A history of Washington County, Maryland from the earliest settlements to the present time, including a history of Hagerstown, Part 5

Author: Williams, Thomas J. C. (Thomas John Chew)
Publication date: 1906
Publisher: [Chambersburg, Pa.] : J.M. Runk & L.R.
Number of Pages: 622

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 5

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The following is an account of a journey by Wm. Eddes, an Englishman, who was at the time Commissioner of the Land Office at Annapolis, taken from his Letters:

Annapolis, Sep. 7th, 1752.

"I am just returned from an excursion to the frontiers of this province, in which my curiosity was highly gratified. It is impossible to conceive a more rich and fertile country than I have lately traversed ; and when it beeomes populous in pro- portion to its extent, Frederick County will, at least, be equal to the most desirable establishment on this side of the Atlantic.

"In the back settlements, where the inhabi- tants are thinly scattered, the face of the country, even at this luxuriant season of the year, exhibited in many places a dreary appearance. Lands, to a very considerable extent, are taken up by per- sons who, looking to futurity for greater advan- tages, are content to clear gradually some portions of their domains for immediate subsistence. Not having the means to fell and carry their lumber away, they make a deep incision with an axe en- tirely round each trunk, at the distance of about four feet from the ground, which occasions the leaves almost instantly to wither; and before the total decay of the tree, Indian corn may be culti- vated to great advantage, amidst the immense trunks that fill the dreary forest.

"To have the idea of winter impressed on the mind, from external appearances, at the time when nature is fainting beneath the intense heat

and on part of two Tracts of Land, the one called the Resurvey on Green Spring, the other called Kindness, and that there remains to the said Lancelot Jacques and Thomas Johnson, Jun., over and above the said One Hundred Acres of land well and suffic- ient to uphold their Manors, vizt., the sixth part of their respective Manors allotted to them by the conditions of Plantations :- and whereas the said Lancelot Jacques and Thomas Johnson Jr., hath given their respective Manors allotted them by the Condi- tions of Plantations and Whereas the said Lancelot Jaques and Thomas Johnson, Jun., hath given suffic- ient security to us that they the said Lancelot Jaques and Thomas Johnson, Jun., shall begin to prosecute and finish the building a Forge Mill and other con- veniences on the said Land within the time limitcd in and by the Act of Assembly-Now Know Ye, that we, for and in consideration of the premises, do grant unto said Lancelot Jaques and Thomas John- son, Jun., the said One Hundred Acres of Land con- tained within the lines aforesaid, with all privileges, rights, profits, and advantages thereto belonging, Royal Mines excepted with free egress and regress through any mans Land next adjoining to the said

Forge Mill to have and to hold said one undivided moiety of the said 100 Acres of Land to the said Lancelot Jaques and his heirs and assigns forever and to have and to hold the other undivided moiety thereof to him the said Thomas Johnson, Jun., his heirs and assigns forever, as Tenants in Common, and not in Joint Tenancy to be holden of us as of our Manor of Conogocheague yielding and paying unto us and our heirs and successors the same Rents, Fines and Services as are reserved, due and payable unto us for the said One Hundred Acres of Land, anything in these presents to the contrary notwith- standing. Witness our Trusty and well beloved Horatio Sharpe, Esq., Governor and Commander in Chief in and over the Province aforesaid this 11th day of April in the seventeenth year of our Domin- ion Anno Domini 1768." This grant is countersigned on the margin by Horatio Sharpe; and appended to it by a ribbon is a seal nearly four inches in diame- ter. The impression is made upon wax enclosed between two sheets of paper. Upon one side the seal is the familiar seal of the Province-represent- ing Agriculture and Fisheries-the other side has the Knightly Seal.

OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, MARYLAND.

of an autumnal sun, is, I am inclined to believe, peculiar to this country. In some districts, far as the eye could extend, the leafless trees of an astonishing magnitude crowded on the sight; the creeping ivy only denoting vegetation; at the sanie time, the face of the earth, was covered with golden crops, which promised, "riehly to repay the anxious toil." The habitations of the planters, in this remote district of the province, are in gen- eral of a rude construction ; the timber with which they frame their dwellings seldom undergoing the operation of any tool except the axe. An apart- ment to sleep in, and another for domestic pur- poses, with a contiguous store-house, and conve- niences for their live-stock, at present gratify their utmost ambition. Their method of living per- fectly corresponds with their exterior appearance. Indian corn, beaten in a mortar, and afterwards baked or boiled, forms a dish which is the princi- pal subsistence of the indigent planter, and is even much liked by persons of the superior class. This, when properly prepared, is called homony,, and when salt beef, pork, or bacon is added, no complaints are made respecting their fare .*

"Throughout the whole of this province fruit is not only plentiful, but excellent in various kinds. There are few plantations unprovided with an apple and a peach orchard; the peach trees are all standards, and without the assistance of art, frequently produce fruit of an exquisite flavor.

"In the woods, I often meet with vines, twin- ing round trees of different nominations; and have gathered from them grapes of a tolerable size, and not unpleasant to the palate. In process of time, when the colonists are enabled to pay attention to their natural advantages, they will, assuredly, possess all the superfluities of life, with- out the necessity of recurring to foreign assist- ance. Even sugar, of a tolerable quality they will be able to manufacture without application to the British Islands. A planter, at whose house I partook of some refreshments produced a quantity of that capital luxury, the grain of which was tolerable, and the taste not disagreeable. This, he assured me, was the produce of his own pos- sessions. extracted by incision, from a tree, great numbers of which grow throughout the interior regions of the American provinces, (the maple tree). The simple process of boiling' brought the liquid to a proper consistency ; and he was per- suaded, whenever more important concerns would

permit a necessary attention to this article, the inhabitants of the British colonies would be amply supplied from their own inexhaustible resources.

"About thirty miles west of Fredericktown, I passed through a settlement which is making quick advances to perfection. A German adventurer, whose name is Hagar, purchased a considerable tract of land in this neighborhood, and with much discernment and foresight, determined to give encouragement to traders, and to erect proper habitations for the stowage of goods, for supply of the adjacent country. His plan succeeded ; he has lived to behold a multitude of inhabitants of lands, which he remembered unoccupied; and he has seen erected in places, appropriated by him for that purpose, more than an hundred comfort- able edifices, to which the name of Hagar's Town is given, in honour of the intelligent founder."

Capt. Jonathan Hager arrived in America about the year 1730 and pushed on to the "back country" of the Province of Maryland. The date of his arrival at liis future home is not accurately known, but it must have been shortly after the very first settlement of Conococheague and the location of Col. Cressap at Long Meadows. In 1139, when Hager obtained his first deed from Lord Baltimore, that conveying to him the tract of two hundred acres which he called "Hagar's Choice," he was living in a house which had al- ready been built upon it. It contained an arched cellar, which was the refuge of Mr. Hager and his family during the Indian war.

The first of the large and influential family of Poffenbergers who came to this County was John Poffenberger, who arrived here from Penn- sylvania in 1760, and bought a farm on the road leading from the Hagerstown and Sharpsburg turnpike to Kecdysville, near a small hamlet called Smoketown.

Unlike the Hagerstown Valley, Pleasant Val- ley was covered with a dense and almost impene- trable . forest and the early settlers had hard work to bring their lands under cultivation. This woods was alive with wolves and other beasts of prey which destroyed the domestic animals of the settlers. The valley was settled by the ancestors of many of the principal families which still live in it-the Botelers, Clagetts. Grimms, Browns and Rohrers. Among the first was Thomas Crampton, who was born on the ocean in 1735, as his mother was on her way to this country. His father had just died and requested that the

HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD

infant to be born should be named Thomas, whether it should be a boy or a girl. The family settled in Prince George's county, and Thomas Crampton came to Pleasant Valley before 1759. Through this wilderness was cut a road which led from the old pack horse ford below Shepherds- town, through Crampton's Gap and on to Freder- icktown. The first enterprise of the settlers in the valley was to clear up the forest and plant tobacco. The tobacco was packed in hogsheads, to which shafts were fixed, and they were wheeled along this road to market. Old Mr. Crampton died Thursday morning, May 20, 1819, at the age of S+ years.

In 1717 a considerable body of immigrants arrived in the County, from a very unexpected quarter. These were a portion of Gen. Burgoyne's army, which had surrendered at Saratoga that year. They were soon assimulated by the popula- tion and became good and useful citizens. Among these was a young Irishman, who had been press- ed into the British Army. His name was John Whistler. A short time after this surrender, he came to the neighborhood of Hagerstown, and remained there for some time. He married an English lady, named Bishop. He was afterwards made a Sergeant and Sergeant-Major of Infantry in the Continental Army and on the raising of a Battalion of Levies (volunteers) in that section of the State in 1991. he was appointed Adjutant of Major Henry Gaither's Battalion in Lt. Col. Wm. Darke's Regiment for frontier defence. He was wounded in the battle under Maj. Genl. St. Clair, with Indians on the Miami, November 1191. He was afterwards made Ensign, Lieutenant, Quartermaster, and Captain of the Regular Army; was Brevet Major and died while serving as mili- tary storekeeper at Belle Fontaine, near St. Louis, Mo., in 1821. From him descended all the Whist- ler family in this country. Col. George Whistler, a distinguished civil engineer, in Russia, was one of his sons. Ile also left several sons in the U. S. Army. Among his descendants is Whistler the distinguished painter.

Another of these immigrants was Major Alex- ander Monroe, of Scotland, who settled in Wash- ington County and died here November 6, 1797, greatly beloved. He was buried in the Episcopal graveyard with the honors of war, in the pres- ence of a great concourse of people -- the Rev. George Bower conducting the services.

In September, 1784, there arrived at Funks-

town a family of immigrants who excited more than ordinary interest. They were Dr. Christian "Boerstler, his wife and six children accompanied by a considerable body of Germans. Dr. Boerst- ler was born January 29, 1749, in the Dukedom of Ducx Ponts, a portion of the Kingdom of Ba- varia. Owing to the tyranny of the German Princes he determined to enngrate to America. Accordingly, in 1784, he demanded passports. The scoretary of foreign relations of his native country endeavored to dissuade him from his pro- ject. He represented to him the long and dan- gerous journey he was undertaking, and the wild and unsettled country to which he was going, and offered him a high position under the Government. But the Doctor was not to be turned from his purpose, and after the passports were obtained, he found himself at the head of seventy families of emigrants as their leader and pioncer. . On his way to his ship he met with his Prince, who inquired where he was going with all those people. Boerstler replied that he was going to America to be free. "Under your reign we are slaves and if you continue your oppressions much longer you will have no subjects to rule." The party went in boats from the Kline to Rotterdam and there took ship for Baltimore. But before doing so a narrow escape was made from being forced on a slave ship bound for Batavia. When Dr. Boerst- ler landed in Baltimore he had but a single shill- ing in his possession and owed a guinea on the ship. He found means, however, to make his way to Washington County and settled in Funkstown. He soon became one of the leading citizens of the County, took a prominent part in the political movements which resulted in the adoption of the Constitution of the United States. He secured the support of the German people to this measure by a series of vigorous essays over the signature ol "Volksfreund." During the Whiskey Insur- rection he bore an important part in the support of the Government. He took an active interet in agriculture and wrote many articles on the importance of the cultivation of clover. He was largely instrumental in the carly introduction of that crop among the farmers of Washington County. Raising bees was also a matter which greatly interested him and he wrote much upon the subject. It was he who furnished for many year's the reading matter for the German Almanac published in Ilagerstown. Col. Boerstler, who became well known in the war of 1812 was his

OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, MARYLAND.

son. Dr. Boerstler died in Funkstown, March 11, 1833, in the eighty-fifth year of his age.

The following extract from a life of the Rev. Michael Schlatter gives a picture of the valley at an early date and refers to another early settlement in Washington county. It is of inter- est, notwithstanding the numerous inaccuracies contained in it :

"Ifis course from Frederick was nearly in a North line, to what is now Burkittsville, and thence diverging to nearly east, he crossed the mountain through what is now, and always has been known as "Crampton's Gap," thence by way of Rohrersville in Pleasant Valley, and Keedys- ville on the Antietam, about three miles southwest from where Boonsboro now stands; thence in a westerly direction to the settlements on the Con- nogocheague, about seven or eight miles west of Hagerstown; and the place where he preached at the time. must have been somewhere in the vicin- ity of what is now "Saint Paul's Church," in the vicinity of Clearspring, which is the oldest congregation in that country. Here the first set- tlement in the county was made, the first settlers being Germans, and members of the Reformed and Lutheran churches; as Reformed families I can name the Kershners, Seiberts, Sellers, and Prices. They settled on the Conococheague, because in 't they found good timber for building and other uses, whilst the rest of the valley was destitute of timber, and only covered with scrub-oak and hazle-bushes. Near Clearspring and on the l'o- tomac, are still to be seen the remains of a fort they built. and in which they kept their families when the Indians became troublesome. This was afterwards rebuilt by Gen. Braddock and was then called Fort Frederick and is still known by that name .* The country was then destitute of roads and the way pursued by Mr. Schlatter was simply a horse path or trail, though afterwards laid out into a public road, and so used until some forty or fifty years ago as the great highway to the West. Who the honest Swiss was, I cannot tell but pre- sume he must have been one of the families I have named. (Letter from Lewis M. Harbaugh, Esq., of Hagerstown, Md., dated Dec. 13, 1856.)

"On the 7th of June 1748, I continued forty miles farther to Monocacy in the province . of

Maryland. where on the 11th, in Fredericktown, a newly laid out town, I preached a preparatory sermon in the schoolhouse; and on the same day, in company with an elder of this congregation, who of his own free will offered to accompany me through Virginia, I continued my journey thirty- four miles farther to Conochocheague, crossing ille so-called Blue Mountains, so that we did not ar- rive in Connogocheague till two o'clock in the morning of the 9th, when we came to the house of an honest Swiss, and gratefully enjoyed a very pleasant rest. I preached there yet on the same day. This congregation, lying to the north from Maryland, and hence belonging still to Pennsyl- vania, might be served by the ministry at Mo- nocacy. Here in this region there are very fruit- ful fields for grain and pasture; they produce Turkish corn almost without any manure, among which are stalks ten and more feet long; and the grass is exceedingly fine. In this neighborhood there are still many Indians, who are well dis- posed and very obliging, and are not disinclined toward Christians, when they are not made drunk by strong drink. After the sermon, we left and passed on ten miles farther toward the Potomac river, which is at this place one mile wide, from which also we had a fine view of the place, where the Connogocheague stream falls into this river. Here is a boundary at once between Pennsyl- vania and Virginia and between Maryland and Virginia. This evening we journeyed fifteen miles without having seen either a house or a hu- man being; but we saw deer in droves."

."The point where we crossed the Potomac at the mouth of the Connogocheague is where Wil- liamsport now stands, which is next to the oldest town in the county. Here it was then supposed the line, run along afterward (in 1761) by Mason and Dixon, would strike the Potomac."

(Letter of Lewis M. Harbaugh, Esq., of Hagers- town, Md., December 13, 1856.)

The Potomac is not ordinarily a mile wide- it may have been swollen by rains at the time. "Some of the early settlers in Martinsburg and vicinity say that they remember when the river spread itself very wide. so that when high, it might with truth be said, it was about a mile wide."

(Letter from Rev. J. G. Wolf.)

*This' of course is incorrect.

CHAPTER III

HE first settlers arrived in our valley while the border disputes between the Provinces of Maryland and Pennsylvania were at their height. This dispute about the boundary line between the two Provinces, which was not settled until after a most elaborate instrument had been executed on the 4th of July, 1760, involved the settlers of the disputed territory in many bloody affrays and in much perplexity. Its final settlement, which was not consummated until Mason and Dixon's Line had been laid out in 1767, gave the colonists peace but deprived Maryland of a large and most valuable strip of territory which was justly a por- tion of her domain. According to the claim of Lord Baltimore the Maryland line would have run due west from a point on the Delaware river which would have thrown the southern part of the City of Philadelphia within his territory.

In giving a correct sketch of the disputes which were settled by the running of Mason and Dixon's Line, it is necessary to refer to matters foreign to our County and to our present purpose. But as this famous line is the northern boundary of our county. and our County was so deeply concerned and affected by its final settle- ment, it is deemed well to give a short sketch of the whole boundary in question as far as it affects our northern line. The line which divides Mary- land from Delaware, is also a portion of Mason and Dixon's line. But the name is generally un- derstood to refer simply to the northern boundary line of Maryland, the line which was a household word throughout the United States for nearly fifty

ycars, the line dividing free States from the slave holding States.

In the grant to Lord Baltimore by Charles I the northern limit of the Province was "unto that part of the Bay of Delaware on the north, which lieth under the fortieth degree of latitude, where New England is terminated; and all the tract of land within the following limits to-wit: passing from the said Delaware Basin a right line with the degree aforesaid, unto the true meridian of the first fountain of the river Potomac, thence running towards the south unto the further banks of said river &c." The proper location of the first fountain of the Potomac, and whether the first fountain of the North branch or the South branch was intended, involved the Colony, and afterwards the State, in a protracted controversy with Vir- ginia which was finally settled in favor of the claims of the latter state. With that controversy, however, we are not concerned in this history.

It will be observed that the Province of Mary- land extended to the southern line of New Eng- land. Under that name was included the ini- inense grant to the Plymouth Company of all the North American Continent between the 40th and 48th degrees of north latitude; that territory ex- tended from the latitude of Philadelphia to a point many miles north of the City of Quebec and included all the Great Lakes, the Provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec and Ottawa besides about a third of the whole present terri- tory of the United States. Within the territory was included the New Netherlands, claimed by the Dutch by virtue of Henry Hudson's discovery,

HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD

and settled by them. Under their protection a settlement was made on the banks of the Dela- ware river, but not until a settlement of Swedes had also been established in the same neighbor- hood. These two colonies soon engaged in hostili- ties which resulted in the subjugation of the Swedes by the Dutch.

In 1659 these settlements attracted the atten- tion of Lord Baltimore, and in January of that ycar Col. Nathaniel Utze was sent by the Provin- cial government "to the pretended governor of a people seated in Delaware Bav and to inform him that they were seated within his lordship's prov- ince without notice." And he was also privately instructed "that if he find opportunity he shall insinuate to them that if they will make applica- tion to his lordship's government they shall find good terms according to his conditions of planta- tion."

His Lordship's order to the Dutch to vacate were disregarded and a diplomatie negotiation between the government of Maryland and New Netherlands ensued wherein the rights and pre- tensions of the Dutch were fully set forth. Ae- cording to the historian "Diedrich Knickerbocker" the Marylanders had also made a settlement on Delaware Bay and the Dutch attempted to dis- possess them. 1 formidable expedition says that veracious chronicler, "was intended to drive the Marylanders from the Schuylkill; of which they had recently taken possession, and which was claimed as part of the province of New Nether- lands. for it appears that at this time our infant colony was in that enviable state, so much coveted by ambitious nations, that is to say. the government had a vast extent of territory, part of which it en- joyed and the greater part of which it had continually to quarrel about. Admiral Jan Jansen Alpendam was a man of great metal and prowess and was in no way dismayed at the character of the enemy, who were represented as a gigantic, gunpowder race of men, who lived on hoe-cakes and bacon, drank mint juleps and apple toddy, and were exceedingly expert at boxing, biting, gouging, tar and feathering and a variety of other athletic accomplishments which they had borrowed from their cousins-german and pro- totypes, the Virginians, to whom they had ever borne considerable resemblance. Notwithstanding all these alarming representations, the Admiral entered the Schuylkill most undauntedly with his fleet and arrived without disaster or opposition at

the place of destination. Here he attacked the enemy in a vigorous speech in Low Dutch, which the wary Kieft had previously put in his pocket ; wherein he courteously eommeneed by calling them a paek of lazy, louting, dram-drinking, eoek- fighting, horse-raeing, slave-driving, tavern-haunt- ing, Sabbath-breaking, mulatto-breeding upstarts; and coneluded by ordering them to evacuate the country immediately, to which they most laconi- cally replied in plain English, 'they'd see him damned first.' Now this was a reply for which neither Jan Jansen Alpendam, nor Wilhelmus Kieft had made any ealculation, and finding him- self totally unable to answer so terrible a rebuff with suitable hostility, he concluded that his wisest course was to return home and report progress."

The negotiation was a protracted one and embassadors were sent to Holland to enforce Lord Baltimore's demands, but they could obtain no further concession than an order to the Duteh set- tlers around Cape Henlopen to remove. New Castle and Northern Delaware were retained by the Dutch, the whole of New Netherlands was then conquered by the English, the king having granted the territory to his brother the Duke of York. Thenceforth the disputed settlements which em- braeed only a small portion of the territory of Maryland along the Delaware were taken into New York, although they were clearly within Lord Baltimore's grant, and retained by the Duke of York until his grant to William Penn. This grant which was made to Penn after mueh impor- tunity. contained general words of restriction as to Lord Baltimore's interests. especially reserving from the grant any lands which may previously have been granted to Baltimore. Upon this eon- dition Lord Baltimore assented. The lines of Penn's grant were the Delaware on the east "whence it extended westward five degrees of lon- gitnde. the 43d degree of latitude on the north, and on the south. a eirele of twelve miles drawn around New Castle, to the heginning of the 40th degree of latitude." It will be remembered that the 40th degree of latitude was the northern boundary of Maryland. The instrument did not specify what was meant by "a eirele of twelve miles drawn around New Castle," whether it was in- tended that the cirele should he twelve miles in circumference, or to have a diameter of twelve miles with New Castle for its centre, or to have a radius of twelve miles ; nor did it specify any par- tieular point within New Castle from which the

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A history of Washington County, Maryland from the earliest settlements to the present time, including a history of Hagerstown, Part 5

Author: Williams, Thomas J. C. (Thomas John Chew) Publication date: 1906 Publisher: [Chambersburg, Pa.] : J.M. Runk & L.R. Number of Pages: 622

Author: Williams, Thomas J. C. (Thomas John Chew)
Publication date: 1906
Publisher: [Chambersburg, Pa.] : J.M. Runk & L.R.
Number of Pages: 622