USA > Maryland > Dorchester County > History of Dorchester County, Maryland > Part 5
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Steam and sailing vessels carry a valuable and extensive commerce between Cambridge and Baltimore and other ports. It is the southern terminus of the Cambridge and Seaford Railroad, which connects with the Delaware Divi- sion of the P. R. R. at Seaford, Del., that affords rapid transit for freight and passengers between Cambridge and Philadelphia, New York and other points. This metropolis of the Eastern Shore of Maryland has a bright future for ad- vancement in trade, manufacturing, and growth in popula- tion.
ITS EARLY HISTORY.
The development of Cambridge in colonial days was the result of a slow but excellent work of a notable people of various nationalities, with English predominating.
In April, 1684, an Act of Assembly was passed at "The Ridge," in Anne Arundel County, to locate a town on Daniel Jones' Plantation, on the south side of Great Choptank
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HISTORY OF DORCHESTER COUNTY
River. In 1686 a supplementary Act was passed for build- ing a court house there. Thomas Taylor was appointed town officer, and the town named Cambridge. By dele- gated authority, Thomas Taylor contracted with Anthony Dawson to build the Court House, which he did, and which was occupied by the Court in 1687. Previous to this time it appears that John Kirk had purchased of Daniel Jones the one hundred acres upon which authority had been given to build a town. Kirk soon laid out a number of town lots on each side of High Street, from the river, beyond the Court House site. At this period of the town's history only two streets were mentioned, High and Poplar Streets.
With the possibility of being a port of entry, where a ware- house would be built for the storage of imported goods and products for export, chiefly tobacco, and with the influence of the County Court and court officers, still, town growth was slow for some years, as is shown by the low price of town lots, and the very limited number of houses built. About the time the Court was established, Kirk made sale of a few lots. "He sold to Charles Wright the lot adjoining the Par- ish Church, called the 'Market Place,' supposed to be the 'Sulivane House;' others to Arthur Whiteley, Thomas Nev- ett, Hugh Eccleston, and to John Woolford."
In writing a brief history of Cambridge, it is a pleasure to quote from the bi-centennial address of Col. James Wal- lace, delivered July 4, 1884, whose words so beautifully piq- ture the town life of its people for a long period in colonial days :
"From 1700 to 1776 the town grew very slowly, but its population was very select and society highly polished. Here were located the Judges of the Court, the clerks, the lawyers, the physicians, the teachers-the cultivated people of the land. Hither came those who sought asylum and rest; some from sunny France, fleeing from persecution after the revocation of the edict of Nantes, some from old Eng-
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EARLY SETTLERS
land, some from Virginia, some from Scotland and the green Emerald Isle. Here rest the bones of him who followed the Prince of Orange in his long struggle with Louis XIV. Men trod these streets who followed the fortunes of the great Duke of Marlborough; who heard the thunder of the battle of Blenheim; who heard the shout of John Sobieski and his gallant Poles under the walls of Vienna and Buda; who saw the wonderful career of Peter the Great; who watched with breathless interest that fiery comet of the North which swept over Europe from the cold and inhospit- able regions of Sweden, that shattered the kingdom of Po- land and laid the crown of Augustus in the dust. They heard the rumbling of the coming earthquake that shook the world in 1776 and broke the shackles of a thousand years. But they were too far off to be involved in the vortex of those great events. They came here to rest, and they found it; they lived the life of gentlemen of the olden time. They were gallant, chivalric, polite, cultivated and hospitable; they had no mails, no newspapers, no politics, no heated dis- cussions; they devoted themselves to literature and leisure."
After the restoration of Lord Baltimore's Proprietary rights in the province, in 1715, an era of prosperity followed. Farmers raised and sold profitable crops of tobacco, and rapidly acquired wealth from the products of slave labor. Soon that class of farmers retired and settled in Cambridge to enjoy the comforts of prosperity and town society. They were families of attractive moral forces and possessed many characteristic virtues that molded a society, aristocratic and refined. Some of those influential town and county settlers who first came were the LeComptes, Hoopers, Stevenses, Taylors, Hodsons, Garys. Brookses, Dorringtons, Pollards, Stapleforts, and others from Calvert and other counties, and Jacob Lockerman, from New Amsterdam. These were sooner or later reinforced by other prominent families-the Ennallses, Traverses. McKeels, Richardsons, Harrisons, Hutchinses, Steeles, Neavetts, Henrys, Goldboroughs, Suli- 5
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HISTORY OF DORCHESTER COUNTY
vanes, Stewarts, Martins, Muses, Murrays, Trippes, Baylys, Burnses, Bryans, Pages and Dixons, and still others with tastes and talents that made Cambridge the most picturesque town in Maryland in the eighteenth century. In this period there came some scholarly men who inaugurated higher literary training. From this splendid combination of per- sonal attainments, inherited from a distinguished and noble ancestry of Europe, or the Isles of Britain, in some of whom flowed the blood of heroes in war, and in others the blood of martyrs, there descended men and women in Cam- bridge, with noted ability and splendid genius, who occupied high positions in public and private life; of them we note foreign ministers, learned lawyers, skilled physicians, emi- nent jurists, distinguished theologians, and honored gover- nors and statesmen, and last, but by far not the least, ladies of rare accomplishments-maids and matrons, typical queens in society and home life-models and molders of character that left their life impressions on brothers and sisters, sons and daughters.
COLONIAL BUILDINGS.
Only a few of the old buildings that were the homes of Cambridge colonists now remain in the original. To be re- modeled or removed has been their fate, and with them has disappeared the first jail, built in Cambridge of bricks brought from England soon after the County Court was established in 1687.
The criminal history of the many prisoners confined in that little jail within a hundred years only the dim old records of the Court can tell. Its cooperative agencies of punishment -the whipping-post and pillory, with their history of in- flicted brutality, have long disappeared from public view and memory under modified forms of criminal law. So far as is now known only one prisoner was ever confined in that
OLD COUNTY GAOL, CAMBRIDGE.
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THE OLD DORCHESTER HOUSE
jail as a persecution for proclaiming a religious doctrine con- trary to the Established Church Laws.
Accompanying is an illustration of a colonial dwelling still standing in Cambridge, built in 1728. Its history as a pri- vate residence and public house is here described by its present owner, David Straughn, Esq .:
HISTORY OF THE OLD DORCHESTER HOUSE IN CAMBRIDGE AND ITS DEMOCRATIC CAMPUS.
(By David Straughn, Esq.)
The historical, political, and social character of this house is replete with incident and instruction. It was built before the colonial struggle for the Independence of our country, even before Washington was born, or the architects of the Federal Union and the framers of the Constitution had an existence. It was built in the year of 1728 when the Chop- tank Indians roamed the forest and defied the advance of civilization with the tomahawk and the scalping knife.
Doubtless the rude settlers of that period had often sat beneath its elm tree shade and discussed the mighty problem of man to rule and govern himself.
This house is located by actual survey in the exact centre of the town of Cambridge, equidistant from the river to the cross roads.
After having passed through a long succession of owners, it is now the residence of David Straughn, Esquire.
My first introduction to the interior arrangements of this house was, when a boy, the late Josiah Bayly, Jr., escorted me to the third story, and showed me the room occupied by his distinguished father as a law student, and private tutor, in the family of Congressman Scott.
"In the year 1790," said he, "my father was in quest of a situation, and being a man of education, he brought to the house of Scott the complete fulfilment of his earthly hopes-
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HISTORY OF DORCHESTER COUNTY
the exclusive education of his aristocratic daughters. In consideration of the education of these girls, Scott promised Mr. Bayly that he should have his board, the use of his books, and succeed him in practice. The girls, I am told, were very pliant, tractable, and submissive to scholarly discipline, yet they would not eat at the table with him, because, forsooth, they looked upon him as a hireling for wages. Nevertheless, Bayly became the first Attorney-General of Maryland, and a terror to every evil-doer, for he was a veritable giant in the temple of justice."
The composite building of the Dorchester House was constructed by an Englishman by the name of Harrison, who brought all of its material from England. Tradition seems to have established the fact that English ships came within the enclosures of this place, for they had a brick ware house in the same enclosure, and which was torn down about ten years ago. But what was the nature and character of the trade between these early settlers and England, we are left almost entirely to conjectural speculation, except the exportation of tobacco.
This house having passed from Harrison to Scott, we now find it in possession of the celebrated Dr. Joseph Muse, whom Prof. Benjamin Gillman, of Yale University, mentions as worthy of a place in the laboratory of scientific men. Being a man of great possessions, and having become piqued with Dr. White, he marred the beauty of this place to a great extent by building a drug store in opposition to Dr. White for the curtailment of his profits.
He then vacated and passed over to Gay Street, and built the celebrated "castle," in whose icy halls many a lover has been glad to receive, when 'knighthood was in flower,' the cold smiles of a passing glance."
We now find the character of the place has been changed, and that it is no longer a private residence, but is used by the traveling public. Thomas White, a local Democratic poli- tician, converts it into a hotel, and makes it headquarters for
DORCHESTER HOUSE, CAMBRIDGE.
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THE OLD DORCHESTER HOUSE
the Democracy, and calls it the "Dorchester House." Pluto never had more absolute sway in his regions than the Dem- ocracy had in these environments. It was not safe for a Whig to ventilate himself in these quarters, especially on a public day, when the Democratic ship was under full pres- sure of steam. I have seen the stalwart Henry May standing under its portico addressing the Democracy, and at the same time defiantly challenging John Causean, through the liking of party, to meet him in joint discussion.
Intellectually, this would have been a "battle of the giants," but had the great Causean accepted this challenge and va- cated the Court House, he and his cohorts would have been like the war horse rushing to destruction in attempting to storm the citadel of Democracy. They knew too well that the Democrats had on their war paint, and that they were game to the back bone, within their own enclosures.
In the diatribes upon the Constitutional Convention of 1850, the Whigs were invited to a joint discussion of the measures of that period for a whole week upon the Dorches- ter Green. Governor Hicks, Dr. Phelps, Joseph E. Muse, and Ben Jackson kept the political caldron boiling every afternoon and evening to such an extent that the passions of the people ran wild with excitement.
It was here that Governor Hicks was branded with the sobriquet, King Cæsar, and Ben Jackson with that of Little Poney. The Democrats forever afterwards ostensibly de- precated the political power of such a man, and in their speeches said forsooth, we love Cæsar, but we love Rome more. The Democracy in these quarters always raised a hickory pole and flung their colors to the breeze. In those days the passions of the people were always inflamed in the campaigns of political excitement to such an extent that they paid very little attention to the "retort courteous," but were adepts in personal abuse. But still, in 1852, when Daniel Webster died, the Democrats lowered their flag at half-mast for the fallen statesman, who had led a forlorn hope of a Presidential nomination in that crisis.
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HISTORY OF DORCHESTER COUNTY
The great political chieftain lay dead at their feet, and the sad valediction had hardly been pronounced at his grave when all that was left of the earthly remains of the old Whig party entered the house of mourning for the last time. Thus died the great Webster, and he fell like the colossus of the ages in the temple of fame. There it was that the light of the last star of hope forever went out in the councils of politi- cal wisdom to perpetuate the fostering care of a great politi- cal party. And thus endeth the first chapter of the Dor- chester House with its incidental connection with the Demo- cratic party.
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CHAPTER VIII.
CAMBRIDGE TOWARDS THE REVOLUTION-MILITARY HEADQUARTERS DURING THE REVOLUTION-PEACEFUL ATTITUDE AFTER THE WAR-CHANGES MADE BY CIVIL WAR-STIMULATED ENTERPRISE-TOWN DEVELOPMENT, AND INDUSTRIAL GROWTH-SOCIAL ORDERS-NEWSPAPERS-CHURCHES.
In 1745, Cambridge was incorporated by Act of Assem- bly, but still slowly advanced in growth and population prior to the Revolutionary period. At the time of its incorpora- tion, a sanitary measure or nuisance-abatement Act was passed, that prohibited the raising of swine and geese in the town. In 1750, in response to a petition, permission was given to lease the church land of Great Choptank Parish by consent of a majority of the vestrymen. Prior to this period, throughout it, and for years that followed, the Assembly of Maryland was absolute in authority over the people. The Assembly proceedings are massive volumes of petitions for public privileges and personal liberties. "Languishing prisoners" in "gaol" for debt, burdensome taxation for the support of the Proprietary government and the Church, were not in public favor; and when English taxation was addition- ally imposed, the independent spirit of Cambridge people was ripe for revolt. The leading citizens of the town, influential in the revolutionary conventions and Council of Safety, made Cambridge headquarters for military operations on the East- ern Shore during the War for Independence. A number of brave soldiers and distinguished officers from Cambridge served in the Continental Army with great valor under the most trying privations, until relief came, either by death in battle, or the close of the long conflict.
After the close of the war, with the restoration of an ac- tive foreign and domestic trade, the wealthier of the town in- habitants resumed their former habits of luxury and ease in splendid homes amid beautiful surroundings, largely on the
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HISTORY OF DORCHESTER COUNTY
revenues derived from slave labor. In this way they contin- ued to live and prosper until the results of the great Civil War so radically changed the conditions of labor that latent energy was forced into active efforts under the law of neces- sity. This business activity of compulsion, aided by the in- fluences of traffic in army supplies, where money was rap- idly made, stimulated enterprise in a new town growth, and opened and enlarged avenues for commerce with the world, which led to the development of
MODERN CAMBRIDGE.
In 1799 the town was resurveyed, new streets and town lots were then laid out about as they now are, except East and West Cambridge, which have been built up since 1860, when the total population of the town was about twelve hundred.
The new channels of trade and business advantages estab- lished soon after the close of the Civil War were increased. Steamboat lines, the completion of the Dorchester and Dela- ware Railroad to Cambridge, and the opening of telegraph communication, which invited apt enterprise to start a greater building and business boom in the town.
The first telegraph line to Cambridge was secured by Mr. W. Wilson Byrn, then president of the new railroad, who made terms with the Western Union, by which the people in the county furnished the poles along the railroad and paid for the wire, which the telegraph company put up and oper- ated.
The limits of this book will not permit the naming of the many enterprises, and by whom projected in Cambridge, even in the days of its modern growth, but some will be men- tioned to convey an idea of the lines of town progress.
In 1869 the first large manufacturing industry was estab- lished on the East side of Cambridge Creek, located on a site of about ten acres of land bought by a gentleman from New Jersey. Large lumber and flour mills were built there and operated under the management of J. W. Crowell & Co.,
ST. PAUL'S M. P. CHURCH, CAMBRIDGE.
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THE OYSTER INDUSTRY
whose business amounted to about $40,000 a year, in supply- ing white oak timber to the Central Pacific Railroad, for car building; and the packing of hundreds of barrels of flour. This plant was destroyed by fire in 1877, when the firm incor- porated under the name of the Cambridge Manufacturing Company, who rebuilt the plant, and has been operating it ever since.
Shipbuilding that had been largely carried on by James A. Stewart, who began in 1849, to build large coasting vessels, was, with some intervals, continued by different builders, until discontinued by J. W. Crowell, who built a number of large vessels, and shipped the frames of many vessels to be built elsewhere, until the supply of white oak timber near Cambridge, suitable for shipbuilding, was nearly exhausted. Next, harbor improvements and enterprises were begun. John Lowe built a wharf where the marine railway now is. Col. James Wallace also built a wharf where vessels direct from England had discharged their foreign cargoes and loaded tobacco for export a hundred and fifty years ago. There he built a cannery and commenced fruit canning. In 1874 he commenced packing oysters; the first to start raw shucking and steam packing of oysters in Cambridge.
Immediately following, William Hopkins and William Davis built a marine railway, to which Joseph H. Johnson added a large shipyard after acquiring the marine railway.
In this decade of improvement a new county jail was built in Cambridge, at a cost of about $20,000. Its construction was none too soon for the use of the town government that had to restrict the noisy conduct of a new immigration, oyster dredgers, crews of oyster boats, chiefly idle men from cities, often called "tramps," that came every winter and still come to dredge oysters to supply the demand of a great in- dustry established at Cambridge, which next claims notice.
THE OYSTER INDUSTRY.
For the last thirty-five years, the catching, shucking and shipping of oysters by the people of Cambridge has annually
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HISTORY OF DORCHESTER COUNTY
increased from very small beginnings, until the business is now second to Baltimore's oyster trade. It has advanced the prosperity and growth of Cambridge, as much as all the other industries located there. Several hundred oystermen live in the town, who own and command their oyster boats, of different classes and sizes. About eight or nine hundred oyster shuckers, men, women and children, chiefly colored, are employed to open the oysters in a score of oyster houses, managed and owned by packers, among whom are the Cam- bridge Packing Co., Choptank Oyster Packing Co., Mace, Woolford & Co., I. L. Leonard & Co., Tubman & Mills, J. J. Phillips & Co., J. H. Phillips & Co., W. G. Winterbottom & Co., W. H. Robins & Son, J. B. Harris & Son, Milford Phillips, T. M. Bramble & Co., Levi B. Phillips & Co., Geo. A. Hall & Co., Julius Baker, Geo. W. Phillips & Son, William Blades & Sons, and others. Nearly a million bushels of oysters are annually shucked at Cambridge. The employment afforded by this business within the last twenty years has furnished the means to provide nice, comfortable homes for several hundred families, as well as for their support in this thrifty town. The rapid growth of oysters is marvelous, and the extent of the beds only bounded by the distant shores of the Choptank and the Chesapeake. With proper management the oyster supply is exhaustless.
Cambridge contains 1600 dwellings, from the plain cottage to the palatial mansion; one hundred and thirty stores, in great variety, from the penny shop to the wholesale house of city proportions; three National banks; building and loan associations; a bonded trust company, and splendid school buildings for a thousand children. Other enterprises of pub- lic utility are the Cambridge Water Company, capital stock, $60,000, James Wallace, President; the Cambridge Gas Com- pany, capital stock, $20,000, Daniel H. LeCompte, Presi- dent; the Cambridge Manufacturing Company (previously mentioned), capital, $100,000, James Wallace, President; the Cambridge Shirt Factory, A. J. Foble, President and manager, employing one hundred and fifty hands; and
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INDUSTRIES OF CAMBRIDGE
five large fruit and vegetable canneries, operated by sepa- rate firms, namely : James Wallace & Son, Roberts Bros., I. L. Leonard & Co., T. M. Bramble & Co. and Woolford, Winterbottom & Lewis. L. K. Warren and Messrs. Sherman and Collins are each proprietors of steam mills for manu- facturing flour. S. L. Webster is manager of the Webster Fertilizing Factory, where large quantities of agricultural manures are made.
An extensively used town telephone makes connections with most of the towns throughout the Eastern Shore Penin- sula and Philadelphia and Baltimore. An opera house, with seating capacity of six hundred people, is a notable town convenience.
The United Charities Hospital is a large building, which is fully and well equipped for many patients, where the best skill in medical science and surgery is applied, equal to the Johns Hopkins standard or other first-class hospitals. To meet the growing demand for hospital treatment, a new and larger building is to be erected by private and State subscrip- tions. The hospital site has been chosen and work on the building will soon begin. Mr. John E. Hurst subscribed $10,000.
The hotels in Cambridge are modern in structure and splendidly managed. Braly's is a brick building with large accommodations. Col. E. E. Braly, proprietor.
Hotel Dixon, a new hotel just completed, has every con- venience found in first-class city hotels. Lee Dixon, Esq., owner, and. Mrs. A. N. Nicholas, manager. Colonel Braly became proprietor of Hotel Dixon in November, 1902.
Cator's Hotel, under the popular management of ex-She- iff Thos. B. Cator, is well patronized.
Secret societies and beneficial orders have select member- ship of high and reputable standing. Of notable mention are the Cambridge Lodge, No. 66, Masons; Knights of Pythias, Independent Order of Heptasophs, Independent Or- der of Odd Fellows, Royal Arcanum, Junior Order United American Mechanics and Choptank Lodge of Red Men.
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HISTORY OF DORCHESTER COUNTY
Musicians are numerous and of fine musical attainments. Three organized bands pleasingly render pathetic, patriotic or sentimental airs, that move the public heart and feelings as often as occasion requires.
CAMBRIDGE NEWSPAPERS.
The "newspaper" history of the town is here quoted from the best known authority at hand.
The first newspaper printed in Cambridge, was The Chronicle, which was issued, it is said, in 1821. The next to follow, as well as we have been able to learn, was the Dorchester Aurora, published by a Mr. Callahan. The Democrat and Dorchester Advertiser was established about 1840, with John E. Tyler, editor and publisher. W. H. Bowdle next started The Democrat. This was followed by The American Eagle, Ruben S. Tall, publisher. Later on it passed to the management of George W. Jefferson. Handy and Ballard succeeded Mr. Bowdle in publishing The Democrat, but when the Civil War began they went South and left the publication in the hands of Mr. Louis E. Barrett, foreman of the office. Mr. Bowdle again entered the field of journalism and started The Herald, and at this time we learn there were three papers published there.
About 1865, The Herald passed into the hands of R. K. Winbrow. Later Chas. E. Hayward became the proprietor, and when he was elected State's Attorney, sold it to Col. George E. Austin and Dr. d'Unger, who also bought the old Democrat and consolidated the two under the name of The Democrat and Herald. The American Eagle was sold by Mr. Jefferson to Levin E. Straughn, who changed its name to The Intelligencer. The Chronicle was suspended on several occasions, but reestablished again and again, and at one time was owned and published by the late Judge Chas. F. Golds- borough. The Intelligencer, just after the war, passed into the hands of Rev. T. Burton, then back to the Straughn family, and was finally suspended. In 1879 Henry Straughn and James E. Reese started The Dorchester Era, now owned and
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