USA > Maryland > Montgomery County > Sandy Spring > Annals of Sandy Spring history of a rural community in Maryland, Volume 1 > Part 22
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per cent. ; the payments having been promptly made, and with the least possible dispute. Estimated assets are $130,500.
The "Savings Institution of Sandy Spring" has been in existence over fifteen years, commencing in a very humble way ( as set down in former pages), and reaching March 1, 1883, the condition as follows:
" Amount on hand, $173,061 54.
Investment in bonds, $79,364 05
In mortgages,. 73,325 00
Sundries, 20,372 49
The year ending March 1, 1883, has been a very pros- perous one in every respect; the business large, with no known bad debts; every demand promptly paid over the counter, without a second notice.
[Extracted.] JOSEPH T. MOORE, Treasurer."
It now only remains to pay our sorrowing tributes to our friends who have gone before. The number is largely in excess of previous average losses by death. Of the two who left us in the spring, a feeling mention is made at the time of their departure by my associate; who, in the present writing, takes her leave also of this record. In the next obituary you will easily recognize the words of Caroline H. Miller.
Ninth month, 4th, died Edward Thomas, aged 72. Some thoughts of the dear friend, whose once familiar face must henceforth be but a pleasant memory, dwell so earnestly with me, that I trust their expression may not seem inappropriate. With him another link has fallen from the chain of goodly, I may say, of godly brothers and sisters; a chain which they have kept strong and bright through many years by love and truth.
271
ANNALS OF SANDY SPRING.
Another life has been laid down-that had indeed grown heavy through burdens of the flesh too grievous to be borne. Another faithful and loving wife has been left, to bear for a few years the saddest of all titles and loneliest of all lots! We have parted with our loved friend forever to the outward vision; but it will be long ere he is for- gotten ! Though "he had known sorrow and was well acquainted with grief"-whom did he ever oppress with his murmurings? None! for true hero that he was, he wore his sackcioth underneath; his greeting always bright and pleasant; his words glowing with innocent mirth or sparkling with harmless wit-when can we for- get him ? Never! His memory will still be green in the hearts of his children's children when their fair young heads shall be whitened by the snows of time. Cheerful, patient, enduring man ! Strong in all that was good and true ! Such deaths are a real bereavement. We mourn him with sincere sorrow; while we fervently exclaim- " Let me, too, die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his !"
Twelfth month, Sth, died Carrie M. Stabler, aged 9 years, nearly. Our three friends whose departure has been recorded had reached an age that averaged over 75 years. Highly as they were esteemed, and deeply as they were lamented, the loss had nothing unnatural about it. In the regular course of things their time had come to depart. The ripe apple falls easily to the ground. But for this dear, bright child, just come to an age when life begins to gather its sweetest fruits, and the power comes with it to distribute of them-oh, so much !- and most to those who are most near-how strange and mysterious are the laws that bring about these cruel ends ! Vain, in- deed, is any attempt to fathom or explain. Perhaps it is
....
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something worse than useless to try. I know that the little pet of our First-Day School will never return to join the companions she loved ; never fill out and perfect in this life the bright qualities of the true woman which her early years seemed to promise. This thought, in my own experience, under a similar affliction-this sorrowful thought that the gifted child could never unfold its gifts, was saddest of all. But another and holier thought also came: " Could such hopeless things be ? Could that which was best and most precious and most promising of all that we see or know, or have to do with, in our whole experience of this life, can it pass as if it had never an existence, wholly away? This universe exhibits no such wasteful management. And once assured that our little lamb is safe folded in the arms of the Good Shepherd, it is not so long to wait!"
Twelfth month, 12th, died Mary B. Kirk. The writer of these tributes of affection to long-tried friends, thus rendered to him a "labor of love," has always been a warm advocate of marriage .. But in contemplating a life such as hers, whose name is above written, one may justly feel a degree of uncertainty, at least as to the duty or necessity resting upon every woman to enter into wedlock. I have known Mary intimately ever since I was a boy ; and was acquainted, for the most part, with her manner of life. While sitting with the solemnized gathering of friends, assembled to follow her remains to the grave, within the room where she had dwelt during the chief portion of her life, a deep impression came over me. I seemed to see, and followed in thought, that life of hers spread out before me. And one clear figure marked the whole, forming into words substantially such as these: "The labors of her active life were directed to
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efforts, generally successful, to make other people more comfortable," always seeming ready to help everybody. Yet her life, especially the early part of it, was one of great, continued suffering ; as the victims of the demon, dyspepsia, alone can rightly understand. Fortunately for her, and for so many others, she succeeded almost in throwing off the scourge. Then her devoted spirit was able to manifest itself; with results which tempted me to the suggestion that perhaps the world was the better for her life. to have been one of single blessedness.
2d month, 22d, 1883, died Wm. Henry Stabler, aged 81. Again the hand of death, so busy this cruel year, struck upon the old. But it fell with gentle force upon one well prepared for the stroke. For the period of a few years the strong life current which had marked his active, de- cided nature had somewhat failed, but long before his departure it returned calm and refreshed. Wm. Henry Stabler was a man so long and widely known, his death forms an historical event in our annals. On a former page there is a brief obituary notice of his son William, and a line describing him reads-" His industry, honesty and solid sense distinguished him as one to be relied upon." The father and son were much alike. As the phrase is often used, " He was a man who had very little nonsense about him." Steady and straightforward in his business, he asked and expected of others to do only what in similar cir- cumstances he would do himself. While attending closely and with success to his own affairs, he was by no means deficient in active efforts to promote the general welfare. One example of this I cannot refrain from placing on this record. It is some years now since the landowners of Sandy Spring were relieved from a nuisance both onerous and expensive. Probably there are many who forget the
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times when hogs and cattle roamed freely through our woods, compelling every one to keep his gates shut ; more still who forget the man most active to get the nuisance abated. That man was Wm. Henry Stabler. He was not the only actor in the case, but it is my distinct recollection he was decidedly the most efficient. Another and yet more important change in our neighborhood is due to the same source. But enough has been written; of all the men among us he cared the least for praise; only substan- tial qualities attach to his memory and name.
It is by a strange coincidence that your historian's last "labor of love" in this way should be directed as it has been. The last similar contribution of the friend whose care and accurate observation have added so much of real value to our sketches is " to mention with expressions of deep sympathy" the death in Alexandria of one of the " Rockland scholars" from Bermuda. She remarks that it spread a gloom over our pleasant neighborhood ; softened somewhat by the tokens of lovely Christian resignation manifested by the stricken mother in the island far away.
The record of our sincere tributes of sympathetic feeling toward valued friends would be quite imperfect without referring to the afflictions which now for three months have prevailed in the household of Washington B. Chich- ester. While it has been the lot of the distressed family to suffer in nearly all its members, the chief anxiety cen- tred during this long period in one who was the especial darling of her many friends. Hope of her recovery is now growing stronger from day to day.
Twice before in the course of these annual records, which have ventured to come together and call themselves a history, the writer has made an unsuccessful attempt to bid " good-bye" to you, the constituents and proprietors of
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Sandy Spring Lyceum, and now and here the leavetaking is final. This hall may be truly called the centre of the intellectual movement of the neighborhood. Pass your thoughts over the twenty-four years since its construction. What a variety of uses it has subserved ! Perhaps it has never witnessed a brighter succession of rational entertain- ments than during the last year. This speaks well for its present managers and its future prospects. Our latest entertainment (though entitled by its high object to a more exalted name) was signalized among the many successful exhibitions by its large audience, by the nobility of its pur- pose, by the charm and excellence of the performance, above all by the earnestness, dignity and eloquence of her who instituted the brilliant scene. Francis Miller in this hall, just twenty years ago, made the suggestion which led to these historic records. How proper and agreeable then is it that the long narrative should close by referring to the success of his wife, Caroline H. Miller, in securing to the Lyceum Company a delightful entertainment, while fur- nishing a profitable contribution for the benefit of a hos- pital to be erected in honor of the lamented Garfield.
The following sketch of Sandy Spring at an early period in its history, drawn up by Thomas McCormick, when nearly 90 years of age, was, at the request of Caleb Stabler, inserted in the Annals.
My earliest recollections of this most delightful locality date back nearly 80 years. In 1797 it fell to my lot to become a member of the family of my uncle, Thomas Moore, of precious memory, after whom I was named. He was then living on his farm, known as "Retreat," near Brookeville. Being only about six years old, I had been but little at school; the only instruction I had received in that line was from drunken Irish wandering teachers, who knew but little themselves, and did not know how to teach children even when sober, much less when drunk. Such for the most part were the teachers we had at that time in Loudoun county, Virginia. Soon after I came to live with my uncle I was entered as a scholar in an excellent school that had recently been opened under the care and management of Isaac Briggs, a member of the Society of Friends. The school building was a very neat log structure, situated on the road leading to the Sandy Spring Meeting House, and near the residence of Basil Brooke. This school was patronized not only by the immediate neighborhood, but from the adjoining counties and from other States and cities. It may be interesting to the few that still survive to see a list of their former
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schoolmates. I believe I can give them nearly all from memory.
1st. From the neighborhood, viz .: Thomas P. and Edward Stabler, Richard and John Brooke, Mahlon Chandlee, Francis and James Hance, Richard Holmes, Samuel and Remus Riggs, Samuel White, Sarah, Eliza- beth and Ann Gilpin, Anna and Mary Briggs.
2d. From adjoining counties : Richard P. and Gerard Snowden, Nicholas Snowden, Joseph Harrison (West River), John and Samuel Ellicott (from Ellicott's Mills).
3d. From Baltimore : John and Samuel Carey, Samuel Patrick, Isaac and Thomas Tyson, John Brown, Isaac and Wm. Trimble, Jonathan Balderston.
4th. From Philadelphia : Three brothers of the Garriguez family, two Miss Thompsons, from Loudoun, Va., and three young Frenchmen, who came to learn the English language: their names were Derazon, John Batter and Dugravia Shaulattle.
From these young Frenchmen we boys learned all the French we ever knew; and that was, how to ask per- mission to go out ; and would receive our answers in the same language. I would put it down here, but fear I shall be criticized by the learned boys of these times ; now look out-but don't laugh! "Plait-il de me laisser sortir?"-" Qui, on peut sortir,"-and out we go.
Now if any boy of our then age can give us better French, let him speak out!
All the scholars from a distance boarded among the neighbors ; the teacher taking a full share. There was no corporeal punishment used in the school ; "the dunce bench " and " dunce station" were often in requisition, until some lazy fellow thought one place about as good as another, and they were content. It so happened that
24
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several of those delinquents boarded with the teacher; and in the woods between the school and home there were some fine birch trees, with long, slender switches, and you may guess the rest! Our beloved teacher was a good, kind-hearted man, was as fond of a little exercise on the playground as any of us, and often either brought his dinner with him, or would hurry back after dining at home, to have a race in the woods. Though rather a stout man, he was active on the foot, could run very fast for a moderate distance, enjoying it very much when time would admit.
On one occasion, I well remember, when he was pur- suing or being pursued, he stumbled, fell, and broke his collar-bone. 'This was a sad accident for him, and while we sympathized with him in his affliction, we (bad fellows) thought we saw in it the prospect of a few weeks' release from school duties; but, alas! this hope was soon cut off. William Stabler came forward fully equal to the occasion, took the professor's chair, and we well knew that meant business-no holiday, no play now. "Come to books!" sounded from the door next morning.
Here I pause a moment to think of William Stabler. I remember him well; saw him in his last illness, being often sent by iny anxious uncle and aunt to inquire after him; and his most excellent companion, Deborah Stabler -who ever knew her, but to love her? She was a dear friend of my mother, their acquaintance having com- menced before either was married. She lived and labored for her Divine Master, preached His word to many, and was taken to her reward in the mansion prepared for her. It was the custom of our teacher, on each and every 4th day, to take the whole school to the meeting house for worship, which practice was right and profitable.
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Having noticed the school and teacher, I will now mention the families that then composed the Society of Sandy Spring Meeting. I begin with Evan Thomas and Mary Brooke, who sat at the head of the meeting, regular · in their attendance, and seldom allowing a meeting to . pass without having a message to deliver. Here I will take the liberty of saying for myself that some of my earliest religious impressions were made under the min- istry of these dear ministers of Christ.
Then follow, John Thomas and wife, Richard Thomas, Sr., and Richard Thomas, Jr., Basil Brooke, Gerard Brooke, James Brooke, Samuel Brooke, Thomas Moore, Bernard Gilpin, Caleb Bentley, George Chandlee, Samuel Hance, and some others I might mention. How few of that large company of Christian believers remain! Only about three or four now; and very soon all will have passed away. But it is a pleasant reflection that nearly all of them have left representatives in children, grand and great-grandchildren. Some have already, and we hope all may, prove worthy representatives of such a parentage; not in membership only, but in spirituality also. But who out of all these families are now laboring in the ministry ? Can a church long continue to live and prosper without a living ministry? Look to this, my young friends! There is work for you.
I hope I shall not be thought officious in thus giving counsel when it has not been asked. No, no! what I have written is dictated by the kindly feeling I have for the place and people, among whom I have spent so many happy days; first in my boyhood, then in middle life ; and now, when I am old and gray-headed, I delight to visit and enjoy the society of the few of my early com- panions that are left, and of their immediate descend-
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ants. And if it should be decided by my Heavenly Father that I may not see you again, I leave this testi- mony of the love I still bear to my dear friends of Sandy Spring,
August 17th, 1876. THOMAS MCCORMICK.
If the foregoing hastily-prepared sketch, after exami- nation by my friends of Sandy Spring, and particularly by my ministerial brother, Benjamin Hallowell, it may be copied for future reference, with any alterations or additions that may be suggested. T. McC.
Note .- Of the 45 persons herein named, six are living.
A letter from Hon. A. B. Davis, furnishing, by request, his recollections regarding the origin of "The Mutual Fire Insurance Company of Montgomery County."
GREENWOOD, Oct. 8th, 1883. Wm. Henry Farquhar, Esq., Sandy Spring.
My Dear Friend :- Your esteemed favor of the 6th inst. informing me that you were about to write a sketch of the history of the Montgomery Fire Insurance Com- pany, and asking my recollection and co-operation in the first effort in that direction in 1842, in which your brother, Dr. Charles Farquhar, Benjamin Hallowell and others were prominent, is received. Allow me to express my gratification that you have undertaken so important and interesting a task. Your knowledge and experience is well known, and affords a guarantee that the work will be well and faithfully performed, and the rise and progress of an institution which has been so successful, and has relieved and assisted the unfortunate sufferers by fire in so many instances, ought to be perpetuated and made known to the whole community.
With regard to the meeting to which you refer, I can- not remember whether my name was attached to the call, but I have a distinct recollection of being present; and that the meeting took place in the old Academy building in Brookeville, with a goodly attendance from the neigh- borhood of Sandy Spring and Brookeville, at which your brother, Dr. Charles Farquhar, was the chief speaker. He held in his hand and read from a pamphlet the plan and working of a Fire Insurance Society, gotten up especially for the benefit and protection of farmers. No society, however, was formed, as the result of that meet- ing; for the reason, doubtless, which you suggest, viz.,
.
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that " the community was not ripe yet for so useful an organization." Success was reserved for a later day, under the leadership of the late Edward Stabler, who had ob- tained a copy of the Lycoming plan, a cheaper and more liberal one for an agricultural community. This he espoused with great ardor and zeal, and pressed with suc- cess upon our people.
But the first meeting to which you refer, at which your brother and the late Benjamin Hallowell took the leading part, must have made a strong and favorable im- pression upon me; for I find that subsequently thereto, and before the organization of the present company, I had for the first time effected an insurance upon my dwelling- house, in the Frederick County Mutual Fire Insurance Company. At this time, as one of the State agents, I was a frequent visitor to the City of Frederick, on behalf of the then prostrate and unfinished Chesapeake and Ohio Canal; and thus had an opportunity to learn something of the working of the Frederick Insurance Company.
Soon after the organization of the present company, Mr. Stabler, by letter and by personal visits, urged me to become a member and director of the Montgomery com- pany. He appeared anxious to have both myself and my friend and neighbor, Mr. Remus Briggs, in the Board of Directors.
This service as a director (having withdrawn from the Frederick company to become a member of the Mont- gomery company) enabled me to witness the intelligent zeal and devotion of Mr. Stabler, as President of the Company, of which he was justly entitled to be called the founder; also the invaluable services of another officer of the company, Robert R. Moore, its faithful, efficient and devoted Secretary and Treasurer; who, in my judgment, and without in the least disparaging any other officer, is
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entitled to share the honor of the success of our insur- ance company.
When this company was organizing, and in the first years of its comparatively slow growth, I met in my visits to Frederick, about the Canal Company, the Hon. John Davis, of Massachusetts, " Honest John," as he was famil- iarly called. I learned from him that he had organized a similar company in Massachusetts, and it had met with wonderful success, more than double ours, in the same time. I asked him the cause of his success; he replied that "under the mutual plan, insurance was so cheap that a farmer who neglected it and met with a loss, got no sympathy or assistance; and that this absence of sym- pathy forced every one into the Insurance Company -- hence their success !"
Another important lesson I learned from my interviews with these gentlemen, Messrs. Davis and Hale, and Capt. Swift, a distinguished civil engineer. I asked the latter gentleman how it was that with their turnpikes, railroads and manufacturing companies they succeeded much better than we did at the South. His reply was-" In Boston it had gone into a proverb that every company, managed by a Board of Directors, was a failure. Now, when a company was organized, their first act was to look for a person acquainted with the business and qualified to manage it, and with a salary sufficient to secure his whole time and services, to give him full control, and fix upon him the responsibility of success." There can be no doubt of the wisdom of this course of management. I have had several occasions to observe and test it.
I shall look forward with interest to the forthcoming of your history, and wish you success.
Very truly, your friend, . A. B. DAVIS.
284
STATISTICS OF
Year ending April.
Births.
Deaths.
Marriages.
1864
10
5
1
1865
8
9
3
1866
7
7
6
1867
8
6
1
1868
8
1
4
-
-
5 years (average 8}) 41 (average 5g) 28
(average 3) 15
1869
7
0
1
1870
8
4
0
1871
7
0
3
1872
5
4
4
. 1873
11
4.
2
-
5 years (average 73) 38 (average 23) 12
(average 2) 10
1874
9
2
0
1875
8
2
3
1876
5
6
1
1877
8
1
1878
3
4
3
-
5 years (average 63) 33 (average 4}) 21 (average 13)
S
1879
14
1
2
1880
5
2
3
1881
4
3
2
1882
10
3
0
1883
3
8
3
-
5 years (average 73) 36 (average 33) 17 (average 2) 10
(Total20yrs. av. 73) 148 (ave'g 315) 78 (average 23) 43
In 20 years there were 43 marriages ; divorces, none.
-
-
285
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ANNALS OF SANDY SPRING.
STATISTICS FROM POSTOFFICE AT SANDY SPRING, MD.
Amount of stamps cancelled for quarter ending March 31st, 1881, (equal to 25,876 letters @ 3 cts. each) $776 29 .
Amount of same for 1871, 10 years ago. 638 64
Excess this year. $137 65
Amount of money orders issued for year ending March 31st, 1881 $3,517 00
Amount of money orders issued for year ending March 31st, 1871. 2,461 00
Excess this year $1,056 00
Amount of money orders paid to persons here to March 31st, 1881, one year $1,783 00 Amount of money orders paid to persons here to March 31st, 1871, one year. 724 00
Excess this year $1,059 00
It seems there is $1734 more sent out of the neighbor- hood this year by money orders than received by same, just about double.
EDWARD STABLER, Postmaster, S. BOND, Assistant Postmaster.
1868.
Last snow in 1866-67 was. May 3d. First snow in 1867-68 was. .November 12th.
On the 14th of February, 1865, there was a remarkable variation in the thermometers of the neighborhood, the observations having been made about 7 A. M., viz .:
Highest, 119, at Stanmore and William J. Scofield's. Lowest, 4º, at Riverside. .
Range 15°.
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ANNALS OF SANDY SPRING.
On the 8th of January, 1866, at twelve central places in the neighborhood, the thermometer ranged from 4º to 8º.
1869.
.. Last snow in 1867-68 was April 12th. First snow in 1868-69 was on November 20th.
On April 12th, 1868, there was a remarkable fall of the thermometer, viz .:
On April 12th, at 12 o'clock M. 72°
" 10% " P. M. 27°
13th " A. M 22°
Being a fall in 19 hours of. 50° or more than 22° per hour.
On April 23d, at 4 o'clock P. M. 76°
24th, “ 7 A. M. 30°
Being a fall in 15 hours of 46° or more than 3º per hour.
Snow on only one day in January. No sleighing during the entire winter of 1868-69. Thunder heard in February.
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