USA > Maryland > Cecil County > History of Cecil County, Maryland, and the early settlements around the head of Chesapeake Bay and on the Delaware River, with sketches of some of the old families of Cecil County > Part 19
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It is supposed that the old church that stood in the grave- yard, in the Ninth district, on the road from Kirk's Mills to Bay View, was built about this time. Tradition indicates that it was built by the Episcopalians, but its history is still more obscure than that of the old chapel near Battle Swamp. Mr. Wye died November 16th, 1744, and was buried, it is
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said, at the Wye Chapel, in Queen Anne's County. The Wye River was most likely so called because his family resided near it. His funeral sermon was preached by the Rev. Hugh Jones, then rector of North Sassafras Parish, who charged his estate two pounds and ten shillings for doing it. The following petition will speak for itself:
"The petition of the vestry, church-wardens and parish- ioners of St. Mary Ann's Parish, in Cecil County, most hum- bly sheweth, That whereas the Rev. Wm. Wye departed this life about thirty-six hours past, which makes a vacancy for a minister in said parish of which your petitioners are inhabi- tants, who humbly pray your excellency would please to allow us the liberty of choosing or making tryal of a minis- ter to supply his place, that may be most agreeable to our inclination, before your excellency suffers one to come in, as on the death of Mr. George Hacket, formerly minister of the said parish, such a petition was referred to the Hon. Samuel Ogle, Esq., then governor of this province, who thought proper to grant it, we hope your excellency will show us the same indulgence and your petitioners as in duty bound shall ever pray, &c. The foregoing petition was sent to Thomas Bladen, Esq., His Excellency, Governor and Commander-in-chief in and over the province of Maryland."
On the 4th of December following, the Rev. John Brad- ford appeared before the vestry and read his induction for this parish, dated the 20th of November, from which it is plain that notwithstanding the very humble petition which had been sent to the governor with such unseemly haste, he had appointed the reverend gentleman only four days after the death of his predecessor. At this meeting two of the residents of Charlestown were summoned to appear before the vestry to answer the charge of unlawfully cohab- iting together. At a subsequent meeting of the vestry on the 7th of the following January, "the said Elizabeth ap- peared and declared that she and the aforesaid John will part and live assunder between this and next vestry day,"
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which promise, though exceedingly vague and indefinite, seems to have been satisfactory to the vestry, for no further reference is made to the case. The records in the old vol- ume from which these extracts are taken contain many references to cases of this kind, and disclose a remarkable degree of laxity in the morals of the people. Not only the lower classes of society, but in some cases those high in au- thority, were charged with this or similar offences. Gen- erally the culprits made the amende honorable, and produced certificates of marriage given by clergymen of other denomi- nations who resided out of the parish. Mr. Bradford died in 1746. His successor was the Rev. John Hamilton, who had charge of the parish from 1746 to 1773. Nothing re- markable occurred during his rectorship; but it may be mentioned as a matter of interest, that in 1754 the taxables had increased to 1,030, and the return for 1755 shows an increase of 97 during that year. For the ensuing five years the taxables in this parish varied, and in 1762 only amounted to 1113. It is worthy of note that during Mr. Hamilton's incumbency the church was robbed of the communion service, and that a destructive fire occurred in Boston, to the sufferers from which, at the request of the governor, the charitably disposed persons in the county con- tributed £79, of which the people of this parish contributed £37. It was also during the rectorship of Mr. Hamilton (1748) that the vestry purchased one hundred acres of land (part of "Clayfall") from John Curer, for £180, for a glebe. They continued to hold this land till 1784, when they sold it to Jeremialı Baker for £605.
CHAPTER XV.
William Dare-Bulls' Mountain-" Friendship "-Old Simon-Trans- town-Ye Swedestown-John Hans Stillman-Smith's mill at Head of Elk-The Jacobs family-Henry Hollingsworth-Quarrel about New- Munster road-Bridges over the head of Elk River-Road from head of Elk to New Castle-Sketch of Hollingsworth family-North East-First iron works-Roads leading to North East-Principio Iron Company- Samuel Gilpin settles at Gilpin's Rocks-William Black's account of North East-Immigration-Character of immigrants-Susquehanna ferry -Road from ferry to Philadelphia.
WILLIAM DARE, who the reader will recollect was one of the cotemporaries of George Talbot, was one of those who very early in the history of the county took up land at the head of Elk River. As early as 1681 he became the propri- etor of a tract called the Grange, which extended for some distance in a southeast direction from that part of the Big Elk called the Half Moon, and contained about one hun- dred and fifty acres. He was also the proprietor of seven hundred acres in Elk Neck, called Rich Mountain, which he sold in 1702 to Francis Mauldin, the founder of the Mauldin family of this county. This land was adjoining the land of Thomas Bull. There can be no doubt that these tracts of land were afterwards called by their owners' names, and thus originated the names of Bull's and Mauldin's Mountain. Shortly after this time (1681) most of the land on the east and south side of the Big Elk between the Grange and Frenchtown was taken up and patented, as was also much of the land in Elk Neck and along the east side of the Susquehanna River for some distance north of the mouth of the Octoraro Creek. But many of the original grants, probably owing to the inability of the grantees to
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comply with the condition under which they were made, reverted to the lord proprietary, and their bounds and the date of the patent were lost.
The land upon which Elkton was built is part of the tract of fourteen hundred acres which was patented to Nicholas Painter in 1681, under the name of Friendship. The south- east corner of the tract is marked by a stone which may be seen close by the roadside, between Mitchell's mill race and the Far Creek; it extended down the Big Elk to a point some distance below the bridge at the causeway, and north for the distance of a mile or more. This tract came into the posses- sion of Philip Lynes, as did the large tract of Belleconnell, which, as before stated, was patented to George Talbot two years later. Philip Lynes devised these tracts to his wife Anne Lynes, his cousin Mary Contec, and his friend William Bladen, by his last will dated 1709, and they by a deed ex- ecuted in 1711 conveyed it to John Smith, the son and heir of William Smith, to satisfy a claim which his father had against Philip Lynes for money loaned him by said William Smith in his lifetime. This deed is for three parcels of land, comprising about one thousand acres, parts of Friend- ship and Belleconnell. Reference is made in it to the " man's tenement, known and called by ye name of old Simon." This Simon was surnamed Johnson. He owned a traet of land that extended from what is now known as the " Hollow " (but was formerly called " Simon's Gut ") as far down the river as the bridge at the causeway, and far enough north to include fifty acres of land. " Old Simon " is evidently the man whose name has been given to Simon's Tussock, which is a massive tussock situated on the north side of the river a short distance from where Ben's Gut empties into the river. "Ye tenement" in which he lived probably stood on or near the east end of the depot lot. The records of the court show that old Simon lived to be eighty years of age, and that this plantation was in the possession of his son Simon in 1742.
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Friendship and Belleconnell are described in the deed from Lynes and others to Smith as "lying at ye Swedes- town ;" but inasmuch as those tracts contained three thous- and four hundred acres, it is hard to fix the location of the town. In 1697 two Swedish missionaries on their way to the settlements on the Delaware, sailed up the Chesapeake Bay and Elk River and landed at a village which they said had been founded by their countrymen. It was called Trans- town, and was probably located at Elk Landing. In 1698, a certain John Hans Stillman loaned the Rev. Ericus Biork, one of the missionaries before referred to, £100 of silver money for the use of the congregation in building the old Swedes church yet standing in Wilmington. Eight years afterwards he released Biork from the payment of the bond, and is described as John Hans Stillman, merchant of Elk River in Cecil County .* He is known to have owned land on Big Elk Creek just above Elk Landing, from which it seems almost certain that Transtown was at or very near the junction of the Big and Little Elk. Mr. Ferris, in his History of the Original Settlements on the Delaware, locates Transtown on the site of Frenchtown, which has been done on the map accompanying this volume. Stillman was naturalized in 1695. In 1697 and probably for many years afterwards he was engaged in trading with the Indians at the mouth of the Susquehanna River. He is no doubt the person referred to in the colonial records of a subsequent period as Captain Hans, and appears to have had much in- fluence with the Indians.
John Smith was the son of William Smith, who is sup- posed to have been the person who erected the first mill at the Head of Elk. This mill is known to have been there as early as 1706, and the next year one William Anderson petitioned the court for leave to retail strong liquors at the
* For an account of Transtown and Stillman, see Ferris's History of the Original Settlements on the Delaware, pages 156 and 177.
0
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Head of Elk, " he being a poor man and much incumbered with people passing and repassing to the said mill along the Queen's road," which then ran from the lower ferry at Perryville via North East and crossed the Big Elk Creek at or near where the bridge now stands at Mitchell's mill, and ran down the peninsula east of the heads of Back Creek, Bohemia and Sassafras rivers.
Three months after John Smith received the deed for the one thousand acres before referred to, he and his wife and father- in-law sold the mill and eight acres, on part of which it stood, to Thomas Jacobs, bolter, who is described as being of Middletown, Chester County, Pa. This land is that south of Main street and west of the road by the mill. Jacobs also bought another tract containing twenty-one acres on the west side of the creek and running a considerable dis- tance up the stream above the breast of the dam. It was stipulated in the deed that Jacobs was to have the right to cut as much timber as would be required to build a dwell- ing-house and also to rebuild the said mill and no more upon the other land of Smith free of charge. It is worthy of remark, as showing the condition of the country and the customs of the people, that "the fishings, fishing places and fowling ways" are specified as being conveyed to Jacobs. This mill continued in possession of the Jacobs family till 1784, at which time it was in a very bad condition, and Thomas Jacobs, the grandson of the person who purchased it from Smith, entered into a copartnership with Zebulon and Levi Hollingsworth for the purpose of carrying on the milling business. It was at this time that the old mill now standing was built by the Messrs. Hollingsworth, who built the mill and furnished it with a pair of French burr mill- stones and put £700 into the business. The third story of the mill, which is frame, was subsequently added to it.
This man John Smith did business in a curious manner. His deed to Jacobs shows that he had previously bargained to sell the mill to Allen Robinet, for he mentions an agree-
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ment between that person and himself in the deed, and Jacobs covenants to indemnify him for any breach of the said agreement. Reese Hinton lived at that time on the Grange. In 1711 Smith sold seventy acres north of the Grange and adjoining the land of Jacobs to Hinton, and the next year he sold ten acres of marsh (which is the marsh west of the gas works) to Henry Hollingsworth, who, in 1711, had bought fifty acres of land from William Sluby, of New Castle, for £28. This last tract is described in the deed as being south of and adjoining the land of Simon Johnson.
Hollingsworth also purchased some acres of marsh which was between Hollingsworth's Point and the mouth of Mill Creek. It is described as being near Glover's Hill, which is the hill near the west end of the causeway, across Little Elk, just above Elk Landing. In 1713 Smith, who had been absent from the county for some years, returned and took up one hundred and seventy-one acres of land, called Elk Plains, near the head of Elk River, on the south side of a path leading from head of Elk River to the town of New Castle.
In 1720 the inhabitants of New Munster and one Lewis Jones had a quarrel about a road from New Munster to the head of Elk. This road seems to have run some distance east of where the road is now located, and the quarrel ap- pears to have been long and bitter. The petitions presented to the court in reference to it are interesting and curious. Jones owned a large quantity of land extending from Gil- pin's bridge north of Elkton, to some distance north of Belle- hill. The quarrel seems to have been caused by the desire of the people of New Munster to obtain a better fording of Big Elk Creek.
In 1721 many of the inhabitants of the upper part of the county presented a petition to the court, in which they state that " Whereas, the great and main King's road, leading through his lordship's province of Maryland, passing over the dangerous & swelling falls of the two heads of Elk River,
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whereby many good people both inhabitants of this county & strangers are not only stopt & often disappointed in their journeys to their loss & damage, but likewise often in dan- ger and perill of their lives, wherefore they pray that the court would order good & sufficient horse & foot bridges to be built over the said two falls of the two heads of Elk River at the public charge of the said county ;" which petition was granted, and John Thomas was given the contract for build- ing the bridges which he constructed some time during that or the following year, for he presented a petition to the court at its session just a year afterwards, in which he states that " not well considering the value of building the said bridges at the time of agreeing for the building of the same, he finds a great deal more work than he expected, & humbly prays that the court would order two discreet persons to view the said bridges & make report of the same to the worshipful court of the value of building them," with which report he promised to be contented. The court, after "maturely con- sidering " the petition, ordered that he be paid 7,000 pounds of tobacco, in accordance with his agreement. These were the first bridges built at the expense of the county that are referred to in the records of the court.
It is a singular coincidence that forty-two years after this time George Catto, Tobias Rudolph and Joseph Gilpin, who were appointed by the court to rebuild the bridge over the Great Elk at the same place got into a similar difficulty. The court levied the sum of £125 for the building of this bridge, and the commissioners state in their petition that they had thought it most advantageous to the public to have the greater part of it built of stone, and had contracted for the building of it for £250, and pray for an additional allowance of £125.
In 1723 some of the influential citizens of the county peti- tioned for a road " from the head of Elk to New Castle and Christine Bridge," and state in their petition that "the road to those places not having been laid out by order of court
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was so stopped up and turned that carts were forced to go by the New Munster Road (which then ran near where Newark now stands), and that strange travelers often went by Frenchtown instead of the head of Elk River, the Welsh having cleared and marked a road as far as their supposed bounds." The petition, which was signed by Stephen Onion, Richard Dobson, and eighteen other citizens of the county, was granted, and William Bristow, overseer of Bohemia Hundred, and Thomas Jacobs, the proprietor of the mill, were ordered to make the road.
The Henry Hollingsworth who bought the land from John Smith came to Pennsylvania, as did also his brothers [Valentine and Thomas, in the ship Welcome, with William Penn, in 1682. Their father, Valentine Hollingsworth, married the daughter of Henry Cornish, who was one of the sheriffs of London (London then had two sheriffs with co-equal power) in the troublesome times of James II., and who was executed in 1685 for alleged complicity with Mon- mouth in his efforts to usurp the royal authority. Cornish was believed to have been entirely innocent of the charges against him, and although he was executed with all the barbarity of the times, Parliament, a few years afterwards, in the reign of William and Mary, reversed the act of attainder, and did all in its power to atone for the wrong that it had brought upon an innocent family. Valentine Hol- lingsworth represented New Castle County in the legislature of Pennsylvania for several years. He was the cotemporary of George Talbot.
Henry, who was named after his maternal grandfather, was a man of much distinction, and assisted Thomas Holmes in laying out the city of Philadelphia, being at that time about eighteen years of age. After the death of Cor- nish his son-in-law, Valentine Hollingsworth, removed to Ireland, where his son Henry made the acquaintance of Lydia Atkinson, whom he married in 16SS, having in that year returned to Ireland for that purpose. He represented
·
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New Castle County in the Assembly in 1695, and was also sheriff of Chester County the same year; was deputy mas- · ter of the rolls in 1700, and coroner of the last-named county in 1706. He removed to Elkton about 1712, in which year he was appointed surveyor of Cecil County. He was the founder of the Hollingsworth family in this county, and the grandfather of Colonel Henry Hollings- worth, who was so intimately identified with the cause of the colonies during their struggle for independence. He died in Elkton in 1721. Valentine Hollingsworth was a Quaker, and his son Henry is believed to have been brought up in that faith, but afterwards joined the Episcopal church. His life gave evidence that he never forgot the pacific prin- ciples of the faith in which he had been educated, for he would not suffer the life of any animal to be sacrificed for food, and lived for some years wholly upon a vegetable diet. Once, when returning from a fair at New Castle, he saw a rattlesnake coiled up by a log not far from his house, but passed on without killing it. Next day a peddler was found near the same spot stiff and dead from the bite of a snake. This gave Henry great pain, and he afterwards thought it right to kill snakes.
The Hollingsworth family were noted for their enterprise and industry and many of them were largely engaged in the manufacture of flour, they being the owners of a number of mills on both branches of the Elk. Zebulon Hollings- worth, the father of Henry, of Revolutionary fame, was pre- siding justice of the court of this county, and one of the commissioners appointed to lay out Charlestown, in 1742. He was a prominent member of St. Mary Ann's church, at North East, and was one of the vestrymen in 1743, when the present church was built. He died in 1763, aged 67 years, and is buried in the old graveyard, on the bank of the Elk, southwest of the Episcopal church in Elkton, and near the house in which he lived, a part of which is yet standing. He was the great-grandfather of Mrs. Dr. Mack-
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all, Mrs. Dr. Jamar, Mr. John Partridge and his sisters, and Mrs. Pinkney Whyte, the wife of ex-Governor Whyte, of Baltimore. His son Jacob kept a hotel in the house now occupied by Col. George R. Howard, when the British were here in 1777. And very early in life his son Henry built the venerable old mansion now occupied by the Partridge family, and in which he resided at the time of the Revolution- ary war. It is worthy of remark in this connection that the British carried away the theodolite which Henry Hol- lingsworth used for surveying when they left here previous to the battle of Brandywine. The earliest landholder in the immediate vicinity of North East of whom any infor- mation has been obtained from the records of the county, was a millwright, named Robert Jones, who had twenty acres of land condemned for a mill site at the junction of the east and main branches of North East Creek in 1711. This was probably the site of the Shannon mill, but may have been further down the stream, where the other iron works are located.
The next mill at North East of which we find any record, was owned by Robert Dutton, who is believed to have been the person referred to in the chapter upon Nottingham. Some time previous to 1716 he had a mill on or near the site of the iron works, which he sold, together with fifty acres of land upon part of which it stood, to Richard Ben- nett, of Queen Anne's County, in that year, for £100 silver money. This mill was near the "bottom of the main falls of North East," and there seems to have been a forge or fur- nace upon it, for iron works are among the many things mentioned as being conveyed by the deed. It is very likely that Dutton had the land upon which this mill was built condemned by a writ of ad quod damnum, as the legal pro- cess was called, for the carly legislators of the colony were so sensible of the use of mills that they very soon passed an act providing for the condemnation and valuation of land for the use of those who were disposed to build them. This
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process was much the same as that now in use for obtaining private property for public use. The party obtaining the site for a mill in this manner had the use of it for the term of eighty years at a given annual rent. Many of the mills in the county, in its early days, were built upon land obtained in this way.
Among the petitions presented to the court in 1719 was one from some of the citizens of Susquehanna Hundred, in which they state that they had " settled in a remote part of this county and were destitute of convenient roads both to church and court and also for rolling tobacco to any con- venient landing;" they therefore prayed for a road to be laid out from the head of North East River to the plantation of Roger Kirk .* The petition was signed by Robert Dutton, the proprietor of the mill, and about twenty others.
In 1721 John Cousine, an orphan, thirteen years of age, was bound to John Pennington, of North East. Mr. Pen- nington was a cordwainer (which was the name given to shoemakers at that time), and he obligated himself to teach the orphan " to read, write and cast accounts and to get his catechism by heart, and to teach him the cordwainer's trade, and to give him, at the expiration of his time of service, a set of shoemakers' tools, two new suits of clothes and a young breeding mare."
In 1723 many of the inhabitants of Milford Hundred, which then embraced the northeastern part of the county, petitioned the court for a road from the New Munster Road, at David Alexander's, across the main fresh of Elk River at Stephen Hollingsworth's mill, (which was the mill on Big Elk, west of Cowantown) to the church at North East. A few months afterwards they presented another petition,
* Roger Kirk was the founder of the Kirk family, which is one of the most numerous in this county. Ilis plantation was on the great North East, in Nottingham, and included the site of the mill on that stream, next above the road leading from the Brick Meeting-house to the Rising Sun.
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stating that this "road was difficult, dangerous and trouble- some to maintain by reason of crossing the east branch of North East twice, and that it was only intended for a bridle path, and that a cart road was much needed and might be made by a much nearer route," &c. This petition was granted and Stephen Hollingsworth was ordered to see the road laid out, so that it would not damnify any of the inhabitants of said Hundred.
In 1724 Daniel Davis presented a petition to the court, stating that he had settled on the main road, near the iron works at North East, and was often oppressed with strangers and travelers, and humbly prayed for a license to keep a public house of entertainment, which was granted.
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