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 33
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as Kennedy addressed the meeting in a speech warmly favoring Jackson for the Presidency. For this speech he was fiercely attacked. It was the basest treachery and ingratitude, said the Whigs, that one who had accepted office under the ad- ministration should now join its enemies, Presi- dent Adams had appointed him Post Master of Hagerstown and had made him an examiner at West Point. He should therefore either return these favors or remain silent. The election for members of the Assembly was based upon the Presidential contest. The two tickets were known as the Administration ticket and the Jackson tick- et. Upon the former were Col. Daniel Malott, Col. Henry Fouke, Marmaduke W. Boyd and Jon- athan Newcomer. Upon the Jackson ticket were Captain John Wolgamot, William Yates, Daniel Rench and William H. Fitzhugh. Benjamin Gal- loway offered himself as an independent candidate upon a platform of opposition to caucus nomina- tions and a promise to devote $2.00 per day of hi- $4.00 per diem if elected. to the Poor House. But no such allurements could divert the people to any side issue. They were intensely in carnest and Mr. Galloway received but seant notice. The Jackson ticket was elected by a vote of 2,100 to 1.550 for the Adams ticket. The election of town commissioners for Hagerstown in 1828. was upon the Presidential question. One of the incidents of the campaign was a controversy between Will- iam Price and William H. Fitzhugh over a dc- scription of a Jackson meeting in Funkstown. But the incident which occasioned the wildest excitement and the bitterest indignation among the friend of Jackson was a mysterious eircula- tion of the "Coffin Handbills." They appeared everywhere in the county. No one could tell whence they came or by what methods they had been disseminated. But there they were in every man's house bearing the ghastly representation of the coffins of the six deserters whom it was charged Jackson had executed. There were also pictures of twelve other coffins and an elaborate account of the executions in prose and in doggerel rhyme with an account of the destitute families of the men who had been unjustly slaughtered. There was also the picture of General Jackson thrusting his sword through the body of Samuel Jackson on the streets of Nashville as he stooped down to get a stone to defend himself against the General who had assaulted him, The handbill was abont four- teen by twenty inches in size and the matter was
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enclosed in a heavy black border. It was headed "Some account of some of the Bloody Deeds of Gen- eral Jackson." These bills were printed in great numbers and became famous all over the country and a number of them found their way to England where they were noticed in the public press. The Jacksonians might kick and squall, cried the Ad- ministration organs "it is a bitter pill but down it must go. We have not introduced these sym- bols of approaching dissolution with thoughtless frivolity, but in sober seriousness with a view to bringing the unthinking to reflection and arrest- ing their progress in that road which is hurrying them on to political ruin. Although the bones of these deserters, who were slaughtered contrary to law and in violation of the usage of civilized war- fare, now moulder beneath the sod of the wilder- ness and the nightly blast howls through the rank grass that marks their dreary graves, yet shall their ashes rise in judgment against their mur- derous chieftain and their images flit across his vision when the mantle of night shall have wrap- ped him from the world and when the re- morse of a guilty conscience shall have made a coward of this Hero." Such assaults as these, and the Whig papers were filled with them and they were declaimed from every stump by the orators of the party, drove the Jacksonians to a fury of zeal for their idolized old Hickory which probably secured him more votes than he would have received had his opponents conducted their campaign with greater moderation. This has been the history of many political contests It was afterwards ascertained that the coffin hand- bills were printed at the office of the Torch Light and the editor of that paper had procured the cuts used to illustrate them from a man in Win. chester, Va., who was still living in that town in the year 1889. It was in July that a letter from the venerable Nathaniel Rochester was published. Col. Rochester was now living in the city he had founded and called after his name, at a very ad- vanced age. He had been an original republican leader and a follower of Jefferson, but now he considered it huis duty as a lover of his country to oppose the election of the candidate of his party. He "thought it was the duty of every friend of re- publican institutions," he writes, "to be aiding and assisting to prevent the laying a foundation for a military despotism in the election of General Jackson to the Presidency." "So long as I can raise my voice, it will be in opposition to what I
conceive would be fatal to our excellent constitu- tion and to our freedom, the election of a Chief Magistrate for military reasons only." In all this struggle the democrats were at great disadvantage. The press was against them and it is probable that a large majority of the best writers and stump speakers favored Adams. So a number of active young democrats got together and determined to start a newspaper of their own. Shares in the enterprise were placed at twenty-five dollars each and a great many persons throughout the County subscribed for them. James Maxwell, of Martins- burg, Virginia, was brought over as editor, a print- ing office was fitted up in the Indian Queen Tav- ern on Washington street and the first number of the Hagerstown Mail was published on the fourth day of July 1828, Jacob Fiery receiving the very first sheet which came from the press. Max- well published some articles soon afterwards which were distasteful to the owners of the paper. He was therefore dismissed and was succeeded in the editorial chair by Mr. Thomas Kennedy and he after his death from cholera in 1836 by his son, Dr. Howard Kennedy. The democrats being now furnished with an organ the war went mer- rily on until the election in November. The County gave a majority of about 344 for Fitzhugh and Tyler, the Jackson electors over Price and Baltzell the Adams electors. It was in firing the cannon on Cannon Hill and on Walnut street on November 13 to celebrate this victory that both pieces of artillery burst. . A fragment of the one on Cannon Hill struck and killed George Bow- ers severing his head from the body and hurling it a distance of a hundred yards into an adjoining field. The cup of happiness of the devoted adhe- rents of old Hickory was filled to overflowing in the following February when their old hero arriv- ed in Hagerstown on his way to assume the office of President. The "Mail" urged all who were anxious to do honor where honor was due to meet at different points on the great Western road and join with their fellow Jacksonians of Hagerstown and accompany the persecuted patriot to the ad- joining county or as much further as they might think proper. The President-elect arrived on Sunday morning February 8 accompanied by Ma- jor and Mrs. Donaldson, Major and Mrs. Lee, Mrs. and Miss Love, Miss Easton and Major Lewis. The whole party took lodging at the Bell Tavern. Sunday morning they attended service at the Pres- byterian Church and the remainder of the day was
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taken up by a crowd of friends who came to greet him "not," said the Herald, Mr. Grieve's paper, "not as a conquering hero, but as a plain republican citizen." His great urbanity greatly pleased those who saw him for the first time and riveted the attachment of his friends and it was claimed that it had smoothed down some of the asperities of his enemies. But such was the politi- cal rancor of the times that but few of the Whigs called on him. Nor was he permitted to depart without an indignity. A young Whig lawyer made one of the inmates of the poor-house present to the General a petition for a suit of elothes, which he had prepared. This was received as a slur upon the Jackson party. The next morning after visiting Dunlap's painting "The Bearing of the Cross," then on exhibition in the town, the President-eleet and his party departed for Wash- ington, accompanied to the Frederick County line by a numerous cavalcade of citizens. The follow- ing month the Whigs had the pleasure of receiving their great statesman, Henry Clay. Numbers of the people came to shake the hand of the distin- guished visitor. Many of the houses and taverns were illuminated. The mechanics of the town tendered him a banquet at the Globe Tavern and many toasts were drunk. The Whigs were greatly incensed because the Democrats got up an oppo- sition banquet at the Bell Tavern whilst theirs was in progress and a fierce controversy in the newspapers ensued. The tickets sold to the Me- chanics banquet produced a surplus of money which was afterwards distributed to the Sunday Schools of the town.
During the Presidential eampaign in October 29, 1829, Dr. Lancelot Jacques died at his resi- denee near Hancock, at the age of seventy-two years. Dr. Jaeques was a native of England but like many other Englishmen who had taken up their abode in America, he espoused the patriotie cause and entered the Continental army as surgeon. In this eapaeity he served through the war. Later on he was elected to the Legislature three times.
The Hagerstown Torch Light of February 13, 1829 has the following notice of the arrival of Gen. Jackson on his way to his first inauguration : "The President-eleet, General Andrew Jaek- son, arrived in Hagerstown on Sunday 8th inst. early in the morning, accompanied by Maj. Don- aldson and Lady, Maj. Lee and Lady, Mrs. and Miss Love, Miss Easton, and Maj. Lewis, and took lodgings at the Bell Tavern. He, with his suite, attended divine service at the Presbyterian church, and much of the remainder of the day was taken up by the crowd of friends who were continually pressing forward to greet him, not as a cou- quering Hero, but as a plain Republican citizen, who has been called almost by acclamation to fill the first and most exalted station in the gift of a free people. His great urbanity has riveted the attachment of his friends; and were we to judge from appearances, we should say it has smoothed down some of the asperities of his enemies.
"He left here early on Monday morning, after visiting Dunlap's splendid painting, "the Bearing of the Cross," and was accompanied to the Fred- crick county line by a numerous cavalcade of citizens."
HS JEFFERSON PHOTO- ENG RALTO.
PROSPECT STREET .
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OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, MARYLAND.
CHAPTER XIII
HE condition of Hagerstown began to attract public attention about the beginning of the year 1828. During the preceding year swine had been prohibited from running at large in the streets. Some of the streets were macadamized by this time, but many of them were not and the condition of these latter, in wet seasons, after they had been cut up by heavy hauling, can well be imagincd. Through this deep mud, the citizen whom busi- ness, misfortune or pleasure carried abroad at nights, had to struggle in darkness. There were no street lamps and no crossings to find, if there had been light to show the way. It is true that the flickering rays of a feeble lamp might be seen before each tavern, but these did little to dispel the universal gloom of night in the town. A writer in the newspapers suggested a public sub- scription to raise funds to light the streets and also to provide crossings at the street corners. Men, he said, could work their way through the mud and mire, but it was too great a task for women and children. The Moderator urged per- sons living along the streets which were macad- amized to scrape the mud in front of their prem- ises into piles, and if it was not convenient for them to have it carted away, that work would be done at the public expense. Williamsport at this time contained one hundred houses, some of them new and described at the time as very fine. 'The population was placed at 900, who, it was said, were generally plain and respectable peeople. There were three churches and during the next summer the corner-stone of a Lutheran Church was laid by the friends of the Lodge of Masons;
there were five stores, four taverns and among the people were representatives of many different trades. The Washington County Bank was incor- porated February 19, 1828, to take the place of the Conococheague Bank. During the months of April and May there was a considerable trade down the river to Georgetown. Cargoes of logs, planks, lumber, stone coal, wheat, whiskey and flour were boated down the river, and each year about a thousand barrels of flour found their way to mar- ket in the curious canvas covered boats of the Potomac Navigation Company. The people con- fidently expected the town to develop rapidly into a most important point. The work on the canal would begin that summer, the Baltimore and Ohio railroad would surely pass through it, and it would be the terminus of a railroad from Chambersburg and possibly be on the main route by this line from Philadelphia to the West. In the immediate vicinity of the town, upon a splen- did estate, resided Edward Greene Williams, in the house in which his father, General Otho H. Williams had entertained General Washington. This was the Springfield farm, now owned by the heirs of the late Charles W. Humrichouse; the house is still standing, but has been greatly enlarg- ed. It is one of the finest estates in Washington County. The next year after this, in February 1829 Major Edward Greene Williams died. He was the third son of Gen. O. H. Williams, and was born in March. 1789; he graduated at Prince- ton. He served with credit as a captain of horse in the war of 1812, and was twice elected to the Legislature. He lies buried beside his distin- guished father in the cemetery at Williamsport.
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In November, 1827, wheat was selling at 86 cents in Hagerstown and a dollar to a dollar and five cents in Baltimore. The next summer the price in Hagerstown had gone down to 72 cents, an unusually low price. November 15, 1837, a call for a meeting to form an agricultural society was issued; the organization survived only a few years. The first society of this kind had been organized under an Act of Assembly, passed in 1807. The first President, elected in 1808, was Thomas Sprigg; Frisby Tilghman was secretary, and Charles Carroll treasurer. It finally died out before 1827, and as above stated, there was an effort that year to revive it. But the matter which created the greatest excitement in the Coun- ty during this year was an earthquake, which took place Sunday night, March 11, 1828. The shock was so violent as to toll the bell of the Lutheran Church and of course the people of the County were in a great state of consternation. A moral shock which the people received this year was even more than the physical shock of an earthquake.
In the Hagerstown papers of September 18, 1828, this item appears: "Much excitement has been produced in this county during the last weck by the death of Mrs. Mary C. Swearingen, which occurred near Cumberland, in Allegany County, on Monday week last. As the accounts of this melancholy event are contradictory, and the re- ports exceedingly numerous and conflicting, we shall wait until something positive transpires be- fore we hazzard a statement." The next week a statement is made. The editor, "with feclings of the kecnest regret and deepest horror, announced the fact, revolting to all the feelings and sympa- thies of our nature, that there is too much reason for believing that she came to her death by the hands of her husband."
George Swearingen was one of the brightest, wealthiest and most popular young men of Wash- ington County. His manner and person were pleasing ; he had an obliging disposition, and was master of all the arts of obtaining public regard. Just a year before this time he had been elected sheriff of Washington County, then the most lucra- tive and honorable position the people could give. It was a hotly contested election and his opponents wore leading and influential men-Christian Newcomer, Andrew Kershner and Jacob Miller- but Swearingen received nearly as many votes as all the rest put together. The total vote cast was 3.775, of which he received 1,822. There were per-
sons living in IIagerstown not many years ago who could remember Gco. Swearingen as he alighted from a stage in front of Martin Newcomer's Tav- ern, where the Hotel Hamilton now stands. Some of them, as boys, scrambled for the handsfull of copper coins which Swearingen, in the elation of his recent election, scattered broadeast among them. Many of the same boys and a much larger crowd saw him, two years later, alight at the same place, this time in irons.
Not many years before Swearingen was eleet- ed to the Shrievalty, he had married Miss Mary C. Seott, the daughter of James Scott, of Cumberland when she was but a school girl. He eloped with her from a boarding school, and married her for her money, although at the time he was in love with another woman. Mrs. Swearingen was a loving and tender woman, and deeply attached to her unworthy husband, maintaining her love for him to the last hour of her life, although he never cared for her. A month or two before his eleetion, he became acquainted with a woman named Raehel Cunningham or Carnacum whose career of crime reads like a romance. She was brought up near Bedford, Pa., a fashionable watering-place with a reputation for great licentiousness. De- scriptions of her vary greatly. By some she was described as being in no way prepossessing. By others it was said that her person was perfectly lovely and that her countenance was a mirror in which cach winning graee strove for pre-emi- nence, and that perhaps she possessed as great a share of personal loveliness as was ever lavished on a woman by nature in any of her freaks. She first attracted public notice in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, where she captured the affections of a married man, and effected a separation of him from his wife. Her next appearance was in Pitts- burg, where the victim of her charms was a wealthy iron-worker, and the proprietor of a large livery stable. The wife of this man had no mind to rest quietly under her wrongs, but revenged her- self by setting fire to much of her husband's prop- erty, which was destroyed, including forty horses which perished in the flames started by the fury of this woman scorned. The conflagration, how- over, had the desired effect of driving off the wanton beauty, who left Pittsburg hastily, only to go to Harrisburg and there entrap the affec- tions of a Judge. It was not long before she occasioned another divorce. Swearingen was her fourth victim of those whom the publie knew.
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How or why she came to Hagerstown no one can tell, but she had been in the town only a short time when George Swearingen was among the number of the men she had ruined. And his ruin was the most complete of all. It involved his fortune, his honor, his fame and his life. He built for her the brick house in Hagerstown which stood until November, 1890, on the property of the Washington County Railroad Company near the Hagerstown station. When the house was built the place was almost a swamp, and no other honses were nearer to it than Antietam street. It was so built that not a window or door opened towards the town, and in this there was a purpose. But this arrangement did not protect the Sheriff from public scorn and indignation. His wife left him in bitter resentment, and returned to her old home in Cumberland. The people of the town were so outraged that a high official should conduct himself in this shameless manner, that a band of them went towards the house with the determination of razing it to the ground. But Swearingen was a bold man, and stood his ground. With rifle in hand he defied the mob and drove them off. Soon afterwards, however, he sent the woman to Virginia and effected a reconciliation with his wife, but in the meantime he had, witlı- out her knowledge, removed Rachel Cunninghamn to a farm belonging to Mrs. Swearingen in Alle- gany County. It was near this farm that the shocking murder was committed. Swearingen and his wife and their little child three years old left Cumberland on a Sunday morning and spent the next night at Cresapstown. Early the next morning, when they had reached the vicinity of Mrs. Swearingen's farm, they left the road. At the foot of a steep hill Swearingen was seen to alight from his horse put down the child on the ground, take his wife's horse by the bridle and .disappear in the laurel bush, going up the hill. In this thick brush-wood the man hastily cut a club and killed his wife, spattering her blood around. He then rode after a drover whom he had just passed and asked him to go for help, as his wife had fallen from her horse and he feared she was killed. When persons arrived, she was found to be dead. A jury of inquest was called who rendered a verdict that the unfortunate woman had met her death by an act of Provi- dence-so ready are men to accuse a benign Prov- idence of being the author of all misfortunes ! But soon Swearingen, with that fatuity of mur-
derers which has given rise to the proverb that "murder will out," began to make inconsistent and contradictory statements and it was found that the knees of the horse which had been ridden by the dead woman had been cut with a knife and the sores on them were not made by a fall. The body was disinterred, and a second inquest held, which resulted in a verdict that the woman had been murdered by her husband. Before he could be arrested, Swearingen fled, and Rachel Cunning- ham disappeared at the same time. The excite- ment and the public indignation was intense. The Governor of the State issued a proclamation, offer- ing a reward for his capture. Hand bills giving an accurate description of the fugitive and of his companion were scattered broadcast. One of these handbills in December reached a post-office in a small tavern near the Red River, in Kentucky. A man and woman answering the description had spent the night at the tavern and had left, both riding the same horse, about an hour before the arrival of the mail which brought Governor Kent's proclamation. The tavern-kceper gathered a few of his neighbors, and started in hot pursuit. In three hours the fugitives had been overtaken and arrested. On the fourth of May, the prisoner ar- rived in Hagerstown on one of the stages from Baltimore in charge of an executive messenger and a Baltimore constable. He was heavily ironed, and was kept under guard at the Globe tavern until the departure of the Western stage, which was to take him to Cumberland, in the county where the crime had been committed. It was said that while here he appeared to he in excellent spirits. He engaged John V. L. McMahon and Wm. Price, two of the most eminent lawyers in the State, to defend him.
The trial came on in Cumberland in August 11, 1829, and lasted eight days. The whole his- tory of the crime and the events which led up to it were laid bare. The Judges who sat in the case were Chief Justice John Buchanan, Judges Thom- as Buchanan and Abraham Shriver. Never was an accused man more ably defended. His coun- sel, Messrs. McMahon, Price and Bushkirk, did all that learning and ability could accomplish, or ingenuity could suggest. Mr. Price spoke for five hours, and Mr. McMahon plead with the jury in a speech of seven hours duration-as able and as eloquent probably as any speech ever made in a criminal trial in this State. But it was all in vain. The wretched prisoner was so enclosed in
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a network of evidence of his own weaving that there was no escape. Even whilst his counsel was making this wonderful speech, a letter, written by him while in jail to the partner of his erimes, was produced and read by the State's attorney to the jury. Mr. Dixon, the State's attorney for Al- legany County conducted the prosecution. Within ten minutes after the close of the argument a ver- diet of guilty had been rendered. Judge Buehan- an pronouneed the dread sentenee of the law in wonderfully eloquent and touching terms and this sentence was executed on the flat on the west side of Wills Creek in Cumberland where the gallows had been erected. He was eseorted to the gallows by a number of companies of militia from ad- joining eounties and aceompanied by a number of ministers of the Gospel. But his last thoughts were given to Rachael Cunningham. Throughout the whole of the trial and execution, Swearingen conducted himself with the utmost indifference. The strangest part of the matter was that his body, when eut down from the gallows where it had hung for an hour, was sent to the home of the mother of his murdered wife. He confessed his erime and this confession and an aeeount of the trial were published. Forty years later, the memory of this tragedy was revived by the announcement of the death of Rachael Cunningham in the Alms Touse of Baltimore City, where this long protracted life of infamy and shame eame to an end.
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