USA > Maryland > Washington County > Hagerstown > A history of Washington County, Maryland from the earliest settlements to the present time, including a history of Hagerstown > Part 25
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In February, 1776, the commander of the British forces in New York sent General Alexander McDon- ald to Cumberland County, in North Carolina, the inhabitants of which county were mostly Highland Scotch, who had fled from Scotland for their adher- ence to the Pretender to the Crown of England in 1745; and so secret were his proceedings that before it was known in other parts of the province he had raised 1,000 men and formed them into a regiment and he had them ready to march for Wilmington, at the mouth of Cape Fear River (about 100 miles), where transports from New York were to meet them. As soon as information of these movements reached Hillsborough, a distance of about 80 miles, the minute men and militia of Orange and Granville Counties collected and marched down to Cross Creek (now Fayetteville), the seat of justice of Cumberland County, where it was understood McDonald and his regiment of tories were embodied. I went with the minute men and militia in my official capacities as Major and Paymaster, and on our arrival at Cross Creek we heard that McDonald and his regiment had set out a few days before for Wilmington to em- bark for New York. I was then dispatched by Col. Thackston, our commanding officer, at 8 o'clock at night, with two companies of infantry and one com- pany of cavalry in pursuit of the enemy; but on our arrival about daybreak at Devo's Ferry, about 20 miles from Cross Creek, or headquarters, we met about 500 men with General McDonald on their retreat, they having been met and defeated at Moore's Creek Bridge by Col. Caswell, commander of a regi- ment of minute men. Col. Caswell was afterwards appointed the first Governor of the State. We took the 500 prisoners. Being, however, in a sparsely settled country, where provisions could not be ob- tained, I was obliged to discharge all but about 50, who were appointed officers by McDonald, after swear- ing those discharged that they would not again take arms against the United Colonies; notwithstanding which they did afterwards join Lord Cornwallis when he marched through North Carolina, in the year 1782.
I then returned to headquarters with my com- mand and the fifty prisoners, where I found Col. Alex. Martin, of the Salisbury Minute Men, had ar- rived with about two thousand minute men and mi- litia. He took the chief command.
Marshall, in his life of Washington, mentions that Martin took these prisoners. They were sent
under guard as prisoner of war to Frederick Town, in Maryland, where they remained until exchanged. In disarming the prisoners at Devo's ferry, the Scotch gave up their dirks with much reluctance, they hav- ing, as they said, been handed down from father to son for many generations.
In May following, 1776, when I was 24 years of age, I attended the convention at Halifax, N. C., as a member, when a constitution or form of govern- ment was adopted. Six more regiments of Conti- nental troops were ordered to be raised, and their officers appointed, among whom I was appointed Commissary General of military stores and clothing, with the rank and pay of a Colonel, for the North Carolina line, which consisted of ten regiments.
This convention organized a government by ap- pointing a governor and other State officers, and directed an election in November following for mem- bers of a State legislature.
On the adjournment of the convention I set out for Wilmington, N. C., where the four regiments first raised were stationed, in order to attend to the du- ties of my office, and took with me Abishia Thomas as a deputy, who was allowed the pay of a subultern officer, and who has since been a clerk in one of the departments of the General Government. After rid- ing to most of the seaport towns in Carolina and Vir- ginia to procure military stores and clothing for the Army, I was taken sick at Wilmington, and unable to transact business for a considerable time. My physician and friends advised me to retire from the service, on account of my condition and the unhealth- iness of that part of the country. I therefore resign- ed a week or two before the election for members of the legislature, but did not return to Hillsborough until some weeks after the election. On my return there I found that I had been elected a Member of the Assembly, which I attended in the winter of 1777, with Nathaniel Macon, who had, a little before the election, returned home from Princeton College, and was elected to the same Assembly. He has since been a member of Congress for about thirty years without intermission. During this session I was ap- pointed Lieutenant Colonel of Militia, and in the spring following, Clerk of the Court of Orange Coun- ty, which office had been held many years by Gen'] F. Nash, who was killed at the battle of German Town. I held the clerk's office about two years, and until the fees of office did not pay for the stationery used, owing to the depreciation of the paper cur- rency.
This year, 1777, I was appointed a Commissioner to establish and superintend a manufactory of arms at Hillsborough, and went to Pennsylvania with sev- eral wagons for bar iron for the factory. When I resigned the clerk's office I was appointed one of a board of three Auditors of Public Accounts for the State, and a Colonel of Militia.
In 1778 I engaged in business with Col. Thos.
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HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
1839, aged 79 years. Col. Fitzhugh belonged to a family which was prominent and influential in Washington County for many years. He was the son of William Fitzhugh, a colonel in the
British Army. His mother was Ann Frisby, the daughter of Peregrine Frisby of Ceeil County and widow of John Rousby. A daughter by Rousby married John Plater.
Hart (Henry Clay's father-in-law,) and James Brown, our present minister to France. Col. Hart resided two miles west of Hillsborough, where he had a con- siderable estate in land, mills and other manufactur- ing establishments. His residence was about on the line between the Whig and Tory settlements; the Tories committed many depredations on his property, he being a very influential and active Whig. There were frequent instances of the Whigs and Tories not only committing depredations on each other in North and South Carolina, but murdering people along their borders. Gen. Gates, who in 1779 com- manded the Southern army, advised Col. Hart to re- move with his family to Berkeley county, Virginia, where the family of the General resided, and as Col. Hart's property and his life was endangered by re- maining where he was, he took the advice of the General and in the autumn of 1780 removed not to Berkley but to Hagers Town in Maryland, being in an adjoining county though a different State. Col. Hart prevailed upon me to accompany him, pro- posing and promising to go into mercantile business in Philadelphia. Soon after we arrived at Hagers- Town he furnished the capital promised, and I pro- ceeded to Philadelphia by way of Baltimore (then a small place,) in February, 1781, and took lodging at the "Canastoga Wagon," a first rate tavern at that time. I was in no hurry to engage in business until I could consult several persons to whom I had letters, and before I had determined on a plan of business I was taken down with the small-pox in Baltimore; I was confined nine weeks. On discover- ing what my complaint was I asked Dr. Burke. a Member of Congress, then sitting in Philadelphia, an old friend and acquaintance from North Carolina, to write Col. Hart informing him of my situation. I presume his information was that probably I would not survive the attack, for on receipt of Dr. Burke's letter Col. Hart purchased a large landed estate, four miles from Hagers Town, of Col. Sam'l Hughes to the amount of ten thousand pounds specie, and drew an order on me in favor of Hughes for all the capital he furnished to me, which was, I think, about £ 4,000. (I had of my own about £1,000.) He wrote me at the same time that in case I should recover to return to Hagers Town, and some other business should be given me. This draft was presented to me by Col. Hughes' agent after I was considered out of danger, and thwarted all my plans of business in Philadelphia.
I therefore returned to Hagers Town in April, taking Col. Hart's daughter home. She had been sent a ycar or two before to a boarding school, to the care of the celebrated Robert Morris. She was afterwards Mrs. Pindell.
Soon after my return to Hager Town, I went to North Carolina to settle some business for Col. Hart, returned to Maryland in the autumn and settled on a farm, where I continued until the latter part of
1783, having in the meantime taken another journey to North Carolina on business for Col. Hart.
In November, 1783 (the war being ended and peace declared), I went into business with Col. Hart at Hagers Town, he residing on his farm purchased from Col. Hughes, the business being conducted by me. The next year, 1784, we rented Stull's large merchant mlll, and went largely into the purchase of wheat and manufacture of flour. We also established nail and rope factories and did a large business until 1792, when we dissolved partnership and each did business separately. In May 1785, whilst concerned in business with Col. Hart, Col. Elie Williams and I went to Kentucky to look after some lands we held there and a large tract of 5,000 acres held by Col. Hart. We took with us goods to the amount of about £1,100 for the purpose of paying our expenses with the profit. He returned home In July and I in August, having made a net profit of ( £1,000) one thousand pounds.
In the summer of 1786, I was very Ill, and a con- sultation of five physicians decided my case to be very desperate, but after being confined many months I gradually recovered.
I was married in 1788, being then 36 years of age. In 1790 I went to the State legislature as a member, and was so much disgusted with the In- trigue and management among the members, that I afterwards uniformly refused to go again during my residence in Maryland. About the year 1791 I was appointed Postmaster at Hagers Town, and held the office until the year 1797, when I was appointed one of the three Judges of the Washington County Court. I was obliged to resign as Postmaster before I could act as Judge. The office I resigned I procured for my nephew, Robert Rochester, then one of my clerks. I was not educated for the law and not having suffic- ient knowledge of court rules, I could not consci- entiously hold my position as Judge; I therefore re- signed in 1798, having held the office about one year. I discontinued my mercantile business In Hagers Town, and sent Robert Rochester to Bairdstown, in Kentucky, with my stock of goods, when I was again appointed Postmaster, which office I held until 1804. That year I was elected Sheriff of the county, and resigned the office of Postmaster. (Robert Rochester belng about 18 years of age only, was soon drawn into dissipated habits at Bairdstown, which Induced me to discontinue the musiness at that placc). I had some years before established a business in Lexington, Ky., In connection with Cornelius Beatty, a brother-in-law of mine, where we dld a good business until he was made a Colonel of Militla and joined Gen'l Anthony Wayne on an expedition against the Indlans. His military life unfitted him for business; I therefore went to Kentucky in 1800 and dissolved the concern, and again in 1802 to finally settle my Kentucky business. Before I re- turned from Kentucky, in 1800, I visited West Ten-
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OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, MARYLAND.
After serving with eredit in the British Army, particularly in the West India Expedition, Col. Fitzhugh retired on half pay to his fine estate, Rousby Hall, near the mouth of the Patuxent, Maryland, where he was living with his wife and two sons, Peregrine and William. He was in feeble health,and had alinost lost his sight. Knowing his influenee in the County, the British
had made overtures to continue his half pay if he would remain neutral, but all overtures were rejected, and he enlisted with zeal in the patriot eause. He sent both of his sons into the Ameriean Army and he became a member of the Executive Council of Maryland. Several times raids were made on Rousby Hall by parties of British who landed from ships in the river. One of these was
nessee, where I held 640 acres of land, to which I intended to remove with my family, but finding the country at that time very sickly and newly settled with rough inhabitants, I sold the land.
Col. Thos. Hart removed to Kentucky in 1794, and settled in Lexington. I continued the nail and rope-making and milling business after dissolving with Col. Hart, the first two until I removed from Maryland. I held the Sheriff's office three years- until 1807. At the expiration of my term of office I was appointed the first President of the Hagers Town Bank, with a salary of $1,000 per annum. I held this position until 1810, when I removed to the State of New York. In 1808, I was elected an Elector of President and Vice- President of the United States, when Mr. Madison was first elected President and George Clinton Vice- President. After my return from Kentucky, 'in Sep- tember, 1800, Major Carroll, Col. Fitzhugh, Col. Hilton and I visited the Genesee country in Western New York. Carroll and Fitzhugh purchased 12,000 acres of land, where they now reside. I purchased 400 acres adjoining their land; also, 155 acres at Dans- ville, upon which I built a paper mill in 1810. In 1802 Carroll, Fitzhugh and myself again visited the Genesee country to look after our interests. We then bought the 100-acre lot which is now included in the village of Rochester, at seventeen dollars and fifty cents ($17.50) per acre, and I purchased about 200 acres adjoining my 400-acre lot.
In May, 1810, having settled up my mercantile, manufacturing and sheriff's business, I removed to Dansville, Steuben County, State of New York, where I resided five years, erected a large paper mill and made many other improvements, increasing my land- ed estate there to 700 acres or more, which I sold in the winter of 1814 for $24,000, and purchased for $12,728 a farm of 445 acres in Bloomfield, Ontario County, the land being well improved. I resided here three years, say from April, 1815, to April, 1818, when I rented my farm and removed to Rochester. Whilst residing in Bloomfield I was appointed a Director in the Utica Branch Bank at Canadaigua, and resigned in 1823. In 1816 I was appointed an Elector of President and Vice-President of the United States, when Mr. Monroe was elected President and Daniel D. Tompkins Vice-President. In the winter of 1817 I went to Albany as an agent for the peti- tioners for a new county, but did not succeed. In the winter of 1821 I again went on the same business, and succeeded in getting through a law creating the County of Monroe, and in the spring of the same year I was appointed Clerk of the new county, and was elected Member of Assembly for the same coun-
ty. I spent about four months in Albany in the winter and spring of 1822 as a Legislator. In the spring of 1824 a law was passed granting a charter for the Bank of Rochester. I was appointed one of the Commissioners for taking subscriptions and ap- portioning the capital stock, and in June of the same year was unanimously elected President of the Bank, which office, with that of Director, I resigned in December following, having taken an agency in the bank, very much against my inclination, on the solic- itation of a number of citizens, but with an express avowal on my part that I would resign as soon as the bank should be organized and in successful operation, which was the case when I resigned; and when my advanced age and bodily infirmities requir- ed that I should retire from business, being then within about two months of entering the seventy- fourth year of my age.
NATAHNIEL ROCHESTER.
The following notice of the death of Nathaniel Rochester is from the Torch Light of May 26, 1831: "Departed this life at Rochester, New York, on the 17th inst., in the 80th years of his age, Col. NATHANIEL ROCHESTER, formerly of this place. "Col. R. left behind him to lament his loss, a wife and numerous family of sons and daughters, grand children, and other relations, to whom he had been a most affectionate husband, father and friend. He was indeed a patriarch in the midst of his kin- dred and acquaintances, to whom they would always apply with confidence for advice and assistance. He resided for many years in Hagerstown as one of its most respectable inhabitants, whence he removed to Gennesee, twenty-one years ago. For the last fifteen years he lived at Rochester, which he had founded, and which derived its name from him. He had the happiness of seeing the village which he had himself laid out in the woods, become a splen- did city, containing fifteen thousand inhabitants. Col. R. as a man, was highly esteemed, and the qual- ities of his heart were most estimable. He was hu- mane and charitable to the poor; his house was the residence of hospitality and benevolence. He was a citizen of great public spirit, and gave his talents liberally for the promotion of the best interests of society. To crown all, he was what is pleasing in the sight of God, "an honest man" in every sense of the word. For the last year or two of his life, he was greatly afflicted by disease, but he bore it with great christian resignation and fortitude, view- ing it as a sanctifying preparation for a better world, which he trusted he would enjoy through the merits of a crucified Saviour .- [ Communicated.]
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HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
repelled during the absence of Col. Fitzhugh, by Mrs. Fitzhugh, who armed her slaves. The enemy retired without firing a shot. Gaining informa- tion of a proposed night assault, Fitzhugh and his family left the house, and that night it was burnt by the invaders. Upon another occasion, a raid was made upon Col. Fitzhugh's residence when the whole family, including the two young offi- cers and Miss Plater, the grand-daughter of Mrs. Fitzhugh, were at home. The young men had barely time to escape from the back door as the British soldiers entered the front. The old Colonel was arrested and carried through the rain and nud, accompanied by his devoted wife, who had not taken time to dress herself and had no other protection from the falling rain than a military cloak which one of the officers threw around her. Just as the river bank was reached, a half mile distant, it was decided to release the prisoner on parole. They returned home and found that all the negroes had been enticed away, and that Miss Plater had preserved the house from destruction by her excellent conduct .*
Soon after the close of the Revolution, Col. Wm. Fitzhugh, Jr., married Miss Anne Hughes, a daughter of Daniel Hughes, of Hagerstown. He came to Washington County and resided, until his removal to New York, at his seat, "The Hive," near Chewsville. Here his aged father spent the
latter years of his life and when he died, at a great age, he was buried in the old Episcopal graveyard in Hagerstown. Col. William Fitzhugh had a large family; among them were William H. Fitz- hugh, who was three times elected sheritt of Wash- ington County and who served in other official positions, Dr. Daniel Fitzhugh and Samuel, who went to Western New York with their father and James who moved to Kentucky. One of his daughters married the Rev. Dr. Backus, a dis- tinguished Presbyterian clerovman : another, Ger- ritt Smith, a leading Abolitionist of Peterboro, N. Y .; another, Commodore Swift, and a fourth James Birney, another Abolitionist leader of Na- tional reputation and the first candidate of that party for President. . The old Colonel's other son, Peregrine, attained the rank of captain in the Revolutionary Army, and served for a time as aide to General Washington. He married Miss L'lizabeth Chew, of Chew's farm, below Williams- port, the sister of Mrs. Benjamin Galloway. Cap- tain Fitzhzugh left Washington County in 1799 for Sodus Bay on Lake Ontario, where he raised a large family. His widow died there in 1856 .*
Major Charles Carroll, Rochester's third associate, was a cousin of Charles Carroll, of Car- rollton. He was one of the wealthiest citizens of Washington County. and lived in a large stone house a short distance from Hagerstown on the
*Baltimore Patriot July 3, 1856.
*The Fitzhugh family is said by all English antiquarians to be Saxon, although the name is Norman. We suspect it is of Danish descent; for their castle was named "Ravensworth," and the Raven was the standard of the Danes. Besides, William the Conqueror, himself of Danish or Nor- wegian descent, did not disturb Bardolph, then Lord of Ravensworth, in his vast possessions. It is prob- able he took part with the Conqueror. Banker says Bardolph possessed Ravensworth with divers other Lordships in the time of William the Conqueror. His son, who succceeded him, was named Akaris, then follow in regular descent, Henry, Henry Bar- dolph, Henry Hugh, and in time of Edward the First, Fitzhugh, which thereafter was adopted as the family surname. Fitzhugh was no doubt a very common name eight centuries ago. Two were signers of the Magna Charta, and one is found on the Roll of Bat- ile Abbey. Those we suspect were Norman, not relations of the Ravensworth family. This latter family were leaders of the Crusades, and took an active part on the side of the "Lancasters" in the war of the Roses. Lord Fitzhugh, of Ravensworth, married a sister of Warwick, the King Maker, and Hume mentions him as a leader of a rebellion against Edward the Fourth, after Warwick Tenth.
This is the last mention of the name in general his- tory.
The direct male line failed in the time of Henry the Eighth, and the estate descended to Thomas Dacres, who had intermarried in the family. "Cath- rin Parr," last wife of Henry the Eighth, was a grand mother of the last Lord Fitzhugh. Almost the last Catholic Bishop of London was John, a son of the same Lord. After the extinction of the direct male line of Ravensworth, we find the name mention- ed by Captain Cook, who was hospitably entertained by the President of the East India Company at Can- ton, Mr. Fitzhugh, and who we suppose called a Sound, near "Vancouver's Island," in honor of him, for we cannot imagine how else the name Fitzhugh should have been given to that Sound.
Miss Emily Fitzhugh, of Southampton, England, in a recent correspondence with Mr. John Gordon, of Baltimore, speaks of her father and great uncle as having held appointments in China. Her great uncle is no doubt the one mentioned by Captain Cook. She became interested, she says, in her namesakes this side of the Atlantic from conversa- tion with Miss Sedgwick. But Miss S, was only ac- quainted with the New York branch of the Fitzhugh family, who removed from Virginia to Maryland, thence to New York. These two sisters of the name, strange to say, intermarried with two distinguished
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OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, MARYLAND.
Greencastle road. This house is now standing, and belongs to the estate of the late Gov. Wm. T. Hamilton. The property, which comprised about fourteen hundred acres of land extending along the northern limits of Hagerstown, was known as "Belvue" and it is a curious circumstance that when the County Almshouse was built upon a por- tion of this tract in 1879, Mr. John L. Bikle, clerk to the County Commissioners, suggested "Belvue Asylum" as the name for it, without knowing the original name of the tract. Major Carroll's family became prominent in New York. He left three sons, one of whom was a representa- tive in Congress from New York from 1843 to 1847.
Some years before the time of which we are now writing, Washington County lost a promising son in a most tragic and glorious manner. Mid- shipman Israel was in the service under Commo-
Abolitionists (and married well,) Hon. Gerrit Smith and Mr. James G. Birney. This branch of the family is descended from the Masons, of Gunston, and in- herit much of their military and adventurous spirit. Their ancestor, Col. William Fitzhugh, whose mother was a Mason, was a Colonel in the British army at the time of the Revolution. He refused to fight against America, surrended his commission, and we find was detained as a prisoner during the war. The original settler, William Fitzhugh, was the son of Henry Fitzhugh, of Bedfordshire, England, who removed to London to practice law. William was his second son, his eldest was named Henry, a Cap- tain in the British army, and a great favorite at Court in the reign of Charles the Second. William removed to the country about 1670, and in 1673 married Sarah Tucker, of Westmoreland. She had not attained her 11th year at the time of her mar-
dore Preble in the war with Tripoli. Volunteers were called for on the desperate, service of carrying a fire-ship into the harbor of Tripoli, and young Israel was one of the volunteers. The ketch Intrepid was fitted up as a fire-ship, and put under the command of Captain Somers who, with his brave crew of volunteers, drifted into the harbor on the night of the 4th of September 1804. Every provision had been made for the escape of the crew before the explosion. The progress of the fire-ship was watched with intense interest. The explosion soon occurred, but the heroes did not return. What happened to them, or how the premature explosion occurred, was never known, for no one was left to tell the tale. It was said that the mangled remains of Israel were seen but this is not certain. Midshipman Israel was a nephew of General O. H. Williams and Eli Wil- liams. The latter adopted and reared him.
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