USA > Maryland > Talbot County > History of Talbot county, Maryland, 1661-1861, Volume I > Part 61
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SAMUEL CHAMBERLAINE, JR.
meeting of the Justices, the Grand and Petit Jurors and the Officers of Talbot County and of a numerous and respectable body of people of the county, assembled at Easton on the 29th of May in the year 1798 in pursuance of previous notice for the purpose of considering the situation of their public affairs and of expressing their sentiments con- cerning them.
He was appointed one of a Committee "to prepare an address to the President of the United States, in approbation of his conduct in his negotiations with the Republic of France and declaring the determina- tion of the people to support the government and the rights and indepen- dence of their country.5 This of course had reference to insults to the American minister by the French Directory and the injuries to Ameri- can commerce inflicted by order of the same body.
But the strongest feature in any character portrait of Mr. Chamber- laine is that which is lined and colored by his religion. Born into and nurtured by the Church of England, his attachment for her doctrines and ritual grew with his years into a passionate ardor, rarely experienced by devouts of a communion whose piety is characterized rather by calm- ness and sobriety than by enthusiasm. From whom was received the spark that kindled into such a glowing flame, it is impossible to say. It is asserted, upon what authority, it is not known, that his education in letters was conducted by the Rev. Thomas Bacon, but this accom- plished man was not pietest, though very diligent in the work of the church. He grew up under the pastoral care of Mr. Nicols and Mr. Jackson, but these exemplary men, neither by precept not example, inspired fervor of spirit. But he had the inflammable blood of Catholic and Puritan in his veins, that required only favoring circumstances to burst into a blaze of fanatical intensity. It is not discoverable that previous to the revolutionary period Mr. Chamberlaine took any active part in the affairs of the church, as the records of the Parish in which he lived after his arrival at his majority for the interval between the years 1766 and 1779 have been lost, and previous to this time his name nowhere appears.6 Until his political disabilities were removed, he was not
6 Maryland Herald, June 5th, 1798. The recorded proceedings of this meeting indicate that the active participants were almost wholly Federalists.
6 There exists a most interesting record, written with Mr. Chamberlaine's won hand in one of the Books of the Vestry, which indicates his conscientiousness as well as his devotion to the church. This record is of his having voluntarily paid, when there was no compulsory law, his church dues "agreeable to the former establishment for the support of the clergy" for the years 1777 to 1780 inclusive at the rate of four shillings per poll for himself and servants, with interest. How much longer he continued to pay his dues is not evident.
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qualified to hold the office of Vestryman, so that not until 1787 was he chosen for a place which though it had lost much of its importance was to him one of honor as being that of a servitor of the Church, for the reorganization of which steps have recently been taken. He held this position until his death, with intermissions as required by law, always performing more than his proportional share of the labor with untiring zeal. For many years, when not of the Vestry he was Register of the Parish, and the fullness and accuracy of the records as kept by him, have preserved most interesting and valuable information of the state of the church for the period which they cover. He was appointed to represent his parish in the Church convention that assembled in Balti- more in 1789, and this duty was frequently laid upon him. In 1791 he was a lay delegate to the General Convention that met at Baltimore in June of that year, the general constitution of the Protestant Episcopal Church having been adopted in the previous year. The great longing of his life was gratified, by the visitation in 1793 of Bishop Claggett, then but recently ordained, to the parish church, when Mr. Chamber- laine, his wife, three daughters and many other persons were confirmed, of which notable event he requested that a record should be made in the books of the vestry. This was the first time a bishop had been seen in Talbot County, though for one hundred years good men had felt the need of episcopal supervision to encourage the faithful and to rebuke the vicious clergy, to invigorate the feeble and call back the straying of their flocks. After the revolution and the abrogation of all laws for providing stipends for the clergy by public tax, the difficulty of giving a decent maintenance to the ministers was one which appealed to the humanity as well as to the piety of Mr. Chamberlaine. For its remedy until the General Assembly of the state should authorize a public assess- ment for the purpose, which by the constitution it had a right to do, the only resource was the gratuitous contributions of the people. Mr. Chamberlaine interested himself to collect these donations, and his labors were the more effectual from a prevalent knowledge that his own purse was the source from which were drawn the most generous gifts. But as such contributions were irregular and precarious, many schemes were suggested for securing a revenue, the most extraordinary of which was that proposed by Mr. Chamberlaine himself, based really upon the old law for the taxation of polls for the support of the clergy and the expenses of the parish. The essential part of this scheme was the volun- tary enrollment of the parishioners, with the number of persons in their families above the age of sixteen years, and the engagement by the
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parishioners to pay a poll tax, one-half each six months, the amount of which should be the parishioners' proportionable part of the whole ex- penses of the church for the year. The scheme was adopted by the vestry, strange as it may seem, and went into operation, but it soon involved that body in trouble, including litigation so that it was soon abandoned as inexpedient and impracticable. It is very evident his insight into human motives were obscured by his own deep piety, for he erred in supposing men were as ready to pay church rates as he, and that religious feeling was sufficiently prevalent and strong among the people to overcome their repugnance to oblations that had a form of taxation against which there existed an old prejudice and a late condem- nation in the state constitution.
Another work of the church engaged him earnestly: this was the restoration of the old church edifices, or the building of new. He was largely instrumental in securing the erection of a place of worship in the town of Easton, where up to the time of the Revolution there had been none except the meeting house of the Friends and after that great event that of the Methodists. Services, however, had long been held in the Court House, after the decay of the chapel in the upper part of the parish; but in 1800 the building which still (1887) stands upon Harrison Street at the corner of Baldwin's Alley, was begun, and to Mr. Chamberlaine was granted the unusual honor and privilege, of laying the corner-stone, the Rev. Mr. Rigg, and the Rev. Mr. Keene being present and conducting the religious part of the ceremonies. In the notice of this occurrence in the Maryland Herald, Mr. Chamberlaine is spoken of as an "aged ves- tryman and venerable man."
It would be well for his memory if the biographer were able to omit all mention of the unpleasant controversies in which Mr. Chamberlaine was involved by reason of his religious zeal. If it were proposed to give a detailed account of these contentions nothing could be said with truth involving an impeachment of his sincerity and uprightness. That he was often betrayed by his intense love of his church into bitter words respecting the ministers and members of the other communions repre- sented in this county is the utmost ill that can be spoken of him. Toler- ance is the child of indifference in religion, though there is a bastard of that name born of policy. That he was intolerant of those who differed from him in faith and form is the surest sign of his earnest belief that the truth was held only by his own church; and though this does not justify it apologizes for his illiberality of judgment, his exasperating conduct, and his acerbity of language when he thought that the muni-
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ments of his church were assailed by heretic or infidel-by the followers of Fox, of Wesley, or of Tom Paine, his three devils of schism whom he fought manibus pedibusque. Speaking in general terms, it may be said that he had two grievances against the Quakers, first their refusal to pay their assessment for church purposes in prerevolutionary times and secondly their hostility to the system of slavery in which he was deeply interested by the possession of many negroes and of which he was an apologist. He had also two principal grievances against the Methodists, and many minor ones: first their schism from the church, and secondly their proselytism, which was threatening the very exist- ence of the ecclesiastical body from which they sprang and of which he was a living member. To these must be added their protests, not so positive and effectual as those of the Friends, against holding men in bondage, their rejection of certain accepted religious doctrines and their reception of certain objectionable tenets, but, above all these, some of their customs of worship which offended his sense of decorum. Infidel- ity, from the mild deism of Wollaston to the audacious atheism of Hol- back, was personified, to his view, in Paine, whose "Age of Reason, both first and second part have been read" and not "disesteemed" according to Parson Jackson by his flock, came in for Mr. Chamberlaine's milder denunciations than either Quakerism or Methodism, because it was thought to be really less dangerous to the Church; and it would probably have escaped all public expression of his reprobation, had it not been that at the period when Mr. Chamberlaine was most earnest in his defence of his church, it was strangely mixed up with politics, the Republicans with Mr. Jefferson as their leader, being accused of affecting the doc- trines of the "Free thinkers" of France while the Federalists claimed to be the champions of religion against this dragon of unbelief.7
7 The following characteristic anecdote which illustrates the strength of his re- ligion and the weakness of his old non-juring prejudices, the last largely effected by his contemplation and admiration of the character and conduct of the admirable man whose death he mourned, is given in the words of his grandson, Mr. John Boz- man Kerr. "It so happened that on the occasion of Washington's death in 1799 "[it is probable the incident occurred on the 22nd of February, 1800, on which day the people of the county, in compliance with the proclamation of Governor Ogle assembled "to testify in the most public manner their veneration for his memory" when Mr. Works, Mr. Chamberlaine's especial detestation, was called upon to deliver the sermon of eulogium] "at a funeral pageant in Easton, when all classes of citizens joined in respect for this great and good man and patriot, that a place of honor in the procession was assigned to Mr. Chamberlaine, as one of the most respected members of the community. His known indignant grief over the
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One of the most extraordinary documents that ever issued from an ecclesiastical body, surely, was that which the Vestry of St. Peters Parish in 1796 placed in the hands of the Rev. Dr. Bowie, a member of the Standing Committee of the Diocese, for presentation to Bishop Clag- gett, in answer to a series of questions by that prelate concerning the temporal and spiritual concerns of the parishes. This was prepared by Mr. Chamberlaine at the request of the Vestry, and apparently re- ceived the approval of its members, for it was signed by their Registrar, Mr. William Berridge. It is proper to say this precious scripture, be- fore it reached the eye of the Bishop, was severely expurgated of its most offensive passages, by some kindly hand, but by happy accident the whole has been preserved for the satisfaction of the curious if not the edification of the pious. It need not here be inserted as all the essential portions have been quoted with other connections.8 In answer to the queries, "Do the other religious denominations gain ground among you? And which of them? Do they increase in consequence of their zeal or the influx of strangers?" he gave at great length a tirade against the Quakers and the Methodists, in which neighborhood gossip, ludicrous anecdote, personal detraction, ridicule of religious customs, imputations of evil motives for commendable acts of the two societies, sober narratives of important but compromising facts in their history, rational controversion of their principles often strangely distorted on the statement of them are oddly intermingled, with a veil of piety thrown over all that does not conceal but render more repulsive the features of this splenetic utterance.
Another evidence of the avenging zeal of Mr. Chamberlaine for his church, which really, at the beginning of the present century seemed to be battling for existence in Talbot County, was shown by his consenting to participate in a public discussion in the town of Easton, with Mr. Tilford, a very respectable local preacher among the Methodist people, of one of the most abstruse of the religious dogmas, "baptismal regenera- tion." From such meagre and obscure accounts as have reached us of this inconsequential controversy upon a really insoluble subject, it is
schism of Wesley, made all curious to know how his principles and action would square with the use of the Methodist Meeting House in Easton, for the ceremonies. Those who understood his character, were not surprised to see him reach the door and decline to enter the building."
Kerr's Notes of the Chamberlaine family, p. 55.
8 This paper is given in full, or so much of it as possesses any interest, in the unpublished History of the Church of England and the Protestant Episcopal Church of America, in Talbot County.
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inferred that it created great interest in the community at the time, and was attended with some disorder. The device, seemingly unusual then, of ringing a bell, was adopted, it was said, not for the purpose of calling the people together to hear the colloquy between the two disputants, but to arouse the co-religionists of Mr. Tilford to some act of violence upon Mr. Chamberlaine and his supporters of whom he had apparently but few, for his course was not commended by the more temperate of churchmen. There is no doubt his language was very exasperating and if his opponent, Mr. Tilford, was not his equal in vituperative rhetoric, Mr. Chamberlaine really was exposed to injury from a crowd instated by defeat and fired by religious passions. In this polemical fray politics, as was common at the time, united with religion to add to its fury, and this led to a controversy between Mr. Chamberlaine and Mr. Jacob Gib- son one of the most conspicuous of the local leaders among the Republi- cans or Democrats as they were at this period opprobriously called, a man of very strong but uncultivated mind, who though nominally a church- man essayed the championship of the Methodists, most of whom were of his party. This controversy at first conducted in private and with decorum by letters, at last became public and uncivil through the press, Mr. Chamberlaine apparently leading off with a most extraordinary communication to the Maryland Herald, bearing the title "Methodism" in which the conduct of certain of the ministers of that denomination was held up to reprobation in terms of great acerbity.9 This communi- cation to which Mr. Chamberlaine affixed his name had a reply from Mr. Gibson which apparently the newspapers refused to publish, on account of its objectionable character, but which appeared in the form of a hand-bill. In this Mr. Gibson undertook in his own characteristical- ly truculent style the defence of the exemplary piety of the Quakers and Methodists whose political support he was soliciting, including the late venerable James Berry, a well known preacher among the Friends and Mr. Tilford and Mr. Works, two reputable local preachers among the Wesleyans, and the reproof of the people of his own communion, from whom he could expect small assistance to his party, for their irreli- gious lives, including by implication Mr. Chamberlaine himself, who was regarded, after the clergy, the main pillar of the church in Talbot. Here is a small part of the least objectionable portion of his handbill.10
9 This whole Communication is quoted with other connections, and need not be here repeated. See History of the Church of England, etc., in Talbot County, yet inedited (1887).
10 This handbill, one of the rarest curios of county literature will not bear insertion here in its completeness, but it is elsewhere more fully quoted than here.
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When I witnessed your unbounded abuse of James Berry, who, I have lit- tle doubt is in heaven, and when you involved the whole Quaker society in a mass and loaded them with epithets that would make your devil Tom Paine, with all his sins of deism and blasphemy, blush to have repeated, I must confess it shocked me; and the more so, because I used to boast of your being the main pillar in our church, and one who can lay a corner-stone with so much dexterity and devotion. . You say that Methodism was a ladder for me to climb to honor and power; that they [the Methodists] are a set of devils and doing the devils' work; thus degrading them in one paragraph, and in the next complaining of their power and consequence-strange paradox, in- deed Happy that the Methodists have not been a more dangerous ladder. Though, you know I am not one, I respect the in- stitution because there is precept and example.
Mr. Chamberlaine's acerbity of feelings towards the Friends was doubt- less softened with time, as he saw them diminishing in numbers and in influence; but there is no reason to believe that he molified towards the Methodists who were rapidly increasing and were threatening the complete subversion of the old church, in Talbot, and upon this penin- sula. The harboring of such sentiments as have been described by a man such as he, furnishes one of those mental phenomena at which we never cease to wonder, common as it is. The history of the follies, the ex- travagancies, the errors of human thought, of the wrongs, the crimes, the cruelties of human action, that are directly traceable to the unrestrained indulgence of the religious impulses of our nature, is the most painful as well as the most humiliating part of the sad story of man's career upon the earth. But this subject may not be here pursued, and is there- fore dismissed, with the repetition of the remark that whatever was Mr. Chamberlaine's illiberality toward the religious views of others, it had its origin in the sincere conviction that he had no right to compromise with error even by silence. This has been the conviction of inquisitors, to be sure, and such he might have been in another age, but there were, strange as it may seem, members of the "holy office" of the purest morals, the tenderest sensibilities and the loftiest aspirations.
A more pleasing as well as a more correct mental image of Mr. Cham- berlaine is formed in the mind by a contemplation of some features of his character other than that intellectual strabismus of his, so to speak, which depriving him of the faculty of double vision disqualified him from viewing a single subject in more than one plane. This was a deformity as well as an affliction but in other respects he was cast in the mould of nature's best men. It is incredible that he embittered his own life and that of his family by constantly nursing his anger and
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inveighing against Quakers, Methodists, infidels and Democrats: rather, it must be believed that his habitual mood in the privacy of his home, or in the common thoroughfares of men was that of tender affection for those of his own blood, complaisant courtesy to his neighbors of his own social grade, of obliging kindness to those in the humbler walks and of active benevolence to the poor or necessitous. If his treatment of his slaves was severe, even this may be pardoned in one who hardly con- sidered them within the cincture of human sympathy, and who felt the exigencies of the relation that subsisted between him and them demanded such rigidity of discipline. This much of eulogium is ventured in the absence of contemporary or traditional testimony, evidence of his merit- ing it for the reason that it is impossible to believe he did not wish and conscientiously attempt to conform his daily life to that ideal of a noble manhood which he continually and devoutly revered in him who was
the best of men That e'er wore earth about him The first true gentleman that ever breathed.
Whether Mr. Chamberlaine had a taste for letters cannot be asserted. There is no doubt he was an eager reader of controversial divinity, and derived pleasure from books that ministered to his spiritual needs. His fortune gave him leisure, and the means of providing the best companions for his idle hours: so it is likely what we call the British classics were often in his hands. But this much is known of him, he was alive to the interests of education, for we find that he was one of the original trustees of the Easton Academy, an institution which was designed to confer upon the youth of the county something more than the elements of learning and foster a love of science and literature. It has been shown that he had a propensity to employ his pen in communications to the public journals: but his best production can hardly be classed as liter- ature though an exceedingly valuable historical record. At some date and in some emergency unknown, it was discovered that there had been a neglect upon the part of the Commissioners appointed to lay out the town, to have the results of their operations duly recorded among the land records of the county, as directed by law. As a consequence there was confusion of title to lands and had been much costly litigation. Whether in gratification of a taste for research or whether moved by the necessity of proving his title to some disputed property, Mr. Chamber- laine undertook the collection from every available and authoritative source of the imperfect and disjointed records of the original and subse-
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quent surveys of the town, and of the assignment of the lots, to the several "takers up" as the lands were laid out. He also recovered the plots which the surveyors had made, but which apparently had been lost. For greater security he copied with his own hand these collected records into a book, which were long preserved by his descendants as a kind of heirloom or memorial, and is now an exceedingly valuable reposi- tory of interesting and important information of the early history of the "town and port of Oxford" and of Talbot County, deposited in a place of safety, for the inspection of the curious or the instruction of the studious.11
On the 15th of January 1772 Mr. Chamberlaine married Henrietta Maria, the eldest daughter of Henry Hollyday, Esq., and Anna Maria Robins his wife, of "Ratcliffe" near Easton, thus connecting himself with the Lloyds, the Robins, the Bennetts, the Darnells and other of the colonial gentry. Mrs. Chamberlaine is represented as having been a woman of imperious will, governing her house with "excellent discipline" and ruling "her children as well as servants, more by fear than love."12 The fruit of this marriage were five daughters and four sons. Of these two daughters and a son remained unmarried. Of the remaining daugh- ters one married Mr. John Goldsborough, a second the Hon. John Leeds Kerr, and a third Mr. Levin Gale each of whom have left descendants, some of whom have risen to eminence. Of the sons Mr. James Lloyd Chamberlaine became the master of "Bonfield" where he was born Aug. 30, 1785 and where he died Jan. 15, 1844, Mr. Henry Chamberlaine who moved to Cecil County and there settled at "Richmond Hill," and Mr. Samuel Chamberlaine, late of Island Creek Neck, the father of Dr. Joseph E. Chamberlaine of Easton. Each of these gentlemen have living representatives. Of the eldest of these, Mr. James Lloyd Cham- berlaine, "the worthy son of a worthy father" a few words may be inter- jected without greatly marring the unity of this memoir, as a small tribute to his worth. His early education received at home, was con- ducted under the eye of his accomplished mother, by a private tutor, the Rev. Mr. Owen Magrath, an Irish clergyman of the Church of England,
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