USA > Maryland > Talbot County > History of Talbot county, Maryland, 1661-1861, Volume I > Part 56
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Having thus again come into possession of his own, we hear little of Claiborne until 1654, when his rights which had been recognized under the "reducement" were called in question. Gov. Stone had resolved under advice or instruction from Lord Baltimore to relinquish his sub- mission to the commissioners of Parliament and assumed his former relation. He therefore ordered all writs to be issued in the Proprietary's name, and he himself exercised the power of governor in the name and under the authority of the Proprietary, without regard to the Parlia- mentary commissioners. This brought Mr. Bennett and Col. Clai- borne to Maryland, who proceeded to effect a second "reducement."
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Gov. Stone attempted military resistance by mustering his forces, but the Puritans from the Severn threatened him in front, while a party of Virginias came up in his rear. He was therefore constrained to submit to the commissioners without resorting to the arbitrament of a battle. A new government was appointed by them instead of the old, of which Capt. Fuller was made the chief.
In this unsettled condition the colony of Maryland remained until the beginning of 1655, when information arrived by the ship Golden Fortune, Capt. Tilghman, that Lord Baltimore had secured the favor of the Lord Protector Cromwell, and had had his proprietary rights restored or confirmed. Again Gov. Stone began to exercise authority under his commission from Lord Baltimore, and to claim that all legal action should be in his name. This brought about an armed collision between the people of St. Mary's headed by Gov. Stone, and the people of Providence, or the Puritans, under Capt. Fuller. There is not space here to relate all the circumstances of this memorable fight. Suffice it to say the Puritans were successful, Gov. Stone and many of his companions being taken prisoners. No injury was done to their persons but their property was sequestrated. After this affair Bennett and Claiborne drew up a letter to the Lord Protector, Cromwell, explaining from their point of view all the recent transactions; but this great man seems to have regarded these contests in a remote colony of as too little importance to engage his serious attention, and the whole busi- ness was referred to the commissioners of trade whose report seems to have been favorable to the cause of Lord Baltimore. After much delay and negotiation, in the year 1658, the Proprietary was restored all his rights and privileges under his charter, with the consent and ap- probation of all parties in Maryland as in England. We have no evidence that even Claiborne objected, although this reinstalment in- volved the surrender of all his claims to the island and extinquished forever all hope that he should be able again to make himself the mas- ter of his settlement. The adjustment of the difficulties was, indeed, made in England and Claiborne who was in Virginia seems not to have been consulted. It is intimated that he was pacified by grants in Virginia as will hereafter be noticed. Thus terminated the career in Maryland of him who planted within its border the first seeds of civi- lization and erected the first altar of the Christian faith.
Claiborne continued to reside in Virginia and to enjoy those honors and emoluments which had been bestowed upon him. He continued
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CAPTAIN WILLIAM CLAIBORNE OF KENT ISLAND
to be Secretary of State, and ex-officio a member of the assembly of that province up to 1661, when he was displaced by King Charles II, who had been restored to the throne. But in the very next year he was returned as a Burgess of the county of New Kent, and so continued to be for a number of years. To this county it is thought he removed about the year 1654, and one annalist intimates that rights and franchises were given to him here in consideration of his surrender of Kent Island -a conjecture not at all improbable. It is further asserted that to this county he gave the name derived from his settlement in Maryland. In the year 1676 he is known to have been in command of a fort in New Kent county, which had been erected for defense against the Indians; and in 1677 to have been a member of courts martial for the trial of those who had participated in Bacon's rebellion in Virginia.
Thus, for fifty years, to use the words of Dr. Allen in his inedited account of Kent Island, "we find him holding office in the colony, and the greater part of the time the second officer in the government."
"He was sustained against his enemies by King Charles I., by the parliament, by Cromwell, and by the votes of the people of the prov- ince of Virginia."
The memory of a man so endorsed, though pronounced a pirate and a murderer by his hostile cotemporaries, and branded as the "evil genius of Maryland" by some of those who came after him, may be safely left to the verdict of dispassionate and impartial history.
From Col. Claiborne have descended some of the most distinguished citizens of this country-men who have illustrated our annals by their services as governors of States and territories, as senators and repre- sentatives in Congress, and as members of the legislatures of several of the States.
BALTIMORE PROFESSOR AND FRIEND DISCOVER THE PLACE WHERE CLAI- BORNE LIVED.
An event of interest to all students of colonial Maryland is the posi- tive identification of Captain William Claiborne's settlement on Kent Island, by Dr. Bernard C. Steiner, associate in history at Johns Hop- kins University, and De Courcey W. Thom of Baltimore and Blakeford.
Few chapters of colonial history present more vividly the struggles of early settlers against untoward conditions than the career of William Claiborne, a persistent and successful contestant with Lord Baltimore for the right of governing on Kent Island.
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The first settlement made by white men in Maryland was that of Kent Fort, on Kent Island. Here Captain Claiborne and his lieu- tenant landed August 17, 1631, with a company comprising sixteen men and one woman, indentured to Cloberry & Co., London, in which firm Claiborne was partner, and seven hired servants. They built there a church, windmill, palisaded fort and shed for the storage of "truck" and furs. Within the precincts of the fort were cultivated corn and tobacco.
Thither came Leonard Calvert, in February, 1638, with Captain Cornwallis and a body of musketeers, and captured the fort, without bloodshed, in the name of the lord proprietor. Calvert found a private plantation of Claiborne's, called Crawford, in care of his servants, about five miles to the north, probably on the west shore of the island. There were two other private plantations.
Bozman's "History of Maryland" and Davis' "Day Star" say that Kent Fort was near the south end of the island and was situated on the side toward Eastern Bay, on the first navigable creek.
Claiborne was a Virginian, and his settlement was represented in the Virginia House of Burgesses two years before the settlement of St. Mary's. After being seized by Baltimore's followers the proprietary gave the manor of Kent Fort to his brother Leonard as a reward for the expedition. Later he transferred it to Giles Brent. From him it de- scended to his son and grandson of the same name, who resided in Virginia; then the heir-at-law of the last William Brent, and next to his son of the same name. In 1737 the lessee of this last person suc- cessfully maintained an action for ejectment against Benjamin Tasker, who, with his predecessors, had been in possession forty years. It was held by the Court that the statute of limitations did not run against a person who resided in another province.
MANOR HOUSE BURNED
The manor house was burned about 1750. Another house was erected on the same foundation, but has long since disappeared. Somewhere on the island also stood the first courthouse of Kent county, and, in- deed, the first on the Eastern Shore. For a long period the estate be- longed in the Chew family, and has since been variously divided.
Messrs. Thom and Steiner, in the summer of 1904, drove along the main road of the island, trying to identify the site of Kent Fort. The island is somewhat less than twenty miles in length from Love Point, the railway terminus, to Kent Point, and its greatest width may be ten to twelve miles. The southern part, however, is only about a mile wide.
They went to the house of J. Frank Legg and found that they were in Kent Fort Manor. Mr. Legg went with them to show the point which tradition marked as the site of Claiborne's settlement. They found it on a slight elevation back of an old landing on the bend of a navigable creek above Kent Point. To the north of the site, now known as Chew's
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CAPTAIN WILLIAM CLAIBORNE OF KENT ISLAND
Gardens and cultivated as a field, in a valley which was probably once an inlet so that the site was surrounded on three sides by water, they found several fragments of glazed bricks about seventy yards from the shore, which may have been part of the Brent manor house.
John Esten Cooke in a well written article on "Claiborne, The Rebel," published in the August number, 1883, of the Magazine of American History, says, that after the defeat of Lord Baltimore's expedition under Governor Stone against the Puritans on the Severn, near Annapolis-
And now at last it seemed that Claiborne had "triumphed over all his enemies." He was the head of the Puritan party, who were the com- plete masters of all Maryland.
The lifelong conflict with Lord Baltimore had terminated in the final overthrow of Baltimore's power and, as far as human eye could see, "the execrable villain and felon convict," William Claiborne, would continue to rule Maryland as long as Oliver Cromwell ruled over Eng- land. It was a very great change of circumstances for the unknown man who had left Cleburn in Westmoreland, England, about thirty years before, and had come to Virginia to seek his fortunes. He had quite distanced all other Cleburnes. They had been valiant chevaliers, but their descendant had become a celebrity. With nothing to aid him but his own brain and will, he had made successful headway against the powerful Lord Baltimore-indeed, against the crown itself; and now in these last days had finally attained all his ends, and was not only Lord of Kent, but of all Maryland.
It was the fate, however, of this remarkable man to encounter at last such obstacles as no human power can contend with. He was not to retain his authority in Maryland. In the autumn of 1658 the great Protector passed away and two years afterwards Charles II was restored to his throne, and Maryland quietly acknowledged him. That was necessarily the end of the authority of Claiborne in the province. There was no longer any possibility even of retaining his hold on Kent Island, and for the rest of his life we hear of no further attempts to regain possession of it. He and his old Puritan followers were under an eclipse. They had been mercilessly expelled first from Virginia and were now crushed by the Baltimoreans in Maryland; and their leader failing at last in all his aims there, found himself removed from the Virginia Council. We hear no further mention of him in the records of the time, for the William Claiborne who sat on a Court-martial to try the Baconian rebels seems to have been his son. The famous
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rebel was now a very old man and spent the remainder of his life at his fine house of "Romancoke," in King William County, Va., and either here, or in the county of New Kent, he died at the age of about ninety toward the end of the century.
Such was the peaceful termination of a long and agitated career which is prominently connected with the first years of American his- tory. The curious personage here outlined has much exercised the historians. Their views have been seen and the reader may form his own opinion of them. It seems they might have informed themselves a little better before indulging in adjectives, and presented the real portrait of the man for which the materials were accessible. There is no actual question as to the position and character of Claiborne; the only point of doubt is the controlling motive of his career in Maryland.
The present writer has stated his own view-that the prime mo- tive was personal antagonism to Lord Baltimore who sought to wrest from him the rich island of Kent and drive him out of Maryland. That fact was amply sufficient to make a foe of a man like Claiborne, but it is certain that he also resented the intrusion of the Marylanders as an invasion of the rights of Virginia. There is no doubt that the Mary- land grant was a wrong. The soil belonged to Virginia and was vested in her under her charter, and by his defending his own rights in the Island of Kent, Claiborne was also defending the rights of Virginia in Maryland.
These old struggles are now long forgotten but they lie at the foun- dation of American history and are worthy of attention.
In the history of Virginia in the seventeenth century two great episodes are the most prominent and important-the great rebellion led by Bacon against Sir William Berkeley and Charles II, and this civil war in Maryland under Claiborne against Lord Baltimore and Charles I. Bacon's character and career have secured the renown to which they are entitled, while Claiborne's have been caricatured by political opponents and their modern echoes.
The decision against his claims by the Lords commissioners made him technically a rebel; but his right was still there and he was justified in defending it. Although a man of resolute will and high pride, he was really placable. He treated Stone with moderation and no enemy ever charged him with meanness. The real man is here painted on the au- thority of incontestable records. His career has been traced from his childhood at Cleburne Hall to his old age at Romancoke, and it seems an easy matter from these personal details to reach the char-
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ALEXANDER D'HINOJOSA
acter of the man. He was a soldier, a diplomat, a politician and a man of genius. Living in an age which was not scrupulous he fought his enemies with their own weapons, and the multitudes of honorable persons of his blood in the United States need not be ashamed of their descent from him.
ALEXANDER D'HINOJOSA THE LAST DUTCH GOVERNOR OF DELAWARE
If any one curious about old times and old time people should go into our County Clerk's office and ask the amiable and obliging officer in charge, or his equally amiable and obliging deputy, to allow him to see the records of the oldest date in his possession, Mr. Baggs or Mr. Turner would go the southwest corner of the room, and from one of the lower- most cases take an old, yet well preserved volume, bound in vellum, and written in a clear and clerky hand, though in such ancient characters that the inexperienced eye will have difficulty in reading the exceedingly curious transactions of the earliest Courts of Justice in our county, therein contained. This old book is marker Liber A .- 1662-1674, but by a more recent numbering, made when the records were indexed anew, marked No. 1. If this curious person should turn over the leaves of this volume upon which are recorded conveyances of land, bills of sale, deeds of gift, powers of attorney, executors' bonds, abstracts of wills, &c., he will come across, on page 104, a deed of one Seth Foster and Elizabeth his wife, bearing date the 4th day of March 1669, to one
Master Alexander Vingolsea, of Bommel, Gilderland, for a parcel of land called by the name of Poplers Island, lying and being an island of itself, and bounded upon the Island of Kent, in the county of Talbot.
The consideration paid for this tract of land was three hundred pounds "starling currant money." It is very evident that this first volume of court records is a transcript or copy from an original volume now lost. It is equally evident that either the transcriber could not read the name of the purchaser of the land as he found it in the original, or that Wm. Hemsley, the clerk of the court in 1669 could not decipher the odd name which he found in the conveyance brought to him for record in that year.
This Mr. Seth Foster was a man of note in his day. He was one of the Justices of the Peace, and at his house which was at the date of the above mentioned deed on Choptank Island, courts were sometimes held, before the first court house at York, was built. This Choptank
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Island was what is now called Tilghman's Island, but called for many years in the old record, "the great Island in Choptank." It also bore the name of Lowe's Island, having been the residence of Col. Vincent Lowe, an early Talbot worthy, a Justice of the Peace, Surveyor General, a member of the House of Burgesses, a member of the Privy council, and Judge of the Provincial court. This island was subsequently called Ward's Island, having belonged to Matthew Tilghman Ward, another early worthy, and finally called Tilghman's Island, from having been the property of the Hon. Matthew Tilghman, who distinguished himself so greatly in our Revolutionary times, in connection with our State and County affairs.
If the same person, curious about old times and old time people, should take it into his head to examine the early laws of the State, and should fall upon that splendid folio said to have been from type and upon paper imported expressly for this work and bearing the imprint of Jonas Green, of Annapolis, 1765, and entitled "Laws of Maryland at large with proper Indexes," by Thomas Bacon, himself at one time the Rector of St. Peter's Parish in this county, and the founder of the Charity School, that once occupied a part of the present Alms House building, he would find another very strange name, that of Alexander D'Hyniossa, which, if he should take to be the same as that of Alex- ander Vingolsea, mentioned in the land records of the county, he would not be mistaken, for Vingolsea was evidently the copyist's error for D'Hyniossa, as subsequent records plainly show. It will be seen by consulting Bacon's Laws, 1671-Chapter X, that Alexander D'Hy- niossa of Foster's Island in the county of Talbot, and Margaretta his wife, Alexander, Johannes, Peter, Maria, Johanna, Christiana and Barbara, sons and daughters of the said Alexander and Margaretta, presented their humble petition to the General Assembly of the Prov- ince of Maryland for naturalization, which was granted April 1671, and conformed by an act 1676. Now this Master Alexander D'Hy- niossa, Hinojosa, Debonissa, Inniosa, Injossa, as it is variously spelled, is frequently named in our county records from 1669 and onwards, but in Nov. 1691, he is mentioned as being no longer a resident of Foster's or "Popler's Island," but of Anne Arundel county: after which date our records about him are forever silent.
Now the simple mention of this man's outlandish name, his purchase of an Island in the Cheaspeake for his home, his taking part in the every day transactions of life, buying and selling, suing and being sued, his naturalization by an act of Assembly, and finally his change of resi-
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ALEXANDER D'HINOJOSA
dence to the Western Shore, are very ordinary incidents, and if these were all we knew of him, his memory would be consigned to that ob- livion which is the destiny of most: but this man who settled here in Talbot soon after its organization as a county, and led the quiet life of a tobacco planter for many years on a wild and lonely island, had an eventful and checkened career as soldier, statesman, governor of a province, political exile, humble suppliant of favors from his enemies, and wanderer returning, with sad steps and broken fortunes, to his home in the old country to die. History has preserved memorials of this personage, now about forgotten, and our neighboring State of Delaware may yet erect a statue to the memory of him who sacrificed home, fortune, and position in her early defense against the arbitrary claims of a selfish King and his more selfish brother.
Peter Stuyvesant, immortalized by Irving, in his history of New York, as Peter, the Headstrong, Governor of New Netherlands, as all the Dutch settlements in North America were called, had just effected the conquest of the weak Swedish settlements, made under the auspices of the great Gustavus Adolphus, upon South River, as the Delaware was then called; the Hudson being called North River. But in ex- tending the boundaries of the province of New Netherlands, the Dutch West India Company, under whose patronage the settlements were made, had encountered an enemy on the south in Lord Baltimore, who claimed territorial rights extending to the Delaware Bay and River. The Company, in order to interpose between their lands and those of the Maryland Proprietary another colony which should have more powerful support than could be given by a mere commercial company, sold to the Burgomasters of the great city of Amsterdam all the territory on the west side of the Delaware from the Brandywine to Bombay Hook, for the purpose of colonization and of trade with the Indians, and the more profitable trade with the Virginia and Maryland settlements. Perhaps piracy was another branch of commerce that was expected to be profited by this colony of the city, for privateering against the Spaniards was a favorite and remunerative business with the Dutch at that period. The fort that had been established upon what is now the site of the town of New Castle, and called "Fort Casi- mir," was about to be evacuated by the forces of the West India Com- pany, so it became necessary that it should be garrisoned at once by soldiers of the city of Amsterdam, in order to afford protection to the settlers already upon the spot, and those about to embark from Hol- land, from the attacks of the savages and the encroachments of the
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Marylanders. So the Right Worshipful, the Burgomasters, or rather the Commissioners of the Colonies, to whom they delegated the business of supervising and administering the affairs of their new colony, looked about them for suitable officers to command the military. This was in 1656. They chose Master Martin Kryger as Captain of the Company, on account of his knowledge of New Netherlands, and Master Alexan- der D'Hinojosa as Lieutenant, on account of his military experience, he having seen much service in Brazil, and "having been long em- ployed there as Lieutenant and Captain Lieutenant." Accordingly the following commission was issued to Lieutenant Alexander D'Hino- josa, a similar one having been bestowed on Captain Martin Kryger.
The Burgomasters and Regents of the city of Amstelredamme, having resolved to send a company of soldiers to their Colonie in New Netherland, and therefore requiring to appoint a suitable person, who, as Lieutenant, may command under the Valliant Martin Kryger, Cap- tain of said Company, the person of Alexander D'Hinojosa was pro- posed as such to them, make known, that they on the good report ren- dered them of the fitness, fidelity and experience of the aforesaid Alex- ander D'Hinojosa, have accepted, appointed and commissioned him as Lieutenant, to command in good correspondence and unity the said Company, under the Captain aforesaid, and according to his instruc- tions and orders, given and to be given by their worships, to promote our service, wherefore, we order and command all officers and soldiers of said Company, the aforesaid Alexander D'Hinojosa to acknowledge, to respect and obey as their Lieutenant, for such is their Worship's pleasure. In witness whereof the seal of the said city is affixed here- unto, the 5th December, 1656. (Was signed)
J. CORVER.
Having besides a seal impressed in green wax.
The officers being thus commissioned, the expedition set sail for Manhattan or New York where it arrived safe, but not without hav- ing encountered much danger. Thence Captain Kryger went round by sea with a portion of the command, while Lieut. D'Hinojosa marched across the land arriving at Fort Casimir, or New Amstel as it was now called, May 1, 1657. The first officer of this colony, styled vice Di- rector, was Jacob Alrichs, Peter Stuyvesant of Manhattan being the Director General of all the New Netherlands. D'Hinojosa from the first seems to have taken a leading part in the affairs of the city settle- ment on South River, as appears from his being deputed in Aug. of 1658 to proceed to Manhattan to represent the condition of New Am- stel to the Director General, by his becoming one of the Council in 1659, by his being made First Councillor and Captain Lieutenant, in the
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same year, by his being selected to visit the fatherland to represent to the Honorable Commissioners of the Colony its true condition and necessities, and finally by his becoming Director or Governor upon the death of Jacob Alrichs, in 1660, who nominated him for that office, which nomination was subsequently confirmed by the supreme authority at Amsterdam. The deceased Governor, or vice Director showed by this act of nomination that he had a much better opinion of D'Hinojosa than D'Hinojosa had of the Governor, for during his lifetime, the Coun- cillor did not hesitate to characterize the administration of his superior in his communications to the home authorities as weak if not corrupt.
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