USA > Maryland > Anne Arundel County > Historical notices of St. Ann's parish in Ann Arundel county, Maryland, extending from 1649 to 1857, a period of 208 years > Part 1
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9
Gc 975.202 An7a 1827771
M. L.
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02167 238 8
GENEALOGY 975.202 AN7A
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016
https://archive.org/details/historicalnotice00alle_0
HISTORICAL NOTICES
OF
ST. ANN'S PARISH Md.
IN
1649-1857
ANN ARUNDEL COUNTY,
MARYLAND,
Extending from 1649 to 1857,
A PERIOD OF 208 YEARS.
BY THE REV. ETHAN ALLEN, OF BALTIMORE CO., MD.
BALTIMORE: PUBLISHED BY J. P. DES FORGES, NO. 2 NORTH CHARLES STREET. 1857.
C 28577 ,1 County. Maryland, extending from Je to :-. the Rev. Ethan Allen ... Baltimore, J. P. Des For.
-HELP CARD
1. Annapolis St. Ann's parish. 2 Annapolis -Hist.
1827771
On the Parish Institutions Hoyland, By Cloud Angle Le Magazine d Area. Hesten
ST. ANN'S PARISH,
ANN ARUNDEL COUNTY.
This parish was one of thirty-five which were estab- lished, as the records of the Governor and Council state, under the Act of the General Assembly of Mary- land, passed A. D. 1692, entitled "an Act for the service of Almighty God, and the establishment of the Protestant Religion in this Province," in the reign of William and Mary ; Lyonel Copley, Esq., being Governor.
But in consequence of the loss of the first twelve pages of the Records of the Vestry's proceedings, which is to be very greatly regretted, the steps taken in the first organization of the parish, cannot now be ascertained-nor any thing else, indeed, from that source, for twelve years.
In the returns, however, made as required of the several Vestries in the Province to the Governor, Francis Nicholson, Esq., and his Council, St. Ann's was returned in 1696, under the name of Middle Neck Parish, and as consisting of the territory between South River and the Severn.
4
HISTORICAL NOTICES
1649.
But there is a history of this region previous to the year 1692, which is well calculated to attract interest, and which is too important not to give it our atten- tion. Twenty years after the settlement was first made on Kent Island, that is in A. D. 1629, and fifteen after that in St. Mary's, by Lord Baltimore, a com- pany of emigrants, from the province of Virginia, settled in the neighborhood, and on the very ground in part, of what is now the city of Annapolis. They were Puritans.
The Puritans of that day were both a religious and a political party, and in Virginia they were dissenters from the church of England, as then by law estab- lished there. They had sprung up in that province within the previous six years, very much under the teaching and influence of preachers sent to them from Massachusetts, upon the application of Mr. William Durand. So early indeed as ten years before this, in 1639, under the administration of Sir William Berk- ley, several severe laws had been made in Virginia, against the Puritans-though, as Beverly in his histo- ry of that colony tells us, there was as yet none there, but they were intended to prevent the infection from reaching the country. But in this instance, as in others, the enactments of law did not accomplish what was intended. For two years after this was done, some few were found there, and at the present time, 1649, their numbers had increased to upwards of one hundred. But the Governor at length putting the laws which had been made into rigid execution, they were compelled to leave Virginia, and at once "they removed themselves," to use the language of their own historian, "families and estates, into the Province of Maryland, being thereto invited by Capt. William Stone, then Governor for Lord Baltimore, with the
5
OF ST. ANN'S PARISH.
promise of liberty in religion and privileges of En- glish subjects." Langford, indeed, says it was done by a friend of Governor Stone-but qui facit per alium facit per se. It amounts to the same thing.
At this date, in England, the Parliament was as- cendant, the King having been put to death in the preceding January, and Governor Stone, as Lord Baltimore's friend Langford states, was a Protestant, devoted to the Parliament. He had been appointed Governor, on condition of bringing into the province five hundred colonists. And these Puritans, were doubtless, invited among others, to help make up that number. They were not indeed Presbyterians, as the Parliament itself was, but like them, they were avowed enemies of Bishops and the Book of Common Prayer, though they held to the thirty-nine articles of the Church of England, as they interpreted them, and were fanatically zealous religionists. They held that each local society, called a church, was perfectly in- dependent of every other such society-each having the right of ordaining its own ministers, and of self government. And as a political party, they were utterly hostile to the existence of Kings-and claimed the right, and so aimed, to subject all others to their own chosen form of government, in which, the civil was held in subjection to the ecclesiastical.
It does not appear that on their arrival in the Severn, they took out any patents for their lands, un- der Lord Baltimore, but in very few instances. This was because he required of every one so taking up land, an oath of fidelity to himself. This, they held, bound them to acknowledge and to be subject to a royal jurisdiction and absolute dominion of Lord Bal- timore-and to defend it and him against all power whatsoever-which they thought too much unsuitable to the present liberty which God had given the En- glish subjects. This is expressly stated by Leonard
1*
6
HISTORICAL NOTICES
Strong, one of their number, with the imprimatur of their ruling elder, in a pamphlet written some six years after their coming hither, and shows that in fact they did not intend any such defence of the Lord pro- prietary, or subjection to him. Having thus no such intention, it is not clear that it was either honorable or just, to seat themselves upon the lands of which Lord Baltimore was the proprietor, and consequently had the right to make his own terms of settlement, provid- ed those terms were within the limits of the charter.
The town first settled by them, was at Greenberry's Point-a peninsula two miles east from the State House-then known as Town Neck. This neck indeed is not in St. Ann's parish, but in that across the Severn, the present St. Margaret's Westminster. But as it consisted of but two hundred and fifty acres, and was patented by eight individuals only, it is evident that others of the hundred emigrants seated them- selves in the country near by : and the entire settle- ment thus made was named by them PROVIDENCE .- They had around them then, not only the wide waters of the Chesapeake and the Severn, South river and its creeks, and the unbroken forest of the wilderness, filled with beasts of prey, but also the wild Indian. And we must not imagine that they met with no trouble from this latter source. For they had not long been seated on the Severn, before one of their number was most cruelly and barbarously murdered by the savages. And thus by night and day, around their tent fires, their minds were filled with fearful and continual apprehensions.
1650.
. It was in this year, (April 1650,) that the settlement sent two Burgesses to the General Assembly at St.
-
7
· OF ST. ANN'S PARISI.
Mary's-Mr. James Cox and Mr. George Puddington, the former of whom was elected Speaker of the lower House. This House, at this time, consisted of four- teen members, eight of whom were Protestants. St. Mary's county had itself eleven members, of whom six were Protestants. This fact thus shows us some- thing of the relative numbers of the two parties in that county.
At this Assembly an act was passed, erecting Pro- vidence into a county, and the name given it was Ann Arundel, that being the maiden name of Lady Baltimore. This compliment indicates somewhat, certainly, the then prevailing disposition towards his Lordship, on the part of the Protestants-for they not. only had a majority of two in the lower House, but in the upper House likewise of three. There was also passed at that time, an Act for taking an oath of fidelity to the Lord proprietary, which, left out the words "absolute lord" and "royal jurisdiction," so much scrupled by the new comers at Providence, and a clause inserted "that they would defend and main- tain all such his Lordship's just and lawful rights, title, interests, &c., not any wise understood to infringe or prejudice liberty of conscience in point of religion." This was inserted because the oath, as it had been pre- scribed by Lord Baltimore, was exceedingly scrupled at, not only on account of the titles which it used- the revolution in England having abolished those titles there-but also on another account, namely : that in taking it, as they said, they must swear to up- hold the government, and those officers who are sworn to uphold Anti-Christ-in plain words expressed in the Governor's oath-the Roman Catholic religion. That oath, however, only required of the Governor and Council that they should not trouble or molest any Roman Catholic in respect of his religion. And this it may well be conceived, was something different from
8
HISTORICAL NOTICES
upholding him therein. But whatever they claimed for themselves, the Puritans acknowledged no exercise of toleration towards the Romanists-and this on the ground of their rights as English subjects-the laws of England, then existing and in force there, forbid- ing, indeed, any such toleration.
The settlers at Providence, now professedly ac- quiesced in the government of the province, and hav- ing taken the oath as it had been modified, they pro- ceeded to take out warrants of survey for land-though not their patents. Thus on the 17th of May, Mr. George Puddington received his warrant for 800 acres, Mr. James Cox for 300, and others for larger as well as for lesser amounts. In June, 1650, land was first surveyed here for four individuals, and in 1651, for nine more.
In July Governor Stone visited them, and com- missioned Mr. Edward Lloyd to be commander of Ann Arundel county. Mr. Lloyd was from Wales, and was here engaged as a land surveyor. As we learn from John Bozman Kerr, Esq., after a residence in the province of twenty years nearly, in 1668 he left Talbot county, where he and many others from Providence had finally settled, and returned to Lon- don, and there became a merchant. He died in that city in 1695. He left, however, his son Philemon be- hind him in the province, and gave him his estate in Talbot. He was the ancestor of the present Col. Ed- ward Lloyd, of Wye, in that county.
Governor Stone also appointed Mr. James Home- wood, Mr. Thomas Meares, Mr. Thomas Marsh, Mr. George Puddington, Mr. Mathew Hawkins, Mr. James Merryman and Mr. Henry Catlin, Commis- sioners, or County Justices. Their commission was dated July 30, 1650. The names thus mentioned, furnishes us with the fact that these prominent men were not the patentees of land at Town Neck or Green-
9
OF ST. ANN'S PARISH.
berry's Point-for as is seen in Kilty's Landholders' Assistant, page 136, they were William Pell, George Sapher, Robert Rockhould, William Penny, Christo- pher Oatley, Oliver Sprye, John Lordking and Rich- ard Bennett, who was not, however, a resident in the colony. The Justices, we perceive, thus resided else- where in the county than at Town Neck. In Decem- ber, 1650, land was surveyed in Middle Neck Hundred for Richard and Alexander Warfield.
1651.
On the 8th of July, 1651, it appears from 2. Bozman, 463, that Mr. Lloyd, the commander of Ann Arun- del, granted, as he had been empowered to do by the Governor, a warrant to Thomas Todd for a great part of the land on which the city of Annapolis now stands. But no transcript of the right or title, was ever sent to the land office at St. Mary's, nor any certificate of survey ever returned. Still as the Rent Roll shows, on the 8th of July, 1651, there was sur- veyed for Thomas Todd, 100 acres, on which was after- wards part of Annapolis and its liberties.
It may be mentioned here, that in the month of November, the tract of land called Acton, of 100 acres, on which James Murray, Esq. now lives, on Carroll's Creek, (near Severn) Annapolis, had been surveyed and taken up in the name of Charles Ham- mond.
Todd's Range was surveyed December 18, 1662, for Thomas Todd-being on the south side of the Severn 100 acres and 20 acres-Annapolis covers it.
Todd's Harbor was surveyed September 16, 1670. This is what is now called Annapolis-but who actually took out the patent for it, has not been ascer- tained.
١
10
HISTORICAL NOTICES
The King, as before stated, having been beheaded, the Presbyterian Parliament became in name, what it had been before in fact, the sole government of Eng- land. And in order to reduce Virginia and the plan- tations within the Chesapeake to obedience to the com- monwealth of England-meaning thereby the Par- liament without a King-in September of this year a committee of five were appointed. This committee included Mr. Richard Bennett and Captain William Claiborne, Treasurer of Virginia, and were known as the Parliament's Commissioners.
1652.
The Commissioners just mentioned, having re- duced Virginia to obedience to the Parliament, in November of 1651 came over into Maryland. They proposed to Governor Stone and his Council to remain in their places, conforming themselves, meanwhile, to the laws of the commonwealth of England, in point of government only-but not infringing on Lord Bal- timore's just rights. This conformity required that in all writs, warrants, &c., instead of Lord . Balti- more's name, as the custom was, that of "the keepers of the liberty of England, by authority of Parlia- ment," should be used. To this, though belonging to the Parliament's party, as the Governor and a majority of his Council did, they objected, and con- sequently they were removed from their office by the Commissioners. In their stead were substituted Robert Brooke, Esq. and Mr. Job Chandler-mem- bers of Governor Stone's Council ; Colonel Francis Yeardly, Capt. Edward Windham, Mr. Richard Pres- ton and Lieut. Richard Banks, as the Council to direct the affairs of the province, and Lord Baltimore's com- mi sions to his Governor and Council were declared
11
OF ST. ANN'S PARISH.
null and void. Mr. Brooke was put in the Governor's place, and Governor Stone and the two Romanist members of his Council and the Secretary were set aside.
Having thus accomplished this change in the gov- ernment, the Commissioners then returned to Vir- ginia, where Mr. Bennett was appointed by the Com- missioners and Burgesses, the Governor of Virginia, and Capt. Claiborne, Secretary of State. This office indeed he had held under the King from 1624 -- for thirteen years-soon after which, he had been ap- pointed by the same authority, Treasurer of the pro- vince for life.
In the June following of 1652, the Parliament's Commissioners, Bennett and Claiborne, came over to Maryland again-and as they found it to be the mani- fest desire of the inhabitants of the province that Capt. Stone should resume his former place as Gover- nor-having now agreed to the terms before offered him, he was duly re-instated by the Commissioners, and they returned to Virginia.
1653.
Time now passed on and nothing was heard from Lord Baltimore till late in 1653, when instructions were received from him by Governor Stone, requiring the colonists to take the oath of fidelity, just as it had before been prescribed by him, or that their land would be forfeited-thus re-asserting his own para- mount authority, and attempting to resume his inde -. pendent government in the province. This he (Gov. S.) at once made known.
12
HISTORICAL NOTICES
1654.
On the 3rd of January following, a petition was addressed to the Parliament's Commissioners, from the Commissioners of Severn alias Ann Arundel coun- ty, that being, it would seem, their place of residence, subscribed by Edward Lloyd and seventy-seven per- sons of the house-keepers, inhabitants, in which they said "that whereas we were invited and encouraged by Capt. Stone, Lord Baltimore's Governor of Mary- land, to remove ourselves and estates into this pro- vince, with promise of enjoying the liberty of our consciences in matters of religion and other privileges of English subjects-and your petitioners did upon this ground, with great cost, labor and danger, re- move ourselves, and have been at great charges in building and clearing-now the Lord Baltimore im- poseth an oath upon us, by proclamation, which he requireth his Lieutenant (Gov. Stone) forthwith to publish, which if we do not take within three months after publication, all our lands are to be seized for his Lordship's use. This oath we conceive not agreeable to the terms on which we came hither, nor to the liberty of conscience as christians and free subjects of the commonwealth of England. Neither can we be persuaded in our consciences by any light of God or engagement upon us to take such an oath, but rather conceive it to be a real grievance, and such an oppres- sion as we are not able to bear. Neither do we see with what lawful power such an oath, with such ex- treme penalties can, by his Lordship, be exacted of us, who are free subjects of the commonwealth of England, and have taken the engagement to them. We have complained of this grievance to the late Council of State, in a petition subscribed by us, which never received any answer-such as might clear the lawfulness of such, his proceedings with us, but an
13
OF ST. ANN'S PARISH.
aspersion cast upon us of being factious fellows .- Neither have we received any conviction of our error in not taking the oath, nor order by that power be- fore whom our petition is still depending, to take it hereafter. Neither can we believe that the common- weath of England will ever expose us to such a mani- fest and real bondage, (who assert themselves the maintainers of the lawful liberties of the subject) as to make us swear an absolute subjection to a govern- ment, where the Ministers of State are bound by oath to countenance and defend the Roman popish relig- ion, which we apprehend to be contrary to the funda- mental laws of England, to the covenant taken in the three kingdoms and the consciences of true English subjects, and doth carry on an arbitrary power, so as whatever is done by the people at great cost in assem- blies for the good of the people, is liable to be made null by the negative voice of his Lordship." * * *
On the 2d of March following, the proclama- tion of Lord Baltimore, spoken of in the petition, reinstating things as they were before the reducement, was published by Governor Stone, as directed.
But on the 12th, the Commissioners, Bennett and Claiborne, replied to the above petition thus : "We have lately received from you a petition and complaint against Lord Baltimore, his Governor and officers there, who upon pretence of some uncertain papers and relations to be sent out of England, but no way certified or authenticated, have presumed to recede from their obedience to the commonwealth of En- gland, to which they were reduced by the Parliament's Commissioners, to the contrary whereof nothing hath been sent out of England, as far as is yet made ap- pear unto us, but duplicates and confirmation of the Commissioners power and actions were sent from the Parliament since the reduction of Virginia and Mary- land. Now whereas yon complain We have
2 ,
14
HISTORICAL NOTICES
thought good to send you this answer, that because we, nor you, have not as yet received or seen sufficient orders or directions from the Parliament and State of England contrary to the form to which you were re- duced and established by the Parliament's said Com- missioners, therefore, we advise and require you, that in no case you depart from the same, but that you continue your due obedience to the commonwealth of England, in such manner as you and they were then appointed and engaged, and not to be drawn aside from the same upon any pretence of such uncertain relations, as we hear are divulged among you. To which we expect your real conformity, as you will answer to the contrary, notwithstanding, any pre- tence of power from the Lord Baltimore's agents, or any other whatsoever, to the contrary."
Two months after this, in May, Cromwell was pro- claimed in the province, by Governor Stone, Lord Protector of the commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland, and the dominions thereunto belonging : thus recognizing and acknowledging the supremacy of the power in the province, from whence the Com- missioners derived their authority.
In July following the Commissioners came again into Maryland, and again set aside Governor Stone and his Council-being aided therein by the people of Patuxent and of Severn-and he then submitted, as he once before had done, to the authority of the Commissioners. His written resignation on this oc- casion is dated July 20, 1654. This was done, as the Commissioners allege-(see Lord Baltimore's Case un- cased, page 41)-under the authority from his High- ness, the Lord Protector. And now, on the 27th of the same month, the Commissioners appointed Capt. William Fuller, Mr. Richard Preston, Mr. William Durand, Mr. Edward Lloyd, Capt. John Smith, Mr. Leonard Strong, Mr. John Lawson, Mr. John Hatch,
15
OF ST. ANN'S PARISH.
Mr. Edward Wells and Mr. Richard Ewen to be Com- missioners for the well ordering, directing and gov- erning the affairs of Maryland, under his Highness, the Lord Protector.
Mr. Durand was appointed Secretary of the pro- vince, and Capt. John Smith, Sheriff for the year .- Messrs. Fuller, Durand, Lloyd, Strong, not to men- tion others, were "men of Severn."
On the 20th of October, a General Assembly was held at Patuxent, at the house of Mr. Preston, by commission from his Highness, the Lord Protector. At this Assembly was made a declaration that every free subject of the commonwealth shall have liberty to petition against grievances, &c. An act concern- ing religion was also passed, which declared that such as profess faith in God by Jesus Christ, should be protected in the faith and exercise of their religion * ; provided such liberty was not extended to Popery and Prelacy ! Ann Arundel county was now again called Providence, and a new county was erected called Patuxent-afterwards named Calvert. Acts were passed concerning drunkenness, swearing, slan- dering and tale-bearing, the Sabbath day, theft, adul- tery and fornication-all showing that morals, as well as other things, were held to be subjects for legis- lation, and that such legislation was called for.
1655.
But passing on, in January of 1655, Gov. Stone received letters from Lord Baltimore, stating that his Highness, the Lord Protector, had neither taken away from him his patent or his charter, nor his land-but he said nothing about the restoration of his govern- ment. But as the statement is in the breviat of the proceedings of Lord Baltimore-see Hazzard, vol. 1,
16
HISTORICAL NOTICES
page 620, &c.,-"the Lord Baltimore doth blame him [Stone] for resigning up his government into the hands of the Lord Protector and Commonwealth of England, without striking one blow-taxing him in effect with cowardice." And a pamphlet of 1655- "Maryland and Virginia" -- says that in his letters "the Lord Baltimore gives particular command to seize the persons of the Commissioners [Bennett and Claiborne ?] under his hand and seal, dated Novem- ber last, and for their service to the Lord Protector, to proceed against them as abettors in mutiny and sedition-chides and upbraids Capt. Stone for cow- ardice-provokes him to fighting and bloodshed-ap- points another Governor, in case he declines it, and yet sends no revocation of the Commissioners reduce- ment, though he acknowledges that he sought it earnestly, but could not obtain it."
Thus taunted, Governor Stone gathered about two hundred armed men, and twelve vessels of the bay craft order, and proceeded, part going by land and part by water, to bring the Providence men under the Lord Baltimore's government. They heard of bis thus coming, and first of all betook themselves for help to God. "The people of Providence-says Strong in his narrative of this affair, page 8-perceiving such a tempest ready to fall on them, and all messages re- jected, prepared for their coming, looking up and cry- ing to the Lord of Hosts and King of Kings for coun- sel, strength, and courage; being resolved in the strength of God, to stand on their guard and demand an account of these proceedings, seeing no other reme- dy for so great a mischief ready to fall upon them." Whatever of cant some may discover here, the fact itself stated is christian, and commends itself to the christian.
Governor Stone, it appears, had hoped to find them unprepared for his coming, and to take them by sur-
17
OF ST. ANN'S PARISH.
prise. Hence the messengers which they sent him, he placed under arrest and detained them. But they had a hundred men under arms, and had hired an armed vessel, lying at the town, to help them.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.