USA > Maryland > Talbot County > History of Talbot county, Maryland, 1661-1861, Volume I > Part 25
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Col. Lloyd is now the largest farmer in Talbot county, as were his father and grandfather, from whom he inherited both his lands and skill in cultivating them before him. But those ancestors left him also an inheritance of debt, in the form of charges to heirs and other obligations, for the payment of which he has labored with most admirable assiduity and financial ability, though the burden for them has been rendered doubly heavy by the loss of his slaves and the long desolation of his southern property, which slaves and property together constituted so large a share of his fortune. He is said to have possessed before the war, in Maryland and Mississippi as many as 700 negroes, young and old, which at a valuation of 500 dollars per poll were worth 350,000 dollars. His southern plantations for many years were utterly valueless. His great loss he bore with an equanimity most admirable with a fortitude really heroic. The conduct of men under such emergencies as those to which he was subjected by the war and its consequences, furnish the true indicia of character. For reasons already intimated or expressed, all cannot be said that might and ought to be said of Colonel Lloyd under the peculiarly trying, nay, the exasperating circumstances of the loss of his slaves and the desolation of his land. One who was in his company at the crisis of his suffering, said that on the very day when his field hands left their work at the call of the recruiting officers and marched in a body down to the trans- port steamer lying in Miles river at Ferry-landing, he was calm and composed, talked of everything else than of what was occurring or had just occurred on his estate, or spoke of it without reproach or abuse
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of the government which had commanded, or of its officers who were committing, or of its adherents who were defending what he considered an outrage upon his private rights; without railing at the black men who were deserting under promise of liberty; without repining over his misfortunes; and without indulging in gloomy anticipations of the dark future.
To this may be added that the self control and mental poise he then displayed were maintained through the tempestuous times of the rebel- lion, when, with less cause, many men were so unbalanced that they have not yet regained their equilibrium of judgment or their tranquillity of feeling. Again: It is known upon most competent authority, that he, in those hours of trial, resisted at once the promptings of revenge insti- gating retaliation for the wrongs he believed he had suffered; the sug- gestions of self-interest, always whispering at the ears of those who may be tempted by opportunity; and the guidance of legal counsel not always as nice in its interpretations of the moral as it is of the civil law: for when smarting under the pecuniary losses and when vindictiveness towards those who had caused them, as he thought, had an apology; when circumstances favored the disburdening himself of obligations to those who destroyed the value of this property for the purchase of which those obligations had been incurred, and who thus destroyed their own security for their payment; when the learning of lawyers, the kind- ness of friends and the malice of partisans united to advise the repudia- tion of the debts of his father to northern men, he scornfully rejected all such suggestions, reaffirmed the validity of pledges and paid them in full. Further words would be superfluous, if not impertinent.
With regard to Col. Lloyd in his relation of master to his slaves, what was said of his father might be repeated of him. No change of circum- stances had rendered necessary a change in the regime of the plantation that the experience of years had sanctioned with approval; and there was no such difference in the character of the two masters as to justify a belief that the disciplinary rules were administered differently under the younger, from what they were under the elder Lloyd. As evidence of the kindly feeling that subsisted between the slaves and their master, or at least, as evidence that the negroes, whose softness of temper dis- qualifies them for harboring resentments, retained no vindictiveness towards their former owner, and that the justness and benevolence of his mind entertained no animosities towards those who had deserted him, and disowned his right to their services, it may be noted, that after emancipation and the close of the war, when each freed man might go
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where he listed and serve whom he pleased, many of Col. Lloyd's former slaves particularly those of his immediate household who knew him best, remained in his employ, or returned to their old houses upon his farms as hired laborers. Still others now look to him as their friend and adviser in all emergencies of a personal nature.
Col. Lloyd is in person rather above the medium height, robustly built, with florid countenance, light hair, and grey eyes. He is yet in full and vigorous life (1885) and though years have multiplied, much of the enthusiasm of youth remains. Amidst the good wishes of everyone he is striving-it is hoped and believed successfully striving -- with courage and skill, industry and economy to rebuild his fortunes shattered by the war, and to maintain the ancient dignity of his family. Wye House, to which he removed after the death of his father, retains all its beauty and stateliness without, and all its social graces and charm- ing hospitality within. Changes, there have been, but in its master there have been preserved what is best-those ancestral traits that have marked the Lloyds of Wye for many generations-elevation of charac- ter, amiability of disposition united with a refined simplicity of manners.72
In the year 1851 Col. Lloyd married Miss Mary Key, the daughter of Charles Howard, Esq., of Baltimore, a lady of excellent lineage and no less excellent qualities, who is the mother of nine children, six sons and three daughters, eight of whom survive. The eldest son Edward, born July 20th, 1857, and educated at Annapolis, is now a Lieutenant in the United States Navy. His biography cannot yet be written, but his horoscope may be cast. Having his nativity under more favor- able influence than the conjunction of the most propitious stars, it is
72 A notable incident in the history of Wye House, one illustrative of the great social revolution that had been effected in the county, through the changed rela- tions of the races, was the visit of Frederick Douglass in the year 1881, to the scenes of his youth. He was politely received by the sons of Col. Lloyd he being absent, and invited to partake of the hospitalities of the house. He who left a slave of a poor man, came back a great nation's officer, to receive from the scions of a proud family the courtesies due an honored guest. He was deeply affected by all he saw, but more by the consideration and kindness that was shown him by the young men who were doing the honors in the absence of their father. He plucked flowers from the graves of the Lloyds that he had known but had passed away as mementoes, and he drank with an effusion that marked its sincerity, the health of "the Master of the Old House" and of his children, with the wish that the horn of plenty might be poured out abundantly upon them, and that they and their descendants to remote generations might "worthily maintain the fame and the character of their ancestors."-Hon. J. O. Thomas in the Baltimore American, of June, 1881.
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safe to prognosticate that he will bring no humiliation to the pride of the Lloyds, the Howards and the Keys, whose blood mingles in his veins, that he will not dim the glory of the flag under which he serves, and which an ancestor immortalized in song; that he will not derogate from the honor of the country in whose service he is engaged, and for whose independence the sword of a revolutionary sire was drawn. The biographer of the future may be able to write of him when promoted to the highest rank for gallant deeds, as of Edward Lloyd, the eighth of his name, the Admiral.
Here will close this account of the Lloyds of Wye. There were other members of this remarkable family as deserving of mention as those whose careers have been thus imperfectly described, but it was thought best to confine these brief sketches to those of a single line, and to disregard, at least for the present, those of collateral lines, although many of these were men of strongly marked characters, and eminent for abilities and long public service. It is proper to say, that while the family at Wye House has rendered every facility that was possible to the collection of materials for these memoirs it is in no way respon- sible for the manner in which these materials have been used. They have been collected with much labor from diverse sources but are thought to be entirely authentic. At least, nothing has has been invented for the sake of its lesson, or of adding interest to the narrative,
To point a moral or adorn a tale.
It would be surprising of many errors had not crept in through ignorance or inadvertence. None has been permitted to do so by design. The difficulty of escaping these can be appreciated only by those who have attempted similar tasks. As praise or blame can scarcely be bestowed with justice, since it is so hard to know men's motives and controling circumstances, so panegyric has been sparingly used and even omitted when seemingly well deserved; while censure has been seldom employed because, if for no other reason, not often merited or required.
Col. Edward Lloyd died October 22, 1907 on his 82nd birthday.
GOV. DANIEL MARTIN 1780-1831
Governor Daniel Martin, twenty-second (1828-29) and twenty- fourth Governor of Maryland (1830-31), was a native of Talbot county, son of Thomas and Hannah Martin, grandson of Tristram and Mary Oldham, descendant of Daniel and Ann Martin of 1725.
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His maternal ancestor, Edward Oldham, was one of the Justices for Talbot County 1760, and Burgess 1749-57.
General Henry Lee, the great cavalry commander in the American Revolution, known as Light Horse Harry, in his memoirs of the war on the Southern Department of the United States, pays the following high tribute to Captain Edward Oldham:
To the name of Capt. Edward Oldham too much praise cannot be given. He was engaged in almost every action in the South, and was uniformly distinguished for gallantry and good conduct. With the exception of Kirkwood of Delaware, and Rudolph of the Legion of Infantry, he was probably entitled to more credit than any officer of his rank in Greene's Army. A distinction which must place him high on the rolls of fame.
In the celebrated charge on the British at Eutaw, of thirty-six men which he led, all but eight were killed or wounded, yet he forced the enemy.
Governor Martin was thoroughly educated. Distinguished ancestors encouraged him. He inherited a fine estate called "Wilderness," (now 1912, the beautiful country seat of Mr. J. Ramsey Speer, of Pittsburg, Pa.), in Island Creek Neck, fronting directly on the broad Choptank river, and was a successful gentleman farmer. He married, in 1816, Mary Clare Mackubin, of Annapolis, a descendant of John Mackubin, of the Severn, a Scottish immigrant, connected by marriage with both the Howards and Carrolls.
At the time of Governor Martin's first election, the absorbing politi- cal questions were the rival sources for internal improvements.
In 1828 the first spade full of earth was removed from the bed of the Chesapeake and Ohio canal by President John Quincy Adams. Thirty- four sections were put under contract. The United States subscribed one million dollars; Washington City, an equal amount, and the State of Maryland half a million. Governor Martin reported the completion of twelve miles of the Washington turnpike. He was on the Com- mittee which secured a charter for the Baltimore and Ohio railroad in 1827. He was an earnest and able advocate for developing educational institutions. He favored manufacturing in the State penitentiary; urged the economy of having but few state officers, and was in favor of holding them to a strict accountability. He said:
To preserve the simplicity of our institutions is a deep concern; to guard them as far as possible from innovation is a sacred duty.
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The national contest between the Jackson and the anti-Jackson parties was brought into the Maryland State election in 1829, and resulted in placing the Democratic candidate, Thomas King Carroll, on a joint ballot by seven votes in the chair of Governor Martin.
At the next election, however, the anti-Jackson party regained the ascendancy, and re-elected Daniel Martin governor by a majority of forty-one. Early in his second term his health began to fail. He was at his home in Talbot preparing to harvest his wheat crop in the first week of July, 1831, when he dreamed three nights in succession that he saw his mother on board a beautiful sailing ship off "Boufield," on the broad Choptank river. She told him that on the third day following her first appearance to him, he would be called home at the hour of noon, on the morning of the third day. It is said, that when at the breakfast table, the Governor, with tears in his eyes, related his strange dream, the family laughed at the idea of his deep concern, as he himself had never before placed any belief in dreams. At half-past eleven o'clock he mounted his saddle horse and rode out into his harvest field, where his slave farm hands headed by his overseer were cradling wheat. Just as he reached his overseer and attempted to speak to him, he fell from his horse dead, at noon on July 11th, 1831.
He was succeeded by Hon. George Howard, son of former Governor John Eager Howard.
Governor Martin was endeared to the society in which he passed his life by his manly and independent course, his liberal sentiments and his generous hospitality. He had filled several important public stations with much credit, and died in the occupancy of the office of Chief Magis- trate, whose duties he had discharged with dignity and general satis- faction.
His obsequies on July 13th were witnessed by a large concourse of his fellow citizens.
At a special meeting of his Executive Council, Mr. Worthington sub- mitted the following record for the Journal:
We hereby testify our high esteem for his frank, manly and polite deportment; his liberal, social and benevolent disposition; his republican simplicity of manners; his firmness and consistency as a politician, and his ever warm and unerring devotion to what he conceived to be the public good.
Resolved that the Armorer cause nineteen guns to be fired on Thurs- day morning at sun-rise and nineteen at sunset, and that the State flag be half hoisted, as funeral honors to the deceased. Similar resolutions were offered in the Lower House and Senate. Governor George Howard his successor, paid another eulogy to his predecessor.
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The following is the inscription on the large white marble monu- ment of imposing design, which marks the grave of Hon. Daniel Martin in Spring Hill Cemetery, Easton, Md .:
To the memory of Daniel Martin, who departed this life on the 11th day of July, 1831. Aged 50 years and 7 months, this stone is dedicated.
He was distinguished by the confidence of his fellow citzens, having been often called to fill various posts of honor and of trust. In the last of these as Governor of his native State, to which he had been twice elected, he descended to the tomb. Thus closed his bright career of honor and usefulness.
In his death lamented, as in life he had been honored.
COLONEL JACOB GIBSON 1759-1818
He was a man, take him, for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again.
HAMLET.
It was formerly the custom of conveyancers and scriveners, and the custom has not as yet fallen into complete desuetude, to make mention of the calling and social position of the parties to any indentures they were required to prepare. In these days of theoretical equality, we hardly tolerate the formal recognition of distinctions between men found- ed upon their profession or avocation. Years back men were not ashamed to have put upon record, as some would be now, that they followed certain mechanical trades. There was not only no shame, but there was a pride among the handicraftsmen, that not only felt no dishonor from their manual occupation, but was very exacting of due social recognition by reason of their honest calling. In truth, in the early stages of society the man practising any of the useful arts, was thought to be more deserving of consideration from his fellows than the man whose abilities or accomplishments, whatever they may be, could not be turned to some profitable account. The early colonists of Virginia and Maryland soon learned to estimate the value of the gallants that came over to mend their broken fortunes. They welcomed the horny-
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handed mechanic, while they turned their backs upon the elegant courtier. They were these hardy workmen who founded many families of this county and state that would now disdain their ancestors if they should come back to them in their leather aprons bearing their sledge hammers, their lap-stones and jack planes. If any one will take the pains to go into the clerk's office and ask Mr. Turner to permit him to see the land records for the year 1693, he will find a deed of gift re- corded in favor of Jacob Gibson, blacksmith. If this Jacob Gibson had been ashamed of his honest calling he would have required the conveyancer either to suppress all mention of his humble trade, or he would have had himself designated as farrier, artist in iron, manufacturer of agricultural implements, or by some such euphemism, but being a blacksmith he wished to be recognized as a blacksmith, and as nothing else. But if a further examination of this book of records be made, it will be discovered, after the lapse of a few years, that a Jacob Gibson was a party to another transaction and that he is mentioned as Jacob Gibson, planter. A little further on, a few more years having rolled by, and the name of a Jacob Gibson, gentleman, is discovered. Now from certain collateral evidence it appears that Jacob Gibson, black- smith, Jacob Gibson, planter, and Jacob Gibson, gentleman, were not three Jacob Gibsons, but one and the same Jacob Gibson. He had earned enough money at his forge, or he had otherwise honestly obtained it, to buy land; and then his farming had been so successful that he bought more land, so that his wealth justified his living at his ease, and enabled him to cultivate the graces of life and not the economies alto- gether. In these several metamorphoses, it was the same man; just as the larva, the chrysalis and the imago are the same insect, in differ- ent conditions of development. If Jacob Gibson, gentleman, was really a gentleman when he was so called-and there is no reason to believe he was not-there is no doubt all the gentleman's traits, honesty, truth- fulness, courtesy, courage and kindness existed previously in Jacob Gibson, the planter, and in Jacob Gibson, the blacksmith: just as the rudiments of the showy butterfly are discernible in the toiling cater- pillar, and in the secluded pupa, requiring only the bright warmth of favoring circumstances to be developed in all their beauty.1 But besides
1 That Jacob Gibson had begun to feel his importance in the community, we have evidence in a record of the Court held August 18th, 1696, in which it is stated that he was "fined 500 pounds of tobacco for contemptuously refusing to serve as Constable of Island Hundred." Island Hundred was at this date constituted of what is now Miles River Neck and Wye Island.
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being called gentleman he had the accolade of provincial knighthood laid upon his shoulders, for he bore the commission of a Colonel in the Maryland forces, an aristocratic distinction in those early days of our history. And further, as evincing his rise in the social scale, he inter- married with the gentry of the colony, Alice, the daughter of Lieut. Col. Woolman, becoming his wife. Col. Richard Woolman was a con- spicuous and honored personage. He lived in Miles River Neck where he was the possessor of broad acres, and where he gave name to an estate which continues to be designated as "Woolman's" to this day. He came to Talbot from Anne Arundel, which county he represented in the General Assembly in 1659. Upon the organization of Talbot, he, having removed to the Eastern Shore, became the first representative of this county in the House of Burgesses, in 1661. This honorable position he continued to hold for many years, his name appearing in the list of delegates down to 1675. He was also for a longer time one of the Worshipful Commissioners and Justices of the Peace for the county of Talbot, from 1662 to 1680, and for a part of this period he was the Chief Justice. He died in or about the year 1680, leaving a son of the same name who died without male heirs, in April, 1714, bequeath- ing a part of his estate to his sister Alice, the wife of Jacob Gibson, blacksmith, planter, gentleman and colonel of the Maryland militia, who in his turn died April 7, 1741, devising the greater part of his estate to his son Woolman and cutting off a dissolute son, named Richard. Wollman Gibson died soon after his father, as his will was admitted to probate May 7th, 1742. He left four sons, the eldest and heir, was of his own name, Woolman, and the others bore names that were perpetu- ated in the family, John, Jonathan and Jacob. Of these Woolman and John were men of note in their day, and especially John, who was for several terms member of the House of Delegates, a Justice of the Peace for the county, a Justice of the Orphans' Court, and a member of the first Convention to frame a constitution for the state. Woolman, who may be designated as second of the name, though not so conspicu- ous as his brother, also held civil stations. He married a daughter of Colonel and Surgeon General Tilton of Delaware and by her were born to him four sons, who received the same names as those of the previous generation, John, Jonathan, Wollman and Jacob. John held civil stations of honor; Jonathan entered the revolutionary army in 1777 as second lieutenant in the 5th battalion of regulars, Col. William Richardson, of Caroline, being Colonel. He served with credit through the war, rose to the rank of Captain and died in 1783 at sea, upon his
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return from the West Indies, whither he had gone for his health. He was companion-in-arms of Gen. Benson of this county. In a letter still in existence, Gen. Smallwood, his commander, speaks of him in flatter- ing terms. Woolman Gibson held positions of trust, but took no part in the war, though one of his name, his cousin, and the son of his uncle John, enlisted in the company of Captain Greenbury Goldsborough of the Eastern Shore Battalion, of the Flying Camp, in 1776. The young- est brother of this family of Woolman Gibson, the second of the name was Jacob, the subject of this biographical sketch, a man who for thirty years or longer was more conspicuously in the view of the people of this county, for one cause or another, than any other person then living in Talbot, whatever his abilities or his station: a man who uniting great infirmities of character with great vigor of understanding, was more feared, hated and abused, yet withal was more influential as a political parti- san than any man of his day in this community. In preparing this memoir no attempt shall be made to extenuate his faults, which were many, as there shall be none to exaggerate his excellencies, which were more numerous. His life is presented not as one worthy of imitation or admiration, but as one full of interest for the simply curious, and not devoid of value to the student of our local history, who would acquaint himself with the different phases of our political and social life during the period of time which it covers.
It will have been seen from this genealogy, that Jacob Gibson came of good stock,2 and that in him was mingled the blood of the colonial gentry and the blood of the artizan who won his way to fortune by his own sturdy blows upon his anvil. His ancestors all belonged to that portion of the county which is called, by a misnomer, Miles River Neck, where the first Jacob Gibson came into possession by marriage, by purchase, and by original patent of several tracts of land known by the names of Todd, upon Darwin, Chappenham, Bendon, Edmonton, Leith and others. These lands all lay on St. Michaels river and upon them Jacob Gibson, the last of the name, was born. Portions of these tracts, of which he became owner, he had resurveyed under a warrant from the land office, issued in 1802, and united them into one under the name of Marengo-a name that indicates the admiration of the donor for that wonderful man, who was at this period astonishing the world with his victories over the enemies of republican France, and who in Jacob Gibson's opinion was the very avatar of Democracy.
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