USA > Maryland > Montgomery County > Sandy Spring > Annals of Sandy Spring history of a rural community in Maryland, Volume III > Part 9
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Yale College, graduated and returned to become a teacher in Alexandria. His health gave way, how- ever, under the long confinement, and travel was ad- vised. During an extended visit to Europe he gath- ered rich treasure of information, and as it was his habit ever to share all that was good and beautiful stored in his mind, he gave forth much of it for the benefit of others.
"Soon after his return home he married Sarah, daughter of Robert H. and Anna Miller of Alexan- dria. They came to Rockland to live on the farm purchased by Benjamin Hallowell years before. Al- though not 'to the manor born,' he made it 'blossom as the rose.' He soon became interested in every movement for advance in Sandy Spring, joined the Farmers' Club, held offices in the Insurance Company and the Bank and other organizations; but the so- ciety that appealed most to his taste and which he loved best was, that which he often called 'the beau- tiful Horticultural.' He was always its president. His father and mother, after giving up teaching, joined him at Rockland, and their declining years were cheered and comforted by this devoted son and his wife.
"In 1878 he opened Rockland School for girls, which for years was a great success. Studying the best interests of all and the peculiar disposition of each, he made his pupils his friends ever after; they always rejoiced in the opportunity of visiting him again, and at the memorial meeting-held in Sandy Spring meeting house the day after his funeral, which
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was private -- many of them bore testimony to his in- fluence on their lives.
"Eleven years before his death, after a journey through the West, he suffered months of acute illness, and never after had even a brief respite of perfect freedom from pain. His patience and fortitude, the cheerful and unselfish manner in which he endured suffering, made a deep impression on the community, and the influence of his example must affect the lives of many.
"His nature was truly religious; he was 'soothed and sustained by an unfaltering trust,' and day by day he lived his creed, ever ready to say, 'Look not mournfully into the past; it comes not back again. Wisely improve the present; it is thine. Go forth to meet the dim and shadowy future without fear and with a manly heart.' " (M. B. M., in Friends' Intel- ligencer.)
August, of course, saw the tide of summer visitors at its height, and many of our own people took ex- cursions to seaside, mountains or other places of re- sort.
A lawn party at Belmont, on the 26, was largely attended, and in spite of rain the managers of the affair cleared $40.00 for the Darlington and for the Suffrage work in the State. Besides the supper, the attraction of the evening was Howells' farce, The Mouse Trap, given in excellent style by a party of young people from Baltimore. There were also sev- eral musical numbers on the program.
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September 9, Neil Graham, son of Dr. Augustus and Helen S. Stabler, was born at Roslyn.
September 11, Sherwood School opened, again un- der the management of Elizabeth P. M. Thom, Alice V. Farquhar and Augusta N. Thomas, but with such largely increased numbers that new desks had to be purchased, and the additional services of Edith Hal- lowell, Rebecca T. Miller and Sallie P. Brooke were secured. During the year there was a total enroll- ment of seventy-three, sixty-seven being the most in attendance at one time, the largest number in the an- nals of the school.
September weather was not remarkable until near the end of the month. On the 25 a heavy rain fell, about four inches in sixteen hours, and then it turned cold. There was killing frost on the 28, 29 and 30, and ice on October 1. From this time on till Christ- mas we had a series of most remarkable hoar frosts, morning after morning showing grass, trees, bushes- everything-almost as white as if there had been a light fall of snow. The early winter was also notice- able for the many fine days we had, mild, clear and beautiful. The average daily temperature up to the end of the year was four degrees higher than the usual daily average for the season, and five degrees higher than for the same time last year.
October brought the most brilliant autumn foliage we have had for years, and the world was so lovely as to tempt one to stop everything else to enjoy the beauties of Nature.
October 24-27, the air was unusually hazy, and
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the sun, but dimly seen, looked like a great orange, the effect, presumably, being caused by the smoke from extensive forest fires in the mountains of West- ern Maryland.
October 14, Joseph T., Jr., and Estelle T. Moore celebrated the fifteenth anniversary of their marriage by a beautiful reception at Pen-y-bryn, which gave the guests a chance, not only to congratulate the host and hostess, but to admire the commodious new addi- tion to their house; and the four single men that Sandy Spring could muster for the occasion did all they could to make up in quality what they lacked in numbers !
On the 21 October, Helen L. Thomas sailed with a party of friends from New York to London, en route for a winter in Paris, followed by a tour in Italy and elsewhere; and on the 28, Julia Hallowell sailed from the same port for Galveston, Texas, on her way to California, where she spent several months.
The only wedding that has taken place within our borders during the year was the pretty one which occurred at Ashton M. E. Church, October 24, when Edna Tucker was married to Granville Thompson, Rev. H. P. West officiating.
October 28, Donald Brooke, son of Rebecca T. ' and Tarlton B. Stabler, was born at Amersley.
On the 11 November, the house of Ernest and Sal- lie Janney Adams, near Clarksville, was burned. The fire occurred in the night. when only Mr. Adams and a colored boy were there, so, as they had no
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means of summoning help, nearly all their furniture, etc., were lost too.
The meteoric shower expected from the 13-16 No- vember did not come off on schedule time; the nights were chilly and cloudy and those who were energetic and enthusiastic enough to sit up to see stars had their trouble for their pains ; but a number of people who were out on the evening of the 24 saw a fine dis- play of celestial fireworks.
November 23, the neighborhood at large missed one of the greatest treats ever offered them-the lec- ture-reading on Tennyson by Mrs. Helen Weil of Boston. The twenty-odd people who braved the foggy drizzle of that night will agree that such reading has never before been heard in the Lyceum, and her inter- pretation of the familiar poems she chose made us feel as if they were new. Her thread of comment on her selections was interesting and discriminating, but the gem of the evening was her rendering of Guine- vere. The anguished remorse of the fallen Queen, the righteous wrath of the "blameless King," tem- pered with mercy and love, were there before us in living words, and at the climax we found ourselves breathless and tearful, ready to say with Guinevere:
"We needs must love the highest when we see it, Not Lancelot nor another."
November 24, Cardinal Gibbons dedicated St. Pe- ter's Catholic church at Olney, the service being at- tended by people of all denominations. It is esti- mated that three hundred persons were present, and all who had the privilege of hearing the Cardinal's
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sermon on the occasion were greatly pleased with his earnestness and liberality.
November 29, at Anderson, Indiana, Joseph E. Janney was married to Huldah Newsome, and they came to live on his farm near Brighton.
December was mild till Christmas day. Then, once started on the downward track, the mercury did not stop short of 0°, and it lingered in that neighbor- hood well into the New Year. Dozens of ice houses were filled during Christmas week.
The holidays brought many absentees home for a visit, and on Christmas day there were an unusual number of family gatherings.
December 9, after many months of invalidism and several weeks of severe illness heroically borne, Beu- lah L. Thomas died at the Homoeopathic Hospital in Washington, and was buried in the Sandy Spring graveyard on the 11. The funeral was strictly pri- vate, according to her wish, but on the evening of that day her relatives and a few near friends held a solemn and impressive meeting in memory of her at Clifton. The following extracts are from a memo- rial prepared for the Home Interest :
"The removal by death of our dear friend and val- ued member, Beulah Thomas, causes us a deep sense of personal loss and a blank not easily filled in the society she loved so well. In her fertile brain origi- nated the idea of this organization * * *
and the recollection of her face as it often lighted up with sparks of wit and humor, and of her clever repartee will remain with us, and we shall always miss the
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charm. her presence added. * * * Though hér life was restricted to less than three-score years, she had lived much.
"The beauty in and around her home bore the im- press of her taste. She set her ideals high, and she was ambitious to fulfill them as mother, wife and friend.
"Her integrity and her loving sympathetic nature endeared her to all who knew her intimately. Espe- cially was she tender and considerate to the brute cre- ation. * * * Her ministrations to the poor, the sick and the suffering, known only to the few, leave the fragrance of her tenderheartedness as a memorial to her, for she remembered the injunction, 'Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.'
"She had much to live for, but when faced by inevi- table death she accepted it with fortitude and cour- age, and could look with joy upon the transition, say- ing. 'Not my will, but Thine, be done.' "
Owing to the purchase of the farm occupied by Dr. William Tatum and family by Augustus Snyder of Baltimore, Dr. Tatum bought a lot from George M. Tatum near Brighton and built a cottage which they call Sunnybrae; and his family moved to it from their old house about the beginning of the year.
January 9, William W. Moore held a sale of farin- ing implements and stock, he having rented his farm to Frank Thomas, a colored man.
January 30, Sandy Spring received as severe a setback as these annals have ever had to record : Miss Jessie Ackerman, who has been all over the inhabited
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globe, from Iceland to New Zealand and Cape Col- ony; who has traveled in every known kind of vehi- cle and under the most adverse circumstances, failed to meet a lecture engagement here because, forsooth, this is a "rural district" ! In justice to Miss Acker- man it should be added, however, that illness and the weather combined made her physician forbid the ex- posure of the long stage ride.
February had at least six weeks of disagreeable weather condensed into its twenty-eight days, and it was a relief to remember that 1900 was not leap year !
But weather was not the only event of the month; some other things came off in spite of it. February 2, St. John's Dramatic Club of Kensington gave a play entitled Just for Fun in the Lyceum, and the few nieghborhood people who were present pro- nounced it an excellent performance. Most of the audience, which was quite a large one, came from a distance.
February 20, the Farmers' Convention met at the Lyceum, Robert H. Miller in the chair. It was smaller than usual, and there were no speakers from a distance, but the meeting seems to have been very interesting. William E. Manakee read a most ad- mirably prepared paper on free roads, that called forth hearty praise even from those who disagreed with his views, and the discussion on this most impor- tant subject filled the time, to the exclusion of all other matters; the rest of the questions prepared for the day had to be deferred till next year.
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February 21, the Sandy Spring Book Club held a successful auction at Sherwood School house to dis- Dose of the books that had just finished their course around the neighborhood.
Washington's birthday was celebrated with a Pa- triotic Tea at Olney Hall, for the benefit of the W. C. T. U. In spite of stormy weather, a good many people went, and after they had disposed of oysters, salad, cake and ices, they enjoyed a number of patri- otic choruses and a flag drill; the proceeds of the entertainment amounted to $54.00.
That our interest in the Woman Suffrage cause has not abated was shown in February by the number of our women who attended the National Convention in Washington, the celebration of Miss Anthony's eightieth birthday, and the Conference in Baltimore immediately after. In both cities Caroline H. Miller made excellent speeches, which were well received.
March 9, Dr. William Taylor Thom gave at the Lyceum, for the pupils of Sherowod School, an illus- trated lecture on "The Spanish Finding and English Keeping of North America," which was listened to with great interest by a large audience.
A good attendance at one lecture is a notable event in our annals of late, but that is not all-within a week after the one just mentioned, the Lyceum was again filled on the occasion of a temperance lecture by Dr. Julius E. Grammer of Baltimore.
The mild and moonlit night that favored him was followed by a heavy snowstorm on the 15, and an- other rapid drop of the mercury to 10° that night,
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and this particular storm will be especially memora- ble for its fatal consequences. Elijah Hackett, a colored man, coming home from Washington intoxi- cated, fell by the roadside between Holland's Corner and Ednor, and was frozen to death, his body not be- ing discovered till two days later.
March 15-18, we had the best sleighing of the win- ter. The mercury was down to 1º on the 18, but rose to 40° before night, and by the next evening the snow was gone.
March 23, was the first spring day, mild and balmy, but March is incapable of a sustained effort to be agreeable, and the morning of the 26 showed the world white with a fairy snow that for a few hours made even the tag ends of winter beautiful. Every branch, twig and brier, each fence and stone, was frilled or cushioned with white till the thaw began, continued and ended in sloppy melancholy.
March 4, the mortal remains of Rachel Bellows were laid to rest, and a large number of people, white as well as colored, gathered at Sharp Street church to pay the last token of respect to one of the worthiest and best known of her race in this vicinity. Her in- dustry, as long as she was able to work, was most exemplary, and her honest and truly Christian char- acter won the respect of all. Probably she was the last person left in Sandy Spring who had been sold on the block, which occurred when she was a very small child in the first quarter of this century. By the will of her former mistress, Sarah Warfield, she became free about 1843, and thinking it might be of interest to many I insert a copy of her "free papers" :
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"The State of Maryland, Anne Arundel Co., to wit: I hereby certify to all whom it doth or may concern that on examination of the Records and Pa- pers in the Office of the Register of Wills for Anne Arundel Co., it appears that the last will and testa- ment of Sarah Warfield, late of the County afore- said, deceased, bearing date the twenty-first day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eighten hundred and -- , was proved and recorded in the said office in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and twenty-four in liber I. G., No. - , folio 263, and that the said Sarah Warfield, by her said will, among other things, did devise and direct that- 'I give and bequeath unto my niece, Clarissa Waters, a negro Girl Rachel to serve her eighteen years and then be free.' And I do further certify that it hath been proved by such testimony as is sat- isfactory to me that the bearer hereof, negro Rachel, whose height is about five feet 3 inches, whose age is about 40 years, whose complexion is light brown, and who, as appears by said will and testimony, be- came free about 1843, is the identical person who was Manumitted or Freed as aforesaid, and that the negro was raised in Anne Arundel County.
"In Testimony Whereof, I hereunto subscribe my name and affix the seal of my office this twenty-fifth day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-eight.
"Test- "BERYN E. GANTT,
"Register of Wills for Anne Arundel Co."
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At the annual meeting of the Savings Institution of Sandy Spring, March 7, the treasurer's report showed that the Bank had received $52,000 in depos- its during the past year, making its total assets $530,- 000. Its transactions for the last five years foot up $1,262,435.
March 17, Mary Warner, daughter of Dr. George E. and Constance A. Cooke, was born.
March 31, the Montgomery County Anti-Saloon League held its quarterly meeting at the Lyceum. A number of delegates from different parts of the County attended the executive session in the morn- ing, and the ladies of the neighborhood gave them lunch in the school house. The public meeting in the afternoon, presided over by Rev. H. P. West, was large. Caroline H. Miller, S. E. Nicholson, State Superintendent of the League, and Clara C. Hoffman of Missouri, officer of the National W. C. T. U., all made able addresses, and the audience greatly enjoyed the singing of the Sharp Street choir.
Whether by accident or design, it was unfortu- nately arranged to have a "clay-pigeon shoot" at Pen- y-bryn the same afternoon, so all who attended it missed the opportunity for instruction and pleasure offered by the League meeting. S. B. Wetherald made the highest score.
Before March was over the grip came, saw and con- quered ; almost every house had at least one victim, and Sherwood had to close its doors for three days.
April 1, the remains of Annie Hamlin, wife of
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Herbert S. Adams, formerly of this neighborhood, were interred in Woodside Cemetery.
"As our year is almost at its close come the tidings that Martha Lea, one of our oldest Friends and one who has been identified with the history of the neigh- borhood for most of her long life, passed peacefully to her rest on the morning of April 14, aged eighty-one years. She was born January 31, 1819, in Brandy- wine, Del., and when four years of age her parents, Thomas and Elizabeth Lea, moved to Walnut Hill, Sandy Spring. At the age of nine she was taken by her grandmother, Elizabeth Ellicott, to her home in Ellicott City, to be educated under her care, and until she was past the age of thirty she remained the . faithful companion and untiring nurse of her invalid grandmother, until her own health became impaired and she was forced to return to her parents' home. Perhaps the unselfish devotion to her aged relative and the consequent delay of pleasures which seem to belong to the period of girlhood, kept the youthful spark alive within her breast, but certainly as long as she lived her interest and warm sympathy went out to young people.
"The poor, the sick and the needy found in her ever a faithful and constant friend, and to relieve their suffering seemed to be the chief aim of her life.
"She gave freely and constantly of her means, of her needlework, of her time and her thought to such objects of charity, and as long as her strength per- mitted her to walk it was a familiar sight to all with- in her little circle to see her, laden with some of the
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comforts of life, going upon errands of mercy, even with steps that faltered from weakness. ·
"And Charity in its broader sense was one of her chief characteristics ; she had the rare and beautiful faculty of seeing only the good in others. The man- tle of her charity was wide enough to cover all who might be censured by others, and it was the charity that 'thinketh no evil.'
"Except when prostrated by many spells of illness, her life was one of activity until the last few years, when the extreme weakness of old age was upon her. Even then she continued to go about the house and into the open air as much as possible, and she even picked some early crocuses from the garden within a few days of her death, which came to her a welcome summons.
"She was buried at Woodside Cemetery on the aft- ernoon of April 16, followed by a few relatives and many warm friends." (Hallie J. Bentley.)
Sandy Spring's sons, though not without considera- tion at home, continue to win honors abroad : Roger Brooke, Jr., has finished his course in medicine with distinction, and been appointed second assistant at the Maryland General Hospital, while Roger B. Farqu- har, Jr., has covered himself with glory on the foot- ball field, won a prize for oratory, and received a commencement appointment at Swarthmore.
During the year there have been a number of real estate transfers of interest: James Irwin bought the Thomas J. Beall property, near Emory church ; Mar-
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garet E. M. Janney of New York purchased a part of Rockland farm along the Union turnpike, adjacent to Stanmore; John D. Berry sold his place to Dr. George E. Cooke and moved to Herndon, Va .; four hundred acres of land, mostly pine forest, belonging to the estate of the late Charles Abert, were sold to H. E. Davis of Washington; George A. and Sara F. Willson bought Albert Stabler's place near Lay Hill and moved there from Valley View farm; George Nicholson has bought Dr. C. Farquhar's place, and Holland's Corner and Brighton stores have both changed hands, the former business having been bought of James M. Holland by Walter Lindsay; the latter of E. R. Stabler & Co. by J. E. Bowman.
If the inhabitants of this corner of the world are not provided with the necessaries of life it is surely not for lack of stores. Besides those that have been long established, a new one has been opened at the corner of Colesville pike and the Laurel road by B. Peyton Brown. W. H. Wylie has built one on the Brookeville pike opposite Dr. Cooke's, and H. T. Weache has opened business in J. W. Jones' store in Olney.
The past year has been one of exceptional change in the village of Olney. A blacksmith shop has been built by R. T. Hines and a wheelwright shop by E. D. Hawkins, and Mr. Burns has bought the grocery store and the house adjoining, from which Reuben Young and William B. Nicholson and family re- moved to Brookeville. 4
W. W. Harvey, who was appointed postmaster at
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Olney, February 5, has rented the Groomes house, vacant since Edward Owen purchased a neighboring house from Charles S. Jones. On February 10, Charles S. Jones died of typhoid fever. He had been so identified with the life of the village since his boyhood that his illness and death were deeply felt in its neighborhood.
In February, George R. Wild went to live in Bal- timore, asking Sandy Spring Monthly Meeting for a certificate of removal to that place.
The building activity, so conspicuous in the neigh- borhood last year, has been only less so this; Sallie A. Ellicott has purchased a lot from Allan Farquhar and built a tasteful and comfortable cottage-Cozy Corner-adjoining the house of Sophia M. Robison ; there have been some inside improvements at The Cottage and at Falling Green; Edgewood rejoices in a new bow-window; and the additions at Pen-y-bryn and Mt. Airy, in progress at the time of our last meeting, have been finished. Annabel O. Page has built an "annex" on her lawn as an amusement hall and dormitory. M. M. Haviland has put a third story on his mill, and Isaiah Coar's store at Ednor has been moved from its original site to make room for a new one just beginning.
Samuel S. and Joseph T. Bond have refitted their mill from top to bottom with new and improved ma- chinery of their own make. The principal piece, a mill for grinding rock and bone, is simply a cylinder fitted with stout, swinging arms traveling at a high velocity in a metal jacket. It grinds by striking the
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rock and knocking it to pieces. The ground rock is carried away by the current of air created by the whirling cylinder, over a sieve, from which the large lumps are returned to the mill to be reground.
The violent current of air from this mill is, of course, laden with dust, which would be scattered all over the building were it not for their separator, by which about two tons of fertilizer per day are saved. When grinding bone a strong electro-magnet, connected with their dynamo - both of their own make-is placed at the mouth of the mill to catch all iron that might otherwise break the machine.
They have also a corn mill on the same principle as the bone mill, but somewhat different in detail. The corn is ground by long arms which revolve with great rapidity and strike the grain.
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