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 8
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The original boundaries of Cecil County, as created in 1674, by proclamation of Governor Charles Calvert, are de- scribed as follows : "From the mouth of the Susquehanna River down the eastern side of the bay to Swan Point, thence to Hell Point, and so up Chester River to the head thereof."* Nothing appears to have been said about the eastern or northern bounds of the county, because they were in dispute, nevertheless the lord proprietary still claimed to the Dela- ware and to the fortieth degree of north latitude. These bounds were slightly varied by another proclamation issued a few days afterwards, which there is reason to believe threw a small part of what is now the extreme southwestern part of Kent County under the jurisdiction of the authorities of Kent Island.
* McMahon's History of Maryland, page 92.
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The first court-house was erected on the north side of Sassa- fras River, a short distance east of Ordinary Point, at what was afterwards called Jamestown, and is now designated on the map of Cecil County as Oldtown. At this time, probably not a dozen persons inhabited that part of the county north of the Elk River, and they lived along the North East River and so near to other navigable water as to have easy access to the court-house by that means. Very little is known of the first court-house, except that it was built by Casparus Hermen in 1692. It seems to have been a small structure, from the fact that it is stated in evidence taken before a land com- mission many years afterwards, that the jurors were in the habit of leaving it and holding their deliberations under the shade of an oak tree which stood on the river bank near by, and which for this reason was called the Jury Oak.
Before the court-house was built the court met at public and sometimes at private houses, as is shown by the minutes of the court. Some time in the year 1690 it met at the house of Thomas Jones, and on the 12th of April, 1692, it met at the house of Shadrack Whitworth. At the next court, which was held at Matthias Matthiason's, this same Shad- rack prayed the court to be admitted an attorney to practice in the court. His petition was granted and he was ad- mitted and took the oath. One William Nowell also prayed to be re-admitted, and promised to remove the cau- ses that had led to his suspension, which seemed to be the fact that he had refused to take the oath of alliance and su- premacy. On the 10th of August, 1692, the court met at Matthias Matthiason's. At this court, the same Shadrack was sued by one Robert Davidson, planter of Kent County. From the entries made in the minute book for this session of court, we learn that Shadrack was a churgeon. He was probably one of the first surgeons that practiced his profes- sion in Cecil County.
CHAPTER IX.
The Labadists-Sluyter and Danekers-Their journal-They meet with Ephraim George Hermen and wife-Visit New Castle and Bohemia Manor-They go on down the Peninsula-Return and purchase the Labadie tract on Bohemia Manor, and establish a community there-Description of the Labadie tract and how they got it-Peter Bayard and others- Description of the community on Bohemia Manor-Augustine Hermen's quarrel with George Holland-Letter from Hermen-Hermen's patents of confirmation-He obtains a patent for Misfortune, or the three Bohe- mia Sisters-Extent of his possessions-He invests his son Ephraim George with the right and title to Bohemia Manor-A curious deed-Augustine Hermen's last will-His death and monumental stone-His place of burial-Codicil to his last will-His daughters.
THE Labadists were a sect of Christians that flourished in the latter part of the seventeenth century and took their name from their founder, John Labadie, who was at one time a Jesuit priest, and afterwards embraced the doctrines of Calvin. He seems to have been hard to please in matters of religious faith ; and, probably because he did not find the creed of any religious sect adapted to his peculiar views, he originated one himself, which was better adapted to his wishes and wants. One great distinctive feature of the Labadie creed was, that the believers in his doctrine should live in communities by themselves. In accordance with this tenet of their faith, they had established a community at Wiewert, in Denmark, and being full of zeal and mission- ary enterprise, had established, or tried to establish, another community at Surinam ; but the climate and country proving unfavorable, they were soon forced to abandon the enterprise at the latter place. The community at Wiewert sent two of their number, Peter Sluyter, alias Vorsman, and Jasper Danėkers, alias Schilders, to America, in the latter part of
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the year 1679, where they spent a part of that and the fol- lowing year in " spying out " a good location for the colony. They traveled together, and kept a journal during this visit, in which they described the country through which they passed and speak of the people with whom they were thrown in contact. Their journal was found in the possession of a bookseller in Amsterdam a few years ago. In what manner it had been preserved could not be ascertained, but it is probable that it passed from the hands of some member of the community of Labadists at Wiewert, and after the lapse of many years ceased to be appreciated and fell into the hands of the bookseller, where the secretary of the Long . Island Historical Society found it. The Society had it trans- lated and published, and as the Labadists at Bohemia Manor were so intimately connected with the early history of Cecil County, and were the only colony of these strange people that was established in the United States, the reader, it is hoped, will pardon the author for quoting largely from it, and for saying much about the Labadists and their doings upon Bohemia Manor when they lived there nearly two hundred years ago.
Sluyter and Danckers landed in New York, where they first met Ephraim Hermen, the eldest son of Augustine Hermen, who had recently been married and had not yet taken his wife to New Castle, where he then lived. They state that Ephraim and his wife rode upon the same horse while mak- ing the journey from New York to New Castle.
Ephraim Hermen's wife's maiden name was Elizabeth Van Rodenburgh. She was the daughter of John Van Rod- enburgh, at one time governor of the island of Curacoa, in the Caribbean Sea. Ephraim's father had long sought the hand of her mother in marriage, but was not successful. The two Labadists appear to have been on intimate terms with young Hermen soon after they first met him. They traveled in company with him and his wife, as before stated, from New York to Chester, and afterwards stopped at his
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house during their sojourn in New Castle, he having left them at Chester and arrived at New Castle first.
During the sojourn of these travelers at New Castle they appear to have ingratiated themselves into the good graces of Ephraim Hermen, who become a convert to their religion. They also speak of his sister Margaretta, who then lived with him, in a way that indicates they hoped to proselyte her. Whether she became a member of the community on the Manor has not been ascertained, but it is probable she did not, because her father, who at first treated the Labadists with respect, and who, it appears, gave them some encourage- . ment, had reason to regret having done so. They speak of Ephraim Hermen's wife as having the quietest disposition of any person they met with in America, and no doubt their efforts to convert her to the Labadie faith and the influence they had over her had much to do with the con- version of her husband. They represent him to have been very godless and wild in his early life, but say he had become reformed at the time of their visit.
After obtaining a passport or letters of credit and intro- duction from Mons. Moll, Mr. Alrieks, and Ephraim Hermen, who were the dignitaries of the court at New Castle, they left there in company with Mr. Moll to visit his plantation, which was about fifteen miles from New Castle, in the direc- tion of Casparus Hermen's place, which they state was on the Delaware River, near the head of the bay. Speaking of Mr. Moll's plantation, they say: "There was no person there, except some servants and negroes, the commander being a Parisian. The dwellings were very badly appointed, especially for such a man as Mons. Moll. There was no place to retire to, nor a chair to sit on, or a bed to sleep on. For their usual food the servants have nothing but maize bread to eat, and water to drink, which sometimes is not very good, and scarcely enough for life. Yet they are com- pelled to work hard and to spend their lives here in Virginia and elsewhere in planting that vile tobacco, which vanishes
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into smoke, and is, for the most part, miserably abused. It is the chief article of trade in the country. If they only wished it, they could have every thing for the support of life in abundance, for they have land and opportunity sufficient for that end, but this insatiate avarice must be fed and sustained by the bloody sweat of these slaves. After we had supped, Mr. Moll, who would be civil, wished us to lie upon a bed that was there, which we declined; and as this continued some length of time, I lay down on a heap of maize, and he and my comrade afterwards did the same."*
After leaving Mr. Moll's place they went to Casparus Her- men's place, which was then called Augustine, and was on the Delaware River just south of the mouth of Appoquinimink Creek, where they spent the night. The next day they pro- ceeded on towards Maryland, which they soon reached, and " speakof it as being the most fertile part of North America," and say it " is to be also wished that it was the most healthy." No doubt the fever and ague prevailed in Cecil County at that itme, and that there was much of the country in a swampy condition and covered with water. Augustine Hermen's map, made a few years previous to this time, has a note upon it, stating that the solid land between the head waters of Back Creek and Bohemia River and the streams that flow into the Delaware Bay is but a few miles wide. This accounts for the commissioners, Waldron and Hermen, taking a northwest course from New Castle when going to the Chesa- peake Bay some years before. They undoubtedly took this course to avoid the swamps and stagnant water they would have had to cross if they had gone directly from New Castle to the head of Elk. Danckers remarks that "there are few Indians in comparison with the extent of the country," and that they "lived in the uppermost part of Maryland -that is, as high up as it is yet inhabited by Christians."
* The journal. though called by both their names, seems to have been written by Danckers.
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When they reached Augustine Hermen's, they presented to him the letter from his son Casparus, and he received them with much kindness. "His plantation was going into de- cay as well as his body for want of attention. There was not a Christian man, as they term it, to serve him; nobody but negroes. All this was increased by a miserably, doubly miserable, wife, but so miserable that I will not relate it here. All his children have been compelled, on her account, to leave their father's house." This is the only evidence extant tending to show that Augustine Hermen married a second wife. He makes no reference to one in his will and it is probable the Labadists were mistaken in regard to this matter, or they may have willfully misstated it. Their jour- nal is one of the most bilious and splenctic works ever pub- lished. But though they seem to have been depraved enough to have lied when it suited their purpose, they probably told the truth about the appearance of the country through which they passed. The genealogical record in Hanson's "Old Kent" in regard to Hermen's second wife is proved to be incorrect by the records of the Reformed Church in New York, where his children were baptized.
The two travelers relate that they were directed to a place to sleep, but the screeching of the wild geese and other wild fowl in the creek (the Bohemia River) before the door pre- vented them from having a good sleep. The next morning after Hermen had signed the passport* which Mr. Moll, Alricks and Ephraim Ifermen had given them, they pro- ceeded on down the peninsula and crossed the Sassafras River at a place where there was an ordinary. Their pas- sage over the river cost them each an English shilling. This ferry was either at Ordinary Point or at Oldtown just above it.
These disciples of Labadie went on down the peninsula, and spent a week in looking for a favorable location. They appear to have intended to visit the eastern shore of Vir-
* Augustine Hermen was a justice of the court at this time.
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ginia; but the settlers in the lower part of Maryland advised them not to proceed further in that direction, and told them there were so many creeks and marshes there that they would find it difficult to travel. On their way back Danckers speaks as follows of the multitudes of wild fowl they found in a creek, which, as near as we are able to judge, was a tributary of the Sassafras : "I have nowhere seen so many ducks together as were seen in this creek. The water was so black with them that it seemed, when you looked from the land upon the water, as if it were a mass of filth or turf; and when they flew up there was a rushing and vibration of the air like a great storm coming through the trees, and even like the rumbling of distant thunder, while the sky over the whole creek was filled with them like a cloud, or like the starlings fly at harvest time in fatherland." A little further on he speaks of the wild geese they saw in the Sassafras on their return: "They rose not in flocks of ten or twelve, or twenty or thirty, but con- tinuously, wherever we pushed our way ; and as they made room for us there was such an incessant clattering made with their wings upon the water where they rose, and such a noise of those flying higher up, that it was as if we were all the time surrounded by a whirlwind or storm. This proceeded not only from geese, but from ducks and other water fowl; and it is not peculiar to this place alone, but it occurred on all the creeks and rivers we crossed, though they were the most numerous in the morning and evening, when they are most easily shot." They were greatly im- pressed by the majestic appearance of the noble forest trees they saw in this part of Maryland. These were no doubt fine specimens of trees, and perhaps many of them were many centuries old when they gazed upon them. The location of an ancient tree that stood at or near the north- west corner of the Labadie tract is marked upon Griffith's Map of Maryland, which was published in Philadelphia in 1793. It was called the "Labadie Poplar," and was noted
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for its great age and size, and must have been of much notoriety, as it is the only tree located on that map. They also spoke of the abundance of wild grapevines they saw while upon this journey. There was a considerable number of Quakers in this part of Maryland at this time, and a little further on in the journal it is stated that they visited the place of Casparus Hermen with a view of pur- chasing it for the use of their community, and say that "it was objectionable only because it lay on the road, and was therefore resorted to by every one, and especially by these miserable Quakers." They had met a Quakeress at Upland (Chester) some time before, who, they state, was the "great prophetess from Maryland." She was traveling in company with two other women, also Quakers, who had " forsaken husband, children, plantation and all, and were going through the country in order to quake." They came to the house where Danckers and Sluyter were stopping, and drank a dram of rum with each other, after which they began to shake and groan, so that the Labadists wondered much what it all meant and what was about to come of it. She did not quake much at that time, however; but the next day she sat next Danckers at dinner and quaked very hard, so hard that she shook the bench upon which they and a number of others were sitting.
William Edmunson, a traveling preacher from England, also visited the Quakers on the Sassafras River a few years after this time, and speaks of stopping at the house of one William Southerly, a Quaker, who lived there. These thrifty people were no doubt attracted there by the fertility of the soil and the casy terms upon which they could acquire titles to plantations, and the freedom to hold any religious opinions they pleased. The great thoroughfare between the Delaware and Chesapeake at that time was along the Bohemia and Sassafras rivers and Appoquinimink Creek, and this no doubt led to the carly settlement of that part of the county; and the Quakers were the first to see
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the advantages to be derived from being located upon the route or in close proximity to it. These two Labadists found a Quaker near the Bohemia River and alongside of the road leading from Augustine Hermen's to his son's place on the Delaware, who was living in a little shed not much bigger than a " dog's kennel," but who was engaged in building a house, which he intended to use as an ale- house. It is plain from these facts that these Quakers were among the earliest settlers of our county, but they do not appear to have remained here long or to have been numer- ous enough to have left any enduring marks or monuments of their sojourn.
There is a remarkable difference between the journal of William Edmunson and that of Danckers; the former says but little about the country and was wholly engrossed in the work in which he was engaged-the spread of the Gospel ; while the latter rarely refers to this matter, but speaks of everything else. The journals are evidences of the truth of the Scriptural maxim, that "out of the fullness of the heart the mouth speaketh."
The Labadists gave the planters of Maryland and Virginia a very bad character. How they were able to speak of the planters of the latter State does not appear, for they did not visit it. Their austere and rigid doctrines had biased or prejudiced their minds, and most likely the description is a great deal too highly colored. If the truth were known, the men they speak so disparagingly of were prob- ably as good, if not much better, than themselves. Their conduct afterwards proves them to have been men of poor character and of little or no piety. They speak of the planter as " godless and profane, and say they listen neither to God nor his commandments, and have neither church nor cloister. Sometimes there is some one who is called a minister, who does not, as elsewhere, serve in one place-for in all Virginia and Maryland there is not a city or village -but travels for profit (precisely what they were doing
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themselves, as their subsequent actions and conduct abund- antly shows), and for that purpose visits the plantations through the country and addresses the people; but I know of no public assemblage being held in these places." "When the ships arrive with goods, and especially with liquors, such as wine and brandy, they attract everybody (that is, masters) to them, who indulge so abominably together, that they keep nothing for the rest of the year, yea, do not go away as long as there is any left, or bring anything home with them which might be useful to them in their subse- quent necessities."
After their return from their journey down the peninsula, the two Labadists visited New Castle again, and probably induced Ephraim Hermen to persuade his father to sell them part of Bohemia Manor, for about this time they speak of Ephraim Hermen and Mr. Moll visiting Augustine Hermen, who had made his will and left Ephraim, his eldest son, heir of his rank and title, in other words "Lord of the Manor," and they thought that "Augustine wished to make some change in his will, because he had offered some of his land which he had entailed upon Ephraim to them."
The Labadists were miserably mistaken in the supposition they made ; for if the old man, then tottering upon the verge of the grave, wished to see his son and confer with him in regard to his lands, or his will disposing of them, it was that he might remonstrate with him about his connection with the Labadists, for a year or two afterwards he made a codicil to his will, in which he appointed three of his neigh- bors his executors, assigning as the reason for their appoint- ment in place of his son Ephraim, that he adhered to the Labadie faction and was using his best endeavors to proselyte his brother and sisters, and he feared the Labadists would become, through Ephraim's efforts, the owners of all his lands.
Having concluded the business for which they came to America, the two pioneer Labadists returned to Wiewert.
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They revisited this county in 1683, bringing with them from Wiewert a few of the sect to which they belonged, for the purpose of organizing the community on the Manor. Hermen refused to consummate the sale to them, and only did so when compelled by the court. The deed for the Labadie tract was executed by Hermen on the 11th of Au- gust, 1684, to Peter Sluyter (alias Vorsman), Jasper Danckers (alias Schilders, of Friesland), Petrus Bayard, of New York, and John Moll and Arnoldus de la Grange, of Delaware, in company. The land conveyed embraced the four necks eastwardly from the first creek that empties into the Bohe- mia River from the north, east of the Bohemia bridge, and extended north or northeast to near the old St. Augustine or Manor church. It contained thirty-seven hundred and fifty acres. The land is of good quality and will compare favorably with the best land on the peninsula. The selec- tion of this tract of land did credit to the judgment of the two Labadists who selected it for the establishment of their community. They appear to have been better judges of land than they were of matters pertaining to religion and piety. It adds nothing to the credit of a disreputable per- son to assume a name to which he has no right ; what then must be thought of these men who set themselves up as re- ligious teachers and expounders of the Word of God, and who were so zealous in the cause they had espoused as to cross the ocean in order to promulgate their religious faith and establish a new community of their proselytes, when they start with a lie upon their lips and travel under assumed names. There may have been some reason un- known that satisfied their consciences for acting in this man- ner ; but the means they used to obtain the title to their land and their subsequent doings while upon the Manor, indi- cate that they were men that made a cloak of their religion, and who were governed by sinister and mercenary rather than by philanthropic and Christian principles.
John Moll was a Dutchman and chief judge of the court
.
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at New Castle. He was in business in Bristol, in England, at one time, but failed and migrated to Virginia, and traded there and in Maryland for a time. La Grange was probably a Frenchman. He lived in New York at one time, and the two Labadists appear to have had letters of introduction to him. Danekers, in his journal, speaks of him as a great fop, and when he first met him had a very mean opinion of him. He was in the habit of trading to New Castle, and professed to be a convert to the Labadie religion. Bayard is said to have been a hatter, and probably was the most, if not the only, sincere and honest man among the original grantees of the " Labadie Tract."
These three men, who no doubt were friends and associ- ates of Ephraim Hermen, who seems to have been a man of not very superior mental ability, appear to have let them- selves be used as willing tools in the hands of these Laba- dists to aid them in the consummation of the conspiracy to obtain part of the Manor, of which the weak-minded Eph- raim was cognizant. No doubt they expected to reap much benefit from the establishment of the Labadie community so near them, which was probably the reason why they pro- fessed to believe in the new religion, for immediately after the company received the deed from Augustine Hermen, Moll and La Grange conveyed their interest to Sluyter and Danckers, who appear to have been at that time, and for some time afterwards, the leading spirits in the community.
Bayard retained his interest in the land till 1688, when he probably became disgusted with the doings of the Laba- dists and quit the community. Both he and Ephraim Her- men were at one time very strong in the Labadie faith. They both deserted their wives in order to follow the teach- ings of these strange fanatics, who entertained strange views in regard to marriage, of which more will be said hereafter. The misguided and undutiful Ephraim is said to have re- pented of his folly and returned to his wife, but in less than two years was taken sick, became crazy, and died, fulfilling
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