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 43
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The most important of all events of the time of which I am writing was the establishment of free schools. Mention has already been made of the rejection by the people of the County of an opportunity for public education. In 1847, the Legislature enacted a law establishing free ยท schools in Washington County. Under this Act of Assembly the County Commissioners were em- powered to levy one cent on the hundred dollars for the support of the schools, to supplement the various funds which came from the State for this purpose. The schools were not to be absolutely free ; each pupil had to pay one dollar a quarter for tuition. The board of School Commissioners was to consist of one member for each election district of the County, and these were to be ap- pointed by the County Commissioners. They were to appoint teachers, prescribe text-books, &c. But the act was not to become operative un- til ratified by the people. This was done, but not without bitter opposition. It was urged that a man had no more right to look to the public treasury for the education of his children than for their food and clothing. Of the nine districts of the County, Clearspring, Hancock, Cavetown and Pleasant Valley declared against frce schools. But the measure was adopted by the County by a vote of 2,437 to 1,875. There were in the boxes no less than 507 blank votes. Under this law the first Board of School Commissioners was organized in February, 1849 with Andrew Kershner, Presi- dent, William H. Fitzhugh, secretary, and Abram Strite, Treasurer.
During all these occurrences, political matters received their share of the public attention. The contest for Congress in 1845 was betwen Jacob Snively of Ilancock, Whig, and Thomas Perry, Democrat. Snively carried Washington County
by a vote of 2281 to 2371 for Perry but Perry was elected by 699. The next Congressional elec- tion, that of 1847, was much more animated. J. Dixon Roman was the Whig candidate, and Ed- ward Shriver, of Frederick County, was the Dein- ocrat. The election of Governor and Assembly occurred in the same year. Wm. T. Goldsborough was the Whig candidate for Governor, and he was opposed by Philip F. Thomas. It was charged by the Whigs that the Democrats were in favor of repudiating the State debt, whilst the counter charge was that the Whigs favored a property qualification. The Democrats elected Thomas but the Whigs retained the Legislature. The Whigs also elected J. Dixon Roman to Congress. He carried Washington County by 150 majority. In the Whig victory. William T. Hamilton, who had been nominated for the House of Delegates although he led his ticket, was defeated by fifty votes.
The year before was the first appearance of this remarkable man before the people. He had been elected to the Assembly in 1846, when he was twenty-six years of age, and had immediately taken position there in favor of the State's paying its debts. In a political career of forty-two years, he became not only the most conspicuous figure in the County, but the leading public man in the State. The Whigs who were elected to the Legislature in that year were Isaac Motter, Heze. Boteler, Robert Fowler, George L. Zeigler and James Brays. Mr. Hamilton was on the ticket again in 1848, as candidate for elector favoring the election of Cass for President. According to the Whigs, the Democratic, or loco-foco, as they invariably called it, motto in this election was the three C's-Cass, Cuba and California. The following year, 1849, Mr. Hamilton was non- inated for Congress against General Thos. J. Mc- Kaig. The contest was bitter and personal. Joint discussions took place and the main question under discussion was the tariff. Mr. Hamilton handled it fearlessly, and although in age, influence and wealth his opponent had greatly the advantage of him, yet he more than held his own and met Gen. MeKaig even among the miners of the coal regions which was considered then. as it is now, the stronghold of protection. Mr. Hamilton here gained that accurate and exhaustive knowledge of this subject which gave him the reputation dur- ing the remainder of his life of being the best informed man upon the tariff in the State. The
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Herald of Freedom in this campaign pronounced Hamilton the most ultra and uncompromising loco-foco in the United States. His personal ap- pearance on the stump was striking. He was lean and wiry, with hair an inch or two in length standing straight out upon his head. In his manner he was earnest and vehement, with a loud voice, which he had under imperfect control. General MeKaig was accused of being an aristo- crat-a charge most fatal to a politician in those days, and one of the most difficult to meet. The election was a great victory for Hamilton. He reversed the large Whig majority of the previous year, and carried Washington County by a vote of 2653 to 2556. In Allegany he had a majority of 38 and MIckaig carried Frederick by 19 voles, To aid the Democratic party in these contests "The Democracy" was established in 1847, by George W. Post, who had been the editor of the Courier and Enquirer, a paper which had given warm support to the nineteen "recusant" electors in 1836. In 1848 Dr. Thomas Schnebly founded "The Pledge," a temperance paper. After a short editorship he was succeeded by Heard and Drury.
In April, 1847, one of the most interesting citizens of Hagerstown died. John Kennedy be- longed to the Scotch-Irish stock, which has pro- duced so large a number of the best American citizens. He was born in Londonderry June 13, 1767, and came to America at the age of nineteen years. He first settled in New Castle, Delaware, and taught school. Then he came to Hagerstown. and found a friend in James Ferguson, one of the leading merchants of the place. who gave him employment as clerk in his store. His brother Hugh then came over from Ireland, and after serv- ing as clerk to Mr. Ferguson for a time, the two Kennedys, with Richard Ragan succeeded their employer in business. Later, after the death of his parents, James Kennedy also came over and engaged in farming on a farm near Greencastle. After the partnership with Richard Ragan terni- nated, the firm was John and Hugh Kennedy. They transacted an enormous business, extending over the whole County and as far West as the set- tlements reached. John Kennedy married Mary Wagoner, the daughter of John Wagoner, a farm- er who lived between Hagerstown and Funkstown. The couple had four children: Mrs. Sarah A. Price, the wife of Benjamin Price, lawyer ; Louisa M., wife of J. Dixon Roman ; John W., who mar-
ried a daughter of Dr. Wm. McPherson of Fred- erick County ; and James Hugh who married a daughter of Col. Jacob Hollingsworth, and who was killed in the Carlisle riot.
John Kennedy and Hugh Kennedy were among the founders of the old Presbyterian Church on South Potomac street, and John was a ruling elder during most of his life. Both were Presbyterians after the strictest manner -- uncom- promising Calvinists in doctrine, and believers in the utmost simplicity of worship. They had no liking for Conventional Church architecture, and in building the Hagerstown church, the chimney was made so conspicuous that it was known among the ungodly as "John Kennedy's church with the chimney." In this church, John Ken- nedy worshipped Sunday after Sunday. The tuning fork was the one musical instrument permitted in the church. It is related that once during a protracted illness, in his later years, Hugh Kennedy's absence was taken advantage of to use a flute. The old gentleman, coming in during service and while the singing was going on, did not hesitate to take possession of the flute and throw it with indignant scorn out of the window. Hugh Kennedy died unmarried in 1835.
The first Presbyterian minister to officiate in Washington County was the Rev. William Wil- liam>. who has already been mentioned. He was sent out by the Welsh Presbyterian Mission- ary Society to the colony of Virginia, but being driven thence by the law against dissenters, he settled at Welsh Run. Between 1774 and 1817, the Rev. Thomas MePherrin, the Rev. Mr. Cald- well and the Rev. John Lind ministered in and around Hagerstown. In 1817. the old church on South Potomac street was completed, and John Kennedy, Joseph Gabby, Robert Douglas and John Robertson were ordained ruling elders. During the pastorate of the Rev. Richard Wynkoop, there was a division in the congregation, the seceding portion electing the Rev. Mr. Love, pastor. He held services m the Court House for a time. Later, while the Rey. John F. McLaren was pas- tor of the church, he and Mr. Love both resigned, and the severed congregation was united. This Mr. MeLaren was the father of the late Episcopal Bishop of Chicago.
In 1861, Victor Thompson died and left to the church the sum of $5.000. A portion of it was used to put the iron fence in front of the church
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and the remainder was invested and subsequently used in the construction of the new church on the corner of Washington and Prospect streets. Hugh Kennedy devised to the congregation the handsome house opposite the church for a par- sonage, to be so used as long as the congregation continued to use exclusively in public worship Watts' Version of the Psalms. In 1852, while Mr. Dunlap was pastor, by a vote of the congrega- tion it was decided to forfeit this property and to gain the privilege of singing other hymns and psalms. . The house went to Hugh Kennedy's heirs-at-law and by them it was sold to the church. The Presbyterians held their last service in the old building, a building in which Andrew Jackson and many of the distinguished men of former times had worshipped, on December 18, 1875. It was sold in 1878 to the Christian Church which now owns it. The beautiful stone ehureli on Washington and Prospect streets was dedieated on Christmas day, 1875. The sermon on the occasion was preached by the Rev. J. T. Smith of Balti- more.
The record of erimes about this time in- cludes that of Alex. Redman, who lived on the Mercersburg road three miles from Hagerstown. In 1848, this wretched man took his little son, his favorite child to a thicket and cut its throat and then returning to the house told his wife that he had committed the crime to prevent the child from coming to want. He then in her presence cut his own throat.
Dr. Joseph S. Dellinger was shot from his horse in Waynesville, Mo., in 1848, by a man named Horrell. He was a son of Henry Dellinger of Washington County, and had studied with Doctors Smith and Van Lear of Williamsport. In consequence of an injury one of his legs was amputated, and for that reason he abandoned the study of medicine, and went to Ohio, where he studied law with Thomas Ewing, and afterwards in IIagerstown with Alexander Neill, and gradu- ated in the Law Department of Dickinson Col- lege. He then went to Cole County, Mo., and returned to the practice of medicine.
. A trial which attraeted great attention in this county was that of Jesse D. E. Quantrell which took place in Cumberland in the spring of 1849. This noted criminal was the son of brave Captain Quantrell, who had led a company from Washington County to fight the British in 1812. He had the advantage of a handsome per-
son and prepossing manners. His first publie exploit was a desperate election fight in the Square in liagerstown with a man named Rus- sell, whom he stabbed and nearly killed. He married Miss Lane of Hagerstown and went to live in Williamsport. In a short time he was ar- rested and sent to jail upon a charge of obtaining the benefit of the insolvent laws through perjury. His wife followed him to jail, and there remained six months until his trial, when he was acquitted. He then went West and committed a number of forgeries, for which he was sent to the peniten- tiary in St. Louis and Cincinnati. In both in- stances he was released, through the exertions of his faithful wife whom he had shamefully abused in the meantime. Coming east, he was sentenced to the penitentiary in one of the counties of Pennsylvania for three years for forgery. Then the patience of his wife gave out and she listened to the advice of her friends and got a divorce. When Quantrell's term was out he married another woman, committed another forgery and was sent to the penitentiary of Pennsylvania for seven years. During this time he began sending threat- ening letters to Mr. Samuel L. King, his brother- in-law, declaring that if his wife re-married he would kill her. She did marry Mr. A. Cowton, a tavern keeper in Cumberland, and there the couple lived honored and respected. In 1849, Quantrell's term in prison having expired, he came to Cumberland and in the absence of Mr. Cowton made a violent assault upon Mrs. Cowton, whom he threw to the floor, and would have killed her, but the pistol missed fire. Whilst he was preparing to accomplish the murder with a knife, the unfortunate woman was rescued from her peril by a number of men who broke into the room, of which Quantrell had locked the door. For this offence he was sent to the county jail for five years and fined five hundred dollars. After serving a half of his term, he was pardoned and began a career of crime which only ended with the Civil War in which he engaged as a bush- whacker. It is said that he married no less than six respectable women during this time-all liv- ing at once.
.But the most curious crime was one which is mentioned by Dickens in his American Notes. One of two curious cases he mentions having en- countered in the Maryland penitentiary "was that of a man who once went to a certain distiller's and stole a copper measure containing a quantity
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of liquor. He was pursued and taken with the property in his possession and was sentenced to two years imprisonment. On coming out of jail at the expiration of that term, he went back to the same distiller's and stole the same copper measure, containing the same quantity of liquor. There was not the slightest reason to suppose that the man wished to return to prison ; indeed every- thing but the commission of the offence, mnade directly against that assumption. There are only two ways of accounting for this extraordinary proceeding. One is, that after undergoing so much for this copper measure, he conceived lie had established a sort of claim and right to it. The other that, by dint of long thinking about it had become a monomania with him, and had ac- quired a fascination which he found it impossible to resist ; swelling from an Earthly Copper Gallon into an Ethereal Gallon Vat." This man was named Miller, and the distillery from which he stole the measure was that of Joseph Gabby in Washington County. Nor did the matter end here, for after Miller had served his second term of two years, he stole the measure containing whis- key the third time. This time the grand jury declined to indict him-deeming the man insane. This was in March 1849.
About this time the people of the County were much engaged in improvements in their methods of farming. In 1848 Samuel H. Little of Hagerstown invented a grain separator which he claimed could thresh and clean ready for the mill, two hundred bushels of wheat in a day. The first one he made was for Henry Petre and this was, I believe, the first attempt in the County to thresh and clean grain in a single operation. Between 1847 and 1849, Grain Drills or "Drillers" came into use in the County. The first were made in Hagerstown by Watkins and Heyser, who sold them at $60 each. The first to use this machine, which is now as necessary on a Washington County farin as a plow, and among the first to use and urge his neighbors to use bone fertilizer on wheat, was Dr. Thomas Maddox of the Tilghmanton Dis- trict. This distinguished agriculturist descended from a sister of Thomas Notely, a Proprietary Governor of Maryland; he was born in St. Mary's County in 1810. He practised medicine in Louis- ville for some years, but in 1845 returned to St. Mary's. He married Mary Priscilla Claggett of Frederick County, granddaughter of Bishop Thomas John Claggett, of Maryland. In 1848,
he bought a portion of the Tilghman estate and became a citizen of Washington County. From that time until his death, in March, 1887, he was one of the most conspicuous farmers in the County, ready to experiment in new methods and appliances in agriculture and bringing to his favorite pursuit deep thought and profound study. It is probable that no man in the County ever did more to advance the interests of agriculture and to increase the yield of lands than he. Later, Governor William T. Hamilton became an enthu- siastic farmer and did mnuch in the same interest. In 1853 Dr. Higgins, the State Chemist, was in Washington County, and after analysing the soil in various places, recommended the use of bone rather than lime. Dr. Maddox at this time used 300 pounds of bone, 70 pounds of Peruvian Guano, and a bushel of salt to the acre. At this time it is believed that the use of phosophates on wheat is not only necessary to promote growth, but to make it ripen early. But in 1848, when only a very few persons used it, the harvest began early in June and by the twenty-first of the month a fourth of the whole crop had been harvested. The gen- cral interest in agriculture found expression in 1848 in a meeting which was held in the Court House in November, to form an agricultural so- ciety. Over this meeting Jacob Hollingsworth presided. In January following, an organization was effected by the election of the following offi- cors: President, Thomas Keller; Secretaries, George French and Col. William H. Fitzhugh; Treasurer, John Van Lear.
In 1853 John W. Breathed cut his crop with one of Hussey's reapers. Although the McCor- mick's reapers were at this time common in the West, this machine was a curiosity in Washing- ton County. It was boasted that it cut cleaner than cradles, fifteen or twenty acres in a day, and required eight or ten hands to attend it. The shipment of agricultural and other products by canal to Georgetown had assumed large propor- tions. During the boating season of 1848, the shippers of Williamsport forwarded to Georgetown 61,390 barrels of flour, 3,158 bushels of wheat, 1,000 bushels of corn, 1,057 barrels of whiskey be- sides immense quantities of lime, hoop poles and lumber. The up freight consisted principally of salt and fish.
Late in 1848, reports of the discovery of gold in California began to reach Hagerstown and it was not long before the excitement ran high.
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Stories of fortunes made by a turn of a hand, or by the finding of a nugget ereated a general desire among young men of adventurous spirits to seek their fortunes in that golden land. We must not underrate the magnitude of the enterprise of the "Forty Niners." Now we can get into a Pullman car on Monday morning, and after a pleasant trip of four days, enjoying on the road all the luxuries that comfortable beds, handsome parlor cars, de- lightful meals and a varied scenery can furnish, land in San Francisco, a city as highly civilized as New York. In 1849 the conditions were vastly different. The shortest route to the Golden Gate was five thousand five hundred miles, the longest and most common seventeen thousand, and the price of a first class ticket by either route was $320. If the former route was selected by the "Argounauts" the time of the journey was from two to four months and in addition to the fatigue of a journey upon horseback across Mexico to the Pacifie, or a ride upon a mule across the Isthinus, they had to encounter the dangers from organized bands of brigands in that then lawless country. By the longer route, the estimated time in which to make the journey was six months, and it iniglit last much longer. Added to the tedium of so prodigious a journey were the perils of doubling Cape Horn in a sailing vessel. But the worst awaited the seeker for gold when he arrived in the new country. The Government was provisional, and among the people to be governed were the most lawless from many lands. But two years before, California had been in possession of the Aboriginal Indian and the sleepy Spaniard, living in adobe huts and not dreaming of the wealth which the surface of the earth took no pains to eonceal. The Forty Niner who landed at San Franciseo from the vessel which could not reach the shore over the mud flats, beheld a seene to be witnessed no where else upon the whole earth. Here was a settlement composed of hastily built houses, sonie of brick, some wooden shanties, some of sheet iron, and many tents, jumbled together in amazing confusion. Inhabiting these dwellings, or sleeping at night on the lee side of them, was a motley assemblage of all sorts and conditions of men-the lawyer, the college-graduate, the soldier, the miner, the trapper, and all carried away by the craze of speculation and gambling. Some of the brightest men of the country were there, and some of the most reckless and daring. Among them human life had but little value, and gold
was only valued for its use in gambling and spee- ulating. Great sums would change lands in trans- actions which seemed frenzy. In the midst of the town was a large clap board structure of the rudest and most temporary character. This was the gambling house, and in it was collected day and night a throng in the wildest state of excite- ment, drinking bad whiskey and winning or losing upon the turn of a card, thousands of dollars worth of gold dust which would be piled upon the table with scales to weigh it out. The new arrival had to take without delay some steps to replenish luis store of funds, for the hard earned money which he brought from the east was quickly exhausted by the prices he had to pay-Six dollars for a breakfast, four dollars for a shave, fifty dollars for a pair of boots or sixty dollars. for a pair of gum boots which the deep mud of the streets rendered absolutely necessary-these were sample prices. Some bold adventurers from Wash- ington County took the overland route by Inde- pendence for the golden land, and tramped three thousand miles aeross the continent through the unsettled plains and the traekless defiles of the Rocky Mountains.
In March, 1849, a party of thirty of these gold seekers left Shepherdstown, and with them was J. McClelland Miller, of Boonsboro. A few days later, George E. Stonebraker, Silas S. Rohrer and Pembroke B. Showman, of Pleasant Valley, accompanied a large party from Charlestown, Va., on the overland route. Col. J. C. Fremont was all this time exploring in the Rocky Mountains and on the Pacific Coast. In his party was Henry Rohrer, of Washington County. He, with nine others, was lost in the snow in the mountains and perished. John Freaner and the Baechtels- the latter members of the Baltimore and Frederick Mining and Trading Company, left Baltimore on the Schooner "Creole" in May. This party was well equipped with mills, machinery, tents and other appliances. But the first to depart in 1849 was Edwin Bell, the young editor of the Torch Light. He took leave of his friends and left Ha- gerstown Jan. 17. Edwin Bell was born in Ha- gerstown December 24, 1819. He had studied law with William Price, and had entered the bar. But since 1841, he had also been engaged in the office of the Torch Light. In that year, he be- came associated with his father as editor and after his death sueceeded him. When he left for California, his brother-in-law, William Motter,
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afterwards Judge, conducted the paper until it was sold by Mrs. Bell, who owned it, to Mittag and Sneary, in Angust, 1851.
Mr. Bell went to Baltimore and engaged passage on the ship "Xylon." Finding that this vessel was not to sail until the third of February, he spent the intervening time in Washington, where he met with the representative in Congress from this district. James Dixon Roman, and ob- tained letters of introduction from Gales and Seaton the editors of the National Intelligeneer, and Col. Albert, Chief of the Topographical Bu- reau, to Col. Mason the Military Governor of California. Col. Thomas H. Benton gave him a letter to his son-in-law. General John ('. Fremont, then the most important personage on the Paeifie Coast, together with Gen. Fremont's account of his explorations. When the ship "Xylon" weighed anehor off Fell's Point there was a great concourse of people to see her off and the last face Mr. Bell recognized was that of John Freaner, and it was John Freaner who greeted him upon landing at San Francisco. He had suddenly determined to go after Mr. Bell's departure and taking the shorter route arrived before him. The Xylon put in at Rio Jeneiro, and here charges were made by some of the passengers against the eap- tain. The U. S. consul undertook to try him and after a long trial he was removed and the vessel put in charge of another captain. During the progress of the investigation the passengers amused themselves in the eity and some of them indulged in pranks which would have subjected them to serious penalties but for the leniency of Dom Pedro who treated them with marked politeness and consideration.
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