USA > Maryland > Kent County > History of Kent County, Maryland, 1630-1916 > Part 8
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Senator Philip Reed was born in Kent County about 1760, and died in 1829. He received an aca- demical education, and served as captain in the Revolutionary Army. Afterwards he was elected to the United States Senate in place of Robert Wright, resigned, and held the seat from 1806 to 1813. On his return home he commanded, as colonel of militia, the regiment of home guards that met and defeated at Caulk's Field, Md., August 30, 1814, a superior British force under Sir Peter Parker, who was killed in the engagement. Col. Reed was elected to the Fifteenth Congress, serving until the year 1823.
James Barroll Ricaud, jurist, born in Baltimore, Md., February 11, 1808; died in Chestertown, Janu- ary 26, 1866. He was educated at St. Mary's Col- lege, Baltimore, studied law, and on admission to the bar, entered into practice at Chestertown. He was a member of the House of Delegates in 1843 and succeeding sessions, and a presidental elector on the Harrison ticket in 1836, and on the Clay ticket in 1844. He was elected a member of Congress
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by the American party for two successive terms, serving until 1859. He subsequently sat in the State Senate, but resigned on being appointed a Judge of the Circuit Court, 1864.
Ezekiel Freeman Chambers was born in Kent County February 28, 1788, and died in Chestertown on January 30, 1867. He was graduated at Wash- ington College in 1805, studied law and was ad- mitted to the bar in 1808. He performed military service in the war of 1812, and subsequently ob- tained the rank of Brigadier-General of Militia. Though elected in 1822 to the State Senate against his will, he took an active part in the legislation of that body, and in 1825 arranged a system for the more effectual recovery of slaves. In 1826 he was elected United States Senator from Maryland, and in 1832 re-elected. He distinguished himself as one of the ablest debaters and antagonists in that body. In 1834 he was appointed Chief Judge of the Second Judicial District and a Judge of the Court of Ap- peals, which places he held till 1857, when the Mary- land judiciary became elective. In 1850 he was a member of the Constitutional Convention of the State. In 1852 President Fillmore offered him the post of Secretary of the Navy, on the resignation of Secretary Graham, but the condition of his health compelled him to decline. Yale conferred on him the degree of LL. D. in 1833, and Delaware in 1852.
James Alfred Pearce, born in Alexandria, Va., December 14, 1805; died in Chestertown, December 20, 1862. He was graduated at Princeton in 1822, studied law in Baltimore, and was admitted to the bar in 1824, after which he began to practice at Cambridge, Md. At the end of a year he went to Lou-
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isiana with his father and engaged in sugar plant- ing for three years. He then returned to Maryland and settled in Kent County, where he resumed the practice of his profession. He was elected to the Maryland House of Delegates in 1831; in 1835 to Congress as a Democrat, and he served, except dur- ing one term in 1839-41, until 1843, when he was chosen to the United States Senate, where he re- mained until his death. During his long service in
HON. JAMES ALFRED PEARCE.
the Senate he was especially interested in the library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institute and the Coast Survey. President Fillmore offered him a seat on the bench of the United States District Court of Maryland, which he declined. During the same administration he was nominated and confirmed Secretary of the Interior, but this honor was also declined, on the ground that he could be of more use to his country in the Senate. He took a deep in- terest in educational matters, and in 1833 was elected one of the Visitors and Governors of Wash- ington College, in which institution he afterwards
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lectured on law. Mr. Pearce was regarded as one of the wisest and safest members of the United States Senate. His son, Judge James A. Pearce, holds an enviable position among all our people.
Hon. George Vickers was born in Chestertown November 19, 1801, and died October S. 1879. He
HON. GEORGE VICKERS.
acquired a classical education, was employed in the county clerk's office for several years, studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1832, and practiced in Chestertown. He was a delegate to the Whig Na- tional Convention of 1852. When the Civil War began he was appointed Major-General of the State militia. He was a presidental elector on the McClel- lan ticket in 1864, and one of the vice-presidents of the Union Convention of 1866. In 1866-7 he was a member of the State Senate. In 1868 he was elected United States Senator for the term that ended on March 3, 1873, in the place of Philip F. Thomas, who had been denied the seat.
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It being important that the new Senator should reach Washington at the earliest period practicable, the ice-boat Chesapeake was dispatched from Bal- timore on Friday evening, March 6, 1867, having on board the committee of the Legislature to bring Mr. Vickers to that city. The steamer reached here at 3 o'clock Saturday morning. Mr. Vickers was noti- fied of his election and he left at once, the boat breaking ice all the way to Baltimore, where a spe- cial car was in waiting to convey the party to Wash- ington. General Vickers was sworn in Monday and took an important part in the acquittal of President Andrew Johnson in the efforts of his enemies to impeach him. He took a conspicuous part in the debate on the Fifteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution also. His grandson, H. W. Vickers, Esq., is one of the most prominent members of the bar here.
Probably the first commander of the United States Navy was Alexander Murray, who was born in the old Spencer house, Chestertown, in 1755, and died in Philadelphia in 1821. He was a relative of Mrs. Lottie Roberts, who has a well-preserved por- trait of him. In 1776 he was appointed a lieu- tenant in the Continental Navy, but there being no employment for him afloat, he served through the campaigns of 1776-7 as lieutenant and captain in the First Maryland Regiment, participating in the bat- tles of Flatbush and White Plains. At the close of the campaign of 1777 he was given the command of a ship with a letter of marque, in which he was captured by the British squadron and carried into New York. After his exchange he served as lieu- tenant on the Trumbull, in the action with the Iris
is
T. W. ELIASON'S
HISTORIC HOUSE-THE J. K. ALDRIDGE HOME-QUEEN STREET HOMES-FOUNDRY
OR WILSON PEALE HOUSE,
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and Gen. Monk, off the mouth of the Delaware. In 1798 he was made captain, and served in the West Indies in command of the Constellation. In 1802 he commanded the Constellation in the Mediterranean, and an attack which he made upon a flotilla of seven- teen gunboats was the first affair of the war with Tripoli. At his death he was in command of the Navy Yard at Philadelphia, and was senior officer of the navy.
Chestertown was the birth-place of Charles Wilson Peale, one of the greatest artists of his day, so says E. H. Butler's history. He was born in April, 1741. He was by trade a saddler and received instruction in the art of painting from Hesselius, a German, to whom he gave a saddle for the privilege of seeing him paint. He was the first dentist in America who prepared sets of enamel teeth. He was a universal genius, making for himself a violin and a guitar. He went to London in 1770 and became a pupil of Ben- jamin West. Returning to America, he was the chief portrait painter in this country. He was a patriot and commanded a company in the battles of Trenton and Germantown. In 1785 he com- menced in Philadelphia the celebrated Peale's Museum, which for many years was the largest and most valuable collection of natural curiosities in the United States. Its principal attraction was an entire skeleton of a mammoth. He also established a museum in Baltimore. Mr. Peale died, after a a life of extraordinary exertion and temperance, in 1827, aged S5 years. His son Rembrandt was an artist of great merit. Mr. Peale's father was a teacher in the old Free School at Chestertown.
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CHAPTER XVIII.
Old Records Showing Transfers of Land in Kent.
Mr. Percy G. Skirven in his search of historic information among the records in the Court House in Baltimore City, contributes interesting facts. Among the transfers of land may be found: Col. Edward Carter, of upper Norfolk County, Virginia, released a "bill of sale" he held on land belonging to his brother-in-law, Joseph Hopkins, February 28, 1667. This tract of land was known as "Buck Neck" and described as "lying in the eastern side of the Chesapeake Bay and at the head of a creek in the bay called Worton Creek."
Four years afterwards, September 5, 1671, Daniel Silvane, of Baltimore County, gave a quit-claim deed to William Pearce, of the same county, for 150 acres of this tract. The record states the land "is lying and being in Chesapeake Bay, in Baltimore County, and on the eastern side of the bay in a creek called Worton Creek, being a part of a tract of land called .Buck Neck,' formerly taken up by Joseph Hop- kins, which said 150 acres were purchased by me of William Pearce."
In March of the same year we find this one: "To all Christian people: Know ye, that I, Charles Nicho- lett, minister of God's Word in the county of Bal- timore, within the Province of Maryland, and Jus- tine, my wife, do, etc., sell to John James the tract of land known as .Lynn,' lying and being in Chesapeake Bay and on the eastern side of said bay and in a
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creek called Steelpone Creek, and on the north side of the said creek, containing 150 acres." This deed was dated March 5, 1671.
The following record is dated 1672 : Charles James to Thomas Middlefield. carpenter. 200 acres known
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THE OLD MARKET HOUSE, CHESTERTOWN, MD.
as "Little Drayton," described as "being in Balti- more County, in the eastern side of the Chesapeake Bay, and in a bay called Steelpone Bay, and in a creek in the said bay called Churne Creeke, and on the west side of the said creeke."
On March 1, 1672, a deed was recorded showing that Thomas Howell sold to James Hepbourne 200
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acres of land "lying in Chesapeake Bay on the eastern side of the said bay in the county aforesaid (Baltimore) and in a river, called Sassafras River and in a creek in the said river called Fishing (now Lloyd's) Creek and at the head of the said creek."
A little more than a year afterwards, August 2, 1673, William Salsbury, planter, and his wife Sarah, sold 200 acres of land called "Tamworth" to William Morgan and William Welch, planters. This prop- erty, too, was "in Chesapeake Bay on the eastern side of the said bay in the county of Baltimore in a creek within the said bay called Worton Creek." It adjoined the lands of Captain Cornwallis.
As late as June 3, 1674, just three days before Lord Baltimore sent to Nathaniel Stiles, the "high Sheriff of Cecil County," his proclamation erecting the county of "Cecil," a deed was recorded in the land records of Baltimore County showing that Thomas Ramsay sold 200 acres of land called "Fare- all" to John West. This land is described as being in the Sassafras River in a creek called "Toulson's Creeke" and adjoining the lands of Andrew Toulson.
HOW LORD BALTIMORE INTENDED IT.
These records do not prove conclusively that Bal- timore County's southern boundary on the Eastern Shore was as stated above, but from data bearing on the erection of the counties of Cecil, Talbot and Kent it is reasonably safe to say that a line drawn from Worton Creek to the Chester River in the vicinity of Chestertown and from thence with the Chester River to the eastern boundary of the province was
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what Lord Baltimore, with what limited knowl- edge he had of the geography of the country, in- tended should be the southern boundary. Baltimore County was probably erected in 1659, but the first record of any court held in that county shows that in 1661 court was held at the house of Capt. Thomas Howell, very probably on Howell's Point.
Previous to the building of a courthouse on the Elk River an old building stood on the shore of what is now known as "Ordinary Point," a long narrow sand bar extending out into the Sassafras River from the north shore, just opposite to the mouth of Tur- ner's Creek. A well-authenticated description under date of 1679 of this old building, which, according to the story, was an ordinary house or inn and which was also used as a courthouse, is to be found in the early historical records of the province. There are many facts to lead us to believe that this was one of the old courthouses of Baltimore County at least for part of the time that this county extended its borders across the Chesapeake.
Shrewsbury parish received its name from a town "laid out" on the south side of the Sassafras River, a little distance east of Turner's Creek. In Vol. 13, Page 26, of the Archives of Maryland, we find that on April 18, 1684, "upon motion of the delegates of Cecil County, a towne is ordered to be laid out at Meeting House Point, in Sassafras River, in the said county." About this time the Rt. Hon. Charles Tal- bot, Earl of Shrewsbury, was Principal Secretary of State in England and the newly "laid-out" town may have been so named in his honor. In the event that this was not the case, however, it may have taken its
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name from a shire town, Shrewsbury, in England.
"Meeting House Point," so called for the first church or "meeting house," was an exceedingly ad- vantageous location considered from the point of
BEFO' DE WAR.
accessibility by water transportation. At this time -1684-there were few roads and almost all of the visiting and churchgoing, as well as the commercial traffic, was done by boats. Then, too, the ships trading between England and the Province had bold water at this point in the Sassafras and could anchor close to shore for loading and unloading their freight.
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No records have been found as to how long Shrewsbury Town was used as a port of entry or what the names of the streets were or who lived there. That Shrewsbury Town had been abandoned as a place "where all ships and vessels trading into the province shall unload and put on shore all negroes, wares, goods, merchandise, and commodi- ties whatsoever" is borne out by the following sec- tion in the act of the Assembly of April 19, 1706, establishing such towns or ports.
"The towns, ports and places hereinafter men- tioned shall be ports, etc .: In Kent County; in Chester River, on a plantation of Mr. Wilmore's and Edward Walvin's plantation (the present site of Chestertown) ; in Worton Creek, on a tract of land where Francis Barnes lives, formerly laid out for a towne, and in Sassafras River, where Shrewsbury Towne was." In a supplementary act to the one above passed by the Assembly on April 15, 1707, the following appears: "And that the place ap- pointed be also deserted and laid out where the com- missioners for towns in Kent County aforesaid have purchased land for the same."
There is no doubt the place that the above act has reference to is the present site of the pretty village of Georgetown, which lies on the south bank of the Sassafras River, some six miles to the east of where the old town of Shrewsbury was "laid out." The act of assembly for laying out Georgetown was not passed until 1736, but there are many reasons to believe that it was "laid out" many years previous to that date.
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The following partial extract of a record found among the land records of Kent County, shows that this was so at least three years prior to the act of assembly just mentioned : "This indenture, made this nineteenth day of March, Anno Dom, One Thousand Seven Hundred Thirty and three, between Gideon Pearce, of Kent County, Maryland, gentleman of the one part, and George Skirven, of the same place, gen- tleman of the other part, withnesseth, etc., all that parcel of land being two of the lotts of land in a designed towne as now laid out and called George Towne (lying now in Kent County, in Maryland, upon the Sassafras River), which two lotts are known and designed as No. 14 and No. 15 as by platt and certificate of the designed Towne lodged with the Surveyor of the said county. Also the use of Lott No. 10 belonging to his daughter, Rachel Pearce, for the benefit and advantages of Importa- tion and Exportation of anything Whatsoever." Lot No. 10 was at the foot of Front street directly on the river shore.
The names of the principal streets in this old town were King, Queen, Princess, Stop, Cannon, Kent, Cross, Chestnut, Front and Calvert. George's lane and Fish alley were names of smaller streets near the water's edge. This beautiful old town with its neighbor, Fredericktown, across the Sassafras River in Cecil County, is mentioned in a "Journal" pub- lished by a clergyman in 1759. In traveling from Annapolis to Philadelphia he stopped for the night in Fredericktown and he writes: "Fredericktown is a small village on the western side of the Sassafras River built for the accommodation of strangers and
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travelers ; on the eastern side, exactly opposite to it, is another small village (Georgetown) erected for the same purpose."
For nearly five years after the erection of Shrews- bury parish there was no regular minister in charge. In 1697 the Rev. Richard Sewell was sent by Gov. Francis Nicholson.
While the Rev. Mr. Sewell was the first rector sent by the Governor to these parishes, there had been services held in Shrewsbury parish by the Rev. Mr. Lawrence Vanderbush, then rector of St. Paul's parish in Kent. Mr. Vanderbrush went to St. Paul's in September, 1693-4, and he had held services at least once a month in Shrewsbury parish during the last year of his life, 1696, and very probably from the first year that he went to St. Paul's.
Too MUCH WORK FOR ONE MAN.
It was shortly after the death of Mr. Vanderbush that Mr. Sewell went to Shrewsbury, and, as the work was hard and the two parishes so large, he found it more than he could do alone. In the church records of St. Paul's parish there appear items show- ing that the Rev. Mr. Stephen Bordley, who was sent as rector of that (St. Paul's) parish in 1697, as- sisted the Rev. Mr. Sewell in the work by holding services at Shrewsbury church on the first Sunday in each month during the years of 1699 and 1706. It is very probable that this arrangement lasted from the time of Mr. Bordley going to St. Paul's.
From the two mother parishes of St. Paul's and Shrewsbury in the year 1765 Chester parish was
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HISTORY OF KENT COUNTY, MARYLAND
erected and a church built for that parish at the present site of Christ Church "I. U." Its "Chapel of Ease" was built at Chestertown where the present Emmanuel Church now stands. It is authorita- tively stated that the chapel at Chestertown was made the "church" of Chester parish about the year 1809, "I. U." becoming the "Chapel of Ease."
Within the churchyard at Shrewsbury, now in- closed with a handsome and substantial iron fence, are to be seen the graves of many distinguished colonists, of rectors who have laid down here to rest when their work on earth was finished and of the sturdy settlers who were none the less valuable as citizens as well as churchmen. Today their descendents point with pride to these mute evidences of their ancestors, who, through courage and energy, carved out of the wilderness both fortune and name to be handed down to succeeding generations.
In looking through the old records of the parish, the following names are to be seen prior to 1780; Angier, Blackiston, Burgan, Blay, Browning, Boyer, Brooks, Bellikin, Baird, Black, Briscoe, Comegys, Christian, Campbell, Cole, Chandler, Cadwalader, Clark, Crew, Cosden, Clayton, Cooper, Dinning, Day, De Brewster, Dunnington, Donaldson, Davis, Eccleston, Evans, Fisher, French, Freeman, Forres- ter, Gale, Gleaves, Hall, Hopkins, Hynson, Holdman, Hudson, Hepbron, Howard, Hailes, Hicks, Hull, Hanson, Haley, Hatchison, Hazil, Hurtt, Ireland, Jones, Jobson, Johnson, Knock, Kenton, Keating, Lowe, Latham, Middleton, Medford, Merritt, Mil- born, Massey, Mansfield, Maffitt, Norris, Pearce, Perkins, Page, Piner, Redgrave, Ridson, Rasin, Reed,
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156 HISTORY OF KENT COUNTY, MARYLAND
Reyner, Rogers, Riley, Sewell, Smothers, Skeggs, Spencer, Stoops, Sutton, Smith, Symonds, Tillton, Tilden, Turner, Truelock, Wallis, Wilson, Waite, Wilmer, Woodland, Wethered, Wright and Yeates.
The first vestry was composed of the following "freeholders :" William Harris, Edward Blay, Wil- liam Pearce, William Elm, Edward Skidmore and George Skirven.
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CHAPTER XIX.
SOME WEATHER RECORDS.
The Coldest Winter and Summer-Men Wrapped in Overcoats Drove Reapers July 4-A Year When Snow Fell and Sheep Frose to Death in June- Ice and Frost in July-and Crops Were Chilled in August.
All are prone to look upon the "olden time" as being remarkable for weather, as well as for many other happenings. The record summer of 1816 stands as the most distressing of the nineteenth cen- tury. June, 1816, was the coldest ever known in this latitude; frost and ice were common. Almost every green thing was killed; fruit was nearly all destroyed. This was the year when farmers were glad to wear overcoats and gloves when cutting wheat July 4 and fires on the hearth were welcome.
Snow fell to the depth of ten inches in Vermont, seven in Maine, three in the interior of New York, and also in Massachusetts. There were a few warm days. All classes looked for them in that memorable cold summer.
It was called a dry season. But little rain fell. The wind blew steadily from the north cold and fierce. Mothers knit extra socks and mittens for their chil- dren in the spring, and wood-piles that usually dis- appeared during the warm spell in front of the houses were speedily built up again. Planting and shivering were done together, and the farmers who
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worked out their taxes on the country roads wore overcoats and mittens.
In a town in Vermont a flock of sheep belonging to a farmer had been sent, as usual, to their pasture. On the seventeenth of June a heavy snow fell; the cold was intense, and the owner started away at noon to look for his sheep.
RURAL CARRIERS IN KENT BEFORE THE AUTO CAME.
"Better start the neighbors soon, wife," he said in jest before leaving; "being in the middle of June I may get lost in the snow."
Night came, the storm increased, and he did not return. The next morning the family sent out for help and started in search. One after another of the neighbors turned out to look for the missing man. The snow had covered up all tracks, and not until the end of the third day did they find him on
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the side of a hill, with both feet frozen, unable to move.
A farmer who had a large field of corn in another New England village, built fires around it to ward off the frost; many an evening he and his men took turns watching it. He was rewarded with the only crop in the neighborhood.
Considerable damage was done in New Orleans in consequence of the rapid rise of the Mississippi River; the suburbs were covered with water and the roads were passed only in boats. Fears that the sun was cooling off abounded, and throughout New England all picnics were strictly prohibited be- cause of the danger to health.
July was accompanied with frost and ice. On the fifth, ice was formed of the thickness of the common window glass throughout New England, New York, and some parts of Kent County. Corn was nearly all destroyed; some favorably situated fields escaped.
August was more cheerless, if possible, than the months which preceded it. Ice was formed half an inch in thickness. Indian corn was so frozen that the greater part was cut down and dried for fodder. Almost every green thing was destroyed in this coun- try and in Europe.
On the thirteenth snow fell at Barnet, forty miles from London. Papers received from England stated that "it would be remembered by the present genera- tion that the year 1816 was a year in which there was no summer." Very little corn ripened in Eng- land, and the Middle States farmers supplied them- selves from corn produced in 1815 for seed in the
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spring of 1817. It sold at from four to five dollars per bushel.
Chestertown's oldest citizens state that the winter of 1899 was the worst in their recollection. The thermometer reached nine degrees below zero, and for a week hovered around the zero mark, with ex- cellent sleighing. Snow to the depth of three feet fell during the week, and the train was six days get- ting the mail to or from Chestertown. A blizzard raged for two days, roads were blocked and but little business was transacted. Navigation closed on Thursday, February 9. and remained so until the 23rd.
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