USA > Maryland > Talbot County > History of Talbot county, Maryland, 1661-1861, Volume I > Part 59
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Chamberlaine may have been one of this kind of men. Or he may have contracted that indifferentism which was the characteristic of the last century; or finally he may, in the latter portion of his life, have wished, by his example of frigidity to cool the religious fervors of some of his sons who may already have betrayed a measure of the zealotry of their after years.
Three years after the death of his wife, Mary Ungle, whose gentle face still beams upon us from the canvas, he married January 22, 1729, Henrietta Maria, the daughter of Mr. James Lloyd and granddaughter of Col. Philemon Lloyd of Wye House. Six children were the fruit of this marriage: Thomas, who was heir of the estate "Plain Dealing," James Lloyd, whose home was "Peach Blossom," Samuel the master of "Bonfield," Henrietta Maria, married to William Nicols, the son of the Rev. Henry Nicols, and lived at "Galloway," Richard, who died at an early age, and Ann, married to Richard Tilghman Earle of "Melfield," Queen Anne's county. Of these Mr. Thomas, or as he was afterwards, known, Col. Thomas Chamberlaine was born at Oxford in 1731, married Susannah, daughter of Mr. George Robins of "Peach-Blossom," made his home at "Plain Dealing," engaged in trade, succeeded his father as deputy naval officer and collector of the port of Oxford, was frequently vestryman of St. Michael's parish, was held in high esteem for his honor- able character and virtuous life, and died at an early age in 1764, leav- ing an only child, a son bearing his own name and whose years were also few. There is a family tradition, that probably has as much truth as a basis as such traditions usually possess, that his young widow, "for seven years after the death of her husband remained in her chamber at "Plain Dealing," from a window of which, overlooking the burial ground, she could see his tomb" which she had erected to his memory.9 Such constancy of grief, so impressively expressed which by shunning
9 "Genealogical Notes," by John Bozman Kerr.
The following is the inscription upon this tomb, below the family coat of arms:
IN MEMORY OF COL. THOMAS CHAMBERLAINE OF TALBOT COUNTY ELDEST SON OF SAMUEL AND HENRIETTA MARIA CHAMBERLAINE, WHO DIED MAY 13, 1764 AGED 33 YEARS THIS STONE IS ERECTED BY HIS SORROWFUL WIDOW SUSANNA CHAMBERLAINE.
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invited consolation could have but one sufficient assuagement, and this was found in a second marriage with a young man, her junior in years, Mr. Robert Lloyd Nicols.
Mr. James Lloyd Chamberlaine, another son of the first Samuel Chamberlaine, was born at Oxford in 1732, and married Henrietta Maria, daughter of Mr. George Robins of "Peach Blossom" and had one son, Mr. Robins Chamberlaine, who is remembered in this county for having wasted a splendid patrimony by the most reckless extravagance, and for his having made the fortune of those who had the settlement of his vast estate. Mr. James Lloyd Chamberlaine, the first of the name, was a very considerable personage. Residing on Wye until the death of his mother-in-law he removed to "Peach Blossom." He was possessed through inheritance and marriage of large wealth, but he nevertheless en- gaged in commercial adventures, which were greatly profitable, enabling him to leave a fortune of half a million dollars (see Biog. An. No. 1, p. 119). He was high sheriff from 1759 to 1761 and receiver of the Lord Pro- prietary's alienation fees for the same period. In February, 1771, he was elected a member of the lower house of Assembly and continued so to be nominally until the expiration of the provincial government in 1776. He was in full sympathy with the movements towards resist- ance to British aggression and colonial independence, in this differing from his family. In 1775 he was a member of the committee of obser- vation for Talbot county. In December of the same year he was in the convention of delegates, chosen by the several counties of the province of Maryland, having Messrs. Matthew Tilghman, Nicholas Thomas and Pollard Edmondson as his coadjutors. At and by this convention he was chosen brigadier general of the upper district of the Eastern Shore, comprising all the counties above Choptank river. In October, 1776, he was one of four commissioners appointed by the convention to pro- ceed to the camps in the Jerseys and New York for the purpose of offer- ing bounties for the enlistment of soldiers for the war, and reorganizing companies and battalions "according to the continental establishment." This convention was that which framed the first Constitution of Mary- land, but Mr. Chamberlaine was not permitted to share in the delibera- tions of this assembly, on account of his absence upon military duty; but there is no doubt of his approval of the results of those deliberations.10 In 1780 he was elected one of the delegates in the lower house of Assem-
10 While present or until called away by military duty Mr. Chamberlaine took active part in the proceedings. There is not space here for an account of the part taken by him.
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bly, with James Hindman, Nicholas Martin and Edward Lloyd as his associates. The death of General James Lloyd Chamberlaine occurred late in 1783, as his will is probated December 15 of that year.
In a letter to the council of safety he resigned his commission in the army December 26, 1776, for reasons unknown.
Of another son of Mr. Samuel Chamberlaine, and one who bore his name, a man of very marked characteristics, an account will be given in a separate paper, so nothing need here be said of him.
Of his daughters it is sufficient to say they married men of character and position and left descendants who are proud to trace their origin to these gentlewomen who won by their graces of mind and person the affection of husbands, the reverence of children and the honoring respect of neighbors.
Mr. Chamberlaine died on the 30th of April, 1773, and though no stone marks the place of his interment, it is altogether probable he was buried beside his second wife at Plain Dealing, where he had erected a tomb to her memory, with a suitable inscription surmounted with the Chamberlaine Coat of Arms.11 The omission or neglect to place a monumental shaft or simple tablet above the grave of Mr. Chamber- laine may be attributed to the interruption of commercial intercourse between Maryland and the mother country soon after his death, and to the fact that Plain Dealing fell into the hands of a grandson, and a minor. This neglect, it will be seen, was made use of to give a kind of plausibility to the grewsome story of the apparition, presently to be recounted. As one of most prominent citizens of Maryland, and as one well known in all the provinces of America, notices of his death made their appear- ance in the public journals of Annapolis, Philadelphia, New York and probably of Boston. The time, however, was not propitious for eulo- giums of one more than suspected of being out of sympathy with the ris- ing spirit of colonial autonomy. So little is known of Mr. Chamber- laine's endowments of mind and personal character that an attempt to depict them would be made by the pencil and colors of the imagina- 11 The following is the inscription:
UNDERNEATH LIETH INTERRED THE BODY OF MRS. HENRIETTA MARIA CHAMBERLAINE LATE WIFE OF MR. SAMUEL CHAMBERLAINE AND ELDEST DAUGHTER OF COL. JAMES LLOYD OF TALBOT COUNTY. SHE DEPARTED THIS LIFE ON THE 29TH DAY OF MARCH 1748 AGED THIRTY SEVEN YEARS TWO MONTHS AND THREE DAYS.
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tion merely. He has left behind some tracings or silhouettes of a me- thodical, painstaking, industrious, thrifty, judicious, proud and honor- able man. We may, if we please, and, probably, as we ought, fill these in with the lines and tints, the lights and shades of unaffected piety, unostentatious charity, tender affection, spotless purity and gentle ways. Of his bodily appearance we have better information. There are two portraits of him still in existence,12 one taken as it is supposed soon after his marriage while in England and the other at a later date when he was in mature and vigorous life. It represents him as tall, portly man with strong features, dark but florid complexion, animated expression of countenance and dignified mien. He wears the garb of the earlier half of the last century, a purple velvet coat and full wig. The whole gives the impression of a gentleman, highly bred, self-respect- ing, vigorous and prosperous.13
It may be noted as well here as elsewhere that Mr. Chamberlaine appears to have been a valued friend of Mr. Robert Morris, the merchant of Oxford whose mutilated tombstone still remains at old White Marsh Church, for in Mr. Morris' will he leaves mourning rings to Mr. Cham- berlaine and other gentlemen who enjoyed his intimacy.
Mr. Chamberlaine died possessed of a great estate14 in land and negroes, which was distributed by will among his children and grand- children, a son of Thomas Chamberlaine inheriting "Plain Dealing," which he seems never to have occupied as a residence, for though destined for the bar, and though he spent the usual terms as law student in the Middle Temple, London, in preparation for a legal career, his inclina-
12 The picture described is really a beautiful work of art and worthy of the pencil of Copley, if indeed it be not from his easel, as is probable. The pose, the expression and the coloring are all fine. It is a three-quarter length portrait, and in perfect preservation.
13 The portraits referred to in this paper, namely that of Thomas Chamber- laine, the father of Samuel Chamberlaine of Plain Dealing, the two portraits of Samuel Chamberlaine, and of his two wives Mary Ungle and Henrietta Maria Lloyd, hung in the drawing room of Plain Dealing for many years after it had been deserted by the Chamberlaines. They were removed to Bonfield, where they with others, belonging to that branch of the family, hung until they were taken possession of by their present owner Dr. Joseph E. Chamberlaine, who has had them carefully renovated without injury to their artistic value.
14 This place, then occupied by a Mr. Milburn, the trustee of young Chamber- laine, was the scene of that curious episode of the Revolutionary war, in this county, of the forcible seizure of salt there stored, by a party of armed men of Caroline County. An account of this incident has been given in a separate article.
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4
tions were for trade, and he made one of a firm of merchants at Talbot Court House, now Easton, whose style was Nicols, Kerr and Cham- berlaine.15 Dying early at the age of twenty-four years he left the "Plain Dealing" estate to his half brother Mr. Lloyd Nicols, who squan- dering a "vast fortune," this fine property was bought by Mr. John Loockerman and through him passed into the hands of his nephews, the sons of his brother, the Hon. Theodore R. Loockerman from which it soon passed. The lands comprising the tract known by the name "Plain Dealing," which was formed by a union under Mr. Ungle and Mr. Chamberlaine of a number of smaller surveys, have been divided and subdivided of late years; but in 1855 the homestead with a con- siderable acreage surrounding came by purchase into the possession of Capt. E. L. F. Hardcastle, late of the United States Army, who tore down the greater part of the old mansion that had gone to decay and ruin,. and erected a handsome, substantial and commodious brick house for his own residence. This is now occupied by his son, Mr. Richard L. Hard- castle.
This account of "Plain Dealing" and some of its inhabitants would be more incomplete than it is, if there should be an omission to relate the "ghost story" that in the mind of every citizen of the county is habitually associated with the old place and its former occupants. The story has been told so often that a mere reference to it would seem to be all that is necessary in this paper and its repetition clearly super- fluous: but the fact is it has received so many additions, accretions, embellishments and perversions, from every kind of relator-from the old negro gossip, neighborhood chronicler, versatile, vivacious news- paper correspondent, to the stately management or solemn pneumatol- ogist-every one of whom appears to have thought it incumbent upon him to add something, not for the purpose of misrepresentation but involuntarily to deepen interest in his narrative, that it seems necessary to give the "sound unvarnished tale," as much to present a remarkable illustration of the growth of legend by gradual accretion and unconscious invention, as to preserve the truth about an interesting occurrence from perversion.16 In or about the year 1832 Mr. Jeremiah Valliant was living
15 He is said to have left £100,000 to each of his children, a vast sum in that period.
16 The writer has seen many different printed accounts and heard as many oral, all differing one from the other. Some of those that have been published are written with great elaborateness of detail, but all evince the employment of the fancy instead of laborious accuracy. A single thread of truth, however, is
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upon the farm "Plain Dealing" as a tenant with his wife and a large fam- ily of children. These people were in moderate circumstances but en- tirely respectable. The father was honest, the mother pious and both truthful. They were intelligent as also were their children, and without eccentricities or marked peculiarities, though some of the sons in later life betrayed cerebral disorder. The house of the farm at this time was in fairly good condition, and though the imagination of the occupants exaggerated its former elegance, its size, arrangement and construction were really suggestive of the ample wealth and luxurious tastes of its early founders and builders; yet silent decay threatening utter ruin was creeping in at every neglected nook and corner. The wainscoted par- lor still had upon its walls the portraits, yellow with the dust and smoke of age, of Samuel Chamberlaine and his father Thomas in their old and quaint garb and their full bottomed wigs, and those of his two wives, the pretty and delicate Mary Ungle and the stern and homely Henrietta Maria Lloyd, in their ancient and strange gowns and stays. The large hall still contained the broad stairway with its low, heavy and unpainted ballustrades, and upon the floor there still remained the stains said to have been made by the blood of old Squire Ungle. In the garden, or what was once a garden, still revealing in its wide walks and now over-grown shrubbery something of the love of the beautiful and pic- turesque that inspired its plan and planting, near to and within view of the mansion, was, according to an old and strange custom, the grave- yard of the family, containing its two tombs and evidences of other graves unmarked by stones. These tombs, which with their inscrip- tions surmounted by Coats of Arms were at once tributes of affection to the departed and symbols of the pride of the living, like everything else about the homestead betokened former opulence and present de- cadence. The brickwork that supported the slabs of stone had fallen and the vaults of the graves exposed, inviting prying curiosity, and provoking superstitious fears.
One of the younger sons of Mr. Jeremiah Valliant was Lloyd Nicols Valliant, the principal actor in the occurrences at "Plain Dealing," and at the time nine or ten years of age. In the year 1871, this son was still living, a phlegmatic, reserved, unimaginative, but not unintelligent man of forty-nine years of age. On the 22nd of November of that year he was induced (disinclined as he was to speak of the subject) by an old
discoverable in the most richly wrought web of fiction. See Philadelphia Times of Jan. 21, 1882, Lippincott's Magazine of Nov. 1882 and the Easton Ledger of Dec. 12, 1882, the last copying a second article from the Philadelphia Times.
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companion and schoolmate, to communicate the incidents of the "Plain Dealing" ghost story, as he recollected them. Though he spoke reluc- tantly he answered all questions unreservedly. There seemed to be no disposition on his part to embellish his statement to make it inter- esting. His character for veracity was irreproachable. The following is what Mr. Valliant said-not given in his own words, but with as near an approach to accuracy as possible, it having been written down immedi- ately after the interview.
When the affair occurred I was about ten years old. My father, Jeremiah Valliant, lived upon Plain Dealing farm in Ferry Neck, which he rented from Mr. Nicols or Loockerman. On one occasion going from the house to the orchard, having to pass the grave yard, where there were three or four graves with slabs of stone over them, and one of them broken open so as to disclose the brick vault, I saw standing near a cedar tree, close to this open grave, a man, as I supposed who alarmed me though I cannot recall any thing that was peculiar in his appear- ance that should have caused fear. But from the very first sight I thought it was a ghost. Why I thought so I cannot tell, unless it was because he was standing near the open vault or grave. I ran frightened to my mother in the house, and told her what I had seen. My mother thought , strangely of what I told her and consented to accompany me to the place. While by her side I again saw the figure standing in the same spot. I was still much alarmed. My mother could see nothing. By degrees my timidity wore off, and I returned on succeed- ing days several times to the grave yard, always accompanied by my mother. Each time I saw the object but she could not. I at last lost all fear, and approached so near the spectre or image that I could see it with perfect distinctness-with the same distinctness that I could see an ordinary man. The personage or figure seemed to be an old man with long white hair, dressed in a garb not differing materially from that worn at the time, but I think, since you have suggested it, that he wore breeches instead of trousers. He did not have a full wig. I became so fearless as to be able to speak to it and then I received replies. I conversed as familiarly as a boy would do with a stranger. It told me there was money buried near, pointing out the place, and said he would as lief the Valliants should have it as any one else. It said the money was buried as deep as a well, and that it was covered with stones. It directed the hole to be dug at the spot pointed out, and my father did have a hole dug by the negroes of the farm at the place des- ignated eight or ten feet deep. This was done openly-without con- cealment. The stones were found, apparently arranged with order and not scattered haphazard. But no money was found. I never saw the ghost afterward. I saw it four times altogether. I think I was no more superstitious than most boys of my age at that time. I recol- lect but two portraits in the parlor. They never alarmed me. I have seen the stains upon the floor of the hall said to have been made by the
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blood of Squire Ungle, who killed himself by falling over the ballusters while drunk. My mother always believed I saw a ghost. My father was always incredulous. I do not like to talk of this affair, for nobody believes me."
To present the numerous variants of this story would require the extension of this paper much beyond its intended length, but it may be mentioned that when it became noised through the county that a ghost had been seen at "Plain Dealing," and that it had directed the digging for buried treasure, hundreds of persons visited the farm and saw the excavation that Mr. Valliant had caused to be made at the place designated. Myth making immediately began. Seiz- ing hold of the startling and really extraordinary incident that has just been related of the subjective formation and outward projection of a phantom by the mind of a timid child which had been deeply impressed by the circumstances of his situation-by the strange and tragic stories that he had heard of the former occupants of his home whose staring faces and outlandish garb met his eye whenever he entered the unused parlor, whose blood stains were pointed out to him upon the floor of the hall, and whose bones he saw whenever he peered into their broken tombs in the neglected graveyard, this myth-making faculty or propen- sity at once in its work of enlarging, embellishing and adding to the story. It was asserted with positiveness, though denied by Mr. Valliant that money was obtained, and a witness was formed or found in an old peeping negro who it was said had concealed himself near the place of the digging and saw the gold and silver taken from the hole in the ground at night; and confirmatory evidence was claimed to have been discovered when Mr. Valliant purchased Sharp's Island, as he really did in the year 1838-a purchase which myth makers, but no other per- sons thought no industrious economic man, such as he was, could easily have made without a treasure trove. Again, when no reasonable motive could be assigned for the appearance of a spirit to this child, these marvel mongers quickly found one in the fact that no memorial stone had been placed over the grave of either Squire Ungle or Samuel Cham- berlaine-it was never definitely settled whose ghost did appear but that it was that of one or the other of these persons, was unquestioned- and thereby the post-sepulchral rest of one or the other of these worthies had been ever disturbed by the neglect or indifference of his kinsmen, for which he determined to punish the living representatives by bestow- ing untold wealth which should have belonged to them upon aliens to his blood. But the inventors of this theory of the apparition were
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ignorant of family history-did not know that Squire Ungle had no heirs in America and that Mr. Chamberlaine's place of burial was not marked because of war, that forbade the procuring a suitable stone, and of the death of those whose duty it was to erect some memorial. Again, when the incredulous asked why silver and gold should be buried by any of the former occupants of Plain Dealing the same believers in the incredible were ready with the answer, that they were hidden dur- ing the war of the Revolution or the war of 1812-for myth making and myth lovers are regardless of chronology-to protect them from the enemy in the Chesapeake bay and its tributaries-forgetting that the spirit was in the flesh long before the war for independence, that during that era no owner of "Plain Deailing" lived upon the plantation, and that in 1812 the possessor did not have any gold or silver to bury, or to be stolen by the British, having present need for all he could lay his hands upon. And so all the additions, exaggerations, perversions and embel- lishments which this story has received and which owe their origin to a love of the marvelous which seems inherent in the human mind, or to that poetical faculty which in a rudimentary state exists so commonly even in the uncultured people; would be as effectually destroyed as those few that have been noticed, if they were examined by the light of reason and history that is critical of popular legends.
SAMUEL CHAMBERLAINE, JR., OF BONFIELD
1742-1811
In another paper, concerning Samuel Chamberlaine of "Plain Deal- ing," sufficient was said of the family to which the gentleman of whom it is now proposed to speak, belonged, Mr. Saml. Chamberlaine of Bon- field, the second of the name in America. He was the third son of the Samuel Chamberlaine referred to above who after several voyages to Maryland finally settled at Oxford in this county, marrying Mary Ungle for his first wife, and Henrietta Maria Lloyd, the mother of his children, for his second. Samuel Chamberlaine the second of the name was born at "Plain Dealing," whither his father had moved, after his purchase of that estate from the heirs of Mr. Ungle, August 23, 1742. Nothing whatever is known of his early life and education. The tradi- tion that he was instructed in letters as well as in religion by the Rev. Thomas Bacon rests upon very uncertain foundation. It is quite as probable he had for his preceptors the Rev. Henry Nicols, and Rev. John Gordon, Rectors of the Parish of St. Michaels in which he lived
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during his youth, both of whom were men of learning as well as piety. It is more likely, however, that he was under the care of private tutors, in conformity with the custom of people of his social grade. But how- ever obtained, his education was amply sufficient for his needs and his pleasures. From some source or another he derived strong religious impressions and these were deepened by age and conflict political and sectarian. At the time when it became necessary for Mr. Chamber- laine to select a life calling or profession there were in Maryland few careers that were inviting to young men of good condition. The law, which was most attractive because of the honors which the gentlemen of the bar almost monopolized, offered but small emolument in a sparsely settled country, with little trade and that carried on by foreign factors or large planters, no manufactures except those of the household, and little wealth except broad acres of half cultivated or wholly uncleared land. There is no doubt Mr. Chamberlaine's feelings would have led him into the church, but the difficulty of obtaining the necessary in- struction in theological learning and the extreme doubt of securing episcopal ordination in a country without bishops, may have deterred him from adopting a calling for which a devout disposition and a natural inclination to hermeneutics and polemics seem especially to have fitted him. Medicine labored under the same disadvantage that law suffered from, the deficient compensation, with the additional drawback that little honor attached to a profession practised by ignorant and incom- petent men whose fitness for their duties as physicians had been secured by no study and determined by no test. A military career was im- possible in a state without an army, unless the untrained militia of the counties could be so regarded, whose officers, proud as they were of the titles they sought with avidity and bore with ostentation, had their honors only for their pay. With no inducements therefore to adopt any other pursuit, and with the expectation always before him, resolute as he might be not to allow it to affect him, of inheriting a very considerable fortune from his father, one of the wealthiest men of his day in the province of Maryland, it seemed inevitable that he should engage in that avocation which employed much the larger portion of the men of his position in the county, planting or farming.1 Lands near Oxford having been assigned to him with the necessary number of negroes for its tillage, and Mr. Chamberlaine upon the duties and labors of the practical agriculturist, which he discharged with the care and skill
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