peace for Cecil county:
The humble Petition of the French Neutrals in Frederick-
town sheweth that, Whereas, your Petitioners have now an
opportunity of removing to the French Settlements on the
Elver Mississippi, at their own expense & charge, which they,
on account of their large number of small children and long
captivity here, find themselves entirely unable to pay. They,
therefore, Humbly request your worships to grant such
timely assistance and Relief as may enable them to execute
their purpose of removing. And your petitioners shall ever
pray.

"Issabel Brassey, 8 in family; Eneas Auber, alias Huber, 6
in do.; Eneas Granger, 9 orphans, Joseph Auber.

" 24th of March, 1767."

Other papers show that there were other families of the
French Neutrals then living in Kent County; that one of
these families consisted of the husband (Joseph Barban), his
wife and eight children, and that they had originally been
residents of Cecil County. The Barban family wished to
migrate to Quebec, in Canada, and like the others, they
wanted the wherewithal to defray their expenses.

"phe petition of the orphan children of John Baptist Gran-
ger, which was one of the papers before referred to, contained
a touching narrative of their misfortunes and sufferings.
This petition showed that other French Neutrals, living at
Newtown, Kent County (Newtown was the name then ap-
plied to Chestertown), had received aid from the court of that

264 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

county, and expected to start for Canada in about a month;
and that they (the Grangers) had been in captivity for twelve
years, and were desirous to remove to Canada ; and that sev-
eral of them had had the small-pox. They also speak in
terms of admiration of the government of his Gracious
Majesty, George III., King of Great Britain, France and Ire-
land. There is great room to doubt the sincerity of their
professions of loyalty; but they, no doubt, thought this was
the readiest way to obtain the relief they needed, and prob-
ably they were not to blame for the falsity of their profes-
sions, if false they were. They conclude their petition by
asserting that they are the most necessitous of the French
people in the county, and beseech the worshipful council for
the love of God Almighty to hear their petition and promise
ever to pray for the conservation of the worshipful council.

But little more is known of these unfortunate people, ex-
cept that they received the relief they sought and were sent
to their friends in Lousiana and Canada at the public
expense. «

The first settlers in the northeast part of the county, as
well as those in Nottingham, were in the habit of disposing
of their surplus produce at Christiana Bridge and New
Castle, both of which were then places of commercial im-
portance. Cecil town, on the Bohemia, had been a failure,
for the land upon the Manor and in Sassafras Neck, though
naturally the best in the county, had been impoverished by
the continual cultivation of tobacco, which at the time it
was laid out was beginning to decline, and there was not
commerce enough to give the new town vitality. The cultiva-
tion of tobacco, was now confined tc that part of the county
south of the Elk River and Back Creek, and Bohemia Ferry
and Fredericktown were the only places provided for its in-
spection at this time. The Quakers at Nottingham no
doubt were as industrious and thrifty then as the;
and the Hollingsworths and others were larg
ested in the milling business on the Elks, and shi
flour to Philadelphia via Christiana Bridgo.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 265

At this time Annapolis was the centre of refinement and
fashion, the Paris of America. Baltimore had only been
founded thirteen years, and was in its infancy ; and beside
this, the Principio Company's forges and furnaces at Prin-
•cipio and North East were in the full tide of successful opera-
tion, and the company was shipping the iron it manufac-
tured to England. No doubt the enterprising citizens of
the county felt the want of a town, and thought they
might as well have one of their own. So they obtained the
necessary legislation in 1742 and founded Charlestown: The
enterprise was rather more plausible than the erection of
■Cecil town, but the hopes of those who inaugurated it were
never realized. But it was owing to no fault of its founders
that it failed, for they used every exertion to make it a suc-
cess, and only succumbed to the force of circumstances
when convinced that it was impossible to divert the trade of
the northern part of the county from the towns along the
Delaware.

The act of incorporation of Charlestown was passed in
the fall of 1742, and Thomas Colvill, Nicholas Hyland,
Benjamin Pearce, William Alexander, Henry Baker, Zebulon
Hollingsworth and John Reed were appointed commissioners
to carry out its provisions. The town was to be laid out at
a place called Long Point, on the west side of North East
River. Twenty-five years before, the county seat had been
moved from the Sassafras River to " Long Point," on the
Elk River, and the people of the county had made some
effort to have a town built there, but the enterprise did not
succeed. No doubt those who obtained the passage of the
act for the erection of Charlestown hoped and expected to
derive much benefit from the town. The reasons for build-
ing the town are set forth in the preamble to the act as
follows :

"Whereas, The Encouragement of trade & navigation is
the surest means of promoting the happiness & increasing

266 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

the riches of every country, and that such trade is with the
greatest ease and advantage carried on, when the same is
drawn into & fixed in one or more convenient places; there-
by it appears that erecting towns, & granting Immunities &
Privileges for the encouragement of people to inhabit there-
in, most greatly contributes to so desirable an end, & there
being as yet no such place settled at or near the Head of
Chesapeake Bay, although from the great extent of the
country round, & the want of navigable water above it, the
same seems altogether necessary."

These were certainly good and sufficient reasons for build-
ing a town, and the aforesaid commissioners met on the site
of Charlestown on the 10th of February, 1742, accompanied
by John Vesey, who was county surveyor, and William
Knight, who was at that time county clerk. At this meet-
ing, Mr. Colvill produced a letter from Benjamin Tasker,
the agent of the lord proprietary, in which he expressed the
opinion that the five hundred acres which they were autho-
rized to include in the said town were very well worth £250,
in which opinion the commissioners acquiesced. The com-
missioners, after a few meetings for consultation, left the
matter in charge of the surveyor, and adjourned to meet on
the 13th of April, 1743, at which time the surveyor had
completed a plat of the town. This plat has long since dis-
appeared, but the proceedings of the commissioners, a part
of which are recorded in the county clerk's office, show that
they laid out two hundred of the five hundred acres which
they had condemned for the purpose, into two hundred lots,
and that the town contained seven streets that ran at right
augles with the river and were crossed at right angles by
five other streets. Tasker's lane, which was the name
given to the most westerly street, was no doubt so called in
honor of the lord proprietary's agent, Benjamin Tasker,
while his lordship wTas trebly honored by the name of Cecil,
Calvert, and Baltimore being applied to three of the princi-
pal streets. The fact that one of the streets was called Cones-

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 267

toga is indicative of a desire to cultivate the best of feeling
with the people of Lancaster County, some of whom after-
ward became the owners of lots in the new town. The re-
maining three hundred acres were reserved, agreeably to
the provisions of the act, for the common use of the citizens
of the town, for the purpose of furnishing them with fire-
wood and pasture for their cattle. Some part of this com-
mon is yet held by the town, but it is doubtful if its posses-
sion was ever of any material advantage to the citizens.
Certain parts of the town were reserved for the purpose of
erecting a public wharf and warehouse "for the more commo-
dious carrying on of trade," and for the erection of a market
house, court-house, and other public buildings.

The 10th of May, 1743, was the day designated for ballot-
ing for the town lots, no record of which is now extant, con-
sequently the names of the original proprietors are unknown.
But the deeds for lots which were sold a few years after-
wards show that some persons from Lancaster, Chester,
Anne Arundel, Kent, and Baltimore counties, and Phila-
adelphia city, were among the original proprietors. The Rev.
William Wye, who was rector of North Elk Parish at that
time, was one of the original proprietors of lots; and it is
worthy of remark, as showing the power of the clergy at
that time, that he waived his right to collect the forty
pounds per poll of tobacco (which was assessed upon each
taxable in the parish) from the citizens of Charlestown. His
object in doing this was to encourage the enterprise by les-
sening taxation, and to induce immigration. Rev. Hugh
Jones, who was then rector of North Sassafras Parish, is be-
lieved to have been one of the original lotholders. He cer-
tainly owned one of the town lots at the time of his death
and devised it in his will.

The new town throve well at first and the lots were all
taken up during the first year of its existence, and such was
the popularity of the enterprise and the desire to acquire
building lots in it, that many of the original lots were

268 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

■divided and subdivided in order to supply the demand.
The lots commanded a good price. In 1745 one of them,
22 by 45 feet, sold for £22. At the session of the General
Assembly in 1744 the original act of incorporation, which
was as long as Lord Baltimore's charter for the province,
was supplemented the first time by an additional one, which
empowered the commissioners to take charge of and dis-
burse £200, which the lotholders had raised by voluntary
•contributions for the purpose of building a wharf and ware-
house.

The principal articles of exportation from the new town
in the first years of its existence seem to have been grain
of all kinds and flour and flaxseed. Tobacco is not men-
tioned in the act nor in the records of the town, a few of
which are yet extant. The commissioners were also author-
ized to appoint a wharfinger and warehouse-keeper and an
inspector of flour ; and the act specified that after the
appointment of an inspector no flour was to be shipped
from North East River from any other place than Charles-
town. Flour that was not merchantable was branded with
■& broad arrow, and its shipment was forbidden under a
penalty of 5s. per barrel. The act contained many provi-
sions in reference to the exportation of bread, which was no
doubt similar to what is now used on ship-board, and is
known as " hard-tack." The commissioners were also em-
powered to purchase or have condemned two acres of land
.at Seneca Point, which is a short distance further down the
river, for a ship-yard, and to lay out a cart-road from the
town to that place.

The supplementary act shows that the inhabitants of the
town "had already, of their own accord, published a fair,
which was held at the said town on the 10th of May, 1744,
whereat great numbers of people did meet;" therefore the
■General Assembly authorized them to hold two fairs there-
after, to begin on the 23d day of April and the 18th day of
October annually, provided these days were not Sundays;

HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY. 269"

if so, the fairs were to commence the next day and to con-
tinue not more than three days. These fairs soon became
very popular, and were attended by people from the large-
cities as far east, it is said, as Boston. They continued to
be held till a time within the memory of persons now living,,
and probably added much to the prosperity of the town ;;
they certainly added much to its notoriety. Tea and coffee
are said to have been first introduced into this county by
means of the facilities afforded by these fairs. The mer-
chants from the cities brought those commodities there and
disposed of them to the country people, at the same time-
furnishing them with printed directions showing how to
manufacture the new beverages. It is said that tea was not
generally liked, and many of the first purchasers gave it
to their negroes. The Rev. John McCrery, who was pastor
of Head of Christiana Church, it is said carried a supply of
tea with him when he was away from home engaged in
missionary labor, and upon one occasion gave some of it to
the lady of the house where he was stopping and requested
her to prepare it for his supper. She boiled it and served
him the boiled leavei on a plate, when he quietly remarked
that he would much rather have had the broth.

Besides the merchants and milliners from Baltimore,.
Philadelphia and other large cities, who came to Charles-
town in vessels and bought large cargoes of goods, the fairs
were attended by many who came from distant parts of
Chester and Lancaster counties on horseback to see the sights
and have a frolic, and sometimes to settle the feuds and
quarrels that had existed in the neighborhood where they
lived. Many of the citizens of the town, as well as many of
those who attended the fair, were natives of the Emerald
Isle, who thought it incumbent upon them to sustain the
reputation of an institution that for centuries had been, and
yet is, exceedingly popular in their native country. The
state of society and the morals of the people were not as good
then as they are now, and the archives of the county show

270 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. .

that, during one of the fairs, the body of a murdered man
was found near where the road crosses a creek east of the
town. He was a peddler and had been at the fair, and his
body was found by some persons who stopped to water their
horses at the creek. While they were drinking, the water
became crimsoned by the blood of the murdered man. They
at once instituted a search for the cause, and found the mur-
derer, who had taken refuge in a tree near which his victim
lay, in the stream. The records of the trial cannot be found,
b>ut the stream is yet known by the name of Peddler's Run.
Many of those who attended the fair indulged in fiddling
and dancing, as well as in frolicking and fighting, and rude
and temporary buildings were put up, which were rented for
the former purpose, and in which the sturdy Irishman and
his sweetheart, upon the payment of a small fee, could enjoy
the pleasure that they had walked barefooted many weary
miles to obtain. For it was customary for the iemales who
traveled to the fair on foot to carry their shoes and stockings
in their hands, and when they arrived at the outskirts of
the town to wash their feet in a convenient stream, after
which they put on their shoes and stockings and entered the
town.

The spring fair was afterwards held some time in May, at
the close of the fishing season, and the fishermen resorted to
it to have a general jollification, during which many of them
were in the habit of spending the hard earnings of many
weary weeks of toil. They were also the resort of the fair
sex, who frequented them in order to obtain the finery that
could be purchased nowhere else except in the large cities.
The fairs were held on the public square of the town, which
it was customary to rent to the highest bidder for a term of
years. The proprietor erected drinking booths and stalls
upon the fair ground, which he rented to those who wished
to occupy them. These booths were rude structures made
of bushes, and would be great curiosities now. In 1795 the
commissioners ordered that the booths should be ten feet

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 271

square, and the stalls for selling goods should be seven feet
wide and eight feet long, all to be made of good, sufficient
forks and poles, with plank seats around each side and back
of the booths, and shelving in the stalls. They were to be
rented for not more than seven shillings and six pence each
for each fair.

The legislators of the province had had so little experience
in municipal legislation, and the habits of the citizens of the
new town appear to have been so slovenly, that in 1750 they
added another supplement to the act of incorporation, in
which they state that, " Whereas, many persons have built,
and are now building, in said town, and clear no more ground
than where their houses stand, whereby the rest of their lot
becomes a thicket, unserviceable for pasturage, also inconve-
nient and unwholesome to all the inhabitants," etc. There-
fore, they enacted that the owners or inhabitants of the town
should grub and clear their respective lots from all under-
wood grubs and bushes, under a penalty of thirty shillings.
It was further enacted that any inhabitant permitting his
chimney to take fire so as to blaze out at the top, or who
should fail to keep a ladder long enough to reach the top of
the roof of his house, should be fined ten shillings. Another
strange enactment, that seems to indicate a want of faith in
the success of the enterprise, enjoined the commissioners to
meet upon the site of the town on the 20th of May, annually,
in order to perpetuate its boundaries.

The records of Charlestown, which are yet extant, com-
mence with the year 1755, but they are very incomplete,
and afford but little information. The rates for storage in
the public warehouse. for that year were as follows : for
every bushel of grain, \d. , for every bushel of salt, Id. ; for
every hogshead of cyder, 9<£; for every hogshead of flax-
seed, 2d. ; for every barrel of flaxseed, Id. ; for every 100
pounds of iron, 3s. Ad. ; for every ton of hemp, 2s. Qd. This
year the wharfinger and storehouse keeper agreed to pay
£18 currency for the privilege, which indicates that the

272 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

business of the town must have been quite considerable-
The rates of wharfage this year were as follows : For every
sea vessel of 100 tons and upwards lying at the wharf, per
day, Qd. ; for every sea vessel of less tonnage, per day Ad. ; all
other boats 2d.

At a meeting of the commissioners in 1757, it was ordered
that a number of chests, then in the warehouse (supposed
to be the property of some officers killed at the defeat of
General Braddock), be broken open and an inventory of
their contents be sent to the governor, in order to ascertain
what disposition should be made of them. Two years after-
wards the contents of these chests were sold at public sale.
This is all the records contain about the chests or their
owners. Whether they were young men in the strength
and prime of manhood, or of more mature years, is not-
known, for, like a vessel that was built at or near the Town
and sailed out from it some years afterwards upon the broad
bosom of the ocean, they never returned. What bitter
tears were shed for the adventurous mariners, and what
homes made desolate by the absence of the warriors, we
shall never know, for their names and their sorrows are-
alike forgotten. Save this slight allusion to the soldiers and
a tradition about the vessel, nothing more is known of either.

In 1758 a vacancy occurred in the board of commission-
ers, which was filled by the election of Rev. John Hamilton,
who was at that time rector of North Elk Parish. There is
reason to believe that many of the early commissioners of
the town did not reside in it, though they were probably
the owners of town lots. This year John Smith was sued
for rent of the fair ground, which he rented two }^ears be-
fore. In 1760 the commissioners contracted with Philip
Neilson to repair the public wharf. They were to pay him
10 shillings currency per day, he finding two good workmen
beside himself and to vicinal them (which Haris Rudulph
engaged to do at Is. per day each), and allow them a half
pint of rum a day. A return made by the constable this

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 273

year, which is to be found among the papers in possession
of the count}7- commissioners, shows that there were three
two-wheeled carriages in Charlestown at this time, one of
which belonged to Rev. John Hamilton. These old-fash-
ioned two-wheeled carriages were sometimes called " chairs."
The whole number of these carriages returned in the county
in 1757 was thirty-four. Five years afterwards they had
increased to forty-five. In 1761 the commissioners ordered
that the rent of each peddler's stall and drinking booth,
when rented by citizens of the town should not exceed 5s.
The records of the commissioners show that the keeper of
the storehouse, during the years from 1749 to 1754, had
iailed to account for two hundred and fifty hogsheads that
had been stored in it. In other words, he was a defaulter
to the extent of £l2h .

The levy list for 1768 shows that the taxables, as returned
by the constable for that year, numbered eighty-nine, of
whom twelve were negro slaves. The whole population of
the town at this time was probably about three hundred and
fifty. In 1771 the taxables numbered one hundred and
two, of whom seventeen were slaves. In 1774 they num-
bered ninety-two, of whom eleven were slaves. In each of
these years, the Rev. John Hamilton is returned as one of
the taxables and the owner of one of the slaves.

Charlestown and Baltimore are nearly of the same age,
and for a long time after the former was laid out they were
rivals, and continued to be such until about the time of the
Revolutionary war, when the latter, owing to the trade with
the western part of the State and the superior facilities for
foreign commerce, outstripped the former, and it gradually
sank into obscurity and neglect. Many of the inhabitants
who had erected substantial houses in Charlestown tore them
down and shipped the material to Baltimore, where it was
used in the construction of other buildings ; thus the suc-
cessful rival gained what the unsuccessful one lost, and as
the one diminished, the other increased in size.

274 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

It seems proper in this connection to notice an error or
two into which Mr. Scharf has inadvertently fallen in his
History of Maryland, when writing of Charlestown, " of
which," he says, " no vestige now remains, unless possibly a
chimney or two, but of which the story is told that about
1750 a British merchant having some money to invest and
full of faith in the Maryland province, came over in person
to select the place to put his money where it would turn over
most rapidly. He examined Annapolis, Baltimore, Chester-
town, Elkridge and Oxford, and after mature deliberation,
put his money in town lots in Charlestown, as the most
promising site of all the great cities of the future."* Un-
fortunately for the truth of this scrap of history Charlestown,
by the census of 1881, contains 235 inhabitants, 48 dwelling-
houses, a church and school-house, and a number of shops.

A diligent search among the records of the town, which
have always been kept in books separate from the other land
records of the county, reveals no evidence that the English
merchant, nor any other person, ever held more than two or
three town lots at one and the same time.

*Scharf s History of Maryland, Vol. II., page 63.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Presbyterian Church at Bethel — Visit of Rev. George Whitefield —
Preaches at Elkton and on Bohemia Manor— Presbyterian Church at Elk-
ton — Disruption of Nottingham Presbyterian Church — Rev. Samuel Finley
— Nottingham Academy — The Free School on Bohemia River — Rev. John
Beard — The present church buildings — Name changed to Ephesus — Rev.
James Magraw — Revival of Nottingham Academy — The Rock Presbyte-
rian Church — Disruption — Rev. James Finley — Murder of Hugh Mahaffey
— Rev. James Finley goes West — Present church buildings — Rev. John
Burton — Rev. Francis Hindman — Lotteries for church purposes — Man-
ners, customs and character of the early Presbyterians— The Alexanders,
and other emigrants to South Carolina.

The Presbyterian church at the head of Broad Creek,
near Bethel, there is reason to believe, was founded by the
Lawsons and Alexanders from Society and New Munster, a
few of whom had settled in that neighborhood. The meet-
ing-house stood near the old graveyard, the site of which is
marked by some old tombstones which stand in the field a
few yards from the State Line and a short distance east of
Bethel church, at what is known as the Pivot Bridge. The
creek, the name of which was applied to this church, has
been nearly obliterated by the construction of the Chesa-
peake and Delaware Canal, the channel of which is identical
with the channel of the creek.

This church is notable on account of its failure. Of its
early historj^ but very little is known, except that in 1723
Richard Thompson leased an acre of land to Samuel Alex-
ander and Peter Bouchell for twenty-one years, for the use
of the Presbyterian congregation at that place, for an an-
nual rent of one ear of Indian corn. The first pastor was the
Rev. Alexander Hutchinson, a Scotch- Irish Presbyterian,
who was installed in 1723. It appears to have always

276 HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY.

been feeble, for during the most of his pastorate he-
was directed by the Presbytery to supply the Presby-
terian church on Elk River, as the Rock congregation
was then called. Peter Bouchell was one of the first
elders, as was probably Samuel Alexander, and cer-
tainly also John Brevard. This church seems to have been
almost, if not quite, extinct in 1740, when Rev. George-
Whitefield visited Bohemia Manor. Most of its members,
probably joined the Forest Church in Delaware, when that
church was organized in 1750. Whitefield first visited this
section of country in 1739, as is stated in his journal, a copy
of which, containing his autograph, may be seen in the
library of Pennsylvania Historical Society. On the 3d of
December of that year he preached at North East ; but little
notice having been given, there were only about 1,500 per-
sons present. On the 14th of May, 1740, he addressed a
large meeting at Nottingham, after which he went south,
visiting Georgia and the Carolinas, and returned the follow-
ing autumn and preached at Nottingham again to an
audience of 8,000 persons. After this he visited Bohemia
Manor, and on the 24th of November preached at the
house of Mrs. Bayard to an audience of 2,000 persons. He
does not mention the Broad Creek church in his journal,
from which it is inferred that the church had ceased to
exist at that time, or was so very feeble that it did not
exist much longer.

It was no doubt during this interval, when journeying
from Nottingham to Bohemia, that Whitefield stopped at
Elkton, or the Head of Elk, as the place was then called ;
for the town, if there was one then, was so small that it had
no name. Tradition says that he preached to a large audi-
ence at this place, which was assembled under the shade of
an oak tree that stood a short distance west of Bow street,
and probably about a hundred yards north from the river.
While he was preaching here, some of his audience for some
reason are said to have started away from the crowd he was

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 277

addressing, and he is said to have cried out, in stentorian
tones, "The devil's at your heels!" It was owing to the
preaching of this great evangelist that the first Presbyter-
ian church was organized in Elkton, for the next year (1741)
William Alexander and Araminta, his wife, deeded an acre
of land, the same whereon Whitefield had preached the
year before, to " Robert Lucas, Zebulon Hollingsworth,
Thomas Ricketts and Robert Evans, of Cecil County, and
David Barr, of New Castle County, upon which to build a
meeting-house convenient for people assembling to worship
God and hear His Word preached, and for the use of such
ministers of the Protestant persuasion or religion, and par-
ticularly the Presbyterian ministers, as shall from time to
time attend there to preach and officiate in the service and
worship of Almighty God." This deed contained a stipula-
tion that if the meeting-house ceased to be occupied as a
place of worship for three consecutive years, the land was
to revert to the grantor. It was owing to this stipulation,
and the fact that the Presbvterian congreoation at Elkton
afterward became quite small and feeble, so much so that
most of the members joined the church at Glasgow, that
this land reverted to the heirs of the persons who gave it to
the congregation.

The preaching of Whitefield was productive of much good
to many individuals, inasmuch as many were converted by
it; but it certainly did more harm than good to the Pres-
byterian congregations in this and the adjoining counties,
many of which were rent in twain by the dissensions that it
engendered. This was the case with Nottingham and Rock
churches. But little of interest to the general reader oc-
curred in the history of the Nottingham church till the
arrival of Whitefield, at which time the meeting-house stood
on the brow of the hill a short distance northwest of the
village of Rising Sun. After this disruption of the church
(1741), the new side (as those who adhered to the doctrine
-of Whitefield were called) erected another meeting-house in

278 HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY.

the meadow across the brook, a short distance west of the
other one, and in 1744, presented a call to the Rev. Samuel
Finley,* who, in that year, became their pastor. Such was
the bitterness of feeling engendered by the schism that rent
this church in twain that each party kept its church orga-
nization intact till about 1792, when most of those who had
taken an active part in the controversy having died and
time having somewhat mellowed the feelings of their de-
scendants, the two congregations were reunited. Mr. Fin-
ley was a native of the county Armaugh, in Ireland, and
one of the most distinguished scholars and divines of the
eighteenth century. He was pastor of the New Side Not-
tingham Church for seventeen years and founder of Not-
tingham Academy, at which some of the most eminent
physicians, statesmen and divines of the eighteenth century
received their early education. Mr. Finley remained in
charge of this church, till 1761, when he was chosen Presi-
dent of the College of New Jersey, now called Princeton
College, and shortly afterwards removed there.

Among the many distinguished men that received their
early education at Mr. Finley's Nottingham school, the
names of Dr. Benjamin Push, so well known by his connec-
tion with the University of Pennsylvania, and the Rev.
John Ewing, who was one of the commissioners that assisted
in adjusting the boundary lines between Maryland and
Pennsylvania, and who was born in the Eighth district of
this county, not far from Porter's Bridge, are the most emi-
nent.

The location of the site of the building in which Mr.
Finley taught school is involved in obscurity, but there are
some reasons that indicate that it may have been a short

* Rev. Samuel Finley was a brother of Rev. James Finley, who was
pastor of the churches of the Rock and Head of Elk. C. B. Finley, one
of the elders of theElkton Presbyterian church, is a great-grand nephew,
and Miss Martha Finley, the distinguished authoress, is a great -grand
niece of these distinjnrshed men.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 279

distance southwest of the centre of the village of Rising
Sun, and near the brook west of which the New Side Church
was built. It was no doubt a log building, for there were
few of any other kind at that time. Though the place
where it stood is forgotten, it matters little, for the reputa-
tion of the master and many of his pupils is so illustrious
that it will endure while sound theology, brilliant scientific
acquirements and pure statesmanship are respected and
appreciated. This academy was one of the most celebrated
of its time, and its history is in striking contrast with that
of the free school of this county, that probably was cotem-
porary with it, and proves the superiority of the voluntary
over the involuntary system of education quite as well as
the success of the Presbyterian church proves its superiority
over the Established one.

As early as 1723 the colonial legislature passed an act to
encourage education and also named a board of visitors in
each county, who were to hold office during life, and who
were authorized to perpetuate the board by filling vacancies
as they might occur, by death or otherwise, from the "prin-
cipal and better sort of inhabitants." The board of visitors
for this county were Colonel John Ward, Major John Dow-
dall, Colonel Benjamin Pearce, Mr. Stephen Knight, Mr.
Edward Jackson, Mr. Richard Thompson, and Mr. Thomas
Johnson, Jr. These gentlemen were authorized to purchase
one hundred acres of land for school purposes, and were
invested with full power and authority to employ teachers
and attend to all things that in their judgment were neces-
sary and proper to successfully inaugurate and carry on the
enterprise. They accordingly purchased a hundred acres
of land on the south side of the Bohemia River, in Sassafras
Neck, which included the point next above the Bohemia
Bridge, which was long known as Free School Point. It is
believed that they started a school there; how long it lasted,
who taught it, and who were taught in it, after diligent
investigation has not been ascertained. So little attention

280 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

was paid to the land that a commission was appointed by
the court in 1784 to ascertain and mark its boundaries,
which at that time had become so obscure that they were
found with much difficulty. The school visitors at this
time were Peter Lawson, John D. Thompson, Rev. William
Thompson, John Ward, Sidney George, and William
Mathews. Rev. William Thompson was at that time rector
of St. Stephen's Parish, and Sidney George was a lawyer
who resided in Middle Neck. John Dockery Thompson
was one of the justices of the court, and was no doubt a
descendant of the Thompson who married the daughter of
Augustine Hermen, from which it would seem that the
vacancies in the board of visitors had been filled from time
to time as they occurred by selections from the " principal
and better sort of inhabitants."

After Mr. Finley's removal to Princeton the new church
rapidly declined and never had another settled pastor,
though it existed for many years as a separate church
organization.

In 1745 Rev. James Steel became pastor of the Old Side
Church. The length of his pastorate cannot now be ascer-
tained with certainty, but he probably remained in charge
of the church till 1753, when he emigrated to the Cum-
berland Valley, which was then the western frontier of
Pennsylvania.

In 1762 the congregation called the Rev. John Beard. He
is believed to have been a native of Ireland. His relations
with the congregation were not harmonious, notwithstand-
ing which he ministered to them till 1771, when he was
deposed from the ministry. His \fill was proved in 1802.
He resided at " College Green," which he devised to his sons,
James, Hugh and George.

In 1786 the two congregations, both of which had for some
years been depending upon supplies, united in a call to Rev.
James Munro, which he accepted, and was installed in
August of that year. His pastorate, like that of his prede-

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 281

cessor, was inharmonious, and in June, 1789, some of his
congregation preferred charges against him for "irregular,
imprudent and indecent conduct," and after a trial which
occupied the presbytery three days, he was found guilty and
suspended till the next October. Having in the meantime
-expressed much sorrow and penitence he was restored, and
■subsequently dismissed from the care of the presbytery.
During this time the congregations maintained their sepa-
rate organizations: the First, or Old Side, worshiping in the
church near the road northwest of the village of Rising Sun,
and the New Side, in the meeting-house which stood in the
graveyard on the north side of the road west of the creek
In 1796 the congregations having been reunited resolved
to build a new meeting-house, but they disagreed about it's
location, and it was not until 1800 — presbytery, at their re-
quest, having in the meantime sent a committee there to
•endeavor to unite the congregations upon the choice of a
.site — that the location of the present house, which some
years ago was enlarged and improved, was begun. The
work of erecting the new church on account of the poverty
•of the congregation was an herculean task, and in 1803 they
■obtained an act of the legislature authorizing them to insti-
tute a lottery for the purpose of obtaining the requisite funds
to complete it. Samuel Miller, Robert Evans, Thomas Wil-
liams, David Patton, James Cummings, James Sims, John
Porter and Jonathan Hartshorn are the names of the com-
missioners designated in the act for the purpose of putting
"the lottery in operation. Their bond for $3,000, conditioned
for the faithful performance of their duties, may be seen
among the land records of the county. On the 26th of Sep-
tember, 1801, Andrew Ramsay conveyed two acres of land
to James Evans, Robert Evans, David Edmiston and James
Cummings, who were then trustees, and who purchased it
from him for the use of the church for £15. On the same
day Captain William Johnson also conveyed two acres to
the same persons, which had been purchased for the same

282 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

purpose for the same price. Each of these tracts are de-
scribed as being part of a larger tract called Ephesus, and
the church is designated in the act authorizing the lottery
as the Presbyterian Church at Ephesus, though it was
known upon the records of presbytery at that time as West
Nottingham.

Rev. James Magraw was installed pastor of this church
April 3d, 1804, and continued to minister to the congregation
until the time of his death, which occured in 1835. With the
exception of Rev. Hugh Jones, who ministered so long to
North Sassafras Parish, Dr. Magraw was probably the most
influential and successful minister that ever exercised the
pastoral office in this county.

The Upper West Nottingham church was organized in 1810,
out of a part of this congregation that was too far distant to
attend after the removal of the church from Rising Sun.
Mr. Magraw became pastor of the new organization, and
gave it one-third of his time until 1821, when he resigned. In
1822 he became pastor of the Presbyterian church in Charles-
town, which had recently been organized mainly through
his efforts and those of Rev. Mr. Graham then pastor of the
Rock church. Mr. Magraw also preached sometimes during
the summer season to the raftsmen at Port Deposit, who at
that time were probably as much in need of the gospel as
any other class of people in the world.

He was a fine looking, athletic man, and had a stentorian
voice; and is said by those who have heard him, to have
been an eloquent and powerful preacher. He cared so
little for the conventionalities of society that if the weather
was very warm he would take off his coat and preach in his
shirt-sleeves ; or if the church was not property warmed,
as was too often the case in winter time, he would preach with
his cloak on. He took an active part in the erection of the
fort at Port Deposit just previous to the burning of Havre
de Grace ; and was at the fort and harangued the soldiers
when the British were burning and pillaging the village of

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 28<

Lapidum. It was during his pastorate, and mainly by his.
exertions, that the Nottingham Academy, which had become
extinct after the departure of Mr. Finley, was revived.

In 1812 the legislature of the State made an appropriation
for an academy in each county. Through the agency of
Dr. Magraw, the people of West Nottingham and vicinity
had a board of trustees elected and a building, which was
intended to be part of a larger edifice, erected, and secured
the State appropriation of eight hundred dollars. Dr. Ma-
graw was the first president of the board of trustees.

Reuben H. Davis was the first principal. He had charge-
of the academy for two or three years, and was succeeded
by William McCrimmen. He was principal one year, and
was succeeded by Mr. Isaac Bird, and he by Samuel Turney,,
each of whom acted as principal for one year.

In 1820 Dr. Magraw was chosen principal, and remained
in charge until the time of his death. Dr. Magraw was suc-
ceeded by his son, Samuel M. Magraw, who continued in
charge until 1840. He was followed by Rev. George Bur-
rows, who had charge of the institution for ten years..
George K. Bechtel, A. M., the present (1881) principal, was
elected in 1862. This academy has sustained quite as good
a reputation as its predecessor, which was established by
Rev. Samuel Finley. At least twenty-four ministers of the
gospel, and a large number of other distinguished men who
have added lustre to the bench and the bar, and many others-
who have graced the medical profession, have also received
a part or all of their education at this institution.

The Rock congregation, like that at Nottingham, was-
divided by the controversy that arose from Whitefield's
preaching. The new church was organized in 1741, and
this led to the erection of the meeting-house at Sharp's grave-
yard, which is about a mile north of Fair Hill. Very
little is known of this church, except that it was a frame
building covered with clapboards. Tradition says that it
was removed to a farm in the neighborhood, and converted

284 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

into a barn. When the Old and New Sides united, in 1761,
they worshiped in this house for a short time.

The New Side congregation was without a pastor for ele-
ven years, when they obtained the services of Rev. James
Finley, who was a younger brother of the Rev. Samuel Fin-
ley, and who was installed pastor of this church in 1752.
Mr. Finley also had charge of the Presbyterian church in
Elkton for a few years after he became pastor of the Rock
Church, but in 1760 the pastoral relation was dissolved,
probably on account of the reunion of the old and new sides
of the original Rock congregation, which took place the
following year. During part of the time of the division of
this church the Rev. James McDowell had charge of the Old
.Side branch, which continued to worship in the old church
■at the stone graveyard* near Lewisville, Pa. During his

* A tombstone in this graveyard contains this inscription : "In memory
of Hugh Mahaffey, who was murdered November 18th, 1747." He lived
in New Munster, on the west side of Big Elk Creek, about a mile south
■of where the road from Fair Hill to Newark crosses that stream, and was
a, blacksmith. Tradition saith that a person who lived with him became
enamored of his wife, and that he and slie entered into a plot to kill him,
which they executed in this wise : Whde Mahaffey and wife were seated
near the fire, early in the evening, the cowardly murderer, who had been
momentarily absent from the room, stealthily entered it and struck Ma
liaffey with an axe. The blow knocked him senseless to the floor, but did
not kill him. An apprentice boy, who was in bed in the loft of the house,
heard the noise, and coming down stairs, the guilty pair compelled him
to dispatch his master, threatening, if he refused, to do it themselves and
charge him with it and have him hanged. The body was then buried in
the smith shop, where, after the lapse of some weeks, it was found, in
this way: Some of the friends of the murdered man, who resided at some
•distance, hearing of his disappearance, came to assist his neighbors in re-
moving the mystery that enshrouded it, and hitched one of their horses
in the shop near where the corpse of the murdered man was buried. The
liorse, knowing by instinct that something- was buried there, or heing im-
patient of restraint and wishing to get loose, pawed the earth away from
the corpse, which of course was discovered. No record of the trial is now
extant, but traditi >n says that the guilty man escaped, that the equally
guilty woman and boy were tried for the murder, and that the boy was
hanged. Another one of the tombstones in this graveyard contains an
image of a panther chiseled upon it in ba<s-relief. Another one contains
the figure of a man's hand, the thumb and forefinger of which are repre-
sented as holding, in order to exhibit to view, the four of diamonds.
Why these curious devices were placed on tombstones is a mystery that
will probably never be unraveled, for the inscriptions on them shed
no light upon it.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 285

pastorate he taught the classical school which had been
founded at New London some years before by the Synod of
Philadelphia, but which was removed to his residence, about
a mile southwest of Lewisville, in 1752. This school was
removed to Newark, Delaware, in 1767, and was chartered
by the Penns two years afterwards. It was the germ from
which Delaware College sprang. Mr. Finley's pastoral con-
nection with this congregation extended over a period of
thirty years, and so much was he endeared to his congrega-
tion, that it successfully resisted his efforts to obtain a disso-
lution of the pastoral relation and his dismissal from the'
Presbytery of New Castle for some years. He finally ap-
pealed to the synod, which set aside the action of the pres-
bytery, and he removed to western Pennsylvania, in 1783..
Eighteen years before that time he had visited the western
frontier, accompanied by Philip Tanner, one of the elders of
his church,who lived in Nottingham, near Mount Rocky. Mr.
Finley is said to have been the first preacher (except those
who had been there as chaplains of the army) that preached
west of the Alleghany Mountains. Some years after this the
synod of Philadelphia sent him to western Pennsylvania as
a missionary. While there upon one of these visits, he pur-
chased a farm in Fayette County, Pa., and in 1772, placed his
son Ebenezer, then a youth of fourteen years of age, in charge
of it. Mr. Finley was twice married. His second wife was
a daughter of Robert Evans, a sister of Captain John Evans,
who owned the rolling-mill west of Cowantown. He resided,
during part of his pastorate, on the White Hall Farm near
Andora, or Poplar Hill, as it was formerly called.

It was during Mr. Finley's pastorate that the present
church, which a few years ago was remodeled, was erected,,
as is shown by the petition of Robert Macky and George
Lawson, which they presented to the court in 1766, stating
that the congregation had purchased a piece of land in 1762.
from Michael Wallace and David Elder, near where the
westernmost branch of Elk River crossed the road leading;

"286 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

from Nottingham to Christiana Bridge, and had erected a
meeting-house thereon for public worship, and praying
that the said house might be registered. This was in
accordance with the act of Parliament requiring all places
of public worship to be registered by the civil authorities.

Though the first meeting-house at Louisville had been
erected previous to 1725, it was not till fifty-one years after-
wards that they obtained a deed for the land upon which it
stood. This land was donated to the congregation, which
was then called " Upper Elk Erection," by David Wallace,
but for some reason it was not deeded to them. Wallace
■disposed of his property in 1736, but reserved two acres
which he had given to the church, and subsequently re-
moved to Kent County, Delaware, where he died. On the
21st of May, 1776, Solomon Wallace, his son and heir, " in
•order to make good and confirm the generous and pious in-
tentions of his father," deeded the land to the trustees of the
church, who were as follows : Philip Tanner, of Chaster
County ; David Macky, John Lawson and Thomas Maffit of
Cecil Count}7.

After Mr. Finley removed to the West, the congregation
was without a stated pastor for twenty-six years, during
which they depended upon supplies ; often they had no
preaching for months at a time. Mr. Finley was succeeded
by Rev. John Burton. He was a Scotchman and joined the
Presbytery of New Castle in 1775, and in the fall of that
year was called as pastor of the Rock Church, being at
that time serving it, as stated supply by the appoint-
ment of presbytery. He remained about a year, when
he declined the call they had given him, and accepted
one from the congregation of St. George's, Delaware. Rev.
Mr. Johns states in his history of this church that he
had a little farm advertised for sale, and when a cer-
tain party went to buy it he told them it was a wet, sorry
soil and they would starve on it. He is said to have been
so absent-minded as often to drive home from church in

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 287

other peoples conveyances, and that his parishoners had to
see him safely away from church.

Mr. Burton was succeeded by Rev. Francis Hindman.
He was a native of this county and spent his boyhood a
mile or so southwest of Cecil Paper Mill. He was a cooper
in early life, but subsequently studied for the ministry, and
was called by this church and the church at New London
in 1790. Owing to the fact that he was accused of conduct
unbecoming a minister of the gospel he was never installed.
He resided for some time in a large, old-fashioned stone
house that stood until recently about three-fourths of a mile
northwest of Centre school-house. While there he taught
a classical school, which he subsequently removed to
Newark, Delaware, where he continued to teach for many
years.

Rev. John E. Latta, who is remarkable for being one of
four brothers all of whom were ministers of the gospel,
succeeded Mr. Hindman and remained till 1800, when he
accepted a call from the congregation at New Castle. He
was never installed as pastor of the Rock Church.

Mr. Latta was succeeded by the Rev. Samuel Leacock,
who ministered to the congregation as stated supply from
1800 to 1804. He was followed by Rev. John Waugh, who
at that time was principal of Newark Academy, and who
officiated as stated supply from 1804 to 1806.

After being without a pastor for twenty-six years the
congregation, in connection with New London, gave a call
to Rev. Robert Graham, on the 12th of September, 1808.
He was to give the Rock congregation one-third of his time.
He was installed pastor December 13th, 1809. He resided
at /New London and had charge of the united congregations
until the time of his death, on the 5th of November, 1835.
During his long pastorate he frequently preached at Charles-
town and was instrumental in starting the first Sunday-
school at that place. In 1803 the church needed a new
roof and other repairs, and such was the poverty of the con-
gregation that they obtained an act of the legislature

288 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

authorizing them to raise the money for those purposes by
means of a lottery. No persons are named in the act to>
carry it into effect, and no t}ond for the performance of that
duty can be found among the records of the county. It
therefore seems probable that the scheme was never put
into operation.

This method of raising money for church purposes may
seem highly reprehensible at this time, but it was not con-
sidered to be so then. As early as 1791 the vestry of North
Sassafras Parish had resorted to the same method, and for a
long time subsequently whenever money was needed for any
purpose of public utility, such as the digging of a public
well, or the founding of a village library, this method of
raising money was resorted to. Those who are disposed to
find fault with our forefathers for indulging in this practice,
should remember that they acted under the sanction of lawy
and that many professing Christians of the present time
find means to evade it, by resorting to cunningly devised
schemes which are quite as demoralizing and uncertain as;
lotteries.

The church at the head of Christiana was not divided by
the schism that resulted from Whiten eld's preaching, but its
pastor, the Rev. George Gillespie, for a short time favored
the New Side, for the reason that he thought those who ad-
hered to it had been treated with too much severity by the
other side. Mr. Gillespie died in 1760. He was pastor of
Head of Christiana church for forty-seven years, and was
succeeded by Rev. John McCrery, who, in 1769, was installed
pastor of the united churches of Head of Christiana and
White Clay creek. Mr. McCreary was a zealous and popu-
lar preacher, and well worthy to be the successor of Charles
Tennent, who preceded him as pastor of White Clay Creek
church.

Having thus briefly glanced at the ecclesiastical history
of these ancient churches, a few words respecting the man-
' ners and customs of those who worshiped in them will not
be inappropriate.

HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY. 289

The first Presbyterian meeting-houses were generally
built of logs and had no fire-places in them. The churches
were far apart, and the congregations that worshiped in
them were scattered over large districts of country ; some of
these people probably traveled a distance of twelve or fifteen
miles in order to attend meeting. Many of the original
members of the Head of Christiana Church were members
of the church at New Castle, and no doubt worshiped there
before the organization of the former church. It is said that
some pious young men who lived near Deer Creek, in Har-
ford County, were in the habit of crossing the Susquehanna
River in a boat which they used for that purpose and kept
moored to the river bank, near the mouth of that stream,
and then walking the remainder of the way in order to
attend the Nottingham Church. As the first meeting-
houses had no fire-places in them they must have been cold,
and being poorly lighted by windows must have necessarily
been somewhat cheerless and gloomy. But the ancestors of
many of the people. who worshiped in them had been hunted
like wild beasts by Claverhouse and his dragoons among
the highlands of Scotland, and many of them were afterward
judicially murdered by the infamous Jeffries. They had
worshiped upon their native heaths and in the seclusion of
their native glens at the silent hour of midnight, with sen-
tries posted to give notice of the approach of the hired sol-
diery, who, if they had found them, would, with merciless
fury, have shot them down like dogs, or consigned them to
the keeping of the gibbet or the prison. It meant some-
thing to be a Christian then, and the stories of these wrongs
and persecutions were yet fresh in the minds of the founders
of these old churches. No wonder they made no provision
for warming the interior of the houses in which they wor-
shiped. The ardor and r religious convictions
made it unnecessary, an< not been the case, they
were a stern, uncompron i hat were ever ready to
endure any hardship or ,ny sacrifice in order to

290 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

enjoy the privilege of worshiping God as they pleased. So
it was only after the erection of the meeting-houses that
superseded the original ones, that any provision was made
for the comfort of the congregations in the winter time.
Then a small house in which the session met, which was
called the session-house, was usually erected near the
churches. A rousing fire would be made in it on Sabbath
morning, and those who wished to do so had an opportunity
of warming themselves before they entered the meeting-
house. Foot-stoves were introduced in the latter part of the
last century. They were simply tin boxes with lids, and
were filled with live coals from the session-house fire, and
placed on the floor underneath the feet of the worsfri/pers.
The pastors of these churches in the early days preached
twice every Sabbath to the same congregation, there being
an interval of an hour or so between the morning and after-
noon services, during which the congregation partook of a
slight repast, which they generally carried with them to
church to satisfy their hunger. The members of these
churches nearly all lived in rude log-cabins, which were
generally built in a valley near a spring. They were a fru-
gal, industrious and pious people, different in many respects
from those who had settled in the southern part of the
county and in Elk Neck. They raised their own wool and
flax, from which they manufactured their wearing apparel.
They planted large apple and peach orchards, from the fruit
of which they distilled their own liquor. Those of them
who lived in Nottingham and New Munster disposed of their
surplus wheat at Christiana Bridge, which was then a place
of much importance, and contained a population of prob-
ably about four hundred. Their method of transporting
their wheat to this place may seem odd to those who live in
this age of railroads and steamboats. When they wished to
send their wheat to market they put it into bags or sacks,
which were large enon two. or three bushels each.

These sacks were plae ck-saddles on the backs of

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 291

horses, upon one of which a lad was mounted, who led two
or three of the animals beside the one on which he rode, and
thus the curious cavalcade journeyed to the place of its
destination.

Another custom that has long since fallen into disuse was
much in vogue among these people, namely, the irrigation
of the meadows along the streams, which were so fertilized
by this means that they produced a reasonably good crop
of natural grasses, which were cut for hay, where otherwise
not a blade would have grown. Timothy and clover were
not introduced at this time, and it was very desirable to
have as much natural meadow as possible upon each plan-
tation; this no doubt led to the ill-shape of some of the
early grants of land. The method of irrigating a piece of
land was to construct a dam across a stream and turn the
water into an artificial channel, constructed in such a loca-
tion that by letting the water out of it, through openings a
short distance apart, the land between the original and arti-
ficial channels could readily be covered with it. This was
practiced for many years by the first settlers in the upper
part of the county wherever there was a stream large enough
to admit of it. Many of the races that were constructed for
this purpose are yet to be seen. Lime was hard to obtain,
and liming was not resorted to as a means of enriching the
soil ; indeed, it is probable that its use as a fertilizer was
unknown to many of the people of that day. Owing to
what would now be considered a very bad system of farm-
ing, but which was the best their circumstances allowed
them to pursue, the soil on their farms became impover-
ished and many of them emigrated to the fertile valleys of
the Carolinas and Virginia.

This was the case with many of the Alexanders and
others of New Munster, who, about the year 1746, emigrated
to Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Those of them
who first settled there were joined from time to time by
others of the same family until, it is said, they were at the

292 HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY.

time of the commencement of the Revolutionary war the
most numerous people of one name in that county. Among,
the other families that emigrated from this county to North
Carolina, where many of them and their descendants after-
wards distinguished themselves by the active part they took
in the affairs of the Presbyterian Church and the Revolu-
tionary struggle, were the Polks, Brevards, a\nd very proba-
bly the Pattons and others, members bTwliose families were
active participants in the convention that promulgated the
Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, in 1775. Abra-
ham Alexander was president of that convention, and John
McKnitt Alexander was its secretary. Doctor Ephraim
Brevard was chairman of the committee which drafted the
Declaration. He was probably a son of the John Brevard
who was one of the elders of the Broad Creek Church in this
county. John McKnitt Alexander was born in Cecil County,
and went to North Carolina in 1754, when he was 21 years
of age. He was a tailor by trade, but became a surveyor,,
and was one of the leading patriots in his adopted State in
the trying times of the Revolutionary war, when it was
overrun by the British Army and many professed patriots
became traitors. Three others of the Alexander family
were signers of the Mecklenburg Declaration, as was also
Col. Thomas Polk, a granduncle of ex-President James K.
Polk, whose father is believed to have emigrated from this
county and settled in North Carolina.

There is some reason to believe that the father of
ex-President Andrew Jackson was among the number of
those who emigrated to North Carolina. Tradition says
that he lived in an old log-house that stood near the head
of Persimmon Run, just east of Cowantown, in the
fourth district, and that he went with a large number of
other emigrants from this county a few years anterior to the
Revolutionary war. The old house in which he lived,,
owing to the fact that its walls were not perpendicular, was
called the "Bendy House." The place where it stood was

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 293

long remembered and venerated by the old residents of the
neighborhood, on account of tradition connecting it with
the parents of the hero of New Orleans.

The emigrants from this county were the founders of the
seven Presbyterian churches that existed in Mecklenburg
County, in 1755, and so great was the interest taken by the
Presbytery of New Castle in the spiritual welfare of these
churches and others in that part of the State, that they fre-
quently sent their ministers there to preach the gospel to
them, the other members of the Presbytery supplying the
pulpits of the missionaries during their absence. Rev. John
McCrery, during the latter part of his pastorate at Head
of Christiana, is said to have been absent from his charge,
in the latter part of his life, engaged in missionary labor of
this kind one-fourth of his time. Once, when on a visit to
his old parishioners in North Carolina, he was taken sick
and remained there nine months.

It is worthy of mention in this connection as an interest-
ing historical fact, that Doctor David Ramsay, the author
of a history of the American Revolution, though not a
native of this county, at one time practiced medicine at the
head of Bohemia River, and was one of the large number of
eminent men who emigrated from Cecil County to South
Carolina.

A few years after the emigration to North Carolina began,
a similar one commenced from this region to the country
west of the Alleghany mountains. Many of the emigrants
settled along the Ohio River and its tributaries in south-
western Pennsylvania and northwestern Virginia. The exist-
ence of the strong Presbyterian element that has always
pervaded soicety in that section of country, is readily
traceable to the early Presbyterian churches, whose history
is so closely blended with the early history of this county.
These emigrants and others of the same class from the
southern parts of Chester, Lancaster, and York counties,
were the first permanent settlers west of the Alleghany moun-
tains.

294 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

The emigration from these districts continued for many
years. During a period of twenty years, which probably
commenced about the time of Rev. James Finley's first visit
to the West, it is said that as many as thirty-four families,
members of the Rock congregation, chiefly young married
persons, emigrated to the valley of the Youghiogheny, and
settled along that stream and in the valleys along the other
tributaries of the Ohio River. These families all settled
within the bounds of the old Redstone Presbytery, and
twenty-two of the heads of them became ruling elders in
the churches of which it was composed. These Presbyterians
made an indelible impression upon society in the region
where they settled, which is yet plainly discernible there, and
which while society lasts will remain as a witness of the
untiring energy and unflagging zeal of those who planted
the standard of Presbyterianism in the Western wilderness.

But the emigration from this county to western Pennsyl-
vania was not confined to New Munster, and* many of the
inhabitants, generally Presbyterians, emigrated there from
Nottingham. Among the latter were members of another
family of Alexanders, whose ancestors settled in Nottingham
in the early part of the last century ~ and who is supposed
to have belonged to the same clan in Scotland to which the
ancestors of the Alexanders of New Munster belonged.
Hugh Alexander, a member of 'this family, married Mar-
garet Edmisson, and migrated to western Pennsylvania as
early as 1740. The Edmisson family owned a tract of
land, containing 980 acres, at the mouth of Stony Run at
this time. This land included the site of the mill near the
junction of that stream with the Octoraro Creek.

These emigrants, having descended from a hardy and
restless race, transmitted their peculiar characteristics co
their offspring, who, when civilization encroached upon
them and was about to circumscribe their accustomed liber-
ties and subject them somewhat to the conventionalities and
restraints of refined society, emigrated to Kentucky, as did

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 295

the same class that had emigrated to Virginia and the Car-
olinas. In this way Kentucky and Tennessee received the
influence of Presbyterianism that has made an indelible
impression upon the character of their citizens.

During this period of the history of the county, the state
of society was not very good, and a few of the old records of
the court that are now extant show that licentiousness and
drunkenness prevailed to a considerable extent among the
lower classes, most of whom were indentured servants or
redemptioners. The records of New Castle Presbytery con-
tain but very few references to matters of this kind, which,
inasmuch as the Presbyterians were very austere and also
rigid disciplinarians, leads us to believe that few breaches
of decorum were committed by their membership.

Slavery prevailed to some extent throughout the county,
but the slaves were not numerous in that part of it north of
the Elk River. Rev. James Finley had a few of them, in
whose religious welfare he is said to have been much inter-
ested, always having them present at family worship and
catechising them with his own children. This was probably
the case with the members of his and the other Presbyterian
churches.

CHAPTER XIX.

Border war — Davy Evans dispossesses xYdam Short — Petition of Sam-
uel Brice — Arrest of Isaac Taylor and others — Agreement between the
heirs of William Penn and Lord Baltimore respecting the settlement of
the boundaries — Proceedings in chancery — Renewal of border war —
Thomas Cresap — Order of the King in Council — The temporary boundary
line — Decree of Chancellor Hardwich — Diary of John Watson — Cape
Henlopen — The trans-peninsular line — Death of Charles Calvert —
Another agreement — Location of due north line — Difficulty of the work
— Mason and Dixon — They land in Philadelphia — Latitude of that city —
Account of their labors for the next five years — Re-location of the north-
east corner of Maryland.

After William Penn took possession of his territories on
the Delaware several interviews took place between him
and the lord proprietary of Maryland in reference to the
adjustment of the boundaries of their respective provinces,
but inasmuch as they had no particular bearing on the
history of this county and were as futile as the efforts that
had preceded them, it is not important that they should be
noticed here.

From about the time of the disappearance of George
Talbot in 1687, to the time of the death of William Penn,
which took place in 1718, the good understanding between
the two provinces had been maintained by a variety of
temporary expedients, which were every now and then
frustrated by some act of border aggression.

This was notabty the case with the people living on the
borders of this county. At this time there were very few
settlements in Pennsylvania west of the Susquehanna
River, and the people living in the lower part of the penin-
sula seem to have been more peacefully disposed than
those on the borders of this county.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 297

In 1721 Adam Short, who lived upon a tract of land
called Green Meadows, which was somewhere on the borders
of Welsh Tract, complained to the council of Maryland
that shortly before he had been waited on by Davy Evans
■of the Welsh Tract, who was accompanied by eight or ten
men, and had two horses harnessed to a log sledge, who
demanded possession of his premises, which he refused to
give them. Apprehending trouble he went to see a Mary-
land magistrate, and found when he returned that his
visitors had been so expeditious in building a log-house
that they had raised it all round three logs high during his
absence. He protested against their action, but they finished
the house and gave possession to one Rice Jenkins. To
avoid trouble Short removed to another plantation which
he had on Christiana Creek, where he then resided, first
securely fastening the doors of his dwelling and out-house.
Returning some time afterwards to the house in which he
formerly resided he found the dwelling occupied and the
out-house used for a tailor shop.

On the 2d of June, 1722, Samuel Brice presented a
petition to the court of this county, stating that he "had been
an inhabitant of this county, on New Connaught Manor, for
about nine years past, and had always quietly and peaceably
paid all taxes and dutys to this county, since an inhabitant
within the jurisdiction of this court. But so it is, may it
please your worships, that on the 11th of this instant (May)
Isaac Taylor the surveyor for the county of Chester of the
Province of Pennsylvania, with others* assisting him came
and surveyed close to your petitioner's fence, so as to render
your petitioner's settlement altogether unconvenient for the
use of your petitioner and greatly to his prejudice.and further
that your petitioner is very credibly informed that Daniel
Smith, George Sleyter, James Bond, John Bond, Edward

*The other persons were Elish Gatchell, William Brown, John Church-
man, Richard Brown, Roger Kirk, and Isaac Taylor's son, as stated in
the records of the council.

298 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

Long, John Allen, Charles Allen, and several others, are upon
complying with a Pennsylvania survey and title, although they
have considerable time since complied with and allowed
themselves inhabitants of this county, all which your peti-
tioner conceives is not only an agrievance to your petitioner
but to the public interest of this government, and his Lord-
ships good rule, and loudly calls for redress."

This petition was favorably received, and the court
ordered that a precept be made out and directed to the
sheriff ordering him to arrest Taylor and the others for
committing a breach of the peace ; whereupon, William
Howell, the sheriff, called out the posse comitatus and arrested
Taylor, who, it is stated in Penn's breviat, was imprisoned
probably in the jail at Court-House Point, but possibly at
Annapolis. While he was confined in prison, Gatchell
visited him, whereupon the authorities of Maryland also
arrested and imprisoned him.

This outrageous conduct of Evans and Taylor and their
friends was the more reprehensible from the fact that it was
in violation of a compact or agreement between the governors
of the two provinces made in 1718, at a meeting held at the
house of Colonel Hinson. At this meeting Governor Hart
of Maryland, alleged that Nottingham was in that province,
and that the people thereof had often petitioned to be taken
under the government of Maryland. Governor Keith re-
plied, that New Munster belonged to Pennsylvania, and the
people living there had asked to be taken under the protec-
tion of that province. It was thereupon agreed that the
inhabitants of these tracts, and all others, should be left in
possession of their land, and all other grants should be re-
spected until the dispute was settled.

The arrest of Taylor and Gatchell coming to the
knowledge of the Governor of Pennsylvania, he at the
instance of the council, remonstrated with the authorities of
Maryland, who referred the matter to Daniel Delaney, then
attorney-general, who gave an elaborate opinion on the sub-

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 299'

ject, in which he took the ground that the offenders were
amenable to the provincial court for conspiracy to commit
a riot, they having dispossessed Edward Long, before-men-
tioned, of his house and taken possession of it and part of
his wheat field. The council thereupon ordered the court
of this county to bind them, and all witnesses against them,,
to appear at the provincial court, where they were subse-
quently tried and acquitted.

This energetic action on the part of the authorities of
Maryland seems to have had a good effect, and to have
overawed the people on the Pennsylvania border, who re-
frained from making any more surveys in the disputed
territory for some years afterwards.

Although more than half a century had elapsed since Cecil
County had been invested with a legal existence, its bound-
aries, owing to the dispute between the proprietaries of Mary-
land and Pennsylvania, were still undetermined. And inas-
much as the settlement of the boundaries of the county was
dependent upon the settlement of those of the province of
which it formed a part, it is important that the reader's
attention should now be directed to the efforts which at this
time were made to adjust the long pending controversy, and
which resulted many years afterwards in the establishment
of Mason and Dixons line. Although this line occupied a
very important position in the politics of the United States
for many years, its history is very imperfectly understood,
except by statesmen and politicians. Should the reader
belong to that large class of citizens who have not made
politics the object of special consideration, he will be more
ready than otherwise to pardon this unavoidable digression..

In 1732 John, Richard, and Thomas Penn, who by the
Will of their father had become joint proprietors of Penn-
sylvania, entered into a written' agreement with Charles
Calvert, the fifth Lord Baltimore, for the adjustment of the
boundaries of the two provinces. It was stipulated by the-
parties to this agreement that the boundaries should be as

'300 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

follows : First, a circle of twelve miles radius should be de-
scribed around the town of New Castle. Second, a due east
and west line was then to be drawn across the peninsula
from the easternmost part of Cape Henlopen to the Chesa-
peake Bay, from the middle of which a straight line was to
•be run in a northerly direction so as to form a tangent to
the circular line. Third, that from the tangent point a due
north line should be run until a point, fifteen English statute
miles south of the most southerly part of Philadelphia, should
be reached. Fourth, that a due east and west line should
be run from the last-named point as far west as the two
provinces extended.* It was also stipulated that, if the due
north line, beginning at the tangent point, should cut a seg-
ment from the twelve-mile circle, that the said segment
should belong to New Castle County. It was also agreed
that each of the contracting parties should appoint within
two months thereafter, not less than seven commissioners,
►under whose supervision the lines were to be located. Com-
missioners were accordingly appointed, who met for the pur-
pose designated, but owing to the indefiniteness of the agree-
ment, the conference soon terminated, and with it ended
all practical efforts to settle the dispute at that time. Shortly
•after this abortive attempt by the commissioners, Lord
Baltimore applied to King George II. for a confirmation of
his charter ; but it was too late, and by an order of the king-
in council, in 1735, the Penns were directed to institute pro-
ceedings in chancery for the purpose of testing the validity
Of the agreement, and if it was found valid, of enforcing its
provisions.

Previous to this time the partisans of the proprietors of
the two provinces seem to have made use of the legal ma-
chinery of the counties along the borders in their efforts to

* The west line was to begin at the tangent point, if that point was
found to be fifteen statute miles south of Philadelphia ; otherwise the
• due north line was to be continued until a point fifteen miles south of
TPhiladelphia was reached.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 301

further their own interest and that of their superiors. But
when the matter in dispute was referred to the Court of
Chancery, they having had little hope of a speedy settle-
ment, inaugurated a border warfare in real earnest, which
prevailed for a few years on the borders of what are now
Harford and York counties.

Thomas Cresap, who has been mentioned as the proprietor
of a ferry from Port Deposit to Lapidum, and who had
moved further up and settled on the west side of the Sus-
quehanna River, acted a very conspicuous part in this war-
fare. Many Germans had settled on the disputed territory
in what is now York County, under Pennsylvania titles ;
but in order to avoid the payment of taxes in that province,
they accepted titles from Maryland and acknowledged the
authority of Lord Baltimore. But becoming apprehensive
that adhesion to him might ultimately prejudice their
interest, they formally renounced their allegiance and sought
protection from Pennsylvania. This irritated the authorities
of Maryland, and the sheriff of Baltimore County with three
hundred men marched to eject them. The sheriff of Lan-
caster County, with a large posse, came to their assistance,
and induced the Marylanders to return without molesting
the Germans, on a pledge that they would consult together
and give an answer to Lord Baltimore's requisition to
acknowledge his authority.

Shortly after this an association consisting of three hun-
dred and fifty men, headed by Cresap, was formed for the
purpose of driving out the Germans and dividing their lands
among the associators, two hundred acres being promised to
each of them.

During one of the many raids that were made at this
period, an attack was made in the night time upon Cresap's
house, and he shot and wounded one of the assailants,
from the effect of which he died. Sometime after this hap-
pened the sheriff of Lancaster County, accompanied by
twenty-four armed men, crossed over the Susquehanna River

302 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

in the night, with the intention of taking Cresap by sur-
prise and capturing him the next morning. But they were
discovered, and Cresap, after making a spirited resistance
and defending himself, until his house which had been set on
fire by his assailants, was nearly burned down, was captured
and taken in triumph to Philadelphia, where he taunted
the crowd that assembled to see the " Maryland Monster,"
by exclaiming half in earnest half in derision, "Why, this
is the finest city in the province of Maryland." The Gov-
ernor of Maryland immediately ordered reprisals to be
made, and four German settlers were seized and carried to
Baltimore County.

During this period of the border war, hostilities prevailed
to some though not to so great an extent on the eastern
border of the county, and two persons named Roth well were
arrested at the instigation of James Heath, some distance
east of where Warwick now stands. These persons were
confined for some days in a jail* which stood upon Ward's
Hill, a short distance southeast of Cecilton, on the farm of
John W. Davis, Esq., one of Ward's descendants.

In 1736 the authorities of Maryland presented an address
to the king in council, in which they gave a comprehensive
account of the troubles on the border, and prayed him to
grant them such relief as to his royal wisdom should seem
meet. This address had a good effect, and on the 18th of
August, 1737, the king in council issued an order command-
ing the governors of the two provinces to prevent the re-
currence of all riotous proceedings in the future, and en-
joined them to make no more grants of land in the disputed
territory, nor even permit any person to settle thereon,
until his majesty's pleasure should be further signified.
This order had the happy effect of ending the border trou-

*Very little is known of this jail, but it was probably used in connection
with the slave trade. John Ward, who owned it, was one of the first sett-
lers in Sassafras Neck, where he patented a large tract of land as early
as 1665.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 303

bles, and in May, 1738, the governors of the two provinces
entered into an agreement for running a 'temporary line,
which his majesty allowed them to carry into effect, This
line was not to interfere with the actual possession of the
settlers, but merely to suspend all grants on the disputed
territory until the final adjustment of the boundaries. This
line was run in the spring of 1739 by Colonel Levin Gale and
Samuel Chamberlaine, commissioners on the part of Mary-
land, and Richard Peters and Lawrence Growden on the
part of Pennsylvania. It commenced at or near the eastern
boundary of the county as determined by Messrs. Mason
and Dixon. East of the Susquehanna River it was about a
quarter of a mile south of the present state line, and the
same distance north of that line on the west side of that
river.

The chancery suit, before referred to, was not decided
until 1750, when the decree was promulgated by Chancellor
Hardwick, who reserved the power to adjust any difficulties
that might arise in its execution. In conformity with the
decree, commissioners were appointed by the respective par-
ties to the suit, who met at New Castle in November, 1750,
for the purpose of carrying it into effect.

The diary of JohnWatson, one of the surveyors appointed
by the commissioners of Pennsylvania to assist in making
the survey in 1750, is yet extant and in a good state of pre-
servation in the possession of the Historical Society of Penn-
sylvania, to which it was presented by the late William D.
Gilpin, of Philadelphia, wTho found it among some old
papers at his paper-mill. This diary shows that the com-
missioners had a long controversy about the manner in
wjaich the twelve-mile radius should be measured. The
commissioners of Maryland contended that it should be
measured upon the surface of the earth, and those from
Pennsylvania that it should be made by horizontal measure-
ment, and not by following the inequalities of the earth's
surface. The latter method was the one enforced by the

304 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

court when the matter was referred to it. They also had!
trouble in fixing the point from which to begin the meas-
urement of the radius, and Watson states in his diary that
he noticed a puncture in the paper on which a map in the
possession of the Maryland commissioners was made, which
they stated was intended to represent the beginning of the
radius at New Castle. Its location, he afterwards learned,
had been determined on in this wise: "The commissioners
of Maryland had constructed an exact plan of the town of
New Castle upon a piece of paper, and then carefully pared
away the edges of the draught until no more than the
draught was left, when, sticking a pin through it, they sus-
pended it thereby in different places until they found a
place whereby it might be suspended horizontally, which
point or place they accepted as the centre of gravity,"
which they alleged was the centre of the town, and main-
tained that that was the right and proper place from which
to commence the measurement of the radius. The commis-
sioners of Pennsylvania objected to this curious method of
determining the centre of the town; and the court, when
the matter was referred to it, decided that the radius should
be measured from the Court House. The commissioners,
after spending some time in New Castle, adjourned to meet
in the April following, having first agreed that the survey-
ors should meet on the 20th of December, at Cape Henlopen,
and proceed to run the line across the peninsula.

Bythe terms of the agreement of 1732,the trans-peninsular
line was to begin at Cape Henlopen, and a controversy now
arose about the true location of that place. This controversy
originated in the different methods of spelling the name of
the cape. The early Swedish settlers called the present
Cape Henlopen, Cape Inlopen, and the exterior or false cape
at Fenwick's Island, Cape Henlopen or Hinlopen, the latter
of which is said to be a Swedish word signifying entering
in; from which it appears that the aspirate letter H, in the
Swedish language prefixed to the word Inlopen altered the

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 305

sense of it from the interior to the exterior cape. The
matter in dispute was referred to the lord chancellor, who
decided that the respective parties should abide by the
agreement which fixed the beginning of the line at the ex-
terior cape on Fenwick's Island.

Watson soon after the meeting at New Castle, started for
Cape Henlopen on horseback. He had occasion to spend a
night at a hotel in St. George's, and notes in his diary that
the mill-dam at that place, was the resort of large flocks of
water fowl. Watson gives an account of the difficulties and
inconviences the surveyors experienced in the prosecution
of their work, from which it appears that they were in im-
minent danger of being drowned by the tide overflowing
Phenix Island* upon one occasion, when they were stopping
upon it. The cabin in which they were lodging, upon an-
other occasion, took fire and they had a narrow escape from
death, one of them losing his shoes, which were burned to a
crisp, from which it may be inferred that their loss was a more
serious affair than it would be at the present time. However,
after much discussion and wrangling, they commenced the
survey of the line, which they traced for a few miles, but on
the 8th of January, 1750, were obliged to quit on account
of the swamps and low lands being covered with ice, which
made it impracticable to continue the work. Watson states
that their horses were continually getting mired in the
swamps, into which they sank up to the middle of their
legs, and that it was in his opinion only practicable to com-
plete the work in the summer months when the swamps
were drier than at other times.

The work of locating the trans-peninsular line was re-
sumed the next Spring, under the auspices of Edward Jen-
nings, Robert Jenkins Henry, George Plater, John Ross,
William Allen, Richard Peters, and Robert Holt, commis-
sioners appointed to superintend the work. The names of

* Now called Fenwick's Island.

306 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

the surveyors employed by them were as follows: John
Emory, Thomas Jones, William Parsons, William Shank-
land, and William Killen. The surveyors commenced work
near Fenwick's Island, on the 29th of April, 1751, and met
with nothing unusual until they had completed the thir-
teenth mile of the line, when they enter in their journal on
the 8th of May, that the men who were assisting them,
had struck for higher wages. This caused some delay, but
the surveyors being unable to procure any other assistance,
were obliged to make the best terms they could with their
men, all of whom agreed to continue to serve them. They
lived in tents, and were often at a loss to find a suitable
place to locate them, on account of the swampy condition of
the country. They completed the line on the 15th of June,
1751, having traced it to the Chesapeake Bay, a distance of
sixty-nine miles and two hundred and ninety-eight perches
from the place of beginning on Fenwick's Island.

The commissioners would probably have completed the
other portions of the work had their labors not been sud-
denly brought to an end by the death of Charles Calvert,
the proprietor of Maryland, between whom and the heirs of
Penn the agreement of 1732 had been made. Frederick,
Lord Baltimore, the heir and successor of Charles, was a
minor, and his guardians resisted the execution of the
decree ; but in 1754 the Penns took measures to revive the
Chancery suit, with a view of carrying out and enforcing
the original agreement. But probably owing to the pro-
verbial delay that always prevails in that court, the parties,
after waiting until 1760, entered into another agreement,
which, so far as it related to the boundary lines, was a re-
affirmation of the former one, from which it only differed
by containing certain stipulations in reference to the grants
of land already made by the proprietors of the two provinces.
This agreement provided for the appointment of not less
than three, nor more than seven commissioners by the
respective parties who were to carry its provisions into

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 307

effect. These commissioners met at New Castle on the 19th
of November, 1760, and on the 10th of the December fol-
lowing delivered their instructions to the surveyors, Messrs.
John Frederick, Augustus Briggs, Thomas Garnett, Arthur
Emory, John Watson, John Stapler, and William Shank-
land, who were employed by them to locate and measure
the radius of the twelve mile circle and a due north line
from the middle point in the line across the peninsula until
it reached the outer end of the radius. The commissioners
seem to have had some doubt of their ability to run all the
lines, for they only instructed the surveyors to run the two
before named.

The minute book of the surveyors, which contains their
instructions and an account of each day's work, may be
seen in the land office at Annapolis. They were directed
to measure the lines with the greatest accuracy with a two,
or if more convenient, a four-perch chain, the length
of which they were frequently to verify bjr a two-foot brass
sector, furnished them for the purpose ; and were frequently
to verify the direction of the line by the transit of the pole
star. They were to keep two minute books, in which each
day's work was to be entered ; and in case of failure to trace
a true meridian they were to return these books to the gov-
ernors of the two provinces, who were then to call the com-
missioners together in order to give the surveyors further
instructions. They were also to note the most remarkable
buildings, waters, bridges and roads near the line or through
which it might pass.

The surveyors began to run the due north line from the
middle point on the 12th of December, 1760, but after
tracing it a few miles were obliged to quit on account of
the severity of the weather. They resumed work on the
5th of May, 1761, and continued the line northward, but
found by observations made on the 12th of June that the
line was one minute and sixteen seconds east of the true
meridian. They then returned their minute books to the

308 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

governors, as they had been directed to do, and received
from the commissioners instructions to go back to the
ninth mile post and begin again to retrace the line. The
instructions of the commissioners are both instructive and
curious, but are too long to be inserted here.

On the 17th of July, Jonathan Hall was appointed a sur-
veyor on the part of Maryland and John Lukens and Archi-
bald McClean on the part of Pennsylvania. One of the two
last-named was appointed to fill the place of John Watson,who
died about this time. The surveyors met with many difficul-
ties and their minute book is full of entries about the swamps
and mill-dams that obstructed their operations. However,
they completed the due north line on the 24th of October.
It terminated near the road leading from Head of Elk to
New Castle. The commissioners soon afterwards met at
New Castle and gave them instructions about running the ra-
dius from that place toward the terminus of the due north line,
which they proceeded to locate and measure immediately
afterwards and finished in the early part of the winter of
1761. At this time the connection of Messrs. John Lukens,
Archibald McClean, Thomas Garnett, and Jonathan Hall,
appears to have terminated with this line and nothing more
of a practical nature was done toward settling the dispute un-
til the 15th of November, 1763, at which time Messrs. Charles
Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, having been employed by the
commissioners at the instance of the proprietors of the re-
spective provinces, landed at Philadelphia and immediately
commenced work.

Messrs. Mason and Dixon were eminent mathematicians
and astronomers. The former had been sent to India by
the British Government to observe the transit of. Venus,.
which occurred in 1763, but the vessel in which he sailed
having been captured by a French cruiser, he was put on
shore at the Cape of Good Hope, at which place he performed
the work he otherwise would have done in India. These
men appear to have been eminently qualified for the work

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 309

they were employed to perform, the best evidence of which
is the accurate manner in which it was Clone.

They landed at Philadelphia on November 15th, 1763,
and at once went to work to ascertain the latitude of the
southern part of that city, in order to determine the location
of the due east and west line, which was to divide the two
provinces, and which by the terms of the agreement, was to
be run at the distance of fifteen English statute miles south
of the southern part of that city. They followed the instruc-
tions which the commissioners had given to their predeces-
sors, and kept two copies of a daily journal, one of which is
in the Land Office at Annapolis, the other is in possession
of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. The copy be-
longing to the Historical Society was found some years ago
in Nova Scotia, and was purchased for the sum of five hun-
dred dollars.

These journals were kept upon the ordinary foolscap
paper in use at that time. Each page has a column upon
the left hand side of it, in which is entered the date of each
day of the years they were at work running the lines. Op-
posite the date is entered a short account of each day's
work, which was signed b}^ each of them. The first entries
in their journal are as follows: "1763, November 15th,
arrived in Philadelphia ; 16th, attended a meeting of the
commissioners appointed to settle the bounds of Penn-
sylvania; 17th, wrote to his Excellency Horatio Sharp, Esq.,
Governor of Maryland, signifying our arrival at Phila-
delphia."

The two astronomers had a building erected in Phila-
delphia which they used as an observatory. It was no doubt
a rude and temporary structure, for it cost but little, and
was completed and in use in nine days after they landed.
But rude and fragile as it was, it was probably the first
structure of the kind erected in the United States. In this
building they set up their sector on the 25th, and their
transit instrument on the 28th, and found that they had

310 HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY.

received no damage while being transported across the At-
lantic Ocean.

The point determined upon as the most southern part of
Philadelphia was an old house on the north side of South
street, then called Cedar street. They were engaged in de-
termining the latitude of this point until the early part of
January, 1764, and ascertained it to be 39° 56' 29.1" north,
which varies but little from the latitude of the same place
as determined by modern astronomers. Having completed
their work in Philadelphia, they took down the observatory
and placed it and some of their equipments in three wagons,
and having packed the telescope and some other fragile
articles in their beds and placed them on the springs of an
old fashioned two-wheeled chair, they started westward to
the forks of Brandy wine, for the purpose of ascertaining by
means of astronomical observations, a point in the same
parallel of latitude as the old house on South street. They
reached their destination in due time, and having re-erected
their observatory, proceeded to ascertain the location of the
required point, which occupied them until the 1st of the en-
suing March.* They then employed ax-men and proceeded
to clear a vista, in order to trace and measure the line fifteen
miles south, which they completed on the 12th of the follow-
ing April. This line terminated in Mill Creek Hundred,
near Muddy Run, in what is now New Castle County, Dela-
ware. After verifying their work and making the necessary
preparations they repaired to New Castle, from which place
they set out on the 18th of June, 1764, for the middle point
in the line across the peninsula. They traveled in wagons,
and were four days in reaching their destination.

The middle point in the peninsular line, as well as the
northwest end of the radius having been already located

* A stone which they placed in this parallel to mark the beginning of
the fifteen-mile line is now standing in the forks of Brandywine, and is
known by the people of the neighborhood as the " Star-gazers' Stone."

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 311

by their predecessors, they at once proceeded to run an ex-
perimental line, with a view of ultimately locating the
tangent line. This occupied them until the 25th of August,
when they had produced the line eighty-one miles, which
they supposed reached north of the tangent point. This
line was afterwards proved to be too far west to strike the
twelve-mile circle, and they at once proceeded to make the
calculation preparatory to measuring the offsetts and re-
tracing the line, which they did with such accuracy, that
when they reached the trans-peninsular line, they were only
two feet two inches west of the middle point. This was
their second effort to locate the tangent line, and though it
was a failure, the two astronomers, without manifesting any
symptoms of discouragement, at once proceeded to trace an-
other line. This line ran sixteen feet and nine inches too far
east of the tangent point, which they reached on the 10th of
November, 1764. They at once computed the difference
between the two lines they had run, so that when the stones,
which were to mark the line, were set, they could be
accurately placed in it.

The boundary stones in this line were afterward set under
the supervision of the Rev. John Ewing, one of the com-
missioners of Pennsylvania, and a relative of the Ewings,
who were formerly so numerous in the northwestern part of
this county. These stones, except a few of them on the due
north and circular line, were set at the distance of one mile
from each other. They have on them, in accordance with
the agreement, the letter "M" on the side facing Maryland,
and the letter " P " on the side facing Pennsylvania, except
those at the end of every fifth mile, which were marked
wHh the arms of the respective proprietors. These stones
were procured in England, and are of the formation known
as oolite, which probably has a greater capacity to resist the
action of the weather than any other stone that it would have
been practicable to have obtained. Though they have been
exposed to the action of the elements for more than a cen-
tury, they have not been injured in the least.

312 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

On the 21st of November, 1764, the commissioners met at
Christiana Bridge, and a few days afterwards the surveyors
discharged their assistants and left off work for the winter
season. Early in March, 1765, they repaired to the south
end of the fifteen mile line, near Muddy Run, and attempted
to ascertain the direction of the parallel of north latitude
west from that point, but were prevented by cloudy weather
from doing so for seven days, when, on the 21st of that
month, a snow storm began which lasted three days ; and
they note in their journal that at nine o'clock on the morn-
ing of the 24th of March the snow was three feet deep.
However, the snow did not remain long, and they com-
menced on the 5th of April to run the due west line that
still bears their names, and continued it until, at the distance
of about twelve miles, they crossed the road leading from
Octoraro to Christiana Bridge ; they then returned to
Newark for their instruments, in order to' verify the accu-
racy of their work, and found that they were one hundred and
twenty-nine feet north of the true parallel. They, however,
produced the line to the Susquehanna River, and found by
observation that they were more than five chains north of
the true parallel. The distance from the northeast corner
of the county to the east side of the Susquehanna, as deter-
mined by them, is about twenty-three and one-quarter
miles ; and the width of the river, which they obtained by
triangulation at that time, where the line crossed it, was
sixty-seven chains, four perches, and sixty-eight links.

The surveyors then proceeded to retrace and correct the
line, and having finished that part of the work went to the
tangent point, and on June the 1st, 1765, "found a direction
for running a north line per lime of the pole * transiting
the meridian; also proved the same by the passage of four
other ^.s, and found it good." They then produced the
north line until it intersected the west one, and thus deter-
mined the location of the northeast corner of the State.
But the boundaries of Cecil County were not yet fully deter-

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 313

mined, for it was stipulated in the agreement, as before
mentioned, that if the due north line from the tangent
point should cut a segment off the twelve-mile circle it
should belong to New Castle County. That line having
■done this it became necessary, by the terms of the agree-
ment, to locate that part of the arc between the tangent
point and the northern extremity of the segment. The
surveyors then proceeded to locate this part of the circular
line, and found that it intersected the north line at the dis-
tance of one mile, thirty-six chains, and five links from the
tangent point, which is the place where the three States
join each other.

The surveyors, on the 18th of June, 1765, in the presence
of the commissioners of the two provinces, set up and erected
the stones to perpetuate this part of the boundary. These
stones were quite different from those used to mark the
other lines, being a kind of bastard marble or limestone.
One of them was placed at the tangent point, where it yet
remains. The arms of the Penns are legible on the east
side of it, but the action of the elements has entirely oblit-
erated the arms of Lord Baltimore from the other side.
Four other stones were set in the periphery of the circle,
and one at the point where the north line intersected it.
One of the oolite stones was also set in the due west line at
the northeast corner of the county. This last stone, which
was lettered differently from the others, was prepared in
England especially for this place. It had been accidentally
broken in two and was mended by drilling holes in it, and
inserting iron clamps into them and then filling the holes
with molten lead. Thus, afcer the lapse of one hundred and
thirty-three years after Cecilius Calvert received the charter
of Maryland and ninety-one years after Cecil County had '
been organized, was the question of its boundaries deter-
mined. During nearly all this long period the controversj^
between the different proprietors of the two provinces had
been handed down from generation to generation, and sev-

314 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

eral times had the otherwise peaceable settlers, owing to the
ill feeling engendered by this controversy, imbued their
hands in each other's blood. These troubles had not
afflicted the settlers to any great extent in any other part of
the province, and although quarreling and bloodshed are
always to be deprecated and avoided, they, or the causes
that produced them, were not in this case devoid of good
results.

To the efforts of the respective proprietaries to extend
their jurisdiction and the extraordinary inducements they
offered to the settlers for this purpose, we are indebted for
the early settlement of the county, and the sterling qualities
of its citizens which, in many cases, have been transmitted
from their ancestors, who were induced to settle here when
the country was a wilderness. The vistas that the surveyors
were obliged to have made through the woods for the pur-
pose of tracing the lines were about eight yards wdde and
were distinctly visible in the growth of the timber until quite
recently. The surveyors and those in their employ are said
to have been a jolly set, and to have lingered long at the
northeast corner of the county, near which may yet be found
some fine springs of cool water, to enjoy the pleasure of
drinking the apple-jack and peach brandy for which that
part of the county was famous. Tradition says they had a
pet bear which they always took with them, and that the
curiosity and apprehension of the simple country people,,
who called them " the star gazers," were much excited by
the habit they had of viewing the heavenly bodies at all
hours of the night. Many of the country people viewed
them with holy horror as necromancers or soothsayers whom
it was not safe to meddle with.

After finishing the part of the wTork already described, the
surveyors commenced operations on the line west of the
Susquehanna River, and were employed in producing that
line westward until the 4th of January, 1766, when they left
off work for the winter, but resumed work again on the 1st.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 315

of April of the same year, and on the 9th of June had
reached a distance of about a hundred and sixty-two miles
from the northeast corner of Maryland, where they learned
from the Indians, whom the authorities of the two provinces
had previously been at much trouble to conciliate, that it
was their pleasure that they should not continue the line
any further. So the surveyors set up their astronomical in-
struments and ascertained that the line at this point was
north of the true parallel, and after making the necessary
calculation, they began to retrace and correct it and finished
their work on the boundary lines of the respective provinces
on the 25th of September, 1766. The commissioners of the
two provinces held a meeting shortly after this at Christiana
Bridge, at which it was determined that the line running
due west from the northeast corner of Maryland should be
continued eastward from the point at the south end of the
fifteen-mile line until it reached the Delaware River. The
surveyors accordingly located and measured this line, and
marked its termination at that river, the distance from
which to the stone at the northeast corner of Cecil County,
as determined by them, was fourteen miles, twenty chains
and fifteen links. The line that forms the boundary between
the States of Maryland and Pennsylvania, and that which
was continued, as we have described, to the Delaware River,
is the line known in the history and politics of the United
States as Mason and Dixons line.

A few years after the stone at the northeast corner of the
county had been set, the Revolutionary war commenced,
and the lead used in mending it, as stated bj old residents
in that vicinity to the author in his boyhood, was picked
omV and used for making bullets by the patriots of the Con-
tinental army. This stone stood in a small ravine in a
meadow, and when the lead was taken away from around
the clamps, they fell out and the upper part of the stone fell
off, and in a few years the lower part became covered with
the earth, which the rains washed into the ravine. Thus

316 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

the location of the northeast corner of the State of Maryland
was involved in obscurity, and the theory that the three
States joined each other there, instead of at the northern ex-
tremity of the segment which was cut off by the due north
line as before stated, was adopted and generally believed
by the residents in those parts of the three States contiguous
to the missing corner-stone. This being the case, in 1849,
H. G. S. Key, of Maryland, Joshua P. Eyre, of Pennsylvania,
and George R. Riddle, of Delaware, were appointed by the
governors of the respective States, in accordance wTith acts of
the legislatures of those States, to determine the place of the
missing corner-stone. These commissioners obtained the
assistance of lieutenant-colonel, J. D. Graham, of the U. S.
Topographical engineers, and by his aid soon succeeded in
finding the site of the missing corner-stone. And, notwith-
standing the great improvement in scientific and astrono-
mical instruments that had been made during the eighty-
four years since the missing stone had beeen placed in posi-
tion, the lower portion of it was found by the commissioners
when digging the hole in which to set the new stone they
planted in its stead. These commissioners found a few slight
inaccuracies in the location of the tangent point and the
point of intersection, of the due north and circular lines,
"which, owing to the want of care on the part of Messrs.
Mason and Dixon in measuring the angle formed by the
radius and tangent lines, had caused them to set the tan-
gent stone 157.6 feet too far to the north, and the stone at
the point of intersection of the three States, 143.7 feet too far
-south, in consequence of which the curved line between
these two points was incorrect. The commissioners, how-
ever, concluded that inasmuch as the stones that marked
the circular part of the boundary between Maryland and
Delaware had never been moved, and both States had ac-
knowledged them as boundary stones for more than three-
fourths of a century, to let them remain in the places where
they found them ; and lest they in time should be destroyed

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 317

by the action of the elements, they erected a substantial
granite monument alongside of the original stone at the
tangent point and replaced the stone at the point of inter-
section of the three States with a triangular monument of
the same material and buried the original stone near it.
They also marked the middle of the arc by erecting a gran-
ite monument at the perpendicular distance of 118.4 feet
west from the middle of the chord as determined by them-
selves, and erected a substantial granite monument at the
northeast corner of the State in the place of the missing
corner-stone. The circular line, as traced by the commis-
sioners in 1849, would, had it been adopted, have added
a trifle less than two acres to the area of Cecil County. It
may not be improper to remark that that part of Pennsyl-
vania lying south of the prolongation of Mason and Dixons
line eastward toward the Delaware River and between it
and the point of intersection of the three States has always
been under the jurisdiction of New Castle County, and the
inhabitants living upon it have always paid taxes to the
authorities of Delaware and exercised all the rights of citi-
zens of that State.

CHAPTER XX.

The Revolutionary War — The Quakers — Convention of 1774 — Commit-
tee of Safety — Delegates to convention of 1775 — First military organiza-
tion in the county — Henry Dobson — Military organizations in the county
— Henry Hollingswoi th makes musket barrels and bayonets for the army
— Edward Parker makes linen and woolen goods for the use of the sol-
diers— Invasion of the county by the British — They land at Court-house
Point — Sir William Howe's proclamation — Part of British 'army march
to Head of Elk — Another part overrun Bohemia Manor — Account of the
invasion — Court-house not burned — Doings of the American army — Skir-
mishing on Iron Hill — Robert Alexander — Disloyalty of the citizens of
Newark — Tories trade with the British — The Quakers refuse to perform
military duty, and are court-martialed — Brick Meeting-house used for a
hospital — Burglary at Head of Elk — Interesting correspondence — Lafay-
ette's expedition to Yorktown passes through Head of Elk — His route
through Cecil County — Journal of Claude Blanchard — Forteen Stodder,
the negro soldier — Confiscated property — The Elk Forge Company —
John Roberts hanged for treason — The Principio Iron Company — Susque-
hanna Manor — Lots in Charlestown — Property of Rev. William Edmisson.

The people of Cecil County were among the most patriotic
in the State, and the heroic part they took in the long and
bloody struggle of the Revolutionary war fully attests their
bravery. They shunned no danger, and shrank from no
duty, however unpleasant it may have been, that the
exigencies of the times imposed upon them. There were a
few tories* in the county, but they were very few, and such
was the alacrity with which the others embraced the cause
of their country that the tories found it best to seek safety
by joining the royal army upon the first favorable oppor-
tunity. The Quakers of Nottingham, refused to perform mili-
tary duty ; but there were many reasons that impelled them

* A term of opprobrium applied to those who adhered to the royal cause.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 319

to do so. Their ancestors had obtained that township from
William Penn, and had considered themselves as being
residents of Pennsylvania until the location of Mason and
Dixons line had demonstrated that the Nottingham lots
were in the province of Maryland. The colonial legisla-
ture of Maryland seems to have been so much occupied
with the consideration of the hostile legislation of the
British parliament and the other causes that led to the war,
that it had neglected to take any steps towards conciliating
these people by providing the means for them to obtain titles
to their land from the lord proprietary of Maryland. In
consequence of this neglect, the land owners of Nottingham
presented the singular anomaly of being citizens of Mary-
land and holding their farms by virtue of the patents their
ancestors had obtained three-quarters of a century before,
from the proprietor of Pennsylvania. Probably the ques-
tion of allegiance had little to do with their refusal to join
the army, for most of them were too rigid adherents to the
pacific principles and tenets of their society to have taken
any part in the war.

It is not within the scope of this work to recount the
history of the various battles in which the gallant soldiers
from this county participated, nor is it necessary to do so.
Their history may be found in that of the old Maryland
line, of which it forms a conspicuous part. It suffices to
say, that they won imperishable fame and have left a record
of noble achievements, the lustre of which the lapse of a
century has not dimmed, and that as the circling ages pass
away is only made brighter by their flight.

The aggressions of the mother country had aroused the
spirit of opposition in the breasts of the people of Maryland
long before the promulgation of the Declaration of Inde-
pendence, and the freemen of the State met in the counties
and appointed committees to represent them in a convention
that met in Annapolis, on the 22d of June, 1774. Cecil
County was represented in this convention by John Veazey,

320 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

Jr., William Ward, and Stephen Hyland, all of whom were
members of families which both prior and subsequent to
this time took an active part in public affairs. At this time
very few of the Americans had conceived the idea of armed
resistance against the enforcement of the obnoxious mea-
sures the mother country was trying to impose upon them;
hence this convention did nothing more than pass a series
of resolutions denouncing the Boston Port Bill, and protest-
ing against the passage of certain other obnoxious laws then
pending before the British Parliament. The next conven-
tion that the exigencies of the times called forth, the mem-
bers of which were called Deputies, met in the December
following, and went much further in their opposition to the
encroachments of the mother country. This convention
recommended to the farmers to increase the number of
sheep in the province, and to engage more extensively in
the cultivation of flax and hemp, and recommended to the
people of the province to organize themselves into military
companies and provide themselves with arms and equip-
ments and to learn how to use them. They also recom-
mended that the committees of observation in the several
counties should raise by voluntary subscription or in other
ways more agreeable to them, the sum of £10,000 for the
purchase of arms and ammunition. Of this sum Cecil County
was to raise £400. This convention held two other sessions in
Annapolis in the months of May and July, 1775, but owing to
the mutilation of the manuscript copy of their proceedings,
the names of the members from this county cannot be ascer-
tained. It is probable that the manuscript book was mutilated
in order to conceal their names, owing to the peril in which
the members were placed. A diligent search among the
newspapers published at that time has added nothing to
the scanty stock of information upon this subject.

The committees that represented the counties in the first
conventions, also took charge of the affairs of the colony in
the respective counties, and looked after the interests of the

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 321

inchoate State, and kept an eye upon those who were in any
wise opposed to their revolutionary principles. It is stated
in the American Archives for 1775, that the case of Charles
Gordon, an attorney, who resided in the lower part of the
county, was brought before the committee on the 17th of
May. Gordon was charged with treating the Continental
Congress with great disrespect, and with maliciously aspers-
ing it and the provincial convention and the committee of
the county itself, and at divers times and in sundry ways
vilifying their proceedings.

The committee, which was then in session at Elk Ferry,
had sent William Savin, sheriff of the county, with a sum-
mons to Gordon, to appear before the committee to answer
the charges. Savin had served the summons upon him, as
appears from his affidavit taken before David Smith, at that
time a justice of the peace, and afterwards for a long time
register of wills: but Gordon refused to attend, and sent
word to the committee that if they wished to see him they
could come to his place ; that it was large enough to hold
them, and that they had better not come inside his yard
gate or there would be lives lost ; all of which message, and
much more was couched in strong language intermixed with
profanity. Whereupon the committee resolved that he
should be under the imputation of being an enemy to this
country, and as such they would have no dealings or com-
munications with him or suffer him to transact any business
with them until he should satisfy them respecting the truth
of the charges preferred against him.

The counties were represented in the first convention by
committees, and each county had one vote only, and all
questions were determined by a majority of counties. In
the conventions subsequently called together previous to
December, 1775, the members were styled deputies. John
Veazey, Jr., Joseph Gilpin, John D. Thompson, Nathaniel
Ramsay,and Patrick Ewing,represented the county in the con-
vention of 1775. Of this number, Messrs. Veazey, Thompson,

322 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

and Ramsay, were signers of the Declaration of the Free-
men of Maryland, a document somewhat similar in char-
acter to the Declaration of Independence. It seems proper
to state in this connection that Peter Lawson, William Cur-
rer, and Charles Rumsey, of this county, also signed the
Declaration.

In the convention that met August 14th, 1776, this county
was represented by Joseph Gilpin, Patrick Ewing, David
Smith, and Benjamin Brevard.

The first military organization in the county at this time
of which any account has come down to us was an inde-
pendent company, of which Samuel Evans was commis-
sioned captain September 28th, 1776. Of this company
Henry Dobson was first lieutenant, Thomas Rumsey was
second lieutenant, and William Stewart was ensign. They
were all commissioned on the same day. There is reason
to believe that Dobson took a very active part in the organ-
ization of this company. On the day he received his com-
mission he seems to have been in Annapolis, for the council
ordered the treasurer of the Western Shore to pay him £500
for the use of Charles Rumsey, Henry Hollingsworth, and
Edward Parker, on account of the flying camp. The council
the same day ordered that Parker furnish sufficient linen
to supply the company with tents, and that the commissary
furnish Dobson twelve camp kettles, seventy-six cartouch
boxes, and also a like number of priming wires and brushes,
etc., which he probably brought home with him. Henry
Dobson was captain of this or another company at the time
of his death, as shown by a part of the pay-roll, now in pos-
session of his relatives. We learn from this scrap of paper,
which only contains eight names, that Robert Allan was
seargent of the company, William Phillips, corporal, Andrew
Hegarty, fifer, and that John Jackson had been drummer,
but was reduced to the ranks. From a list of articles
belonging to Henry Dobson at the time of his death it may
be inferred that the uniform of his company was very bril-

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 323

liant. A scarlet coat, gold-laced, with epaulets, and four
black feathers, are mentioned as being part of his effects, as
were also a testament and prayer-book.

Henry Dobson was the grandson of Richard Dobson, who
for many years was register of North Elk Parish, and
Abigail, the daughter of Henry Hollingsworth, the first of
that name who settled at the Head of Elk, in 1710. The
Dobson family owned and lived on the plantation bordering
on the west side of Little Elk Creek, and on the road leading
from Elkton to North East. Cecil County produced no
braver man or better soldier than Henry Dobson. At the
time he was commissioned he was not yet twenty-two years
of age. He was the maternal uncle of the late Henry
Dobson Miller, who was register of wills of this county for
twenty-eight years. He was wounded at the battle of
Brandywine and killed at the battle of Eutaw Springs, in
1781, in the twenty-sixth year of his age.

On the 6th of January, 1776, the convention balloted for
officers of the militia with the following result : Bohemia
Battalion — John Veazey, Jr., colonel ; John D. Thompson,
lieutenant-colonel ; William Rumsey, first major ; Dr.
Joshua Clayton, second ; Samuel Young, quarter-master.
Elk Battalion — Charles Rumsey, colonel ; Henry Hollings-
worth, lieutenant-colonel ; Edward Parker, first major ; John
Strawbridge, second ; v- Thomas Huggins, quarter-master.
Susquehanna Battalion — George Johnson, colonel; Thomas
Hughs, lieutenant-colonel; John Hartshorn,* first major;
Elihu Hall, second ; John v Hambleton, quarter-master.
There is reason to believe that these battalions were
intended for home protection and defence, and existed as
distinct organizations but a short time, when those of whom
they were composed entered the Continental army.

At this time Colonel Henry Hollingsworth was in the prime
of life, and resided in the old brick mansion in Elkton, now

* See sketch of Hartshorn and Hall families, in Chapter XXVIII,

324 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

occupied by his grandchildren, the Partridges. H3 was an
eminently patriotic man, and judging from the letters he
received and the important positions he rilled, did more than
any other citizen of the county for the advancement of the
interest of the colonists. The Head of Elk being directly
upon the route between the northern and southern colonies,
he was often called upon, in discharge of his duty as com-
missary, to furnish supplies for the troops when their line of
march lead through that village, which then was a place of
so much importance that the Legislature passed an act in
the spring of 1777, authorizing the governor to purchase
land and contract for the erection of a good, substantial
stone or brick building to be used for the accommodation of
new recruits or soldiers passing through it. The governor
was also requested to solicit the aid of Congress in prosecu-
ting the work. Probably for the want of means, the build-
ing was not erected. Mr. Hollings worth was as enterprising
as he was patriotic ; and with a view of aiding the cause of
his country, he made a proposition to the convention to
manufacture gun-barrels and bayonets for the use of the
troops. The convention took action upon this proposition
on the 22d of May, 1776, and resolved that the sum of £500
should be advanced to him. " He was to give bond for the
payment of that sum in good substantial gun barrels, well
bored and ground, f of an inch in the bore and 3 J feet in
the barrel, at twenty shillings per barrel, and good substan-
tial steel bayonets, at eight shillings per bayonet." These
barrels were stocked by Mr. William Winters, who had a
manufactory for that purpose at Chestertown. Mr. Hol-
lingsworth was the first person that engaged in the manu-
facture of warlike munitions in this State for the use of its
soldiers.

The January before this took place, Edward Parker, who
then resided near the Brick Meeting-house, had memorialized
the convention in regard to the manufacture of linen and
woolen goods, and had received a subsidy of £300 to enable?

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 325

him to start business. He stated that he had erected a
house,* provided himself with all manner of implements,
and had five looms constantly employed in manufacturing.
In this connection the following letter, copied from the
original, now in possession of Mr. Hollingsworth's grand-
children, will be interesting. It was written only eight days
after the promulgation of the Declaration of Independence,
and shows the promptness with which the people of that
"time acted :

" In Council of Safety,

" 12th July, 1776.
"Sir : — We are in immediate want of about 400 bayonets of
different sized sockets for the army of the Eastern Shore
militia, who are to compose part of the flying camp, and
have sent an order on you to Mr. Wintersf lor them, and
we request you will supply him with that number as soon
as possible. The greatest exertions are necessary upon this
occasion, and we doubt not your warmest efforts to enable
us to carry into execution the resolves of convention with
that dispatch the exigency of the times require.

" For and on behalf of the Council,
" I am sir, your obedient servant,
" Charles Carroll, V. P.
" Col. Henry Hollingsworth."

The iron used in the construction of these munitions of
war was purchased in Philadelphia.

*This house is believed to be now standing. It is on the south side of the
road leading from the Brick Meeting-house to Port Deposit, and a short dis-
tance west of where that road crosses the North East Creek. Mr. Parker
at one time owned a fulling-mill, which was on or near the site of the
grjst-mill on the other side of the creek, at which no doubt the woolen
cloth was finished.

f Mr. Winters had a shop in Charlestown, and was employed by the
State to stock the gun-barrels, which were probably made at the gun
factory on a branch of Little North East creek, which rises near the
Brick Meeting house. The factory was in the midst of a dense forest,
a short distance north of the road leading from Kirk's mill to Bay View

326 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

The correspondence between Colonel Hollingsworth and
the colonial and continental authorities is interesting and
instructive; and shows the difficulties under which the
patriotic people of that time labored. Skillful laborers were
hard to procure, and many of the bayonets made by Colonel
Hollingsworth were useless, either because they were not
properly tempered, or because the steel of which they were
made was worthless. They were easily bent, and conse-
quently were good for nothing ; so the colonial authorities
censured him and threw them on his hands, which was a
source of quite as much annoyance to him as the want of
the g weapons was to them. In addition to ordinary
muskets barrels and bayonets he also manufactured a few
barrels for larger pieces, which are mentioned in his corres-
pondence under the name of wall pieces.

Little is known of the other officers of the battalions
before-mentioned. Colonel John Veazey descended from an
old Norman family, one of whom settled on Veazey Neck
previous to 1670. As before stated, he represented the
county in the convention of 1774-5. He was a nephew of
Captain Edward Veazey, who was killed at the battle of
Long Island in 1776. Charles and William Rumsey were
descendants of Charles Rumsey, who lived at the head of
Bohemia River in 1710. Dr. Joshua Clayton participated
in the battle of Brandywine, at which time he was aid to
General Washington, who had it is said, commissioned him
Colonel and placed him on his start, in order to make a
good appearance when receiving the sword of General
Howe, whom he expected to capture at that place. Colonel
Clayton was afterwards Governor of Delaware and United
State Senator from that State. George Johnson is believed
to have been aid. to General Washington during the cam-
paign in New Jersey in 1777-8. \|Elihu Hall was of the Hall
family, one of whom many years before, settled near the
mouth of the Octoraro. This family for a long time, was
one of the most numerous and distinguished in the county.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 327

The campaign of 1776 was disastrous to the Continental
army, no portion of which had acted with greater bravery
and distinction than the Maryland line. Washington had
done what he could to retrieve the fortunes of the Con-
tinental cause at Princeton and Trenton, and in the Spring
of 1777, his army occupied northern New Jersey, and hav-
ing been largely reinforced was so formidable that General
Howe resolved to accomplish by stratagem what he had
failed to do by force, namely, the capture of Philadelphia,
then the capitol of the infant Republic. To this end he
embarked his army on board his brother's fleet, intending
to reach Philadelphia by sailing up the Delaware. But
learning that this was impracticable on account of the ob-
structions in that river, he abandoned his original plan and
entered the Chesapeake Bay.

On the way up the Chesapeake, the British fleet, consisting
of three hundred sail of men-of-war, stopped at the mouth of
the Patapsco river and threatened to destroy Baltimore.

It is stated in the Maryland Gazette, a newspaper pub-
lished in Baltimore, that the British fleet left Bodkin Point,
at the mouth of the Patapsco, on the 24th of August, and
sailed to the mouth of Elk River and came to, off Turkey
Point. The writer then proceeds as follows : " It has been
reported they landed some of their troops, but it proceeded
from their sending a number of boats to Pursusa (Spesutia)
Island, lying between Harford and Kent county, on
which was a. large stock of cattle and sheep, some of which
they have taken off." This erroneous account of the landing
of the British troops at Turkey Point was adopted by Rum-
say and published in his history of the Revolutionary war,
and his account has been generally followed by all subse-
quent American writers. The fact is correctly stated by
British historians, who say that Howe's army landed some
distance above the mouth of the Elk River. From Turkey
Point the British sailed on up the Elk River and landed on

328 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

Elk Neck, nearly opposite Court-house Point, at which
place they were encamped on the 27th. The weather at this
time was very rainy, which may have prevented them from
landing sooner.

On the 27th the Bristish General issued the following
proclamation :

" By His Excellency Sir William Howe, &c, &c. A decla-
ration to the inhabitants of Pennsylvania, the lower counties
on Delaware and the counties on the Eastern Shore of
Maryland : Sir William Howe, regretting the calamities to
which many of His Majesty's faithful subjects are still ex-
posed by the continuance of the rebellion ; and no less
desirous of protecting the innocent than determining to
pursue with the rigors of war all those whom His Majesty's
forces in the course of their progress may find in arms
against the King, doth hereby assure the peaceable inhabi-
tants of the province of Pennsylvania, the lower counties on
Delaware and the counties of Maryland on the eastern shore
of Chesapeake bay that in order to remove any groundless
apprehensions which may have been raised of their suffer-
ing by depredations of the army under his command: He
hath issued the strictest orders to the troops for the preser-
vation of regularity and good discipline ; and has signified
that the most exemplary punishment shall be inflicted upon
those who shall dare to plunder their property or molest the
persons of any of His Majesty's well disposed subjects.

" Security and protection are likewise extended to all per-
sons, inhabitants of the province and counties aforesaid,
who (not guilty of having assumed legislative or judicial au-
thority) may have acted illegally in subordinate stations and
conscious of their misconduct been induced to leave their
dwellings ; Provided such persons do forthwith return and
remain peaceably in their usual places of abode. Consider-
ing, moreover, that many officers and private men, now
actually in arms against His Majesty, may be willing to re-
linquish the part they have taken in this rebellion and
return to their due allegiance. Sir William Howe doth
therefore promise a free and general pardon to all such of-
ficers and private men as shall voluntarily come and sur-
render themselvas to any detachment of his Majesty's forces

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 329

before the day on which it shall be notified, that the said
indulgence shall be discontinued.

" Given under my hand at Head Quarters of the Army,the
27th of August, 1777, by His Excellency's command.

" Robert McKenzie,

" Secretary."

In a letter dated at Mr. Russle's, at the head of North East,
on the 27th of August, and addressed to Governor Johnson,
by Benjamin Rumsey, he states that there were about one
hundred men under arms, of which number about sixty-two
were at North East and Charlestown. He complains of the
want of arms, and speaks of two Hessian deserters, who
had come to North East that morning.

The two days after the British landed were stormy, which
probably prevented them from advancing sooner ; but on
the morning of the 27th of August, two brigades of light
infantry under Howe marched by the old road, traces of
which may be seen at this time, that led from Elk Ferry to
the Head of Elk, leaving a large division of the heavier
troops, under command of Generah Knyphausen and
Agnew, at Elk Ferry, with instructions to cross the Elk
River to Bohemia Manor. The British did not confine
themselves to the road after crossing Little Elk Creek, but
spread over the fields on each side of it, their pioneers or
vanguard tearing down the fences and other obstructions to
make way for the others. It was said to have been a beautiful
sight to see them as they came in sight on the level slope
west of the town, their scarlet coats and bright guns and
bayonets gleaming in the rays of an early August sun.
After reaching the Head of Elk (now Elkton) the British
encamped on the plain, northwest of the town, where they
remained for several days.

While the British were at Elkton they destroyed a large
quantity of grain that was stored in a warehouse that stood
in the hollow near where Prices hotel now stands. The
warehouse was a frame building, and stood on the east side

330 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

of a canal or ditch that had been dug for the purpose of
bringing vessels close to it, to facilitate the loading of grain.
The British tore the weather-boarding off this warehouse
and filled the ditch full of grain. The British General ap-
pears to have left a part of his force here for some time, probably
a small garrison, to hold the town and keep open his line
of communication with the fleet in the river.

The Americans had a small body of troops at Elk Forge,
which was a place of much importance at that time, and
had been in operation for about sixteen years. They also
had a line of posts or stations by way of Kennet Square
to Philadelphia, and kept up communication by means of
couriers on horseback, who changed horses at each . station.

While the British held the town they were in the habit of
sending out foraging parties, and the Americans at the forge
had their scouts on the alert, in order to be informed of their
operations. It was while doing duty as a scout that a grand-
uncle of the author fell in with a squad of these British officers
near the site of the bridge across Big Elk, north of the town,
known as Gilpin's bridge. He was on the north side of the
creek and they were on the opposite bank, near where the
house now stands. The creek was skirted on each side with
bushes and trees, and the old gentleman fired at them before
they saw him, and to use his own words, " One of them set-
tled down on his horse's neck." The old soldier did not
think it safe to stay longer at that time, but returned a short
time after the evacuation of Elkton by the British and found
a fresh grave in the flat between the bluff and the creek.
The grave is in the garden belonging to the house that
stands near the south end of the bridge. The place was
pointed out to the author many years ago by his uncle, to
whom it had been shown by the person who fired the shot.*

* This man's name was Samuel Johnston. He served in the army un-
der Washington, in New Jersey, and was in the battle of Monmouth. His
brother, Thomas Johnston, was killed on board of an American privateer,
near one of the British West India Islands during the war of the Revo-
lution.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 331

He had no doubt that the grave was that of the man at whom.
he fired. There may be those who will be disposed to think
harshly of this action of an American soldier, but they
should remember that the provocation of the Americans had
been great and their sufferings severe ; that they had borne
them long and patiently when they had a reasonable right
to have expected better treatment.

During the time that the British were in Elkton and vici-
nity they sent a detachment of troops to Elk Forge, who
committed many depredations there and destroyed much
of the property that they found. Most of the stock had
been removed and concealed in anticpation of the raid. The
people, for a distance of twelve or fifteen miles around
Elkton, in Delaware, and Pennsylvania, took pains to con-
ceal their horses and cattle by driving them to secluded
places in the woods. Many of them had taken the more
valuable portions of their portable property and fled to
places of safety, where they remained until the danger was
past. It was at the time of the raid upon Elk Forge that
they took James Ram age prisoner and carried him to Phila-
delphia, where they detained him on board a prison ship for
some months. His wife went with him, and probably
owing to her solicitations and exertions, he was released.
This man Ramage was the maternal grandfather of Mrs.
Agatha Scott, the wife of David Scott, Esq., of the fourth
district. He was a Scotchman and had not been long in
America.

At this time there lived somewhere in the vicinity of
Chestnut Hill a gentleman and his wife, who had the honor
of lodging Gen. Washington. This man's name was Seth
James. He lived to be quite old and taught school in the
la/tter part of his life. The general was accompanied by his
servant and asked the favor of lodging with them. The old
lady fixed up the best feather bed she had in the best style.
The servant, however, was of the opinion that something

332 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

might be concealed in the bed and he subjected it to a min-
ute inspection, after which he rearranged it and the General
then retired. They arose early the next morning and de-
parted.

That part of the British army, under Gen. Knyphausen
and Agnew, probably crossed the Elk River shortly after the
departure of the light troops under Gen. Howe, for they were
encamped near Court-house Point on the 31st of August.
This division was composed of Hessians and Scotch High-
landers. They appear to have spread over the greater part
of Sodom,* and were encamped for a short time near St.
Augustine Church, the windows of which they destroyed.

One of the British generals is said to have occupied the
house on the Wirt farm, near St. Augustine Church, and
some one drew a picture of soldiers drawn up in military
order, on one of the wooden partitions of that house. This
picture is said by those who saw it to have been executed in
a beautiful and artistic manner. The house is now standing,
but the picture has been obliterated by the partition being
white-washed.

There is a tradition that nineteen of the Hessians
•deserted, but were captured and shot at Welsh Point, and
buried there in one common grave. Some indications of a
grave of that kind are to be seen at the Point at this time.
The depression in the earth that is said to be their grave is
called " The Hessian's Hole."

A detachment of the British army also crossed the Elk
River, and landed at Welsh Point. It is probable that it
was this detachment that afterwards joined that part of the
army that was commanded by General Howe, at Grays
-Hill. For it is not probable, as stated by several writers of

* Sodom was bounded by Back Creek on the north, and included all
the country between that creek and the road leading from Court-house Point
to Cayotts Corner, and the road leading from the latter place via St.
Augustine to Back Creek Mills.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 333

that period, that the division under Knyphausen and
Agnew, that is known to have been at St. Augustine
church, and to have been encamped near the Summit
Bridge, on the Chesapeake and Delaware canal, took a retro-
grade course and came back to Grays Hill.

It is generally believed that the British burned the court-
house on Court-house Point, when they were there this
year, but such was not the case. Nor is there any reason to
believe that they injured it in the least. At the August
term of court, 1776, one Joseph Watson (hatter), was pre-
sented by the grand jury for " entering the court-house of
Cecil County with force and arms, on Tuesday, the twenty-
third of July last, and then and there with force and arms,
breaking and pulling down the window-sashes, glass, and
window-shutters of said court-house." The records of the
court show that some time after the British were at Court-
house Point, the damages referred to in this presentment
were repaired. The presentment was found among the
court papers of that year, but the records of the county
contain no reference to the trial.

Watson was a Tory and may have been one of the few in
this county that joined the British army. The fact that the
British carried away with them all the public records ex-
cept a few that had been removed to the Head of Elk for
safety, probably gave rise to the erroneous story that they
burned the court-house. Some of the records were found
in New York and brought back to the county after the close
of the war. These were transcribed, but many of the origi-
nal records were never recovered, which accounts for the
imperfect condition of the land records previous to the
beginning of this century.

The Americans, as before intimated, had large quantities
of grain, salt, and other stores at the Head of Elk, and
owing to the fact that salt was scarce and difficult to obtain^
they were very anxious to remove it to a place of safety.
In order to do this, as well as to be in a position to watch

334 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

the movements of the British, Washington left Philadelphia
on the 24th of August, and on the 25th, encamped on Red
Clay Creek, with his headquarters at Wilmington. His
army consisted of about 11,000 men. The Pennsylvania and
Delaware militia, under Generals Armstrong and Rodney,
were ordered to press forward to Head of Elk, and secure
the stores deposited there; but they failed to do so, and
most of the stores fell into the hands of the enemy. Gen-
erals Green and Weeden reconnoitered the country between
Wilmington and Head of Elk, and Washington himself
rode through heavy rains to the latter place on the 25th,
to make a personal reconnoissance. It was upon this occa-
sion that Washington passed the night in the old brick
house just west of the Episcopal church, then occupied by
Jacob Hollingsworth as a hotel. General Howe occupied
the same room on the night of the 27th of August, and was
waited upon by the same negro servant that had served
Washington the night before.* The British seem to have
proceeded slowly and cautiously. For a time they were
encamped on the plain north of the town. Afterwards they
occupied a strong position on the summit of Grays Hill.
On the third of September their lines extended from
Glasgow, then called Aikensor Aikentown,fto a point some
distance northwest of the Baptist church on Iron Hill. On
that day severe skirmishing took place between them and
the Maryland and Delaware militia, near Coochs Bridge
and the Baptist church on Iron Hill. In these skirmishes the
Americans lost about forty men, the British somewhat less.
Just after this fight the British burned Coochs mill, and
indulged in many other acts of wanton destruction of prop-

* This servant's name was Richard Mills. He lived to be quite old,
and was so large and powerful that Colonel George R. Howard, who
knew him well, told the author he had no doubt that his arms above the
elbow were as large as the thigh of an ordinary man.

f So called from the fact that a man called Aiken kept a hotel there.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 335

erty. The shutters on the old Baptist church showed that
a ball had been fired through one of them and passed
diagonally across the building and out through another
one.

There was an old and eccentric surveyor, called by the
name of Humphries, who was a fifer in the American
army at the battle of Coochs Bridge. He was accused
of cowardice, inasmuch as he hid his fife just before the
fight at the bridge, in order to keep out of danger. This
man Humphries left a son Edward Humphries, better
known in the northeast part of the county as " Old Neddy."
He was well educated, but very eccentric ; rather too fond
of whisky, and had a habit of muttering and talking to
himself. A friend of the author once asked him about the
accusation against his father. " Oh, yes," replied Neddy,
" he hid the fife and hid the fifer too."

The people of Cecil County, as before remarked, were gen-
erally loyal to the cause of their country. There were, how-
ever, a few exceptions ; but no person of good standing
in society, except Robert Alexander, is believed to have
joined the enemy. He belonged to an aristocratic family
that formerly owned a large tract of land at Elkton, lying
between the hollow and the Far Creek, which he inherited
from William Alexander, the third husband of Ariminta
Alexander, who afterwards married George Catto, and who
was one of the most aristocratic ladies that ever lived in the
county. This man Alexander joined the British fleet when
it was in Elk River, and went away with it and never returned.
He left a wife and several children, who then and for many
years afterwards resided in Elkton. His son, William Alex-
ander, studied law, and was for some time State's attorney. He
is spoken of by those who knew him as being both amiable
and eloquent. Robert Alexander, who lived in the house
now occupied by Daniel Bratton, is said to have prepared
a fine entertainment for the British officers, and to have
gone down the river to welcome' them to the town, but

336 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

while he was away upon that errand the Americans came
to Elkton and the feast fell into their hands.*

With the exception of the removal of the records of the
county and the capture of the public stores at the Head of
Elk, the British did little damage in this county. They
seem to have taken pains to conciliate those who were op-
posed to them, and not to have hesitated to plunder their
friends. Many of the people of the neighboring village of
Newark and vicinity, as well as some of the people of Ches-
ter County, were tainted with treason. A writer of the
period says that the British captured all the records and
public papers of New Castle County and every shilling of
the public money, together Avith the fund belonging to the
trustees of Newark Academy. In consequence of the re-
verses sustained by the Americans at the battle of Brandy-
wine, says a writer of that period, the people of New Castle
County were dispirited and dispersed, and the less virtuous
part that remained were daily employed in supplying the
British troops in Wilmington and at New Castle with all
kinds of provisions. Thomas McKean, a distinguished citi-
zen of Pennsylvania, in a letter written to Gen. Washington
from Newark, Delaware, on the 8th of the following October,
says the only remedy he can suggest for this lamentable
state of affairs is to have a regiment of continental troops
stationed at Newark. At the time this letter was written,
he had just heard of the battle of Germantown from some
Quakers who were returning to Nottingham from their
yearly meeting in Philadelphia. They at first refused to

* Robert Alexander resided in Baltimore for some time before the Rev-
olutionary war, and represented Baltimore County in the provincial con-
vention, from June, 1774, to June, 1776, and was chosen to represent the
State in the Continental Congress, in 1776, but never took his seat in that
body, for this reason, that, though he opposed the aggressions of the
mother country, he was not in favor of independence. He acted as agent
for the Tories from the State of Maryland, who, in 1788, claimed com-
pensation from the British Government for their confiscated property.
See Sharf 's History of Maryland, Vol. II., page 297.

HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY. 337

tell him anything of the battle ; but he compelled them to
stop, and says he was of the opinion that their account was
derived from the Tories and English in Philadelphia. The
pacific principles of the Friends prevented them from taking
an active part in military operations in the field, but most
of them were loyal to the cause of their country, and did all
they were able without sacrificing their religious conviction
to aid its cause.

The winter after the battle of Brandy wine, the British oc-
cupied Philadelphia, and it is a well-established fact that
some of the disaffected and mercenary citizens of the county,
some of whom were indicted for the offense, were in the
habit of smuggling provisions to them. Notable among
these was one Michael Trump, who resided near Colora.
This man Trump lived to a great age. He trapped several
wagon loads of wild pigeons, which were very numerous
that winter, and sold them to the British army in Philadel-
phia. They were very glad to get them, and paid him for
them in gold coin. The invasion of the county greatly de-
moralized the people. The new government was, at this
time, only an experiment, and its ultimate success was
doubtful; consequently the ill-disposed and lawless part of
the citizens took advantage of the weakness of the civil au-
thorities and did pretty much as they pleased. Thirty per-
sons were indicted for selling liquor without license, at the
November term of court, in 1777. At this term of court the
sheriff was ordered to deliver the prisoners then in his cus-
tody ..charged with being traitors, to Colonel John D. Thomp-
son,who was requested to send them under guard of his batta-
lion to the lieutenant of KentCounty,with directions to him
to/have them put in the State prison.

It has already been mentioned that the Friends in Not-
tingham did not consider themselves as being under the
jurisdiction of the State of Maryland. For this reason, and
also because they were opposed to fighting, many of them
refused to enter the service of the State when called upon to

338 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

do so. In order that they might be tried and punished for
this, a court-martial was convened at the Head of Elk, on
the 7th of December, 1778, at which were present, Colonel
Stephen Hyland, lieutenant-colonel Elihu Hall (of Elisha),
and Major Baruch Williams, the latter gentleman being at
that time clerk of the county court. The records of this
court-martial show that fifty-five persons were convicted of
refusing to attend at the Head of Elk on the 23d of the
preceding May, at which time they had been called into
actual service by Charles Rumsey, the lieutenant of the
county, at the request of the governor. The court imposed
fines upon them, ranging from £20 to £35 each, and sentenced
each of them to two months' imprisonment. Five persons
were also found guilty of desertion. They were sentenced
to fine and imprisonment. Baruch Williams was ordered
to issue writs against the parties, most of whom contested
the matter in the county court, with what success is not
known, the records of the court not being extant.

Though the pacific principles of the Friends forbade them
to engage in hostilities, they had no objections to taking-
care of the sick and wounded soldiers, and with the view of
affording them an opportunity of doing so, a detachment of
General Smallroad's division of the American army took
possession of the Brick Meeting-house, in April, 1778, and
converted it into a hospital for the use of the sick and
wounded soldiers who were disabled in the campaign of
that year in northern New Jersey. The meeting-house was
used for a hospital for about three months, the Friends
meanwhile worshiping in a Friend's barn. The Friends
treated the soldiers in the hospital with much kindness, and
furnished them with blankets and other things that con-
tributed to their comfort, and washed and mended their
clothes. During the time the meeting-house was used for
a hospital, many of the inmates died and were buried in
the graveyard that surrounds it. A well-defined depression
in the earth's surface is all that marks the site of their
sepulcher.

HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY. 339

Except the hardships incident to a state of war, which
were greatly aggravated by the depreciation of the currency,
which had become of such little yalue, that, in 1780, the
price fixed by the county commissioners for a good hot din-
ner, was six pounds fifteen shillings, there is little of interest
to record in the history of the county in the interval be-
tween the years 1777 and 1781. During this period the
inhabitants were often put to great inconvenience for want
of salt and sugar, but were able to supply themselves with
the fabrics used for clothing from their own manufactories,
the old-fashioned spinning wheels and hand looms that
were to be found in every thrifty farm-house, and had a
surplus left to dispose of outside of the county. In July,
1780, the captain of a small bay craft came to Head of Elk
and lay in the river for several days till a favorable oppor-
tunity occurred, one night during a heavy thunder storm,
when he entered the warehouse of Zebulon Hollingsworth,
which stood on the wharf in the " Hollow," and stole there-
from about forty pieces of check, which he took to Baltimore
and sold, except three pieces which he gave to one of his
crew, who sold them for five hundred dollars each. This
person, whose name was Green Jimmet, became dissatisfied
with his share of the plunder and informed the officers of
the law, who arrested him and sent a copy of his confession
to the authorities of this county. Nothing more is known
of the case, but it serves to show that there were some
thieves in those days and that checks were very high-
priced.

Colonel Hollingsworth, who took an active part in the
campaign under .Washington, previous to and after the
battle of Brandywine, thinking he could serve his country
better by doing so, returned home some time previous to
March, 1778, and from that time to the close of the war
acted as general agent for the authorities of Maryland and
the Continental Congress. He not only purchased supplies
of all kinds for the use of the army when in the field, but

340 HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY.

was frequently called upon to provide supplies for large de-
tachments of troops that passed through the county. The
great thoroughfare between the North and South at that
time led from Christiana Bridge to Elkton, and when it was
practicable, this route was followed. At other times the
armies were obliged to march, in which case they crossed
the Susquehanna River, and upon one occasion at least, a
requisition was made upon him for all the boats he could
procure, in order to ferry a large detachment over that river
from Perryville to Havre de Grace. Such was the exigency
of the case, and the scarcity of boats, that he was instructed
to procure boards with which rafts were to be constructed and
attached to the gunwales of the boats he was able to pro-
cure, in order that a speedy passage of the river might be
safely effected. Owing to the scarcity of money, the Legis-
lature enacted that taxes might be paid in wheat, beef,
cattle, and other things needed by the army. Colonel
Hollingsworth had charge of the manufacture of much of
this wheat, and supervised a large extent of country, in-
cluding much of the northern part of the Peninsula and
Harford County. The bran and other offal derived from
the wheat was fed to the beef cattle. Patrick Ewing was
one of the receivers of public wheat in the county, and
much of it was ground at his mill, on Conowingo Creek, in
the northwestern part of the county. The following letters
illustrate the multiform duties imposed upon the gentleman
to whom they were addressed :

" Williamsburg, April 15th, 1779.

"Sir: — I send fifteen highlanders, prisoners of war, taken
here three years ago, to your care, requesting you to forward
them on to Congress, whom I have apprised of it.

"I am, sir, your most humble servant,

"P. Henry.
" Colonel HqUingsworth."

HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY. 341

" Philadelphia, Nov. 16th, 1779.
" Mr. Henry Hollingsworth — Sir : — I am much obliged
by your expedition in sending forward my letter from Mr.
Smith, of Portsmouth, and by the return of the express I
transmit herewith sundry dispatches from His Excellency,
the Chevr. De la Luzerne, and Mons. Holker, Adjutant-
General of the Royal Marine of France, which I beg the
favor of you to send forward by a fast sailing boat, which,
if possible, you will hire for the purpose of carrying them
on board the fleet at Portsmouth, or any other part of the
bay, wherever the said French fleet may be. I think it
probable that there ma}^ be Virginia or Maryland boats at
your place that will undertake this business for a moderate
compensation, as they may probably be on the point of re-
turning. I must pray of you to procure the best boat you
can for this service on the most reasonable terms in your
power, taking care that the skipper is a man of confidence,
wrell attached to the American cause, and whom you are as-
sured will faithfully deliver the dispatches. I will pay your
order for the amount of all expenses arising on this occa-
sion, and as there will be occasion for constant communica-
tion with the fleet whilst they remain in Chesapeake, meas-
ures will be immediately taken for that purpose, in which I
conceive your assistance will be necessary. Should Mons.
Holker add any thing to this letter, I beg it may have your
full attention, and you will much oblige, sir
" Your obed., humble servant,

"Robert Morris."

The expedition of General Lafayette, which Washington
detached from his army, then in the vicinity of New York,
which was designed to co-operate with a force already there
against the traitor, Benedict Arnold, who at that time was
ravaging the country along the James River and the lower
part of Chesapeake P>ay, passed through this county in 1781.
The troops which composed this expedition numbered 1,200.
They came from Trenton down the Delaware River and up
the Christiana Creek to Christiana Bridge, from whence they
marched to the Head of Elk, where they arrived on or about
the 6th of March. The following letter, which has never

342 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

before been published, was copied from the original, now in
the possession of the Misses Partridge, of Elkton :

" Elkton, 7th March, 1781.

"Sir: — I return the authority of Governor, inclosed in
yours of this date, I do not think you will be able to col-
lect the quantity of meat specified in it by to-morrow. You
may, however, use your utmost endeavors with the civil
power with which you are vested, to collect as much as pos-
sible to-day, which we shall take with us. The rest you will
form into a magazine, and wait my orders for its following
us. I do not suppose, on such an occasion as the present, a
military guard necessary for enforcing the Governor's war-
rant ; but, should you find that it is, you must have one.

" I am, sir, your obt. and h'ble serv't.,

" Lafayette.
" Mr. Henry Hotting siuorih."

After the expedition arrived at Head of Elk, a little fleet
was soon gathered together in the Elk River, to relieve him-
self of the command of which Lafayette sent for Commodore
Nicholsoo, of Baltimore, and on the 9th of March the expe-
dition set sail and reached Annapolis in safety the next
evening. Lafayette expected to receive aid from the French
fleet, which had sailed from the north a short time before,
and was supposed to be in the lower part of the Chesapeake,
and which, had all gone well, would have co-operated with
him in the attempt to capture Arnold. But, unfortunately
for the success of the enthusiastic young Frenchman, the
British had dispatched a large squadron to reinforce the
one already co-operating with Arnold, which overtook the
French fleet near the mouth of the Chesapeake. A severe
action took place, and, although the French had the best of
the fight, they concluded, inasmuch as some of their vessels
were badly crippled, and the English had succeeded in get-
ting into the mouth of the Chesapeake during the heavy
fog, to abandon the enterprise.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 343

Lafayette had preceded his expedition to Annapolis and
hastened on down the bay to look after the French fleet, but
found, much to his surprise, that the fleet had not made its ap-
pearance. After spending some time near Portsmouth and
consulting with Baron Steuben, under whose command the
other forces were, Lafayette learned of the arrival of the
English fleet and was forced to come to the unwelcome con-
clusion that his expedition was a failure. He thereupon
sent orders to the troops which were still at Annapolis to be
ready to move at a moment's notice. At this juncture,
Washington, who had been apprised of the state of affairs,
recalled the expedition, which at this time was blockaded
in the harbor of Annapolis by two vessels detached from
the British fleet for that purpose. Lafayette found means
to rejoin his little fleet at Annapolis and for a while thought
seriously of returning by land, but that plan was abandoned
as impracticable on account of the want of horses to trans-
port the artillery and stores. After much delay, it was re-
solved to run the blockade, if possible, and return to the
Head of Elk by water. The following plan was adopted :
Two sloops of about sixty tons' burden were fitted up with
two eighteen pounders each in their bows and a traveling
forge in their holds. At 10 o'clock on the morning of the
6th of April, these vessels, each manned by two hundred
volunteers, sailed boldly out of Annapolis Roads to attack
the British vessels, which, on their approach, not relishing
the hot shot of the Americans, left their moorings and
dropped down the bay, thus opening a passage for the
American fleet, which followed the two gun-boats, and
reached the Head of Elk the same night. At that place
Lafayette found letters from Washington countermanding
the order of recall and ordering him southward again to
assist General Greene.

It is stated in a letter which Lafayette addressed from
Head of Elk to Governor Thomas Sim Lee, upon the 10th, that
he intended to march the next day, and that it would be

344 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

necessary to have horses and wagons at Baltimore to relieve
those which would accompany him from that place. He
also informed the Governor that two men came on board
his vessel while coming up the bay, and, mistaking it for a
British vessel, had offered to show them the country about
the mouth of the Gunpowder River, and accompanied by a
small detachment which he had sent for that purpose, had
gone there. He also informed the Governor that he intended
to execute them as spies.

The army under Lafayette left the Head of Elk on the
morning of the 11th of April, and marched to the Brick
Meeting-house, which they reached about an hour before
sunset, and encamped in the meeting-house woods. The
author is indebted to James Trimble* for the following de-
scription of the interesting scene, he having derived his
information from those who witnessed it : " The leading
divisions were rapidly followed by others until the whole
woods, then containing about thirty acres, seemed filled
with horses, wagons and men, but the villagers were sur-
prised to see so many people settle down so quickly in exact
order, the men cooking their suppers, and sentinels walking
around the entire body. None of the inhabitants were
molested except to replenish their empty canteens at the
old-fashioned draw wells in the vicinity. William Kirk,
then in about his twelfth year, informed me that in com-
pany with others he went the next morning at the first
appearance of daylight to see the Frenchmen before they
left, but found the road already filled with the army in
motion, in compact order." Upon this occasion Lafayette
spent the night in the old stone house upon the plantation
of the late Marshall J. Hunt, a short distance northeast of
the village of Rising Sun, then occupied by Job Haines.
On taking his leave the next morning, the general pre-

* For short account of James Trimble see sketch of the Defoe family,
in Chapter XVIII.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 345

sented each of Mr. Haines' sons with a piece of money,
giving his son Lewis a gold coin, his name being the same
as that of the general's sovereign.

Some of the army are said to have encamped near Harris-
ville the same night, which seems quite probable, from the
fact that Lafayette spent the night about midway between
that place and the Brick Meeting-house. The next day the
army crossed the Susquehanna in scows at Bald Friar*
Ferry, and proceeded to Baltimore. The troops under
General Lafayette were all from Northern States, and
though they had willingly engaged in the expedition down
the bay, they became dissatisfied when ordered to engage
in a summer campaign in the South. They were poorly
clad and without shoes, and showed so much discontent
that it was predicted when they left Bald Friar Ferry, that
not one-half of them would reach Baltimore. But by
hanging one deserter and severely reprimanding some other
delinquents, Lafayette preserved his little army intact and
safely reached Baltimore, where the wants of his army were
supplied.

In the September following, the American army under
command of General Washington, passed through the Head
of Elk, en route to the siege of Yorktown. Claude Blanch-
ard, who accompanied the French troops, 1,200 of whom
were in Washington's army, published a journal kept by
him during his service in the army in this country as com-
missary, in which he states that the troops embarked at
Plum Point, where a number of transports from the French
fleet were waiting to receive them. Blanchard, on his route
northward, passed through Havre de Grace, in company
wi0i the army, in August, 1782. He states in his journal
that the army was nearly two days in crossing the Susque-
hanna, there being but one ferry-boat at the lower ferry ;

* This ferry is on the Susquehanna River, a short distance below Mason
and Dixons line. It is said to have been kept at one time by a bald-
headed man, called Fry, at which time it was called Bald Fry's Ferry.

346 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

and remarks that the " Head of Elk is in a very dry soilr
and one is drowned with dust there. Fever is very prevalent
there, doubtless caused by the swamps in the vicinity."

After the capture of Yorktown, a part of the American
army, under General Lincoln, passed through the Head of
Elk on their way northward. It is stated, in a requisition
made upon Colonel Hollingsworth by Henry Dearbourn,
then Lieutenant-Colonel and Deputy Quarter-master, after-
wards Major General in the war of 1812, that he was in
want of one hundred and fifty beef cattle to drive on with
the army for its subsistence. He also wanted at least thirty-
four horse teams, and intimated that if they were not forth-
coming " he would be under the disagreeable necessity of
making use of the authority of the army for procuring
them," which he seemed to regret lest it might distress
those who had already contributed their full share. He
adds, in a postscrip, that " 20 wagon-loads of straw will be
absolutely necessary for the troops in this cold season."

Shortly after this, in December, 1781, some of the Rhode
Island troops, who were quartered in the house of one Jane
Clark, at the Head of Elk, got into a quarrel with a gang of
watermen, who attacked them in their quarters in the
night, and being driven away, returned and renewed the
fight the next morning. Jane Clark kept a hotel, or at
least sold liquor, and it was in evidence that the watermen
were drunk, and probably the soldiers were in the same
condition. The fight was ended by one Forteen Stodder, a
negro soldier from Rhode Island, shooting James Cunning-
ham, the leader of the sailors, from the effect of which he
died shortly afterwards. Stodder was indicted for murder,
and was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to be
burnt in the brawn of the leit thumb with a hot iron. The
record of the court shows that the sentence was executed.
He was probably the last person that was obliged to submit
to this barbarous and inhuman punishment in this county.

The Legislature, by the act of 1780, confiscated the prop-
erty of all disloyal persons, and by subsequent acts sought

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 34T

to make it available for the redemption of bills of credit or
paper money, which it was found necessary to issue to defray
the expense of carrying on the war. Commissioners were
appointed to take charge of this property and dispose of it
for the purpose before-named. The first emission of these
bills of credit, which were somewhat in the nature of a
forced loan, and similar in character to modern shinplasters,.
was authorized by the act of May, 1781, and John Dockery
Thompson, Henry Hollingsworth, Thomas Hughes, Benja-
min Brevard, and John Leach Knight, were appointed to>
superintend the issuing of the bills in this county. Several
subsequent issues of paper money were made, and the
enactments in reference to them contain many allusions to>
red money and black money, which can only be explained
and properly understood, in connection with the fact that
some of these issues of paper money were printed partly with
red ink, while others were printed wholly with black. A
large quantity of this confiscated property was in this
county. Robert Alexander, before-mentioned, who took
refuge on board one of the vessels of the British fleet when
it was in Elk River in 1777, was the owner of nine hundred
acres of land, upwards of one hundred acres of which was
that part of the tract called Friendship, extending from the
Hollow, in the town of Elkton, eastward to the Big Elk
Creek. He also owned a part of "Belleconnell," and some
other land on the Glasgow road. Two-thirds of his land
was confiscated and sold, as were also one-half his slaves, he
having twenty-two of them. The property of the Elk Forge
Company,* on account of the treason of John Roberts, one

* This company was organized in 1761 by John Roberts, David Davis,
Thomas May, and David Thomas, of Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania,
who formed a partnership for the purpose of manufacturing bar iron under
the name of the Elk Forge Company. For this purpose the y agreed to pur-
chase a tract of land containing six hundred acres, called "Rumsey's-
Success," from William Rumsey. This land was on the Big Elk, where
Elk Mills cotton factory now stands. They also agreed to contribute

:348 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

-of the principal members, was also taken possession of by
the commissioners, but owing to the fact that the company-
had not obtained a deed for the land, the State never
realized anything from it. This property consisted of up-
wards of thirteen hundred acres of land, upon which were
two forges and a " valuable grist-mill," which is the old mill
-at this time standing near Elk Mills cotton factory, on the
Big Elk, and sixteen negro .slaves. This man Roberts re-
sided before the war in Lower Merion Township, Philadelphia
County.

He was a member of the Society of Friends, and like some
of his brethren in Pennsylvania, adhered to the royalists.
He was accused of persuading people to enlist in the royal
army, and was captured while on his way to the Head of
Elk to "communicate information to a certain Mr. Galloway
who had gone over to the enemy." During a part or all of
the time that the British army occupied the city of Phila-
delphia, he resided there and showed much kindness to
many of those who were politically opposed to him. He was
the father of nine children and of a highly respectable family
who made every exertion to save him,notwithstanding which
he was hanged at Philadelphia, November 4th, 1778.

£800 for the erection of a forge and the prosecution of the business.
David Thomas did not sign the articles of agreement, but, nevertheless, had
an interest in the business, which he transferred three years afterward to
David Davis. For some reason this company did not obtain a deed for
their land at the forge until after the Revolutionary war, when William
Rumsey, the grandson of the William Rumsey before' referred to, con-
veyed it to the heirs of the original purchasers. The original articles of
agreement are in the possession of one of the descendants of the imme-
diate successors of the original company. The document is well written,
and must have been the work of a person of much learning and great
ability. It contains stipulations to meet every imaginable contingency
that might arise in carrying on a large and intricate manufacturing busi-
ness. This company was very successful in business, and soon acquired
large tracts of wood-land, and employed a large number of teams in trans-
porting their charcoal from the forests, where it was burned, to their forge,
and in hauling the pig iron they used, from the furnaces where it was
made in Lancaster County: to. their for"*; on the Elk Creek.

HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY. 349s

The property of the Principio Iron Company, excepting
the part belonging to Thomas Russell and one of his loyal
brothers, and one-twelfth part belonging to the heirs of
Augustine Washington, of Virginia, brother of General
Washington, was also confiscated. This company owned
the Principio Furnace and North East Forge, together with
upwards of seven thousand six hundred acres of land
in this county much of which is owned at this time
by George P. Whitaker and the McCullough Iron Company,,
together with forty-two negro slaves. Thomas Russell
was the only member of the company who resided in this
county at this time. He being in charge of the iron works
at the time of the passage of the act of confiscation, asked
that enough of the negroes, utensils and stock be set apart
to enable him to carry on the business. His request was-
granted. In 1782 the property was appraised by Archibald
Job, Thomas May, and Stephen Hyland, who valued it at
£5,550, 7s., 6d, and the next year the commissioners con-
veyed it to Thomas Russell, he obligating himself to pay
the State the difference between that sum and the value
of his own share of the property, which was to be subse-
quently ascertained. Clement Holliday and Nathaniel
Ramsay, commissioners appointed to take charge and dis-
pose of confiscated property, laid out that part of the town
of Elkton east of the Hollow, upon land before described as
belonging to Robert Alexander, and in October, 1782, sold
the building lots at public sale. Although the village of the
Head of Elk had been in existence for many years before
this time, it was quite small and consisted of only a few
straggling houses. Henry Hollingsworth became the pur-
chaser of a considerable quantity of this laud adjacent to the
town. Joseph Gilpin bought that part of Belleconnell con-
tigious to his mill property. Tobias Rudulph bought the
land on the Glasgow Road, which at this time is in the pos-
session of his grandson of the same name. Joseph Gilpin^.
Tobias Rudulph, Henry Hollingsworth, and Thomas Hug-

350 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

gins purchased the lot upon which the Court-house stands
for the use of the town, being authorized by the inhabitants,
who had invested them with power to do so, and also to
hold the lot in trust for the purpose of erecting on it a mar-
ket-house or court-house, the town commissioners agreeing
to build the former within three years after the sale.

About £6,000 were realized from the sale of Alexander's
property. The title to much of Susquehanna Manor, which
had reverted to the lord proprietary, was now in Henry Har-
ford, the legal heir and representative of the last Lord Balti-
more. All that part of this Manor included between the
Susquehanna River and Principio Creek, and the Notting-
ham lots and the head of the bay and North East River,was
surveyed and platted by Samuel Maffit, probably about
1722, for there is no date upon the plat. From this plat it
appears that about three-fourths of this part of the Manor
had been patented. The other part was held by virtue of
unexpired leases, all of which were for long terms, many of
them for three lives. Basin Run is called Beasons Run or
Bastard Creek, upon Mafht's plat. The principal part of this
Manor land was sold to the lessees at low prices, by the in-
tendant of the revenue, an officer whose duties were much
like those of the comptroller of the treasury, and whose ap-
pointment seems to have been called for by the exigencies
of the times. Some of the land in North East and Elk
Manors, which were small undefined tracts in Elk Neck,
bordering on the North East River, was also held by the
same tenure as the land before-mentioned as being in Sus-
quehanna Manor and was disposed of in the same way. The
Nottingham lots, which as before stated, were held by pat-
ents from William Penn and his successors and also the
Welsh tract lands, were taken possession of by the intendant
of the revenue; but their owners were, by subsequent enact-
ments, allowed, upon showing an equitable title from Penn,
to hold them under patents from the State of Maryland upon
payment of £15 per hundred acres.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 351

The lots in Charlestown, which had been reserved for the
use of the lord proprietary, and also the lot belonging to the
heirs of the Rev. William Wye, were also confiscated, and
sold in August, 1782. The town commissioners bought the
former for the use of the town. One hundred and thirteen
pounds were realized from the property in Charlestown.
The commissioners also took possession of the plantation of
the Rev. William Edmisson, who they stated was in Great
Britain, and who they believed to be a tory. This plan-
tation contained three hundred acres of land situated near
the mouth of Stony Run, on the east side of the Octoraro.
The commissioners left it in charge of William Ewing, who
alleged that Edmisson was indebted to him about as much
as the land was worth. This man Edmisson was inducted
into St. George's Parish, at the old Spesutia Church near
Havre de Grace, in 1770, and remained there about two
years when he is believed to have gone to England on ac-
count of his sympathy with the British government. But
very little is known of the history of Mr. Edmisson, except
that he also owned several tracts of land in Harford County,
one of which was called by a singular name for a clergy-
man's homestead, namely, "Drunkard's Hall." The Legisla-
ture, in 1782, passed an act for the relief of his family, con-
sisting of his wife, two sons and a daughter, who are be-
lieved to have been loyal to the cause of their country, divi-
ding among them his land and negroes upon condition that
they should pay his debt.

CHAPTER XXI

Removal of seat of justice to Charlestown — Reasons of the removal —
Interesting correspondence — Charlestown Ferry — Condition of society —
Stephen Porter kills Thomas Dunn — Escapes from jail, etc. — Is tried at
Charlestown and convicted of manslaughter — Unsuccessful efforts to
build up Charlestown — Removal of county seat to Head of Elk — Rev.
Joseph Coudon's address to citizens of Elk — Opposition of the citizens
of Charlestown to the removal of the county seat — Act of Legislature
authorizing the erection of public buildings at Elktown — Elkton incor-
porated—Court meets in Elkton — Members of the Elkton bar — Trouble
about roads — The first almshouse — Sale of free school farm — Rum-
sey's steamboat — The Susquehanna Canal — Rivalry between Havre de
Grace and the town of Chesapeake — First arks on the Susquehanna
River — Malignant fever in Elkton.

The war being over, the people of the county begun ta
turn their attention to matters of public importance. The
first matter of this kind that claimed their attention, was a.
more convenient location for the county seat. In accor-
dance with the wishes of the people an act was passed at the
November session, 1781, authorizing Thomas May, John
Stockton, and David Smith to act as judges of an election to
be held during the last week in the ensuing February at the
court-house on Monday and Tuesday, at Head of Elk on
Wednesday and Thursday, and at Charlestown on Friday
and Saturday ; these three places being the ones talked of
as most suitable for the seat of justice. The certificate of
David Smith is still extant and shows that due notice having
been given, he attended at the court-house on Monday, the
25th of February, as also did the other two gentlemen, who
had been induced to decline acting as judges ; and after their
refusal had been made known to him, he appointed John
Ward Veasey, James Creswell, and Edward Mitchell clerks,

HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY. 353

and proceeded to take the votes of the freemen of the county.
" At the election held at the court house there were given
and published forty-three votes for Charlestown, one vote for
the Head of Elk, and two votes for no removal. At the Head
of Elk there were given thirty-four votes for Charlestown
and two votes for the Head of Elk ; and at the election
held at Charlestown there were given four hundred and fifty
votes for Charlestown." The great want which the people
of the county experienced for a town somewhere within its
limits, no doubt influenced them to remove the seat of jus-
tice to Charlestown, with the hope of building it up and
adding to its prosperity. More than two hundred years had
elapsed since the first settlements had been made in the
county, and many unsuccessful efforts had been made to
build a town some where within its limits. The projected
town on Town Point, and Ceciltown on the Bohemia, had
been total failures, as had also been the effort to build a town
at Court-house Point. Charlestown, with all its advantages
for shipping, had found a successful rival in Baltimore, and
those who lived there never having been able to divert the
trade of Nottingham from the accustomed channels, through
which it reached the towns along the Delaware, was in great
need of something to stimulate its growth. But notwith-
standing all this, and the apparent unanimity of the peo-
ple, some of the justices of the court at first refused to assent
to the removal of the seat of justice to that place. It is
highly probable that they were influenced in some way by
a desire and belief that the Head of Elk would ultimately
be selected for the county seat. The justices seem to have
been equally divided upon the subject of the removal of the
county seat, for, on the 11th of March following, half of them
met at the court-house at Court-house Point and the others
at Charlestown, and the court seemed to be in a likely way
to reach the same condition that it had been in many years
before, when the justices present ordered the clerk to record
the mournful fact that it was " miscontinued and drop'd and

354 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

fallen." The following correspondence will explain itself
and throw some light upon a subject that agitated the peo-
ple of the county very much when it took place :

" Gentlemen : — We have, under advisement, met and called
court at the usual place of holding courts for Cecil county,
and have adjourned until to-morrow 9 o'clock. We there-
fore, as the Court, order and require you to attend at this
place to-morrow at the time of the said adjournment ; and
that you have your records and other public papers with
you. Given under our hands this 11th March, 1782.

" Samuel Glenn,
" William Mathews,
" Thomas Savin.
"To Patrick Hamilton, Esq., Sheriff;

"and Baruch Williams, Esq., Clerk;
" Officers of Cecil County Court."

To which the other justices, who had met at Charlestown
on the same day, returned the following answer :

"Gentlemen: — We have received yours of yesterday, by
which you are pleased ' to order and require us to attend '
at the place where courts were formerly held, As civil
officers, we are ready to obey the orders of Cecil County
Court ; and in obedience thereto, we attended yesterday at
Charlestown, where the Court was, we apprehend, legally
held, Messrs. Kirk, Bond, Maxwell, Miller, and Hall being
present, and the Court in Charlestown stands adjourned to
this day at 9 o'clock, where and when we propose to attend.

" We remain, gentlemen, your most

" obedient and humble servants.

" Charlestown, March 12th, 1782.

"Messrs. Samuel Glenn, William

"Mathews, Thomas Savin."

The minute book for that term shows that the five gen-
tlemen referred to in the preceding note met at Charles-
town, as stated, on the 12th of March, and proceeded with
the business that was brought before them from day to day

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 355

until the 15th, when they adjourned until the 26th. On
that day the presiding justice, Mr. Bond, produced a certifi-
cate that he had administered the oath of office to Messrs.
Nathan Norton and Jeremiah Baker, and they took their
seats accordingly. John W. Veasey also sat as one of the
justices on that day, from which it may be inferred that
he was neutral in the fight. Several brief sessions of the
court, at which very little business was transacted, were
held in the interval between the 26th of March and the
10th of June, when a new commission of the peace was re-
ceived, which had the effect of restoring quiet. During the
first term of the court, held at Charlestown, the. justices
viewed four lots of ground, which were formerly condemned
for the use of the county to build a court-house and gaol
thereon, and were of opinion that the same were sufficient
and would answer every end and purpose specified in the
act authorizing the removal of the county-seat. The first
session of the court was held at one of the public houses at
Charlestown, as had been the custom for some years after
the organization of the county, before the first court-house
was built at Jamestown. But at the March term, 1781, the
court appointed Justices Baker and Norton, the latter of
whom lived in Charlestown, to provide " this court with a
house to hold courts in for the future, and to get workmen
to do what repairs they thought necessary and contract for
the same." They accordingly, on the 7th of May, 1783,
leased two rooms from Alexander Hasson, on the second
floor of his house, for three years, at an annual rent of £20.
These rooms were in a brick building on Market street,
which continued to stand until a comparatively recent date,
when it was destroyed by fire. The court this year author-
ized Patrick Hamilton to build a small stone jail for the
use of the county, and there is reason to believe that some
improvements were made upon the public wharf at the ex-
pense of the county.

It is worthy of remark that the commissioners of Charles-
town this year rented the Seneca Point Fishery for £7, and

356 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

passed an ordinance prohibiting hogs, sheep, and geese run-
ning at large upon the streets, which animals, if so found,
were to be killed for the use of the prisoners in the jail.
The Dutch inhabitants were presented with a lot whereon
to build a school-house or church, provided they built it
within the next three years. This indicates that they were
somewhat numerous, but there is no reason to believe the
house was built.

During the year 1783, three persons were convicted of
felony, each of whom was sentenced to receive thirty-nine
lashes on the bare back, well laid on by the sheriff at the public
market-house. The next year one James Campbell, alias
Williams, was convicted of robbery and sentenced to be
hanged. During part of the time that Charlestown was the
seat of justice, a public ferry was maintained between that
place and Elk Neck, in order to accommodate persons from
the lower part of the county having business at Charles-
town. The Elk ferry at Court-house Point and the Bohemia
ferry being in operation, it was much easier for persons in
the lower part of the county to reach Charlestown by land
than it is at this time. The great highway between the
North and South then, as now, led through this county, and
the stage coaches, which carried the first mails of the youth-
ful Republic, then loosely held together by the articles of
confederation, for some time crossed over this ferry, the
main road at that time leading from near the landing place
in Elk Neck through the southern part of the village of
North East, and thence, a considerable distance south of
where the road is at present located, until it intersected the
Elk Neck road near Mill Creek.

During the five years that Charlestown was the seat of
justice, and for some years afterwards, society was in a bad
condition. A spirit of lawlessness and. insubordination seems
to have prevaded it. This was produced by the demoraliza-
tion incident to the Revolutionary war and the disorganiza-
tion consequent upon the transition from one form of

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 357

government to another. As illustrative of the history and
jurisprudence of the county, during this period, the reader's
attention is directed to a homicide which is notable because
the perpetrator of it was tried at Charlestown, and also on
account of several other circumstances connected with it.

Stephen Porter, a lawyer of some distinction, and the
father of Margaret Aurelia Porter, a maiden lady that
many persons of middle age will recollect as a per-
son of extraordinarily strong intellectual ability, lived
at Porter's Bridge, on the Octoraro Creek, in 1784, and
sometime previous to the harvest of that year employed
one Thomas Dunn, who seems to have been a large
and powerful man, but a person of bad repute and some-
what of a bully withal. The depositions of several wit-
nesses, taken before the jury of inquest, show that Dunn,
who had left the employ of Porter sometime before, returned
to the neighborhood, on the 6th of July, ostensibly to
settle with Porter, who owed him a trilling balance, but
really it would seem for the purpose and with the intention
of provoking a quarrel with him. Dunn met one Stephen
Herd, who lived in Lancaster County, and was an entire
stranger to him, on the road, near Captain William Ewing's,
a neighbor of Porter's, and asked him to accompany him to
Ewing's, for the purpose of acting as an arbitrator in adjust-
ing the dispute between Porter and himself. The parties
pledged themselves to abide by the award which was made
by the arbitrators, but soon after it was disclosed, Dunn flew
into a passion and began to abuse Porter and malign his wife,
and finally spit in Porter's face. Those present used their
best endeavors to quiet the enraged bully, but without avail.
After enduring Dunn's abuse for some time, Porter, accom-
panied by Benjamin Brearley,a miller, who occupied a house
not far from Porter's mill, started to go to their homes.
Dunn followed them, notwithstanding they besought him
to desist and take another road. Brearley and Dunn stopped
at trie house of the former, where Dunn had some clothes

358 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

which Brearley was desirous he should take away with him,,
while Porter continued on to his own dwelling, and pro-
cured an old bayonet, and hastening back towards Brearley's
house, encountered Dunn, who stooped down, as the witness
who saw him testified, to pick up a stone, whereupon Porter
stabbed him, from the effect of which he almost instantly
expired.

The next day, Samuel Maffit, who was then one of the
coroners of the county, empanneled a jury of inquest, con-
sisting of eighteen of the good and lawful men of the county,
who, after hearing the testimony, rendered a verdict that
the said Porter "then & there feloniously killed & murdered
the said Dunn," and Porter was straightway incarcerated in
the little stone jail in Charlestown. By common law the
property of those convicted of capital offences was forfeited
to the State. The coroner therefore returned an inventory
of all and singular the lands and tenements, rights, and
chatties of Stephen Porter, as appraised by Patrick Ewing,
Samuel Scott, John Crawford, and James Egan. The in-
ventory is as follows : One plantation of two hundred acres
of land together with one merchant mill, £700 ; one mare,
one horse and two colts, £20 ; three cows, £9 ; two small
hogs, £1 5s, ; six or eight sheep, £2 5s. ; sundries, house-
hold furniture, £50; total, £782 10s.; whereupon Porter,
who was a lawyer, conveyed his propei'ty to his wife and
one of his friends, in order, if possible, to secure it for the
benefit of the former.

Some time after Porter was imprisoned, some of his
friends provided themselves with a fleet-footed horse and
visited the jail, taking with them a supply of whiskey, with
which they succeeded in making the jailer drunk, and get-
ting up a sham-fight, kicked Porter, who had been informed
of the effort they intended to make in his behalf, out of the
door. Porter lost no time in mounting the horse, and made
good his escape to the Octoraro hills, and bidding good-bye
to his friends, proceeded across the Alleghany Mountains to

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 359

Washington County, Pennsylvania, then a frontier settle-
ment, where he is said to have betrayed himself by the
knowledge he exhibited of the law, during a discussion he
engaged in with some others in a public house.

The papers in the case show that Porter had a hearing
before two of the justices of the Court of Common Pleas of
Washington County, Pennsylvania, on the 6th of October,
he having been arrested on suspicion of having murdered a
man in Cecil County, and that he confessed the murder and
narrated the attending circumstances and manner of his
escape, all of which are briefly set forth in one of the papers.
This paper is a most extraordinary legal document, and
seems to have been given to the persons in whose custody
Porter was, to enable them to conduct him safety on his way
towards this county ; for on the 13th of October, he had
another hearing before Robert Galbraith, a justice of the
peace of Bedford County, Pennsylvania, who gave the posse
in whose custody he was, a somewhat similar, though more
sensible document, in which the facts of the murder and
escape are set forth, and they are commanded to deliver the
prisoner to the sheriff of Franklin County, in order that he
might be safely conveyed to the sheriff of Cecil County,
which was clone in due time, and early in the next Decem-
ber a commission was issued by the governor to five of the
justices of the county, authorizing and commanding them
to hold a special term of court for his trial. It is worthy of
remark, that this special commission was sent to Joseph
Gilpin, who was designated as presiding justice, and that he
notified the others and designated Baruch Williams as a
suitable person to act as clerk. The court met at Charles-
town on the 7th of December, 1784, and Timothy Kirk being
unable to attend, the other justices, John Leach Knight,
Stephen Hyland, and John Dockery Thompson, opened the
court and proceeded to business. The next day the grand
jury returned a true bill against Porter for murder, and on
the following day he was arraigned and the same day con-
victed of manslaughter, the verdict of the jury being "not

360 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

guilty of murder, as specified in the indictment, but guilty
of manslaughter." The court thereupon ordered that the
prisoner enter security for his appearance on Friday, the
16th, to hear their judgment, and he was recognized in the
sum of £500 for his appearance from day to day until the
court would pass judgment, Patrick Ewing becoming his
surety in that sum. The tardiness of the court in passing
judgment probably gave offence to some of the friends of
Dunn. At all events, George Cather and John Robinson
were tried and convicted of insulting the court and jury
sometime during the trial. The nature of the insult is not
stated, but inasmuch as several witnesses were examined, it
is probable that it consisted in using disrespectful language
in reference to the manner of conducting the trial. They
were each sentenced to pay a trifling fine and the costs, in
default of the payment of which they were sent to jail. The
record does not state whether the court met and adjourned
from day to day until the 16th, but upon that day it ren-
dered judgment " that the prisoner be discharged, the statute
not being extended."

The indictment under which Porter was convicted con-
tained two counts, one of which was for murder, under the
common law ; the other one was for manslaughter, under
the statute of James L, chapter I., section 8 ; which was made
on account of the frequent quarrels and stabbings with dag-
gers between the Scotch and English, and which was of a
temporary nature, and was not in force in Maryland at that
time, it not having been extended thereto, as stated in the
judgment of the court, by the action of the State convention
which, in 1776, had adopted the common law of England,
and extended certain parts of the statute law of that country
to the State of Maryland.

During a period often or twelve years, just after the close
of the Revolutionary war, three other persons met with vio-
lent deaths at Porter's Bridge and in that immediate
vicinity.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 361

During the time that Charlestown was the seat of justice,
every effort was made to increase its prosperity and make it
a city of importance. Seneca Point, which then belonged
to the town, was rented for a ship-yard, and several small
vessels were built there by John Cooper, some of whose de-
scendants yet reside near the town, on a plantation which
he purchased in 1754. Some of the citizens are said to
have been engaged in trading at this time to the West In-
dia Islands ; but the efforts of the people of the county
to encourage the growth of Charlestown, which had been
incorporated nearly half a century before, were unavailing,
and they gave up the undertaking, probably because they
believed it to be impossible to build a city at that place. Up
to this time public opinion had always demanded that the
county seat should be located upon navigable water, but the
manners and customs of the people had changed very much
since the first court-house had been erected at Jamestown
and a greater change had taken place since the county seat
had been fixed at Court-house Point. When the court-
house was at the former place, and during most of the time
it was at the latter, many of those who wished to attend
court were in the habit of going there in boats. Few settle-
ments had been made at that time, except those along the
navigable streams. Now the whole county was settled, and
public opinion demanded a more central location for the
seat of justice, one that could be reached without crossing
ferries, which were expensive to maintain and which it
seemed impossible to discontinue while they were needed in
order to afford the people the proper facilities for attending
court.

Owing to the difficulty of obtaining the means, on ac-
count of the scarcity of money caused by the depression of
business during the Revolutionary war, and probably because
there were many persons favorable to the removal of the
seat of justice to the Head of Elk, no public buildings ex-
cept the jail had been erected at Charlestown. The Head

362 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

of Elk at this time, was a place of some importance, and
had considerable trade in flour with Philadelphia. In 1785
a line of " stage boats," as they were then called, had been
established between that city and Christiana Bridge. Levi
Hollingsworth, the son of Zebulon Hollingsworth, and
brother of Henry and Jacob Hollingsworth, both of whom
took an active interest in the affairs of the town, was largely
interested in this enterprise. He had been engaged in the
flour trade, from Christiana to Philadelphia, when he was
only eighteen years of age, and had served his country with
much distinction in the Revolutionary war as captain of
" The First City Troop" of Philadelphia, in the battles of
Trenton and Princeton. The Hollingsworth brothers were

/ very influential, and there is no doubt that it was mainly
through their instrumentality that the removal of the seat
of justice from Charlestown to Elkton, which now began to
be agitated, was effected.

^ The growth and prosperity of the town at the Head of
Elk is set forth in the following paper which was written by
the Rev. Joseph Coudon, at that time curate of North Elk
Parish, and who resided on the plantation near Elktonr
now owned by Rev. James Mclntire. " A short address to the
inhabitants of the village and neighborhood of Elk, on the
subject of erecting a house of worship in said village, to-
gether with a preamble to a subscription humbly proposed.
" It has been too long remarked by the numerous travelers
that pass through our village, as well as regretted by the
friends of it, that notwithstanding the rapidly growing im-
portance of the place — the various scenes of industry and
exertions it is noted for — amidst the many buildings that
are daily saluting our eyes, and rising and about to rise to
view — there is no appearance of even an humble building
dedicated to the worship and service of the supreme ruler of
the universe, on whom we depend for all we have or can
hope to enjoy. In this we do not imitate our pious ances-
tors of old who no sooner erected a tent to dwell in, but

HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY. 363

they raised an altar also ; and shall I mention the uninlight-
ened nations who made it their first care to erect a noble
edifice for the reception and worship of their deties ?

" Your friends, however, are happy in thinking that the
neglect hitherto is by no means chargeable to a want of re-
spect or veneration of the Supreme, nor yet to a want of pub-
lic spirit (for liberality of mind and purse is rather thought
to be characteristic of the place) but that somehow or other
your attempts in this way have proved abortive as if un-
til now the period for affecting it had not revolved round.
Now then ye friends of public religion and public spirit, 'tis
humbly hoped you will step forth and no longer suffer this
odium to lie against us, by putting forth a liberal hand
towards erecting as soon as may be, a decent and respecta-
ble house of prayer, in some degree expressive of our ven-
eration of the Deity, and which will reflect a lasting credit,
to the place and the founders thereof, even after this, and
perhaps a succeeding generation, may have passed away."

"Know all men by these presents that we, the hereafter
subscribed, being moved by motioves of Piety and Christian
Benevolence to erect a house for Public worship in the vil-
lage cf Elk, do hereby bind and oblige ourselves to pay, or
cause to paid, into the hands of Messrs Joseph Gilpin, To-
bias Rudulph, Zebulon Hollingsworth, Henry HollingS;

worth, Daniel Robinson, Jonathan Booth, Thomas Huggins,
John Barnaby, George Wallace, John Thomas Ricketts,
Jacob Hollingsworth, Henry Robinson and Empson Bird,
or their order, the several sums of money (in specie) to our
names respectively annexed, in the following manner ; that
is to say, one-third part thereof on the first day of October
next, one-third thereof when the walls of the proposed
building are ready for the roof, and the remaining one-third
thereof when the said building is finished, and on the fol-
lowing conditions, viz. : That each of us the subscribers, for
every three pounds by each of us respectively subscribed
and duly paid, shall at the completion of the said building,

364 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

if we require it, be entitled to a vote (upon due notice given)
in declaring and ascertaining to what society of professing
Christians it shall principally be appropriated ; as also, in
appointing a number of wise discrete men, not less than
three, (of which the minister or officiating person for the
time being shall always be one) and not more than nine,
who shall determine every matter or thing that may arise,
in doubt, or dispute amongst us ; or that may require par-
ticular regulation, in any of which elections or determina-
tions a majority of votes and council as usual is to be deci-
sive and binding ; and said number of trustees or commis-
sioners, or by whatever name they may hereafter be called,
shall be annually elected by the friends of said house of
worship and adherents of the society to which it shall prin-
cipally belong hereafter, if it should be thought necessary.
And to the afore-mentioned payments, truly and punctually
to be made, and done in manner and form aforesaid, accord-
ing to the true intent and meaning thereof, we do bind our-
selves respectively and each of us, our respective heirs,
executors, and administrators. In full testimony whereof
we do severally subscribe our names and sums annexed,
this 26th February, in the year of our Lord, 1785." This
paper was signed as follows : " John Gilpin £30, Tobias
Rudulph £30, Zebn. Hollingsworth £30, H. Hollingsworth
£30, Jonathan Booth £20, Jacob Hollingsworth £21, Jno.
Thos. Ricketts £12, Daniel Robinson £9, Tobias Rudulph,
Jr. £6, George Wallace £6, Levi Hollingsworth £6, Empson
Bird £10." Owing to the unpopularity of most of the
clergy of the Episcopal church, and the fact that Metho-
dism prevailed to some extent in the surrounding country,
which will be fully set forth in a succeeding chapter,
the enterprise proved to be a failure, and the contemplated
house of worship was never built.

The removal of the seat of justice from Charlestown was
violently opposed by its citizens who did all in their
power to prevent it, and the records of the proceedings of

HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY. 365

the town commissioners, a few of which are yet extant,
show that Baruch Williams and Joseph Baxter were sent to
Annapolis (the town commissioners hiring a stage coach
for the purpose of taking them there), in order that they
might employ counsel and protest against the removal of
the seat of justice, and if possible, prevent it. The finances
of the town must have been in a low state, for the hire of
the stage, and the counsel fees, which were only £6 in all,
were not paid till 1791. But the efforts of the citizens of
Charlestown were unavailing. A large majority of the
people having expressed their desire for the removal of the
county seat to the Head of Elk, the Legislature at the No-
vember session, 1786, passed an act authorizing and appoint-
ing Messrs. Joseph Gilpin, Tobias Rudulph, Sr., Zebulon
Hollingsworth, Joseph Baxter and Edward Oldham, to act
as commissioners to erect a court-house and jail at that
place, on the lot mentioned in a previous chapter as having
been purchased by certain persons for the use and benefit of
the inhabitants of Elkton and Cecil County. The act also
required the justice to levy a tax not exceeding £1,200 for
the erection of a court-house and jail, and specified that
one-fourth of the aforesaid sum should be levied annually
for the four years next ensuing.

The reader will recollect that one of the conditions upon
which the public lot was purchased, required the inhabit-
ants of the town to erect a public market-house on it. This
condition had been complied with and the market-house
had been erected. This caused trouble, the lot being two
small for the proper accommodation, of both buildings.
But the difficulty was removed by Jacob Hollingsworth,
^ho donated another lot in May, 1787, for the use of the town
and the erection of another market-house. This lot was the
one at the southwest corner of Main and Bridge streets,
directly opposite the Episcopal church. There seems to have
been some doubt about the right of the commissioners to
remove the market-house, and at the April session, 1787,

366 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

the Legislature passed an act incorporating the town under
the name of Elkton,* and making provision for the removal
of the market-house to its new location. It is stated in this
act that Henry Hollings worth, in 1787, donated an acre of
land to the commissioners of the town for the erection there-
on of a school-house or house of worship for the promotion
of literature and the Christian religion. This was the origin of
Elkton Academy, and part of this land is included in the
lot on which the academy now stands. The good people of
the town seemed to have been much perplexed about the
market, and the act of incorporation contains many curi-
ous provisions upon that subject.. Tuesdays and Saturdays
were designated as market da}7s, and the sale of all victuals
and provisions before ten o'clock on those days within
one mile of the market-house was prohibited under penalty
of fifteen shillings. The slaughtering of all animals on the
public lot, and the hitching of horses or other beasts of
burden inside the market-house were prohibited, under a
penalty of ten shillings. The clerk of the town, whose
salary was not to exceed thirty pounds, current money, was
to have surpervision over the market, and was to inspect the
weights and measures used by the market people, and when
found defective to sell them for the use of the owner.

The town election was to be held on Easter-Monday, and
each of the seven town commissioners, who were also to be
trustees of the " Town School," were to own real estate to
the value of at least £300. The people of that time seem to
have had unbounded faith in the efficiency of fairs to pro-
mote the prosperity of towns, and notwithstanding they had
failed to benefit Charlestown to any very great extent, pro-
vision was made in the act of incorporation for holding four
of them annually in Elkton, upon the first Tuesday in
January, April, October, and December. At the time of the
passage of this act the constitution of the United States had

* For a few years subsequent to this time it had been called Elktown.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 367

not been adopted, and the sale of all foreign goods, wares,
and merchandise was prohibited.

The commissioners were engaged for several years in
brailding the court-house and jail, but they caused the work
to be well done, as the good state of preservation in which
the court-house now is, abundantly attests. The workmen
employed upon the public buildings were hired by the day,
and in many instances their board was paid by the com-
missioners, and several gallons of rum, which was purchased
for their use, is included in their accounts. Much of the
stone used was purchased by the ton. The nails were also
made from nail rods purchased for that purpose, by persons
employed by the commissioners. Some of the hardware
and paint was purchased at New Castle, which was then a
place of much more importance than it is at present. The
commissioners were allowed a commission of four per cent,
upon the money expended, as compensation for their ser-
vices. The £1,200 authorized to be levied for the con-
struction of the public buildings was inadequate for the
purpose, and in 1789 an additional levy, not exceeding
£800, was ordered to be made for the purpose of completing
them.*

The court met for the first time at Elkton, on the 11th of
June, 1787, at the public house of John Barnaby. It is the
brick building now standing on the bluff west of Bridge
street, near the Bridge. The growth of the town seems to
have been slow for many years after its incorporation, which
was owing to the fact that most of its influential citizens
were engaged in the practice of the law, which was not so
lucrative then as it is at present, consequently few of them
were able to amass sufficient wealth to erect large resi-
dences. Most of the old, substantial brick buildings had
been erected before the Revolution, and it is probable they

* The fire-proof building, used for the clerk's and register's offices, was
built in 1832.

368 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

were the only buildings of any importance in the place
until long after it became the seat of justice. Isaac Weld,
an English traveler, passed through the town in 1795, and
after his return home published a journal, in which may be
found this description of the place :

"Twenty-one miles from Wilmington is a dirty, stragling
place called Elkton, consisting of ninety indifferent habita-
tions, erected without any regard to uniformity. In this
neighborhood are some log-houses, answering the following
description : The sides are composed of rough logs of trees,
placed horizontally upon each other in such a manner that
the ends of the logs rest alternately in notches on those of
the adjoining side. The interstices are filled up with clay
and the roof is formed of boards or small pieces of wood
called shingles."

There is reason to believe that the members of the bar
were at this time a jolly set of fellows, that were disposed
to have as good a time as circumstances would permit.
The records of the county contain the following extraordi-
nary document, which favors this view of the case :

"For the encouragement and promotion of convivality
and good fellowship, on this 19th day of September, 1787,
upon motion, it was unanimously determined that for every
birth that hath been since the first day of September, in-
stant, or that shall be hereafter, the parent shall give a
general punch-drinking within one month from the time
of said birth. By a most respectable society of the gentle-
men of Elkton.

" John Murray, President.

"Attest, " John Partridge, Sec."

The removal of the seat of justice from Charlestown de-
stroyed the hopes its citizens had long cherished of making
it a city of importance, and soon afterwards many of the
more enterprising of them removed to Baltimore. In 1787
the old warehouse was sold at public sale to Archibald Job
for forty pounds, and in 1791 the commissioners passed an

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 369

order allowing the jail, which had somehow fallen into
their hands, to be used as a school-house and for public
worship of religious societies.

In 1790 a law was passed to straighten and amend the
several roads therein mentioned, and " Richard Snowdon
Thomas, Thomas Maffit & Jacob Hollingsworth were ap-
pointed commissioners to lay out and survey, mark and
bound, a road from Susquehanna lower ferry to the ford at
the Furnace, from thence to Charlestown, from thence to
the bridge at the head of North East, and from thence
through Elkton towards Christiana, to the Delaware
line."*

This caused trouble. The people of Charlestown were
apprehensive that when the road was straightened, travel
would be diverted from that town and they no doubt
thought they had been ill-used when the seat of justice was
removed to Elkton. For these reasons and because they
thought the projected improvement was made in the in-
terest of their successful rival, they opposed the change. The
controversy about this matter began in 1792, and probably
entered into the canvass for the election of members of the
Legislature, for at a special meeting of the commissioners of
Charlestown, on October 3d, it was ordered that the register,
Nathan Norton, deliver eight dollars to William Graham to
pay for a wagon and other necessary expenses for the purpose
of taking the voters to the election.

At the session of 1792, William Linton was sent to the
Legislature and authorized to employ counsel in order to re-
tain the post route where it then was. The matter seems to
have been before the Legislature at the next session, for the
town commissioners sent an express to Major Thomas M.
Foreman, who was a member of the Legislature in 1792, for

* Previous to this ;ime the road from Elkton to Christiana Bridge was
very crooked, and pa ad the northern part of Grays Hill and

near the Baptist c biu on Hill.

370 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

a petition that was given to him by Mr. Linton, of Anna-
polis, the winter before. The expressman returned and re-
ported that Major Foreman was away from home, but there
is reason' to believe that the commissioners thought he was
lying and had not been at Foreman's residence. They after-
ward got a sketch of the petition from Patrick Hamilton,
who was a man of some note, and had been sheriff of the
county, but he thought it was very imperfect, notwithstand-
ing which they appointed Alexander Hasson and Samuel
Hogg to lay it before Colonel Nathaniel Ramsay ,who at that
time was a member of the Legislature.

The efforts of the villagers were successful and no further
reference to the new road is made until 1795, when a peti-
tion, signed by many of the citizens of South Susquehanna
Hundred, was presented to the levy court, expressing their
satisfaction with the condition of the old road which was
then in good repair, and protesting against the construction
of another one. Isaac Weld, the English traveler before re-
ferred to, speaks of Charlestown, in 1795, as follows : "A few
miles distant from Elkton is Charlestown, containing about
twenty fishermen's houses. The adjoining country is rather
mountainous and in some parts the traveler proceeds for
five miles together through an uninterrupted succession
of woods."

The roads in this county seem, at this time, to have been
a fertile source of annoyance and vexation. This was in a
great measure owing to their crookedness which is shown
by certain plats of them to be seen among the records in the
commissioners' office. This crookedness was caused by the
desire of the land owners to have the roads, if possible,
located on the division lines of their farms, which were often
very ill-shaped. The subject of straightening the public
highways was of so much importance that it entered into
the politics of the county soon after the organization of the
State government ; and the people, if the traditions that have
been handed down to the present time are true were divided

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 371

into two parties, as in the case of the road near Charles-
town, one of which advocated, while the other opposed, the
measure. By the act of 1790 the commissioners therein
named were directed to straighten the road leading from
the Head of Elk to Back Creek, thence to the head of Bohe-
mia, thence to "Warwick, and from that place to the Head of
Sassafras. It was not until 1794 that the justices of the levy
court were authorized to appoint three freeholders upon the
petition of two-thirds of the taxables of the hundred, pray-
ing for the widening and straightening of a crooked road, to
view the same, and make the improvement prayed for. The
undulating character of that part of the county north of the
Elk River rendered the construction and maintainance of
the roads there more expensive than in the other part of it,
and the citizens of the southern part of the county thought
themselves aggrieved when compelled to pay an equal share
•of the road-tax, a large part of which was spent upon roads
they seldom or never used.

The Legislature sought to remedy this cause of complaint
by the act of 1794, which required the levy court to assess a
tax of not more than three shillings in the hundred pounds
to be applied to the construction and repair of the roads in
the county, and providing that " one-third of the tax levied
on the inhabitants on the east and south sides of Elk River
should be expended on the roads on the east and south
sides of said river." This tax was found insufficient, and
in 1795, the levy court was authorized to increase the sum
levied for the roads, so as not to exceed five shillings in the
hundred pounds. Inasmuch as nothing is said in this act
about where the money was to be expended, the provision in
regard to that matter in the former act is believed to have
been repealed, though it is not so stated in the law.

Previous to the revolution there had been no provision
made by law for the maintenance and support of the poor,
except such relief as was given to them by the levy court in
the matter of outpensions. This method of relieving the

372 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

wants of those persons who, from the effects of old age or
from any other cause, were in necessitous circumstances,
had been practiced almost from the earliest settlement of
the county, and, the records of the court contain many
curious petitions for relief and bills rendered for services
done in behalf of paupers. These bills strikingly illustrate
the customs that prevailed, and the ignorance of the people
who made them, of this class is the following specimen :

" Samuel Brown, deceased, Dr. s. d.

To making your grave 5 0

To making the coflng 15 0

To nine quarts rum 13 6

To 1 sheate 9 0

To 4J lbs. sugar 3 0

£2 os. U.
"17 May, 1763. Errors excepted.

his
Per Samuel x Philips.
mark."

This is probably the first instance in which a dead man
was ever charged with making his coffin and digging his
own grave. The reader will observe that much of the bill
is for rum, most of which, no doubt, was used at the funeral.
The use of liquor at funerals at that time, and for many
years afterwards, was so common that a decent funeral could
not take place without it ; but there is reason to think that
some of that charged in this bill was used by the under-
taker while making the coffin, it also being customary to
furnish liquor for the use of those who were employed in
the service of the public.

The Legislature, in 1787, passed an act making provision
for the maintenance of the poor and providing for the erec^-
tion of an alms and work-house for their benefit. Nine
persons were named as trustees of the institution, who were
authorized to take possession of the free-school property in
Sassafras Neck, and with the consent of the county court

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 373

were authorized to sell and convert it into money for the
purpose specified. The justices were also authorized to levy
a sum not exceeding £400 for the use and benefit of the
almshouse. This act, like many others of that period, was
not well adapted to the purpose intended, and by a supple-
mentary act passed in 1788, it was enacted that the trustees
should have power to purchase land not exceeding two hun-
dred acres. They were also authorized to take possession of
a bequest to the poor of St. Stephen's parish, and all the
estates of all persons dying intestate and leaving no legal
representatives, and apply them to the use and benefits of
the poor of the county. The bequest referred to in the act
of 1788, was made by a certain Joseph Phelps to the poor
of St. Stephen's parish by his will dated November 1st,
1783. The return of the appraisers of his personal estate
shows that it consisted of his wearing apparel, a chest,
prayer-book, pocket-book, brush, about two pounds of to-
bacco, and a pair of spectacles, valued at £3 lis. 8d., and
cash in the chest, consisting of English, French and Spanish
gold and silver coins, to the amount of £84 13s. 4d, making
£88 1, which was decreased by the deduction of two other
bequests to £5SJ. He also had about £53 in continental
money, which was worthless. But little more is known of
this charitable man, except that he had no " kin," as is
stated upon the appraisement list.

On the 11th of June, 1788, the trustees of the poor met in
Elkton, and received £48 16s., partly in Spanish milled dol-
lars, and partly in corn, from James Hughes, whose step-
father, John Price, had rented the free school farm and had
the use of the negroes then on it, who seem to have been
:rented with the land the year before. The free school land
has been described in a preceding chapter. There is
reason to believe that there was six or eight negroes on the
farm, but the number is not stated in the records. It is
probable that the negroes had been purchased for the use of
the master of the free school, and had been employed by him

374 history or CECIL county.

in cultivating the farm, but this is only a matter of
conjecture.

On the 13th of June, 1788, the trustees of the poor pur-
chased one hundred and eighteen acres of land from Henry
Hollingsworth, which is described under the name of St.
John's Town and addition, for £295. This purchase was
subsequently increased in 1791 by the addition of fifty-seven
acres, purchased from the same person for £142 10s., all of
which now constitutes the present Almshouse farm.

The trustees authorized Colonel Hollingsworth to erect a
house on the farm purchased from him as soon as practi-
cable, he agreeing to rent them a house for the use of the
poor, lately built by him at the Head of Elk, until the new
house was ready for use. This house is the old log building
now standing in Little Elk, on the north side of the street,
west of the Marley road.

The construction of the new house was delayed by freshets
in the Little Elk, which prevented the workmen from get-
ting stone from the bed of the creek and hauling timber-
across it, and was not ready for occupation until June 2d,
1789, at which time it was formally accepted by the trustees,
who, on the 3d of the previous March, had chosen George
Harris and his wife Ann, as overseer and matron of the in-
stitution, at a salary of £40 a year.

In 1791 the trustees sold the free school land to Robert
Milligan for £1,200. What became of the negroes is not
stated, but there is reason to believe they were sold to
Milligan.

By the act for the establishment of Washington College
in 1782, the visitors of the free schools on the Eastern Shore
were authorized, if they thought proper, to incorporate the
bonds and estate in their hands with the funds and estate
of that institution. This measure was strongly opposed by
the vestry of North Elk parish, who appointed a committee
to consult with the vestry of St. Augustine's parish, and
with the visitors of the free schools, and to protest against.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 375

diverting the school property from the use originally
intended.

The number of inmates of the Almshouse at first was
not large, but in 1802 they had increased to forty, and the
trustees were obliged to erect an addition of twenty-five feet
in length to the original house, which cost £250. This year
a contest took place between several of the physicians of the
northeastern part of the county, about which of them should
have the job of attending the paupers. One of them in
addition to his regular services, offered to keep a statistical
record of the various diseases of the inmates, etc., for £40 a
year. Another one in addition to all that, offered the use
of an electrical machine and attendance once a week in
order to use it upon the paupers that might need it, and the
trustees, no doubt thinking the paupers would be benefited
by the use of electricity, gave the contract to him.

The successful termination of the Revolutionary war
seems to have given a great impetus to the inventive powers
of the people. Among those who distinguished themselves
in this way was James Rumsey, then of Virginia, but a
member of the Rumsey family which once resided at the
head of Bohemia River, who was the inventor of a steam
boat constructed upon a novel plan. He applied to the
Legislature for a patent for his invention, in 1784. The con-
stitution of the United States, not then having been adopted,
and the articles of confederation containing no provision in
regard to this matter, inventors were obliged to apply for
patents to the Legislatures of the States. Rumsey's inven-
tions is described as a method of propelling vessels by
means of the reaction of a stream of water forced by the
agency of steam through a trunk or cylinder parallel to the
keel, out at the stern. The action of this stream upon the
water in which the vessel floated, it was believed would
cause the vessel to move forward. The legislature gave him
the exclusive right to the use of his invention for ten years.
He afterwards formed a society in Philadelphia called the

HI-: 11 COUNTY.

Kv.mseia.n Society, of which F>r. Franklin and Levi Hol-
[ingsworth were members, • purpose of introducing

his boat and other inventions to the public, but like m< =rf
:•., aseshe met with little success, John Fir;".

- steamboat, which led to a contest between
them, and neither ' ited by their efforts :; introduce

- i . ■ . - [n LTSS .'-• I agislatur* passed an act entitled,
.-. • . . making the river Susqut ham a navigable 5

■.;•..• • . . ■.'.-. - - . . . '.. ■ . in which it is state I :'... i

.-. eompany, of which William ^ugusti - gton,

Charles .-"/•.- Chomas Russell a. v..".'.. Bis U

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had subscribed the sum of ^1S,50C and hade
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v'." . - . . - should : - tfl - " .-. .'-.
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HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 377

the work was to be commenced on or before the first of Oc-
tober, 1783, at Love Island near the State line and to be
prosecuted with diligence till tide water was reached, and
fully completed within se\'en years. The work seems to
have been commenced by the time specified, for in a supple-
ment to the act of incorporation passed at the session of
1784, it is stated that considerable progress had been made.
This supplemental act exempted the property of the com-
pany from taxation and legalized a long list of tolls for all
sorts of merchandise, except dry goods, that might pass
through the canal, and specified the value at which foreign
coins were to be estimated, when taken in payment of tolls.

Probably for the want of means the canal was not finished
in the time specified, and an extension of one year was
granted in 1790, by another supplementary act, which au-
thorized the company to increase the number of shares to
thirty, and provided that foreigners might become share-
holders. The work of constructing the canal was of greater
magnitude than was at first apprehended, but there is reason
to believe that it was so near completion in 1795. as to indi-
cate that it would never be very successful. Twelve years
had elapsed since the work was commenced, and it is proba-
ble that a change had taken place in public opinion in
reference to its utility.

About this time the people living in those counties of
Pennsylvania that bordered upon the Susquehanna River,
agitate th - bjeetoi improving its navigation, and
. a meeting held at Harrisburg, in August, 1795, took that
matter into consideration. Some of the consequen - this
meeting: are manifest in the action of the Legislature of
Maryland. at its - 5sion in the December following, from
which it is very plain that the citizens of Havre de Grace.

-ich had been laid out about twenty ye re, were

jealous of the advantages that would naturally accrue from
the canal to those who resided upon the Cecil the

river.

378 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

George Gale, a prominent citizen of this county, had pur-
chased a hundred and ten acres of land oh the east side of
the river, near Watson's Island, in July, and on the 1st of
December following, purchased eighty-eight acres adjoining
it from John Creswell, and proceeded to lay out a town,,
which he called Chesapeake. This town, which was a short
distance above Perryville, was incorporated by an act of the
Legislature on the 24th of December, 1795. On the same day
an act was passed making an addition to the town of Havre
de Grace, and authorizing a lottery for the improvement of
the navigation of the Susquehanna River. This was the
beginning of a contest between the proprietors of the Sus-
quehanna Canal and certain persons in Pennsylvania, who
were jealous of the privileges that had been conferred upon
the proprietors of the canal, that was settled many years
afterwards by the organization of the Tide- Water Canal
Company, which purchased and now own the rights and
franchises of the other company. Probably the real object
of those who sought to effect the enlargement of Havre de
Grace, was the same as that of the founder of the rival town
on the other side of the river, namely, a desire to speculate
in town lots ; and very likely they concealed their real de-
sign under the plausible pretext of improving the naviga-
tion of the river. But civil engineering was not as well un-
derstood then as it is now, and they may have honestly
thought that $50,000, which was the sum authorized to be
raised by lottery, was sufficient for the purpose designated.
It was specified in the act for the improvement of the river,
that none of the money raised by the lottery was to be ap-
plied to opening or improving the Susquehanna Canal,
which seems to indicate that the Legislature might have lost
faith in its utility.

Nothing ever came of the effort to build the town of
Chesapeake, and it must be added to the long list of abortive-
efforts to build towns where they were not needed.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

The next year, 1796, a German named ,. Breider, who
owned a flour-mill on the Juniata River, near Huntington,
Pennsylvania, is said to have built an ark and loaded it
with flour and ran it down the Susquehanna, and thence to
Baltimore. This is believed to have been the first venture
of the kind, and Breider having demonstrated the practic-
ability of navigating the perilous river as well as the profit-
ableness of the Baltimore market, his example was followed
the next year by several others. By a supplementary act,
passed January 20th, 1797, the time for the completion of the
canal was extended to the 1st of December, 1805, and the
bed of the Susquehanna River was declared to be " a public
highway, free for any person or persons whatever to work
thereon in clearing the obstructions to its navigation,"
which warrants the inference that something was about to
be done for its improvement at this time by those in charge
of the lottery. The early history of this canal is involved
in great obscurity, occasioned bjT the loss of the records of
the proceedings of the directors previous to 1817. Land
was condemned for the use of the proprietors, in 1800, at
which time Robert Gilmer was governor of the canal. The-
work is believed to have been completed in 1805. It was
too narrow at first to be of much use, and the proprietors
had it widened, about 1810. During the time of the con-
struction and enlargement of the canal, many of the laborers
employed upon it were afflicted with a malignant fever,.
from the effects of which many of them died.

In 1805, the inhabitants of Elkton also suffered from a
malignant fever that baffled the skill of the most eminent
physcians. There is some evidence tending to show that it
was caused by the miasma from the marsh on the north
side of the river, which at that time was embanked so as to
exclude the tide. The following extracts from a diary kept
by the late Dr. Amos A. Evans, who at that time was a
student of medicine under the late Dr. George E. Mitchell,.
show the malignant character of the epidemic. It is stated

380 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

in Morse's Gazzetteer of the Western continent, that Elkton
five years after this time, contained ninety houses, which, at
five persons to each house, would give a population of four
hundred and fifty. In 1805, the town probably contained
less than four hundred inhabitants.

Under the date of September 26th, 1805, Dr. Evans says :
"Cloudy morning, wind from S. E. About 60 persons
now sick in Elkton. Every person afflicted with languor and
lassitude. Want of appetite and dreadful sickness of stomach
are the general precursors of the reigning epidemic, which
is attended with tormenting and excruciating pains of the
extremities. This sudden change of the weather has in a
number of cases occasioned this epidemic to take on the
form of dysentary and diarrhoea. The chills which pre-
cede are of long continuance, the fever succeeding, very in-
flammatory, demanding remedies powerful and energetic.
28th September ; good fires are very necessary and quite
agreeable, cases of bilious fever still increase. The symptoms
■of this fever are anomolous, the pains in the extremities
and lumbar regions are violent, the eyes are painful and
often much inflamed. October 3d and 4th ; more than
80 persons sick in Elkton. October 14th; sicknesss con-
tinues to increase in the country. November 4th ; several
cases of bilious and intermittent fevers still continue,
which are remarkably stubborn this fall. Diseases in
general, this season have been much more stubborn
then they have been known for some time, and the
people of Elkton and its vicinity have been more generally
afflicted. Cathartics and emetics though given in double
doses, in some cases produce little or no effect."

CHAPTER XXII.

Octoraro forge — Cecil Manufacturing Company — New Leeds — Chesa-
peake and Delaware Canal — Benjamin H. Latrobe — The canal feeder-
Riot at Elkton — "Treeket the Loop" — Supplementary Act — Work re-
sumed on the canal — John Randel— He sues the canal company — Com-
pletion and cost of the canal — Difficulty of construction— Port Deposit —
Philip Thomas — Port Deposit Bridge Company — Bridge burned — Sale of
Susquehanna canal — The log pond — Susquehanna and Tide Water canal.

In 1788, John Churchman, the distinguished scientist and
mathematician of Nottingham, who was the owner of large
quantities of barren land, which he, no doubt, had purchased
because he thought it contained valuable deposits of mineral,
formed a partnership with Samuel Hughes, of Harford
County, for the purpose of erecting a furnace and such other
works as they might think necessary for the manufacture
of iron, upon a tract of land containing 3,000 acres, which
was two-thirds of all the land owned by Churchman in
Cecil, Chester, and Lancaster counties, and which seems to
have been embraced in one tract. The tract to be selected
by Hughes for the iron works, it was stipulated in the arti-
cle of agreement, which may be seen among the land records
of the county, was to embrace the Horse Shoe Bend, in the
Octoraro Creek, near the junction of the three counties be-
fore named. Hughes was to furnish the capital for the en-
terprise, and Churchman was to be resident manager, the
profits being equally divided between them. Nothing is
known of the history of this enterprise, but the land records
of the county show that the forge which was just below the
Horse Shoe Bend, where the Cecil paper-mill now stands, was
built sometime previous to 1795, at which time it was in the

382 HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY.

possession of a certain John Jones and Thomas Rogers. It
was subsequently purchased in 1801 by John Frey and
Mathew Irwin, and was known for some time as Frey's Forge.
The Cecil Manufacturing Company, whose mill for the
manufacture of linen, woolen, and cotton goods, was on the
Little Elk Creek, just above Marley, was organized in 1794.
This company is believed to have been organized by the
efforts of Colonel Henry Hollingsworth, of Elkton, who was
at this time, the owner of the site of Marley Mill. This
gentleman purchased ten acres of land, on both sides of the
Little Elk, from John Anderson, on the 31st of July, 1794,
for £100. The company, which consisted of the folio wing-
members, viz. : Colonel Henry Hollingsworth, of Elkton ;
Levi Hollingsworth and Paschall Hollingsworth, of Phila-
delphia; Francis Partridge, John Gilpin, Levi Hollings-
worth, Jr., and James Mackey, of Cecil County ; and Solo-
man Maxwell and William Cooch, of New Castle County,
Delaware, are believed to have organized on the 1st of the
following November, for on that day Colonel Hollingsworth
executed a deed to the others for eight-tenths of the ten
acres he had purchased from Anderson, retaining the other
two-tenths for his own share. The company proceeded to
build a stone factory, the walls of which were quite thick
and are now standing, though the wood-work of the build-
ing was consumed by fire many years ago. The durability
of the stone-work of this mill seems to have warranted the
assertion of an historian, who, in speaking of it in 1807,
said it was the best mill of the kind in the United States.
Some of the machinery used in this factory was imported
from Europe. In 1796 the company purchased upwards of
five hundred acres of land adjoining the site of the mill, in
order to obtain pasturage for the sheep they intended to
keep for the purpose of obtaining wool to supply their mill.
In 1805 the company obtained the services of John Wilson,
a native of Yorkshire, England, who had learned the art
of manufacturing broadcloth in his native country, and who

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 383

had one-tenth interest in the business. This company
manufactured a considerable amount of goods, and it is said
presented ex-President Jefferson with cloth sufficient to make
him a suit of clothes, which he wore when being inaugurated
President of the United States.

Owing to the custom which then prevailed, of nearly
every family manufacturing their cloth by means of the
old-fashioned spinning-wheels and hand-looms, the com-
pany did not succeed in finding a remunerative market for
their goods, and in 1811 Mr. Wilson severed his connection
with it and purchased the mill property next above, on the
same stream, where he erected a woolen factory. Mr. Wilson
was a preacher of the society called Independents, and it
was through his exertions that the New Leeds church was
built. He also had the honor of naming that village after
the manufacturing city of Leeds, in England. Mr. Wilson's
daughter, Hannah, organized the first Sunday-school in
this county, probably the first in the State, at New Leeds,
in 1816.

The next matter that claims our attention is the project
of connecting the waters of the Chesapeake and Delaware
bays by means of a canal.

As long ago as 1680, when Augustine Hermen was lord
of Bohemia Manor, the construction of a canal to connect
the waters of the two bays was contemplated. The earli3st
settlers along the Delaware and Chesapeake Bays felt the
want of a better method of transportation than they then had,
and no doubt the far-seeing and clear-minded Hermen was
quite as much influenced by the prospective canal and the
advantages to be derived from it as he was by the superior
quality of the soil when he made choice of Bohemia Manor
and settled upon it.

In 1769 some of the enterprising citizens of Philadelphia
induced the American Philosophical Society to order a sur-
vey to be made with a view of constructing a canal across
the peninsula, but the Revolutionary war began before any

384 HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY.

active steps were taken towards the construction of the
work, and it was not chartered by the State of Maryland
until 1799. It appears from the charter that Maryland was
the first State to move in the matter, for the charter con-
tains a proviso that it is to be of no force until a law is
passed by the State of Delaware authorizing the cutting of
the canal through that State, and until a law is passed by
the State of Pennsylvania declaring the river Susquehanna
to be a highway, etc. The company was authorized to
raise $500,000, in shares of $200 each, for the construction
of the canal, and Tobias Rudulph and William Alexander,
in Cecil County, in connection with two other persons in
each of the Eastern Shore counties of Maryland, and other
persons in Baltimore, Wilmington, and Philadelphia were
authorized to open the subscription books and inaugurate
the enterprise.

About the year 1801 Benjamin H. Latrobe,* Cornelius
Howard, and John Thompson surveyed various routes
across the peninsula for the proposed canal, and the direc-
tors of the company decided to adopt the one between
Welsh Point, at the junction of Back Creek and Elk River,
and running in a northeast direction from there to a place
on Christiana Creek, then called Mendenhall's Landing,
about four miles west of Wilmington. It was the intention
of the engineers that located the canal in this place to
supply the water necessary for the purpose of navigating it

* B. H. Latrobe was of French Huguenot extraction, but born in Eng-
land. He came to Philadelphia in 1800, and soon afterwards married
the daughter of Isaac Hazlehurst, the law-partner of Robert Morris, the
financier. While engaged in constructing the feeder, he resided in a
house which stood north of the Elkton and Christiana Turnpike and east
of the State line. He was one of the most eminent architects and civil
engineers of his time, and was employed in supervising the old Capitol
building at Washington, and also the Exchange, which is now used for
the Custom House, in Baltimore. He was the father of J. H. B. Latrobe,
Esq., a distinguished member of the Baltimore bar, and the grandfather
of F. C. Latrobe, the present mayor of that city.

HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY. 385

from the Big Elk Creek, by means of a feeder constructed
for the purpose of carrying the water of that creek into a
vast reservoir,* covering a hundred acres of land, from
which the water could be taken when needed for the pur-
pose of locking the various crafts through the canal. About
a hundred thousand dollars was expended upon the con-
struction of the feeder, which was intended to carry the
waters of Big Elk into the proposed reservoir, which was to
be located about a mile west of Glasgow, in Delaware. The
work was constructed under the supervision of Benjamin
H. Latrobe, who was chief engineer.

The canal company was obliged to purchase the right to
use the water of Big Elk from the Elk Forge Company,
whose forge was then located where Elk Mills factory now
stands, near which the feeder was to start, and also the water
rights of all the mills between the forge and the mouth of
the creek. Due bills or promisary notes, similar to bank
notes, were issued for the purchase of the water rights, and
work was commenced on the feeder in 1802. Some of the
plans of the engineers of that time seem quite curious and
strange when viewed through the light of the experience
since acquired. The canal company only purchased the
right from the forge company to use the water of the creek,
when needed, for the purpose of supplying the canal, the
forge company reserving the right to use the water of the
creek during the winter months, when it would be imprac-
ticable to navigate it. The water of the creek was taken out
of the head-race of the forge and taken across the channel
of the creek in an aqueduct constructed for the purpose. It
would seem to have been a great deal more practicable to
have taken the water directly from the east side of the dam
and to have dispensed with the aqueduct, but probably there

* Owing to a misunderstanding of his instructions, the engraver of the
map accompanying this book located this reservoir too far south. It
should have been the junction of the feeder and the canal, which is
some distance wes lasgow, which is called Aikentown on the map.

386 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

were reasons that do not now appear, that caused the engi-
neer to adopt the plan he did.

The work upon the feeder was done in a superior manner.
Several of the arches, through which the water of small
streams was to pass underneath it, are still standing, and
quite a large one intended for a roadway across it is yet ex-
tant. It is said that when the late Daniel Lord was con-
structing the factory which is near the arch, being in want
of stone, he ordered his workmen to take the arch down, and
that after many fruitless efforts to do so, they concluded it
would be easier and cheaper to quarry the stone they wanted.
This old arch is now standing, and looks strong and durable
enough to stand at least a century longer.

For a short time the water of the Big Elk was admitted
into the feeder, and the stone used in the construction of
the arches, some distance from the upper end of it, were
transported to the places where they were used upon scows
from the quarry near the forge. Many stones were quarried
and nicely dressed for the arches, which, after the work was
abandoned, remained near the forge and were used in the
construction of the railroad bridge across the Big Elk, near
Elkton, which was recently covered by the embankment,
after the construction of the new iron bridge in 1876.

There was much diversity of opinion in regard to the
proper place for the location of the canal. This was the
reason that the company after finishing the feeder to the
site of the proposed reservoir, near Glasgow, were forced to
discontinue the work, which they did, for want of means,
in 1803. The feeder passed within about two miles of Elk-
ton, and it is stated in a history of Maryland and Delaware,
published in Philadelphia in 1807, that barges were then
used upon it. This is untrue ; though the people of that
day entertained the opinion that it was practicable to use
the feeder as a canal, and the canal company at that time
intended to establish slack-water navigation upon the Big
Elk, north of the forge, by erecting a system of dams and
locks for that purpose.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 387

The laborers employed in the construction of the feeder,
who were principally Irishmen, became involved in a riot
while the work was in course of construction. There was a
race-course at that time in the field near Gilpins Bridge, on
the southwest side of Big Elk. Many of the Irishmen
from the feeder were at a horse race on this course, which
was no uncommon thing, for horse racing was quite com-
mon in Cecil County at that time, and the races were recog-
nized by the law of the State. It was customary for those
who wished to do so, to obtain license to sell liquor at the races,
and no doubt it was sold at this one, and that the too free
use of whisky led to the riot, which began in this wise : A
negro was on the ground, who was proprietor of a gambling
.arrangement, called " Treeket the Loop." It consisted of a
stake driven into the ground in the centre of a circular ex-
cavation of probably a foot or eighteen inches in diameter ;
a cent was placed on the top of the stake by the proprietor,
and those who wished to participate in the game were fur-
nished with a club or shillalah and required to stand some
yards from the stake, and if they could throw the club and
knock the cent off the stake, so that it would fall outside of
the pit in which the stake stood, they won the money ; if
the coin fell inside of the pit, which it probably did in nine
cases out of ten, the player forfeited a cent to the proprietor
of the pit. A dispute occurred between the negro who was
the proprietor of the pit and an Irishman who was playing,
which came from words to blows, and the negro is said to
have fractured the skull of one of the Irishmen who soon
afterwards died. This riot, like all others, was easier started
than stopped, and from the accounts which have come down
to us, was quite a serious affair. Many other negroes on the
race ground became involved in the fight before it was
over. The Irishmen pursued them to Elkton, and a reign
of terror was inaugurated which lasted for a considerable
time, during which several lives were lost. The late Dr.
Evans, who was then a student of medicine with Dr.

388 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

George E. Mitchell, is said to have been instrumental in
pacifying the infuriated Irishmen and saving the lives of
some of the negroes.

In 1803 work was discontinued upon the feeder, and
the enterprise was allowed to slumber until 1812. The
probability of a war with England appears to have been the
great incentive that impelled the Legislature of Maryland to
pass a supplementary act to the original charter of the
canal, for at the session of the General Assembly in the
winter of 1812-13, the following supplement to the act of in-
corporation of 1799 was passed :

"Whereas, During the time of war against the United
States of America, the completion of the work of the Chesa-
peake & Delaware Canal would be beneficial to the United
States, by forming the great link of an inland navigation of
six or seven hundred miles, and thereby establish a per-
fectly safe, easy and rapid transportation of our armies and
the munitions of war through the interior of the country r
and which would ever tend to operate as a cement to the
union between the States : And, whereas, the prosperity and
the agricultural interest of the State of Maryland, the Com-
monwealth of Pennsylvania, and the Delaware State, are-
more deeply interested than their sister States in the useful
work of opening a communication between the Chesapeake-
Bay and river Delaware, by means of the said Chesapeake-
& Delaware Canal ; therefore, in order to enable the presi-
dent and directors of the said canal to prosecute and finish
the important work of the said Chesapeake & Delaware
Canal, Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Maryland,
That if the United States shall subscribe 750 shares, the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania 375 shares, the State of
Delaware 100 shares, in the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal
Co., in such case the treasurer of the western shore be and
he is hereby authorized and directed to subscribe in behalf
of this State 250 shares in said company, and the money
necessary to be paid in consequence of such subscription

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 389

shall be paid by this State, and the treasurer of the western
shore, for the time being, shall have the right to vote for
president and directors of said company, according to such
number of shares in person or by proxy appointed by him,
and the said treasurer shall receive upon the said stock the
proportion of the tolls which shall from time to time be due
to the State for the shares aforesaid.

" And be it enacted, that this act shall not take effect,
"unless the Legislature of Pennsylvania shall pass or shall
have passed a law declaring that in consideration of the act
of the Legislature of Maryland incorporating said canal
company, the river Susquehanna from Columbia to the
Maryland line shall forever hereafter be a highway, and
that individuals or bodies corporate may at all times remove
obstructions therein."

The war that the Legislature apprehended took place, and
nothing more was done toward the completion of the work
until about 1822 or 1823, when the project was again revived.
There appears to have been much diversity of opinion in
regard to the supply of water to be obtained from the Big
Elk Creek, and various estimates were made of it.
In 1804 Mr. Latrobe estimated it as equal to one hundred
and ninety locks full per day. In 1823 John Handel, Jr.,
civil engineer of Albany, New York, then in the employ of
the company and under whose superintendence the route
for the canal had been surveyed, estimated it as equal to
seventy-nine locks full per day on an average of a whole
year, but as only equal to thirty locks full per day in the
months of July, August, September, and October, which
only allowed the passage of six vessels per day through the
canal. Mr. Handel was accused of under-estimating the
quantity of water in the Elk Creek, with a view of having
the canal located further down the peninsula, where it now
is, so that he could have an opportunity of obtaining a
lucrative contract for its construction. The people of Wil-
mington were apprehensive that if the canal was located so

390 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

as to reach the Delaware River, without using the Christiana
Creek for that purpose, it would injure the trade of their
city, and as was very natural, they looked upon the diffi-
culty of constructing it, very complacently, and the news-
paper press of that city continually prophesied its ultimate
failure.

Mr. Randel, the engineer, upon whose surveys and esti-
mates the work was undertaken, recommended the cutting
of the canal so deep that the supply of water could be ob-
tained for its use from the Delaware River at high tide, by
means of tide-locks at either end of the canal, so constructed
as to prevent a current in it, and also to admit the water of
the Delaware River to enter it at high tide. This was a
grand scheme and worthy of the ingenious and scientific
man that originated it. He contemplated using the Atlantic
Ocean as the reservoir from which the canal was to be sup-
plied with water. This plan, had it been adhered to, would
have saved the expense of the steam-pump which now has
to be used to supply the canal with water; but probably
owing to the great cost of excavating so deep a channel it
was abandoned and the present system of locks adopted in
its stead.

It is worthy of remark that the canal company resumed
work, which had been suspended for twenty-one years, under
the presidency of the same person who presided over it
when work was suspended, and that the due bills for a large
amount of the indebtedness of the company,which was con-
tracted in its early efforts, were paid at their par value.

The canal company employed Mr. Randel to excavate the
greater part of the canal and executed articles of agreement
with him for the construction of the work on the 26th day
of March, 1824. The work was commenced on the 15th of
April following upon the deep cut near where the Summit
Bridge formerly stood. Randel was allowed until the 1st of
May, 1828, to finish his contract, but for some reason the
company took the work out of his hands, and in the fall of

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 391

1825, contracted with other persons for the completion of
the unfinished part of it. This action of the company
caused Randel to sue it for damages, and after years of litiga-
tion he recovered damages in January, 1834, to the amount
of more than two hundred and twenty-six thousand dollars.
The suit between Randel and the canal company, which
was tried in the Superior Court at New Castle, is one of the
most notable cases ever tried in the State of Delaware, being
celebrated as well on account of the amount of money in-
volved, as on account of the eminent counsel employed
by the parties concerned in it. John Randel, Jr., by which
cognomen he was known until the day of his death, was pos-
sessed of much skill as a civil engineer, though strange and
eccentric, and full of Utopian schemes and projects. He
afterwards became the proprietor of " Randalia," which was
a large tract of land on Bohemia Manor, near the mouth of
Back Creek. His success in prosecuting his suit against the
canal company appears to have made him fond of litiga-
tion, and for many years after he became proprietor of
"Randalia" he was seldom without a law suit on hand.
Owing to his success in this suit with the canal company,
he was placed in possession of a competency, most of which
he squandered in the prosecution of wild, chimerical
schemes for self-aggrandizement, which it would have taken
many hundreds of thousands of dollars to have brought to
a successful conclusion. He was also the originator of
elevated railroads, which have recently been erected in some
of our large cities. At one time, while Mr. Randel was
proprietor of Randalia, he had a steam saw-mill in opera-
tion there, and somehow he unfortunately lost a breast-pin
Which he valued very highly. Work was immediately
stopped at Randalia, and everybody in his employ was set
to work hunting for the lost breast-pin. The hands at the
saw-mill were set to work sifting an immense pile of saw
dust, the accumulation of years, in order to find the lost jewel.
After much tribulation the long-lost and much-esteemed

392 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

bauble was found in the possession of some person, who
said he found it along the road some distance from Randa-
lia, where no doubt its owner had dropped it. The chance
for a law suit was not to be lost, however, and the conten-
tious Ran del laid his case before the next grand jury with
the intention of having the person who found the breast-pin
indicted for theft, but the grand jury very wisely dismissed
the case.

Though Randel was the engineer who surveyed the route
for the canal and made the plans and estimates for its con-
struction when he became contractor for the performance of
the work, the company employed Benjamin Wright to act
as engineer, under whose superintendence the work was
completed on the 17th of October, 1829. This important
work is thirteen and five-eighths of a mile long, and was
made at the cost of $2,250,000. Its construction was a work
of great difficulty, owing to the peculiarities of the land
through which the eastern part of it is made. Large sec-
tions of the embankments along the sides of it are said to
have sunk as much as a hundred feet below the adjoining
surface, which caused the bottom of the canal to rise as
much as forty feet above its natural position. This led to
much trouble and delay in the completion of the work ; nor
was this the only trouble, for the earth taken out of the
deep cut, which at the summit is seventy-six and a half feet
deep, was deposited too near the channel of the canal, and
it is estimated that during the construction of the work
three hundred and severity-five thousand cubic yards of it
slid back into the canal and had to be again removed. For
many years after the completion of the work, these immense
mountain-like piles of earth had an ugly habit of sliding
into the canal, and at one time the company had many
acres of them thatched with straw, like an Irish cabin, to
keep them dry and render them tenacious enough to main-
tain the position in which they were originally placed.
Much stone was required for walling parts of the canal, a

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 393

great deal of which was obtained in the vicinity of Marley
Mill and Cherry Hill, and which was hauled to the western
part of the canal in four-horse wagons. This stone was
purchased by weight and weighed upon immense scales con-
structed for the purpose. The scales were large enough to
hold a wagon loaded with stone, and were constructed with
a wooden beam similar to a steelyard ; the loaded wagon
was driven upon the platform and weighed, and after being
unloaded weighed again, the difference in weight showing
the weight of the load of stone. The Summit or Buck*
bridge, across the canal at the deep cut, was nearly ninety
feet above the bottom of the canal and two hundred and
forty-seven feet long. It was considered a stupendous
structure fifty years ago, when the Pacific Railroad had not
been thought of and our vast system of public improvements
were in their infancy. People that were school children
forty years ago will recollect the picture of this bridge that
w7as in a popular geography which was much used at that
time.

The enlargement of the Susquehanna Canal seems to have
given a great impetus to the growth of the town (now Port
Deposit) just below its southern terminus, or probably it
would be more correct to say, that the success of that enter-
prise led to the building of the town. As early as 1729,
Thomas Cresap, who took such an active part in the border
war a few years afterwards, had a ferry there, which is be-
lieved to have been called Smith's Ferry, probably because
it was near the uppermost point on the river which was
reached by the adventurous Captain John Smith, who
ascended it when engaged in exploring the Chesapeake Bay
angt its tributaries. It was afterwards called Creswell's
Ferry, because it was owned by Colonel John Creswell, the
grandfather of the Hon. J. A. J. Creswell, who owned two

* This bridge was often called the Buck bridge, because there was a
tavern near it with the sum of a Buck.

394 HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY.

large tracts of land contiguous to it, much of which is yet in
possession of the Creswell family. The town, if there was
any town there, must have been quite small in 1813 when
the British visited Lapidum, for they made but little exer-
tion to enter it, though it was a place of some importance,
and the citizens and the people of the vicinity had erected a
fort for its defense, and probably would have given them a
warm reception.

Philip Thomas then owned large quantities of land ex-
tending from near the ferry, which was about midway of
the town, a considerable distance down the river, embracing
the tracts called Mount Ararat, and Yorkshire, which was
immediately below the former and some others. He died
in 1811, and his property not being susceptible of division,
was purchased by his son Philip the next year, he agreeing
to pay the other heirs their shares of the value placed upon
it by the commissioners appointed by the court for that pur^
pose. Mr. Thomas caused the lower half of the town to be
laid out into streets and building-lots by Hugh Beard, an
eminent surveyor of that time, who made a plat of it, which
may be seen among the land records of the county. This
plat is dated October 21st, 1812, and purports to be the plat
of a town at Creswell's Ferry. But at the session of the
Legislature held the next winter, the name of the place was
changed to Port Deposit. This change was made, as stated
in the preamble to the act, to prevent the inconvenience
arising from the different names by which the place was
then called. There is reason to believe that the town had,
previous to this time, been also called Rock Run.

The next year Edward Wilson, of Philadelphia, purchased
for six thousand dollars the site of the mill at the lower or
tide locks, of the canal, which included an insignificant
amount of land and the right to water sufficient to run. six
pairs of mill-stones of six feet diameter, to be driven by
water-wheels of not less than fifteen feet diameter. The
quantity of water was to be ascertained by actual experi-

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 395

ment after the mill was erected. This mill subsequently
came into the possession of James Bosley, of Baltimore, who,
in 1831, became involved in a quarrel with the proprietors
of the canal in reference to the quantity of water he used..
Bosley used more water than was agreeable to the proprie-
tors of the canal, who advertised in the Baltimore papers
that they would permit the use of the water of the canal
only in accordance with the agreement in the deed given to
Wilson. Bosley set the proprietors of the canal at defiance,
and one day started the machinery at its utmost speed, in
consequence of which the mill caught fire and was entirely
consumed. This ended the quarrel.

Previous to the construction of the canal, most of the
lumber and produce which came down the river stopped at
Lapidum. This was because the water was deeper on that
side of the river. After the construction of the canal, the
business was diverted to the other side of the river, and the
want of some better means of crossing than that afforded by
a ferry became necessary. This led to the first efforts to-
erect the Susquehanna bridge, and resulted in the formation
of the first Port Deposit bridge company, which was incor-
porated in 1808. Of the incorporators, five were from Bal-
timore City and County, six from Harford County, and six
were from Cecil, as follows : James Sewell, Adam Whann,
Henry W. Physic, William Hollingsworth, Thomas W.
Veazey, and Thomas Williams. The commissioners were
authorized to raise $250,000 by subscription, in shares of
fifty dollars each, for the purpose of building a bridge over
the Susquehanna River at the most suitable place in their
judgment between Havre cle Grace and Bald Friar Ferry.

This effort failed owing to the inability of the commis-
sioners to obtain the requisite amount of subscriptions to the
stock, and at the session of 1812, an act was passed author-
izing and requiring John Creswell, Samuel C. Hall, and
Lawrence McComb, of Cecil County, and John Stump, John
Archer, and James Stevenson, of Harford County, wh.0'

396 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

were appointed commissioners for the purpose, to fix upon a
site for a bridge at such point on the Susquehanna River, at
or near the head of tide water at Kerr's Island, near
Rock Run, as to them should appear most proper. This act
also designated twenty of the most influential citizens of
Baltimore, Harford, and Cecil counties, to solicit subscrip-
tions. The commissioners employed Hugh Beard, alluded
to in connection with the town at Cres well's Ferry, to lay
out a site for the bridge. His certificate of survey is dated
the 16th of August, 1813. It shows that the bridge, or
bridges, were to extend from the Harford shore to Wood's
Island, thence to Kerr's Island, thence to Steel's Island, and
from there to the Cecil shore. By this route the bridges be-
tween the Harford shore and Kerr's Island were placed fur-
ther up the river than the others, and the turnpike connect-
ing them crossed Kerr's Island at a considerable angle.
This route required three thousand three hundred feet of
bridging and two hundred perches of turnpike across the
islands. This site was not satisfactory, probably for the rea-
son tha.t the route was longer than was necessary, and by a
supplementary act passed in 1815, the company was author-
ized to change it.

Eight years had elapsed since the first effort to erect the
bridge had been made and still it had not been commenced.
This long delay was caused by the scarcity of money and
the reluctance of capitalists to invest in an enterprise that
seemed hazardous and uncertain. Probably they had
doubts about the practicability of maintaining the bridge,
after it was erected, on account of the tremendous ice floods
in the river. But financial ability seems never to have been
wanting among the citizens of Port Deposit, and they
tried perhaps the only plan that could have resulted suc-
cessfully, that was, to have the charter amended so as to
allow the company to carry on the banking business. This
change was effected in 1816, and was eminently successful.
The site selected at this time, which was the one upon

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 397

which the bridge was built, crossed the river, which at that
place was only twenty feet less than a mile wide, nearly at
right angles. This route was upwards of a thousand feet
shorter than the other one. At the same time, about four
acres of the river bank on the Cecil side, contiguous to the
abutment, was condemned for the use of the company, for
the purpose of obtaining stone for the construction of the
abutments and piers.

It is worthy of remark, as showing the changes that have
taken place since that time, that the owners of this land, in
most cases, received but one cent damages each, which was
equivalent to about one cent an acre. The bridge was in
course of construction in 1817 and was finished the next
year. Kerr's Island was then owned by Robert Kerr, whose
large family of seven daughters and four sons were born
on it.

At this time, Dr. John Archer was president and Thomas L.
Savin, cashier of the company. The company was author-
ized to discount notes and issue bank bills, and though it is
probable that the bridge could not have been built without
a resort to this or some similar means, it is doubtful if it
finally was not productive of more harm than good, for the
company ultimately failed, and the stockholders and holders
of the notes in circulation lost heavily. This bridge was
built by contract by a Mr. Burr, and was consumed by fire,
on the 1st of January, 1823. The fire is said to have orig-
inated from friction caused by an iron shod sleigh, which
was driven rapidly over it. The bridge was rebuilt in
1829-30, by a Mr. Wormwag, who was the contractor; it
remained standing until 1854, when one span of it was
broken by a drove of cattle which were crossing. It was
never repaired, and the remainder was carried away by a
freshet in 1857.

The Susquehanna Canal never paid the proprietors much
interest on the capital invested, and they were always in
debt. In 1817 they owed the Bank of Maryland upwards

398 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

of $30,000, for which a judgment was obtained, to satisfy
which the canal was sold by Robert C. Lusby, who was then
sheriff of this county. It was purchased by Samuel Sterritt,
of Baltimore, who was treasurer of the canal company, for
$40,000. There being doubts of the validity of this sale,
Sterritt conveyed the canal back to the company in Febru-
ary, 1819, in order that it might be resold for the benefit of
the creditors. An examination of the minute book of the
company, from 1821 to 1835, which is all that is now ex-
tant, throws some little light upon the history of the com-
pany during that time.

During that period there were saw-mills in operation at
Conowingo and Octoraro, and the company were quarreling
a great deal with the proprietors of the mills about the
quantity of water they used. The managers were also an-
noyed by persons who used the tow-path for a highway,
and in 1829 they passed a resolution requiring their agents
to place such obstructions on it as would prevent it from
being injured by wheeled carriages. This year the com-
pany opened a quarry, near the east end of the bridge,
which was the beginning of the trade in granite that has
added so much to the prosperity of Port Deposit. The
same year the managers fixed the rates of toll for coal
barges or arks, which indicates that but few of them had
come down the river before this time. A motion was made
this year by one of the managers that a model of the boats
used for the transportation of heavy goods and merchandise
on the river Mersey, near Liverpool, be obtained for the
purpose of ascertaining whether such boats were suitable
for use on the canal and for the passage to Baltimore. This
was only about a half a century ago, and it is hard to realize
that the people of that time were so little acquainted with
the means and appliances for canal and inland navigation.
But the reader must not forget that this canal was among
the first constructed in this country, and that steam naviga-
tion was then in its infancy.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 399

In 1832 the company memorialized the Legislature in
reference to two dams erected across the river, one at Nanti-
coke and the other at Shamokin. These dams prevented
the free navigation of the river, and were in violation of
the compact between Maryland and Pennsylvania, in con-
sequence of which Maryland had consented to charter the
Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, and the other company
asked the Legislature to use such means as would cause the
dams to be removed. In 1832 the company purchased
thirty acres of land for a log-pond. Previous to this time
it had a small pond, but the increased amount of lumber
that passed through the canal made it necessary to enlarge
it. In 1835 the canal from Columbia to the State line was
projected, and the proprietors of the Susquehanna Canal
seem at first to have been very favorably impressed with it;
so much so as to send a considerable sum of money to Har-
risburg to be used in helping to obtain the charter.

The Pennsylvania Company was incorporated in 1835,
and the proprietors of the Susquehanna Canal immediately
offered to sell out to it, or to continue their canal to tide
water with locks of a capacity equal to those of the other canal,
and to charge no more toll per mile than it did, which fully
explains why they had spent their money to aid the other
company in .obtaining its charter. Shortly after this ar-
rangement was sought to be effected, it was ascertained that
the proprietors of the Susquehanna Canal had no legal au-
thority to sell the franchise conferred upon them by their
charter. This led to a long and angry newspaper contro-
versy between the friends of the respective companies. The
Pennsylvania Company threatened to cross the river above
the State line and continue their canal to tide water, thus
effectually destroying the business of the other one. The
Maryland Company charged the other one with trying to
depreciate the value of their stock and trying to make the
impression on the public that instead of being valuable as
so much of the work already completed it was a hindrance

400 HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY.

to the new enterprise. The matter was finally adjusted by
an act of the Legislature of Maryland, passed in 1836, in
compliance with which the two companies were subsequently
consolidated. This was effected by the new company pur-
chasing a large preponderance of the stock and assuming
all the incumberances and responsibilities of the old one.
Thus ended a controversy between the people of the two
States about the navigation of this turbulent river that had
continued for forty years and at times was as turbulent as
the river itself.

CHAPTER XXIII.

County divided into election districts — County commissioners — Loca-
tion of boundary line between Cecil and Harford — Number of mills in
Cecil County — Elkton wheat market — Manufactories — Charlestown —
Elkton bauk — Line of packets between Baltimore and Philadelphia ma
Elkton — Frenchtown and New Castle Turnpike Company — Curious pro-
vision in the charter.

Previous to the Revolutionary war, the elections for dele-
gates to the Legislature were held at the county seat, and the
people voted vive voce. From the close of that war until 1800,
elections were still held at the seat of justice, and continued
for three days ; but in that year, Henry Pearce, Colonel
John Creswell, William Alexander, Jacob Reynolds, and
Samuel Hogg, who had been designated by the Legislature
as commissioners, laid off the county into four election dis-
tricts. The first district included all that part of the county
south of Back Creek and the Elk River ; elections were
held at Warwick, in the house of Isaac Woodland. The
second district included all that part of the county north of
Back Creek, and east of a northerly line running from Elk
ferry, along certain old roads long since closed, until it struck
the North East Creek, and continued up the creek to the
fork thereof, thence up the eastern branch until it forked,
thence by a northerly course until it reached the State line ;
elections were held in Elkton in the court-house. The
third district included that part of Elk Neck, west of Elk
ferry and that part of the county between the western boun-
dary line of the second district and Principio Creek, and a
northerly line from near the head of that creek to the State
line ; elections were held at Charlestown, in the house of
Samuel Hogg. The fourth district included all that part of the

402 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

county west of the third district ; elections were held at
Battle Swamp, in the house of Greenbury Rawlings. Jacob
Reynolds did not sign the return made by the other com-
missioners, probably for the reason that he did not agree
with them about the place of holding the election in the
fourth district, which soon after was changed to the village
of Rising Sun. These districts remained intact until 1835,
when Joseph Bryan, Edward Wilson, William Macky, Henry
C. Chamberlaine, Thomas S. Thomas, George Kidd and
Patrick Ewing were appointed by an act of the Legislature to
lay off the county into seven districts. This change was
made in deference to the wishes of the people in regard to
the selection of county commissioners.

By the act of 1797 five persons were to be appointed by
the executive, styled " Commissioners of the tax," who were
to levy the tax and do such other business generally as had
previously been transacted by the justices' court, when sit-
ting as a levy court; but in 1827 this law was repealed, and
it was enacted that five commissioners should be elected by
the people. One of these commissioners was to be chosen
from each district by the voters of the district, except the
second, from which two were to be chosen. This law did
not work satisfactorily for obvious reasons, and the Legisla-
ture sought to abridge the power of the second district by
the act of 1829, which provided that the commissioners
should be elected by the people of the whole county, but
made no change in the number, and still required two of
them to be taken from the second district.

The commissioners appointed by the act of 1835 met at
the court-house early in April, 1836, and appointed Thomas
Richards in place of Patrick Ewing, who refused to serve,
and on the 21st of June, 1837, completed their work, having
laid off the county into districts, nearly as they are at pre-
sent, except that the eighth district was formed out of parts
of the sixth and seventh by an act of the Legislature in
1852, and the ninth in the same manner in 1856, out of

HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY. 408

parts of the fourth, fifth, and sixth districts. It is worthy
of remark that only four of the commissioners signed the
report, which indicates that the others did not agree with
them.

In 1829 the Legislature appointed James Steel, Stephen
Boyd, Washington Hall, Levi H. Evans, and Samuel Irwin,
commissioners to locate the boundary line between Cecil
and Harford counties. They finished their work in 1832.
Their report shows that they began at the State line, at a
rock called Long Rock, in the middle of the Susquehanna
River, in which they inserted an iron bolt, marking the
rock with the initials of the two counties, and continued
the line southwardly by various islands and rocks in the
river until they reached a large, flat rock, at the lower part
of Watson's Island, which they marked with a ring and bolt
and the letters H and C.

It is stated in a history of Maryland and Delaware, pub-
lished in Philadelphia, by Joseph Scott, in 1807, that at that
time there were fifty-three grist and merchant-mills in this
count}7, and that Cecil Furnace, on Principio Creek, was in
successful operation, and cannon, equal to any manufactured
in the United States, were made there. There were, in ad-
dition to these, a forge at North East, one on the Octoraro,
and one on the Big Elk; several rolling and slitting- mills*
on the Elk Creeks, and a nail factory at Marley. There
were also fifty saw-mills, four fulling-mills, and twc oil-mills
in the county. Elkton was described as " one of the greatest
wheat markets in America, 250,000 bushels being sold in a
year." This quantity may now seem too small to have war-
ranted this assertion, but at this time the fertile fields of the
Western States were an unexplored wilderness, and a great
deal of the wheat produced in Lancaster County was sold in
Elkton, and to the millers along the Elk Creeks, who found
a market for their flour in Philadelphia. Strange as it may

* Mills for separating bars of iron lengthwise by water-power.

404 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

now seem, the assertion was probably quite true. It is stated
in Scott's History that Elkton contained one hundred and
twenty dwellings, and that about a thousand castor and
and wool hats were made there annually. And that Charles-
town contained forty-five dwellings and two hundred and
fifty inhabitants, and the two stores there sold annually
£7,000 worth of goods, and that there was a market house
in Charlestown, in which markets were held twice a week,
and that six vessels sailed from that town weekly. The
cabinet making and Windsor chair making were also carried
on extensively in Charlestown, and the author mentions as
a notable fact that fifty pairs of boots and two thousand
pairs of shoes were made there annually. The fact is that
boots were very little used in this country at that time, only
a few of the wealthy people being able to afford so expensive
a luxury. Charlestown at this time was the most impor-
tant town in the county and had reached the height of its
prosperity. The people of the county were generally a free
and easy set of " hale fellows well met," and were given to
fun and frolic. On Saturday afternoons it was customary
for the people of many neighborhoods to assemble at the
country stores and taverns and indulge in playing at ball
and " long bullets." Long bullets, though a very popular
game at that time, has long since fallen into disuse, and
very few persons now living know how it was played. It
appears, however, to have consisted in throwing cannon-
balls of several pounds weight, as far as possible, b}7 two sets
of players, those who scored the greatest distance being the
winners of the game. The citizens of Charlestown indulged
in this game to such an extent as to endanger the lives and
limbs of pedestrians, and in 1802, the town commissioners
passed the following ordinance :

" Whereas, the inhabitants of Charlestown have suffered,
and have been likely to suffer, by playing long bullets on
the streets of the aforesaid town. In consequence whereof
the commissioners of Charlestown have agreed and passed
into a law, that any person or persons who will be found

HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY. 405

playing long bullets on the streets before mentioned shall
pay a fine of five dollars with costs of suit if any for every
such offense."

The village of Brick Meeting-house, then called Notting-
ham, contained eleven dwellings and ninety-two inhabitants,
and the writer before referred to informs his readers that
clocks and mathematical instruments were made there. He
also states that the flour trade of Elkton had declined since
the establishment of banks in Baltimore, and it was no doubt
with a view of restoring it that the Elkton Bank was chartered.
This bank was the first in the county, and was chartered in
1810. The business of -the bank was transacted for a time
in the old brick building two doors east of the Court-house.
Twenty-one of the most influential citizens of the county
were named in the act of incorporation, any five of whom
were empowered to act as commissioners to put the bank in
operation. The capital stock was to consist of $300,000
money of the United States, divided into 6,000 shares of $50
each, 2,000 shares being reserved to the State. The act of
incorporation provided that all notes offered for discount
should be made negotiable at the banking house, and when
the drawer did not reside in Elkton, the notes were to be
made payable at the house of some person in the town and
notice given at said house that the note had become due
was to be held and considered as binding on the drawer and
endorsers as if it had been personally served upon each of
them. This bank continued in operation until 1822, when
it failed, owing to the fact that the millers for whose con-
venience it had been chartered, sold their flour on credit to
certain merchants in Philadelphia, who unfortunately failed
arid the millers, being largely indebted to the bank, were
unable to meet their engagements.

In 1806-7 the first line of packets between Baltimore and
Philadelphia was established by William McDonald and
Andrew Henderson. It consisted of four sloops which ran
to Frenchtown, whence freight was carried by wagons to New
Castle and thence to Philadelphia by water. Shortly after

406 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

this time another line was started between the two cities via
Court-house Point and a point on the Delaware near Port
Penn. The two lines were soon consolidated under the name
of the Union Line, after which the line via Court-house
Point was discontinued.

The large amount of business done by this line and the
difficulty of transporting passengers and freight across the
peninsula on the roads then in use, led to the organization
of the Frenchtown and New Castle Turnpike Company,
which was chartered in 1809. The act of incorporation con-
tains many curious provisions, but is too long to be inserted
here. It required the turnpike to be laid out one hundred
feet wide, and further required that an artificial road, at
least twenty feet wide, be constructed and well bedded with
wood, stone, gravel, clay, or other proper and convenient ma-
terials, well compacted together a sufficient depth to secure
a solid foundation for the same. By the terms of the char-
ter, the turnpike was to be finished in three years/which was
not done, and in 1813, the Legislature extended the time,
having in the meantime made the important discovery that
clay was not a proper and convenient material for bedding
the road.

The schedule of tolls, which is lengthy, but moderate, con-
tains many curious provisions, one of which is as follows :
" For every cart or wagon, the breadth of the wheels of which
shall be more than seven inches, and not more than ten inches, or
being of the breadth of seven inches, and shall roll more than ten
inches, two cents for each horse drawing the same ; for every
cart or wagon, the breadth of the wheels of which shall be
more than ten inches, and not exceeding twelve inches or being ten
inches shall roll* more than fifteen, one cent and a half for
each horse drawing the same; and for any such carriage

* This seems to indicate that the fore and hind wheels were not inten-
ded to run in the same track, but were purposely made to run in different
ones, for the purpose of smoothing and compacting the road, which had
it been made of clay as at first contemplated, it frequently would
have badly needed.

HISTOKY OP CECIL COUNTY, 407

the breadth of the wheels of which shall be more than twelve
incites, one cent for each horse drawing the same."

Whether wagons were made in those days with wheels,
the rims of which were of the width of ten and twelve inches,
has not been ascertained, but the Legislators of the State in
1 809 seemed to be of the opinion that they might be made,
and graduated the toll according to the width of the rim of
the wheels that might be used on the turnpike.

»>A ,

CHAPTER XXIV.

War of 1812 — British fleet in Chesapeake Bay — Camp of observation
on Bull's mountain — General Thomas M. Foreman — Forts Hollingsworth
and Defiance — Colonel "William Garrett — Persons employed in building
Fort Defiance — British land on Spesutia Island — Visit Turkey Point —
Burn Frenchtown — Zeb. Furgusson — British fail to reach Elkton — Inci-
dents and anecdotes — Burning of Havre de Grace — Poetical extract —
Pillaging — British burn Principio Furnace — Destruction of Frederick-
town and Georgetown — Brave defence of Colonel Veazey — List of militia
under him — Treaty of Ghent — Rejoicing — Accident at Fort Hollings-
worth.

It is not within the scope of this work to discuss the
causes that led to the war of 1812, for that reason it suffices
to say that the people of this country were divided in their
opinions respecting the justice of it; and, while the Demo-
cratic party, then in power, was in favor of the war, the
Federalists opposed it. Owing to this, party spirit was very
bitter in Baltimore at that time, and manifested itself in
riotous and disorderly conduct ; but to the credit of the
people of this county, though probably a majority of them
belonged to the Federal party, no riotous demonstrations
occurred within its limits.

At that time this country had not completed the first
third of a century of its existence as an independent nation,
and was but illy prepared to cope successfully with Eng-
land, which then was probably the strongest nation on
earth. In December, 1812, England declared the posts on
the Chesapeake and Delaware bay under blockade ; and in
the February following, a large squadron under Admiral
Cookburn entered the former and commenced preying upon
our commerce, and plundering and pillaging the inhabi-
tants along its shores. Their primary object was the capture

HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY. 409

of Baltimore City, which was then, as now, the commercial
emporium of the State. At this time many of the militia
of the county were in that city, having been summoned
there to aid. in its defense. This left the county in great
measure unprepared to repel the attacks of the British ; but
what few militia remained at home did the best they knew.

Early in the spring of that year they established a camp
of observation on the summit of Bulls Mountain, and
stationed a company of cavalry there to watch the enemy
and give notice of their approach, by means of a line of mili-
tary posts, extending from that place to Elkton. They also
prepared to defend the county seat and the other towns
along the navigable waters of the county, but owing to
their want of experience and the scarcity of artillery, their
efforts were of little avail when the threatened invasion
took place.

General Thomas M. Foreman* was in command of this

* General Thomas Marsh Foreman was a native of Kent Island and a
grandson of Thomas Marsh, who bequeathed him the plantation called
"Rose Hill," in Sassafras Neck, upon which most of his life was spent.
When the Revolutionary war commenced he was living on this plantation
in charge of a tutor, and though only fifteen years of age, ran off and
joined the American army. His friends being unable to induce him (o
return home, procured for him the position of aid-de-camp to General
Sterling. During the occupation of Philadelphia by the British he was
stationed at the Green Tree Tavern to prevent the Tory market people
from communicating with the enemy. He was one of the representatives
of Cecil County in the General Assembly in 1790 and 1800, and served
under General Armstrong during the bombardment of Fort McHenry, in
1813. His remains are interred in the family burying ground at Rose
Hill, and are covered with a marble slab, on which is the following epi-
taph : "To the memory of a gallant soldier of the Revolution, Major
Thomas Marsh Foreman, eldest son of Ezekiel Augustine Foreman,
who was born August 20th, 1758. At the age of fifteen he joined the
army, and at Trenton, Princeton, Monmouth, Brandywine, and Valley
Forge bravely fought and endured. He died after a short illness, in a
firm but humble hope of mercy through his Lord and Savior, on the 8th
of Jan., 1845." There is evidently an error in the above epitaph. Gen-
eral Foreman was probably eighteen years of age when he joined the
army.

410 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

district, but he seems to have been engaged elsewhere, and
not to have directly taken part in the defense of this county,
consequently the local leaders acted as they thought best,
and without that concentrated effort best calculated to in-
sure success. Instead of attempting to defend the mouths
of the rivers, they erected forts at Fredericktown, French-
town, Charlestown, Elk Landing, and on the Elk River,
about a mile below the latter place. The fort at Elk Land-
ing was called " Fort Hollingsworth," in honor of the Hol-
lings worths, who owned the land on which it stood, and
whose ancestors had taken such an active part in the Revo-
lutionary war. It was a small earth- work or redoubt,
mounted with a few pieces of small cannon, and stood a
few yards southeast of the old stone house now standing
near the wharf, and which at that time, and long afterwards,
was used for a tavern to accommodate the passengers travel-
ing between Baltimore and Philadelphia. Fort Defiance
was about a mile further down, on the bluff on the north-
west side of the river, at what is now called Fowlers Shore.
It was a work of considerable size, and situated so as to
command the channel of the river on two sides of it, the
channel at that time being near the bluff west of the fort.
Part of the east embankment may be seen at this time. In
addition to the redoubt on the bluff, a smaller earth-work
was erected about three hundred yards up the river, on the
same side, and strong chains were fastened to posts firmly
fixed on the opposite shores, to which chains extending to
windlasses in the forts were fastened and submerged in the
water, so that if the enemy's barges passed the lower fort
the chains could be drawn taut at the top of the water,
thus making the capture or destruction of the barges almost
certain.

These works are believed to have been planned by Col-
onel William Garrett, who was in command of the force
that erected them, as appears from the following list copied
from the original :

HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY.

411

" Returns of the Officers & Privates attending at Fort De-

fiance from the 29th* unto the 24th May, 1813.

Days.

John Davidson, Captain,

Jacob Tyson, Jr.,

Saml. Cowden, Leftent., of

John Wirt,

Cap. Davidson's Co.,

Benjamin Bowen,

John Garrett, Left.,

James Scott,

Joseph Steel, Ensign.,

Christopher McAlister,

Saml. Williamson, Cap.,

Saml. Short,

John Short, Left.,

Saml. Smith,

Saml. Thompson, Sargt. Maj.,

Abraham Boreland,

Weston George, Sargt. & Gunr.,

, 26

Blaney Edmunson,

John E. Jones, Seargnt,

Edward Graves,

John Scott, (Blacksmith) Sergt.,

Constant Trivit,

William Mackey, Serg't.,

Geo. Enos,

Jas. Philips, Commisary,

John Payne,

James Clifton, Gunner,

Barney Graves,

Aron Stout, Gunner,

George Holmes,

Saml. Drennen, Artilerist,

Peter Founce,

Saml. Work, do

John Ginn,

Saml. Lowery, do

Ephriam Morrison,

Robert Hemphill, do

Moses Scott,

James Perry, do

Andrew P. Armstrong,

Hugh McNelly, do

Saml. Taylor,

Hugh Rogers, do

Saml. Hayes,

James Ditoway, do

James Worth,

John Foster, do

Charles Conley,

Thomas Bayland, do

James McGregor,

Zebnlin McDonald, do

Robert Orr,

George McDonald, do

William Manfield,

John Maloney, do

Thos. Whitesides,

John Lowery, do

James Crawford,

Thomas Garrett, Sr.,

John Ricketts,

John Hays,

Jacob Pluck,

Thomas Furguson,

Thomas Wilson,

Nicholas Price,

Elijah Davis,

Simon Hutton,

Saml. Wilson,

Thomas Davis,

Archibald Wood,

John Maxfield,

Saml. Francis,

Michael McNamee,

Miles Standish,f

William Thornton,

John Stephens,

* The 29th of April is probably meant.

t A lineal descendant of Captain Miles Standish of New England.

412

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

Days.

James Hutcheson,

Bailey Boiles,

Thomas Mclntire,

Geo. Jameson,

William Dysart,

John Clark,

James McDonald,

William Johnston,

William Wilson,

Campbell Burk,

James Walker,

Robert McCrey,

James Smith,

William Shields,

David Mackey,

Edmund Burk,

Thomas Conn,

Augustine Stoops,

James Cummings,

David Short,

Alexander Alexander,

William Pennington,

Joseph Wolleston,

George Foster,

Saml. Johnston,*

Thomas Bryson,

Thomas Russel,

Frederick Slagle,

James Patton,

Joseph Lorrett,

William Kerr,

William Mainley,

John Borelin,

James Currier,

William Lowery,

John Williamson,

Thomas Wallace,

Elijah Janney,

Elijah Hill,

Daniel McAuley,

Joseph Alexander,

Nathan Owens,

Robert Christy,

Sampson Lumb,

William Osmond,

Jonathan Short,

Hugh Gay,

Thomas Wingate,

Robert Watson,

Joseph Holt,

Tlios. Garrett, Jr.,

Jesse Foster,

William Crosson,

Nathan Foster,

John Scott, (Shoemaker),

James Porter,

Samuel Shaw,

John Simpers,

Charles Pierson,

John McAuley,

Arthur Morrison,

Andrew Riggs,

James McAuley,

John Johnston.

Joseph Robeson,

Nicholas Hyland,

Jonathan Osmond,

James Young,

Archibald Dysart,

Gilbert Smith,

Levi Dysart,

Ebenezer Alden, (Cook),f

John Dysart,

Isaac Philips,

Eli Derixon,

* Granduncle of the author referred to on page 330, in connection with
death of British officer at Gilpins Bridge.

fA lineal descendant of John Alden, who came over with the Pil-
grims in the Mayflower.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 413

Agreeable to the direction of Major Armstrong, I have
made out as correct a return as I am possessed of, of the
officers, artilerists, and private's time up to the present day.

William Garrett, Capt.

Fort Defiance, May 24, 1813.

James Sewell, Major 2d Batt. 49 R. M. M."

It is stated in a note appended to this list, that many of
the men deserted after serving a few days. There is reason,
however, to believe that this is not strictly true; and that
those who left the fort were volunteers, as some of them are
known to have been from Pennsylvania.

On the 28th of April 1813, a squadron of twelve barges,
manned with about four hundred volunteers, picked seamen,
three hundred marines, commanded by Admiral Cockburn,
landed upon Spesutia Island, where thejr secured some sup-
lies of vegetables, poultry, etc., for which they paid the
owners. On the same day, or the following one, they visited
Turkey Point, where they endeavored to make friends with
the people, and offered to pay for some provisions they ob-
tained. The officer in command tried to make up with the
daughter of the lady who lived in the farm house on the
Turkey Point farm. She was a bright little girl of ten or
twelve years of age, and spurned his offers of friendship
with scorn and contempt. The officer remarked to her
mother that the child knew he was her enemy.

Proceeding up the Elk River, the British met with no re-
sistance until they reached Welsh Point, where Major Wil-
liam Boulden was stationed with a small squad of militia.
He made a brave but ineffectual effort to intercept their
advance, but having no artillery, it was useless, and the}^
went on up the river and reached Frenchtown on the 29th
of April. The militia in the fort at that place, which was
a small log structure mounted with three four-pounders,
thinking their number too small to successfully resist the

414 HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY.

enemy, retired to Elkton ; but a few stage drivers and
others, manned the guns and made a spirited resistance
while their amunition lasted, which was not long, when the
fort was captured, and the town, which consisted of two
warehouses, a tavern, two or three dwelling-houses, a few
stables and outhouses, were burned, as were also two vessels
that were moored in the river, involving a loss of twenty
or thirty thousand dollars.*

Having completed the destruction of Frenchtown, the
British tried to ascend the river to Elkton, but were fired
upon by the garrison in Fort Defiance, and driven back ;
whereupon they landed at White Hall, then owned and oc-
cupied by Frisby Henderson, Esq., who they tried to induce
to show them the road to Elkton, but failing in this, they
took one of his female slaves with them, and tried to bribe
her to act as their guide. She took them to Cedar Point,
opposite Fort Hollingsworth, then in command of Captain
Henry Bennett, who opened fire upon them and they made
a hasty retreat, and soon afterwards embarked on their
barges. Except a few of the British, who are said to have
been killed at Frenchtown, no others were injured during
this raid.

The barges used by the British are described by those
who saw them, as about thirty feet long, with decks extend-
ing only a short distance from either side, leaving an open-
ing in the middle which extended nearly from bow to stern,
so that the oarsmen could stand on the bottom of the boat
when rowing. The most of them had a small cannon or
two on board of them, which were called swivel guns.

* A singularly ill-natured and quarrelsome man, called Zeb. Fnrgusson,
is said to have piloted the British from Turkey Point to Frenchtown. He
certainly was with the British, who he said captured him at Turkey
Point, but those who knew him best believed he had joined them volun-
tarily, in order to gratify his hatred towards all mankind. He was im-
prisoned for a while, but nothing could be proved against him, and he
was discharged.

HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY. 415

These guns were mounted in such a manner that they could
be turned around and fired in any direction.

Captain Isaac Lort of Elk Neck, at this time, was the
owner and commander of a schooner called the Annon Ruth,
and just previous to the entrance of the British into Elk
River, had returned from Baltimore in his schooner, tie
found a vessel loaded with flour, aground near the mouth of
Back Creek, the captain of which besought him to load his
schooner with the flour and take it up the river, he being
apprehensive that the British would destroy it. Captain
Lort did so, and on his return, found the British in posses-
sion of the vessel. In order to save his schooner he ran
her aground, and would have scuttled and sunk her, but he
had lost his axe. He took off her sails and carried them to
a place of safety and repaired to his home. The British on
their return from French town, burned both the vessel and the
Annon Ruth. The latter was burned at Cazier's shore, which
is nearly opposite Welsh Point. The British also captured
the sloop Morning Star of North East, and took her away
with them. The Morning Star was built at North East a
few years before, and some years after the war was seen in
Baltimore. She had been converted into a schooner, and
then hailed from Halifax, Nova Scotia.

On their return, after burning Frenchtown, the enemy
stopped at the fishery of Jacob Hyland on Elk River, and
carried away about a hundred barrels of shad and herring
that were stored in the fish house. They also went up the
Bohemia River and plundered the fish houses along its
banks.

Just before the burning of Frenchtown, the citizens of
Elkton and the surrounding country were much frightened
by a false alarm. Somehow the story got in circulation
that the British had taken Frenchtown and the people as
far north as the State of Pennsylvania were very much ex-
cited and alarmed. The story originated from the fact that
the father of Francis A. Ellis, of Elkton, who, at that time,

416 HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY.

lived on Turner's creek, which is the outlet for the country
lying between Still Pond and Galena, and who had two
vessels engaged in carrying wheat from there to Elkton, be-
came anxious to know where his vessels were, and, thinking
they might be found in Elk River, came up in a large row-
boat after night to look for them. Some persons at French-
town heard the noise of the oars in the stillness of the night
and thinking it was the noise of the British barges raised
the alarm. An Irishman, who lived at Turkey town,*
heard the story which had not lost anything when it
reached that place, and started out to give the alarm, or as
the old lady who told the author of the occurrence, said,
" to alarm the women and children." He came to the
old lady's house (her husband was absent on military duty)
and told her " there were fifteen hundred British and In-
dians at Frenchtown and they spared neither women nor
children." He appeared to be frightened nearly to death,
and asked her if she had " the color of whisky about her
house." Whisky was considered one of the necessaries of
life in those days and the old lady gave him some, which
revived his drooping spirits, and he rode away to spread
the alarm and terrify others. This man was in partnership
with an Englishman in a woolen factory at Dublin, now
Strahorn's mill, on Big Elk Creek, near the State line, and in
order to save the machineiy in the factory from destruction,
they hid it in the laural bank along the creek. They hid
some of it so well that they did not find it until the war was
over, when it was rotten and worthless.

Both prior and subsequent to this time, much wheat was
hauled from Lancaster and made into flour at the mills in
the vicinity of Elkton. Owing to this traffic the people of
Lancaster took great interest in the welfare of their friends
in Elkton, and some time in the spring of 1813 sent two
companies of soldiers to aid in its defense. Ex-President

* Now called Cowantown.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 417

James Buchannan, then a young man, was an officer in one
of these companies, which for a time were quartered in a
house that stood in the eastern part of the new cemetery.

The Directors of the Elkton Bank thought it best, in view
of the raid, to remove the specie from the bank to a place
of safety, and so they ostensibly loaded a wagon with it,
and put the wagon, which was drawn by six or eight horses,
in charge of a military escort composed of a number of sol-
diers, mounted and on foot, and made believe they were
transporting the specie to Lancaster. This procession made
quite an excitement in the country through which it passed,
but was only a ruse on the part of the officers of the bank, de-
signed to mislead the British and divert them from the real
place of concealment. Some time before the wagon and its
escort went from Elkton to Lancaster, Levi Tyson, a director
of the bank and the owner of a grist-mill on the Big Elk,
quietly went down to Elkton one evening with his team
and two negro men, and brought the specie home with him
that night and placed the chest which contained it under
his bed, where it remained until the danger was over. The
colored men were told that the chest contained bullets to be
used if the British made a raid on Mr. Tyson's mill.

Mr. Tyson often related the story of this removal with
much satisfaction, and thought it a good joke. The osten-
sible removal of the specie to Lancaster was probably made
with the view of adding to the reputation of the bank by
making the impression upon the minds of the community
of its sound financial condition and ability to redeem its
notes, many of which were in circulation. And probably
the cream of the joke was to be found in the fact that the
creditors of the bank were quite as much fooled as the British
would have been had they attempted to pillage the bank.

On the 3d of May, which was three days after the burn-
ing of Frenchtown, the British, who were about ten miles
distant, were discovered by the garrison of the fort at Havre
de Grace, who fired one of the guns of their battery. This

418 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

the British afterwards said they regarded as a challenge.
They answered it by firing a gun on one of their vessels
and set sail for the town. Those in charge of the fort (ex-
cept an Irishman called John O'Neil, who made a brave
resistance and fired one of the cannons at the enemy until
he was wounded by the recoil of the gun), made an inglori-
ous retreat as soon as the enemy landed, and they at once
commenced to plunder the town and then burned it. Havre
de Grace was a town of considerable size and some import-
ance, and its wanton destruction caused great excitement
and alarm among the inhabitants of this county, which is
set forth in the following extract from " The Lay of the
Scottish Fiddle, A Tale of Havre de Grace," a curious
poem purporting to have been written by Walter Scott, but
which bears evidence of having been written by a student of
Princeton College, whose name has not been ascertained.

' ' The distant peasant hears the sound,
And starting with elastic bound,
Hies to the mountain's brightening head,
And sees the fiery ruin spread,
And marks the red and angry glare
Of water, sky, and earth, and air,
Seem'd Susquehanna's wave on fire,
And red with conflagration dire.
The spreading bays ensanguined flood,
Seem'd stained with tint of human blood,
O'er Cecil County, far and wide,
Each tree, and rock, and stream was spied;
And distant windows brightly gleam'd,
As if the setting sun had beam'd,
The Elkton burgher raised his head
To see what made the sky so red,
From Ararat the Falcon* sail'd,
The owl at lonely distance wail'd."

"After the deeds of destruction were over," says an eye-
witness of the burning of Havre de Grace, " and the enemy

* The writer alludes to George Talbot's falcons, a pair of which, tra-
dition saith, remained at Mount Ararat many years after he left this
county. See page 129, ante.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 419

had rendered himself conspicuous on the rolls of infamy, he
proceeded up the river and within one mile of Stafford Mills
burned a warehouse belonging to Mr. John Stump." This
warehouse was located where the village of Lapidum now
stands. While there they contemplated crossing the river
to Port Deposit. But the citizens of that town had erected
a small fortification not far from where the Odd Fellow's
Hall is now located, and they were deterred from crossing
by a prisoner they had captured, who told them there was
a company of riflemen in the fort, "each of whom could put
a bullet in their eye at the distance of a hundred yards."

On returning to Havre de Grace, the British made a raid
upon Charlestown, many of the inhabitants of which, antici-
pating their arrival, had removed to temporary habitations
in the barrens, near Foys Hill, and taken their goods with
them. Owing to this, and to the fact that the rain had
washed down the earthworks that had been erected in the
town, the enemy met with no opposition, and committed no
depredations there. They also visited Principio Furnace,
which at that time was one of the most important manu-
factories of cannon in this country, and burned it, and
spiked the cannon they found there, and burned a mill in
the neighborhood, and the bridge over the Principio Creek.
Having completed their work of destruction in the upper
part of^the county, they re- visited Spesutia Island, where
they had collected a quantity of cattle, sheep, and calves,
during their first visit; for which they paid the owners, and
took on board their vessels.

On the 5th of May, their squadron was concentrated off
the mouth of Sassafras River, and the next day a detach-
ment of about five hundred of them in fifteen large barges,
and three smaller boats, ascended that river, and burned
Fredericktown and Georgetown.

The ascent of the Sassafras River by the British barges is
said by those who witnessed it, among whom was the late
John E. Thomas of Elkton, to have been the most beautiful
sight they ever saw.

420 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

The soldiers were clad in scarlet uniforms, which added
much to the beautiful appearance of the squadron. ' There
were a large number of barges, which formed a line four
abreast, and several hundred yards long. A barge con-
taining the admiral, then passed along one side of the line,
and crossed ahead of the front tier of boats, and waited until
the rear came up, thus bringing all the squadron under re-
view.

Having been informed of the concentration of the fleet
at the mouth of the river, Colonel T. W. Veasey, who was
in command of the militia at Fredericktown, had them un-
der arms by four o'clock on the morning of the 4th of May,
and shortly after a signal was made by his scouts, four miles
down the river, that the British were approaching. By six
o'clock they were in sight of the town. About this time
they halted and the admiral sent two colored men to the
fort with a verbal message that if the militia would not fire
on him he would not burn anything but the storehouses
and vessels. To this Colonel Veazey paid no attention, and
the British continuing to advance soon came in range of the
cannon, when the skirmish began by the Americans open-
ing fire with it, but having only two rounds of cartridge,
were obliged to desist when they were expended. The bat-
tle from this point is well described by an anonymous writer
of that time a part of whose narrative is as follows :

" The enemy still approaching gave three cheers, which was
returned by the militia, and directly after, a volley from
their small arms. The fire was immediately returned by
the enemy, by a general discharge of grape, cannister,
slugs, rockets, and musketry, which made such a terrible
noise that one-half of the men shamefully ran, and could
not be rallied again. Whether it was from their political
aversion to the present war, their dislike of shedding blood,
or actually thro' fear, I cannot determine ; but so it was that
not more than one-half of the original number remained
to contend against the whole force of the enemy. This gal-
lant little band resisted for near half an hour, in spite of the

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

42 L

incessant fire of the enemy, until they were in danger of
being surrounded, when they retreated in safety with the
loss of but one man wouDded. The enemy threw several
rockets in the village, and reduced the whole place to ashes,
except two or three houses, saved by the entreaties of the
women. Not satisfied with this destruction, they extended
their ravages to the neighboring farm-houses, several of
which were burned quite down."

The loss of the British in this skirmish was not ascer-
tained, but was supposed to have amounted to ten or fifteen
killed and wounded. After the destruction of Frederick-
town, the enemy went over to Georgetown, nearly all of
which they destroyed. The conduct of the British soldiers
engaged in this raid, both before and after the destruction
of &the villages, was denounced in very severe terms by the
writer before quoted from, who states "that they so far de-
scended in petty pilfering as to rob the black ferry-man,
FRIDAY, of his all and his pig, which lived with him in his
hut." They even went so far as to take the ear-rings from the
ears of one of the ladies in Georgetown, and to rob others
of their clothing.

Colonel Veazey was much praised for his gallant defense
of Fredericktown. The names of the militia who remained
in the fort with him are as follows :

Samuel Wroth,
D. F. Heath,
Moses Cannon,
Nicholas Pranks,
John W. Etherington,
Joshua Ward,
DorXner Oaks,
John Etherington,
John V. Price,
Elias See,
John T. Veazey,
David Paget,
Tylus Robinson,
P. Biddle,

James Darley,

James Clayton,

R. C. Lusby (seargt.),

John Henderson (lieut.),

James Allen (capt.),

John Duffy,

Samuel P. Pennington,

H. E. Coalman (seargt. mate),

Samuel Dixon,

Willliam Roberts,

Francis Roch,

William MacKey,

George Stanly,

William Ford,

422 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

James Council, Joseph Etherington,

Joseph Greenwood, Edward Lister,

Joshua Hovirigton, Reynolds.

Joseph Davis (of Morris),

Having accomplished the destruction of these villages, the
enemy returned to their fleet in the Chesapeake, and being
apprehensive of the arrival of a French fleet, soon afterwards
made their way to the southern part of the bay. From this
time until after the battle at North Point, in September,
1814, the British infested the waters of the bay, and the
people of this eouuty were continually in dread of another
raid. Consequently when the news of the conclusion of the
treaty of peace at Ghent, reached here in February, 1815, it
was received with great joy, and every manifestation of de-
light.

The court was in session at Elkton when the news
reached that place, and so great was the joy of the people,
that it immediately adjourned, and every one that was able
repaired to Fort Hollingsworth to celebrate the auspicious
event. The river was frozen over at the time, and those
who took charge of the guns placed a barrel on the
ice some distance down the river, and commenced firing
at it with shot. The late judge, Ezekiel F. Cham-
bers, then a young man and State's Attorney for this
county, had charge of one of the guns. After a few shots
had been fired, some one placed a frozen clod in the muzzle
of his gun which caused it to explode, by which the judge
was quite seriously hurt. A little girl is said to have been
looking out of one of the windows of the old stone house,
before referred to, who narrowly escaped being struck by
a piece of the bursted gun, which passed through the win-
dow alongside of her. This accident terminated the re-
joicings for that day, but they were renewed a few days
afterwards, by the patriotic people of the town, who had a
grand feast, at which they roasted an ox which they had
decorated and driven through the streets with a board

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 423

placed on his horns, containing the following verse, said to
have been composed by George Rickett's of Elkton :

" My horns, my hide, I freely give,

My tallow and my lights,

And all that is within me too,

For free trade and sailors' rights."

CHAPTER XXV.

First steamboats on the Elk River — Lines of transportation — French -
town and New Castle Railroad Company — Construction of Frenchtown
and New Castle Railroad — First locomotives and cars — Telegraphing—
The Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad — Riot at Charles-
town — Sale of Frenchtown and New Castle Railroad.

Inasmuch as the introduction of steamboats upon the
Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries effected a great revolu-
tion in the method of transportation of passengers and
freight, and a corresponding change in the prosperity of the
people in that part of this county through which passed
the lines of transit between the cities of the North and
South, the history of the county would be incomplete
without some reference to that subject. On the 21st of
June, 1813, less than two months after the British had
burned Frenchtown, the first steamboat that had ever
floated on the Chesapeake Bay, or its tributaries made her
first trip from Baltimore to that place. This boat was called
the Chesapeake. She was built in Baltimore, by William
Flanigan, under the supervision of Edward Trippe, for the
Union Line which has been mentioned in a previous chapter.
She is thus described in a paper in possession of the Maryland
Historical Society. When completed her length was one
hundred and thirty feet, width twenty feet, and depth of
hold seven feet. Her wheels ten feet in diameter, and five
in depth. Her engine was a cross-head, which revolved a
cogwheel that worked in teeth upon the shaft, which was of
cast-iron. To the engine a flywheel was connected to enable
it to pass its centre. The smoke-stack was amidships, be-
hind the engine. Extending about twenty feet, and raised
two feet above the deck, was the boiler. She had a mast

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 425

forward, with a spar and sail, which was spread whenever
'the wind was fair. She made her first trip from Baltimore
to Frenchtown and back, one hundred and forty miles, in
twenty-four hours. The appliances for her navigation were
simple and crude. A pilot stood at the bow who called out
the course to a man amidships, and he to the helmsman.
There were no bells to signal the engine, but the captain
conveyed his commands by word of mouth or by stamping
his heels on the woodwork over the engine. The boat had
been running six months when the engineer accidentally
found out he could reverse the engine and back her.

In July, 1815, the steamboat Eagle, came to Baltimore
from the Delaware, and was secured by a rival line owned
by Messrs. Briscoe and Partridge, for the run to Elk Landing.
This line from Baltimore to Philadelphia being via Elkton
and Wilmington.

In 1816, two new steamboats, the George Washington and
Charles Carroll were built by the Union Line.

These lines continued in operation for some years, except
when navigation was closed by the ice. Then the passen-
gers and mail were carried in stages via Perryville and
Elkton. During this time Elkton and Frenchtown were
places of much more importance, in a business point of view,
than they are now, and the farmers in their vicinity derived
much benefit from the sale of their surplus horses and grain
to the proprietors of the stage lines and the sale of marketing
to the hotel keepers for the use of passengers.

The increase of travel on these lines and the want of better
facilities for transportation across the peninsula, led to the or-
ganization of the Frenchtown and New Castle Railroad Com-
pany. This railroad was about seventeen miles long, and as
its name indicates, was located between Frenchtown, on Elk
River, and New Castle, on the Delaware. It was among the
first railroads built in this country, and was the very first upon
which steam power was applied to the transportation of pas-
sengers, though it was built and used for horse-power for

426 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

two years after it was finished. The company was chartered
by the Legislature of Maryland at the session of 1827-8,
with a capital stock of $200,000. There seems to have been
some doubts of the success of the new enterprise, for the
charter of the railroad company contained a provision in-
tended to compel the company to keep open a turnpike,
twenty feet wide, alongside of the railroad. Notwithstanding
this, the railroad was built a considerable distance south of
the turnpike, on a more practicable route. The tolls on the
railroad were not to exceed three cents per ton per mile on
freight, and the fare for the transportation of passengers was
not to exceed twenty-five cents per passenger for the whole
distance, and twelve and a half cents for baggage not ex-
ceeding one hundred pounds.

The railroad was not finished until 1831. It was of very
peculiar construction, and were it now extant, would be a
great curiosity. The rails were placed about the same dis-
tance apart as in modern roads, but instead of being laid
upon wooden sleepers, as the rails of modern roads are, they
were placed upon blocks of stone ten or twelve inches square.
These stones had holes drilled in them, in which a wooden
plug was inserted, and upon them were laid wooden rails
about six inches square and ten or twelve feet long, which
were fastened to the stones by means of a piece of flat iron
shaped like the letter L, which was fastened to the stone by
means of a spike driven into the wooden plug through a
hole in one extremity of the iron, and another spike driven
into a wooden rail through another hole at the other ex-
tremity. The stones were placed about three feet apart, and
each stone had two of these iron attachments, one on each
side of the rail. Bars of flat iron, like tire, were spiked bn
top of the wooden rails, and this, such as it was, completed
the structure. The great defect in the road was the want of
something to keep the rails from spreading apart, and it was
soon discovered that the only way to remedy this was to re-
sort to the use of ties extending from one rail to the other,
and to which both rails were fastened, as in modern roads.

HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY. 427

After the introduction of steam-power upon the road in
1833, it had to be rebuilt, the iron rails then used were
hollow and shaped like two capital L's, with the horizontal
part of one of them reversed and the upper parts of the two
letters joined together ( J~l). These rails were fastened to
the wooden sleepers by spikes driven through holes in the
flange Of the rail. Horse-power was used on this road for
about two years after it was completed. One horse was at-
tached to each car and the horses were changed at Glasgow
and the Bear, which were the names of the two stations on
the road. The first locomotive steam-engine used on the
road was made in England. It was called the " Delaware,"
and was put on the road about 1833. After running about
a year it was rebuilt and called the "Phoenix."

The person employed to put this engine together, after it
arrived at New Castle, had a building erected for the pur-
pose, and after spending some weeks in it, the agents of the
company learned that he was making a model of each part
of the locomotive. Whether they let him complete the work
of making an exact model of each separate piece, has not
been ascertained ; but in the fullness of time he got it put
together and started for Frenchtown. How anxious those
interested in the success of the experiment must have been.
They had procured this locomotive at great expense, and
had been at much trouble in getting it put together ; but
their trouble was only just begun — they had made no pro-
vision to supply the screeching and panting monster with
water, and had to serve it with this indispensable fluid, much
after the manner of watering a horse, from the springs and
wells along the road. It was several days making the first
trip.

Some of the locomotives afterwards used on this road were
built in New Castle. They were poorly constructed and
would be considered of but little use at the present time ;
but poor as they were, they were an improvement upon
horse-power. There were no heavy grades on the road, and

428 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

they made the trip from river to river in about an hour,
and could have made it much quicker, but were limited to
that time for fear of accidents if they went faster. The cars
first used on this road were quite as different from those in
use at present as the locomotives. The doors were at the
sides of the cars, and each car had several of them. They
would hold ten or twelve persons, and were not in the early
days of the road accompanied by a conductor, the captains
and clerks of the steamboats at either end taking the tickets
and attending to this part of the business of the road.

The business of the road began to decline rapidly after
the construction of the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Bal-
timore Railroad, and the two companies, by mutual consent,
were united, the business on both lines being transacted
under the name of the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Bal-
timore Railroad Company. This company continued a line
of steamboats from Baltimore to Frenchtown, and also ran
the cars from the latter place to New Castle, as late as 1853.

The railroad from Wilmington to New Castle was com-
pleted in 1854, and during that season the company con-
tinued to operate the old road and carried passengers to
Wilmington. But only a few passengers going to Cape
r x May patronized the road, and the company discontinued its
use after that time. Much of the bed of the Frenchtown and
New Castle Railroad is now under cultivation. When the
company discontinued its use and took up the rails, the
farmers resumed the use of their land, and grass and the
waving grain took the place of the iron track of the iron-
horse, and the quiet of agricultural pursuits and occupations
succeeded the noisy activity and bustle incident to the
operation of this great national thoroughfare. Strange and
crude as this first attempt at locomotion by the use of steam-
power was, as compared with the roads and locomotives now
in use, the efforts of this company to transmit intelligence
by means of signals along the line of the road, were stranger
still.

HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY.

429

The first rude attempts at telegraphing were by means of
black and white flags, which the operators raised upon
poles twenty-five or thirty feet high. There were six of
these poles or stations along the road, and when the tram
started from either end of it the operator or flagman at the
station next to and in sight of the moving train hoisted a
white flag, and so did all the others along the road. The
white flags indicated that the train had started, and might
be expected to arrive in due time. If the locomotive failed
to move, which it sometimes did, the operator hoisted a
black flag. Other positions and combinations of the flags
indicated other things, and as it was only the work of a
moment to raise the flags, intelligence could be transmitted
from one end of the road to the other in the space of two
minutes. At New Castle, instead of flags, frames about the
size of peach baskets, covered with white and black muslin,
were hoisted on the court-house steeple, and could be seen
for a long distance. It was the duty of the telegraphic
operators to pass along the track after each train and fasten
down the tire that was used on the top of the wooden-sills
that were at first used in the construction of the road. The
spikes nearest the ends of these bars would get loose some-
times, and the iron bars had an ugly fashion of elevating
themselves and causing trouble to the train. These erec- .
tions of the ends of the bars were called snake's heads,
which, at a distance, they very strongly resembled.

The company, in its palmy and prosperous days, ran two
trains each way daily. Pine wood was used exclusively on
the steamboats and locomotives. This wood was obtained
from the lower counties of the Eastern Shore, and many
small vessels were employed in transporting it to French -
town. As many as twenty-five or thirty of these vessels
were often there at the same time; this, with the arrival
and departure of two steamboats daily, made the town a
place of business and importance.

The Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad
Company is the outgrowth of several local companies. The

430 HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY.

Baltimore and Port Deposit Railroad Company was char-
tered by the Legislature of Maryland, March 5th, 1832, and
organized the next year, for the purpose of building a rail-
road from Baltimore to Port Deposit. The Delaware and
Maryland Railroad Company Was chartered by the same
body, on the 14th of March of the same year, for the
purpose of building a railroad from some point on the Dela-
ware and Maryland State line to Port Deposit, or some other
point on the Susquehanna River. The latter company was
not organized until April 18th, 1835, soon after which work
was commenced upon this road and continued until April,
1836, at which time this company united with the Wil-
mington and Susquehanna Railroad Company, which had
been chartered by the Legislature of Delaware, in 1832, for
the purpose of making a railroad from the Pennsylvania State
line, through Wilmington towards the Susquehanna River
to the Maryland line. It was the original intention of the
Wilmington and Susquehanna Company to terminate their
road at Charlestovvn, but the Baltimore and Port Deposit
Company having changed the eastern terminus of their
road to Havre de Grace, the other company continued their
road to Perryville. The Legislature of Pennsylvania having
chartered the Philadelphia and Delaware County Railroad
Company in 1831, that company organized in 1835, and
surveyed a route for a road from Philadelphia to the State
line. In January, 1836, this company having occasion to
apply to the Legislature of Pennsylvania for power to in-
crease their capital, the title of the corporation was changed
to the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad
Company. This company soon afterwards obtained the
right of way from the State line to Wilmington from the
Delaware and Maryland Company, and the road from Phil-
adelphia to Wilmington was opened on the 15th of January,
1838. In the meantime, the road from Wilmington to
Perryville had been opened on the 4th of July, 1837, and
the road from Baltimore to Havre de Grace two days after-
wards.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 431

Although there was now but one line of road, it was the
property of three companies : The Philadelphia, Wilming-
ton and Baltimore Railroad, from Philadelphia to Wilming-
ton ; the Wilmington and Susquehanna Railroad, from
Wilmington to Susquehanna River ; and the Baltimore and
Port Deposit Railroad, from that river to Baltimore. These
companies were consolidated in February, 1838, under the
name of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Rail-
road Company.

Although the road was now in a condition for use, it was,
as compared with modern roads, very incomplete. The
track was constructed of iron bars nailed upon wooden
string pieces called mud sills* which rested on the ground,
and consequently were continually getting out of position.
It was not until after the lapse of some years that this defect
was remedied by the introduction of wooden ties.

In May, 1836, a large number of Irish laborers who were
employed in grading the roadbed near Charlestown, at-
tended the fair at that place, and having imbibed freely of
whisky, engaged in an old-fashioned Irish riot, which from
the accounts given of it was the most bloody that ever oc-
curred in this county. During the progress of the riot, the
infuriated and drunken Irishmen made an attack upon a
dwelling-house, in which some of the citizens had taken
refuge, whereupon, the inmates baracaded the doors and
having some firearms, made a brave defense. It is said that
after their shot was exhausted, the women cut their pewter
spoons into slugs which were used with terrible effect. The
rioters were finally driven away from the town, and the
next day the sheriff summoned a military company called
the Cecil Guards, composed of the citizens of Elkton, to his
aid, and arrested some twenty-five or thirty of the rioters.
Seven of them were indicted for riot, and tried at the Octo-
ber term of court, in 1836. Two of them were convicted

* This name was afterwards used by certain southern politicians to
designate the lowest stratum of northern society.

432 HISTORY OF „CECIL COUNTY.

and sentenced to pay a fine of one dollar each, and be im-
prisoned in the county jail for two years. Being unable to
pay the fine, and having no friends, they were detained in
jail until the sheriff's charges for boarding them became so
large that the county commissioners, in order to get rid of
them, paid the fine from their private purses, and the pris-
oners were discharged.

CHAPTER XXVI.

Clergy of the Established Church— Their powers and duties— They in-
cur the displeasure of the common people— What Rev. William Duke
says of them— Presbyterian clergymen— Spiritual condition of the peo- .
pie— Introduction of Methodism— First Methodist society— Character of
the early Methodist preachers— Rev. Francis Asbury visits Bohemia
Manor— He refuses to take the oath of allegiance— Methodists favor the
royal cause— Retrospective glance at the history of the Episcopal
Church— North Elk parish— Rev. John Thompson— Rev. Joseph Cou-
don— St. Augustine parish— Progress of Methodism— Cecil circuit-
Hart's meeting house— First Methodist meeting-house at North East-
First parsonage— Bethel meeting house— Goshen— Revival at Bethel-
North Sassafras and St. Augustine parishes— Richard Bassett joins the
Methodists-Rev. Henry Lyon Davis— Death of Rev. Joseph Coudon-
Rev. William Duke— His life and labors— Methodism supplants Episco-
pacy—First Methodist society at Elkton— Methodism and Presbyterian-
ism at Charlestown— Hopewell and Asbury— Methodist Protestant
churches.

The clergy of the established church with very few excep-
tions, adhered to the Royal cause during the long contro-
versy between the mother country and the colonies, which
preceded the Revolutionary war. This was natural, because
their livings depended upon their loyalty. With the excep-
tion of a few self-denying and godly missionaries who
labored under the auspices of the Society for the Propaga-
tion of the Gospel, they had always been the pampered
favorites of the executive, who had foisted them, in many
cases, upon an unwilling people. For nearly a century be-
fore the commencement of the Revolutionary war, an indis-
criminate poll-tax had been levied for their support. Nor
was this all that tended to make them unpopular and les-
sened their influence among their parishioners. By the act
of 1763, the vestries, of which the clergymen were ex officio

434 HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY.

members, were enjoined to nominate, annually, four suitable
persons, in each of the large parishes, for inspectors of
tobacco. Of this number, two were to be selected by the
executive, and, when once commissioned, could be retained
in office as long as was mutually agreeable to themselves
and the vestry.

The reason for vesting this power in the vestries may be
found in the fact that the clergy were to be paid by means
of promissary notes, issued by the inspectors for the value
of the tobacco in their charge, and payable by them upon
demand. By this act, the inspectors became, to some ex-
tent, the bankers of the province ; and as their continuance
in office depended upon the vestries, the lay members of
which were generally the intimate friends and companions
of the clergymen, it is easy to see that the latter were in-
vested with a power and influence in secular affairs which
was incompatible with the proper discharge of the duties of
the clerical office.

In 1756 when it was thought necessary to levy a per.capita
tax on the bachelors in the province, in order to defray the
expense incurred in prosecuting the French and Indian
war, the vestries had been made the agents to effect its as-
sessment. This mixing up of spiritual and temporal things
was not calculated to increase the godliness of the clergy, or
to strengthen their allegiance to the Prince of Peace, under
whose banner they were ostensibly enlisted, but whose
teaching, there is reason to believe, many of them disre-
garded, choosing rather to be votaries of the race-course or
to follow a pack of hounds than to perform the irksome duties
of the closet and the chancel. The clergy, until after the
Revolutionary war, had never been amenable to any epis-
copal authority on this side of the Atlantic ocean ; and it is
more than could have been reasonably expected, under all
the circumstances, that they should have developed a high
degree of piety or experimental religion. Anderson, in his
history of the Church of England, says that the acts of the

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 435

Colonial Legislature had provoked the opposition of all op-
posed to a religious establishment in Maryland, as early as
the beginning of the eighteenth century, and that one of the
crying evils, under which the church labored, was the ap-
pointment of unworthy clergymen. Previous to 1720 (when
the clergy were laboring under the auspices of the Society
for the Propagation of the Gospel, and were subject to the
Bishop of London) the better part of them wished a bishop
for the colony, but failed to get one appointed, after many
trials.

From a very early period in the history of the colony un-
til the beginning of the Revolutionary war, the testamen-
tary law of the province was similar, if not identical, with
that of the mother country, which gave the ecclesiastical
courts the sole authority to settle the estates of deceased per-
sons. The chief officers of this court in Maryland, were
called commissaries. From the nature of the case, they
of necessity were always clergymen ; and being in no way
amenable to the people, as most of the other clergy
were, they almost invariably incurred their displeasure and
opposition by the zeal they manifested in behalf of the
church and the aristocracy.

In 1737, which was the time of the Border war, a petition
from the commissary and clergy of the province was pre-
sented to the King in council, stating among other things
that the Quakers and other sectaries were dissatisfied with
the established church, and that they had induced some of
the inhabitants of Maryland to transfer the acknowledge-
ment of the right of their lands from Maryland to Penn-
sylvania. They therefore prayed that a regular clergy
might be encouraged to reside on the borders and in the
province of Pennsylvania, in order to overawe the sectaries
and prevent a recurrence of this trouble. Nothing came of
the petition, and the Quakers and Presbyterians of Notting-
ham and elsewhere on the borders were not troubled with
ministers of the establishment to awe them into subjection.

436 HISTOKY OF CECIL COUNTY.

Rev. Mr. Henderson was the first signer of the petition.
He is believed to have been commissary at this time.

The act of 1763, which fixed the compensation of the
civil officers, and the poll-tax for the support of the clergy
expired by limitation in 1766, and the feeling between the
people and the proprietarjr government not being good, a
controversy arose about how certain of the civil officers and
the clergy were to be paid. The clergy in this case, as in
every other, took the side of the government; and inas-
much as a large majority of the people, composed of that
part of them who belonged to other denominations and
those who belonged to no religious society at all, were op-
posed to the payment of a tax for the maintenance of a hie-
archy that many of them despised, the clergy incurred the
displeasure of the classes before referred to, and no doubt
increased their desire for the severance of the ties that bound
them to the mother country. In this case, as in many
others, the zeal of the clergy injured the cause they espoused.
Another cause of the unpopularity of the clergy of the es-
tablished church may be found in the manner of their ap-
pointment, which, however nicely it may have been used,
savored too much of despotism, to have been satisfactory to
the people, thirsting, as they then were, for the full fruition
of the liberty they were destined a few years later to enjoy.

The " patronage and advowson," which means the right
to appoint the ministers for the various parishes in the
state, was vested in the governor, who was generally ap-
pointed by the lord proprietary, and being in no wise
amenable to the people, too often set their wishes at defiance.
The Rev. William Duke, published a pamphlet in 1795, on
the state of religion in Maryland. Speaking of the condi-
tion of society and the clergy of the Episcopal church at the
time of the introduction of Methodism, he says :

" They did not, generally, discover any religious zeal, or
concern themselves either with the principles or morals of
the people ; they were regarded very little in these respects

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 437

even by their own hearers ; and what influence they pre-
tended to, they maintained rather as scholars, gentlemen
and men of affluence, than as Christian divines. When any
of their hearers became seriously thoughtful about religion,
one would suppose it natural for them to consult their stated
pastors; but when they remembered thatthese pastors in the
course of so many years had not administered them any
sufficient instruction, they resented the imposition, and ne-
glected them in turn. They found the way they were in
was not likely to issue in anything like the design of the
gospel, and therefore did not hesitate to take the chance of
a change. One circumstance that argues this defect in the
Episcopalian clergy, even to this day (1795), is the disrespect
that they are treated with in many parishes, even by their
own people. Ministers of other denominations are suffi-
ciently censured or ridiculed by people of a different pro-
fession; ours are chiefly calumniated and harassed by their
own. Churchmen not only exclaim against the impositions
of the late establishment, whereby parsons were erected into
little popes about the country, but they still see nothing
sacred in the clerical character, and pass sentence upon the
religious and moral principles of their own pastors with as
much petulance as they would upon those of an infidel."

In a sermon preached at the ordination of Mr. Asbury, at
Baltimore, in 1784, by Thomas Coke, then superintendent
of the Methodist Church, he uses this language :

" The churches (Episcopal) had, in general, been filled by
parasites and bottle companions of the rich and great. The
humble and importunate entreaties of the oppressed flocks
were contemned and despised. The drunkard, the forni-
cator, and the extortioner, triumphed over bleeding Zion,
because they were faithful abettors of the ruling powers."

Rev. Hugh Jones, who was rector of North Sassafras
Parish for many years, there is reason to believe, was both
aristocratic and haughty. He was a strong partisan of the
lord proprietary, and died possessed of so much of this

438 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

world's goods that, to put it as charitably as possible, he
must have occupied much of his time in accumulating them.
The records of North Sassafras parish disclose a lamentable
want of virtue and morality among the people. Of the
condition of St. Augustine parish at that time very little
is known ; but it certainly adds nothing to its credit that so
much of it was characterized by the name of Sodom ! This
name may have been misapplied, or it may not have been
deserved ; so let the veil of obscurity that has hidden the
moral deformity that the name implies, remain and cover
it from sight.

The spiritual condition of the people of North Elk parish
is better known, and has been sufficiently noticed in a pre-
ceding chapter.*

The Presbyterian churches, as before intimated, were in a
weak condition at this time, caused by the emigration of
many of their members to the South and West. Their in-
fluence had also been lessened by the unhappy dissensions
that arose among them from the preaching of Whitefield
and his adherents. Another cause that lessened the religious
influence of the clergy of this denomination was the part
that many of them felt constrained to take in the contro-
versy between the colonies and the mother country. Their
form of church government was eminently democratic, and
most, if not all of them, were the descendants of those who,
in some form, had suffered for conscience sake on the other
side of the Atlantic. Hence, it was not strange that they
joined the crusade for liberty, and denounced the encroach-
ments of the British Parliament with an eloquence and
vehemence that would have done credit to their founder.

By this it is not to be understood that either the Presby-
terian ministers or their congregations sacrificed their god-
liness upon the altar of their patriotism, but that the
commotion and turmoil which at this time shook society to

* See pages 221 and 222, ante.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 439

its very foundation, was not conducive to a high develop-
ment of religion or morality. Their fault, if fault it can be
called, was not that they loved the gospel less, but that they
loved their country more ; and it is some consolation to
know that if society lost a little in morality, it gained much
in patriotism.

From what has been said, it is apparent that the spiritual
condition of the people was quite as deplorable as had been
that of the people of the mother country when Wesley and
Whitefield commenced their crusade against the formality
and wickedness of the Established Church, and there was
quite as much need of a revolution in church affairs as
there was in the administration of the government. Much
of the credit of effecting a reformation in the spiritual con-
dition of the people belongs to the early Methodist mission-
aries, though it must not be forgotten that Whitefield, whose
doctrine differed but little from that proclaimed by Wesley,
had in some measure prepared the way. Richard Wright
was the name of the first Methodist missionary who preached
the gospel in this county. He had been received as a travel-
ing preacher by John Wesley in 1770, and the next year
came to Philadelphia, and shortly afterwards found his
way to Bohemia Manor, where he was kindly received.
Whitefield had been there a quarter of a century before,
and there is no doubt that the impression he made by the
fervent manner in which he proclaimed the gospel had
much to do with the success of Methodism. Mr. Asbury,
long after this time, spoke of his followers on Bohemia
Manor as Whitefield Methodists, and remarked that " the
Wesleyan Methodists were heirs to them according to the
gospel."

Mr. Wright organized the first Methodist society in this
county at the house of Solomon Hersey, in 1771, and it is a
singular coincidence that its place of meeting was within
the bounds of the Labadie tract, Mr. Hersey's house being
near the mill that was then called Sluyter's and had

440 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

formerly been called Van Bibber's mill, on a branch of the
Bohemia River, called Mill Creek, a short distance south-
west of St. Augustine. This society was the first organized
on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Its members afterwards
worshiped at Bethesda chapel, which stood some distance
west of where the present Manor church stands. The
Methodists at this time, or very shortly afterwards, had an-
other appointment at Thompson's school-house, which was
quite near where Bethel church now stands. This latter
society was the germ that produced the Bethel church.

The first Methodist preachers were rigid disciplinarians,
and very austere in their manners. They denounced
slavery as being contrary to the law of God and an infrac-
tion of the golden rule. They considered it their duty to
" rise at four in the morning, and if not then, yet at five,
and that it was a shame for a preacher to be in bed till
six in the morning." They required their followers to observe
the Friday preceding every quarterly meeting as a day of
fasting. They discountenanced the manufacture of distilled
liquors and threatened to disown their friends who persisted
in making them. They were enjoined to avoid superfluity
in dress themselves, and to speak frequently and faithfully
against it in all the societies. Until 1785, the Methodists were
under the spiritual guidance and direction of John Wesley,
who lived and died in full communion with the Church
of England, and whose original intention was only to effect
a reformation by infusing more godliness and piety into the
daily lives and conduct of the members of that church. Ac-
cordingly, at the meeting of the first conference, which was
held in Philadelphia, in June, 1773, it was agreed by the
ministers that they would strictly avoid administering the
ordinances of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, and would
earnestly exhort all those among whom they labored, par-
ticularly those in Maryland and Virginia, to attend the
church and receive the ordinances there. Seven years after-
wards the conference, which met in Baltimore, granted the

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 441

privilege to all the friendly clergy of the Church of Eng-
land, at the request or desire of the people, to preach or ad-
minister the ordinances in their " preaching houses or
chapels." This was four years after the connection of the
church and state had been severed and it shows that the
Methodists at that time, if they acted in good faith, which
there is no reason to doubt, desired to live in amity and
friendship with their brethren of the late establishment.
This good feeling was largely reciprocated by the better and
more pious part of the members of the established church.
Owing to this the new sect for some years after its first in-
troduction nourished best in the strongholds of the episco-
pacy, while it made little or no progress among the Presby-
terians until many years afterwards, when the first ex-
pounders of its doctrine had been succeeded by others,
whose zeal was more according to knowledge, and whose
motives were better understood. For the reasons before
alluded to, the growth of Methodism was slow, and it is'
manifest that those who joined the new sect were actuated
by pure motives and a sincere desire to improve their
spiritual condition.

Rev. Francis Asbury arrived in Philadelphia in October,
1771, and the next April visited Bohemia Manor to look
after Mr. Wright, but met him near Wilmington on his way
northward, and proceeded on to the Manor alone. Under
the date of April 10th, Mr. Asbury states that some mis-
chievous opposers had thrown the people on the Manor
into confusion. The next day he notes in his journal that
he had visited and conversed with an old man who was
sick, but was prevented from praying with him, by the fact
that two men came in, whose countenances he did not like.
He probably met with two of the residents of that part of
the Manor called Sodom. The next fall Mr. Asbury visited
the Manor again on his way to Western Maryland. He
speaks of preaching at Hersey's and at the school -house on
the Manor, and probably in going west crossed the Elk
River at the ferry at Court-house Point,

442 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

The next society organized in the county was the one at
Johntown, in Sassafras Neck, which, as stated by Mr. Led-
num in his history of Methodism, was in 1773. This was
seven years after the first society of Methodists had been
organized in New York, and the whole number of Metho-
dists in the several conferences of New York, Philadelphia,
New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia, is put down in the
minutes of the conference for this year at one thousand one
hundred and sixty, five hundred of whom were said to be-
long to the Maryland Conference. At this time there was
only ten Methodist preachers belonging to these conferences.
Previous to this time the new sect had made considerable
progress upon the Peninsula, and had several appointments
in Kent and New Castle, as well as in Harford County.

The people of this county, as before stated, were much
more loyal than their neighbors in Delaware, and the course
pursued by Mr. Wesley, who strongly favored the royal
cause, was not calculated to add anything to the popularity
of the ministers who then labored in this country under his
direction, and all of whom, except Mr. Asbury, went back
to England in 1777. Mr. Asbury was fined £5 for preach-
ing in a private house in Anne Arundel County, in the
autumn of that year, and the next spring took refuge in the
house of Judge White, in Kent County, Delaware, where he
remained in seclusion for nearly a year. He states in his
journal that he left Maryland because he could not con-
scientiously take the oath of allegiance to the State. This
oath was as follows : " I do. swear that I do not hold myself
bound to yield any allegiance or obedience to the King of
Great Britain, his heirs or successors, and that I will be true
and faithful to the State of Maryland, and to the utmost of
my power support, maintain, and defend the freedom and
independence thereof, and the government as now estab-
lished, against all open enemies and traitorous conspira-
cies, and will use my utmost endeavors to disclose and
make known to the Governor, or some one of the judges or

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 443

justices thereof, all treasons or traitorous conspiracies,
attempts, or combinations against this State or the gov-
ernment thereof, which may come to my knowledge." This
oath, much to the credit of the vestry of North Elk parish,
was taken and subscribed to by them.

Mr. Wesley, in a letter dated January 11th, 1777 (quoted
in Tyreman's Life of Wesley), says: "I have just received
two letters from New York. They inform me that all the
Methodists there are firm for the government, and on that
account persecuted by the rebels, only not to the death ;
that the preachers are still threatened, but not stopped; and
that the work of God increases much in Maryland and Vir-
ginia." Some of the native preachers on the peninsula
were not as prudent as Mr. Asbury and his coadjutors. One
of them, Chauncey Clowe by name, in August, 1777, which
the reader will recollect was the time when the British fleet
sailed up the Elk River, raised a company of three hundred
tories in Kent County. Delaware, for the purpose of making
their way to the Chesapeake Bay and joining the British
fleet. But they were all captured, and Clowe was hanged.
Others of the native ministers on the peninsula were ac-
cused of circulating the king's proclamation, which, no
doubt was the proclamation issued in the king's name by
Lord Howe in Elk Neck.

Another cause that retarded the growth of the new sect,
was the violent opposition it met with from the ungodly
and wicked part of the population, who were, in many
cases, encouraged by those whose rank in society should
have induced them to have used their influence in favor of
peace and good order, rather than to have encouraged the
spirit of lawless persecution that prevailed. Mr. Duke states
in his pamphlet, before quoted from, that at one time a tra-
veling Methodist preacher could hardly show his face in a
little tobacco port or court-house village, without running
the risk of being ducked or mobbed or ludicrously set at
nought. For this treatment, he says there could be no

444 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

actual reason given, but his being a stranger or his re-
proving them for swearing. Another difficulty under which
the new sect labored, was that of unworthy traveling preach-
ers, who probably were led astray in many cases through
ignorance. A few years after this time (in 1782) the con-
ference took action in regard to disorderly preachers, and, in
order to keep them in subjection, resolved to write at the
bottom of each certificate thereafter issued : " This conveys
authority no longer than you walk uprightly and submit to
the direction of the assistant preacher."

Now let us take a retrospective glance at the history of
the Episcopal churches. In 1771 the vestrymen of North
Elk parish gave notice that they intended to petition the
Legislature for a sum not exceeding £900, to be levied in
three years for building a chapel of ease near where the old
chapel stood, and for making some alterations in the church.
Ten years before this time Rev. John Hamilton and two of
the vestrymen had reported that the chapel was not worth
repairing. The next year notice was given of the intention
of raising £500 for the chapel ; but owing to the unpopularity
of the church and the other causes that have been already
fully set forth elsewhere, the money was not levied. Rev.
John Hamilton, who had been connected with the parish
since 1746, died in April, 1773, and was succeeded by the
Rev. William Thompson, who was appointed curate by Gov-
ernor Eden on the first of the following May. Mr. Thomp-
son was to receive the whole amount of the poll-tax levied
for the support of the rector, and was to continue until
his successor was appointed. He appears to have been popu-
lar, and the vestry soon afterwards sent an address to the
governor, "thanking him for his kind, fatherly, and tender
care of them, and entreating him to perfect his pious and
fatherly intentions towards them, by inducting Mr. Thomp-
son into the parish," which was accordingly done on the
23d of June, 1773. Mr. Thompson seems to have been an
eminently pious and practicable preacher, and disposed to

HISTOKY OF CECIL COUNTY. 445

do all in his power for the spread of the gospel among his
parishioners, for the next year he was ordered to pay An-
drew Barrett fifty-nine shillings for building a tent at the
place where the chapel stood. This is the chapel not far
from Battle Swamp. Tradition says that he preached there
in a tent with some success for several days. He was pro-
bably incited to make this extraordinary effort by the ac-
tivity of the Methodists, but the war came on, and the con-
nection of the church and State being severed, the vestry, in
1777, were obliged to raise his salary by subscription, and
the same year gave him permission to preach at the Manor
Church or somewhere in St. Augustine parish, every third
Sunday. This subscription list is yet extant, and contains
the names of Jacob and Zebulon Hollingsworth ; Benjamin
and William Mauldin ; Jacob and Michael Lumm ; Phredus
Aldridge ; William, James, and John Crouch; Abraham
Mitchell ; Stephen, Isaac and Nicholas Hyland ; Thomas
Russell ; John Ricketts; Samuel and Joseph Gilpin ; James
Pritchard ; Nathaniel Ramsay, and many others, some of
whom, a few years later, became identified with the Metho-
dists. The amount of the subscription was £202 18s., 6c?.

Mr. Thompson removed to North Sassafras parish in 1779,
but the vestry of North Elk seem to have been loath to give
him up, and wrote to him, proposing to raise £100 by sub-
scription in silver, or its equivalent in continental money,
if he . would preach for them one Sunday in each month,
and find a lay reader to officiate one Sunday in each month.
But nothing came of the offer, and the next year they em-
ployed one Collin Furguson as a lay reader in the parish,
every Sunday, and agreed to pay him £120 specie per an-
num during the time he acted as such, Mr. Thompson
agreeing to officiate once a quarter during said time. It is
worthy of remark that twelve years afterwards Collin Fur-
guson claimed that £40 of his salary as lay reader for the
years 1780-81, was in arrears, and placed his claim in the
hands of William Barroll, an attorney, for collection ; and

446 HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY.

that an order was given on Mrs. Coudon, the widow of the
Rev. Joseph Coudon, for that amount.

On Easter Monday, 1781, Mr. Joseph Coudon was ap-
pointed lay reader, and continued to serve in that capacity
with so much acceptability that he was chosen as their rec-
tor in September, 1785. Meanwhile, in 1784, Mr. Coudon
and Henry Hollingsworth had been chosen to represent the
parish in a convention held at Annapolis that year, to take
into consideration the distressed condition of the church.

It is apparent from what has been written, that North Elk
parish was not in a prosperous condition during this time.
The condition of St. Augustine parish was no better. The
Rev. Joseph Mather, who had succeeded Rev. Hugh Jones,
was rector of that parish at the time the Methodists came to
the Manor, and remained there until 1774, when he resigned.
He was succeeded by the Rev. Philip Reading, who was
presented to the parish by Governor Eden, in 1774. He was
an Englishman, and had been a missionary at Appoquin-
imink (now St. Anne's, near Middletown), and is said to have
been very successful there. He remained in charge of this
parish, in connection with Appoquinimink, until 1776, when
his churches were closed, and he is said to have died of
grief. The parish was vacant for three years previous to
1781, when it was taken in charge by Rev. William Thomp-
son, who had charge of it in connection with North Sassa-
fras, until the time of his death, which occurred in 1786.
Mr. Thompson, unlike nearly all his brother ministers, was
loyal to the cause of the colonies. This added to his popu-
larity, and enabled him to maintain the supremacy of the
Episcopal church during his life, in those parts of the
county where the church people were most numerous, in
consequence of which Methodism made little progress in
this county until some years after his death.

From the time of its introduction up to the year 17S5,
Methodism made great progress in Virginia and North
Carolina, and in the lower part of the Peninsula as well as

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 447

in Eastern Pennsylvania and Western Maryland, but seems
to have made comparatively none in this county. Mr.
Asbury, who was constantly employed in traveling from
place to place, supervising the work of those under him,
speaks of visiting Robert Thompson's, near Bethel, in the
spring of 1780, and says he " spoke close to him, who had
fainted in his mind, being now left alone." Mr. Asbury
visited Mr. Thompson again in October of the same year,
and remarks in his journal that " the old man is stirred up."
From which it may be infered that Methodism had proba-
bly retrograded, rather than advanced, in the southern part
of the county, which was the only part of it into which it
had, at that time, been introduced.

The conference of 1785, agreeable to the wishes of Mr.
Wesley, formed themselves into an independent church ;
but this event, whatever may have been its effect upon
Methodism elsewhere, seems to have had no perceptable ef-
fect upon the few detached appointments in this county.

In May, 1787, Mr. Asbury visited Elkton, upon which oc-
casion he preached to a large congregation. He states that
he was received by the Rudulph family with great respect.
This family were probably at this time members of the
Episcopal church, for the next year Tobias Rudulph was
appointed delegate to represent North Elk parish in a con-
vention in Baltimore Town. They lived in the old brick
house now standing on Main street three doors east of the
court-house, which was built by Tobias Rudulph, in 1768.

The name of the Cecil Circuit appears for the first time
upon the minutes of the conference in 1788, but its exact
bounds are unknown. There is reason, however, to believe
that, in connection with the appointments in this county, it
embraced much of the territory of New Castle County, and
probably some of the northern part of Kent, in Maryland.
John Smith and George Wells were the first preachers in
charge. They were succeeded the next year by George
Moore and Benjamin Roberts. That year the number of

448 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

members in all the societies in the circuit is put down in
the minutes of the conference as follows : Two hundred
and fifty-seven white and two hundred and fifty-two colored.

Seventeen years had now elapsed since the introduction
of Methodism on Bohemia Manor, and it is probable that
there was preaching regularly in Elk Neck and at North
East ; for Mr. Asbury states, under date of October 15th,
1794, that he preached at Hart's Meeting-house on that
day, and the fact of a house being there at that time seems
to indicate that there had been preaching in that neighbor-
hood sometime before. This is the first reference that has
been found to this meeting-house, though there is a tradi-
tion that the early superintendent preachers, when passing
back and forth from the southern part of the county to their
appointments we'st of the Susquehanna, preached to the
people in that neighborhood under the shade of some large
walnut trees that stood about two miles southwest of where the
meeting-house now stands. Many of the first settlers in Elk
Neck had been zealous churchmen, and an effort had been
made to erect a chapel of ease in that part of the county
while it was a part of North Sassafras parish.

The descendants of the first settlers still adhered to the re-
ligion of their fathers, which accounts for the alacrity with
which they embraced the new faith. Owing, no doubt, to
their strong predilections for the manners and customs of
the Episcopalians, the Methodists of Elk Neck, until a com-
paratively recent period, observed the Whitsuntide holidays,
and every year had services upon Whit-Sunday and Mon-
day, which were largely attended by their brethren from
Delaware and other places many miles distant.

Hart's meeting-house was the first one erected in the
county north of the Elk River ; and though it was in exist-
ence as early as 1794, the society, there is reason to think,
did not have a deed for the land on which it stood until
seven }rears afterwards; for the land records of the county
show that, on the 21st of August, 1801, Samuel Aldridge and

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 449

Milicent, his wife, in consideration of the great desire they
had to encourage and promote the religious worship of God,
and in consideration of the nominal sum of five shillings,
sold half an acre of ground, which is described as being on
the great road leading from Turkey Point to Elkton, to
Robert Hart, Thomas Hart, Charles Ford, Fredus Aldridge,
and Zebulon Kankey, trustees of the Methodist society in
Elk River Neck and their successors. It is generally be-
lieved that Robert Hart gave this society the land upon
which the first meeting-house stood, but this record seems to
indicate very clearly that such was not the fact; and there
seems to be no doubt that the meeting-house mentioned by
Mr. Asbury, was built upon land donated by Mr. Aldridge
and his wife. It was a small frame house, ceiled with boards
and weather-boarded on the outside, and contained a quaint
and curious old-fashioned pulpit.

The next Methodist meeting-house erected in the county
was at North East. It appears from the land records of the
county, that on the 25th of October, 1794, Jacob Jones con-
veyed an acre of land, which is described in the deed as lying
to the northward of the road leading from North East Church
toward Beacon Hill, to William Howell, John George, David
Sweazey, Jacob Jones, John Ford, Robert Hart, and Samuel
Aldridge, for the sum of £10, " in trust for the society of re-
ligious people called Methodists, and their successors iorever
thereafter, who were to have full power and authority to
erect on the said land a house for the public worship of
God." This was the first land owned by the society at
North East, and is the same now used for the cemetery. It .
is worthy of remark that Robert Hart was also a trustee of
the church called by his name in Elk Neck.

Mr. Asbury, under date of the 5th of June, 1795, says he
" preached in North East within the frame of a church that
was just begun." He no doubt referred to the first church,
which stood near the centre of the cemetery. It was about
thirty by forty feet, weather-boarded without and ceiled

450 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

with boards within, and was removed bodily in the early
part of the present century to the lower part of the village,
where it remained until 1837, when the house now in use
was built, and it was sold to Hugh Brown. On the 12th of
April, 1804, William Hunter sold a lot containing about
half an acre, which is described as being a few perches to
the eastward of the church and to the northward of the Metho-
dist meeting-house near the head of North East River, being
on the east side of the great road leading from the head of
North East River to Turkey Point, together with the house and
fencing thereon, to William Howell, Robert Hall, Nicholas
Chambers, Sr., Abraham Keagy, and William Williams, the
three former being citizens of Cecil County, and the two latter
residents of New Castle County, to have, hold, occupy, and pos-
sess forever for the use and convenience of a traveling preacher
of the gospel, in or belonging to the Methodist church, in
charge of Cecil Circuit. This deed was witnessed by Tobias
and Martha Rudulph, the former being at that time one of the
associate justices of the county court. The latter was after-
wards the wife of the Rev. William Torbert. This is the first
parsonage in the county, of which there is any trace in the
records of the court or the history of the church ; but there is
no evidence that it was ever used as such, and in 1809 those
of the trustees who resided in this county sold it to Thomas
Cazier for $250. The trustees are called in the deed to Ca-
zier the "trustees of Ebenezer Chapel," which seems to indi-
cate very unmistakably that the meeting-house at North
East was then called by that name. This chapel and par-
sonage, though described as being east of the road to Turkey
Point, stood west of where the main street of the village is
now located, the road at that time being some distance west
of where the street is at present.

The congregation which worshiped in Thompson's school-
house, which stood very near where Bethel Church now
stands, erected their first meeting-house sometime previous
to 1790 ; but like the congregation at Hart's, they did not

HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY. 451

obtain a deed for the land upon which it stood until 1805.
In that year, Richard Thompson, then of Philadelphia,
formerly of this county, conveyed the lot upon which the
church stood, to John Curnan, Nicholas Chambers Sr., James
Ratcliff, Robert Guttery, and Tobias Biddle, " for the use of
the Methodist Episcopal Church, according to the rules and
discipline which from time to time may be agreed upon or
adopted by the ministers and preachers of said church at
their general conferences, and in future trust and confidence
that they shall at all times permit such ministers or
preachers as shall be duly authorized by the rules and dis-
cipline of said church, and none others, to preach or expound
God's holy word there, and on the further condition that the
church organization should not be suffered to die by the
failure of the congregation to elect trustees." In 1802 the
Legislature passed an act in relation to the incorporation of
Christian churches or religious societies, authorizing the
male members of twenty-one years of age and upwards to
draw up and have recorded a constitution or plan of gov-
ernment; but the congregation at Bethel, it would seem
from the foregoing extract, had not availed themselves of
it. It is worthy of remark that Nicholas Chambers was also
one of the trustees of the parsonage at North East. The
first Methodist society that organized agreeable to the act of
1802 was called Goshen, now Ebenezer. The organization
was effected on the 15th of January, 1806. The title then
assumed was the Goshen congregation or society belonging
to the Methodist church in South Susquehanna Hundred.
The first trustees were Caleb Edmundson, William Tyson,
James Thompson, Thomas Sproston, Thomas Janney, and
Edward McVey. The rules and regulations were signed by
the above-named trustees, and acknowledged before Samuel
Miller and Jeremiah Baker, justices of the peace. Though
this congregation is the first one of this denomination that
effected an organization according to law in this county,
there is reason to believe that it had no meeting-house until

452 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

1827, for on the 18th of February, 1826, Thomas White sold
an acre and nine perches of land to Thomas Janney, Caleb
Edmundson, John Williamson, Elijah Reynolds, William
Edmundson, Michael Trump, John Cameron, trusteees, in
trust, that they should erect, or cause to be erected, thereon
a house or place of worship for the use of the members of
the Methodist Episcopal church in the United States. And
on the 5th of November, 1827, Dr. James Beard sold to the
same trustees a lot containing about an acre, adjoining the
other one, on which a church had been built in the mean-
time, " in trust that the said lot should be for the use of the
members of the M. E. Church in the United States, to build
thereon any house for the convenience and use of said
church."

Under date of May 27th, 1800, Mr. Asbury, writing of
Bethel, says: "The people sung and leaped for joy of
heart ; they have beaten down strong drink, and the power
of God is come." The next day he says, " at the Manor
chapel we had a great time; my soul was divinely re-
freshed." This brief entry in Mr. Asbury's journal, throws
some glimmering light on the previous condition of the
people on the Manor, and leads us to infer that they had
formerly been addicted to the immoderate use of strong
drink.

It seems proper at this point to refer briefly to the con-
dition of North Sassafras and St. Augustine parishes.
Rev. Mr. Thompson, who the reader will recollect was rector
of these parishes previous to the time of his death, had
been succeeded by the Rev. James Jones Wilmer in 1787.
He was a grandson of Hugh Jones, and had been educated
in England, but returned to America in 1773, and became
chaplain of the First Maryland Regiment in 1777. Mr.
Wilmer left these parishes in 1788, and was succeeded by
Rev. John Bisset, who had charge of North Sassafras from
1790 to 1792. He was succeeded by Rev. George Ralph,
who was in charge of that parish for nine months in 1793.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 453

He also had charge of Shrewsbury parish, in connection
with North Sassafras, and taught a school at Georgetown.
He was succeeded in 1794 by Rev. Jeremiah Cosden, who
was a native of the parish, and had been a Methodist
preacher, on account of which he had much difficulty in
being admitted to orders in the Episcopal church. He
lived upon the glebe, which he cultivated, his parishioners
keeping the buildings in repair, but contributing nothing
to his support. Mr. Allen, in his manuscript history, re-
marks that " he seems not to have been a very zealous
churchman, and probably regretted leaving the Methodist
church." Mr. Asbury, speaking of him in his journal, in
1795, says : " He was always very generous, and did not
serve us for money," and adds, " he did certainly run well."
Mr. Cosden was succeeded by Rev. Joshua Reese, in 1801.
Mr. Reese had been a physician, but had exchanged the
practice of curing the body for that of curing the soul. He
left this parish in 1802, having been in charge of it and
St. Augustine for about a year. He was succeeded in the
rectorship of North Sassafras parish in 1803, by the Rev.
Henry Lyon Davis, the father of the late Henry Winter
Davis, who the next year also took charge of St. Augustine
parish. During part of this time, that is to say, from 1789
to 1792, the Rev. Joseph Coudon had charge of St. Augus-
tine, in connection with North Elk and St. Ann's, near
Middletown. He died in 1792, and this parish was vacant
for two years, when Rev. Mr. Cosden took charge of it in
connection with North Sassafras. The Rev. Mr. Davis
seems to have had a nominal connection with St. Augustine
during the time of his rectorship at North Sassafras. During
the period between the years 1787 and 1808, there is reason
to believe that Methodism increased quite as rapidly on the
Manor and in Sassafras Neck as it did in that part of the
county north of the Elk River. Its membership were no
longer confined to the poor and the lowly, but some of the
most eminent persons of that part of the county were found

454 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

among them. Prominent among these was Richard Bassett,
before referred to in connection with Bohemia Manor, who
came to reside upon his plantation at Bohemia Feny, about
1795. He was one of the most influential Methodists of
that period. His house was the home of the poor, weary
itinerants, who always found an open door and a hearty
welcome. Mr. Asbury was in the kabit of stopping at his
house frequently, and there is no doubt that it was owing
to his instrumentality that the first camp-meetings in the
county were held in a grove on his estate, about a mile
north of Bohemia Bridge, in 1808 and the next year.

These camp-meetings were a source of vexation and an-
noyance to the Rev. Mr. Davis, who viewed the success of
the Methodists with jealous eyes. Mr. Davis was a learned
man and had been elected professor of the Greek and Latin
languages in Dickinson College, when he was only nineteen
years of age. Being a learned man and zealous minister, he
had no sympathy with the Methodists who had preached the
gospel at Hersey's mill, Thompson's school-house, and Beth-
esda Chapel, and had been so successful in making prose-
lytes that there were none left to attend upon his own minis-
trations in St. Augustine parish, the church at that time being
closed for want of a congregation. In 1809, Mr. Davis, in a
letter to the Bishop, says : " Already there have been several
camp-meetings in the peninsula this summer. At this time
there is one near Smyrna, Del. Next week one will be
formed in this neighborhood, and another in Wye River in
Talbot County. I am horribly afraid of the effort. Within
the last two years the church has evidently declined in al-
most every part of the Eastern Shore." This is rather a
gloomy picture to be drawn by a zealous churchman, but
no doubt it was a true one, and very probably Mr. Davis
feared that owing to the zeal and success of the Methodists,
the parish of North Sassafras would also fall into their pos-
session. The history of that parish for the next fifteen years,
and all the subsequent history of St. Augustine, show that

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 455

the fears of Mr. Davis were well grounded, for so few were
the church people and so little respect had the others for the
old St. Augustine church that they not only suffered it to
go to ruin, but actu illy pulled it down and used the bricks
of which it was constructed in building chimneys in their
houses and for other purposes, so that a quarter of a century
later but very little if any part of the walls were standing.
The chapel which stands near the site of the church was
erected in 1841, mainly by the instrumentality of a few pious
ladies of the neighborhood ; but so effectually had Metho-
dism supplanted Episcopacy in the affections of the people
of the Manor, that when the Bishop attended there on St.
Patrick's day of that year in order to consecrate it — it being
a stormy day — he was obliged, for want of an audience, to
postpone the ceremony until the next autumn.

The Rev. Joseph Coudon, who, the reader will recollect,
had been chosen curate of North Elk parish in 1785, was
ordained two years afterwards, and the same year was in-
stalled rector of that parish. The minutes of the vestry for
1788, show that he had then been laboring faithfully in the
parish for six years, and had received on an average only
about £37 a year, though the subscription list for his sup-
port amounted to upwards of £178. Probably part of what
he did receive was the interest on the money obtained by
the sale of the glebe which was disposed of in 1875, and the
money placed in his hands, he being allowed to use the in-
terest upon giving bond for the payment of the principal.
In 1788 he was allowed to labor part of the time in St. Au-
gustine parish and Appoquinimink, Delaware, which he
continued to do until the time of his death, which occurred
April 13th, 1792, on his farm, now owned by Rev. James
Mclntire, near Elkton. Mr. Coudon was succeeded by Rev.
William Duke, who took charge of North Elk parish, in
1793, and the same year married Hettie Coudon, the
daughter of the former rector. Mr. Duke was a native of
Baltimore County, and was licensed to preach by Rev.

456 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

Francis Asbury, when he was only sixteen or seventeen
years of age. His name appears upon the minutes of the
first conference, held at Philadelphia, 1774, as one of the
seven ministers who were that year taken on trial. The
next year he was admitted to full membership, and re-
mained in connection with the conference as a traveling
preacher until 1779, when he ceased to travel, and subse-
quently took orders in the Episcopal church, being impelled
to do so by his opposition to the erection of the Methodist
society into an independent church.

Mr. Duke was a learned man, and was more of the stud-
ent than the preacher. He was the author of several reli-
gious and poetical works, the principal one of which was
published while he resided in Elkton, in 1795. It was en-
titled " Observations on the present state of religion in Mary-
land," and was a valuable contribution to the religious liter-
ature of that period. No person would imagine, however,
after reading it, that the author had ever been a Methodist'
preacher, for he severely censures those who were instru-
mental in obtaining the independence of the Methodist
church, and intimates that the means used to effect that
end were not very creditable. He also criticises the religious
peculiarities and manners of the Methodists of that period,
and, while admitting that in general the}' seemed to
to seek an experimental knowledge of God, "appeals
to themselves whether they do not, both by exam-
ple and express direction, excite the people to noise and
uproar; and whether they do not avail themselves, not only
of that noise but also of a confined air, violent gesticulations,
and other circumstances calculated rather to surprise than
inform the human mind; and whether they do not estimate
their success in proportion to the disorder and tumult of
their audience?" Strange language this, to be used by one
who, a few years before, had been a zealous Methodist him-
self, and yet there is no reason to think that he was not en-
tirely sincere when he used it, for in this pamphlet he is

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 457

more severe, if possible, in his animadversions upon the
Episcopal church than he is upon the Methodists.

The fact seems to be, that the early Methodists were both
noisy and demonstrative, and Mr. Duke probably left them
and joined the Episcopal church because it was quieter and
better suited his temperament.

After being rector of North Elk parish for three years,
Mr. Duke, in 1796, resigned and went to Anne Arundel
County, but returned to Elkton the next year, and soon
afterwards removed to Kent County, where he taught a pa-
rochial school, but again returned to Elkton in 1799, and
opened a school in Bow street, and during the next three
years occasionally preached at North East, in his school-
room at Elkton, and in the Episcopal church near the vil-
lage of New London in Pennsylvania, and at the almshouse,
baptizing and burying many. It was during this interval
that he wrote to Bishop Claggett, May 3d, 1801, that he
preached sometimes by special appointment at home, but
never dreamed of doing anything more, " for," said he, " I
have made my last effort with these people." In 1803 Mr.
Duke was appointed professor of languages in St. John's
College, Annapolis, and had charge of St. Ann's Church, in
that city, until 1806, when, the college having been de-
prived of its funds, he returned to Elkton, and the next
year took charge of the academy there. In 1798 Mr. Duke
purchased the Belle Hill farm, which he owned for a num-
ber of years. The acquisition of this property no doubt
caused him to desire to be near to it, hence his oft-repeated
and fruitless efforts to effect a permanent location in Elkton.
This time he remained there until 1812, when he took
charge of Charlotte Hall, in St. Mary's County, and became
principal of the school there, but in 1814 returned to Elkton
and continued to officiate as aforetime until the spring of
1818, when he was appointed principal of the Elkton
Academy. He died at Elkton in 1840, aged eighty-three
years.

458 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

So effectually had Methodism supplanted Episcopacy in
North Elk parish that during the interval from 1801, when
Mr. Duke ceased to minister there, until 1835, it was without
a rector. Part of this time the vestry-house was used as a
school-house, and in the war of 1812, the church upon one
occasion was used by a company of soldiers which occupied
it as a barrack while awaiting transportation to Baltimore.

Trinity church in Elkton was organized in 1832 by the
efforts of James Sewell, Henry Hollingsworth and a few
others, and the same year Rev. William Henry Reese was
installed as the first rector. The first church building was
consecrated the same year. Mr. Reese was succeeded by
Rev. Henry Lyon Davis, formerly of North Sassafras par-
ish, who returned to this county in 1834. Mr. Davis re-
mained in charge of Trinity church but a short time, when
a vacancy of two years occurred, at the end of which Rev.
Henry Williams took charge of Trinity in connection with
St. Mary Ann's. Mr. Williams was succeeded by Rev.
Robert Lloyd Goldsborough in 1841. Mr. Goldsborough
was a very zealous churchman and under his rectorship the
religious affairs of the parish assumed a much better con-
dition than they had been in for many years.

In 1835 a church was organized near Port Deposit,
the members of which were allowed the use of the chapel
lands near that place probably for the purpose or with the
intention of erecting a church building. In 1839 the ves-
try laid out the church land in North East, into building
lots, and sold it at public sale, from which the}7 realized up-
wards of twenty-five hundred dollars.

Though St. Mary Ann's church had been built nearly a
century it had never been consecrated, and that service was
performed b}' the Right Reverend Bishop Whittingham,
on the 3d of September, 1844. In August, 1845, St.
Mark's chapel near Perryville, which was built on land
donated by the Misses Gale, was consecrated, and the next
year Rev. Richard Whittingham, Jr., was chosen by the

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 459

rector as deacon and assistant minister there. Mr. Golds-
borough occasionally held service in the neighborhood of
Lord's Factory and in 1849, the subject of erecting a church
near that place was contemplated.

The first society of Methodists in the vicinity of Elkton
worshiped at the house of Richard Updegrove, which was a
short distance east of the town and near the State line, in
1799. The names of the members were John Pennington,
Elizabeth Pennington, John Crouch, Cornelia Crouch,
Richard Updegrove, Hannah Updegrove, Thomas Phillips,
and Sarah Land. The names of the probationers were
Sarah Updegrove, John Hitchcock, and Rachel Coudon.
This society probably removed to Elkton in 1801, for in that
year it is called in the records of the quarterly conference
the society at Elkton, Md.

On the 20th of July, 1813, Levi Tyson, Richard Upde-
grove, Benjamin Pearce, Robert Taylor, and William Kil-
gore, trustees of the Elkton M. E. church, purchased half
an acre of ground on High street, from Thomas Howard, for
the sum of one hundred dollars for the use of the Methodist
Episcopal church in Elkton.

Bishop Asbury states in his journal that he preached in
Elk chapel, in 1815, and remarks that "this place, Elkton,
has been founded about fifty years," and adds, "it may be
visited by the Lord in the fourth or fifth generation ; " from
which it is plain that his opinion coincided with that ex-
pressed by Mr. Duke some years before, and that the resi-
dents of the town were no more inclined to profit by the
preaching of the Methodists then than they were to profit
from the preaching of Mr. Duke.

From these facts, it seems plain that the chapel mentioned
by Bishop Asbury, which is the old brick church on High
street, now occupied by the Free Methodists, was erected
about the year 1814. This chapel was subsequently en-
larged, in 1842, by an addition to the north end of it, and in
1827 George Jones, John H. Ford, Jesse Updegrove, Henry

460 HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY.

Jamar, Robert Johnston, Levi Tyson, and Samuel Wilson,
who, at that time were trustees of the church, purchased
from Levi Tyson the lot adjoining the church lot on the east,
for an addition to the graveyard. In 1820 Martha Rudulph
presented this congregation with a house and lot on North
street, a short distance above the railroad, for the use of the
minister in charge of Cecil circuit and his successors, reserv-
ing certain rights and privileges in the house and garden
for the use and convenience of Mrs. Elizabeth Sullivan,
widow, and Miss Mary Sullivan, spinstress, who were then
tenants in possession, the trustees agreeing to keep the pre-
mises in "good order and neat and comely repair." This
parsonage seems not to have been a convenient residence
for the minister in charge of the circuit, and in 1824 Martha
Rudulph,who was then the wife of the Rev William Torbert,
then stationed at Cambridge, reconveyed the property to
the trustees, and so changed the covenants in the original
deed as to allow them to rent the property, and apply the
proceeds for the purpose of paying the rent of a house for
the minister of Cecil circuit in the town of Elkton or else-
where. The congregation continued to enjoy the use of
this property until 1853, when they sold it to Stephen John-
son, the heirs at law of William Torbert and wife, who were
then deceased, joining with them in the deed.

Rev Mr. Asbury frequently stopped at Charlestown, and
sometimes preached there while upon his annual rounds
visiting the churches, and it is pretty certain that the
Methodists had preaching there at regular intervals in the
early part of the present century. As early as 1792, the Pres-
bytery of New Castle had sent supplies there to preach the
gospel, and they had been so well received that the town
commissioners, in 1801, appropriated one thousand dollars,
which had been derived from the rents of the town property,
and part of which was then in their hands, for the purpose
of building a church for them, and actually had purchased
a quantity of lime and other material to be used in its con-

HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY. 461

struction, when it was discovered that they had no legal au-
thority to apply the revenue of the town for that purpose.
They subsequently obtained the requisite authority from
the Legislature and purchased a house and lot from Colonel
Nathaniel Ramsay, primarily for the use of the Presbyterian
congregation, but with the understanding that, if the house
was not used by them, it might be used by other denomina-
tions.

The Methodists worshiped in this house in common with
the Presbyterians, until 1822, when the Presbyterians
organized a congregation in Charlestown, and the subject of
building a meeting-house of their own, began to be agitated
by the Methodists, and the town commissioners having ex-
pressed a willingnesss to appropriate two hundred dollars
for that purpose, an act of the Legislature authorizing them
to do so was obtained. But for some reason, probably the
want of means, the enterprise lagged until 1825, when the
trustees, who were Joseph Benjamin, Thomas Richardson,
Joshua Bennett, Robert Thompson, John Turner, John
Wilson, and John Tomlinson, purchased a lot from John
White, upon which the first meeting-house was erected the
same year.

The Hopewell M. E. church came into existence about
the time of the organization of the Goshen society. The
first house of worship, which was a log building, was prob-
ably built in 1810, upon a half acre of land which Davis
Reed donated to the trustees in that year. The trustees
were James Thompson, George Nelson, Richard Rutter,
Joseph Coulson and John Brooks, all of West Nottingham
Hundred.

The Asbury church was the outgrowth of the churches
that surrounded it. The Methodists of the neighborhood
in which it is located, worshiped for some years previous to
the erection of the first church of that name, in Jackson's
school-house, which stood not far from where the church
was built. In 1825, James Jackson, Robert Jackson, Rachel

462 HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY.

Jackson, Nancy Bell, Mary Armstrong, William Davidson,
John N. Y. Ryan and Elizabeth Ryan, the heirs at law of
Mary Carnahan, conveyed, for the nominal sum of five dol-
lars, a lot containing half an acre of land to James Gal-
braith, in trust for the use, interest and purpose of build-
ing a church or house of worship, for the accommodation
of the Methodist society. These facts seem to indicate very
plainly that the Methodists of that neighborhood had not
organized as a church at that time. Mr. Galbraith held
this land until 1829, when he deeded it to John Jackson,
William Patterson, Amos Eaton, William Dennison, Francis
Segar, William Dennison (of William,) and Edward Jackson,
in trust for the original purpose, from which it seems prob-
able that the first meeting-house was built about that (ime.

The other Methodist Episcopal churches in this county
are the outgrowth of those, the early history of which has
just been given, and however interesting it might be to trace
their history, it is not within the scope of this work, and
for that reason will be left for an historian of the future.

The Methodist Protestant church was introduced into
this county shortly after the organization of the first con-
ference of that denomination in Baltimore, in 1829. The
first church in this county, called " Shelemiah," was built at
Bayview, about 1830. The first church building was used
nearly fifty years and until 1879, when a spacious and
handsome structure was erected in its stead.

Meetings were held in the New Leeds church, which was
afterwards purchased by this denomination, about the time
that the church at Bayview was founded.

The Methodist Protestants, now have a number of churches
in the county, one of which is at Rowlandville, another be-
tween Bayview and Charlestown, one in the eighth district,
Moores chapel in the fourth district, and also a church at
Warwick.

CHAPTER XXVII.

Miscellaneous information— Newspapers — Fisheries — Chrome — Granite
quarries — Iron — Iron Works — Paper mills — Free schools — Population.

Having traced the history of the county in the preceding
chapters as well as the limited data extent would permit, to
a period within the recollection of persons of middle age,
this chapter will be devoted to a few miscellaneous subjects,
which are of so much importance that they cannot be passed
by unnoticed.

Prominent amongst these matters are the newspapers,
fisheries, manufactures, mineral productions, free schools,
etc., the history of all of which can be impartially written
at this time. This cannot be said of some other subjects
quite as closely connected with the history of the county as
those just mentioned. Amongst the latter are to be found
the history of the various political parties that have claimed
the allegiance of the people during the last half century,
and the action of the people during the late civil war. For
the reason before intimated, the task of writing that part of
the history of the county embraced in the subjects last
before enumerated, will be left for another person, or at
least deferred until a period in the future, when the lapse
of time will have rendered the task less onerous, and more
likely to be impartially performed.

Though the people of this county were the equals in in-
telligence and education of those of any other part of the
State, and gave a generous support to institutions of learn-
ing, as has already been shown, and though the people of
the State, from a very early period in its history, had enjoyed
the advantages to be derived from the printing-press, it was

464 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

not until after the lapse of nearly a century and a-half after
the erection of the county that they could enjoy the privi-
lege of reading a newspaper published within its limits.

The first newspaper published in this county appeared in
June, 1823. It was called The Elkton Press, and was pub-
lished weekly by Andrews & McCord, at two dollars a year.
It was twenty-one by twenty-seven inches, and had for its
motto, " Obedience to the people's choice," which indicated
in some degree its character, for it was neutral in politics at
first, and seems to have been devoted to the interests of the
people so far as its limited size and circulation permitted.
John McCord, the founder of this paper, came to Elkton
from Lancaster City. He was a printer by trade, and was
assisted in the editorial department of the paper by Samuel
Stanbaugh, who afterwards became a prominent politician,
and received the appointment of Indian agent or trader
under ex-President Andrew Jackson. Some time prior to
October, 1828, this paper passed into the possession of J. S.
Green and Robert Carter. Mr. Carter had established the
manufacture of paper in this county in 1816, on the site of the
Cecil paper-mill, now owned and operated by his son, I. D.
Carter, Esq., and the first proprietors of The Press having
become indebted to him for paper, he took an interest
in The Press to secure the debt. During the existence of
this firm Mr. Green edited The Press.

On the 18th of October, 1828, the firm of Green & Carter
dissolved, Mr. Green retiring, and Mr. Carter forming a
business connection with Charles F. Cloud. The duration
of this firm is not known, but the paper had changed hands
prior to March 7th, 1829, it being published at that time
opposite the Court-house, on Gay street, by C. F. Cloud and
J. W. Conkey, who subsequently removed the office to the
old brick building, two doors east of the court-house. The
continuance of the existence of this firm, like some of those
which preceded it, cannot now be definitely ascertained ;
but the paper was published by George W. Veazey in

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 465

September, 1 832. During the latter part of the time this paper
was in charge of Messrs. Andrews & McCord, it was run in
the interest of the Democratic party, and in 1824, judging
from certain communications and extracts from other
papers, which are found in its columns, seems to have
favored the election of General Jackson to the Presidency.
In 1832, when it was published by George W. Veazey, it
hoisted the name of Henry Clay for that position.

The Elkton Press seems to have had a sickly existence from
the time of its birth, and never to have improved. Its death
was probably hastened by the birtli of The Cecil Republican
and Farmers' and Mechanics' Advertiser, a weekly journal
which was started in Elkton on May 12th, 1832, by Richard
P. Bayly. The size of this paper was twenty-one by thirty
inches. It was published for a while "in the brick building
nearly opposite to the court-house, lately occupied by W. H.
Calvert as a hat manufactory " at two dollars per year. Mr.
Bayly, the proprietor of this paper, continued to publish it
as late as February, 1834, but it ceased to exist prior to
August, of that year, at which time The Central Courant was
the only paper published in the county. This paper was
started in Port Deposit by L. A. Wilmer in March, 1833 ;
it was twenty-one by twenty-eight and one-half inches in
size at first, but was subsequently reduced to fifteen and
one-half by twenty-one and one-half inches, affording a
very limited amount of space for the elucidation of the
multifarious subjects to which it was devoted. The sub-
scription was two dollars at first, but was reduced one-half
when the size of the paper was changed.

Mr. Wilmer came from Baltimore to Elkton previous to
the founding of The Courant and worked as a printer on
Tlie Elkton Press. After the death of The Courant, he re-
moved from Port Deposit to Philadelphia and connected
himself with The Saturday Evening Post, a literary paper of
much celebrity at that time. Mr. Wilmer was an anti- Jack-
son man, but his paper, which was neutral, seems to have

466 HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY.

been too diminutive to have produced much effect upon the
politics of the county, even if he had tried to do so. It was
published as late as November, 1834; how much longer has
not been ascertained. Mr. Wilmer was a very eccentric man
and would sometimes dress himself in winter clothing
in the warmest summer weather, when he wished to take a
walk to the Far Creek of an evening.

The Cecil Gazette and Farmers1 and Mechanics' Advertiser
was started in September, 1834, by a Democratic Convention
which raised the money by subscription to purchase the
press and type for the new journal. It was published and
edited by Henry Bosee, though the press and type were held
in trust for those who had contributed to their purchase, by
a number of trustees of whom Colonel William Mackey
and Henry D. Miller, both of the fourth district, were a
part. The paper was twenty-four by thirty-two inches in
size and was published weekly in Elkton, at two dollars per
year. In the issue of August 20th, 1836, it is stated that
the paper had been purchased by Amor T. Forwood, who
upon that day assumed its editorship. It continued to be
published in his name for a few months, when it again fell
into the hands of Mr. Bosee, in whose name it was published

until February, 1841.

The next journal that claims our attention was called the
Cecil Whig and Port Deposit Weekly Courier. It was founded
by Lynde Elliott at Port Deposit in July, 1835 ; was twenty-
one by thirty-two inches, and was published every Saturday,
at two dollars per year, or three dollars if not paid in ad-
vance. It was devoted to the interest of the Whig party,
but did not prove to be a success, and consequently did not
live a great while ; how long has not been ascertained, but
it probably gave place to the Elkton Courier, a strong Whig
paper, which was founded by Charles F. Cloud, in August,
1836. ■ It was a weekly journal, twenty-two by thirty-one
inches, subscription, two dollars per year. It was devoted to
politics, literature, agriculture, the mechanics arts and gen-

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 467

eral intelligence. Its office was on Gay street, in the Hol-
low, opposite Bow street ; subsequently it was opposite the
residence of Hon. Alexander Evans, and for awhile on the
northeast corner of North and High streets. In a literary
point of view it was far in advance of many of its prede-
cessors, and for a time was edited by George R. Howard and
also by Francis A. Ellis. During the time of the existence
of The Courier, party spirit was both high and bitter, and
sometimes culminated in personal rencounters in the streets,
which were often productive of black eyes and bloody noses.
At this time and for some years before, the Whig party was
in a minority in the county, and receiving no share of the
official patronage either from the national or local govern-
ment, had hard work to sustain a county organ. In conse-
quence of this The Whig party was without one for some
time after the demise of the Elkton Courier, and on the 6th
of August, 1839, George Keating commenced in Port Deposit
the publication of The Port Deposit Rock and Cecil County Com-
mercial Advertiser. The size of this paper was twenty-six by
thirty inches ; it was published every Tuesday morning at
two dollars per year, and was strongly Whig in politics.
This paper, like most of its predecessors, had but a brief ex-
istence. It was published as late as January, 1840; how
much longer has not been ascertained.

Mr. Keating was a strong " anti-Jackson" man, and being
very pugnacious, was always ready for a fight. After the
failure of The Rock, he removed to Baltimore, but subse-
quently came to Havre-de Grace, where he published sev-
eral papers, none of which were successful, in consequence
of which he is said to have died in the Harford County
almshouse in the early part of the war of the rebellion.

The brief existence of most of the early journals of the
county may be accounted for by the unsettled condition of
its politics, which were in a chaotic or transition state for
some years subsequent to 1824 ; from that time until 1836 the
Whig and Democratic parties were in course of formation,

468 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

and, as has sometimes since been the case, many of the
people knew not to which party they belonged. Hence, the
support accorded to the journals of that da}^ was small, as
well as precarious.

The Whig party being without an organ after the demise
of the Port Deposit Rock, some of its leading members, pro-
fiting by the example of their opponents seven years before,
concluded to start a new paper, and the wherewithal to pur-
chase the press and type was raised by subscription among
the members of the party, and those at the head of the new
enterprise purchased the press and the type of the PortDeposit
Rock, which they shipped on board of a small sailing vessel
and brought to Elkton. The name of the new paper, the first
number of which appeared on the 7th of August, 1841, was
The Cecil Whig. Its first editor was the late Palmer C. Ricketts,
under whose management it continued until the time of his
death,* which occurred on the 8th of March, 1860. The old
log-cabin which was erected in the Hollow during the cam-
paign of 1840 was used as the first office of The Whig. In
1855, the paper having been enlarged the year before, its
office was moved to the building on North street, now used
by George W. Cruikshank, for a law office. It is not within
the scope of this work to give an extended account of the
early history of The Whig, nor to discuss the condition of
the political parties that were contemporaneous with it,
while it was under the management of its founder. It suf-
fices to say that Mr. Ricketts was but twenty -three years of
age when he assumed the responsible position of editor.
The state of society and politics was somewhat different
then from what it is now, but party spirit was none the less
vindictive. In consequence of this, the bickerings and
feuds which had existed among the local politicians of the
Whig and Democratic parties culminated in the death of

* Except from April to August, 1852, during which time he edited the
Baltimore Daily News, and Ihe Whig was edited byWilliain J. Jones,Esq.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 469

Amor T. Forwood, a prominent democrat, in the fall of 1843.
Mr. Forwood's death was the result of a long and bitter per-
sonal controversy between him and Mr. Ricketts, which led
him to make an assault upon that gentleman, who, in self-
defense, shot him with a pistol. Mr. Ricketts was tried at
the October term of court in 1843, and acquitted. It being
proved to the satisfaction of the jury that he acted in self-
defense.

Mr. Ricketts belonged to one of the oldest families in the
county, the founder of which it is believed resided in Sassa-
fras Neck, and was a Quaker; he was much censured by his
political opponents for the death of Mr. Forwood, but he lived
long enough to win the respect and esteem of many of those
who were once his bitterest enemies. He died respected by
all, and deeply regretted by a very large portion of the com-
munity in which he lived.

The Cecil Gazette was neither popular nor prosperous
under the management of Mr. Bosee, and in February, 1840,
it was purchased by Thomas M. Coleman, who changed its
name to The Cecil Democrat and Farmers' Journal and
continued to publish it until the spring of 1848. When Mr.
Bosee sold the Gazette he retained the press and type which,
as before stated, were held in trust for those who furnished
the money to purchase them. This led to a replevin suit,
instituted by William Mackey.and Henry D. Miller, who
appear to have been the only surviving trustees. On the
9th of May, 1842, the sheriff served the writ and delivered
the property, consisting of the press and type, to the plain-
tiffs, they giving bond for the value of the property if the
suit went against them. In consequence of the death of Mr.
Forwood and the failure of the defendant to employ other
counsel, this cause resulted in a non-suit in the April term,
1844. Subsequently, at the October term of court, 1845,
Mr. Bosee brought suits against the representatives of Messrs.
Mackey and Miller, who had died in the meantime, and
also against their sureties on the bond. These suits were

470 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

continued until April term, 1847, when one of them at the
instance of Bosee was removed to Kent County, the parties
agreeing to settle the others in accordance with the judg-
ment in the removed case. The cases that were not re-
moved are at this time upon the docket of Cecil County
court, the other one never having been tried in Kent.

In 1848 Thomas M. Coleman started a paper in Elkton,
called the Temperance Banner, which he continued to publish
for two years, when he removed it to Baltimore, where he
published it two years longer, and discontinued it probably
for the want of patronage. Mr. Coleman then removed to
Philadelphia and became reporter for the Daily Register, but
subsequently connected himself with the Public Ledger, of
which he has been city editor for a number of years.

Henry Vanderford purchased The Cecil Democrat and
Farmers' Journal from Mr. Coleman in 1848, and published
it under that name until June 1st, 1850, when the Farmers
Journal was dropped from the title, and the paper has ever
since been published under the name of The Cecil Democrat.

In 1865 Mr. Vanderford disposed of the paper to Messrs.
Constable & Stump.

Mr. Vanderford, who is a practical printer and a man of
fine literal ability, had been connected with several jour-
nals before he came to Elkton ; he afterwards established the
Middletown Transcript, and- subsequently purchased the
Democratic Advocate at Westminster, Maryland, now owned
and edited by his sons.

Messrs. Constable & Stump continued to publish The
Democrat until September, 1865, when Mr. Constable sold
his interest to George W. Cruikshank, the present proprietor,
and the paper was published by Cruikshank & Co., until
October of that year, when Mr. Stump sold his interest to
John T. McCrery, and the name of the firm was changed to
Cruikshank & McCrery. Mr. Cruikshank purchased Mr.
McCrery's interest in June, 1866, and continued to publish
the paper until February, 1873, when Dr. R. C. Mackall

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 471

purchased a half interest in it, which he retained until Jan-
uary 1st, 1876, since which it has been published by its
present proprietor.

During the campaign of 1855, when Know-nothingism
was rampant in the State of Maryland, the late Charles H.
Haines and William J. Jones published a small campaign
paper, called the Union Reformer, which was printed at the
office of The Whig. It was devoted to the interest of the
Know-nothing party, and was published anonymously for a
time, owing to which the postmaster refused to transmit it
through the mails ; but this difficulty was soon obviated by
placing the name of the imaginary firm of Smith & Co. at the
head of its columns. After The Whig became fully committed
to the Know-nothing party, the Union Reformer was discon-
tinued.

Early in the fall of 1856 John B. Rowan commenced the
publication of a small weekly campaign paper, called the
Jackson Picket Guard. It was devoted to the interest of the
Democratic party, and advocated the election of James
Buchanan to the presidency. It was edited with consider-
able ability, and was printed at the office of The Cecil
Democrat.

After the death of Mr. Ricketts, the Cecil Whig passed into
the editorial management of James S. Crawford, who edited
it for a period of eleven months, prior to April, 1861, when
it was purchased by Edwin E. Ewing, who in 1876 disposed
of it to its present owner, Henry R. Torbert, Esq. The
Chesapeake Chesapike, or the fighting fish of the Chesapeake
Bay, was founded in Chesapeake city, in 1876, by Harry
Moss who came to the Centennial International Exhibition as
correspondent of the Vicksbury Herald. It was purchased
by Dr. D. H. B. Brower, in the winter of 1878. Dr. Brower
changed its name to the Chesapeake Record and continued
to publish it until December, 1879, when he removed to
North East and started the North East Record, which is now
published in that town by his son William G. Brower. The

472 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

Rising Sun Journal was founded by W. H. Pennington
& Bro., in 1879. It is a lively little sheet and gives
evidence of attaining a good old age.

The latest journalistic venture in this county, is the Cecil
County News, which was started in Elkton in September,
1880, by Dr. James H. Frazer, and which though yet in its
infancy gives promise of a vigorous manhood.

The fisheries of this county have long been one of its
most important sources of wealth. There can be no doubt
that the Indian tribes that Captain Smith found residing at
the head of the bay, when he explored it, were attracted there,
as their ancestors had no doubt been, from time immemo-
rial, by the large quantities of fish they found in the waters
of the bay and its tributaries, and the facilities that the
numerous branches of the streams emptying into it afforded
for the easy capture of the members of the finny tribe.

The reader will recollect that when the warlike Susque-
hannocks made the treaty with the English on Severn River,
in 1652, they reserved the country between the North East
and Susquehanna rivers. Their reason for doing so, was no
doubt, to secure the right of way to the rich fishing grounds
at the head of the bay, and along the northern side of the
Nort East River. In those days and until their passage was
prevented by the erection of mill-dams, the migratory fish
were accustomed to ascend the streams as far as they
found a sufficient depth of water to enable them to swim.

The seines used a century ago were made of hemp or flax
twine, which was spun on the old-fashioned spinning wheels
then in use. They were generally not more than twenty or
thirty yards long. Owing to the abundance of shad and
herring a century ago, the demand for them could easily be
supplied by seines of moderate length. Longer seines were
not used until early in the present century, when the in-
creased population and facilities for transportation produced
a greater demand for fish than could be supplied by the
short seines formerly in use.

HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY. 473

During the Revolutionary war efforts were made by the
provincial government, with what success has not been as-
certained, to supply the troops of the Maryland line with
smoked shad and herring, as part of their rations, which in-
dicates that the fishing business was one of importance at
that time.

The invention of the cotton-gin and the introduction of
improved machinery for spinning cotton in the early part of
the present century, gave a great impetus to the fishing
business, which reached the highest degree of success dur-
ing the decade between the years 1820 and 1830. During
this period, as well as before and afterwards, many of the
residents of Lancaster and Chester counties were in the
habit' of annually visiting the fisheries along the Susque-
hanna and North East rivers, during the fishing season,
to obtain their supply of fish which they took home and
salted away for use during the intervening time between one
fishing season and the next. The Dutch farmers of Lan-
caster County came in their large Conestoga wagons, many
of them for long distances, along miserable roads, through a
rough and hilly country. They brought their own provisions
and food for their teams with them and frequently would be
absent from home for a week. Most of them, and indeed
nearly everybody else who went to the " fishen," were in
the habit of imbibing more freely of ardent spirits than
was consistent with perfect sobriety. People who would
have scorned the thought of being drunk at any other time
or place, were in the habit of having a spree when they
went to the "fishen." The well-to-do Dutchmen were by
no means the only class that visited the fisheries. They
were also visited by the poorer classes, who hailed the
first run of herring with delight, and who, if they had no
better or swifter means of conveyance, would go in ox-carts
for long distances to share in the annual piscatory harvest.

The Charlestown fair, that was originally intended for a
more legitimate use, during the latter part of its existence,

474 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

was held about the close of the fishing season. Many of the
hands employed at the fisheries were hard cases, and they
resorted to this fair to have a spree and spend the money
they had earned during the fishing season. These annual
drunken routs probably did more than anything else to in-
jure the reputation of that long-established and historic
village, which was benefited, rather than injured, when the
annual fair was discontinued. In 1807, it was estimated
that sixteen thousand barrels of shad and herring were an-
nually cured and packed in the county, and that $18,000
worth were sold fresh. In 1819, two thousand seven hun-
dred barrels of herring were caught at a shore on North
East River in twenty-six days, by making one haul a day.
The proprietor of this shore then stopped fishing, having
filled all his barrels. A few years later, thirty-three thou-
sand shad were caught at one haul, at Bulls Mountain.
About 1820, three hundred hogsheads of herring were
caught at one haul at Spesutia Island. The sein used upon
that occasion was of great length, and about one hundred
men were employed at the fishery. So great was the quan-
tity of fish caught at that haul that it was impossible to land
them in the ordinary manner, and the fishermen were
obliged to buoy the cork-line of the sein by fastening it to
boats placed at a convenient distance from each other, and
land a part of the immense haul with scoop nets. Herring
sold that year as low as ten cents a hundred. As early as
1810, the supply of fish so far exceeded the demand for them
that many thousands of them annually went to loss, and
were left upon the shores of the Susquehanna River and the
head of the bay, where they became such an intolerable nui-
sance that the Legislature, in 1810, passed a law compelling
the proprietors of fisheries in the afore-named places to re-
move the fish and offal from the shores, within ten days
after the end of the season, under a penalt}^ of a fine of five
dollars; in case of failure to remove them, within five days
after being notified, a fine of twenty dollars was inflicted.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 475

Large quantities of fish were used in the early part of this
century for manuring the farms of those who lived near
enough to fisheries to apply them profitably, for, owing to
the expense of hauling them they could only be used with
profit near where they were caught. .

The next most important source of wealth in the county
are its mineral productions, which consist of chrome and
granite. The former is found in great abundance, in the
form of what is technically called sand chrome, along the
streams and low lands in that part of the county extend-
ing about a mile south of Mason and Dixons Line, and
from the Little Elk to the Octoraro. At what time this
valuable mineral was first discovered is not known, but it is
highly probable that its existence was known to John
Churchman, who owned much of the barren land upon
which it is found, near the Octoraro. Its value first began
to be developed about 1830, in which year, and subsequently,
Isaac Tyson, of Baltimore, leased many hundreds of acres
of the chrome lands and began to mine sand chrome exten-
sively. During the succeeding twenty years, many hun-
dred tons of chrome, most of which was obtained in this
county, were annually shipped from Port Deposit to Balti-
more. Owing to the insignificant royalty, per ton, paid by
Tyson and his successor, the Tyson Mining Company, the
mines, though a source of inexhaustible wealth to the
lessees, were of but trifling value to the owners.

Magnesia also abounds in the barrens along the Octoraro,
and in the eighth district, but it is not of sufficient impor-
tance to be mined successfully.

Large quantities of iron ore, as before stated, were for-
merly obtained near the iron works at Principio and North
East, and there is reason to believe, from examinations re-
cently made, that Red Hill, near Elkton, contains inex-
haustible deposits of ore of a superior quality, as do also
some of the hills in the upper part of Elk Neck. By ' the
census of 1880, the amount of capital invested in iron manu-
factories in this county, consisting of the blast furnace of

476 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

George P. Whitaker, on the Principio Creek, and the rolling-
mills and forges of the McCullough Iron Company at Row-
landville, North East, and Westamerell, was $550,000.

Next to iron, the manufacture of paper is the most impor-
tant industry in this county. The brothers, Samuel and
William Meeteer, were the first to introduce the manufac-
ture of paper into this county. They were the proprietors
of the Providence Paper-mill, on the Little Elk, in the early
part of the present century.

In 1816, the late Robert Carter purchased the site of the
Cecil Paper-mill, on the Little Elk, now owned by his son,
I. Day Carter, and soon after erected a paper-mill there. He
subsequently purchased the mill formerly owned by the
Cecil Manufacturing Company, and also carried on the
Marley or Ledger mill, at which the paper now used in the
office of the Philadelphia Ledger is made. Mr. Carter was
the first to introduce the improved method of manufactur-
ing paper by machinery, and did more than any other per-
son to develop this important branch of business in this
county.

By the census of 1880, the total amount of capital in-
vested in the manufacture of paper in this county is $200,-
000, which is divided among Charles H. Wells & Co., the
proprietors of the Cecil mill on the Octoraro ; the Ledger
mill ; the Providence mill, owned by William M. Singerly,
proprietor of the Philadelphia Record, and I. Day Carter,
proprietor of the Cecil paper-mill, on the Little Elk.

Granite of superior quality abounds in Ihe north-western
part of the county, particularly along the Susquehanna and
Octoraro. The granite quarries of Port Deposit were opened
in 1829 by the proprietors of the Maryland Canal, and have
been worked ever since, except during a few years of great
financial depression. In prosperous times they afford em-
ployment to several hundred persons, and have added much
to the prosperity and wealth of the town.

In the winter of 1850 an effort was made by a few of the
leading citizens of the county, amongst whom were Francis

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 477

A. Ellis, Hon. James McCauley, and the late Samuel S.
Maffit, afterwards comptroller of the State treasury, to in-
duce the legislature to establish a free-school system for the
county. With this end in view, a convention was called,
which met in Elkton in the winter of that year, and at an
adjourned meeting emdodied the views of the members in
a bill which was sent to the representatives of the county in
the Legislature then in session, with a request that the bill
should be enacted into a law. This request was granted,
and the bill passed, with this proviso : that the law should
be submitted to a vote of the people of the county in the
following May ; and if not sanctioned by a majority of them,
it was to be inoperative. A majority of the people voted
against the law, and the old system of private or subscrip-
tion schools, which had been in use from time immemorial,
continued until 1859, when the first free-school system for
the county was put in operation. This system was subse-
quently modified, and finally superseded by the free-school
system of the State, in 1872.

Inasmuch as many of the younger part of the commu-
nity know nothing of the system of education that pre-
vailed when their grandparents were school children, it is
proper to state, that in those days, when the people of a
neighborhood needed a school-house, they held a meeting
and raised the means to build it by voluntary contributions,
many of which consisted of building materials and labor.
The house was placed under the control of trustees, elected
by the contributors, who were invested with power to em-
ploy teachers ; prescribe the studies to be persued by the
pupils ; and to supervise the teachers and schools. Many
of the teachers were Irishmen, and though generally well
educated and fully competent, not a few of them were ad-
dicted to periodical sprees, during the continuance of which,
for days at a time, the pupils enjoyed a holiday. The
school-houses were generally small and uncomfortable, be-
ing poorly ventilated in summer, and more poorly warmed

478 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

in winter. Provision was made by the State for the educa-
tion of children whose parents were too poor to pay the
teachers for their tuition, the charges for which, varied from
one dollar and fifty cents to two dollars and fifty cents per
scholar, per quarter of seventy-two days. Sometimes the
patrons of the schools agreed to board the teacher, in such
cases he moved around among them, from house to house,
spending a few days with each family. The text books in
use, during most of the time the subscription schools were
in existence, were very different from those now used in the
public schools, and required much hard study in order to
be understood, but owing to this when their contents were
once mastered they were never forgotten. Notwithstanding
all these disadvantages, it is questionable whether the old
system was not productive of more good than the one now
in use. The teachers of the olden times were rigid disci-
plinarians, and enforced their commands with commenda-
ble promptness, and inflexible justice ; hesitating not in
some few cases to chastise the parents as well as the child-
ren, when the former dared to infringe upon their preroga-
tives. The branches usually taught under the old system
were few, notwithstanding which their paucity of number,
was fully compensated by the thoroughness with which they
were required to be mastered.

The strictest attention was given to the morals and de-
meanor of the pupils, in consequence of which, the virtues
of patience, perseverance, and obedience, were highly de-
veloped. The word " teacher " was not used in connection
with schools ; and " school-master " had a meaning that the
Young America of the present has never realized.

At this time there are seventy-six white and thirteen
colored schools in the county. The value of school property,
including school-houses and furniture owned by the school
commisioners, is $63,000, about $50,000 of which has been
accumulated since 1868, besides which several houses used
for school purposes are rented by the school commissioners.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

479

Owing to the fact that no pains were taken to preserve
the returns of the assessors previous to the Revolutionary
war, it is impossible even to approximate the number of in-
habitants in the county for many years previous to that
time; but by a census taken in 1712, it was as follows:

Masters and taxable men 5°4

„,, ., 4o5

White women

<fidren ;:;::::: 285

JNegroes

Total 3>097

The following abstract of a return made (probably to the
intendant of the revenue) agreeably to au Act of Assembly,
passed in 1785, in reference to the valuation of personal
property, is valuable as showing the number and valuation
of slaves in the county in that year :

Number. Value.

^rvrrfrom8to14 = si i&sss

Males from 14 to 45 nn nKn nn nn

Females from 14 to 36 490 2 ,050 00 00

Males and females under 8 years 907 6,490 00 00

Malesabove45; females above 36 458 6,796 00 00

Number of ounces of silver plate 4,151* 1,W» la iu

Value of other property __2_____-

£150,707 5 3

It will be seen from the above statement that the value of
the slaves exceeded the value of all the other personal prop-
erty in the county by upwards of £14,000.
The following table shows the population at each decade
from 1790 to 1880.

Year. White.

1790 10>°55

1800 6,542

1810 9.652

1820 II.923

1830 H,478

1840 13,329

1850 15,472

1860 19,994

1870 21,860

1880 22,642

3 Colored.

Slave.

Total.

163

3,407

13,625

373

2,103

9,018

947

2,467

13,056

1,783

2,342

16,048

2,249

1,705

15,432

2,551

1,352

17,232

2,623

844

18,939

2,918

950

23,862

4,014

25,874

4,466

27,108

CHAPTER XXVIII.

The Hall family — The Evans family — Dr. Amos A. Evans — The
Mitchell family — Colonel George E. Mitchell — The Rumsey family — The
Manldin family — The Gilpin family — The Rudulph family — The Leslie
family — The Hyland family — The Churchman family — The Defoe family
— The Hartshorne family — Colonel Nathaniel Ramsay

THE HALL FAMILY.

The early history of this family, like that of man}' others,
is involved in obscurity. There is reason, however, to be-
lieve that Richard Hall, from whom the- distinguished
family of thatname in this county have descended, patented
a large tract of land called " Mount Welcome," on the east
side of the Susquehanna River, about a mile above the
mouth of the Octoraro, in 1640. He is believed to have
been a son of Bishop Joseph Hall, of England. The earliest
authentic record extant shows that Elisha Hall and Sarah
Winfell (or Wingfield) were married September 16th, 1688.
This Elisha Hall was the son of the Richard before men-
tioned. Sarah Wingfield is believed to have been a grand-
daughter or niece of the Mr. Wingfield who was President
of the Council of Virginia very early in the history of that
colony.

The tract of land called " Mount Welcome " probably ex-
tended from the Susquehanna to the Octoraro ; for at the
time of the Revolutionary war the plantation now owned
by P. S. P. Conner, Esq., was in possession of Colonel Elihu
Hall, who entertained General Lafayette at his mansion,
which then occupied the site of the one now used by Mr.
Conner. Part of the original dwelling-house, which was
built of brick brought from England and landed from scows
at the mouth of Octoraro, is now (1881) standing. It is on

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 481

an elevation near the Susquehanna, and was a famous man-
sion in the palmy days of the family, and was of such im-
portance as to be located on a map of Pennsylvania, made a
few years after the location of Mason and Dixons line,
though it is more than three miles south of it.

But little is known of the history of Richard Hall and
Elizabeth (Wingfield) Hall, except that they were the par-
ents of one son, Elisha, who was born in 1663. He married
and was the father of three children, as follows : Richard,
born 1690 ; Elihew, born 1692 ; and Sarah, born 1694. No
information concerning Richard and Sarah has been ob-
tained. Elihew was the father of four children: Elihu,
Elisha, Sarah, and Elizabeth. He probably died in 1753,
at least his will was proved in that year. He devised his
mill, which he built on twenty acres of land condemned
for that purpose at the mouth of Beason's Run or Bastard
Creek (now called Basin Run) in Rowlandville, to his son
Elihu ; his lands on the Susquehanna River to his son
Elisha ; and to his daughter Sarah, who had married a Mr.
Bay, and then resided in South Carolina, a lot of negroe
slaves and other personal property.

His son Elisha was a doctor of medicine. He subse-
quently removed to Virginia and married a daughter of
Charles Carter, of that State.

Elihu Hall Bay, a descendant of Sarah Bay, became a
judge of some distinction in South Carolina. Nothing is
known of his daughter Elizabeth, but inasmuch as her
name is not mentioned in her father's will, it is probable
that she died before it was made.

Elihu, the second person of that name, and the great-
grandson of Richard, the founder of the family, married
Catharine Orrick, of Baltimore County, June 16th, 1757.
They were the parents of thirteen children as follows :
Elihu, John, James, Elisha, Susanna, Charles, Samuel Chew,
George Whitefield, Elizabeth, Henry, Catharine Orrick,
Washington, and Julia Reed, all of whom were born between

482 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

1758 and 1778. Elihu Hall, the father of this numer-
ous family, was one of the most conspicuous patriots of this
country during the Revolutionary war, and was appointed
second major of the Susquehanna Battalion of Maryland
militia, by the provincial government of his native State, on
the 6th of June, 1776. The same year he' named his son in
honor of General Washington. Such was the prominence and
popularity of the man, that this bold and patriotic action,
was highly commended by the editor of one of the leading
Philadelphia newspapers of that time. He probably died
in 1791, as his will was proved in that year.

It is not within the scope of this work to give the history
of all the descendants of this illustrious man ; but the
family of his son John has occupied such a prominent place
in the politics and literature of the country, that it demands
something more than a passing notice. In 1782, John Hall
married Sarah Ewing, a daughter of Rev. John Ewing, a
member of the Ewing family of this country, which settled
on the banks of the romantic Octoraro, early in the last
century. Mr. Ewing was a native of this county, and re-
ceived his education at New London Academy, then in
charge of Rev. Francis Allison, and became one of the most
eminent scholars and Presbyterian divines of his time.

After their marriage. Mr. and Mrs. Hall spent many years
at the family homestead, which he inherited from his father,
on the banks of the Octoraro. While residing there in 1806,
she wrote a " Sketch of a Landscape," which so well describes
the beauties of that romantic section of country, that we
make the following extract :

" The wide extended landscape glows with more
Than common beauty. Hills rise on hills —
An amphitheatre, whose lofty top,
The spreading oak, or stately poplar crowns —
Whose ever-varying sides present such scenes
Smooth or precipitous — harmonious still —
Mild or sublime, — as wake the poet's lay ;
Nor aught is wanting to delight the sense ;

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 483

The gifts of Ceres, or Diana's shades.

The eye enraptur'd roves o'er woods and dells,

Or dwells complacent on the numerous signs

Of cultivated life. The laborer's decent cot,

Marks the clear spring, or bubbling rill.

The lowlier hut hard by the river's edge,

The boat, the seine suspended, tell the place

Where in his season hardy fishers toil.

More elevated on the grassy slope,

The farmer's mansion rises mid his trees ;

Thence, o'er his fields the master's watchful eye

Surveys the whole. He sees his flocks, his herds

Excluded from the grain-built cone ; all else,

While rigid winter reigns, their free domain !

Range through the pastures, crop the tender root,

Or climbing heights abrupt, search careful out,

The welcome herb, now prematurely sprung

Through half-thawed earth. Beside him spreading elms

His friendly barrier from th' invading north,

Contrast their shields defensive with the willow

Whose flexile drapery sweeps his rustic lawn.

Before him lie his vegetable stores,

His garden, orchards, meadows — all his hopes —

Now bound in icy chains : but ripening suns

Shall bring their treasures to his plenteous board.

Soon too, the hum of busy man shall wake

Th' adjacent shores. The baited hook, the net

Drawn skilful round the wat'ry cove, shall bring

Their prize delicious to the rural feast."

Mrs. Hall was one of the most gifted, accomplished, and
versatile writers of her day, and seems to have inherited
and transmitted to her children much of the genius and
intellectuality of her distinguished father. Her book, enti-
tled " Conversations on the Bible," was so popular as to
astonish the author by the rapidity of its sale.

John and Sarah (Ewing) Hall were the parents of eleven
children, four of whom were distinguished for great literary
ability. Their son, Harrison Hall, was the author of a work
on distillation, and for many years the proprietor and pub-
lisher of the Portfolio, a periodical of much celebrity in
Philadelphia, where it was published, and elsewhere.

484 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

Another son, James Hall, studied law early in life, and
afterwards distinguished himself in the battle of Lundy's
Lane and other battles on the Canadian frontier, in the war
of 1812. He subsequently removed to Illinois, and settled
at Shawanese town, became judge of the circuit court, and
was State treasurer tor four years. He was a voluminous
writer, and the author of eleven works on the western
country.

John E. Hall was admitted to the bar in Baltimore in
1805. He was a distinguished author, and for a time was
editor of the Portfolio.

Still another son, Thomas Mifflin Hall, was an author of
no mean ability, and published a number of poetical and
scientific contributions in the Portfolio. He studied medi-
cine, and while on his way to embark in the service of one
of the South American States, was lost at sea.

Henry Hall, the tenth child of Elihu Hall and Catharine
Orrick Hall, was a physician, and married Hester Maclay,
daughter of Hon. William Maclay, of Harrisburg, Penn-
sylvania. Mr. Maclay and Robert Morris were the first
United States Senators from Pennsylvania. William Maclay
Hall, son of Henry just mentioned, was a Presbyterian min-
ister. He died at Bedford, Pennsylvania, in 1851. Hon.
William M. Hall, son of William Maclay Hall, is president
judge of the sixteenth Judicial District of Pennsylvania,
composed of the counties of Bedford and Somerset, and re-
sides at Bedford, Pennsylvania. His brother, Hon. Lewis
W. Hall, resided at Altoona, Pensylvania, and represented
that district for two terms in the Pennsylvania State Senate,
during and after the war. He was twice elected speaker.
He now resides at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

A portion of the family homestead is now in the posses-
sion of Richard Hall, the son of Washington Hall, and the
great-great-great-grandson of the Richard Hall who settled
on Mount Welcome in 1640. His brother Charles resides
in Harford County, Maryland. Another branch of the

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 485

family, which are the descendants of Charles, the son of the
second Elihu, reside in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania.

THE EVANS FAMILY.
This family is one of the most numerous in the county
and for more than a century has been one of the most dis-
tinguished; many of its members having filled important
public positions, while others have been successful manu-
facturers and farmers.

There is reason to believe that most of the name in this
countv are the descendants of three brothers, John, James,
and Robert Evans, who settled here about a century and a
half ago, and are believed to have been the sons of John
Evans, who was probably born about the year 1680. -

In 1739, James Evans bought four hundred acres of land
in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, which he continued to
hold, and probably resided on it until 1752, when he sold it
to his brother, John Evans, the great-grandfather of Wil-
liam James, and John P. Evans, and Catharine P., wife of

W. W. Black. T v ii a

James and Robert Evans married sis ters Isab ella and
Margaret, daughters of John Kilpatnck of West Notting-
ham who made them the executors of his will, and as such
they, in 1773, sold his plantation, about two miles west of
he Rising Sun, on the road leading to Porter's Bridge to
their brother John Evans, who had settled many years be-
fore at Drumore Centre, Lancaster County Pennsylvania,
and whose son James, before-mentioned, settled on the afore-

SalJohanEvans, the eldest of the three brothers, served in the
French and Indian war as a volunteer from faster
Countv He married a Miss Denny and was the father ot
eight children. His eldest child, James, who was born in
1749, married (first) Susan Allison. They were the parents
of three children, John, Robert, and Martha. John emi-
grated to Erie, Pennsylvania, where he raised a large fam-
ily. He served as a volunteer in the war of 1812.

486 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

Robert, the father of Judge James M. Evans, spent his
life in this county and was for many years a justice of the
peace. Martha died young. James, above-mentioned,
married (secondly) Catharine Porter. They were the par-
ents of four children, Andrew, James, Sarah, and William.
William died young ; Andrew was drowned in the Susque-
hanna at the Conowingo bridge, when it was building, in
1817 ; Sarah married the late William Patten, and is now
living in the ninety-third year of her age. James Evans
married (thirdly) Martha Gillespie, by whom he had no
children. He died in 1817.

James, the second of the three brothers, shortly after the
sale of his property in Lancaster County, in 1752, purchased
" Evans' Choice," situate about two miles southwest of
West Nottingham Presbyterian church, and came there to
reside. He was the father of Robert Evans, who resided
near Port Deposit.

Robert Evans marked, first, his cousin Margaret Evans.
They were the parents of Margaret, who never married, and
Ellen Oldham, the wife of Cyrus Oldham. He married,
secondly, Mrs. Isabella Alexander, whose maiden name was
Creigh, by whom he had James, who never married ; Jane,
who married Abraham D. Mitchell, of Fair Hill ; Mary, who
married William Hollingsworth, of Elkton ; Sophia, who
married Dr. Henry B. Broughton, who practiced medicine
near Port Deposit for many years ; and Robert and John,
twin brothers, the latter of whom practiced medicine many
years in Havre de Grace, and in the latter part of his life,
near Port Deposit.

Robert Evans, the youngest of the three brothers before-
mentioned, settled on the Big Elk, west of Cowantown,
where Parke, Smith & Co.'s rolling-mill formerly stood,
upon three hundred acres of land, which he purchased in
1730. He was a tanner, and had a tan-yard on the west
side of the creek, the site of which was covered b}r the water
of the rolling-mill dam, He seems to have been very sue-

HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY. 487

cessful in business, for he became the owner of large quan-
tities of land at the Head of Elk, in New Munster and else-
where. He married Margaret, a daughter of John Kilpat-
rick, as has been stated, and died in 1775, leaving two sons,
Robert and John Evans, and six daughters, Jean Evans,
who afterwards married Henry Hollingsworth, of Elkton ;
Hannah, who married Rev. James Finley, pastor of the Rock
church ; Mary, who married Zebulon Hollingsworth, of Elk
Landing; Isabella, who married William Montgomery .; Mar-
garet, who married James Black, the grandfather of Mrs.
John C. Groome ; and Elanor, who married Amos Alexan-
der, of the Alexander family of New Munster.

John and Robert Evans inherited the tan-yard on the
Big Elk. Robert was commissioned lieutenant in a military
company early in the Revolutionary war, but was thrown
from his horse and killed while riding home from Cowan-
town before he entered the army. John, the surviving
brother, continued to reside upon the family homestead on
the banks of the Big Elk, where he engaged in the manu-
facture of bar iron and nails, and subsequently in rolling
copper. He and the celebrated Paul Revere, the hero of
Longfellow's " Midnight Ride," are believed to have been
the only rollers of copper in the United States at that time,
and all the vessels of the American navy are said to have
been coppered with material of their manufacture. Revere's
mills were about seventeen miles from Boston, and it may
be mentioned as an interesting historical fact, that Dr.
Amos A. Evans, the son of the proprietor of the copper-mill
on the Elk, with the consent of the firm of Revere & Co.
and at the instance of his father visited the works of Revere
for the purpose of observing his method of working copper,
and while there made sketches of the works.

John Evans married Mary Alexander, one of the Alex-
ander family of New Munster. They were the parents of
Amos Alexander Evans, who will shortly be noticed at
length • Sarah, who married Robert Gallajier j Robert, who

488 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

married, and with his family removed to Iowa; John, who
was one of the " glorious nineteen ;"* Jane, who never mar-
ried, and died early in life; Levi Hollingsworth, who was
State Senator and Judge of the Orphan's Court of this
county ; George, who went to Mexico and died in the city of
Matamoras ; and William and Mark, both of whom died
young.

AMOS ALEXANDER EVANS,
the oldest son of John Evans and Mary Alexander, was
born November 26th, 1785, at the residence of his parents
on the banks of the Big Elk, about five miles north of
Elkton. When a boy he was sent to the Academy at Newark,
Delaware, then a very noted school, where his dilligence
and good conduct enabled him to acquire as good an educa-
tion both in the English branches and in the classics as
that school was capable of giving. In March, 1804, when
in the nineteenth year of his age, he commenced the study
of medicine with Dr. George E. Mitchell, who was then
practicing his profession in Elkton, with whom he continued
to study for three years ; he also attended the lectures of the
celebrated Dr. Rush (a signer of the Declaration of Inde-
pendence), and the lectures of the other professors at the
University of Pennsylvania, where his attention to study
and his dilligence were such, that he took, in manuscript,
three considerable volumes of notes of Dr. Rush's lectures
which are still preserved. He showed the like zeal, industry

* Previous to 1836, the senators of Maryland -were elected by an elec-
toral college, composed of forty electors ; each county electing two and
Baltimore City and the city of Annapolis, one each. The constitution
provided that not less than twenty-four members of the college should
constitute a quorum. At the election in 1836, the Whigs elected twenty-
one and the Democrats nineteen members of the college. The latter re-
fused to go into an election until they had a guarantee from the Whigs,
that certain amendments to the constitution should be made, allowing the
people to elect the governor and senators by a direct vote. The Demo-
cratic members have since been known as the " glorious nineteen."

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

489

and dilligence, in taking a volume of manuscript notes of the
lectures of the learned Dr. Jackson, of Boston, which have
likewise been preserved.

Having been fully endorsed by his learned preceptors
whom he had assisted in his practice for some time, and
having been licensed to practice his profession by the medi-
cal and chirurgical faculty of his native State, and having
also passed a creditable and satisfactory examination by the
board of medical officers, and having been appointed sur-
geon's mate to the 49th Regiment of Maryland militia in 1807,
he was appointed, by President Jefferson, an assistant sur-
geon in the U. S. Navy, on the 1st of September, 1808. On
the 25th of the following October, he sailed from Baltimore
for New Orleans, in the brig Adherbal. He remained in
Louisiana at Bay St. Louis and New Orleans ; Natchetz, Miss.;
St. Maries, in Georgia, and other places where duty called
him until some time in the year 1811, having in the mean-
time, on the 20th of April, 1810, been commissioned as sur-
geon, when he returned home but was unfortunately ship-
wrecked during the voyage upon the coast of North Carolina.
During all the time of his sojourn in the southern coun-
try, though the yellow fever was raging, he entirely escaped
any attack, which he principally attributed to going into
the sunshine only when covered by an umbrella, avoiding
the night air as much as duty would permit, and to tem-
perate habits.

After Dr. Evans returned from Louisiana, he was ordered
to, and joined the frigate Constitution, then at Washington
city, and sailed from that place on a cruise, on the 11th of
June, 1812. From the 16th to the 19th the famous chase of
the Constitution by the British fleet took place, of which the
journal kept by Dr. Evans gives a graphic account. He
concludes in the following manner: "thus terminates a dis-
agreeable chase of nearly three days attended with inexpres-
sible anxiety, and alternate elevation and depression of
spirits, as the winds were propitious or otherwise ; we had

490 HISTOKY OF CECIL COUNTY.

many times given over all expectation of making our escape,
and had it not been for uncommon exertion we must inevi-
tably Lave fallen a prey to the superiority of our enemy."

The Constitution after the chase stood into Boston harbor,
and again went to sea, and on Wednesday the 19th of Au-
gust, 1812, came into action with His Britannic Majesty's ship,
the Guerriere. The Constitution fired her first gun at fifteen
minutes past five, P. M., and came into close action at six
o'clock,and the Guerriere struck her colors twenty-five minutes
afterwards. From the firing of the first gun to the termi-
nation of the action was an hour and ten minutes. The
Constitution had been on fire a few days before and in ex-
tinguishing the flames, Dr. Evans had badly injured his
right hand ; notwithstanding this he was assiduous in atten-
tion to the wounded of the enemy as well as our own men, and
kept his daily journal as usual, writing with his left hand.
Owing to the fact that the Guerriere was so badly injured
that it was with difficulty she could be kept afloat, and
because the ocean was then swarming with British cruisers,
it was determined to destroy her, and about three or four
o'clock on the morning after the action, she was set on fire.
Dr. Evans gives the following account of the matter:
" Having got all the men from the Guerriere, we set her on
fire and before the officer had time to get on board our ship
with the boat, she blew up, presenting a sight, the most in-
comparably grand and magnificient I have ever experienced.
No painter, no poet or historian, could give on canvass or
paper, any description that could do justice to the scene."

Captain Hull resigned the command of the Constitution
to Captain Bainbridge, not without trouble on the part of
the crew, who were strongly attached to him, and on Tues-
day, the 27th of October, 1812, the ship stood to sea, Dr.
Evans being her surgeon, and on December 29th, on the
coast of Brazil captured His Britannic Majesty's ship, the Java,
Captain Lambert, who was killed in action. In this action
Commodore Bainbridge was wounded by a piece of copper

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 491

from the copper railing around the after hatchway, which
lacerated the muscles of his thigh in a terrible manner, not-
withstanding which he refused to leave the deck or have
his wounds dressed until long after the close of the action.
Dr. Evans was assiduous in his attention to him, and thus
began an intimacy between these distinguished men that
only terminated with the life of the Commodore, as is shown
by the following letter selected from many similar ones in
the possession of the family of Dr. Evans:

" My Dear Sir :

" Enclosed are several letters from me which I hope
will procure you the station you desire, and also pleasure
from my friends. I beg of you to deliver the letters. Al-
though we part at present I still hope we shall meet on ser-
vice at some future day ; at all events, I pray you to be as-
sured of one truth — that in me you have a warm and affec-
tionate friend, and at all times I sincerely hope you will
consider me as such ; recollect the promise 1 made to you.
At any time when you require the fulfilment of it, com-
mand it without reserve. May you be as happy as I sin-
cerely wish you. In great haste but sincerely yours,

"William Bainbridge.
" Dr. Evans,

" Surgeon U. S. Navy, 25th March, 1813."

For his services Dr. Evans was by vote of Congress pre-
sented with two valuable silver medals, one for the Guer-
riere and the other for the Java. Only twenty-six medals
have ever been given by vote of Congress, and they have
attained at this day a high value as works of art. The
medals presented to Dr. Evans are about two and a half
inches in diameter, and contain on the obverse, the one a
handsome bust of Commodore Hull; the other a bust of
Commodore Bainbridge. And on the reverse, highly artistic
representations of the vessels engaged in action. The one
in commemoration of the capture of the Guerriere was ac-
companied by a letter from the Secretary of the Navy, of
which the following is a copy ;

492 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

" Navy Department, February 10th, 1820.
" Sir : — In compliance with a resolution of the Congress
of the United States, the President directs me to present to
you a silver medal in testimony of the high sense enter-
tained by Congress of your gallantry, good conduct, and ser-
vices in the conflict with the British Frigate Guerriere. I
have the

" Honor to be very
respectfully your
obt. servt,

"Smith Thompson.
"Dk. Amos A. Evans,

" Surgeon U. States Navy, Elkton, Md."

The following is a copy of the inscription on the reverse
of this Medal :

HORAE MOMENTO

VICTORIA

INTER CONST. NAV. AMER. ETGUER. ANGL.

The obverse contains the following inscription :

PERITOS. ARTE. SUPERAT JUL. MDCCCXII AUG.
CERTAMINE FORTES ISSC U. S. HULL.

The inscription on the obverse of the other medal is as
follows :

GULIELMUS BAINBRIDGE PATRIA
VICTISQUE LAUDATUS.

On the reverse,

PUGNANDO INTER CONST. NAV. AMERI.

ET JAV. NAV. ANGL.

DIE XXIX DECEM. MDCCCXII.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 493

In May, 1813, while on a visit to his relatives in the
vicinity of Elkton, Dr. Evans served as a volunteer for a
short time in the fort at Frenchtown. For some reason the
militia that were stationed at that place were removed the
evening before the arrival of the British to Fort Hollings-
worth, at Elk Landing; whereupon the doctor repaired to
the residence of his father, on the Big Elk, where he spent
the night ; hearing the firing the next morning, he mounted
his horse and rode to Fort Hollingsworth, and in company
with the late H. D. Miller, and two or three others procured
a boat and rowed down the river to Frenchtown, being the
first to arrive there after the British had embarked on their
barges, which were still lying in the river not far from the
ruins of the town. It was upon this occasion that the Brit-
ish fired one of their swivel guns at them while they were
standing in the road near the ruins of the town. The ball
struck the ground near them and scattered the gravel all
over their persons.

After the close of the war, Dr. Evans was stationed at
Charlestown Navy Yard, and having ample leisure availed
himself of the opportunity to attend the medical lectures at
Harvard University, where he graduated with much dis-
tinction, on the 30th of August, 1814.

But war having been declared against the Barbary States
on the northern coast of Africa on account of their un-
provoked and piratical attacks upon our commerce, Dr.
Evans, on the 2d of July, 1815, sailed with commodore
Bainbridge in the Independence, seventy-four, as fleet sur-
geon in the war against the Algerines. He was the first of
this rank in the navy, and the Independence, seventy-four,
the first ship of the line.

While crusing in the Mediterranean during the war with
the Barbary States, Dr. Evans had an opportunity of visiting
many of the old historic cities along the shores of that sea,
and his journal is replete with beautiful and classic descrip-
tions of many of the places he visited, which shows that he

494 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

was not insensible to the charms of nature nor forgetful of
the heroes of antiquity.

On his return from the war with the Barbary States, Dr.
Evans was again stationed at the Charlestown Navy Yard,
and while there made the acquaintance of Miss Mary Oliver,
of Boston, a beautiful and highly cultivated and educated
lady, whom he married on the 28th of March, 1816. Some-
time after his marriage he applied to be relieved from duty
at the Charlestown Navy Yard and proceeded to Elkton, on
leave, where he entered upon the practice of his profession,
in which he continued until the time of his death.

Though asked to accept the position of Governor of the
State and frequently pressed to accept other honorable po-
sitions, he firmly declined all political preferment and honor,
choosing rather to minister to the wants and alleviate the
sufferings of his numerous patients, who loved and revered
him both as a physician and a friend.

About the year 1823, he was ordered to the charge of the
Philadelphia Navy Yard, which he declined, unless the
Navy Department would promise a permanent position at
that place. This not being in its power, Dr. Harris was
appointed, and from his private practice accumulated an
ample fortune. In 1824, he resigned his position in the
navy, against the earnest remonstrance of the secretary and
the department.

During nis term of service the pay of a surgeon was trivial
in comparison with what it has since become, being (as is
thought) only about nine hundred dollars a year when he
was fleet surgeon.

He died on the 15th of January, 1848, beloved and re-
gretted by the whole community, which showed their sorrow
for his loss and their respect for his memory b}r voluntarily
closing every place of business in the town upon the occa-
sion of his funeral.

Mrs. Evans survived her husband many years, and died
in Baltimore, on the 4th of January, 1881. Their children

HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY. 495

were Alexander Evans, Andrew W. Evans, (now of the
United States Army), and Mary Evans, who was married to
the late James W. Clayton, all three of whom are still living.

THE MITCHELL FAMILY.

The Mitchells, of Cecil County, are of Scotch-Irish extrac-
tion, and are the descendants of Dr. Abraham Mitchell, a cele-
brated physician and native of Lancaster County, Pennsylva-
nia, who settled at or near the Head of Elk, as Elkton was then
called, some time previous to 1767, at which time he was
practicing his profession near that place. But little is known
of his early history, except that he was a cousin of the Rev.
Alexander Mitchell, a distinguished Presbyterian minister
who for many years near the close of the last and in the early
part of the present century, was pastor of the Doe Run and
Upper Octoraro churches, in Chester County.

Dr. Mitchell was about twenty-five years of age when he
came to this county ; and there is a tradition in the family,
that having completed his medical studies, his father pre-
sented him with a horse, saddle and saddle-bags, and five
hundred dollars in cash, when he started out to seek a favor-
able location to practice his profession. He soon lost the
money in his possession by going security for a friend, but
being of robust constitution and possessed of great energy,
nothing daunted, set himself to work manfully to repair the
loss.

In 1769 he leased a lot in Elkton, and subsequently
erected thereon the dwelling-house on Main street, now
owned and occupied by James T. McCullough, Esq., who,
in 1845, married his granddaughter, Catharine W. Mitchell.
Elkton was an insignificant village at that time, and prob-
ably did not contain more than five or six good houses,
among which were those now occupied by Dr. R. H. Tull ;
the old post-office building, which was built in 1768 ; and
the houses now occupied by John Partridge, Esq., Hon.
Alexander Evans, and Colonel George R. Howard. It is

496 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

worthy of remark in this connection, as showing the insig-
nificance of the place, that the lot before-mentioned is
described as being near Glover's Hill, which is the hill west
of Little Elk Creek, now owned by Alfred Wetherell.

Dr. Abraham Mitchell seems to have been fond of agri-
cultural pursuits, a trait that has been inherited b}r most
of his descendants, for he subsequently leased a large quan-
tity of land near the mouth of Mill Creek, which empties
into the Little Elk near Glover's Hill, and in 1779 pur-
chased a hundred acres, part of New Castle back landing,
which was situate on the Elk River, next above French-
town.

Dr. Mitchell was one of the most distinguished physicians
of his time, which is shown by the fact that his practice ex
tended over the greater part of Cecil and embraced part of
Harford and New Castle counties. He was a true patriot,
and showed his devotion to the cause of his country during
the Revolutionary war by converting his house into a hos-
pital for the use of the wounded soldiers of the Continental
army, many of whom availed themselves of his kindness
and professional skill.

On the 19th of November, 1772, he married Mary Thomp-
son, daughter of Dr. Ephraim Thompson, who was the son
of Richard, who was the son of Richard, who was the son
of the John Thompson who married Judith Hermen, the
second daughter of Augustine Hermen, the founder of Bo-
hemia Manor.

In 1781 he purchased two hundred acres of land at Fair Hill,
and some time afterwards removed there, but subsequently re-
turned to Elkton, and for a time resided in the Mansion house,
on Main street, now occupied by Dr. R. F. Tull. He sub-
sequently returned to Fair Hill, and in the latter part of his
life became a member of the Rock church. He had previ-
ously, in 1777, been a liberal subscriber to the salary of the
Rev. Mr. Thompson, rector of North Elk parish.

He died at Fair Hill, September 30th, 1817, in the
eighty-fourth year of his age.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 497

Dr. Abraham Mitchell and wife were the parents of eight
children, two of whom died in infancy. Of his sons, George
Edward was born March 3d, 1781, and will be noticed at
length hereafter. Ephraim Thompson, born March 17th,1783,
was endowed by nature with considerably more talent than
generally falls to the lot of man. He studied law with
William Pincney,and practiced his profession in this county,
and died in the service of his country in the last war with
Great Britain, on Lake Erie, on board the transport Lady
Provost, en route from Detroit to Fort George. Abraham
David Mitchell, their third son, was born on the 1st of Decem-
ber, 1786. He married Jane Evans, daughter of Robert and
Margaret Evans.* They were the parents of nine children
as follows : Ephraim Thompson ; Robert: Abraham David ;
Alexander ; John Jay ; James Evans ; and Mary, the wife of
Judge James M. Evans; Jane Evans, wife of William T.
West, and Margaret, wife of Richard D. Hall. Abraham D.
Mitchell was a member of the company of light horsemen,
commanded by John R. Evans,f of this county, in the war of
1812, and participated in the defense of Baltimore. He was
one of the delegates that represented this . county in the
Legislature in 1814 and the two following years, and was
for many years a leading member of the Rock church and
one of the elders of that church at the time of his death
which occurred in 1841.

COLONEL GEORGE EDWARD MITCHELL.

George Edward Mitchell studied medicine under the
tuition of his father, and also attended the lectures at the

* See sketch of the Evans family.

f John R. Evans, was a son of Samuel Evans, who for many years re-
sided at Prospect Hill, now owned by H. D. Miller. He is believed to
have been related to the other Evans of this county, but the degree of
relationship between the families, if any exists, is not certainly known.
He was a man of some distinction, and assumed the name of Ricketts to
distinguish him from another John Evans. He was the father of John
W. Evans, of Newark, Delaware.

498 HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY.

medical department of the Pennsylvania University, by
which he was licensed to practice his profession, on the 5th
of June, 1805. For some years prior and subsequent to this
time he practiced his profession in partnership with his
father in Elkton, but in 1808 was elected one of the repre-
sentatives of this county in the General Assembly of the
State, and served in that capacity during the session of
1808-9, being a zealous supporter of President Jefferson's
administration. Having declined a re-election to the General
Assembly, he was elected a member of the Executive
Council, and took his seat in that body on the ' 27th of No-
vember, 1809 ; Edward Lloyd being at that time Governor
of the State. Mr. Mitchell's colleagues were Thomas W. Hall,
Levin Duvall, Reverdy Ghiselin and James Butcher.

In January, 1809, he was offered the position of captain
of light dragoons in the regular army, which he declined,
and continued to serve in the council, of which he had been
made president, until the spring of 1812, when it became
apparent that war would soon be declared against Great
Britain, he resigned, and on May 1st was appointed major
of the third artillery, in the regular army. Soon after his
resignation, he raised a company of volunteers in this
county and entered into active service.

The summer and fall of 1812 he spent in camp at Albany,
New York, assisting Colonel Macomb in disciplining his
regiment, and marched with it, in November, to Sackett's
Harbor, on Lake Ontario. He had command of the regi-
ment after reaching Sackett's Harbor, and spent several
weeks of an intensely cold winter encamped amid the frost
and snow of the Canadian frontier. Huts were subsequently
erected, and the remainder of the winter was spent in
guarding the fleet on the lake and in making preparations
for the approaching campaign.

For his valuable services during the winter, General
Armstrong, Secretary of War, promoted him to the rank of
lieutenant-colonel on the 3d of March, 1813. In the spring

HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY. 499

of that year the campaign on the northern frontier was
opened by the capture of York, an important post in Upper
Canada. Colonel Mitchell was a volunteer in that brilliant
but unfortunate affair. After the British troops had been
beaten and completely routed, the diabolical plan of de-
stroying the American troops, which were advancing in
columns, by exploding their magazine, containing five
hundred barrels of gunpowder, was carried into effect, and
General Pike and three hundred gallant soldiers were killed
or badly wounded by the explosion. Colonel Mitchell, who
was much injured, assisted in reforming the shattered col-
umns. He was the first to raise and revive for the moment
the gallant and lamented Pike. His aides-de-camp being
killed or badly wounded, he gave Colonel Mitchell his last
orders for Colonel Pierce, the second in command of the
land forces, who immediately ordered Colonel Mitchell on
duty under him, and afterwards spoke in the warmest terms
of commendation of his conduct upon this occasion. Colonel
Mitchell was with General Dearborn at the capture of Fort
George, a strong fortification on the Canadian side of the
Niagara River, and aided much in the achievement of that
brilliant victory. A few days after the capture of Fort
George he was ordered to the command of Fort Niagara,
which important post he commanded during the summer
and fall of 1813. And on account of his bravery and good
generalship, was placed in command of the rear guard of
the second division of the Northern army while on its march,
under command of General Brown, from French Mills to
Sackett's Harbor, in February, 1814. His command con-
sisted of one thousand men, and was one of the most im-
portant in the army, on account of the pursuit and attacks
that were expected from the enemy. This duty, like all
others assigned him, was discharged in a manner highly
creditable to him and satisfactory to his countrymen.

In the April following while en route with his command
from Sackett's Harbor to Buffalo, having arrived at Batavia

500 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

he was ordered by General Brown, who had rode forty miles
during the night to meet him there, to take command at
Oswego, and important post at the mouth of Oswego River
and the key to a very important depot of naval stores,
twelve miles further up the river at Great Falls, which were
intended for the use of vessels recently launched, but not
yet finished at Sackett's Harbor.

When Colonel Mitchell had received his orders and with
his officers was taking leave of General Brown, the General
said to him, " Colonel, if you cannot save this property, our
fleet on Ontario will be rendered useless. It very probably
will be destroyed, and the whole force of the enemy will be
brought against us on the Niagara. But if you save this
property we will have a splendid campaign, and you will
deserve from me the thanks of your General and the army
and your country cannot sufficiently reward you." The
alacrity with which the gallant colonel and his no less gal-
lant soldiers engaged in this hazardous expedition is fully
attested by the fact that they marched at the rate of fifty
miles a day in order to reach Oswego before it should fall
into the hands of the enemy. Colonel Mitchell and his
command reached Oswego on the 30th of April, 1814. The
place was in a bad condition. There were but five cannons
in the fortifications, three of which having lost their trun-
nions were useless. The stockade around the ancient fort
which was composed of pickets set in the ground was en-
tirely decayed and useless. Notwithstanding these diffi-
culties, Colonel Mitchell with his accustomed alacrity and
promptness set about repairing the works and sent messen-
gers into the surrounding country to arouse the militia, a
few of whom afterwards responded to his call. At daylight
on the morning of the 5th of May, a British naval force of
seven vessels and a number of gunboats was discovered ap-
proaching the fort. The village and the fort being some
distance apart and on opposite sides of the river, and Col-
onel Mitchell having too few troops for the defense of both,

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

ordered all the tents in store to be pitched new rfte town
while with his whole force, consisting of less than three
hundred men, he took position in the fort. This deception
had the desired effect, and the enemy believing the own ^to
he full of troops proceeded to bombard the fort leaving the
Useless viUag'e nnmolested. Early in flu, afternoon &e
enemy in fifteen large boats covered by the gunboats and
smaU armed vessels attempted to effect a landing, but were
repuJsed by a small detachment of the Americans stationed
near he shore who used an old twelve pounder upon them
"w h rriJe effect until it bursted. At this juncture a
heavy breeze sprang up and the entire squadron put to sea_
The next morning the British fleet again appeared off
Oswego and the large vessels soon afterwards opened a
heTvy kre on the fort In the afternoon the enemy about
twelve hnndred in number, effected a landing, and Colonel
MHcIell finding it impossible to defend the fort with so few
^n boldly sallied out and met the invaders ^er cover of
a woods. He divided his small detachment mfa ^two parte
and placing himself at the head of one of them attacked
the British column in front, while the other assailed it on
the flank. By desperate fighting the enemy was kept n
check for a long time, but overwhelming numbers finally
compelled the Americans to fall back, and the British took
poises ion of the fort and what few stores were m the vicin-
[tv Colonel Mitchell retreated up the river m good order
and took a position where he might protect the naval stores
"the Falls?should the enemy attempt to -P^em

This gallant defense of Oswego was one of the most bril
Kant affairs on the Canadian frontier, and was m striking
contrast with the mishaps and failures in the previous^ cam-
paign which were owing in great measure to t"°™
netency or cowardice of those in command. An American
hi torian in writing of the defense of Oswego two years
a"ds, uses 'this language « On no occasion did the
Americans deserve better of their country; at no time be
fore did the enemy buy victory with less advantage to

502 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

himself, or at a dearer price. Twice they repulsed and for
nearly two days maintained a contest against seven times
their number, and finally succeeded in preserving the stores
at the Falls, the loss of which would have materially im-
peded the operations of the army and navy."

For the gallantry displayed at Oswego, Colonel Mitchell
received the thanks of his superior officers, and on the 14th
of the following August, was breveted Colonel in the regular
army.

After the memorable battles on the Niagara, in which
Generals Brown, Scott and Ripley, were disabled by their
wounds, General Gaines was ordered to take command of the
army of the Niagara, he left Colonel Mitchell in command
of the army of the centre, which command he held during the
continuance of the war, performing with the approbation
of the commanding generals and the Secretary of War the
many important and difficult duties which devolved upon
him. He was the first to announce the news of peace to the
British authorities in Canada.

Shortly after the conclusion of peace, the Legislature of
Maryland passed a series of resolutions highly complimen-
tary of his bravery and good conduct, and ordered the Gov-
ernor to present him with an elegant sword.

Peace being proclaimed, and after having satisfactorily
performed all the various and confidential duties imposed
upon him preparatory to the reduction of the army, Colonel
Mitchell expressed a wish not to be retained in the Peace
establishment, notwithstanding which he was retained and
by a highly complimentary general order, placed in com-
mand of the fourth military department as the successor of
Major-general Scott. This command Colonel Mitchell held
several years, deserving and receiving the thanks of his
superior officers for the ability with which he discharged
his duties.

Owing to the partiality and favoritism shown in the re-
duction of the army in 1821, Colonel Mitchell on the 1st of

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 503

June, of that year, resigned his commission and returned to
his native county, and engaged in agricultural pursuits, of
which he was very fond, upon part of the family homestead
at Fair Hill, which he had inherited from his father.

On the 28th of May, 1816, Colonel Mitchell married Mary
Hooper, daughter of Samuel Hooper and Ann (Conway)
Hooper, of Dorchester County, Maryland. Mrs. Mitchell
was a beautiful and highly cultivated and accomplished lady,
and no doubt her husband after his long and arduous ser-
vice in the army hoped to enjoy a long season of repose in
the bosom of his family; but he was not allowed to do so.
For his countrymen being fully sensible of his eminent fit-
ness for the position, and being desirous to reward him in
some measure for his gallant service in the army in the fall
of 1822, elected him a member of the Eighteenth Congress
from the congressional district composed of Cecil, Kent, and
Harford counties, without opposition.

Colonel Mitchell's career as a statesman was no less bril-
liant than his record as a soldier. In both positions he was
distinguished by actions rather than by words. On the 12th
of January, 1824, he offered the following preamble and re-
solutions, of which he was the author, and which will fully
explain themselves:

" Whereas, That distinguished champion of freedom, and
hero of our revolution, the friend and associate of Washing-
ton, the Marquis de Lafayette, a volunteer general officer in
our Revolutionary war, has expressed an anxious desire to
visit this country, the independence of which his valor,
blood, and treasures, were so instrumental in achieving;
Therefore, be it resolved by the Senate and House of Repre-
sentatives of the United States of America, in Congress as-
sembled that the President of the United States be requested
to communicate to the Marquis de Lafayette the expression
of those sentiments of profound respect, gratitude and affec-
tionate attachment which are cherished towards him by the

504 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

government and people of this country, and to assure him
that the execution of his wish and intention to visit this
country will be hailed by the people and government with
patriotic pride and joy; and be it further resolved that the
President of the United States be requested to ascertain from
the Marquis de Lafayette, the time when it may be most
agreeable for him to perform his visit, and that he offer to
the Marquis a conveyance to this country in one of our
national ships."

These resolutions were referred to a committee, which
changed but did not improve their phraseology, and they
were subsequently passed by both Houses of Congress.

On the 6th of the following December, Lafayette,
having in the meantime reached this country and being at
that time in Washington, Colonel Mitchell offered the fol-
lowing resolution :

" Resolved, That the Honorable, the Speaker (Hon. Henry
Clay), invite our distinguished guest and benefactor, General
Lafayette, to a seat within the hall of this House, and that
he direct the manner of his reception."

Colonel Mitchell was subsequently made chairman of a
committee of twenty-four members of the lower House, and
had the honor of introducing the nation's guest to the rep-
resentatives of the people.

This action of Colonel Mitchell, which is characteristic of
the manliness and generosity of his heart, led to the forma-
tion of a friendship between him and the distinguished for-
eigner, which was co-extensive with their lives, as witness the
following extract from a letter from Lafayette, dated at La-
grange, France, the 26th November, 1826, and addressed to
Colonel Mitchell : " You are again by this time on the floor
where your kind voice was heard to invite an American
veteran to the most honorable and delightful welcome that
ever blessed the heart of man ; the sense of that obligation

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 5°5

to you, my dear friend, cannot but mingle with every one of
the enjoyments of the recollections relative to a period of
mv life, the happiness of which to express I could never find
adequate words. I beg you, my dear sir, to accept the best
wishes and highest regards of your affectionate and grateful

friend, Lafayette." „

After Lafayette returned to France he sent Colonel Mitchell
a number of choice cherry trees and a quantity of sweet or
sugar corn, now extensively cultivated for table use, but at
that time very rare in this country. The cherry trees which
were planted on Colonel Mitchell's farm, at Fair Hill flour-
ished well and attained a large size, but his estate having
passed into the possession of persons unacquainted with their
history, were cut down some years ago. A few trees which
were grafted from them, may now be seen on the farm of
Joshua Green, near Fair Hill.

The following interesting letter refers to this subject.

" Lagrange, May 29th, 1827.
« My Dear Sir .-The several kinds of corn ^ fair mil
Farm through the good care of our friend Mr. Skiner are
arrived iust in time to be carefully planted. It is not tne
first i or greatest obligation I am under to you, but I do as-
sure vou the previous invoice is very welcome the more so
whL Hbas bien gathered on your farm, and kindly sent by
you. I hope this letter will find you m good health and e-
Questing you to remember me most respectfully to family
ES, I am with all my heart, your affectionate grate-
ful friend, „ LafayeTte."

Colonel Mitchell was re-elected to Congress in the fall of
1824 carrying his native county against Mr. Reed, his op-
ponent by a majority of five hundred and sixty five in a
vote of a little upwards of two thousand. At this time
politics were in a chaotic condition, no less than four can-
didates, Adams, Jackson, Clay, and Crawford being before
the people for the high position of chief Magistrate. The

506 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

political sentiment of the district was divided between
Messrs. Jackson, Adams, and Crawford, and Colonel
Mitchell, though a friend and follower of the illustrious
Jackson, promised his constituents that in the event of
the election of President being thrown into the House
of Representatives, he would vote for the candidate
favored by a majority of them. The result of the election
having shown that a majority of his constituents were favor-
able to the election of Mr. Adams, Colonel Mitchell in ac-
cordance with the promise made cast his vote for that gen-
tleman who was elected. But notwithstanding this he was
a firm supporter of General Jackson, in 1828 and subse-
quently, and so great was his popularity and influence
among his immediate friends and neighbors that the people
of the northeastern part of the county almost universally
followed his leadership and from that time to this the fourth
district has been known as the Gibraltar of Democracy.

For some reason not ascertained, Colonel Mitchell was
not a candidate for election to the twentieth Congress, during
which this congressional district was represented by Levin
Gale. He was, however, again elected to Congress as the
Jackson candidate in the fall of 1829, after an active and
spirited campaign, against his opponent James W. Williams,
of Harford County, carrying the district by a majority of
two hundred and eight votes.

In April, 1829, he was called upon to mourn the loss of
his estimable companion, who for nearly thirteen years had
shared his joys and sorrows, and been his helpmate in every
emergency, leaving him with a family of seven helpless
children.

Colonel Mitchell felt the loss of his wife keenly, but not-
withstanding he was nearly overwhelmed with grief, he con-
tinued to serve his country in Congress with credit to him-
self and acceptability to his constituents.

In October, 1831, he was stricken with paralysis, in his
office, at Fair Hill, one morning wdiile preparing to visit his

HISTOKY OF CECIL COUNTY. 507

patients. He partially recovered from this attack and with
great difficulty reached Washington, at the opening of the
session of Congress, in December, 1831, and continued to
perform his duties as a member of Congress until the time of
his death, which occurred on the 28th of June, 1832.

His death was brought to the notice of the House of
Representatives by Mr. Howard, of Maryland, in a brief and
eloquent speech which was alike creditable to himself, and
eulogistic of the patriotism, bravery, and good judgment
of the deceased. The late Ezekiel F. Chambers, then a sena-
tor from Maryland, offered an appropriate resolution in the
Senate.

The high estimation in which Colonel Mitchell was held
by his fellow-soldiers was shown by the spontaneous offer of
the military authorities to take charge of his funeral. His
remains were interred in the congressional burying ground,
at Washington, under the supervision of a committee of the
lower House of Congress, the funeral being attended by the
members of both Houses, the president and heads of de-
partments and all the military in the city. Colonel George
E. Mitchell and Mary Hooper Mitchell were the parents of
seven children, as follows : Mary A., wife of John Stump,
Esq., and mother of Judge Frederick Stump ; George W.,
who served in the Mexican war and died in this county, in
1850, in the thirtieth year of his age ; Dr. Henry Hooper,
of Elkton, formerly clerk of the circuit court for this county,
and well-known in this county as a physician ; Cath-
arine W., wife of James T. McCullough, Esq., of Elkton ;
Elizabeth H., wife of Russel Thomas ; Arther W., formerly,
clerk of the circuit court for this county ; and Samuel
hooper, who served 'in the Mexican war and died at his
3sidence near Elkton on the 21st of March, 1869, in the
>rtieth year of his age.

508 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

THE RUMSEY FAMILY.

The Rumsey s, many of whom filled important offices and
occupied responsible positions in this county during the
last century, were the descendants of Charles Rumsey, who
emigrated from Wales to America, about 1665. He landed
at Charleston, South Carolina, where he resided for some
years. He subsequently removed to New York, afterwards
to Philadelphia, and sometime prior to 1678, settled at the
head of Bohemia River, in this county, where he married
and became the father of eight children ; three sons and five
daughters. His name is first mentioned in the records of
this county, in 1610, at which time he petitioned the court
for liberty to keep an Ordinary at the Head of Bohemia.
He probably died in 1717, for his will was admitted to pro-
bate in that year. He left his home plantation, containing
about three hundred acres, to his sons, Charles and William,
and a farm called " Adventure," containing about one hun-
dred acres, to his son Edward. Charles and Edward were
less fortunate than their brother William. The former died,
probably, in 1761, as his will was proved in that year. He
devised all his estate to his wife, from which it may be in-
fered that he left no children. Edward died in 1770, and
left one son, Edward, and three daughters, Susanna, Mary,
and Terissa.

James Rumsey, the inventor of the steamboat, of which
an account is given elsewhere, was the son of the Edward
last before-mentioned. He was born at the Head of Bohemia,
in 1743, and died in London, December 23d, 1792, of appc-
plexy, at a public lecture, where he was explaining the
method of using the steamboat he had invented.

William, the second son of Charles, was a distinguished
surveyor. He laid out Fredericktown, and is said to have
assisted in locating the temporary line between Maryland
and Pennsylvania, in 1739. He was one of the largest land-
holders in the county, and was collector of customs at tho'
Head of Bohemia, during much of the time that place was

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 509

the only recognized port of entry for the rum imported from
Pennsylvania His will was proved inl 742. He left three
sons and two daughters. To his son William he devised
his home place, containing about six hundred acres, on
which there was a mill, and certain lots and wharves m
Fredericktown. To his son Benjamin, he devised three
tracts of land called "Round Stone," "Withers and
"Bailv" lying adjacent to each other, on the head of the
Bay near North East River, containing eight hundred acres
and other lands in Elk Neck, near Bulls Mountain and a
lot in Ceciltown. To his son Charles, he devised three
tracts of land, two of which, « New Hall" and "Concord
were near the head of Elk River ; also a tract called Mil
Pond" together with the mill thereon, containing about
eight hundred acres, and a lot in Ceciltown. "Rumseys
Success," afterwards purchased by the Elk Forge company,
and " David's Sheepfold," adjacent to it, which together con-
tained seven hundred acres, and "Ramsey's Range con-
taining three hundred acres, lying on Elk River, he de-
vised to his daughter, Mary. To his daughter Henrietta, he
devised the tract called << Stony Chase," lying in the forks
of North East River, containing one hundred acres, also a
lot in Ceciltown. To his wife, Sabina, he devised two tracts
called " Happy Harbor " and " Silvania," containing about
one hundred and twenty acres, on Hacks Creek, in Sassafras
Neck, on which there was a new mill ; and a house and two
lots in Fredericktown.

The old Rumsey mansion was in Middle Neck, on an
eminence about half a mile west of the road leading from
Murphy's mill to Warwick. It is described by old residents
of the neighborhood, who were familiar with it m child-
hood, as a magnificent brick building, ^^y
rooms, with a massive stairway and a large hall with a
handsome cornice around it. It is said to have been
deserted by its owners in the early part of the present cen-
tury on account of the prevalence of fever and ague in that

510 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

locality, and to have become the abode of those, who, having
no houses of their own, were allowed to occupy it free of
rent, owing to which it fell into decay and went to ruin.

The name of Rumsey has long been extinct in this county,
but some of the descendants of its founder are living in
Salem, New Jersey, Philadelphia and Chicago.

THE MAULDIN FAMILY.

The Mauldins of Cecil County are the descendants of
Francis Mauldin and Mary, his wife, who were natives of
Wales and settled in Elk Neck, in 1684, on a tract of land,
containing upwards of fifteen hundred acres, which extended
from the head of Chesapeake Bay across the Neck to Elk
River, and included Mauldin's Mountain and the valley be-
tween it and Bulls Mountain. This land is described in
the original patent as being very fertile and heavily tim- .
bered. Portions of this tract remained in possession of the
family through seven generations, or until about twenty-
five years ago. Though the members of this family are
said to have been unambitious and never to have taken an
active part in public affairs, except those of the established
church, of which they were members, the records of the
county show that Francis, the founder of the family, was a
justice of the county court in 1721, and filled several other
positions of trust and responsibility.

But little more is known about the early history of this
family, except that they were owners of large numbers of
slaves and much given to hospitality. The will of Benja-
min Mauldin was proved in 17l J. It contains some evi-
dence tending to show that he resided in , . is ATeck.
Captain Francis Mauldin's will was provec He
left four sons : Francis, Benjamin, Williari iry ;
and three daughters, Rebecca, Elizabeth, an ong
whom he devised the family homestead eck.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 511

Francis and Benjamin were undoubtedly the sons of the
founder of the family. The former was one of the represen-
tatives of this county in the General Assembly in 1758 and
1761 Henry, the son of Captain Francis Mauldm, migrated
to South Carolina many years ago. His grandson, Benja-
Francis Mauldin was a member of the convention of South
Carolina, which passed the ordinance of secession, in I860.

THE GILPIN FAMILY.

The Gilpin family of Cecil County are the descendants, in
about the twentieth generation, of Richard de Guylpin, of
England, to whom the baron of Kendal gave the Manor of
Kentmere, in consideration of his having slain a wild boar
that infested the forests of Westmoreland and Cumberland,

in 1206. ,.-,-. Ai

Joseph Gilpin the founder of the Gilpin family in the
United States, was a Quaker, and settled in Birmingham,
Delaware County, Pennsylvania, in 1695. The country was
at that time a wilderness, and he constructed a cave by the
side of a large rock, in which he resided for many years,
and in which thirteen of his family of fifteen children were

The Cecil branch of the Gilpin family are the descend-
ants of Samuel Gilpin, the eldest son of Joseph, who settled
in Birmingham. He was born in England, in 1694, and
emigrated from Birmingham to Concord, and subsequently,
in 1733 removed to Cecil County, and settled at Gilpin's
Rocks, on the Great North East on a tract of seven hundred
acres that he and Edwaru Taylor bought of Joseph Carter,
for £450. This land is erroneously stated as being in Not-
tingham, but the records of this county show that it bad
been patented to Joseph Carter, under the name of Kings-
by by Lord Baltimore, in 1726. It was south of Notting-
ham, and, no doubt, Gilpin purchased it on account of its

512 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

proximity to that township and hoped that ultimately the
then disputed boundary would be adjusted so as to leave it
under the jurisdiction of Penm

In 1735 Gilpin and Taylor conveyed a considerable part
of their property at Gilpin's Falls to John Copson. The
consideration mentioned in the deed is only £400, though
they had, in the meantime, built a saw-mill on the property.
On the same day that the before-named deed was executed
Copson conveyed three hundred and sixty-nine acres, called
Cox's Park, situated in the forks of North East Creek, to
Gilpin. From these facts it seems plain that Gilpin and
Copson exchanged lands. The same year Gilpin purchased
of Edward Rumsey three hundred and fifty acres, adjoining
Cox's Park, in the forks of North East. This tract was part
of Stony Chase, now in the possession of the McCullough
Iron Company, and part of Rumsey's Ramble, which had
been taken up and patented by William Rumsey. At this
time New Connaught Manor was in the possession of the
lord proprietary, and Gilpin had a small part of it, contain-
ing nine acres, adjoining his other land at the forks of the
North East, patented to him. Samuel Gilpin married Jane
Parker, of Philadelphia. They were the parents of seven
children, as follows: Mary, Joseph, Thomas, Hannah,
Samuel, Rachel, and George. Their son Thomas, a Quaker,
resided in Philadelphia, and declining to do military ser-
vice during the Revolutionary war, was with about twenty
others, similarly circumstanced, exiled from the city, in 1777,
and taken to Winchester, Virginia, where he died in i778.
His brother George was at the same time colonel of the Fair-
fax militia, and endeavored to effect his liberation. George
was an intimate friend of General Washington, and is said
to have been one of his pall-bearers. This intimacy was
owing to the fact that the Washingtons and Gilpins had
intermarried in England.

Joseph, the eldest son, removed from Gilpin's Falls pre-
vious to 1761, and settled on what is now known as the

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 513

"Gilpin Home Farm," on the Big Elk, north of Elkton.
He erected the mill which formerly stood a short distance
south of the dwelling-house, the land for the use of which
•he caused to be condemned for that purpose, according to
the custom of the times. He also built the old mansion
house, which is now standing. His father having disposed
of his lands on North East Creek to his sons, Joseph and
Samuel, resided with the latter previous to 1767, in which
year he died, aged seventy-four years. He was buried in
the family burying-ground on the bank of the Big Elk, a
short distance above the bridge across that stream, where
his tombstone may be seen.

Joseph Gilpin married Eliza Reed. They were the
parents of six children : John, Hannah, Elizabeth, Joseph,
Mary, and Rachel. He was a patriotic and public-spirited
citizen, and represented this countjr in the Provincial Con-
ventions of 1776-7, and was also a member of the House of
Delegates in the latter year ; and for many years filled the
position of presiding justice of the county court. He died
in 1790, aged sixty-three years, leaving a large landed
estate in this county and also in Western Pennsylvania and
Virginia. His eldest son, John, to whom he willed the
Home Farm on the Big Elk, married Mary Hollingsworth
in 1797. He was one of the members of the House of Dele-
gates from this county in 1800, and died in 1808. He was
the father of Miss Mary, Joseph, Henry, Dr. John, and Wil-
liam H. Gilpin, many of whose descendants reside in this
county.

THE RUDULPH FAMILY.

Away back in the early part of the last century, so far
back, indeed, that the time is very uncertain, a distinguished
family appeared in Cecil County, and for many years acted
a conspicuous part in its history, being prominent as mer-
chants, soldiers, and jurists.

5L4 HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY.

Bartholomew, Hanse, Jacob, and Tobias Rudulph were
probably brothers. The names Jacob and Hanse indicate
that they were of Teutonic origin, as do also the traditions
concerning them. Little is known of Bartholomew, except
that he seems, from certain papers on record in the clerk's
office in Elkton, to have been a well-to-do planter, though
the records of the county contain no evidence that he owned
any real estate.

Hanse was the owner of much live-stock and many ne-
groes, which he mortgaged to John Hyland and William
Bristow, to secure them as sureties on his bond as adminis-
trator of one John Kankey, who owned the ferry farm in
Elk Neck, whose widow he (Hanse) had married. He was
afterwards wharfinger at Charlestown when the people of
this county were trying to persuade themselves that it was
the site of what would eventually be a famous city. The
widow Kankey had a negro slave who had been owned by
her husband (Kankey), and had been greatly attached to
him. After the birth of a child, the fruit of her marriage
with Hanse Rudulph, this negro (Joe) conceived a violent
hatred for him, and finally shot him. The murder of
Hanse Rudulph gave rise to the legend of the bloody
Holly bush, which has been mentioned in a previous chap-
ter in connection with Elk Ferry. But little more is known
of Bartholomew and Hanse ; but Tobias, in 1745, leased a
few acres of land in Elkton, and was engaged in mercantile
business for some time at or near Elk Landing. He sub-
sequently kept store in Elkton, where, in 1768, he built the
brick house, now standing, two doors east of the court-
house. He also became the proprietor of much real estate
near the town, part of which is still in possession of his de-
scendants.

Jacob purchased the Belle Hill property, north of Elkton,
where he contentedly pursued the uneventful life of a far-
mer.

Jacob and Tobias were men of families. The former had
two sons; Michael, and Zebulon, the grandfather of Mrs.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 515

Garfield, wife of President Garfield ; and one daughter, the
grandmother of the late William Hewitt.

Tobias was the father of four children : John, Tobias, and
two daughters, each of whom married gentlemen named
Irving. His son Tobias (the second of that name) was the
father of Tobias, the lawyer, who was a poet of considerable
ability, and Zebulon, also a writer of poetry, and Mrs.
Anna Maria Sewell, wife of the late James Sewell and
Martha, who became the wife of the Rev. William Torbert.

Very soon after the commencement of the Revolutionary
war the cousins, John and Michael Rudulph, entered the
American army, the former as major, the latter as captain
of a light horse company in Lee's Legion, in which they
served with great bravery in the Southern campaigns, in
which " lyight Horse Harry Lee," the commander of the
Legion, won imperishable renown. Their courage and
bravery soon won for them the proud distinction of the
" Lions of the Legion," and John is still known among the
members of the family as "Fighting Jack." Michael was,
if possible, more daring and impetuous than John. Upon
one occasion he is said to have led a squad of soldiers who
surprised and captured a British man-of-war which was
blockading Charlestown harbor. Selecting a dark night
and a fearless crew, the dare-devil fellow approached the
vessel, and when hailed and halted "by the sentinel, asked if
those on board wished to buy some chickens. Just at this
critical moment one of his men pinched a chicken that had
been provided for the emergency, and which began to
screech as only frightened chickens can. This threw the
sentry off his guard, and a few strokes from the oarsmen
brought the boat alongside of the enemy's ship, the officers
and crew of which were taken by surprise and carried in
triumph into Charlestown.

Very little is known of the history of the light horse com-
pany in which the Rudulphs served, but it is believed to
have been formed of recruits from this county. The father

516 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

of Thomas C. Crouch, of Elkton, who served as bugler in this
company, joined it under the following circumstances: He
was learning his trade at the Red Mill, on the Little Elk,
near Elkton, when the company came marching along the
road and stopped near the creek to refresh themselves and
their horses. Being pleased with the splendid appearance
it made, he exchanged the racket of the rickety old mill and
the dusty coat of the dusty miller for the noise and smoke
of battle, and at once became a soldier. Joseph Benjamin,
the ancestor of the Benjamins of North East and vicinity,
also belonged to this company, and served his adopted
country, for he was an Englishman and had ran away
from his native land in the capacity of bugler.

Elk Neck also had the honor of furnishing one recruit
for this Company in the person of Noble Hamm, a member
of one of the oldest families in that part of the county, who,
though a good Christian and brave soldier, met with a sad
inglorious death in a brawl, the particulars of which cannot
now be ascertained, at the hands of Michael Rudulph who
shot him.

The following letter, copied from the original in posses-
sion of Tobias Rudulph, a grandnephew of Major " Fighting
Jack," is believed to refer to the death of Noble Hamm.

- " Dear Sir: — I am this moment advised by Captain McLane
of his arrival at Philadelphia, an event that affords me no
small satisfaction on numberless accounts, praticularly as it
will furnish me with an opportunity of conclusively de-
termining the unfortunate dispute which is the cause of so
much uneasiness to the gentlemen of the corps and unhappi-
ness to myself. They will, I have no doubt, make known
very speedily their intention and give ample testimony of
the party injured, but I am fully convinced that no proof
respecting themselves can possibly expose me the aggressor
unless they choose, from motives unknown, to interest them-
selves in a private controversial affair totally confined to
Captain Armstrong and myself, to which gentleman my
conscience told me I had made every reparation that words
were capable of. His replication, which is to the following

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 517

effect, could not from any deducible reason, engage their en-
deavors to effectuate my ruin. Captain Armstrong inti-
mated that the peculiarity of our situation rendered a separa-
tion necessary and made, in some measure, a joint service
impracticable. I have readily acquiesced in his determina-
tion, being convinced of the flagitiousness of my crime.
Had I not exerted every endeavor to palliate it, which drew
from Mr. Armstrong a declaration of unwillingness to in-
jure me, I beg leave to suggest your previously consulting
this gentleman as a necessary step to your appearance in the
matter, for nothing but the unbiased advice of a person
from whom I must acknowledge the experience of every
species of friendship could in any wise obviate the dictates
of my opinion which stimulates me to address personally a
grievance of so gross a nature.

Mr. Handy's combination singularly affected me. A gen-
tleman with whom I have lived for a series of time in the
closest friendship, to discover at such a juncture, his ignor-
ance of my real principle and disposition, independent of
passion and to build his prosecution on a single fault and
without any other assistance to support his conduct, betrays
such a degree of flexibility and unfriendliness that I
' thought him entirely divested of.

I am, sir, with great respect, your obdt., hbl. servt.

" Mich. Rudulph.
" Middle Bush, 29th July, 1780.
"Major Lee."

But little more is known of any one who served in this
company except its captain, the chivalrous Mike, who, like
the Wandering Jew, continued to put in an appearance for
some years after the end of the war, and who married a
lady of Savannah, Georgia, whose acquaintance he is be-
lieved to have made while in that city sometime during the
war. Her name has not been ascertained. For some rea-
son their union was not felicitous and they lived so unhap-
pily together that Michael concluded to adopt a sea-faring
life. He is only known to have visited this county once
after the conclusion of the war, when he came to see his
children, who are said to have been living at that time with

518 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

their relatives at Elkton. Upon this occasion he " tarried
but a night," being detered, as it is alleged, from remaining
longer by the threats of certain members of the Hyland
family who had intermarried with the relatives of Noble
Hamm and who had threatened to shoot him if they met
him in this county.

A few years subsequent to the close of the Revolutionary
war, the people of this county paid some attention to ship
building, and some of them were engaged in trading to the
West Indies. With this end in view, the hull of a vessel
was constructed at Frenchtown by Robert Hart of Elk Neck,
from whence it was floated to Baltimore, where it was rigged
and freighted with a cargo of tobacco consigned to Hart's
uncle, then resident in one of the West India Islands for
the benefit of his health.

Joseph Lort, who (like Michael Rudulph and the captain's
mate) is said to have lived unhappily with his wife, was
captain of this vessel, and Michael Rudulph was its super-
cargo. One bright morning the ill-fated ship sailed down
the Patapsco River accompanied by another craft in charge
of Robert Hart. The two vessels parted company opposite
North Point, those on the outward-bound giving a parting
salute to the others and also three cheers for " glorious revo-
lutionary France," and sailed on down the Chesapeake,
never to return again. Since she disappeared from the
vision of Robert Hart, nothing has ever been heard of this
vessel, and for a long time the friends of her officers and
crew believed that she foundered at sea and all on board
perished. But many years after this happened, the late
General Thomas M. Foreman was traveling from Baltimore
to Frenchtown in company with General Lallemand, a dis-
tinguished Frenchman, who when informed by General
Foreman that Frenchtown was in Cecil County, seemed to
be somewhat astonished, and informed him that this county
was probably the birthplace of Michael Ney, better known
in history as Marshal Ney, who played such a conspicuous

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 519

part in the wars of the Empire under the First Napoleon,
and that evidence had been found among Marshal Ney's
papers that he had relatives living in Cecil County, and that
his real name was Michael Rudulph.

This disclosure was as unexpected as a clap of thunder
from a clear sky. Investigation followed, and it was found
that the two men possessed many traits in common, and
that the time of the appearance of the great marshal in
France coincided with the time of the disappearance of the
American soldier. Inasmuch as very little is known, or at
least very little has been written by historians of the early
life of the great marshal, the theory was advanced by many
persons who knew of the characteristics of Michael Rudulph,
that he and Ney were one and the same person, and that
the vessel and crew which had sailed away from North
Point many years ago, cheering for " glorious revolutionary
France," had been carried by their officers to that country,
and that Michael Rudulph had changed his surname to Ney,
and entered the French army. In confirmation of this
theory, it was asserted by those who were acquainted with
Ney, that he spoke the English language quite as well as
he did the French when he chose to do so, but always re-
frained from displaying his fluency in the former, for
obvious reasons, when in the presence of Americans or
Englishmen. It has also been asserted by those who have
investigated the subject, that Ney was called " the American
tobacco merchant " by his brother officers, and that about
the time of the disclosure made on the Elk River by Lalle-
mand to Foreman, two of Ney's sons by his last wife, had
visited Savannah as was supposed to obtain information
concerning Rudulph's wife.

For these reasons, and many others quite as cogent, not a
few people believed in the truth of this theory, but it was
never adopted by the relatives of the missing man, who had
such implicit confidence in his integrity that they scorned
the imputation that he could have betrayed his trust as

520 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

supercargo, and sacrificed the interest of the owners and
consignees of the missing vessel.

Such, briefly told, is the story of the disappearance of
Michael Rudulph. His history, after parting company with
Robert Hart, is involved in so much obscurity that it is
unsafe to hazard an opinion as to whether he and Marshal
Ney were identical.

THE LESLIE FAMILY.

Among the many old families of Cecil County, the names
of which are almost forgotten, none attained greater cele-
brity as authors and artists than the Leslies.

Robert Leslie, of whom the Leslies of this county are the
decendants, emigrated to this country from Scotland (as
stated by Eliza Leslie, the authoress in an article published
in Godey's Lady's Book in 1858) about 1645. The original
^-family name, there is reason to believe from information
derived from the land records of this county was Lasley.
At what time the family located in Cecil County is unknown,
but in 1758 Robert Lasley purchased a farm of about a
hundred acres, a mile or two north of the town of North
East, from which it seems probable that the family were in
the county at that time. This Robert was probably the
grandfather of Eliza and Charles Robert Leslie, who were
the children of Robert Leslie and Catharine Baker, who
were natives of this county. The Leslie homestead was
about a mile north of the village of North East, and is de-
scribed by Eliza as being "over against Bulls Mountain."

Sometime previous to 1786, Robert Leslie and family re-
moved to Elkton, where he was engaged in clock and watch
making for a year or two. The family subsequently re-
moved to Philadelphia, where Eliza was born November
16th, 1787. She was the author of a number of books on
cooking ; a novel called " Amelia, or a young lady's vicis-

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 521

situdes," and several volumes of fugitive stories, and also
edited several annuals. She died in Gloucester, New Jer-
sey, in 1858.

Charles Robert Leslie, the artist, was born in London,
October 19th, 1794. The family subsequently returned to
Philadelphia, where young Leslie, who was learning the
mercantile business, showed such remarkable talent for
drawing that some of his friends sent him to London, that
he might have the benefit of the tuition of the great masters
of the English metropolis. He became a member of the
Royal Academy and one of the most famous historical
painters of his times. His autobiography, which is inter-
spersed with many anecdotes of Sir Walter Scott, S. C. Cole-
ridge, and Washington Irving, with each of whom he was
on intimate terms, and many of the nobility, and most of
the artists of the period in which he lived, is one of the
most charming books of modern times.

Robert and Catharine Leslie were also the parents of
Thomas Jefferson Leslie, who served as paymaster in the
United States Army for about half a century, and recently
died in New York City.

Jeremiah Larkins Leslie was a son of Thomas Leslie, the
brother of Robert, the father of the artist. He was a mill-
wright by trade, and in the early partof the present century
carried on a nail factory at Marley. He subsequently, became
a Methodist Protestant preacher and removed to the State
of Ohio. He was the father of Mary Leslie who married
Charles Johnson, from whom the Johnsons of North East
and vicinity have descended.

His daughter Elizabeth, married John Sumption, the
father of the late Rev. Thomas Sumption, a distinguished
Methodist preacher.

The Benjamins of North East and vicinity, are the de-
cendants of Deborah Leslie, the daughter of John Leslie.

522 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

THE HYLAND FAMILY.

The Hylands of Elk Neck who were at one time one of
the most numerous families in this county, are the descend-
ants of two brothers, John and Nicholas Hyland, natives of
Labadeen, England. John was a colonel in the English
army, but, it is said, resigned his commission owing to some
difficulty about his coat-of-arms. He emigrated to Mary-
land some time during the period when the province was
under the royal government, owing to which he could not
obtain a valid grant of land. On account of this difficulty
lie settled in Pennsylvania, where he obtained a grant of a
thousand acres. He subsequently acquired additional
property in the State of New York, but returned to
Maryland in the early part oi the last century, after the re-
storation of that province to Lord Baltimore,, from whom he
obtained the grant of a large tract, part of St. John's Manor,
in Elk Neck, which on account of the great elevation of part
of it, and also in honor of his wife, was called " John's and
Mary's Highland."

Stephen Hyland, the eldest son of John and Mary Hyland,
was born in Elk Neck, February 23d, 1743, and died March
19th, 1806. He filled many important positions of trust
and responsibility, and took an active part in the Revolu-
tionary war. Early in that struggle he raised a company of
soldiers for the protection of private property in this county,
and subsequently received a commission from the national
government as colonel of a regiment. He was stationed on
the east shore of the Susquehanna River, at the time, and
prior to the invasion of this county by the British, in 1777.
When the British fleet entered the Elk River he is said to
have marched his command via Charlestown to Elk Neck,
and to have fired at the British squadron while it was as-
cending the Elk River. He was subsequently stationed at
Annapolis, and in 1781, entertained General Lafayette and
the officers of the French fleet at the old family mansion,
which was called "Harmony Hall," a part of which is now

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 523

(1881) standing on the farm of Daniel Bratton, Esq. The
French fleet at the time, it is said, was frozen up in the Elk
River, and Colonel Hyland spread a carpet of cloth, large
'quantities of which he had on hand for the use of the army,
all the way from the vessel to his house, as the author has
been assured by_one of the Colonel's grandchildren, an old
lady of seventy-seven years.

On the 1st of December, 1774, he married Rebecca Tilden,
of Kent County, Maryland, by whom he had one son, John
Hyland. Mrs. Hyland died on the same day that her first
child was born, October 10th, 1775.

On the 20th of March, 1777, he married Miss Araminta
Hamm, daughter of Dr. Thomas Hamm, of Bohemia Manor.
By his second wife he had six children, four sons and two
daughters. His son Stephen Hyland, Jr., was a colonel in
the war of 1812.

Jacob Hyland, the third son of Stephen Hyland and Ara-
minta Hamm, not being of robust constitution did not enter
the army, but contented himself with entertaining and
caring for the soldiers who were stationed on Bulls Moun-
tains, to observe the operations of the enemy during the
summer of 1813.

During that summer one of the soldiers, in company with
a trusty negro slave and a watchful dog, slept in his fish
house on the Elk River, for the purpose of giving alarm if
the British barges attempted to ascend the river during the
night.

Jacob Hyland was the father of Mrs. Jacob Howard, and
Stephen, James, Jacob, Washington, and Wilmer Hyland.
Mary, the eldest daughter of Stephen and Araminta Hyland,
married William Craig, Jr., of Bohemia Manor, who was
twice elected a representative of this county in the General
Assembly of Maryland, and who died in discharge of his
duties, at Annapolis, in 1822. The late James L. Craig, at
one time editor of the Baltimore Pilot, and subsequently
one of the county commissioners of this county, was a son
of William Craig.

524 HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY.

Martha, the youngest daughter of Stephen and Araminta
Hyland married William A. Schaeffer, a prominent Balti-
morean. Mrs. Schaeffer was the mother of General Francis
B. Schaeffer, late of the United States Army. He served with
distinction in the Mexican war, and was honored by President
Lincoln with the captaincy of the Select National Riflemen,
stationed in Washington at the commencement of the late
Civil war, but subsequently joined the Confederate army.

Nicholas Hyland, the first of that name, and the brother
of the John before mentioned, also settled in Elk Neck, on
a tract of land further down the river and adjoining that of
his brother, probably about the same time that his brother
John located there. He subsequently acquired a large
quantity of land on the Susquehanna River, where Port
Deposit now stands. He probably died in 1719, for his will
was proved in that year. He left his land on Elk River to
his son Nicholas ; and to his son John, all his land on the
Susquehanna, and directed that his sons should be brought
up by the rules of the church of England, which injunction
seems to have been rigidly adhered to by his wife Millicent,
who he made executrix of his will, for his son Nicholas
was a member of the House of Delegates from this county
almost continuously, from 1751 to 1766, during which time,
whenever opportunity offered, he manifested his zeal for the
established church, by favoring legislation against the
" Popish Priests and Jesuits."

But little is known of John Hyland, except that he lived
and died upon his estate near Port Deposit.

Nicholas Hyland, the third of that name, married Mar-
gary Kankey, of Elk Neck, by whom he had one daughter
Ann, who married Robert Hart, the grandson of the Robert
Hart, who settled many years before in Elk Neck, and some
of whose descendants now reside in that part of the county.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 525

THE CHURCHMAN FAMILY.

The residence of this family in England was at Saffron
Waldron, in Essex County, whence John Churchman, the
founder of the family in this county, in the seventeenth
year of his age emigrated to Darby, Pennsylvania, in 1682,
under the care of Thomas Cerie, in whose family was a
daughter Hannah, at that time six years old. The perils of
the voyage seem to have drawn John to the child, and like
a faithful lover he waited for her until 1696, when she be-
came his wife. They settled at Chester, but in 1704 re-
moved to the woods of Nottingham and settled on lot num-
ber sixteen.

John died in 1724 ; his wife survived him until 1759.
Among their children was John, born in 1705, who became
a. famous Quaker preacher, and self-taught surveyor, never
having gone to school but three months " to a man who sat
in his loom and heard his scholars read." His autobi-
ography, published by the society to which he belonged, is
a very interesting and instructive book. In it he tells of a
narrow escape he had from death when a lad of some ten or
twelve years of age, and which made a deep and lasting im-
pression on his mind. He had been sent on an errand and
encountered a drove of wild horses, which enticed away the
colt belonging to the mare upon which he rode, and caused
her to run away ; becoming unmanageable, she ran through
a field which had been partially cleared, and upon which
the trees that had been girdled and deadened, were still
thickly standing ; this made the adventure extremely per-
ilous, he being in danger of injury from coming in contact
with the dead trees. His autobiography shows that he was
in the habit of visiting " the Friends in Cecil" who as late as
1767 seem to have had a meeting somewhere in Sassafras
Neck. In this connection he speaks of the conversion of
John Browning, who then lived in Sassafras Neck and who
was, no doubt, a son of the John Browning who quarreled
with Augustine Herman about his land nearly a century

526 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

before. Browning had prepared tomb-stones for his parents'
graves, but when near his death he requested his wife to
have the people that attended his funeral place them for
hearth-stones in a new brick house which was not quite fin-
ished. A small unpretending brick house which John
Churchman built in 1745, is now standing about a mile
north of the Brick Meeting-house. He died in 1775 and
left but one child, George, born in 1730, a dignified elder of
the Society of Friends, and probably the most popular and
extensive surveyor of the county in his day. George mar-
ried Hannah, daughter of Mordecai and Gainor James, in
1752, and died in 1814, leaving a numerous family. His
son John, the philosopher, born 1753, lived unmarried,
" was an eminent surveyor and geometrician ; he executed
a map of the peninsula between the bays of Delaware and
Chesapeake, in 1778 ; was the author of a magnetic atlas in
1790, and other works of a similar character, which brought
him into prominent notice among learned men in Europe
and this country, with whom he maintained an extensive
correspondence on scientific subjects. He twice visited Eu-
rope, where he received much attention and was honored
with an election as a member of several learned societies.
He died at sea, in 1805, on his last return voyage from St.
Petersburg."

The Churchmans might be termed a family of surveyors,
as the calling was exercised by the two Johns, father and
son; by George, son of the second John; and by John, Mica-
jah and Joseph, sons of George.

THE DEFOE FAMILY.

Written expressly for the History of Cecil County by Mrs. Mary E. Ireland.

While many perhaps can boast of celebrated ancestors,

few can trace back to a more distinguished source than the

Trimble's ; they being lineal descendants of Elizabeth, neice

of Daniel Defoe.

HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY. 527

From Elizabeth, who came from England in 1718, down
to her relatives of the present day, all the family with a few
exceptions have lived within two miles of Brick Meeting-
house, Cecil County, Maryland ; all worshiped in the meet-
ing-house which gave the village its original name, and all,
when called upon to pay the debt of nature, have been
brought for interment to the burial-ground attached to
this meeting-house.

In order to explain how -it was that Elizabeth, neice of
Daniel Defoe, and ancestor of the Trimble family, happened
to settle in this part of the New World, it will be necessary
to go back to the year 1705, when Daniel Defoe, on account
of his persistent writing upon the exciting subjects of the
times, was compelled to seek an asylum under the roof of
his widowed sister, Elizabeth Maxwell, in the city of
London.

Three years before, he had sent forth his, " Shortest Way
with Dissenters," for which he had suffered the pillory, fine,
and imprisonment. It was on account of this article that
the government offered £50 for the discovery of his hiding
place. The proclamation as tradition informs us, was
worded very nearly thus :

"Whereas Daniel Defoe, alias De Fooe, is charged with
writing a scandalous and seditious pamphlet, entitled the
'Shortest Way with Dissenters.' (He is a middled-sized,
spare man, about forty years old, of brown complexion
and dark brown colored hair, but wears a wig; a hook
nose, sharp chin, gray eyes, and a large mole near his
mouth ; was born in London, and for many years was
a hose-factor in Freeman's yard, Cornhill, and now is
owner of the brick and pantile works near Tilbury Fort
in Essex ;) whoever shall discover the said Daniel Defoe
to one of Her Majesty's Secretaries of State, or any of
Her Majesty's justices' of the peace, so he may be appre-
hended, shall have a reward of £50, which Her Majesty has
ordered immediately to be paid upon such discovery."

528 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

On his release he was again imprisoned for his political
pamphlets, and through the influence of Lord Oxford, was
again liberated ; but in his sister's house, secure from his
political and pecuniary assailants, he continued to send
forth his barbed arrows with impunity. A small room in
the rear of the building was fitted up for his private study,
and it was there that his sister's only daughter (named for
herself, Elizabeth), who was five years of age when her uncle
came to live with them, received her education under his
teaching; and it was there that "Robinson Crusoe" was.
written, one year after his niece had left her home and him.
Perhaps the comparative isolation he endured suggested
the wonderful narrative to his mind.

The Defoe's were all members of the Society of Friends,
and attended a meeting designated by the odd name of
" Bull and Mouth," which was often mentioned in the early
annals of the society.

At eighteen, Elizabeth contracted a matrimonial engage-
ment, which was peremptorily broken off by her mother.
This caused an alienation from all her friends, and she
privately left her home and embarked for America. Being
without funds, she bargained with the captain to be sold on
her arrival, to reimburse him for her passage. Accordingly,
in the autumn of that year she, with a number of others,
was offered for sale in Philadelphia, and Andrew Job, a
resident of Nottingham, now in Cecil County, Maryland,
happening to be in the city at the time, bought her for a
term of years, and brought her to his home.

In 1725 Elizabeth Maxwell became the wife of Thomas
Job, son of Andrew, and now being happily settled, she
wrote to her mother and uncle, giving them the first infor-
mation of her whereabouts. As soon as possible a letter
came from her uncle, stating that her mother was dead, and
that a large property, in addition to her mother's furniture,
had been left to her by will, in case she should ever be
found alive. An inventory of the goods sent accompanied

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 529

the letter, and especial attention was solicited for the pre-
servation of such articles as he had used in his private
study, " as they had descended to the family from their
Flemish ancestors, who sought refuge under the banner of
Queen Elizabeth from the tyranny of Phillipe." He also
apologized for the condition of two chairs, the wicker-seats
of which he had worn out and replaced by wooden ones.
One of these chairs is in the possession of James Trimble,
and the other, which belonged to his brother Joseph, was,
after his death, presented by James to the Historical Society
of Delaware, in Wilmington, because it was in that city
that the last thirty years of the business part of Joseph
Trimble's life was spent.

All the letters received from her uncle were carefully pre-
served by Elizabeth until her death which occurred on the
7th of September, 1782, at the age of eighty-two. One of
her grandsons, Daniel Defoe Job, living near her, was al-
most constantly in her society. She took delight in relating
recollections of her early days ; of how she used to bother
her uncle, meddling with his papers, until he would expel
her from his study.

Daniel spoke of his grandmother as a little, old, yellow
looking woman, passionately fond of flowers, and retaining
her activity of mind and body until the close of her life.
Another of her grandsons, also named Daniel Job, died at
a very advanced age, within my remembrance, and his
funeral was the first I ever attended.

There was an Andrew Job, brother of this Daniel, a
bachelor, who became a hermit, and for more than fifty
years lived entirely alone. The greater part of that time
his home was in a forest belonging to his estate, about two
miles from Brick Meeting-house. His little habitation
consisted of two rooms, one above and one below, and I do
not know that he ever left it during that time. He is said
to have been very tall in youth, but when I saw him he was
upward of eighty, and stooped much. His hair and beard

530 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

were long, and of a reddish hue, and though he was so old,
but slightly gray. He scorned the style of clothing worn
by men, and winter and summer was robed in a blanket,
his only covering. Although a man of abundant means,
he would not leave his retreat to provide the neces-
saries of life, and since he would have but little to do with
his relatives, they engaged some one in whom he had con-
fidence to take his groceries to him. His wheat and corn
he ground himself, by pounding for a long time, my father,
whom he had known for many years, went twice a year to
take him such things as he required. I accompanied him
once when a child, and was kindly treated by the recluse.
I remember that he gave me a drink of cider manufactured
by himself, by pounding the apples, and squeezing the juice
through his hands. The goblet in which he presented it
was a huge gourd, and he stirred the sugar in with his fin-
gers. Children, as a general thing, are not very fastidious,
and I am glad to remember that I did not slight the old
man's hospitality.

After we had left him and gone through the woods to the
road I found I had forgotten my sun-shade, which was
about the dimensions of a good- sized saucer. I was loth to
leave it behind me, and at the same time a little afraid to
return for it ; but my father re-assured me, and very gin-
gerly I wound my way back to the door, where Andy stood,
holding it with a helpless expression of having something
left upon his hands that bid fair to prove a burden. He
handed it to me in perfect silence, and I received it at arm's
length, in the same lugubrious manner. He did not as a
general thing take kindly to visitors; they bothered him
coming to see him out of curiosity, and when he caught
sight or sound of them he hastened in doors and refused
them entrance. He evinced but little curiosity as to the do-
ings of the great world around him, from which he had
withdrawn ; though intelligent, he conversed but little, and
that in a subdued tone, scarcely intelligible to me unaccus-

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 531

tomecl to it. He was upright and honorable in his dealings
with my father, and seemed desirous of giving as little
trouble as possible.

He kept no money about him, but gave orders upon those
who had his property in trust. He, himself, kept control of
his forest, and not a stick did he allow any one to cut from
it. He lived in this way until a log, falling out of his fire-
place, set his house on fire, and burned it down, when he
was compelled to live with his two nieces, and his nephew,
children of his brother Daniel, who were of middle age and
unmarried. Here he remained eleven years until his death,
which occurred on the first day of April, 1863, in the ninety-
second year of his age. In him were conspicuous the
characteristics of the Defoe family, from Daniel down to the
relatives of the present day, remarkable longevity, a dispo-
sition to remain unmarried, or to marry late in life, and the
indomitable independence of spirit which was so prominent
in the character of Daniel Defoe, and his niece Elizabeth.

He was very discontented for several years after he left his
solitude; however, as years and infirmities wore upon him,
he became more reconciled ; but until the time of his death
he occasionally spoke of going off again to live by himself.

It is a subject of regret that no likeness of him is in ex-
istence. A traveling photograph gallery once stopped for
a short time in the road opposite his nephew's house. Andy
took great pleasure in looking at it, and remarked that "it
would be a nice little house for a man to live alone in, if it
was off the wheels ;" but no persuasion could induce him to
enter it.

Joseph and James Trimble, whose mother was a great-
great-neice of Daniel Defoe, lived at that time in a beautiful
romantic place, half a mile from the village. Joseph was a
bachelor ; he was very eccentric, and mi ne with

his brother James, who was married, bul

Joseph Trimble's career was rather u: a short

account of it might be of interest and a ) young

532 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

men starting out in life. Without any external influence
respecting economy, he commenced at an early age to put
his little earnings out at interest, taking good care to secure
ample endorsements, mostly three freeholders. He never
made a dollar by speculation, worked at moderate wages,
farming, etc., never bought any land, and was not remark-
able for constitutional strength, and at the age of eighty-
two left an estate of over fifty-two thousand dollars, princi-
pally among his neices and nephews, and there was every
evidence that he enjoyed life as fully as others. Like his
maternal ancestor, James Trimble, was passionately fond of
flowers, and his beautiful garden and green-house of choice
plants were a great attraction to the rural neighborhood.
When a boy on his father's farm, he was often detected scru-
tinizing the curious formations of " weeds " and their flowers,
instead of attending to his duty, having (as he told me once)
" some reason to remember it."

At the age of about twenty, the novelty of his tastes had
reached Dr. Darlington, of West Chester, who sent him a
copy of his " Florula Cestrica," then just out. This was the
first intimation he had ever received that there was such a
study as systematic botany, and it is needless to dwell on
the enthusiasm with which he entered into what was to him
a new world. From this time until near the death of Dr.
Darlington in 1863, a correspondence was maintained be-
tween them. The Dr. wished specimens of the natural
growth of everything in Chester County for subsequent edi-
tions of his work, in which he noticed some of James Trim-
ble's contributions, a number of them being new to him.

Packages of these dried specimens are most likely yet in
public collections in Philadelphia and West Chester, and at
one time James prided himself on being able to designate
by its botanical name each " wild " plant he met with in
Cecil and Chester counties.

James Trimble gave the land, laid out the lots, and
planted the shrubbery for the cemetery at the Brick Meeting-
house, to which he gave the name of his farm, and " Rose

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 533

Bank Cemetery " is at this time one of the most beautiful
places of burial to be found in the country.

He was also a warm advocate for temperance, and the
eloquent address which he delivered upon that subject at a
meeting near the Brick Meeting-house, will long be
remembered.

In my childhood the walk to his place of a pleasant sum-
mer evening was too lovely to be forgotten. On passing up
the one street of our village, and leaving the houses behind
us, we ascended a gentle slope crowned by the Friends' meet-
ing-house, looking in the evening light, surrounded by its
willow and poplar sentinals, solemn and majestic, the very
embodiment of peace and repose.

Six roads meet near the meeting-house, and taking the
left hand one we turned abruptly round past the old oak
tree, and ancient log school-house, then through the woods
belonging* to the meeting-house, following a narrow brown
path, fringed on each side by wiry grass, and leading
across a stile into the most fragrant of pine woods. Here
the evening breeze whispered and sighed, and the soft turf
was carpeted with wild strawberries, and tiny wild flowers ;
then we climbed over another stile into another woods
which gently descended to a " run," crossed by the most
rustic of little bridges, the air redolent with the perfume of
wild-flowers, and echoing with songs of the oriole and lark.
Their large old-time stone house, faultlessly clean inside
and out, surrounded by lovely grounds, had an ancient,
stately grandeur seldom seen in this changeful country.
Their home was a sweet, quiet, restful place, and they were
never too busy to entertain even children with the names
and properties of their floral treasures.

Kind and indulgent as was Mrs. James Trimble, whose
maiden name was Hannah Mendenhall, I remember that
we children always stood a little in awe of her, and* our
very best company manners, were put on when in her pres-
ence, but with James and his flowers, we were perfectly at

534 HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY.

home, and free as air to roam where we pleased, and we
never left his lovely gardens without a fragrant memento
presented by his kind hand.

One great curiosity to the little folks, was three distinct
foot-prints on one of the rafters in the garret of his house.
Whose were they, and how they came there, was the mystery.
His idea was, and no doubt he was correct, that while the
house was in progress of building, over one hundred years
before, and while the smooth rafters were lying on the
ground, some one, perhaps an Indian, stepping in somein-
dellible fluid had walked on the rafter. They are the prints
of a large flat foot, bare, each toe showing separately and
distinctly, and each print as far apart as a tall man would
naturally step.

But, time has changed much that was so pleasant ; the
march of improvement has levelled the pine woods. I doubt
if the orioles, feeling the change, make the woods as in
days gone by, melodious with their ringing notes. James
Trimble and his family years ago removed to Pennsylvania,
where Joseph died and was brought for interment to the
burial-ground attached to the meeting-house, where my
ancestors worshiped with Elizabeth Maxwell and her family.

Owing to many of the Jobs living unmarried, and others
moving to the southern and western States, the race is well
nigh extinct at Nottingham. The family of Jacob Job a
reputable citizen and farmer and great-grandson of Elizabeth
Maxwell, are all of that name, now residing in Cecil County.
The wife of Nathan Griffith of Brick Meeting-house, was a
grandniece of Andrew Job the Hermit who was a grandson
of Elizabeth Maxwell, consequently their descendants are
distantly related to the Defoe family.

THE HARTSHORNE FAMILY.

The founders of the Hartshorne family, of Cecil County,
the members of which took an active part in public affairs

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 535

a century ago, settled in this county in the early part of the
last century. The father of Jonathan Hartshorne purchased
two tracts or messuages of land, one called Cornucopia, and
the other Spotswood, of Thomas Hampton, containing
together about four hundred acres, and, which, after the
close of the Revolutionary war, were patented by the State
to the family as situated in New Connaught Manor. This
property is now owned in part by W. E. Gillespie, and lies
a mile or two east of West Nottingham Presbyterian church,
of which the Hartshorn es were members. They were an
athletic and hardy race of people. Some of them are known
to have emigrated to Ohio in the early part of the present
century. Jonathan Hartshorne, who married Ann Glasgow,
is the first of the name of whom any reliable information
has been obtained, and who besides being an agriculturalist,
had a tannery to which he gave his attention. He died in
1785, leaving five sons: John, Joshua, Jonathan, Benjamin,
and Samuel; and three daughters, Elizabeth Patterson,
Rebecca McCullough, and Mary Hartshorne, who married a
Mr. Cresswell.

John Hartshorne married Miss Agnes Miller, but died,
leaving no children. He espoused the cause of his country
in the war of the Revolution, and on the 6th of January,
1776, was elected major of the Susquehanna Battalion of
Maryland militia, of this county, by the provincial conven-
tion. There is reason to believe that neither the Susque-
hanna, nor any other of the battalions of militia of this
county, were ever called into active service, and in 1777, or
the next year, he joined the 4th Regiment of Maryland
volunteers. He was commissioned adjutant of that regi-
ment January 25th, 1778. He was also commissioned lieu-
tenant in the same regiment, to rank from May 21st, 1779.
In the summer of 1782 he was engaged in recruiting, but in
the fall of that year joined the army and served until" the
close of the war. Joshua died a bachelor, as did also Samuel.
Benjamin removed to Clearfield County, Pennsylvania,

536 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

where he left numerous descendants. Jonathan, as well as
John, was a surveyor and in the latter part of the last cen-
tury assisted in laying out the public road from Rowland-
ville to the State line. A copy of the plat of that road which
he made, may be seen among the records of the commis-
sioners' court at Elkton. It is well executed and indicates
that he was master of his profession. He married Mary
Gillespie, of Cecil County, and left three sons, John, James
Gillespie, and Joshua; and two daughters. Mary Ann, and
Margaret Eliza, who, some years after their father's death,
removed with their mother to Pennsylvania and settled on
a farm, near Cochranville, where Eliza now resides, who
with her brother Jonathan alone survives.

James married Harriet Henickson, of Chester County,
and left three children, Charles, Augustus, and Elizabeth
Walton.

Joshua, the second of that name, was educated at West
Nottingham Academy, then under the care of the Rev. Dr.
James Magraw. On removing with his family to Chester
County he engaged in merchandize. In 1839 he was elected
to the lower House of the Pennsylvania Legislature, and
served one term. In 1844 he was elected a member of the
Board of Public works and served three years, during the
last of which he was president of the board. He subse-
quently engaged in the iron business at Baltimore, where
he resided many years, and at this time having retired from
business, resides at West Chester, Pennsylvania. In 1846
he married Martha K. Rogers, daughter of Isaac Rogers, of
Harford County, Maryland, and has five children, Mary R.,
Caroline F., Ann H., Alan S., and Walter R. Adam R.
Magraw, a grandson of Rev. Dr. James Magraw, married his
second daughter (Ann Plartshorne), and they now reside on
the old Magraw homestead, adjoining West Nottingham
Presbyterian church.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 537

COLONEL NATHANIEL RAMSAY.

Written for the History of Cecil County by Isaac E. Pennypacker.

James Ramsay emigrated from Ireland* and settled upon
a farm in Drumore Township, Lancaster County, Pennsyl-
vania, at an early age, and by the cultivation of his farm
with his own hands, he provided the means of subsistence
and education for a numerous family. He was a man of
intelligence and piety, and early sowed the seeds of knowledge
and religion in the minds of his children. His wife was
Jane Montgomery, said to be a descendant of Roger de
Montgomery, the Norman who went with William the Con-
queror into England.

William, the eldest of their three sons, was graduated at
Princeton College, in the class of 1754, licensed by the As-
sociation of Fairfield East, Connecticut, November 25th,
1755, and was received into the Abingdon Presbytery, and
ordained and settled as pastor of the Fairfield church, May
11th, 1756. He died November 5th, 1771, and the tomb-
stone erected to his memory testifies to his genius and elo-
quence, his faithfulness as a pastor, and the esteem in which
he was held by the members of his church. t

David, the youngest son, born April 2d, 1749, was gradu-
ated at Princeton College in the class of 1765. Many stories
are told of his remarkable intelligence when a mere boy.
He early attracted the attention of the celebrated Dr. Rush,
of Philadelphia, where he studied medicine, and delivered
an address in Latin at the time of his graduation by the
medical college. He settled in Cecil County, Maryland., but
in a little while removed to Charleston, South Carolina,
where for many years he practiced medicine, and where he
wrote the numerous histories and biographies which are
still regarded, as reliable authorities. He was an ardent
advocate of the cause of the colonies in their contest with

* Rupp's Lancaster Co., page 295.

f "Princeton College, Eighteenth Century."

538 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

the mother country; was a member of Congress, and at one
time, in the absence of .the president, presided over its delib-
erations. Numerous sketches of his life have been printed,
and his published works speak for themselves.

Nathaniel Ramsay, the second son, was born May 1st,
1741. He was graduated at Princeton College with the
class of 1767. On Thursday, March 14th, 1771, on repeat-
ing and signing the test oath and the oath of abjuration, he
was admittted to the bar of Cecil County. In 1771 he mar-
ried Margaret Jane Peale, a sister of Charles Wilson Peale,
the portrait painter. He signed the Declaration of the
Freemen of Maryland ; was a delegate from Cecil County
to the Maryland Convention of 1775, held at Annapolis.
He was, with Charles Carroll, of CarroUton, and others, one
of the committee to devise the best ways and means to pro-
mote the manufacture of saltpetre ; and was also one of the
committee appointed to receive all proposals relating to the
establishment of manufactures of any kind within the
province, and report their opinion thereon.

On Monday, January 1st, 1776, the convention reported
resolutions that 1,444 men with officers be raised in the pay
and for the defense of the province, and that eight com-
panies of the troops, consisting of sixty-eight privates each,
under proper officers, be formed into a battalion; and on the
next day William Smallwood was elected colonel ; Francis
Ware, lieutenant-colonel; Thomas Price, major; Mordecai
Gist, second major; and Ramsay was elected captain of one
of the companies of the battalion. A few days afterwards
(on Sunday, January 14th) he was assigned to the captaincy
of the fifth company, of which Levin Wu rider became first
lieutenant ; Alexander Murray,second lieutenant ; and Walker
Muse, ensign. At the same time the pay of a captain was
fixed at $26 per month ; a major, $33J ; lieutenant-colonel,
$40, with $20 for expenses ; and colonel, $50, with $30 for
expenses. It was ordered that commissions issue to the
officers, and recruiting orders, as to the character of the re-
cruits, to the captains. The uniforms decided on were

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 539

hunting-shirts of various colors. Five companies of the
battalion were ordered to be stationed at Annapolis.

On Januar}^ 17th, a new election was ordered for a repre-
sentative from Cecil County in Ramsay's place, whose seat
would become vacant on his acceptance of a commission in
the regular forces of the province. February 10th, 1776, the
Maryland Council of Safety wrote to Ramsay requesting
him to purchase one hundred and forty yards of country
cloth at about 8s. per yard and linen from 2s. 4d. to 2s. &d. fit
for hunting shirts for his company.

On Saturday, July 6th, 1776, the convention ordered Col-
onel Smallwood to take his battalion atonce to Philadelphia
and put himself under the Continental officer then com-
manding to be subject to the further orders of Congress.
On July 10th, the troops at Annapolis embarked in high
spirits to the Head of Elk and thence marched to Phila-
delphia, where they arrived on the afternoon of July 16th.

One who saw the regiment march down Market street,
wrote : " They turned up Front street until they reached the
Quaker meeting-house called the Bank Meeting, where they
halted for some time, which I presumed, was owing to a
delicacy on the part of the officers, seeing they were about
to be quartered in a place of worship. After a time they
moved forward to the door where the officers halted and
, their platoons came up and with their hats off, while the
soldiers with recovered arms marched into the meeting-
house. The officers then retired and sought quarters else-
where. The regiment was then said to be eleven hundred
strong and never did a finer, more dignified, and braver
body of men face an enemy. They were composed of the
flower of Maryland, being young gentlemen, the sons of
opulent planters, farmers, and mechanics. From the Col-
onel to the privates all were attired in hunting shirts."*
Abraham Clark, writing to Colonel Dayton from Philadel-

* ScharfTs Chronicles of Baltimoie, page 266.

540 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

phia, August 6th, 1776, said that the Maryland regiment
was the finest he ever saw.

The battalion left Philadelphia, Sunday, July 21st, in
twelve shallops for the Jerseys.* It was still at Elizabeth-
town August 4th, and complaint was made of the provisions
issued at Philadelphia. From New York, Washington
wrote August 12th, that " Colonel Small wood's battalion got
in on Friday." There it was incorporated in Stirling's bri-
gade. Work for the Maryland soldiers was at hand. The
battle of Long Island occurred on August 27th, 1776. The
raw American soldiers might well have been excused had
they all fled in dismay as the Connecticut troops did. But
in their first battle the Marylanders were to show that their
martial appearance did not belie their soldierly qualities.
This was the first fight in which the Americans met the
British in the open field and Stirling's brigade, in which
were the Marylanders, opposing Grant's advance, formed the
only line of battle preserved by the Americans on that day.
A letter dated New York, September lst,f says : " The com-
panies commanded by Captains Ramsay and Scott were in
the front and sustained the first fire of the enemy when
hardly a man fell. The Major, Captain Ramsay, and Lieu-
tenant Plunket were foremost and within forty yards of the
enemy's muzzels when they were fired upon by the enemy
who were chiefly under the cover of an orchard save a few
that showed themselves and pretended to give up, clubbing
their fire arms until we came within that distance when
they immediately presented and blazed in our faces ; they
entirely overshot us, and killed some men away behind in
the rear." For four hours Sterling's brigade withstood the
fire of the enemy's muskefry and artillery. By that time
Miles and Sullivan had been surrounded and the British

* Pennsylvania Packet, July 22d. Diary of Christopher Marshall,
page 85.
f Memoirs Long Island Historical Society, Vol. II., page 489.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 541

troops were in Stirling's rear. He heard the ominous firing
behind him and fell back to find himself surrounded.
There was but one thing to do, to cross the Gowanus marsh
and creek where both were at their broadest, to the Ameri-
can lines on the other side. Tradition says that Captain
Ramsay could not swim and that he owed his life on this
day to his unusual height, which was six feet three inches.
By throwing his head back he kept the water from entering
his nostrils and thus crossed the Gowanus Creek in safety.

Perhaps a ray of light may be thrown upon Ramsay's
character by an extract from his testimony, given Septem-
ber 21st, 1776, before a General Court-martial of the line on
the Heights of Harlem, before which Ensign Macumber was
tried for plundering and mutiny. Captain Ramsay deposed :

" I saw a number of men loaded with plunder. I went
up to them, and told them they had been acting exceedingly
wrong. * * * Ensign Macumber had at this time a
knapsack full on his shoulder, out of which stuck two waxen
toys, which I took old of, and jested with him on his having
such a pretty sort of plunder."* Ramsay's company, on
September 27th, 1776, consisted of one captain ; one sec-
ond-lieutenant; two sergeants; one drum and fife; twentj^-one
rank and file, present, fit for duty ; four sick, present ; twenty-
four sick, absent ; seven on command; total fifty-six. Want-
ing to complete ; one drum and fife ; eight privates. Novem-
ber 21st, Samuel Chase wrote to the Maryland Council of
Safety, that Ramsay was in Philadelphia, and in December
he was absent from his command on leave of absence.

A portion of that winter seems to have been spent by him
in Baltimore. He belonged to the Whig club of that city,
the members of which took an oath "to detect all traitors."
William Goddard published, on February 25th, an article
in the Maryland Journal, congratulating the Americans on
the terms of peace offered by General Howe. Goddard

* Force's Archives, Fifth Series, Vol. II., page 500.

542 HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY.

says that on March 3d, Colonel Ramsay and Mr. George
Trumbull called at his house, and on behalf of the Whig
club, demanded the name of the author of the offensive
article. On the next evening Ramsay, in company with
other members of the club, some of them bearing side arms,
called on Goddard and demanded that he should attend the
meeting of the club, and compelled him by force to do so.
The club ordered Goddard to leave the town the next morn-
ing by twelve o'clock. Goddard disobeyed the order and
says, that on March 25th, Commodore Nicholson, Mr. David
Poe, Colonel Nathaniel Ramsay and others, took possession
of his printing office, abused his workmen, seized upon him,
dragged him down stairs and carried him to the tavern
where the Whig club usually met, and he was given until
night to leave the town and county, and informed that
his person was unsafe. From other testimony it seems that
some preparation had been made to tar and feather Goddard.
At all events, the Legislature declared the action of the
Whig club to be an infringement of the Declaration of
Rights, and called upon the Governor to issue a proclama-
tion, calling upon all persons usurping the powers of gov-
ernment to disperse, and on April 17th, Governor Thomas
issued such a proclamation.*

According to the arrangement of the seven battalions of
Maryland Regulars on March 27th, 1777, which were under
Brigadier-General Small wood, Mordecai Gist was Colonel of
the Third Battalion, and Nathaniel Ramsay, Leiutenant-
colonel.

General Samuel Smith says in his autobiography ,f that
at the battle of Chad's Ford, September 11th, " General Kny-
phausen had been detached and displayed a force of about
five hundred men opposite to Chad's Ford. Colonel Ramsay

* Scharil's Chronicles of Baltimore, page 157.

f Dawson's Historical Magazine for February, 1870.

HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY. 543

of the Maryland line crossed the river and skirmished with
and drove the Yagers.*

Ramsay was with the army at Valley Forge during a por-
tion of the memorable winter of 1777-78, where Colonel
Ramsay and Mrs. Ramsay occupied a log hut facing to the
south in which the officers of the army and especially those
of the Maryland line. were accustomed to congregate. A
portion of the line being ordered to Wilmington, Colonel
Ramsay and his wife found agreeable quarters at the resi-
dence of their friend Mr. Lee. On June 9th, 1778, Ramsay
was Lieutenant- colonel of the day at Valley Forge. On
June 17th and 18th, 1778, the British army evacuated
Philadelphia, and marched across New Jersey toward New
York. On the 18th a portion of the American army set out
in pursuit from Valley Forge. On the 19th, Washington
followed with the whole army. On Sunday, the 28th, was
fought the battle of Monmouth. The advance of the Ameri-
cans under command of General Charles Lee had met the
British, but without cause began to retreat, " fleeing from a
shadow." For twenty minutes General Lee sat upon a fence
without giving an order or making an attempt to stop what at
every moment came nearer to being a disastrous rout. At
this moment Washington arrived upon the field. The
enemy must be checked or all is lost. Colonel Ramsay is
coming out of a ravine. Washington hastened to him, and
Colonel Walter Stewart, and taking Ramsay by the hand, said

* Some time before this a battalion from Harford County marched to
Baltimore, whose services it became unnecessary to accept, Colonel Ramsay
to whose regiment the battalion belonged, in acknowledging the receipt
of the communication made to them by the Baltimore committee expres-
sive of their sense of the patriotism of the battalion, says : " That bat-
talion, sir, esteem it but their duty to irarch to the assistance of any part
of the province when attacked or in danger of it. But they march with
greater alacrity to your assistance from the pleasing memory of former
connections and a sense of the value and importance of Baltimore Town
to the province in general." Scharff's Chronicles of Baltimore, page 142.

544 HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY.

that he should depend upon them with their two regi-
ments to check the enemy until the army could be reformed.
Ramsay replied, "We shall check them."

" The British were in the wood in front of Stewart and
Ramsay, whom Washington had directed to incline to the
left so that they might be under cover of a corner of woods,
and not exposed to the enemy's cannon in their iront.*
The British guns opened fire. Fighting every inch of
ground Stewart and Ramsay's men came out of the woods,
the Americans and British mixed up together. Ramsay
himself maintained his ground until left without troops,
and was cut down in a hand-to-hand encounter with some
British dragoons, wounded, and taken prisoner."

General Knox wrote to Mrs Knox, June 29th, that
Colonel Ramsay was released in parole that morning. He
remained at Princeton at the house of Mrs. Sargent until he
had recovered from his wounds.f October 31st, 1778, an
order was issued by the British Commissary General of
prisoners, requiring all American prisoners at home on
parole to repair immediately to New York. Colonel Ram-
say's name being upon a return of officers at home on parole,
October 12th, he was probably among those called to New
York by the order. In the fall of 1779, with General Irvine,
Colonel Magaw, and other prisoners at Flat Bush, he sent
a number of letters to the American Commissary General of
prisoners urging that money be sent them with which to
buj' the necessaries of life. The same officers also sent com-
plaints to General Clinton of the ■ insults offered them by
some British troops under Captain Depeyster, and that on
one occasion they had been charged upon with fixed bay-
onets and taken prisoners for no offense whatever. An ex-
amination having been made, the Americans were declared
to have been "much in the wrong in their controversy with

x Lieutenant-colonel Fitzgerald's testimony. Court-martial of General
Lee.

f Boyle's distiuguished Marylanders, page 143.

HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY. 545

the sergeant of the guard." To this the American officers
replied that their treatment had been " very scandalous and
that if permitted to do so, they could have established their
charges in the clearest manner by the testimony of officers,
and respectable inhabitants." In May 1780, the prisoners
issued a memorial saying that the public supplies had been
stopped for twelve months and asking the respective States
to which they belonged for relief.

Several times while a prisoner, Ramsay, in company with
other officers, came into the American lines on parole with
propositions of exchange. The Americans and British could
not agree upon the terms of exchange, but an agreement
was at last happily effected in the fall of 1780, in pursuance
of which Ramsay and others were released from confine-
ment. On October 30th, 1780, a letter was addressed by
General Irvine, Colonels Matthews, Ely Marbury and other
officers, still in confinment on Long Island, to Ramsay, Ma-
gaw, and others, congratulating them upon their release
from the miseries of captivity; saying that " their hearts
bleed for the unjustifiable neglect of our country to you,
eighteen months without a shilling of supplies," and asking
them to remonstrate to Congress, and, if that failed to the
country against the injustice of exchanging officers cap-
tured at Charlestown, a few months before, in preference to
those who had been prisoners three and four years.* Gen-
eral Irvine wrote from Flatbush, October 31st, 1780, to the
president of Congress, that those officers who that day left
the island, on their way home, had been compelled to leave
their unfortunate friends as security for payment of their
private debts, the Comissary General of prisoners not being
able to discharge them. Ramsay was exchanged for Lieu-
tenant-colonel Connelly, the British spy.f

Tradition says that the officers confined on Long Island
made their life as pleasant as possible, paying frequent

* Irvine papers in Pennsylvania Historical Society.

f Scharffs History of Maryland, page 337, n

546 HISTORY OP CECIL COUNTY.

visits to one another, and doing all that could be done to
relieve the tedium of confinement. The regulations for the
prisoners permitted all field officers to visit any quarters
where prisoners were cantoned. No prisoners were per-
mitted to go to the northward hills, or to use firearms, or go
into any craft, and all were compelled to be in their respec-
tive quarters by ten o'clock at night in summer and by nine
in winter. The injustice to the American officers who were
in the hands of the British so long, did not end with their
imprisonment. They were set free to find their positions in
the army occupied by other men. Their places were filled
and there was no room for the bravest of them elsewhere in
the army. Colonels Ramsay and Tillard, the latter ex-
changed at the same time with Ramsay, became supernu-
mery on July 1st, 1781.*

By the acts of Congress, Colonel Ramsay became entitled
to half pay, commutation, and bounty land. In 1783 he
settled in Baltimore. The Maryland Society of the Cin-
cinnati was organized at Annapolis, November 21st, 1783.
The next day General Smallwood was elected president ;
Brigadier General Gist, vice-president ; Brigadier General
Williams, secretary ; and Colonel Ramsay, treasurer ; and
the latter was also chosen with General Williams, Governor
Paca, and General Smallwood to represent the State Society
in the General Society.

At the first general meeting of the society after the dis-
bandment of the army, held in the State House, Philadel-
phia, May 4th, 1784, General Washington was requested to
preside, and Colonel Ramsay was appointed one of the com-
mittee to wait on General Washington and inform him of
the request of the meeting. On the next day, when the
meeting resolved itself into a committee of the whole,
Colonel Ramsay was called to the chair. On Thursday,
May 6th, the chairman reported that the committee of the

* Saffell Records, page 237.

HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY. 547

whole were of opinion that the institution of the Society
of the Cincinnati should be revised and amended.

In 1785 Colonel Ramsay was chosen to represent Mary-
land in the old Congress for one year from the second Mon-
day in December, 1785. He took his seat on Monday, June
26th, 1786. While in Congress, in opposition to the votes
of the two other Maryland representatives present, Colonel
Ramsay voted in favor of a resolution to pay Major General
John Sullivan $4,300, as compensation for the great expense
he had been put to while in separate command on expedi-
tions; and he served on the committee to which was referred
questions of payments to soldiers. He was sent to Congress
for another year, and took his seat May 3d, 1787.

In Baltimore, Colonel Ramsay, lived in the handsome
home which has since been purchased by Thomas Winans.
March 11th, 1786, he bought for £1,750 part of Anna Catharine
Neck and Carpenter's Point, Cecil County, Maryland, a few
miles below the mouth of the Susquehanna, on the eastern
side of the Chesapeake Bay, and on October 6th, 1790, he
bought Clayfall, four hundred acres for £580. The Car-
penter's Point farm at that time was famous for its shad
fishing and ducking shore, and in a less degree is still so.

Colonel and Mrs. Ramsay in winter made their home in
Baltimore ; in summer at Carpenter's Point ; and according
to Mrs. Titian R. Peale, exercised a more generous hospi-
tality than was then known in rural Maryland. The climate
here, however, did not agree with Mrs. Ramsay, and she
died in 1788, leaving no children. Colonel Ramsay then
married Charlotte Hall, by whom he had five children.

In 1790 he was appointed by President Washington, United
States Marshal for Maryland, and in 1794 he became naval
officer of the port of Baltimore. He died Friday morning,
October 24th, at two o'clock, in his seventy-first year, and
was buried at Westminster church, corner of Green and Fay-
ette streets, Baltimore.*

* A painting of Colonel Ramsay and one of his brother, the historian,
Dr. David Ramsay, hang in Independence Hall, Philadelphia. A painting

548 HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

Colonel Ramsay was a gentleman of great benevolence
and integrity of character. He had the early advantages
of the best education that the country could then give. It
has been said of him that in his law practice he would rather
bring the plaintiff and defendant to a peaceful adjustment
of their differences than try a case. His brilliant military
record shows him to have been the " brave Ramsay " which
the great orator, Henry Armitt Brown, called him. Socially
his position was of the best. He enjoyed the personal acquain-
tance and confidence of General Washington, and when he
died his obituaries in the United States Gazette,^ Baltimore
Fed. Rep., the London Gentleman's Magazine,% and the Annual
of Biography and Obituary, § which spoke of his valor and
value, came nearer the truth than is sometimes the case in
similar notices.

of him when a young man, together with one of his father, James, and
brother, David, were until recently in the possession of his grandson, Mr.
"William White Ramsay, of Harford County. These portraits were painted
by Colonel Ramsay's brother-in-law, Charles Wilson Peale.

Mrs. Titian K. Peale, in whose husband's possession is a manuscript
diary, kept by his father, Charles Wilson Peale. and which contains
several references to Colonel Ramsay, says, ' ' that Ramsay and Washing-
ton were of nearly the same height, and that when the officers of the
American army would gather, as was their custom, at the residence of
Charles Wilson Peale (now occupied by the New York Historical Society)
in New York, they would frequently take turns in trying to lift the
artist's baby sister to the ceiling. Of all who tried the playful feat,
Washington and Ramsay were the only two who succeeded. It is to be
regretted that Mrs. Peale' s consent to an examination of this manuscript
diary, could not be obtained.

The portrait of Colonel Ramsay, in Independence Hall, was photo
graphed with difficulty, the surface being much cracked. A few litho-
graphic copies were struck off, and the stone was destroyed. Through
the kindness of Mr. Stone, librarian of the Pennsylvania Historical
Society, one of these copies is now in the possession of Colonel Ramsay's
great-granddaughter, Mrs. Isaac R. Pennypacker, nee Charlotte Whita-
ker. Colonel Ramsay's sword is now owned by his granddaughter, Mrs.
Mary Ramsay Whitaker, of Harford County. Bearing this sword in his
hand Colonel Ramsay once quelled a serious disturbance among the
fishermen at Carpenter's Point. Colonel Ramsay's canrp candlesticks are
in the possession of his grandson, Mr. William White Ramsay.

f October 29th, 1817. % January, 1818, page 87. § 1819, page 218.

INDEX.

Acadians or French Neutrals, account of. 260, 264

Advice Boat 191

Aikentown 334

Alexander, Robert 335, 336, 347

Alexanders of New Munster 136, 291-

Alexanders of Nottingham 294-

Allegiance, oath of 442

Almshouse, History of 372, 375

Altoona, 26; Altoona, Fort, 33; Changed to Christiana 74

Amsterdam, New 24

Anna Catharine Neck 27

Appoquinimink Creek 76, 196

Ararat, Mount 128, 418

Ark and Dove 8, 14

Asbury M. E. church 461

Asbury, Rev. Francis 177,441, 447, 448, 449, 452, 459

Atwood, Father Peter 199, 200

Avalon 11-

Bachelors, tax on 434

nbridge, Commodore William 491

• Itimore County, original limits of 81

ltoII, Rev. William 216

ssett, Richard 106, 177, 180, 184, 185

.yard, Colonel Peter 178, 182

yard, James A 106, 185

yard, James 213

yard, Petrus 93

aeon Hill 122

ard, Hugh 394

,ard, Rev. John 280

schtel, George K .'. 283

slleconnell 116, 224

3lleHill 116

jquest to poor of St. Stephen's parish 373

3thel church 450

ill of lading 193

Biork, Rev. Ericus 225

Bloody Holly Bush, legend of 250

Blue Ball Tavern 150, 160

Bohemia Ferry 178

Bohemia, Jesuit Mission at : 196

Bohemia Landing...,. 197

Bohemia Manor, 38 ; original metes and bounds, 39 ; plantations on, 172 ;

division of 185

Bosley, James 395

Bouchell, Peter 175, 176, 178, 179

Boulden, Major William 413

Boundary line between Cecil and Harford 403

Bradford, Rev. John 221

Brevard, John 276, 292

Brice, Samuel, petition of 297

British army in Elk Neck, 329 ; at Elk Forge, 331 ; at Turkey Point,
413 ; at Frenchtown, 414 ; at Havre de Grace, 418 ; at Frederick-
town 420

Broad Creek Presbyterian church 275

Brown family 160

Brown, James 145, 160

Brown, William 145

Buchannan, ex-President James 417

Bulls Mountain 223

Burton, Rev. John 286

Calvert, Benedict Leonard 117

Calvert, Cecil or Cecilius 13, 14, 110, 313

Calvert, Charles 110, 120, 299, 306

Calvert, George 11, 14

Calvert, Leonard 14

Calvert, Philip 39, 46, 57

Camp-meetings..... 454

Cantwell family 77

Carolina 1?

Carroll, Charles

Carroll, Charles, of Carrollton, 138, 182, 184, 201, 376 ; his letter t

Henry Hollingsworth

Carroll, John

Catto, Mrs '. 176,

Cape Henlopen '.

Cecil County first mentioned, 40 ; original boundaries of

Cecil Manufacturing Company

Ceciltown, 40; account of. 256, 259, !■

Chalkley, Thomas, visits Conestoga Indians ]

Chandlee, Benjamin 157, 1

Ill

Chandlee, Isaac 158

Charlestown, reasons for building, 265 ; act of incorporation of, 265 ;

names of streets in, 266 ; names of first lot owners, 267 ; exports

from, 268 ; Fairs in, 269-70 ; taxables in, 273 ; population of, 274 ;

ferry at, 356; preaching in 460

Chauhannauks 4

Chesapeake, town of. 378

Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, 383 to 390 ; feeder of, 385 ; cpst of... 392

Churchman family 525

Churchman, John '. 190, 381

Chrome 475

Clayborne, William 7, 15, 17, 19

Clayfall 27, 63, 64, 130, 131, 222

Claytpn, Dr. Joshua 184, 323, 326-

Commissioners of the tax 402

Conestoga Indians 70

Confiscated property : 346, 351

Connaught Manor (see Susquehanna Manor) 114

Convention 319, 320, 321

Cooper, John 361

Corn, scarcity of, 58; Carroll Charles 137, 138

Cosden, Rev. Jeremiah 453

Cottey, Able , 157

Coudon, Rev. Joseph...'. 362, 446, 453, 455

Council, order of 16, meets at Spesutia, 42 ; at Susquehanna Point,

53 ; makes a treaty with the Indians at New Amstel 61

Court, first rules of 244

Courts Baron and Leet, 112; of Cecil County 117

Court-house at Jamestown, 83 ; at Court-house Point, 247 ; at Elkton..367

Crawford, Rev. James 208

Cresap, Thomas 238, 301, 393

Creswell, Colonel John 393

Dare, William ' 118, 223

Davies, Rev. Samuel 167

Davis, Rev. Henry Lyon 453, 454, 458

Dear bourn, General 346

Death, Randall 239

Defoe family 526

Delaware College : ..285

Delaware River, names of 22

Dobson, Richard 217, 229, 323

>bson, Henry 322

ike, Rev. William 436, 443, 455, 457, 459

irham County 75

itton, Robert , , 148, 150, 231

Ease, Chapel of. 210

Ebenezer chapel 450

Edmunson, William 90

Election to determine Seat of Justice 332

Election Districts, County divided into 401, 402

Elk Ferry 249, 329

Elk Forge 330, 331

Elk Forge Company 347

Elkton, Presbyterian church in, 277t; County Pp»i removed to, 365;
Elkton incorporated, 366 ; provisions of the Ac i of Incorporation,
366, 367 ; old buildings in, 367 ; description of, 368 ; members of
the bar of, 368 ; bank of, 405 ; first Methodist Society at, 459 ;

first Methodist church in , 459

England, Joseph 159

Ensor, Augustine Hermen 178, 183

Ensor, Joseph 178, 181, 182, 183, 184

Evans, David 165

Evans, Dr. Amos Alexander, 488 to 495 ; his medals 492

Evans, Dr. Amos A., extracts from diary of 379, 387

Evans Family 485 to 488

Ewing, Rev. John 278, 311

Expedition against Whorekill 77

Fair Hill '. * 138

Fairlee Creek 19

Fendall's Rebellion 30

Finley, Rev. James, 284 ; visits western Pennsylvania 285, 295

Finley, Rev. Samuel '. 278

Fisheries 472 to 475

Five Nations 3

Foreman, General Thomas M 369, 409

Forges 234

Fort Cassimir 25

Fort Christiana 24

Fort Defiance, 410; list of officers and men attending at 411

Fort Hollingsworth, 410; accident at 422

Fort Nassau 22

Fredericktown ...259

Free Schools 279, 477

French and Indian War 202

Frenchtown and New Castle Turnpike Company 406

Frenchtown and New Castle Railroad, 425 to 427 ; first locomotive

on 427

Frey's Forge '. 382

Friendship 224

Furgusson, Zeb 414

Garrett, Colonel William : 410

Geoffarison .' 234

Georgetown 259

Georgetown College 201

Gillespie, Rev. George 141, 288

Gilpin family.- 511

Gilpin, Joseph 228, 321, 363

Gilpin's Rocks 234

Gilpin, Samuel : 234

Goldsmith's Hall 61

Goshen 451

Gorsuch, Robert 43

Graham, Rev. Robert 287.

Grange, the '. 22}

Granite 476

Gravenrod, Susanna 181

Greaton, Rev. Joseph 203

Hack, Anna, and others naturalized 71

Hackett, Rev. Walter 218, 219

Hall family 480 to 485

Hamilton, Patrick 355, 370

Hamilton, Rev. John 272, 444

Happy Harbor 259

Hartshorne family 534

Hartshorne, Major John 323

Harts' Meeting-house 448

Hassan, Alexander 370

Head of Christiana church 140, 288

Heath, James 198, 302

Heath, John Paul 198

Henry, Patrick, letter from 340

Hermen, Anna Margaretta 36, 108

Hermen, Augustine, 32 ; he and Waldron visit Maryland, 33 ; visits Vir-
ginia, 35 ; his early life, 35 ; his family, 36 ; his map, 37 ; escapes
from New Amsterdam, 37 ; first will, 37 ; obtains patent for Bohe-
mia Manor, 38 ; acts as peacemaker, 51 ; is naturalized, 71 ; his let-
ter to Governor Beekman, 72 ; road from his plantation to New
Castle, 76; obtains grant of St. Augustine Manor, 76; he and
Jacob Young authorized to treat with the Indians, 79 ; quarrel
about his land, 100 ; letter to the council, 101 ; files a caveat, 102 ;
extent of his possessions, 103 ; invests his son, Ephraim George,
with the title of Bohemia Manor, 104; his last will, 104; inscrip-
tion on his monumental stone, 105 ; place of his sepulcher, 106 ;
codicil to his will 107

Hermen, Casparus, settles on St. Augustine Manor, 77 ; represents
New Castle County in Legislature of Pennsylvania; 77 ; suceeds
his brother Ephraim George as lord of Bohemia Manor, 170 ; takes
possession of the Manor-house, 171; his wives, 171, 174; his
land in Elk Neck and elsewhere, 172; his death, 173; his

children, 171, 181; commissioner of county ■ 206

Hermendale 172

Hermen, Ephraim Augustine, 172 ; valuation of his personal estate,
173 ; his daughters, Mary and Catharine, 174, 189 ; builds Court-
house 247

Hermen, Ephraim George, settles on St. Augustine manor, 77 ; offices
filled by him, 77 ; his wife, 85 ; joins the labadists, 86 ; deserts his

wife, 94; his sad death 94, 181

Hermen, Francina 36, 108

Hermen, Judith 36, 108

Hessians' Hole, the 332

Hindman, Rev. Francis 287

Hinoyossa, Alexander D\ 46; letters from to Philip Calvert, 46, 50;
is made governor of all the Dutch possessions on the Delaware,

73; sketch of his life 74

Hollingsworth, Henry, 227; sketch of 229, 322, 323, 363

Hollings worth, Jacob 231, 362, 363, 369

Hollingsworth, Stephen '....232

Hollingsworth, Zebulon 219, 230, 277, 339, 362, 363

Hopewell M. E. church 461

Howell, William 217

Howe, Sir William, Proclamation of. 328

Hudson, Father Thomas 199

Hudson, Henry 21

Hundreds ] 241, 242

Hyland family 522

Indian Spring 219

Indian James 4

Indian Weapons and Utensils 5

Ireland, New 115

Iron Hill, Baptist church on, 163, 165, 219 ; why so called, 167 ; dis-
coveries in ore pit on 168

Iron ore 475

Irrigation , 291

Jackson, President Andrew 292

Jacobs, Thomas 226

Jail, at Court-house Point, 248 ; at Charlestown 361

Jamestown , 83

Jawert, John 189, 247

Job Audrew , 160, 529

Vll

442

Johntown 227

215 ; Ws land in Middle Neck * > g3

Jury Oak 243

^y'trialby-V":-;;;;-o5iV;;nt voversybeween^"*^ 354

Justices, quarrel of the, ibY , coutiuvei 3

• J59

Kay, Jeku 246

Kent Couuty, organization of '■•■"" 300

Kingdom, Rev. John • 227

Kings road 232

Kirk, Roger '. ........... 329> 333

Knyphausen, General

Labadists, the, establish* community at Wicwts, «;«***„
tie community ouBohemia Mauoiw.. ""V^™^;^ ohesa.

Latrobe, Benjamin H 287

Latta, Rev. John E • """'^"v Her men 174, 176; his

Lawson, John, courts and marries toy Hermen, u , ^ ^

will .".176, 177, 178, 180, 185

Lawson, Peter 252

Lawyers 520

Leslie family ''''' 203

Lewis, Rev. John 311, 313

Line stones, - 259

Lockwood, Edward W 404

Long bullets • 281, 288

Lottery, -

282

Magraw, Rev. James "'*■■ 283

Magraw, Samuel M 284

Mahaffey, Hugh 21

Manhattan River " 203

Manners, Rev. Matthias ....195, 197,199

Mansell, Rev. Thomas ' 201

Marechal, Rev. Ambrose v •• 376

Maryland Canal (see Susquehanna Canal) ^ ^ u

Maryland, Charter of, 13; preamble to ^ m

Mason and Dbconsh^^^

Mason and Dixon, 308 , land, at rui v » h ^

journal, 309 ; run the tangent line, 311 , inn the cm ^

312; finish the west line g

Massawomekes

Vlll

Mauldin family 5iO

Mauldin's Mountain 223

McDowell, Rev. James 284

McCrery, Rev. John 288, 293

Methodist Protestant churches 462

Method of making Darts 6

Mey, Cornelius Jacobson 21

Meyer, Peter, 42; is naturalized 54

Mills, number of. 403

Minquas 3, 48

Minuit, Peter 23

Mitchell family, 495 ; Colonel Geo. Edward Mitchell 497

Moll, John, sketch of 94

Morris, Robert, letter from 341

Mosley, Rev. Joseph, 203; his Journal 204

Mount Welcome 480

Mud Sills 431

Neals, Captain James, 52; his commission 53

New Amstel, 26; changed to New Castle ■. 74

New Munster, certificate of survey of, 133 ; extent of. 134, 298

Newspapers in County, history of 464 to 472

North East River 2

North Elk Parish, 217; taxables in 219, 222

North Sassafras Parish, 207 ; articles belonging to vestry of, 208 ; first

churchin, 208; taxables in 209, 212

Nottingham Academy 278, 283

Nottingham, 145 ; warrant of survey of, 147; draught of 149

Nottingham Meeting-house 152

Nottingham Monthly Meeting 154 /

Nottingham Presbyterian church, 155 ; name changed to Ephesus,
155 ; changed to Kirk wood, 155 ; disruption of, 277 ; church

building

Nottingham Township..

Nowell, William

Odber, Captain John, 48 ; instructions to, 49 ; is charged with cowar-
dice

Oldfield, George 119, 129,

Oldham, Colonel Edward

Old Man's Path

Old Neddy

Old Simon

Onion, Stephen

Oppoquermine River

Ordinaries

Packets, line of, between Baltimore and Philadelphia 405

Palmer's Island (now Watson's) 7, 15, 145

Paper mills 476

Parker, Edward 322, 324

Passayontke Indians 3

Pauper, bill for burying 372

Peddler's Run 270

Pencader Presbyterian church 165

Pennington's Point 259

Peregrine's Mount 2

Perry Point 132

Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad 428, 429

Pilgrims of Maryland 7

Pinna, King of Picthanomicta, 55 ; makes treaty with Council of

Maryland at Appoquinimink 57

Poppemetto 4, 154

-Port Deposit, first so called, 394 ; bridge company, 395 ; first bridge... 397

Port Hermen 173

Porter, Stephen, 357 ; stabs Thomas Dunn, 358 ; valuation of his

property, 358; his trial 359

Pot House 220 .

Presbyterians, manners and customs of, 290; emigration of 291 ^ —

Priest's mill 200

Principio Iron Company 4, 234, 235

Prise Houses 193

\ Prison, order respecting 248

Protestant Revolution 142

Publication of freight 194

Pulton, Father Thomas 200

Quakers of Nottingham Si8

Quakers on the Sassafras River 90

Ramsay, Colonel Nathaniel, 321, 370; sketch of 537

Ramsay, Dr. David 293

Randel, John, Jr., 389; sketch of. 391

Rangers 190

Redemptioners 236, 295

Reese, Rev. Joshua 453

Reservoir 385

Ricketts, Palmer C 469

Riots 387,431

Roads 79

Roberts, John 347

Rock church, 141, 283; petition of trustees of 285

Rock Run 239

Ross, Rev. Walter < 218

Rousby, Christopher 123

Rudulph family 513

Rudulph, Michael, letter of. 516

Rumsey, Charles 242

Rumsey family 508

Rumsey 's (James) steamboat 375

Rutteu, Garrett, letter to Mr. Wright 48

Ryddarks, Reese 164

Sand Hook i 45, 51

Sassafrax Hundred 207 .

^Scotch Irish, origin of 138, 154 j|k«

Sculptured Rocks : 6

Seneca Point 268, 355, 361

Seven Mountains 29

Sewell, Rev. Richard 209

Shannon River 115

Shawnah 4

Simcoe, George 27

Slaves 193

Sluyter and Danckers, their journal, 85; they visit New Castle, 86;

visit Augustine Hermen, 88 ; their account of the Water-fowl, 89 ;

purchase the Labidie Track 93

Smith, John 1,224, 225

Smith's mill 225

Society 137

Society of Jesus 195, 196

Soul-drivers 236

South River 22, 193

South Sassairas Parish.. 307, 208, 211

Spesutia Island 28, 40, 42, 327

St. Augustine church 213, 332

St. Augustine creek 200

St. Augustine Manor 76, 77, 108, 187--,

Star-gazers' Stone 310

Statistical tables 479

Steamboat, first, on Elk River 424

Steel, Rev. James: 280

St. John's Manor 210

Sti llman, John Hans 48, 225

St. Mark's chapel 458

Stockett, Lewis, commissioned Colonel 65

Stuyvesant, Peter : 25, 32

Susquehannocks, 3, 5, 16 ; treaty with, 17, 28, 45, 48, 61, 62, 66, 67 ; fort

at Turkey Hill 69

Susquesahanough, state of...' 18

Susquehanna Canal, early history of, 376 to 378 ; 393, 397 ; later his-
tory of. • 397 to 400

Susquehanna Ferry 238

Susquehanna Manor, boundaries of, 112; change in boundary of 115

Susquehanna Point 51

Susquehanna Upper Ferry 339

Swanendale **

Swedestown • 225

Talbot, Dick 110

Talbot, George, 110 ; obtains a grant of Susquehanna Manor, 111; ob-
tains a patent for Belleconnell, 116 ; visits Philadelphia, 116; runs
boundary line, 117 ; presides over Cecil County Court, 117 ; makes
a raid on settlers East of Iron Hill, 120 ; builds a fort near Chris-
tiana Bridge, 121 ; murders Eousby, 125 ; is imprisoned in Vir-
ginia, 125 ; escapes and returns to Susquehanna Manor, 127 : his
cave, 128 ; surrenders and is taken to Virginia and tried, 130 ; his

deed to Jacob Young, 130; his death, 132; his falcons..: 418

-Taylor, Isaac *°"

Tea and Coffee, introduction of 3G9

Telegraphing, first attempts at 429

"The Lay of the Scottish Fiddle," extract from ...418

Thomas, Philip 394

Thompsontown 4 "

Three Bohemia Sisters, The 102, 106

Trans-peninsular Line > 305

Transtown — • 225-

"Treeket the Loop" ■ 387

Trimble, Joseph • 158> 531

Trinity church 458

Trump, Michael 337

Tockwoghs, 3; their Fort 4

Towns, first efforts to build 253 to 256

Tyson, Levi 4' '

Underground Eailroad .. 238

Union Line : 406> 435

Upper West Nottingham church 282

Urmston, Rev. John '<Ji'5

Utie, George 30> 68

Utie, Nathaniel, 28; sketch of 29, 31, 34, 45, 64

Van Bibber, Dr. W. C 188

Van Bibber's Forest 187

Van Bibber, Henry. • 188

Van Bibber, Isaac 188

Van Bibber, James 250

Van Bibber, Matthias 186, 211, 216, 236, 247, 248, 250

Van Bibber, Thomas E 188

Van Burkelow, Abel 181, 252

Van Burkelow creek 182

Van Burkelow, Hermen 182

Van Naas, Abraham 51

Veazey, Colonel T. W., defense of Fredericktown 421

Veazey, Major John 215

Veazey, John, Jr 319, 321, 323, 326

"Wallace, David 286

Ward, Henry, obtains tobacco fraudently 78

Ward's Hill T....302

Warwick 196, 198

Watson, John 303, 308

Watson, Joseph 333

Welsh Tract, 160 ; reasons for granting it, 161 ; metes and bounds of ..161

Wetherspoon, David 215

Whitefield, Rev. George, visits Bohemia Manor, 276; preaches at North

East and Nottingham 276

Wildcat Swamp 162

Wild Stock 189

Willowbyes River 2

Wilmer, Edward Pryce 216

Wilson, Rev. John , 382

Wolves 192

Wright, Francis, 62 ; letter from him and others respecting captive

Indian 63

Wright, Rev. Richard 439

Wroth Family 243

Wye, Rev. William 219, 220

Yeo, Rev. John 206

Yorkson, York 144

Young, Jacob, account of him 80, 130

Xaverus, Saint 195, 198, 200

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Full text of "History of Cecil County, Maryland, and the early settlements around the head of Chesapeake Bay and on the Delaware River, with sketches of some of the old families of Cecil County"

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