USA > Maryland > Montgomery County > Sandy Spring > Annals of Sandy Spring history of a rural community in Maryland, Volume II > Part 10
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Second month, 14th. Many of our people were again fortunate in listening to a very unique and in- teresting lecture on Washington Lore from "Washing- ton Land," by Moncure D. Conway. This gentleman having been born in the same township with the father . of his country, had collected many traditions, anec- dotes and original letters, and in his cultivated and humorous style, had woven them into a delightful dis- course.
Second Month, 25th. Ruth, daughter of Janney and Helen R. Shoemaker, was born.
The first number of a republican paper, called the "Montgomery Press," published at Rockville, ap- peared in this month. A liberal share of the stock was subscribed in Sandy Spring.
The first experiment of heating houses with steam was introduced at Amersley and Plainfield, and the ladies of these respective homes rejoiced in the ab- sence of dust and dirt that inevitably follow the burn- ing of coal and wood.
Elizabeth Comstock, an Orthodox Friend and phil- anthropist, from New York State, accompanied by her daughter, made a long stay in our neighborhood, she held many public and private meetings, and paid many social visits acceptable to all.
Third month. 4th, was a very inclement day. Some
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brave people ventured to Washington, and many more were disappointed in not seeing the grand pageant of the inauguration ceremonies.
The following communication was sent me by a family connection of our esteemed friend Margaret Farquhar, soon after her death.
"I was asked by our historian to write a few words commemorative of Margaret Farquhar, who died at her home, "The Cedars," on 4th day afternoon, the 6th of the Third month, in the seventy-seventh year of her age.
"Dearly as I loved her for her many virtues, her self- sacrificing and loving nature, her patience, industry, courage, cheerfulness, her warm and tender sympa- thy ; ardently as I admired and honored her intellect, I feel unworthy to pay her a fitting tribute. My mind seems powerless to coin into suitable language the impression that she made upon my heart. I can say, however, that the last laborious days of her earthly pilgrimage were perfectly consistent with her entire life and character. Not one sigh escaped her in all her sufferings. In her last hour a bright smile, a loving and appreciative word greeted all who approached her, and the grave repose of her peaceful countenance was even in death the exponent of her noble and triumphant spirit." M. B. M.
I quote in conclusion, a brief extract from a letter received by the family, since her death, which will, I know, find a warm response in the feelings of all who have ever been closely associated with her.
"You do not care to be told of her virtues or the -
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beauty of her character, for you know them better than anyone.
"Her face told its own story of a most heroic soul. She seemed to me, with her gentle voice, her calm smile, and her patient eyes, like one who stood upon the horizon of a long life, and looking over the many conflicts, through which she had passed, felt herself their moral victor. What a reunion there must have been, when those two, but a short while apart, met again."
Our farmers who had been hauling potatoes since the autumn, and through the winter months were still at it. Prices were never so low, and the market seemed overstocked.
Wheat, however, of which there had been a good average crop, was higher than for some years, and it was sold at $1.18 per bushel by persons in our neigh- borhood, who wished their potatoes could be meta- morphosed into grain.
The yield of hay had not been as large as usual, and the prices were good, if there had only been more of it.
There was plenty of corn, but it was extremely low, corn meal selling at the mills for forty-two cents a bushel.
The problem seemed to be whether it was best to have little and sell high, or thousands of bushels and dispose of them at low rates.
"How to make farming pay?" a question that proha - bly disturbed Adam, as soon as he retired from horti- culture and the Garden of Eden, is still troubling the descendants of the primeval country man.
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Some persons think the Grange Agency established in Washington and well patronized, will have the de- sired effect in the right direction, by enabling our farmers to dispose of their produce in bulk at better rates, and in much less time than by individual efforts. Others think we must simplify our modes of living, and economize, according to our means. Still others be- lieve that we cannot return to those primitive days, when city luxuries were unknown in the country, and we must make our mother earth yield additional tri- bute, and supply, not only our absolute needs, but our real and imaginary wants.
In this month, James P. Stabler gave a lecture on the subject of electricity to the pupils of Sher- wood school, which was highly appreciated by them, and also by older persons who attended.
Third month, 18th. Robert H. Miller, of Alloway, shipped to Liverpool over twenty cattle especially fat- tened for the foreign market; owing to the unprece- dented low rates just at this time the venture was not profitable, although the first export of the kind from Sandy Spring.
Third month, 19th. The Rev. J. S. Kieffer, of Hag- erstown, lectured at the Lyceum, on the "Protection of Individuality." A rainy and disagreeable evening prevented many from attending, who would otherwise have enoyed a most entertaining and original dis- course.
One of President Cleveland's last official acts was to sign a bill for a railroad from Washington to San- dy Spring, and on Third month, 22nd, pursuant to the requirements of this Act of Congress, an "incorpora-
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tors' " meeting was held in Washington, and various officers appointed.
The line from Gettysburg to the District is still threatened, and we are in painful doubts whether it will reach here in one year or twenty.
Baltimore Quarterly Meeting which occurred in this month, was well attended by our friends, who had the satisfaction of occupying, for the first time, the commodious and convenient new meeting-house re- cently built.
With our limited vision, we know not which is the greater blessing, life or death. Whether the innocent babe, dying in its mother's arms, or he who journeys all the length of life's uncertain road, has best fulfilled his mission here.
It may be that death gives all there is worth to life, and the common fate treads from out the paths, between our hearts, the weeds of hate and selfishness.
When the opening bud is blighted, we feel it has been spared much, when the old and infirm sink to rest, it is the course of nature.
But, when one in the prime of life, and full tide of usefulness, like our friend Deborah Brooke is called away, we can only find consolation in the fact that she felt perfect peace, and the assurance that her duties had been ended.
A most competent woman, all she attempted was well and thoroughly done. Quiet, self-sustained, most unselfish, she was capable of the utmost devotion to those she loved.
Her aged, widowed mother was her tender charge. and brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, looked
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to her for all those kind attentions, those hourly and daily benefits, she cheerfully gave. The sick and suf- fering had often experienced her admirable care.
"Her life to other lives she gave, To self-bestowed she lived."
Human aid and affection could mitigate, but were powerless to relieve her lingering and painful illness, yet no murmur escaped her. Forgetting herself, she sent loving and thoughtful messages to others. Fully conscious of the approaching change, calm and heroic, she accepted with unquestioning faith the decree of a supreme power, and entered into higher life at mid- night Third month, 27th, 1889.
As the long procession of sorrowing relatives and friends followed her remains to their resting-place, on the afternoon of the 29th, the solemn silence was only broken by the rustling of the leaves beneath our feet, but we knew that under this dead and cast-off garment of the winter, was the life and resurrection of the coming spring ..
We felt that her virtues, her unselfish deeds, her christian spirit were as imperishable as the springing flower and growing grass blades.
Fourth month, 6th. The most furious snow-storm of the season surprised us, evergreens were greatly damaged, and their branches torn and twisted, not only by the heavy weight of wet snow, but by the fierce wind that followed.
In a recent visit to that portion of our neighborhood called Brighton, but few changes could be observed.
The historian must note, however, the construction
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of a most cleanly and commodious "pig palace" at Leawood. Nothing to equal it has ever been seen in our vicinity before, and the combined talents of Isaac and Charles Hartshorne are responsible for this build- ing.
So subtle are the influences of surroundings, that these fat "Jersey Reds," as they reposed on their raised platforms quite above the mire, had a positive air of comfort and gentility never before observed among porkers.
The proclamation of the Governor of Maryland re- questing every good citizen to plant trees on "Arbor day," April Ioth, was a timely protest against a de- struction that has heretofore taken no thought of fu- ture need.
Interesting ceremonies took place at Sherwood Academy. Caroline H. Miller and Henry C. Hallowell made appropriate addresses, music, and recitations were enjoyed, and a poem written for the occasion was recited. A fine young sugar maple was planted, so as to partly shade the public road.
Many persons planted trees throughout the neigh- borhood.
Our Orthodox Friends have doubled the size of their meeting-house by a convenient addition in the rear, just in time to hold their second quarterly meet- ing on the 14th and 15th of this month. Mention of their first quarterly meeting last year having been in- advertently omitted by the historian.
Within the past historical year many have left us who were linked with the past ; courageous hearts that bore the struggle and the burdens of those earlier days
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in our history, when the conditions of life were harder, and more toilsome, than they are now.
Their spotless characters and their good deeds have given a tone and a quality to our community. Who among us is worthy to fill their vacant places, and to live close to their high standard of moral excellence ?
But "three tenses of life belong to man," the past to old age, the future to the young, the present to child- hood; it is to the youthful and the children, those who will make our history in the years to come, that I will address my closing remarks.
There never has been a time when the opinions of the young received as much respect as now.
They are no longer required to walk in narrow and prescribed paths. This is the age of progress, and every influence is brought to bear by parents and teachers to expand their growing minds, to widen their spheres of usefulness, to encourage an individuality that shall, if rightly directed, make an admirable diversity of character ; character that must make its mark on the entire community.
In a very delightful lecture, recently delivered in this hall, the speaker impressed on his hearers the necessity of individuality, the success in life that might be attained by thinking and acting out the best that is in us, without reference to, or fear of, public opinion.
The advantage not only of having an individuality ourselves, but of permitting others to have their in- dividualities.
Just in proportion as the young receive so many benefits in the matter of education and home culture are their responsibilities increased, and out of their
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abundance they should feel compelled to extend the helping hand to others less fortunate.
It is the thinking and doing for others, the sacrifice of self, that forms and enriches the character.
As a very wise and good man once said :
"Each of us is bound to make the little circle in which he lives better and happier, each of us is bound to see that out of that small circle the widest good may flow, each of us may have fixed in his mind the thought that out of a single household may go forth influences that shall stimulate the whole community, the commonwealth and the civilized world."
CHAPTER VII.
From Fourth Month, 1889, to Fourth Month, 1890.
Ashton Postoffice established - Johnstown flood - Dr. Francis Thomas and family went to Europe-Post- office established at Holland's Corner and named Norwood-Very warm winter-Obituaries of Allan Bowie Davis, Helen Bentley Lea, jr., Rebecca Iddings, Albert Chandlee, Joseph Paxon, Mary Ellicott Thom- as, William Miles, Catherine Bowie, Roger Brooke Thomas, Richard T. Bentley, Uriah B. Kirk, Mahlon Chandler and Wm. Summers Osborn.
From a remote antiquity, at the beginning of all re- cord until the present time, there has been a myster- ious prominence bestowed on the number seven. This, no doubt, had its origin in natural causes. The ob- servation of the seven planets, and the phases of the moon changing every seven days.
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Through the old and new Testaments, all church festivals, fasts and feasts were seven days long, and the same space of time was allotted for weddings and mourning for the dead. Every seventh day was sacred.
In the history of all nations, and through mytholo- gy, this same number appears in every conceivable connection. The seven sleepers, the seven wise men, the seven wonders of the world, the seven ages of man.
The changes supposed to take place in the human frame, so that every seven years, particle by particle, the body is renewed; the seventh son of a seventh son has always been a wizard or a doctor.
When I realized that I was about to appear before you for the seventh time, with this record in my hand, I trembled seventy times seven, as if the influence of this mystic numeral was upon me, and I wished that the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter would arise and solicit this position, which I would joyfully resign.
The "history" was read last year on the 15th of the Fourth month, and three days afterwards, on the 18th, Allan Bowie Davis died in his eighty-first year, at his winter residence in Baltimore. His remains were in- terred at his old home, "Greenwood." near Brooke- ville.
He was so interested in our people, and various in- stitutions, a notice of his life and death is not out of place here.
Born at "Greenwood," in the ancestral mansion, built by his father in 1755. he passed all his youthful years there, completing his academic course at the
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Brookeville Academy when he was sixteen, and, after that, devoting himself so successfully to the farm that his father gave him sole management of it.
He married young, and was in early life appointed to offices of trust and importance.
He was instrumental in securing the first prohibi- tory law in Maryland, and had it extended over the en- tire district.
About 1840, he was elected president of the Mont- gomery County Agricultural Society, and greatly ad- vanced the farming interests of the County. His pub- lic spirit was constantly manifesting itself in devising improvements for the people.
He obtained the charter and stock subscription for the Brookeville and Washington Turnpike Company, constructed the road, and was its first president.
In 1862 he was elected to the legislature, the ex- citing circumstances and complications of the civil war making this an eventful session.
He was for many years an efficient director of the Montgomery County Insurance Company, and his in- terest in Olney Grange, of which he was a valued mem- ber, never abated.
The last public office held by Mr. Davis, and by no means the least, was that of school commissioner of this county; he greatly advanced the public interest in education by his wise management and zeal.
His influence upon the county life of his section was elevating and enriching. He set an example to farm- ers showing them how they could become not only successful cultivators of the soil, but useful citizens and educated men. He demonstrated that farming is
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not only a profitable occupation, but a noble calling, with which true refinement and high culture may be associated.
About the middle of Fourth month, we had several days of excessive heat. Shrubs and trees were forced into rapid and imperfect bud and bloom; this was fol- lowed by pouring rains which beat off the premature flowers, so that our lilacs, snowballs and apple blos- soms were indeed a fleeting show.
Fourth month, 25th. Prof. Thomas Willson, Cura- tor of the Smithsonian Institute, lectured at the Ly- ceum on "Prehistoric Man," to an audience composed largely of young ladies. It was a discourse calculated to awaken much interest in the remains of past and gone nations, evidences of which are all around us, in our woods and fields, if we will only examine with seeing eyes.
Fifth month, Ist. Mainly through the exertions of Thomas L. Moore, the postmaster-general was in- duced to give us an additional mail each day; one reaching Sandy Spring at 10.30 A. M., and the second at 6.15 P. M., and leaving this office at 7 A. M. and 2 P. M. Thus enabling us to receive letters and forward answers on the same day.
About this date some of our people witnessed the pomp and circumstance with which the centennial of the presidency of George Washington was celebrated in New York City, and all over the country with more or less imposing ceremonies. except in Sandy Spring.
For once our neighborhood, often in the front rank, was left far behind. While many relics of the father of his country were in our midst, a piece of his coffin, a
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few hairs from his venerated head, a snuff box, pre- sented by him to a member of the Bowie family, a bed- stead on which he once slept, from the old Snowden mansion near Laurel, and a foot stool from Mt. Ver- non. We sent none of these authenticated remains to swell the torrent of "relics" that poured into New York from other states and territories ; we did not even add another to the battalion of body servants that hobbled into prominence.
I will copy a single specimen of the innumerable poems that appeared in the daily papers in commem- oration of this event.
"When Washington was President- As cold as any icicle, He never on a railroad went, And never rode a bicycle;
He read by no electric lamp, Nor heard about the Yellowstone; He never had a postage stamp, And never saw a telephone.
His short clothes ended at the knee,
By wire he could not snatch despatch, He never steamed across the seas, And never had a match to scratch.
But in these days it's come to pass, All work is with such dashing done,
We've all these things, but, then, alas! We seem to have no Washington."
A postoffice was established at Ashton, the Ist of the Fifth month, and Alban G. Thomas appointed postmaster.
Fifth month, 5th. The remains of the infant child of Henry T. and Helen Bentley Lea, were brought
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from Lawrence, Mass., and interred at Woodside cemetery. This baby that had lived a very short time was named for its mother.
A few days later, the remains of Rebecca, infant daughter of Ernest and Minnie Rust Iddings, were brought from Elton, and buried at Woodside cemetery.
Fifth month, 9th, Ioth and IIth, very high winds prevailed, followed by intense heat, and the farmers were planting corn with the mercury ranging from ninety to one hundred degrees.
About the middle of May, the young folks had 3 large and enjoyable riding party to Triadelphia, and those who did not go have never been able to find out just how many miles were traversed that day.
Fifth month, 20th. Albert Chandlee died in his fifty-fifth year, after many months of invalidism.
For a long period he had carried on successfully the canning business, in addition to his farming interests.
He was one of the directors of the savings institu- tion of Sandy Spring.
He was an attentive son to his aged father, an indus- trious and estimable man, and a kind neighbor. The last word he uttered was "rest." His death was a great blow to his immediate family.
His funeral at the meeting-house on the 22nd, was largely attended, many colored persons, whom he had employed, being present.
Fifth month, 23rd. A fine large barn was raised at Fair Hill, with the usual accompaniment of a crowd and a good dinner.
About this time, a custom which prevails elsewhere
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among "Friends," of men and women sitting together in meeting was adopted to a limited extent here. A few of the younger brothers drifted in on our side, but there was no general move to change the distinct- ive feature of the society, which prevails not only in the meeting-house, but in social intercourse, where the men angels are very apt to gather on one side, and the women angels on the other.
On the morning of Fifth month, 31st, a dashing rain- storm began, continuing for twenty-four hours with increasing fury of wind and volumes of water. The heavy pall of black clouds, the steady downpour, and the shrieking blast, filled one with a feeling of terror.
The damage in our immediate vicinity was confined to a few trees blown down, roads undermined, bridges swept away. In other parts of Montgomery County there was serious loss to property, but this was almost forgotten in the accounts from Johnstown, in our neighboring state of Pennsylvania.
A lake, swollen beyond all precedent, burst through its protecting wall, and a resistless avalanche of water, forty feet high, swept through a narrow valley, de- stroying villages and towns in its path, and leaving be- hind a scene of ruin and disaster that thrilled the civ- ilized world.
How many thousands, young and old, saint and sin- ner, were hurled out of existence in those frightful hours we shall never know; but, shining like beacon lights above the dark flood, were some heroic figures.
The nameless messenger who rode like the wind on his powerful gray horse down the valley to warn the inhabitants of their impending doom and was himself
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lost; a woman telegraph operator, who remained at her instrument until the flood swept over her, sending dispatch after dispatch of terrible import, praying the people below to flee to the hills for their lives.
John Coffin, a nephew of our friend Mary C. Brooke, a young man of brilliant intellect, and unusual scholarly atttainments, rescued numbers of drowning persons by his presence of mind and almost super- human efforts. A few weeks later, he fell a victim to typhoid fever, contracted in thus nobly exposing him- self to save others.
While the daily newspaper sifts the past to atoms. foretells the future, and leaves nothing to the imagina- tion, it seems as if the old heroic age was gone, as if there was but little scope in these prosaic days for personal bravery and magnificent deeds; but the year 1889, replete with terrific storms, and wide-spread dis- aster on land and sea, was remarkable for unparallel- ed heroism displayed by obscure men and women, who rose with the circumstances under which they were placed, and immortalized themselves.
There were many instances of this rare courage at Johnstown, and again, by American sailors in the land- locked harbor of the Samoan Islands, who cheered the English man-of-war, as she escaped from the dead- ly hurricane into the open sea, and then went to their own doom on the pitiless rocks, with flags flying and band playing.
All this is not strictly Sandy Spring history, but when heroes, philosophers and martyrs, do great deeds, speak grand words, suffer noble sorrows for humanity, it is "the touch of nature that makes the whole world
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kin," and it should be our privilege to appreciate, to sympathize, to emulate !
Sixth month, 4th. The remains of Joseph Paxon, son-in-law of the late Caleb Iddings, of Riverside, were brought from Philadelphia, where he died, and buried at Woodside cemetery.
Sixth month, 5th. A meeting held at the Lyceum of the Sandy Spring Woman's Suffrage Association, was presided over and addressed very appropriately by a mother and son, a father and daughter. Caro- line H. and Guion Miller, James P. and Jessie B. Stabler, all taking active part in the exercises, which divided the privileges impartially between the sexes.
Sixth month, 8th. At her home, Brooke Meadow, died Mary E., wife of Walter Thomas, and eldest daughter of Sallie and the late Samuel Ellicott.
Young and blooming, but recently married, full of life and energy, and social graces, it seemed as if a long and happy existence must be her portion, and her untimely death came as a shock to the community.
There was no trace of the insidious disease that had sapped her life as she lay a beautiful statue in her coffin, robed in her wedding garments.
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