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 23
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The spring fair was afterwards held some time in May, at the close of the fishing season, and the fishermen resorted to it to have a general jollification, during which many of them were in the habit of spending the hard earnings of many weary weeks of toil. They were also the resort of the fair sex, who frequented them in order to obtain the finery that could be purchased nowhere else except in the large cities. The fairs were held on the public square of the town, which it was customary to rent to the highest bidder for a term of years. The proprietor erected drinking booths and stalls upon the fair ground, which he rented to those who wished to occupy them. These booths were rude structures made of bushes, and would be great curiosities now. In 1795 the .
commissioners ordered that the booths should be ten feet
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square, and the stalls for selling goods should be seven feet wide and eight feet long, all to be made of good, sufficient forks and poles, with plank seats around each side and back of the booths, and shelving in the stalls. They were to be rented for not more than seven shillings and six pence each for each fair.
The legislators of the province had had so little experience in municipal legislation, and the habits of the citizens of the new town appear to have been so slovenly, that in 1750 they added another supplement to the act of incorporation, in which they state that, " Whereas, many persons have built, and are now building, in said town, and clear no more ground than where their houses stand, whereby the rest of their lot becomes a thicket, unserviceable for pasturage, also inconve- nient and unwholesome to all the inhabitants," etc. There- fore, they enacted that the owners or inhabitants of the town should grub and clear their respective lots from all under- wood grubs and bushes, under a penalty of thirty shillings. It was further enacted that any inhabitant permitting his chimney to take fire so as to blaze out at the top, or who should fail to keep a ladder long enough to reach the top of the roof of his house, should be fined ten shillings. Another strange enactment, that seems to indicate a want of faith in the success of the enterprise, enjoined the commissioners to meet upon the site of the town on the 20th of May, annually, in order to perpetuate its boundaries.
The records of Charlestown, which are yet extant, com- mence with the year 1755, but they are very incomplete, and afford but little information. The rates for storage in the public warehouse for that year were as follows: for every bushel of grain, ¿d., for every bushel of salt, 1d .; for every hogshead of cyder, 9d .; for every hogshead of flax- seed, 2d .; for every barrel of flaxseed, 1d .; for every 100 pounds of iron, 3s. 4d. ; for every ton of hemp, 2s. 6d. This year the wharfinger and storehouse keeper agreed to pay £18 currency for the privilege, which indicates that the
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business of the town must have been quite considerable. The rates of wharfage this year were as follows: For every sca vessel of 100 tons and upwards lying at the wharf, per day, Gd .; for every sea vessel of less tonnage, per day 4d .; all other boats 2d.
At a meeting of the commissioners in 1757, it was ordered that a number of chests, then in the warehouse (supposed to be the property of some officers killed at the defeat of General Braddock), be broken open and an inventory of their contents be sent to the governor, in order to ascertain what disposition should be made of them. Two years after- wards the contents of these chests were sold at public sale. This is all the records contain about the chests or their owners. Whether they were young men in the strength and prime of manhood, or of more mature years, is not known, for, like a vessel that was built at or near the town and sailed out from it some years afterwards upon the broad bosom of the ocean, they never returned. What bitter tears were shed for the adventurous mariners, and what homes made desolate by the absence of the warriors, we shall never know, for their names and their sorrows are alike forgotten. Save this slight allusion to the soldiers and a tradition about the vessel, nothing more is known of either.
In 175S a vacancy occurred in the board of commission- ers, which was filled by the election of Rev. John Hamilton, who was at that time rector of North Elk Parish. There is reason to believe that many of the early commissioners of the town did not reside in it, though they were probably the owners of town lots. This year John Smith was sued for rent of the fair ground, which he rented two years be- fore. In 1760 the commissioners contracted with Philip Neilson to repair the public wharf. They were to pay him 10 shillings currency per day, he finding two good workmen beside himself and to vichial them (which Hans Rudulph engaged to do at 1s. per day each), and allow them a half pint of rum a day. A return made by the constable this
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year, which is to be found among the papers in possession of the county commissioners, shows that there were three two-wheeled carriages in Charlestown at this time, one of which belonged to Rev. John Hamilton. These old-fash- ioned two-wheeled carriages were sometimes called " chairs." The whole number of these carriages returned in the county in 1757 was thirty-four. Five years afterwards they had increased to forty-five. In 1761 the commissioners ordered that the rent of each peddler's stall and drinking booth, when rented by citizens of the town should not exceed 5s. The records of the commissioners show that the keeper of the storehouse, during the years from 1749 to 1754, had failed to account for two hundred and fifty hogsheads that had been stored in it. In other words, he was a defaulter to the extent of £123.
The levy list for 1768 shows that the taxables, as returned by the constable for that year, numbered eighty-nine, of whom twelve were negro slaves. The whole population of the town at this time was probably about three hundred and fifty. In 1771 the taxables numbered one hundred and two, of whom seventeen were slaves. In 1774 they num- bered ninety-two, of whom eleven were slaves. In each of these years, the Rev. John Hamilton is returned as one of the taxables and the owner of one of the slaves.
Charlestown and Baltimore are nearly of the same age, and for a long time after the former was laid out they were rivals, and continued to be such until about the time of the Revolutionary war, when the latter, owing to the trade with the western part of the State and the superior facilities for foreign commerce, outstripped the former, and it gradually sank into obscurity and neglect. Many of the inhabitants who had erected substantial houses in Charlestown tore them down and shipped the material to Baltimore, where it was used in the construction of other buildings; thus the suc- cessful rival gained what the unsuccessful one lost, and as the one diminished, the other increased in size.
R
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It seems proper in this connection to notice an error or two into which Mr. Scharf has inadvertently fallen in his History of Maryland, when writing of Charlestown, " of which," he says, " no vestige now remains, unless possibly a chimney or two, but of which the story is told that about 1750 a British merchant having some money to invest and full of faith in the Maryland province, came over in person to select the place to put his money where it would turn over most rapidly. He examined Annapolis, Baltimore, Chester- town, Elkridge and Oxford, and after mature deliberation, put his money in town lots in Charlestown, as the most promising site of all the great cities of the future."* Un- fortunately for the truth of this serap of history Charlestown, by the census of 1881, contains 235 inhabitants, 48 dwelling- houses, a church and school-house, and a number of shops.
A diligent search among the records of the town, which have always been kept in books separate from the other land records of the county, reveals no evidence that the English merchant, nor any other person, ever held more than two or three town lots at one and the same time.
* Scharf's History of Maryland, Vol. II., page 63.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Presbyterian Church at Bethel-Visit of Rev. George Whitefield- Preaches at Elkton and on Bohemia Manor-Presbyterian Church at Elk- ton-Disruption of Nottingham Presbyterian Church-Rev. Samuel Finley -Nottingham Academy-The Free School on Bohemia River-Rev. John Beard-The present church buildings-Name changed to Ephesus-Rev. James Magraw-Revival of Nottingham Academy-The Rock Presbyte- rian Church-Disruption-Rev. James Finley-Murder of Hugh Mahaffey -Rev. James Finley goes West-Present church buildings-Rev. John Burton-Rev. Francis Hindman-Lotteries for church purposes-Man- ners, customs and character of the early Presbyterians-The Alexanders, and other emigrants to South Carolina.
THE Presbyterian church at the head of Broad Creek, near Bethel, there is reason to believe, was founded by the Lawsons and Alexanders from Society and New Munster, a few of whom had settled in that neighborhood. The meet- ing-house stood near the old graveyard, the site of which is marked by some old tombstones which stand in the field a few yards from the State Line and a short distance east of Bethel church, at what is known as the Pivot Bridge. The creek, the name of which was applied to this church, has been nearly obliterated by the construction of the Chesa- peake and Delaware Canal, the channel of which is identical with the channel of the creek.
This church is notable on account of its failure. Of its early history but very little is known, except that in 1723 Richard Thompson leased an acre of land to Samuel Alex- ander and Peter Bouchell for twenty-one years, for the use of the Presbyterian congregation at that place, for an an- nual rent of one ear of Indian corn. The first pastor was the Rev. Alexander Hutchinson, a Scotch-Irish Presbyterian, who was installed in 1723. It appears to have always
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been feeble, for during the most of his pastorate he was directed by the Presbytery to supply the Presby- terian church on Elk River, as the Rock congregation was then called. Peter Bouchell was one of the first elders, as was probably Samuel Alexander, and cer- tainly also John Brevard. This church seems to have been almost, if not quite, extinct in 1740, when Rev. George Whitefield visited Bohemia Manor. Most of its members probably joined the Forest Church in Delaware, when that church was organized in 1750. Whitefield first visited this section of country in 1739, as is stated in his journal, a copy of which, containing his autograph, may be seen in the library of Pennsylvania Historical Society. On the 3d of December of that year he preached at North East ; but little notice having been given, there were only about 1,500 per- sons present. On the 14th of May, 1740, he addressed a large meeting at Nottingham, after which he went south, visiting Georgia and the Carolinas, and returned the follow- ing autumn and preached at Nottingham again to an audience of 8,000 persons. After this he visited Bohemia Manor, and on the 24th of November preached at the house of Mrs. Bayard to an audience of 2,000 persons. He does not mention the Broad Creek church in his journal, from which it is inferred that the church had ceased to exist at that time, or was so very feeble that it did not- exist much longer.
It was no doubt during this interval, when journeying from Nottingham to Bohemia, that Whitefield stopped at Elkton, or the Head of Elk, as the place was then called ; for the town, if there was one then, was so small that it had no name. Tradition says that he preached to a large audi- ence at this place, which was assembled under the shade of an oak tree that stood a short distance west of Bow street, and probably about a hundred yards north from the river. While he was preaching here, some of his audience for some reason are said to have started away from the crowd he was.
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addressing, and he is said to have cried out, in stentorian tones, "The devil's at your heels!" It was owing to the preaching of this great evangelist that the first Presbyter- ian church was organized in Elkton, for the next year (1741) William Alexander and Araminta, his wife, deeded an acre of land, the same whereon Whitefield had preached the year before, to " Robert Lucas, Zebulon Hollingsworth, Thomas Ricketts and Robert Evans, of Cecil County, and David Barr, of New Castle County, upon which to build a meeting-house convenient for people assembling to worship God and hear His Word preached, and for the use of such ministers of the Protestant persuasion or religion, and par- ticularly the Presbyterian ministers, as shall from time to time attend there to preach and officiate in the service and worship of Almighty God." This deed contained a stipula- tion that if the meeting-house ceased to be occupied as a place of worship for three consecutive years, the land was to revert to the grantor. It was owing to this stipulation, and the fact that the Presbyterian congregation at Elkton afterward became quite small and feeble, so much so that most of the members joined the church at Glasgow, that this land reverted to the heirs of the persons who gave it to the congregation.
The preaching of Whitefield was productive of much good to many individuals, inasmuch as many were converted by it; but it certainly did more harm than good to the Pres- byterian congregations in this and the adjoining counties, many of which were rent in twain by the dissensions that it engendered. This was the case with Nottingham and Rock churches. But little of interest to the general reader oc- curred in the history of the Nottingham church till the arrival of Whitefield, at which time the meeting-house stood on the brow of the hill a short distance northwest of the village of Rising Sun. After this disruption of the church (1741), the new side (as those who adhered to the doctrine of Whitefield were called) erected another meeting-house in
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the meadow across the brook, a short distance west of the other one, and in 1744, presented a call to the Rev. Samuel Finley,* who, in that year, became their pastor. Such was the bitterness of feeling engendered by the schism that rent this church in twain that each party kept its church orga- nization intact till about 1792, when most of those who had taken an active part in the controversy having died and time having somewhat mellowed the feelings of their de- scendants, the two congregations were reunited. Mr. Fin- ley was a native of the county Armaugh, in Ireland, and one of the most distinguished scholars and divines of the eighteenth century. He was pastor of the New Side Not- tingham Church for seventeen years and founder of Not- tingham Academy, at which some of the most eminent physicians, statesmen and divines of the eighteenth century received their early education. Mr. Finley remained in charge of this church, till 1761, when he was chosen Presi- dent of the College of New Jersey, now called Princeton College, and shortly afterwards removed there.
Among the many distinguished men that received their early education at Mr. Finley's Nottingham school, the names of Dr. Benjamin Rush, so well known by his connec- tion with the University of Pennsylvania, and the Rev. John Ewing, who was one of the commissioners that assisted in adjusting the boundary lines between Maryland and Pennsylvania, and who was born in the Eighth district of this county, not far from Porter's Bridge, are the most emi- nent.
The location of the site of the building in which Mr. Finley taught school is involved in obscurity, but there are some reasons that indicate that it may have been a short
* Rev. Samuel Finley was a brother of Rev. James Finley, who was pastor of the churches of the Rock and Head of Elk. C. B. Finley, one of the elders of the Elkton Presbyterian church, is a great-grand nephew, and Miss Martha Finley, the distinguished authoress, is a great-grand niece of these distinguished men.
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distance southwest of the centre of the village of Rising Sun, and near the brook west of which the New Side Church was built. It was no doubt a log building, for there were few of any other kind at that time. Though the place where it stood is forgotten, it matters little, for the reputa- tion of the master and many of his pupils is so illustrious that it will endure while sound theology, brilliant scientific acquirements and pure statesmanship are respected and appreciated. This academy was one of the most celebrated of its time, and its history is in striking contrast with that of the free school of this county, that probably was cotem- porary with it, and proves the superiority of the voluntary over the involuntary system of education quite as well as the success of the Presbyterian church proves its superiority over the Established one.
As early as 1723 the colonial legislature passed an act to encourage education and also named a board of visitors in each county, who were to hold office during life, and who were authorized to perpetuate the board by filling vacancies as they might occur, by death or otherwise, from the "prin- cipal and better sort of inhabitants." The board of visitors for this county were Colonel John Ward, Major John Dow- dall, Colonel Benjamin Pearce, Mr. Stephen Knight, Mr. Edward Jackson, Mr. Richard Thompson, and Mr. Thomas Johnson, Jr. These gentlemen were authorized to purchase one hundred acres of land for school purposes, and were invested with full power and authority to employ teachers and attend to all things that in their judgment were neces- sary and proper to successfully inaugurate and carry on the enterprise. They accordingly purchased a hundred acres of land on the south side of the Bohemia River, in Sassafras Neck, which included the point next above the Bohemia Bridge, which was long known as Free School Point. It is believed that they started a school there; how long it lasted, who taught it, and who were taught in it, after diligent investigation has not been ascertained. So little attention
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was paid to the land that a commission was appointed by the court in 1784 to ascertain and mark its boundaries, which at that time had become so obscure that they were found with much difficulty. The school visitors at this time were Peter Lawson, John D. Thompson, Rev. William Thompson, John Ward, Sidney George, and William Mathews. Rev. William Thompson was at that time rector of St. Stephen's Parish, and Sidney George was a lawyer who resided in Middle Neck. John Dockery Thompson was one of the justices of the court, and was no doubt a descendant of the Thompson who married the daughter of Augustine Hermen, from which it would seem that the vacancies in the board of visitors had been filled from time to time as they occurred by selections from the "principal and better sort of inhabitants."
After Mr. Finley's removal to Princeton the new church rapidly declined and never had another settled pastor, though it existed for many years as a separate church organization.
In 1745 Rev. James Steel became pastor of the Old Side Church. The length of his pastorate cannot now be ascer- tained with certainty, but he probably remained in charge of the church till 1753, when he emigrated to the Cum- berland Valley, which was then the western frontier of Pennsylvania.
In 1762 the congregation called the Rev. John Beard. He is believed to have been a native of Ireland. His relations with the congregation were not harmonious, notwithstand- ing which he ministered to them till 1771, when he was deposed from the ministry. His will was proved in 1802. He resided at " College Green," which he devised to his sons, James, Hugh and George.
In 1786 the two congregations, both of which had for some years been depending upon supplies, united in a call to Rev. James Munro, which he accepted, and was installed in August of that year. Ilis pastorate, like that of his prede-
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cessor, was inharmonious, and in June, 1789, some of his congregation preferred charges against him for "irregular, imprudent and indecent conduct," and after a trial which occupied the presbytery three days, he was found guilty and suspended till the next October. Having in the meantime expressed much sorrow and penitence he was restored, and subsequently dismissed from the care of the presbytery. During this time the congregations maintained their sepa- rate organizations: the First, or Old Side, worshiping in the church near the road northwest of the village of Rising Sun, and the New Side, in the meeting-house which stood in the graveyard on the north side of the road west of the creek
In 1796 the congregations having been reunited resolved to build a new meeting-house, but they disagreed about its location, and it was not until 1800-presbytery, at their re- quest, having in the meantime sent a committee there to endeavor to unite the congregations upon the choice of a site-that the location of the present house, which some years ago was enlarged and improved, was begun. The work of erecting the new church on account of the poverty of the congregation was an herculean task, and in 1803 they obtained an act of the legislature authorizing them to insti- tute a lottery for the purpose of obtaining the requisite funds to complete it. Samuel Miller, Robert Evans, Thomas Wil- liams, David Patton, James Cummings, James Sims, John Porter and Jonathan Hartshorn are the names of the con- missioners designated in the act for the purpose of putting the lottery in operation. Their bond for $3,000, conditioned for the faithful performance of their duties, may be seen among the land records of the county. On the 26th of Sep- tember, 1801, Andrew Ramsay conveyed two acres of land to James Evans, Robert Evans, David Edmiston and James Cummings, who were then trustees, and who purchased it from him for the use of the church for £15. On the same day Captain William Johnson also conveyed two acres to the same persons. which had been purchased for the same
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purpose for the same price. Each of these tracts are de- scribed as being part of a larger tract called Ephesus, and the church is designated in the act authorizing the lottery as the Presbyterian Church at Ephesus, though it was known upon the records of presbytery at that time as West Nottingham.
Rev. James Magraw was installed pastor of this church April 3d, 1804, and continued to minister to the congregation until the time of his death, which occured in 1835. With the exception of Rev. Hugh Jones, who ministered so long to North Sassafras Parish, Dr. Magraw was probably the most influential and successful minister that ever exercised the pastoral office in this county.
The Upper West Nottingham church wasorganized in 1810, out of a part of this congregation that was too far distant to attend after the removal of the church from Rising Sun. Mr. Magraw became pastor of the new organization, and gave it one-third of his time until 1821, when he resigned. In 1822 he became pastor of the Presbyterian church in Charles- town, which had recently been organized mainly through his efforts and those of Rev. Mr. Graham then pastor of the Rock church. Mr. Magraw also preached sometimes during the summer season to the raftsmen at Port Deposit, who at that time were probably as much in need of the gospel as any other class of people in the world.
He was a fine looking, athletic man, and had a stentorian voice; and is said by those who have heard him, to have been an eloquent and powerful preacher. He cared so little for the conventionalities of society that if the weather was very warm he would take off his coat and preach in his shirt-sleeves ; or if the church was not properly warmed, as was too often the case in winter time, he would preach with his cloak on. He took an active part in the erection of the fort at Port Deposit just previous to the burning of Havre de Grace; and was at the fort and harangued the soldiers when the British were burning and pillaging the village of
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Lapidum. It was during his pastorate, and mainly by his exertions, that the Nottingham Academy, which had become extinct after the departure of Mr. Finley, was revived.
In 1812 the legislature of the State made an appropriation for an academy in each county. Through the agency of Dr. Magraw, the people of West Nottingham and vicinity had a board of trustees elected and a building, which was intended to be part of a larger edifice, erected, and secured the State appropriation of eight hundred dollars. Dr. Ma- graw was the first president of the board of trustees.
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