History of Talbot county, Maryland, 1661-1861, Volume I, Part 1

Author: Tilghman, Oswald, comp; Harrison, S. A. (Samuel Alexander), 1822-1890
Publication date: 1915
Publisher: Baltimore, Williams & Wilkins company
Number of Pages: 684


USA > Maryland > Talbot County > History of Talbot county, Maryland, 1661-1861, Volume I > Part 1


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HISTORY OF TALBOT COUNTY MARYLAND 1661- 1861


COMPILED PRINCIPALLY FROM THE LITERARY RELICS OF THE LATE SAMUEL ALEXANDER HARRISON, A.M., M.D.


BY HIS SON-IN-LAW OSWALD TILGHMAN EASTON, MD.


IN TWO VOLUMES VOLUME I


Biographical Sketches


BALTIMORE WILLIAMS & WILKINS COMPANY MDCCCCXV


COPYRIGHT. 1915, BY OSWALD TILGHMAN EASTON, MD.


DEDICATION 1136084


To the memory of Talbot's local annalist, the late


SAMUEL ALEXANDER HARRISON, A.M., M.D.,


and to the many descendants of the Worthies of Talbot, scattered, as they are, throughout the United States and in foreign lands, these Memoirs are respectfully dedicated.


It is the earnest hope of the compiler of these pages that a thoughtful perusal of them may inspire in their readers a sincere desire to emulate the virtues of the early Worthies of Talbot, for love of ancestors and veneration for their memories ennoble a people who cherish them.


OSWALD TILGHMAN.


FOREWORD


The human mind can not be contented with the present. It is ever journeying through the trodden regions of the past, or making ad- venturous excursions into the mysterious realms of the future. Of the future, but little is known; clouds and darkness rest upon it. We stretch out our arms toward its shadowy inhabitants; we invoke our pos- terity, but they answer us not. We wander in its dim precincts till reason becomes confused, and at last we start back in fear, like mariners who have entered an unknown ocean, of whose winds, tides, currents, and quicksands they are wholly ignorant. Then it is, we turn for relief to the past, that mighty reservoir of men and things. There we have something tangible to which our sympathies can attach, upon which we can lean for support, from which we can gather knowledge and learn wisdom. Our attention is aroused by the great moral events which have controlled the fortunes of those who have preceded us, and still influence our own. With curious wonder we gaze down the long aisles of the past upon the generations that are gone. We behold, as in a magic glass, men in form and feature like ourselves, actuated by the same motives, urged by the same passions, busily engaged in shaping both their destinies and ours. We approach them and they refuse not our invocation. But most of all, among the innumerable multi- tudes who peopled the past, we seek our own ancestors, drawn toward them by an irresistible sympathy. Indeed, they were our other selves. With reverent solicitude we examine into their characters and actions. We search with avidity the most trivial circumstances in their life his- tory, and eagerly treasure up every memento of their fortunes. The instincts of our nature bind us indissolubly to them, and link our fates with theirs. Honor of ancestors, respect for their virtues, and love for their memory ennoble the people who cherish them. Men can not live without a past. It is as essential to them as a future. Into its vast confines I invite my readers to journey with me and to hold con- verse with the early worthies of Talbot County, the founders of this fair land, men who were prominent under proprietary rule and colonial conditions, and men also who laid the foundations of our State Govern- ment and its best institutions. We shall speak to them and they will answer us.


CONTENTS


PAGE


Samuel Alexander Harrison, M.D


1


Lieutenant Colonel Tench Tilghman. 4


Hon. James Hollyday, Jr 46


Francis Butler, gent. 64


Robert Morris 66


Henry Callister


83


Wenlock Christison


103


Edward Lloyd, The Puritan,.


132


Philemon Lloyd, Indian Commissioner


146


Edward Lloyd, The President.


156


Philemon Lloyd, The Secretary.


161


Edward Lloyd, The Councillor.


164


Edward Lloyd, The Patriot


176 184


Edward Lloyd, The Governor.


210


Edward Lloyd, The Senator 222


Governor Daniel Martin 228


Colonel Jacob Gibson 231


257


Reverend Thomas Bacon, D.D.


272 300


General Perry Benson.


303


Jeremiah Banning.


325


Hon. John Dickinson.


352


Hon. William Tilghman.


368


John Leeds Bozman, The Historian.


375


Hon. John Leeds Kerr.


388


Hon. Robert Henry Goldsborough.


408


Hon. John Bozman Kerr


414


Hon. Matthew Tilghman 423 432


Dr. Tristram Thomas.


Hon. William Perry.


444


General Lloyd Tilghman.


450


Purser Samuel Hambleton.


455


Colonel Samuel Hambleton 476


Captain William Claiborne 493 Alexander D'Hinojosa. 521


Samuel Chamberlaine of Plain Dealing. 531


Samuel Chamberlaine, Jr., of Bonfield. 552


Dr. John Coats. 575


Nicholas Hammond 3rd. 578


Governor Philip Francis Thomas. 583


Admiral Franklin Buchanan 587


Right Reverend Henry Champlin Lay, D.D.


600


Edward Lloyd, The Farmer.


Dr. Ennalls Martin


David Kerr.


V


vi


CONTENTS


Reverend Henry Michael Mason.


606


Thomas Beaston .. 607


Hon. Richard Carmichael Hollyday 614 James Lloyd Martin. 617


Governor Samuel Stevens. 622


General Tench Tilghman


624


THE WORTHIES OF TALBOT


BEING BIOGRAPHICAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO A HISTORY OF THAT COUNTY


SAMUEL ALEXANDER HARRISON, A.M., M.D.


1822-1890


The subject of this Memoir was born October 10, 1822, at Clay's Hope1 farm in Saint Michael's district, Talbot County, Maryland, fronting on the Tred-Avon river, directly opposite the town of Oxford. His parents were Alexander Bradford Harrison and Eleanor (Spencer) Harrison, daughter of Colonel Perry Spencer of "Spencer Hall," whose grandfather, James Spencer, Junior, married Anne Benson, daughter of Dr. James Benson, who emigrated from England to Maryland in 1670, and who commanded a troop of horse in Talbot County in colonial times.


Doctor Harrison spent the active years of his youth in securing the education and knowledge necessary for the work he had in view. His preliminary instruction under the skilled and learned Reverend Joseph Spencer, D.D., was completed at Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pa., where, in a large and talented class, he gave evidence of a marked supe- riority in those branches pertaining to history, rhetoric, logic and the philosophies. He graduated, with honor, in 1840, at the age of eighteen. Having chosen the profession of medicine, he entered into the study of that science with avidity and earnestness so remarkable, that he was graduated with distinction in a class composed of some of the strongest men that the University of Maryland has sent from its halls. Having received his diploma, he began the practice of his profession with such zeal that his health, never robust, soon broke beneath the strain, and compelled him to seek strength and health in the then distant western city of Saint Louis, Missouri. He engaged temporarily in business there, but his active and scholarly mind soon tired of the monot- onous commercial round, and being independent in fortune, he sought anew the home of his childhood in Maryland, and after a few years


1 "Clays Hope" was so named in the original patent from Lord Baltimore to one Henry Clay for 200 acres. Henry Clay and wife, Elizabeth, conveyed this tract of land to James Coulson, by deed bearing date Nov. 15th, 1664, only three years after the organization of Talbot into a county. This Henry Clay removed to Virginia and is thought to have been the ancestor of Henry Clay of Kentucky.


1


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THE WORTHIES OF TALBOT


residence in Baltimore City, he became permanently a citizen of Tal- bot County and an honor to it. About the second year of the Civil War, 1862, he established himself on "East Anderton," the Thomas family homestead, a fertile farm in Oxford Neck, and where he devoted himself to agriculture and to literary pursuits. Having been made President of the County School Board, the Superintendent of Public Schools in Talbot County, under the school system inaugurated in 1864, by the Republican party, of which he was an ardent advocate, he re- moved to Easton. He performed the important duties of this office, with indefatigable industry and well directed intelligence, putting into his work his heart as well as his great abilities and untiring zeal.


The change in the school system under the Constitution of 1867 legislated him out of office. After a residence of about nine years in Easton, he removed to his attractive country seat, "Woodstock," three miles from Easton on a branch of Miles river which he had recently purchased. Here he resided with his family for about seventeen years. For a few years prior to his death he resided at "Foxley Hall," Easton, the residence of his son-in-law, Oswald Tilghman, where he died on the 29th day of May, 1890, in his 68th year.


His hospitable county home was always open to his friends, and his fluency in conversation made him ever a congenial companion of rare qualities, in imparting to others knowledge which he himself never tired of gaining. He was thoroughly imbued with a spirit of kindly consideration for the feelings of his fellowmen, with whom he was brought in daily contact. His heart ever went out to the weak, and his every effort was bent towards the education and enlightenment of the ignor- ant and illiterate who lived about him. His vision was not, however, circumscribed by the horizon of things about him, its range extended far beyond it. His delight was in holding communion with the departed great and good, by uniting research and study of local history, thereby bringing their presence home to the minds of the living.


Doctor Harrison possessed a great historical mind, stored with a knowledge of all the important events and traditions of this favored section. Of almost servile industry his pen was never quiet. For many years he was at his desk long before the faintest glimmer in the East told of the rising of the sun, and often he burned the midnight oil, putting into phrase and sentence facts and incidents of early local history which he has left as literary legacies of great value both to his County and State. Several of his historical papers were read by him before the Maryland Historical Society, of which he was long an active


3


DR. SAMUEL A. HARRISON


member, and have been published by this society in pamphlet form. In his will he very wisely bequeathed all of his valuable manuscripts and scrap books, the literary labors of a life-time to the Maryland Historical Society. His voluminous writings comprise a concise and critical history of Talbot County, and necessarily, of the early history of that territory now comprising Queen Anne's County and the western half of Caroline County, which was, originally, a part of Talbot County, covering a period of two centuries. They include the civil, military, social, industrial, educational, ecclesiastical and agricultural history of this highly favored and earliest settled section of the Eastern Shore of Maryland. These papers have been carefully collated, revised and edited, and much historical data added thereto, since the demise of their author in 1890, by his son-in-law, Oswald Tilghman, who proposes publishing them in his forthcoming History of Talbot County, which will be issued in two large volumes, to subscribers only.


Among the many historical manuscripts written by Dr. Harrison is a most voluminous and exhaustive "History of the Church of England, and the Protestant Episcopal Church in Talbot," in his prefatory notes to which, he very modestly says, "It is right and proper that the com- piler should at the outset, distinctly say that he is so largely indebted to the manuscript history of the parishes of the Eastern Shore by Dr. Ethan Allen, and to the published papers of the same industrious his- toriographer, that he can justly claim small merit for its prepara- tion, a's Dr. Allen was the appointed and recognized historian of the church, as well as a devout member of the same, and was therefore in a certain sense its advocate, greater liberty in the statement of facts, and greater freedom of comment than he possessed are permitted to one who holds neither relation, but can only unworthily claim a birthright in her rich memories and a reverent admiration of her be- neficent services in the assuagement of human suffering and in the pro- motion of human progress." Sentiments so modest, so chaste and so beautifully expressed, could only emanate from a refined and cultured mind such as Dr. Harrison possessed.


It has been truthfully said by that brilliant revolutionary hero and historian, Colonel Henry Lee, "Light Horse Harry," the father of General Robert E. Lee, in his preface to his "Memoirs of the War," of the American Revolution, that "In usefulness to society the degree is inconsiderable between the conduct of him who performs great achieve- ments and of him who records them, for short must be the remembrance, circumscribed the influence of patriotic exertions and heroic exploits,


4


THE WORTHIES OF TALBOT


unless the patient historian retrieves them from oblivion and holds them up conspicuously for future ages."


To the patient and untiring annalist who faithfully records the vir- tuous actions and noble deeds of those of his countrymen who have worthily preceded him, is due, from an appreciative posterity, a meed of praise, which they can only in a measure repay by awarding to his memory respectful homage and veneration. The many descendants of the early "Worthies of Talbot," who are now scattered far and wide throughout this broad continent, when reading these memoirs of their honored ancestors may well exclaim as did Alexander the Great, when viewing the tomb of Achilles, "O, fortunate youth! You who have a Homer to record your deeds of valor."


Those who follow closely the scholarly paragraphs of Doctor Harri- son's facile pen will find a literary treat awaiting them. His "Memoirs" are not merely historical sketches and bare biographies of certain char- acters whose lives have contributed, some to the founding, and others to the upbuilding of Talbot County in every avenue of her advance- ment, but they are rare gems of literature as well. Among them may be found rich historical data, gleaned from every reliable source, by the patient labor and deep research of a local annalist whose whole heart was in his work, and whose sole reward was the satisfaction of having accomplished a task for which his literary talents so peculiarly fitted him.


More than two decades have elapsed since death cut short the literary labors of Doctor Harrison, and but few of his contemporaries now sur- vive to bear testimony to his many lovable traits and to his great literary accomplishments.


He has reared for himself a monument more lasting and enduring than the massive granite slab that filial affection has placed upon his grave.


How well do they deserve who memorize, And leave in books for all posterities The names of Worthies and their virtuous deeds.


LIEUT. COL. TENCH TILGHMAN


1744-1786


Memories of her most worthy citizens are the best wealth of the state. That people is poor indeed, that has never possessed such treasures; but poorer still that having had, has lost them. No improvidence is comparable with that which permits the recollections of the distin-


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LIEUT. COLONEL TENCH TILGHMAN


guished great or good to be wasted by neglect, or consumed by time- to fade into obscurity or to be lost in entire oblivion. Mortifying as may be the confession, the citizen of Maryland is unable to deny that his state, in common with all those which custom calls the South, a term which happily has lost much of its significance, is in this re- gard obnoxious to reproach. He may not be willing to acknowledge that his state is insensible of gratitude for valuable service, or incapable of appreciating examplary virtue; yet it is too true, that men who in almost every department of human effort have illustrated the history of this commonwealth, or shall illustrate it when that history shall be worthily written; men who have wrought ably and thought wisely for the good of Maryland, as well under the limitations and restrictions of a colonial condition and a proprietary rule, as in the greater freedom and with the wider scope of state and national independence; that such men have been almost as completely forgotten, when the generation to which they belonged had passed away, as though they had lived in the heroic age of a Grecian or Roman antiquity. If their memories have been preserved at all in any degree of freshness, they have been perpetuated by the respectful veneration of their immediate descend- ants; or, more frequently, by a pride of birth, which cannot be wholly condemned, that seeks its justification, even when all else is lost, in tracing an origin to a reputable, and perhaps distinguished ancestry. The historian or annalist of Maryland, in his attempts to recover the lost lineaments of those lives which once blessed with their benefits or adorned with their graces his native state, looks in vain through the long galleries of literary portraiture, drawn by reverent or grateful hands, for the "counterfeit presentments" of Maryland's notable men. There he finds delineated only the dead of other commonwealths; or, if placed there by chance, and not by design, he may discover some meagre and colorless sketches, some biographical silhouettes, of a few worthies of that state whose great merits compelled the tribute of a stranger's pen or pencil. If he would find memorials of his own com- patriots he must seek them, not upon the shelves of libraries groan- ing under their weight of "lives;" not in the archives of learned societies filled to repletion with their "memoirs;" nor even in the all embracing columns of the dictionaries of biography: but he must look for them, hid away among the musty rubbish of our offices of public record, or thrust into the dusty garrets or vermin-infested chests and drawers of our old and decaying family mansions. When found, if found at all, these memorials are seen to be obscured, mutilated,


6


THE WORTHIES OF TALBOT


and for all useful purposes to the historian, destroyed-they are but relics that serve to minister to the superstition of ancestral worship. Others of the sisterhood of states have sought to give a perpetuity to the memory of their noble dead by preserving recollections of them with all the spicery and cerements of literary embalmment. Mary- land has consigned her worthies to the oblivious earth, to mingle their dust with that of the undistinguished many. If by chance some curious antiquary seeking historic relics of a shadowy past, or some patient genealogist tracing the dubious thread of a long lost pedigree, or some more sordid searcher for defective titles to ancestral acres long since alienated, should in turning over the records in our public offices or parish vestries, discover evidences of the former existence, in our midst, of men who had filled the highest civic stations in the commonwealth with dignity and usefulness, or given lustre to her army in war, his surprise is like that of the rustic who turns up with his spade the fossil bones of some huge animal of a former age. It is the object of this memoir to attempt the recovery from the obscurity of neglect, where they have lain for nearly one hundred years, like an antique statue covered with the debris of centuries, the lineaments that marked the character, and the incidents that clothed the life of a good, a wise, and a brave man, to whom Maryland gave parentage, birth, career and sepul- ture. In this attempt to revive, and perchance perpetuate his memory, in some degrees will be removed, it is hoped, the reproach which adheres to his native state of forgetfulness of the deeds and indifference to the fame of her sons, and Maryland be admonished, when she shall call her roll of honor, with all her sister states, in this centennial year, to add one other name to the already long and lengthening list of her noble dead-the name of Tench Tilghman.


"Scribe tui gregis hunc, et fortem crede bonumque."


TENCH TILGHMAN was born on the 25th of December in the year 1744, at Fausley, the plantation of his father situated upon Fausley creek, a branch of St. Michaels' river in the county of Talbot, Maryland, about two miles from the town of Easton. He was of one of the most respectable families of the province. Richard Tilghman, surgeon, emigrated from the county of Kent, England, in or about the year 1662, settling first upon Canterbury Manor, of which he was the original patentee, upon Third Haven river, in Talbot. Thence he removed, after a short time, to the Hermitage, upon Chester river, then in Talbot, now in the county of Queen Anne's. This Richard Tilghman, was the grandfather of James Tilghman, the father of the subject of this memoir,


7


LIEUT. COLONEL TENCH TILGHMAN


and a lawyer by profession, who after removing from Talbot to Chester- town, in Kent, thence removed to Philadelphia in the year 1762. He was well known to the profession in Pennsylvania, where he became secretary to the Proprietary Land office, which department of the government "by the accuracy of his mind and the steadiness of his purpose he brought into a system as much remarked for order and equity as, from its early defects, it threatened to be otherwise."1 He was one of the commissioners for the province of Pennsylvania, appointed by Governor Penn, for settling the boundary line between the colonies and the Indian territory, at the treaty held at Fort Stanwix in October and November 1758. He was also a member of the governor's council, and private secretary of Julianna, the widow of the late proprietary. In the dispute between the colonies and the mother country, he espoused the cause of the latter. The adoption of the principles of a loyalist involved the resignation of his public trusts and the loss of his private business, so that not long after the outbreak of hostilities he returned to Chestertown in Maryland, where he spent the remainder of his days. Such was his moderation and discretion, that, although his opinions were obnoxious, he enjoyed the respect of his fellow citizens, and re- ceived the considerate notice of Washington himself. It may be inter- esting to those who are fond of tracing the hereditary transmission of mental qualities, to state that the wife of Mr. James Tilghman, and the mother of Tench Tilghman, was the daughter of Tench Francis, Esquire, the elder, originally of Ireland, from which he emigrated when a boy to Talbot county in Maryland, where he married, under romantic circumstances, the daughter of Foster Turbutt of Ottwell in that county, became clerk of the court and deputy commissary general. He removed to Philadelphia, where he became attorney general of the province of Pennsylvania, and rose to great eminence as a lawyer. He was the brother of Richard Francis, the author of a work entitled Maxims of Equity, and also brother of Dr. Philip Francis, the translator of Horace, who was the father of Sir Phillip Francis, the putative author of Junius's Letters.


Tench Tilghman was one of a family of twelve children. Of these six were brothers, he being the eldest, all of whom became men of good repute in their several positions, and some eminently distinguished. The second brother was Richard,2 who was educated as a lawyer at


1 Eulogium upon the Hon. Will. Tilghman, by Horace Binney, Esq.


2 A pair of silver spurs, presented by Warren Hastings in India to Richard Tilghman, are in the possession of Col. Oswald Tilghman.


1


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THE WORTHIES OF TALBOT


the Temple, in London, going abroad in the ship which conveyed Gover- nor Eden of Maryland. He obtained employment in the civil service of the East India Company, under Warren Hastings of whom he was the friend, and by whom he was recommended to the directory for the post of attorney general of India; but he died at sea, when returning from the East, before receiving the promised honor. The third brother was James Tilghman, also a lawyer by education, who settling in Mary- land became, after the reform of the judiciary system of that state in 1790, one of the associate justices of the court from Talbot county, a kinsman of the same name being the chief judge. The fourth brother was the Hon. William Tilghman, for many years chief justice of Pennsyl- vania, a character as admirable as ever adorned the bench, if we may trust the words of one who knew him well, and who was every way capable of estimating his intellectual abilities and moral worth, the Hon. Horace Binney, who in a eulogy of unsurpassed eloquence has commemorated his achievements in law, and his private virtues. The fifth brother was Philemon Tilghman, who, in politics sympathizing with his father, at the early age of fifteen went to England, entered the British navy, in which he received a commission, and further connected himself with that service by marrying the daughter of Admiral Mil- banke. The youngest brother was Thomas Ringgold Tilghman, a well known merchant, first of Alexandria and then of Baltimore, a man of great probity, but dying early rose to no prominence. The sisters were married to gentlemen of the first respectability upon the eastern shore of Maryland.




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