USA > Maryland > Talbot County > History of Talbot county, Maryland, 1661-1861, Volume II > Part 9
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28 Copy of Lieut. Goldsborough's letter is in possession of the writer.
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HISTORY OF TALBOT COUNTY
Washington in the Jerseys, fought at Brandywine and Germantown, was with the Maryland line in the South under Gates and Green, dis- tinguished himself at Camden, and died bravely on the field at Guilford, March 15th, 1781, with the rank of major. Lieut. Edward Hindman was a native of Talbot, and brother of Capt. Hindman. He also par- ticipated in the battles in which his company was engaged, and in 1777, when there was a reorganization of the troops, he was appointed captain in the third battalion of regulars, of which Mordecai Gist was made the colonel. Nothing more is known of Lieutenant Hindman. Of Ensign Frazier absolutely nothing has been recorded, as far as has been discov- ered.
The company of Capt. Hindman, after its enrollment and equip- ment was, at the instance of Mr. Nicholas Thomas, chairman of the Committee of Observation for the county, for a time stationed at Oxford, the people of which town, then the most important in Talbot, were not too patriotic to avail themselves of the opportunity afforded to exact extortionate rates for the use of houses to be occupied as barracks for the soldiers, of which excessive prices the Council of Safety, in March, 1776, made public complaint. There is little doubt that the object of stationing this company at Oxford was to overawe the disaffected, and to enforce the orders of the Committee of Observation and of the Council of Safety. As will presently be shown, it was soon ordered to join the army of Washington, and it participated actively in the cam- paign of 1776. But the convention took other steps for the defense of the Province.
The Committees of Observation in the several counties had already organized with more or less thoroughness the militia of Maryland, but the convention resolved to give a greater completeness to what had been done, and ordered that "every able bodied effective freeman (with cer- tain specified exceptions), should enroll himself in some company of militia," under a penalty if he should refuse or neglect to do so. The Province was divided into military districts or brigades, each of which was to have one brigadier general, one quarter master, and one adjutant. Cecil, Kent, Queen Anne and Talbot made one district, and Mr. James Lloyd Chamberlaine, of Talbot, was elected the Brigadier General, and made the fourth in rank. The troops of each county were formed into battalions, and the battalion of Talbot had these gentlemen as its officers: Christopher Birkhead, Colonel; Peregrine Tilghman, Lieut. Colonel; Jeremiah Banning, First Major; Robert Lloyd Nicols, Second Major; and Nicholas Thomas, Quarter Master. Col. Birk-
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head was the fourth in rank of the colonels of the several counties. But as the companies that were organized in the county were sufficiently numerous to form two battalions the convention at the instance of the Committee of Observation, in May, 1776,
RESOLVED that the Fourth Battalion of militia in said county be com- posed of the companies of the Captains Joseph Bruff, Jacob Gibson, Nathaniel Cooper, John Dougherty, James Lloyd, Samuel Abbot, Thom- as Gordon, and Greenbury Goldsborough; and that the companies of the Captains James Benson, Henry Banning, John Rolle, William Ham- bleton, William Webb Haddaway and Nicholas Martin, in said county from the Thirty-Eighth Battalion. 24
From a knowledge of the places of residence of these officers it is evi- dent the fourth battalion was formed in the upper part of the county, that part bordering on Choptank river, while the thirty-eighth battalion was formed exclusively in what is known as Bayside. The name of the Colonel commanding this 38th battalion had not been preserved; though it may have been that Col. Hugh Birkhead, who resided in the section of the county from which it was drawn, was placed over it, while another person may have been appointed to the colonelcy of the 4th Battalion.
As privateering had been authorized of Congress (March, 1776), the private armed vessels were fitting out within the province of Mary- land for the capture of British shipping, it became necessary to organ- ize a "Court of Admiralty for the trial of such seizures and captures as are or may be made," which was accordingly done May 25th, 1776, and Mr. William Hayward of Talbot, but then recently of Somerset county, was appointed Judge of this Court of Admiralty.25 This posi- tion he held for a very brief period and then resigned. It should be remembered, however, that anterior to this date, there had been a
24 One of the companies of the 38th Battalion, which was enrolled from the cit- izens living near the Royal Oak, was called the "Hearts of Oak" and this name was retained by a military organization at that place down to times within the recollection of many still living.
25 Judge William Hayward was a native of Somerset where his family had long been settled, and is still represented. Marrying in Talbot in 1760, the daughter of Geo. Robins, Esq., he made this county his home. He had been one of the delegates to represent his native county in the General Assembly of the Province. In 1771 he was one of the judges of the Provincial Court, and in 1776, as noticed in the text, a member of the Council of Safety, for the Eastern Shore. He died at Locust Grove, his residence in Bailey's Neck, in the year 1791, leaving descendants some of whose children are still living in this county, much respected.
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court of the same name in this Province, and with somewhat similar jurisdiction.
On the same day Mr. Robert Lloyd Nicols of Talbot was elected pay. master of the troops on the Eastern Shore, and Mr. Edward Lloyd of the same county presented a petition, with others, to be relieved of a fine for his failure to enroll himself in the militia. In electing the mem- bers in the Council of Safety for the year 1776, but one gentleman from Talbot, Mr. William Hayward, was chosen, and the number was lim- ited to four.
On the 7th of May, 1776, it was recorded that the convention, which had convened on the day previous, ordered the
proceedings of the Committee of Observation for Talbot county, against Alexander Wickham should be read and laid upon the table;
and upon a second reading, on the same day, of
the representation of the committee of Talbot county of the case of Alexander Wickham, ordered, that the said Alexander Wickham be committed to the custody of a guard, to be appointed by Col. William Smallwood, until the convention shall take order in the premises, and that the guard from the independent company, commanded by Captain Hindman, be discharged of the said Alexander Wickham.26
It is worthy of being noticed that these Conventions though revolu- tionary in their character, that is having no authority in law, took precautions that the powers assumed by the Committees of Observation in the several counties, or delegated to them by the Conventions, should not be abused; and accordingly they required that persons arrested by the Committees should first have their cases examined by the Coun- cils of Safety and then, if the charges were of a grave character, the accused were sent before the supreme power of the Province, the Con- vention itself, for final judgment. This Alexander Wickham of this- county upon information lodged by Mr. Samuel Sharpe of the Com- mittee of Observation of that county, was arrested by a detachment from the independent company of Capt. Hindman, and lodged in the jail at Talbot Court House to await the action of the Council of Safety, which was accustomed to meet at different places upon this Shore, but mostly in this county as being central. On the 8th of March, 1776, Wickham wrote to the Council from his prison, complaining of his long confinement and demanding a statement of the charges laid against him, of the character of which he professed to be ignorant.
26 Proceedings of the Conventions, of date.
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On the 12th of the same month the Council of Safety wrote to the Committee of Observation, for Talbot, saying that Wickham had been arrested
as a person inimical to the liberties of the country, and as suspected of being on his way to Lord Dunmore, and requiring that the Committee should inquire into the truth of the charges, as the witnesses were upon the Eastern Shore.27
Wickham, as has been shown, was sent to Annapolis under the guard of a detachment of Capt. Hindman's company, and on the 9th of May his case was called up in Convention for adjudication. On the 13th of May,
on considering the representation of the Committee of Talbot county, in the case of Alexander Wickham, it was RESOLVED, That he be dis- charged, being a person too insignificant and contemptible for further notice of this Convention.
Of this man nothing more is known. This case is interesting as show- ing the care that was exercised by the conventions, which were the supreme authority in the province, and were restrained by no law but such as they saw fit to impose upon themselves, in protecting accused and suspected persons from personal wrong through popular passion, or the hasty or ill-advised action of the Committees of Safety or Councils of Safety. It is also indicative of the strength of the patriot party, in that it could afford to make insignificance a sufficient shield from pun- ishment for an offender.
It may not be amiss to refer briefly to another case of alleged toryism, although the accused was not a citizen of Talbot, and though the story of his arrest and trial will here be a little out of chronological sequence. One Isaac Atkinson28 was arrested late in the year 1775 in Somerset county, and was arraigned before the Council of Safety, sitting at Ches- tertown, Kent county, November 17th of that year, being accused of
27 American Archives, 4th series, vol. iv., p. 185. It is hardly necessary to say that the reference to Lord Dunmore was based upon the invasion by that Brit- ish General of the counties in the lower part of this peninsula, in both Maryland and Virginia, where he was disseminating the seeds of disaffection, giving coun- tenance and assistance to the tories of that region, and actually organizing bodies of partisans for cooperation with his own regular forces. These tories, though from time to time repressed, gave trouble throughout the continuance of the war.
28 There is no ground for believing that this Isaac Atkinson was in any way connected with the estimable Quaker family which bears this patronymic in this county.
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being engaged in raising a company, contrary to the resolves of Con- gress and the Convention. The Council ordered that he be transferred to the Committee of Observation for Talbot county, to be held by it, until the Council of Safety for the Eastern Shore should assemble in that county November 30th, instant. On the day appointed the Coun- cil did meet at Talbot Court House, as Easton was then called, when the following gentlemen were present, namely: James Hollyday, Rich- ard Lloyd, Edward Lloyd, Thomas Smyth and Henry Hooper, Esquires. Mr. William Hindman qualified as Clerk of the Council. Isaac Atkin- son, who had been delivered by the Committee of Observation of Kent to the Committee of Observation of Talbot, was brought before the Council, and after due examination was convicted of the offense charged against him. On the next day, December 1, the following sentence was pronounced :
Ordered that the Sheriff of Talbot county receive into custody the body of Isaac Adkinson, to be by the said Sheriff closely imprisoned in the house of him, the said Sheriff, and in his custody until the 16th day of this instant, December, unless the Convention shall sooner rise, then until the rising of the next Convention.29
On the 12th of December the Convention ordered
that the Committee of Observation in Talbot county be requested imme- diately to send Isaac Atkinson under guard of four militia men of that county to this Convention; and that the Sheriff of Talbot county deliver the said Atkinson to such guard.
On the 18th of December he was brought before the Convention, the proceedings of the Eastern Shore branch of the Council of Safety were read, and the accused was asked what he had to say in mitigation of his offense. He expressed great sorrow and penitence, declared he never intended to injure his native country, America, and was ready to give security for his future good behavior. He was then reprimanded by the President, who said the Convention view him "as a man guilty of a crime of a heinous nature against his country, which was and is entitled to his aid and assistance:" but that * considering his penitence and contrition, and that a numerous family must suffer by a continuance of his imprisonment, it had thought proper to mitigate his punishment. Atkinson was required to give bond in the sum of one thousand pounds for his good behavior, and after complying with
29 American Archives, 4th series, vol. iii., where may be found a long account of Atkinson's tory expressions and conduct, and the depositions of the witnesses against him.
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such requisition he was discharged. He seems to have recanted his former confessions, and to have forfeited his bond, for on the 31st of August, 1776, the petition of Samuel Sharpe was preferred to the Convention, in which it was averred that he, Sharpe, had become surety for the good behavior of Atkinson, on a bond of the Hon. Matthew Tilghman, for the sum of one thousand pounds; but that Atkinson had since fled from the State and joined the enemies thereof and was then assisting the British fleet and army in waging war against the United States. He asks that the bond be "put in suit," and that the estate of Atkinson, which then was wasting, should be placed in the care of some suitable person. Whereupon, the Convention ordered that William Hayward, Esquire, of Talbot county, should take into his custody the real and personal estate of the said Isaac Atkinson, and account for the same to that body. Of Atkinson nothing more is or need be known, for he seems to have been equally devoid of honorable and patriotic impulses.
How far tory sentiments prevailed in Talbot county, will probably never be known. No records have been hitherto discovered that indi- cate the existence of any considerable number of disaffected persons. Certainly, there never was open, much less organized resistance to the revolutionary or state governments such as was manifested in the neighboring counties of Queen Anne and Dorchester, not to mention the troubled districts of Somerset and Worcester. If there was any toryism here it was of a very mild and timid character. Patriotic senti- ment so largely prevailed that it suppressed any expression of loyalism. The very name of tory became a reproach early in the contest, even if antipathy to this designation may not be traced much further back, even to the time when the term, as a designation to a party, originated. If there were persons in Talbot who entertained opinions or cherished feelings which, if expressed or shown, would have entitled them to this designation, they were careful to disguise or conceal their real thoughts from their cotemporaries, and have left no records to guide those, coming after them, who are able to judge their motives with more candor and leniency. With the lapse of more than a century the reprobation which used to be visited upon those entertaining royalist or monarchical views, has almost entirely subsided, and their memories are no longer reproached as formerly for the firmness with which they maintained their allegiance to a king who was thought to have been divinely appointed to reign over them and to a government acknowl- edged to be the best in the world, and one under which they had enjoyed prosperity and happiness. We have learned that the differences be- tween the loyalist and the patriot were not only honest differences,
1
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but were such as had a foundation in right and reason and in some of the best impulses of the heart. Indeed the change in many minds on this subject has gone so far that there are not a few who now think it had been better, notwithstanding the wonderful material development of the country, if the sentiments of the minority had been adopted and those of the majority in the Revolutionary contest had been discarded. Those who lived through the late war of the Rebellion, and are old. enough to have participated in its passions, have learned to question the judgments that are formed in the tumult of a political revolution and the mental conflicts of civil dissentions. Those who were in the minority, in any community, north or south, and worse still in those communities which were neither north nor south, know, from a very bitter experience, how their sentiments were misconstrued, their motives misrepresented, and their actions misjudged by the majority. With this softening of the hardness of the condemnation, this mitigation of the severity of the sentences which it was the custom to pronounce against tories, and even upon their children for generations after them, there has come a diminished reluctance upon the part of their descend- ants to acknowledge the royalist opinions of their ancestors-a loss of that shame which at an earlier period would have deterred them from an open avowal: so that at the present no sensibility is wounded by a reference to the loyal sympathies of those whose conception of their interests, public and private, or whose sense of duty as obedient subjects of the crown, led them to oppose the course of the patriots of the Revolution. As a matter of fact, we know that some of the most intelligent men, and those having the largest interests at stake and whose love for the native country could not be doubted, opposed if not openly and actively, at least without concealment and quietly, those violent measures which resulted in the separation of the colonies from the mother country. It is a matter of record that up to the time of the declaration of independence and even after, there were gentlemen in this county in every way entitled to the confidence of their fellow citizens who regarded a severance of the ties which bound the colony of Maryland to the government of Great Britain as ill advised, pre- cipitate and possibly disastrous to the liberties, the prosperity and the happiness of that colony. If they were mistaken, it was an honest error, which some now think, does not impeach even their judgment, much less their sincerity. But these men were not tories, in the appro- brious sense of being in alliance with, aiding and abetting the enemy of their country, in his efforts to subjugate it by military force.
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It is a matter of historical notoriety that for a long time after the subject had become a matter of public discussion, and after a desire for extreme measures for its accomplishment had possessed the popular mind, there was a great reluctance felt by many of this province, par- ticularly but not exclusively among those belonging to wealthier and more intelligent classes or gentry, as they may be called, to dissolve their political connection with Great Britain. There was really a strong and sincere attachment to the king, and a deep seated admiration of the form of government under which they had long lived and prospered-an admiration founded not solely upon the power and glory of the great empire of which they made a part, but also upon an intelligent appre- ciation of the guarantees afforded by the British constitution of the liberties of the subject. This attachment was very slow in dissolving, and this admiration was never entirely effaced in some minds even after the king had shown his obstinate persistence in the support of arbitrary measures, and the ministry its reckless disregard of colonial rights and, as some thought, of the British constitution itself. When however the idea of independency had acquired preponderance those who opposed the clothing it with action, were gradually silenced by the employment of all those means which we of these latter days know by experience to be so effectual in crushing out opposition to the will of the majority. Upon those who could be made to feel the weight of such punishment and few there were insensible to such an infliction, social proscription was visited; upon others whose livelihood depended upon the favor of the community, upon professional men, traders and workmen, threatened withdrawal of patronage was inflicted. Privation of official position under the government and disabilities for holding such places, impended over those who refused to subscribe to certain conditions imposed by the conventions and congress. Apprehensions of confiscation hung over those who were possessed of property, and later triple taxes were imposed on non jurors. Arrest and imprisonment could be escaped only by great discretion on the part of the suspected, or those known to be disaffected, and even personal injury may at times have been inflicted upon those whom an excited populace thought not sufficiently enthusiastic in the patriot cause, or had been lending aid and comfort to the enemy. Whatever may have been the numbers of the disaffected, the war had scarcely begun before all open expression of opposition had been silenced, if unanimity had not been secured, by the means indicated and by that other powerful moral force by which in times of popular commotion the minority gravitates by almost imperceptible
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degrees to the majority. Besides, it must not be forgotten, that war when once begun tends to draw to its support the doubtful and waver- ing, and even the hostile: especially so when the war pretends to be waged in the defense of the rights and liberties of those who were hesi- tating as to its expediency or who were condemning its inauguration. To side with his country even when not in the right is the natural im- pulse of the patriotic citizen.
Loyalty in this county did not assume the open, defiant, aggressive form of what is known and stigmatized as toryism. It was of the milder form that had its representatives, first, in the non-associators, and lastly in the non-jurors,-that is to say, in those men who at the outbreak of the troubles refused to subscribe the articles of association, and after the organization of the State government, those who declined to take the prescribed oaths. As indicating the motives of some of the non-jurors, probably the least sincere of them, and the sentiments entertained towards them by the leaders of opinion, an extract from a letter of Robert Goldsborough, Esq., of this county, who was a member of the lower house of assembly in 1778, the date of its writing, may here find place. The letter was addressed to the Hon. James Hollyday.
There were, during the course of the session, applications from more than two hundred non-jurors, praying that they might now be permitted to take the oath, and stand in statu quo. Various were the reasons set forth for not having taken it in time. Scruples of conscience, misconception of the nature of the obligation imposed by it, misinformation from others, and anathemas thundered out by Romish priests against such as should take it. But none of these was thought worthy of our attention; but our leaders said that as these people have given us evidence of their inimicality, we are determined to make them feel the weight of our offended zeal. We even went so far as to assert that these (that is, the non-jurors), are the men who have in- volved us in the present war, and that they would even now rejoice at the total subjugation of America. Our leaders seem to think that if the non-jurors behave themselves well in the future, and will, at the conclu- sion of the war, come with their petitions in their hands to the bar of the house and pray relief, they will, most of them, find grace and favour; but till the end of the war all applications will be in vain. A bill has passed for the relief of some non-jurors who petitioned and made it appear that they were prevented by sickness and inability to take the oath in time, but even these cases were minutely inquired into." It is not evident that Mr. Goldsborough approved of the rigid enforcement of the laws against this class of citizens; nor that he condemned it.30
30 The writer is indebted to Geo. T. Hollyday for a copy of this letter, no part of which has ever before been published.
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Both the non-associator and the non-juror were placed under legal disabilities and penal forfeitures, from which many sought to be relieved, and from which all sooner or later were relieved, except some specifically mentioned. For this reason, and other reasons that have already been suggested, but few of the names of those who opposed the patriot move- ments and favored the maintenance of the old order of things have been recovered from the obscurity with which their possessors, after the results of the war had been achieved, wished them to be concealed, and from which no one has since been anxious to withdraw them. A very natural chagrin that their forebodings of disaster to the colonies had not been realized, and an equally natural fear that they would suffer reproach for their opinions, may have caused them to keep their secret so sacredly that now, when justice to their motives may be done, and when the impeachment of their judgment has been molified, if not entirely withdrawn, their names cannot be recorded. During the con- tinuance of the war a discreet silence concealed the secret royalist, and after its conclusion an indulgent toleration, or what was better, a reviv- ing neighborly kindliness prevented their private sentiments from being dragged to light for their mortification, annoyance and possible injury. A few names of the non-associators and non-jurors of Talbot have survived. Except that of Wickham, who was a tory in the offensive sense of the term, which has been preserved in the minutes of the con- vention, like the poet's grubs and worms preserved in amber, these names belonged to the more conspicuous persons of their class, some of whom may here be mentioned without danger of wounding the sensibility of anyone.
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