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 3
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"On approaching them he gave the bottle to the groom and his attendants at the head of the troop and then to each pair in succession, to the rear of the line, giving each a dram, and then putting the bottle in the bosom of his hunting shirt, he took his station in the company. The ceremony of the marriage preceded the dinner, which was a substantial backwoods feast of beef, pork, fowls and some times venison and bear meat, roasted and boiled, with plenty of potatoes, cab- bage and other vegetables. During the dinner the greatest hilarity always prevailed, although the table might be a large slab of timber, hewed ont with a broad-axe, supported by four sticks set in augur holes, and the furniture some old pewter dishes and plates, wooden bowls and trenchers. A few pewter spoons, much battered about the edges, were to be seen at some tables; the rest were made of horns. If knives were scarce, the deficiency was made up by the scalping knives, which were carried in sheaths suspended to the belt of the hunting shirt. After dinner the dan- cing commenced and generally lasted until the next morning. The figures of the dance were three and four handed reels or square sets and jigs. The commencement was always a square four, which was followed by what was called jigging it off, that is, two of the four would single out for a jig. and were followed by the remaining couples. The jigs were often accompanied by what was call- ed cutting out, that is, when any of the parties became tired of the dance, on intimation, the
place was supplied by some of the company, with- out any interruption of the dance; in this way a dance was often continued until the musieian was heartily tired of his situation.
"Towards the latter part of the night, if any of the company through weariness attempted to con- ceal themselves for the purpose of sleeping, they were hunted up, paraded on the floor and the fiddler ordered to play "Hang out till Morning." About nine or ten o'clock a deputation of young ladies stole off the bride and put her to bed. In doing this, it frequently happened that they had to ascend a ladder instead of a pair of stairs, leading from the dining and ball room to the loft, the floor of which was made of clap boards lying loose without nails. This ascent, one might think, would put the bride and her attendants to the blush; but as the foot of the ladder was commonly behind the door, which was purposely open for the occasion, and its rounds at the inner ends were well hung with hunting shirts, petti- coats and other articles of clothing, the candles being on the opposite side of the house, the exit of the bride was noticed but by a few. This done, a deputation of young men in like manner stole off the groom and placed himn snugly by the side of his bride. The dance still continued, and if seats happened to be scarce, which was often the case, every young man, when not engaged in the dance, was obliged to offer his lap as a seat for one of the girls, and the offer was sure to be accepted. In the midst of this hilarity the bride and groom were' not forgotten. Pretty late in the night . some one would remind the company that `the new couple might stand in need of some refreshment. Black Betty, which was the name of the bottle, was called for and sent up the ladder. But sometimes Black Betty did not go alone. I have many times seen as much bread, beef, pork and cabbage sent along with her as would afford a good meal for half a dozen hungry men. Tlie young couple were compelled to eat more or less of whatever was offered them.
"In the course of the festivity, if anyone want- ed to help himself to a dram and the young couple to a toast, he would call out, 'Where is Black Betty? I want to kiss her sweet lips.' Black Betty was soon handed to him, when, liold- ing her up in his right hand he would say, 'Here's health to the groom, not forgetting myself, and here's to the bride, thumping luck and big children.' This, so far from being taken amiss,
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HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
was considered as an expression of a very proper and friendly wish; for big children, especially sons, were of great importance as we were few in number and engaged in perpetual hostility with the Indians, the end of which no one could foresee. Indeed, many of them seemed to suppose that war was the natural state of man, and therefore did not anticipate any conclusion of it; every big son was therefore considered as a young soldier. But to return. It often happened that some neigh- bors or relations, not being asked to the wedding, took offense and the mode of revenge adopted by them on such occasions was that of cutting off the mancs, foretops and tails of the horses of the wedding company.
"On returning to the infare, the order of pro- cession and the race for Black Betty was the same as before. The feasting and dancing often lasted several days. at the end of which the whole com- pany were so exhausted by loss of sleep, that sev- eral days rest were requisite to fit them to re- turn to their ordinary labors.
"At these weddings the groomsmen wore em- broidered white aprons and it was a part of their duty to serve up the wedding dinner and to protect the bride from having her shoe stolen from her foot while she was at dinner. If they failed, and the shoc was stolen, they had to pay a penalty for it> redemption. This penalty was ordinarily a bottle of wine, and until the shoe was restored the
bride was not permitted to dance. The same author already quoted gives this account of one of the wedding frolics: 'When the bride and groom were bedded, the young people were admit- ted into the room. A stocking, rolled into a bali, was given to the young females, who, one after the other would go to the foot of the bed, stand with their backs towards it and throw the stocking over their shoulders at the bride's head; and the first that succeeded in touching her cap or head was the first to be married. The young men then threw the stocking at the groom's head, in like manner with the like motive. Hence the utmost eagerness and dexterity were used in throwing the stocking. This practice, as well as that of stealing the bride's shoe, was common to all the Ger- mans.' "
Such were the simple and hardy folk by whom our beautiful valley was first pcopled, and while for many years religion was almost a stranger to them, and children grew to manhood without seeing the inside of a Christian place of worship, they were a moral and just people. They dealt out rude justice among themselves before the regular forms of law were known among them, and it was proved that a healthy public sentiment which found ready and forcible expression when demanded, was more effectual in restraining vice than a regularly constituted constabulary.
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OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, MARYLAND.
CHAPTER II
HE pioneer who first aseended to the erest of South Mountain and cast his eyes over the valley stretching away to the foot of North Mountain, which bounds the landscape in front of him, viewed a picture to which no deseriptive pen eould do justice. If he had climbed up the eastern slope of the South Mountain, above the present site of Wolfsville, and through the gap until he eame out at the Black Rocks, a spot, which in its romantie grandeur of ruggedness, has undergone no sort of change since that hour, he must have been indeed insensible if he did not pause here, spell-bound at the scene which presented itself to his eyes. If it appeared less beautiful to him than the promised land did to Moses as he viewed its vine elad hills and fertile valleys and streams of running water from the summit of Nebo, it was because he had not for forty years been traveling through hot sands and naked rocks.
IIe stood upon the summit of a cliff one hun- dred feet down perpendicular; and from the base of the cliff stretched a steep declivity, bcaring no vegetation, because among the huge rocks piled and strewn and hurled against each other in somne volcanic upheaval, there is no earth in which it can take root. To his right hand and to his left stretched away mountaintop after mountaintop covered with trees of great variety and form, and reaching north and south, to the limits of vision, Away to the west stretched a beautiful plain -the valley of the Antietam and the Conococheague, covered with waving grass six feet in height. Here and there the course of a stream was marked by trees which fringed each bank. He could have
seen columns of blue smoke ascending from elumps of trees which surrounded gushing limestone springs, marking the location of an Indian village. He might have seen, away off in the distance, where it breaks through the North Mountain on its way to the sea, a small portion of the Potomae or "Cohongoruton" river shimmering in the sun like molten silver. The awful silence around him would be broken only by the cry of the eagle over his head or the howl of the wolf, or perhaps the whoop of a savage, resting in a supposed secure possession of this beautiful hunting ground, un- mindful of the wave of humanity which was slowly but surely coming upon him to wipe out almost the remembrance of his name and nation from the face of the country. He might have heard with prophetic ear
"The first low wash of waves, where soon Shall roll a human sea."
Such was the valley of which Hagerstown is now the centre, in the early years of the eighteenth century. The mountains and the rugged western part of Washington County were covered with tim- ber but the main valley was largely without trees, except along the water courses. We meet with fre- quent references, in contemporary writings, to the high grass which covered the country and the present state of the forest is ample proof of this fact. For it is rarely that an oak is seen in our forests, which are composed principally of oak and hickory, which has any appearance of being over a hundred years old. Speaking of the land just across the river from us in the valley of Virginia, a continuation of our own valley, Samuel Kerche- val says that "at this period (1763, when the first
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HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
settlement was made in the locality of which he was writing) timber was so scarce that settlers were compelled to cut small saplings to enclose their fields. The prairie produced grass five or six feet high and even our mountains and hills were covered with the sustenance of quadrupeds of every species. The pea vine grew abundantly on the hills and mountain lands, than which no species of vegetable production afforded finer and richer pasturage." This information Mr. Kerche- val obtained from some of the original settlers.
Washington County is in general outline not unlike the State of Maryland. Its eastern bound- ary is the crest of the South Mountain, belonging to the Blue Ridge Range, which extends from Pennsylvania to Virginia, a distance of about thirty miles and separates Washington from Fred- erick County. Its northern boundary is Mason and Dixon's line, for a distance of forty-six niles. Its southern boundary line is the southern margin of the Potomac river, which separates it from Virginia and West Virginia and on the west it is separated from Allegany County, Maryland, by Sidling Hill Creek.
The main body of the County, known as Hagerstown Valley or a portion of Cumberland Valley, a northern continuation of the Valley of Virginia, is embraced between the North and South Mountains. The former crosses the County nearly parallel with South Mountain about fifteen miles distant. This valley is drained on the east side by the Antietam Creek, flowing a few miles from the base of South Mountain into the Poto- mac; towards the west, the valley is drained by the larger stream known as the Conocoheague. The soil of nearly the whole of this valley is linie- stone of the best and most productive character. In the South-eastern portion of the County, there is a spur of the mountain known as Elk Ridge, running parallel with South Mountain a few miles distant from it and enclosing a valley known as Pleasant Valley, which has a freestone soil and is drained by Israel Creek. The southern extremity of Elk Ridge is the famous Maryland Heights, overlooking Harper's Ferry. Beyond the North Mountain are a series of ridges rising in undula- tions, enclosing between them here and there fer- tile valleys. The soil of the western portion of the County in the mountainous region, however, is mainly unproductive. Some of these ridges are known as East Ridge, Blair's Valley Mountain, Bare Pond, Forest Mountain, Haith Stone Moun-
tain, Sidling Hill and Tonoloway Hill. In the main valley the scenery is that of a rich agricul- tural country displaying fertile fields, well culti- vated farms, large barns and comfortable farm houses, with landscapes of magnificent beauty, having always the blue mountains for a back- ground. The scenery of the County west of ('learspring is of romantic beauty. There is ridge after ridge, following each other like the waves of an ocean, covered with the deep verdue of the evergreens, and separated by narrow gorges and valleys, each with. a rippling stream of crystal water breaking over its mossy stones and pebbly bottoms, and embowered amid trees of every va- riety of grace and beauty. The great industry of this magnificent County is agriculture, and the staple crops are, wheat and Indian corn. As a wheat growing county it ranks among the first in the Union. Oats, rye and barley are also grown, whilst the aggregate value of the clover sced, hay and poultry, and dairy products is enormous. Nearly all the fruits of the temperate zone are produced ; apples in every variety and in vast quan- tity. grapes, small fruit and peaches. The last named fruit is grown in great perfection at a certain elevation on the western slope of South Mountain, where it seems to escape the damage from frost ; and the cultivation of it in this region has assumed large proportions.
The mineral wealth consists of deposits of iron ore. Some traces of copper and antimony have been discovered in South Mountain, and of lignite in North Mountain. Cement of splendid quality is produced in the western part of the County. near Hancock, and in the southern part, opposite Shepherdstown. The principal manufac- tures are centered in Hagerstown. Here are made automobiles, paper, gloves. furniture, doors and sash, spokes and rims, iron tubes, hosiery, silk ribbons and underwear. and cigars. Transporta- tion facilities are ample. Nine splendid turn- pikes, penetrating to every district of the County, centre in Hagerstown. Railroads in seven differ- ent directions, besides electric roads to Williams- port and Frederick and into Pennsylvania afford competing lines to every important point in the County. and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal meanders along the whole southwestern border for a distance of nearly a hundred miles affording an outlet to tidewater at the National Capital. The principal towns are Hagerstown, the County seat, Boonsboro, Williamsport, Clearspring, Hancock,
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OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, MARYLAND.
Sharpsburg, Kecdysville, Smithsburg and Cave- town.
This county was a magnificent hunting ground for the Indians, who seem to have fought for it among themselves, and invaded it from the North and South just as the contending armies of the North and South did many years later. Of these contests there are only traditions. The Delawares from the North met here the Catawbas from the South, and the battles between the two were exceedingly sanguinary. Some of these bat- tles took place just about the time when the white settlers first began to appear upon the scene. The settlers were upon terms of friendship with the Indians, and until a later period were entirely unmolested by them. About the year 1736, a bloody battle took place between these two hostile tribes at the mouth of the Antietam. At this point the Delawares, returning from. one of their forays to the country of the Catawbas were overta- ken by the latter. In the desperate battle which cn- sued every Delaware brave, with a single exception, had been killed and scalped and every Catawba warrior save one, had one or more scalps to exhibit after the victory. Like the Spartan who brought home the news of Thermopylae, this scalpless brave could not rest under the disgrace, and so he pur- sued the surviving and fugitive Delaware with the instinct and pertinacity of a blood hound for fully one hundred miles. The unfortunate fugi- tive was overtaken. slaughtered and scalped on the banks of the Susquehanna : the fair fame of the Catawba was retrieved, and he could return to his home.
There is a story of the carly settlers connected with this bloody battle ; whether founded on fact, or a mere product of the imagination, I cannot tell. The date of the battle given in this narra- tive is 1736. At that time, according to the tra- dition, there lived upon "Red Hill," an eminence near the Antietam about two miles from the scene of the battle and a short distance from Sharpsburg, a settler who was called Orlando, with his wife, Lauretta, a French woman, and their two children, a boy, Thomas, and a girl, Roseline. Hearing the sounds of the battle between the Delawares and Catawbas, the family fled to the side of South Mountain and there remained several days and nights, but partially protected from a severe storm by an overhanging rock. Whilst in this refuge a neighboring settler brought the news that it would be safe to return
to their cabin. They did so, and found it undis- turbed. It was not long before the boy, Thomas, was taken sick with a fever brought on by the exposure in the mountain and died. The mother, who had been delicately reared, soon followed her son to the grave and the health of the daughter was greatly impaired. In her grief and desolation she sought the society of the family of Peter Powles, living near the Belinda spring not far distant and in frequently passing it drank the waters and her health was restored. This was the first discovery of the medicinal property of that spring, which afterward became popular. But her restored health was not long enjoyed in peace. A Catawba chief fell in love with her and demanded her of Orlando for his wife. The proposal was rejected with horror but the savage was not to be defeated in his design. He fre- quently prowled around the cabin awaiting his opportunity, until one night he shot the father through an open window and bore off the unfortu- nate Rosaline to his wigwam. No news of her was ever afterwards received by her friends.
On the western side of the inouth of the Conococheague creek, after the settlement of Con- ococheague had begun, another bloody conflict took place between the Catawbas and Delawares, and the Delawares were again defeated. The surviv- ing warrior this time took refuge in the house of Mr. Charles Friend, who lived very near the scene of the battle. and was by him protected from the ferocity of his pursuers. Just on the outskirts of Williamsport there was within the memory of many now living an Indian graveyard, which probably contained the bones of those who fell in that battle. Mr. John Tomlinson whose father lived on the Potomac, seven miles below the mouth of the Conococheague, informed Mr. Kercheval that he remembered when a child seven or eight years of age. seeing a party of Delawares pass his father's house. with a female Catawba prisoner, who had an infant child in her arms, and that it was said they intended to sacrifice her when they reached their towns.
There are remains of Indian settlements in various parts of the County. Around the great spring at Fountain Rock, the College of St. James, arrow heads and stone pipes and toma- hawks have been very abundant, and a few years ago the author saw Indian skeletons exhumed in digging a cistern not far from this place. For many miles along the Potomac, Indian relics are
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HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
abundant and in the neighborhood of Sharpsburg many mounds have been discovered. Some of these have been examined and found to contain bones, pottery and implements.
It is probable that a number of years before any regular. permanent settlement was made with- in the present limits of this County, the mountain had been crossed by hunters and trappers in quest of peltries and furs. The long grass afforded excellent pasturage for herds of deer, and the bears grew fat on the exuberant growth of those things they most esteemed for food. Wild turkeys were in great abundance, while the skulking wolf preyed upon anything he could overcome. The rocks and mountains were a refuge for the cat o'mounts and panthers, while the smaller folk, such as the opossum, the rabbit, the raccoon and squirrel, fairly swarmed. The two last were in such abundance that they frequently destroyed the settler's entire crop of Indian corn, leaving him without bread for a winter-a hardship which no one who has not experienced it can properly esti- mate, and for which he was only partially com- pensated by an abundant crop of potatoes. Some of the settlers came in the spring, bringing their famihes and no sufficient supply of either bread or vegetables, and they had to do without these necessaries of life until a crop could mature. In this case the sufferings of the family, and espec- ially of the children, were very great. One who as a child had been deprived under these circum- stances of all vegetable food for six weeks, wrote, "the lean venison and the breast of the wild turkeys. we were taught to call bread and the flesh of the bear was denominated meat." This artifice did not succeed very well; for after living in this way some time, we became sickly, the stomach seeming to be always empty and tormented with a sense of hunger. I remember how narrowly the children watched the growth of the potato tops, pumpkins and squash vines, hoping from day to day to get something to answer in the place of bread. How delicious was the taste of the young potatoes when we got them! What a jubilee when we were permitted to pull the young corn for roasting cars ! Still more so when it had acquired sufficient hardness to be made into Jonny cakes by the aid of a tin grater. We then became healthy, vigorous and contented with our situation, poor as it was." *
In 1732 the attention of Charles, Lord Bal- timore, had been directed to our valley and on the
2nd of March of that year he published the follow- ing advertisement offering inducements to settlers : "We being desirous to increase the number of honest people within our province of Maryland and willing to give suitable encouragement to such to come and reside therein, do offer the fol- lowing terms :
"Ist. That any person having a family, who shall within three years come and actually settle, with his or her family, on any of the back lands on the northern or western boundaries of our said province, not already taken up, between the rivers Potomack and Susquehanna, where, we are informed, there are several large bodies of fertile lands, fit for tillage, which may be seen without any expense, two hundred acres of said lands, in fee-simple, without paying any part of the forty shillings sterling, for every hundred acres, pay- able to us by the conditions of plantations, and without paying any quit rents in three years after the first settlement, and then paying four shill- ings sterling for every hundred acres to us, or our heirs, for every year after the expiration of the said three years.
"2nd. To allow to each single person, male or female not above the age of thirty, and not under fifteen, one hundred acres of the said lands, upon the same terms as mentioned in the preced, ing article.
"3rd. That we will concur in any reasonable method that shall be proposed, for the ease of such new-comers, in the payment of their taxes for some years and we doe assure all such that they shall be as well secured in their liberty and prop- erly, in Maryland, as any of his Majesty's sub- jects in any part of the British plantations, in America, without exception ; and to the end all persons desirous to come into and reside in Mary- land, may be assured that these terms will be justly and punctually performed on our part. We have hercunto set our hand and seal at arms." etc.
The class of people who were attracted to this valley by this advertisement, and still more by the richness of the soil and the salubrity of the air when they became known, were largely from Ger- many ; but a great inany of the largest land grants were to men of English desent from the eastern part of the State who were for many years the ruling people. But gradually their large estates became subdivided among their tenants and there are some instances of these men who spent their
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OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, MARYLAND.
splendid estates and died poor. Many of our settlers came from Pennsylvania-some of them were Scotch-Irish and some German. A writer, in 1156. speaks of Conococheague as an Irish settlement and it is not improbable that the people . who first built a block house and established a trading post at the mouth of the Conocochcague were of that sturdy race of Scotch-Irish which "won the West" and contributed in no small degree to the triumph of the American arms in the war of Independence. The denial of religious freedom to the Presbyterians of Ulster in 1719 started the exodus from Ireland of the bravest and best subjects of the British crown. A steady stream of emigration to America set in, and con- tinued for twenty-five years. Many of them land- cdl at Philadelphia, and found their way to our valley. Many of them subsequently left it to take up their residence in the Kentucky wilderness, or among the dense and gloomy forests which covered the great valley of the Ohio. But many remained here, and in 1776 eagerly took up arms against their unnatural mother country which had cast them off. The descendants of many of them are among us now, and preserve the magnificent traits of character which distinguished their fore- fathers.
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