USA > Maryland > Maryland's colonial Eastern Shore ; historical sketches of counties and of some notable structures > Part 10
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OLD PRATT HOUSE
NOW QUEEN ANNE'S COUNTY ALMSHOUSE
S ITUATED about ten miles from Centerville, the county-seat of Queen Anne's County, and just beyond the village of Ruthsburg, is the "Old Pratt Mansion," now occupied as a county almshouse. The first colonist who owned the ground upon which this house stands was Christopher Cross Routh, who accumulated much personalty and a wide extent of landed property in his lifetime. In his will, dated February 17, 1775, which was made one year before his death, he named Henry Pratt, his son-in-law, the beneficiary of his estate.
Henry Pratt and his son, also Henry Pratt, added many acres to the Routh holdings; it was said that they could drive seven miles in the direction of Centerville without getting off their own land. The Pratts were very patriotic during the Revolution, and they con- tributed largely of their means to further the interest of the Continen- tal Army. They also fitted out ships to trade with France during the War of 1812.
This house was built prior to the issuing of the Declaration of Independence. Over the front door are seen today thirteen stars, but
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it is not known just when these stars were placed there. The house, from oral tradition, was some time in course of construction, but when it was completed a celebration was held which lasted three days and three nights. The guests came from Kent, Caroline, Talbot and Queen Anne's, and were entertained in the mansion house and by neighbor- ing planters. Fox hunting, horse racing, dancing, feasting, and the whole round of rural pleasures were extended their guests by the Pratts. Coach driving with wild colts, as well as high-bred horses trained to harness, was a popular sport in those days, and was espe- cially enjoyed by Henry Pratt.
The mansion house was exquisitely furnished. Mahogany, cut glass and silver were brought from England and much of it is now in existence in the county and can be traced as once gracing the "Old Pratt Mansion." Henry Pratt died in 1783, and his son, who suc- ceeded to the property, lived until about 1800. The third Henry Pratt who owned the estate was a lavish spender and seemed to have missed inheriting his ancestors' ability to acquire and hold property. About 1832 the place passed from his hands and was purchased by the county, and has been used since as the county almshouse.
There had been erected in this house what is called a "sounding post"-a contrivance with a vacuum arrangement which carried the sound of a whisper made in the hall below to the bedroom of the owner. Before the last Henry Pratt vacated the property he declared that nobody else should have the advantage of this contrivance, so he pulled out his pistol and shot a bullet through the post and the bullet- hole can be seen in what remains of the post at the present time.
Ellen Pratt, daughter of the last owner, was born and married to Madison Brown in this house. She was the mother of Congressman John B. Brown, Judge Edwin H. Brown, Rev. Joel Brown and Mrs. James Bordley, wife of the late Dr. James Bordley, of Centerville.
Descendants of the original board of trustees of this county insti- tution of Queen Anne's have served on the board, and the present trustees are James Brown, president; W. H. Gibson, vice-president; William McKenney, secretary and treasurer ; C. P. Merrick, James T. Bright, Frank A. Emory, R. B. Carmichael, J. Frank Harper, Samuel A. Wallen and James E. Kirwan. Edwin H. Brown, Jr., is counsel, and William Jester, superintendent.
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POPLAR GROVE BLOOMFIELD
DOPLAR GROVE," the homestead of the Emory family for the past five generations, is located in Spaniard's Neck, Queen Anne's County, on the northern side of Corsica River and Emory's Creek. The estate originally contained about 1,000 acres. Its northerly boundary was "Readbourne," the old Hollyday estate on Chester River. Just what year the "Poplar Grove" house was built is not known, but it must have been early in the eighteenth century.
There seems to have been three distinct branches of the Emory family in Queen Anne's County. The "Poplar Grove" or Spaniard's Neck branch; the Queenstown branch, and the East of Centerville branch. Each branch of this family has turned out prominent men. Of the East of Centerville branch came Judge D. C. Hopper Emory of Lutherville, Baltimore County, Arthur Emory, J. K. B. Emory, and W. H. Emory, commission merchants, Baltimore City, Arthur Emory was born at "The Hut," a farm near Centerville. The Queenstown Emorys owned and lived on the farm now owned by the heirs of Dr. Thomas Willson, which is situated adjacent to and is said to have included the "Hemsley Farm," owned by Hiram G. Dudley.
The remains of William James Emory rest in the old Emory
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burying ground. Daniel Grant Emory, Dr. Richard Emory and the late Dr. Thomas Hall Emory of Harford County were descendants of this branch.
Many men of distinction came from the "Poplar Grove" branch of Emorys: Gen. Thomas Emory, an officer in the War of 1812, Col. John R. Emory, who served in the Florida Indian War under Gen. Joe Johnston; Frank Emory, of "Conquest"; Addison Emory, of "Ruth's Hollow"; Edward Bourke Emory, of "Poplar Grove"; John Emory, of "Ashland," and John Register Emory, of Washington.
Another estate associated with the Emory family and one of the most attractive old places in Queen Anne's is "Bloomfield," which is situated on the State Road between Centerville and Church Hill. The "Bloomfield" house was built by William Young Bourke not later than 1760. This Bourke married Eliza Anne Gray, and their daughter Anne married Richard Harrison but died without issue and the estate was inherited by Mary Bourke, who married Blanchard Emory, of "Poplar Grove," in 1852. Mrs. Emory, who raised a large family of children, was an authoress, and wrote "Colonial Families and Their Descendants." In 1893 the old estate was sold to Richard Earle Davidson, of Queenstown. "Bloomfield" is now the property of John H. Evans, a prominent citizen of Queen Anne's County.
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MELFIELD
ANTEDATING REVOLUTION
T `HIS homestead is located two and a half miles from Centerville, the county-seat of Queen Anne's County, on Tilghman's Creek, overlooking the Chester and the Corsica rivers.
"Melfield" originally belonged to Judge James Tilghman of "The Hermitage." The house which stands today, shown in the picture, was begun prior to the Revolutionary War. Its architectural appear- ance supports a tradition that only one section was completed when the disturbed conditions in the province stopped the work. The first part erected was evidently intended for a library, and is of English brick. The walls are several feet in thickness and the doors have large brass locks bearing the British coat-of-arms.
"Melfield" became the property of the Earles through the wife of Judge Richard Tilghman Earle, Mary Tilghman, a daughter of Judge James Tilghman. This estate originally contained over 1, 100 acres and included "Headlong Hall," a Tilghman farm of 365 acres, now owned by Mr. Clapp, of New York. This old home was one of a chain of places owned by Judge Earle. His summer home was
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"Winton," which is situated directly on Chester River at the mouth of the Corsica River and has been in the Earle family for more than a century. By a deed recorded in the Land Records of Talbot County, dated July 21, 1666, Edward Lloyd, of "Wye House," conveyed "Winton" to his son-in-law, Henry Hawkins. In 1669 Henry Hawkins sold "Winton" to Nathaniel Evitt for 6,000 pounds of tobacco. Three years later Evitt sold "Winton" to Richard Tilghman, then high sheriff of the county, and it remained in the Tilghman family until the death of Judge James Tilghman and became the portion of his daughter Mary, who married Judge Richard Tilghman Earle. Rich- ard Tilghman Earle, a grandson of Judge Earle, died in 1914, and "Winton" " was sold the following year and was purchased by Stuart Olivier and Charles Morris Howard, of Baltimore City, Milton Camp- bell, of "The Anchorage," Talbot, and Swepson Earle, of Queen Anne's. The "Winton" house was modeled after the "White House" and was destroyed by fire a decade ago.
"Needwood," another place owned by Judge Earle, is situated about a mile from Centerville and was his winter home. After his death it became the home of James Tilghman Earle, who represented Queen Anne's in the Maryland Senate at the sessions of 1865-74. After Mr. Earle's death "Needwood" was purchased by the late William McKenny, of Queen Anne's County.
In 1812, when the British were reported coming up Chester River, Peregrine Tilghman moved his family from "Recovery," now owned by Thomas J. Keating, to "Melfield" for safety. He joined the Queenstown Company and was in the engagement at "Slippery Hill." Capt. James Tilghman was born while his mother, Harriett Tilghman, was at "Melfield."
Samuel Thomas Earle lived sixty-eight years at "Melfield," the place having been given him by his father, Judge Earle, when he was a young man. Until his death in 1904 he resided on the estate, where he raised a large family of children. His surviving children were Mrs. Mary Feddeman, Mrs. E. M. Forman and William Brundige Earle, of Queen Anne's County, and Dr. Samuel T. Earle, of Baltimore City. "Melfield" was then divided into two farms; the home place is owned by the widow of William B. Earle, Louisa Stubbs Earle, and the outer part, which is called "Chatfield," by Dr. Samuel T. Earle.
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WORCESTER
1742
TT was not until 250 years after Columbus' fruitful voyage of 1492 that the struggling, though ever-increasing, population which at first clung to the watercourses and bays of the lower Eastern Shore in this territory had become sufficiently numerous and influential to demand and receive consideration from the Provincial Assembly. During the reign of George II, in the year 1742, when nearly all of Europe was then, as now, at war, we find that the Provincial Assembly, in acknowledged deference to the petition of certain inhabitants of our parent county, Somerset, serenely set aside of its woods, rivers, swamps, small lots of cleared land and ocean shore a new county and called it Worcester.
The boundaries of the present Worcester County were definitely fixed by the Act of 1742, and so remained, save for the boundary adjustment many years later with Virginia, until the Constitution framed by the Convention of 1867 took away the northern portion of Somerset and the western portion of Worcester to form Wicomico. After that diminution Worcester County remains with an area of 475 square miles. It extends from Mason and Dixon's Line, forming the southern boundary of Delaware, south to the State of Virginia, and fronts and bounds on the east upon the Atlantic Ocean, a distance of nearly fifty miles. The true location of the boundaries between Worcester County, Maryland, and Accomac County, Virginia, was for two centuries unsettled. The dispute between the States of Mary- land and Virginia as to the interstate boundary was finally submitted to arbitration and determined in 1877 by Jeremiah S. Black, of Pennsylvania, and Charles J. Jenkins, of Georgia, arbitrators selected by the two States.
Probably the earliest settlements in what is now Worcester County were about 1658, and were made by pioneers from Accomac and also direct from England. These emigrants were later followed by fugitive
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Acadians, (1755). The waterways naturally furnished the only con- venient means of transportation in early times. The labor of clearing away dense woods preliminary to any farming, the fight against malaria, absence of markets, churches and schools retarded the early growth of the county. In 1700 the population was only 11,640, includ- ing nearly 4,000 negro slaves. During the next twenty-five years, to 1815, the population rose to 16,971.
In addition to Pocomoke City, Snow Hill, Berlin, Stockton, and Ocean City, which is the only town in Maryland built at the ocean's side, several other towns were in times past "erected" in Worcester County by legislative act, and of them no traces remain, if any such towns had in fact physical existence. Notable among these are "Newport," erected in 1744, two years after Snow Hill was incorpo- rated, and "Baltimore Town." It is interesting to note that the March, 1666, term of Somerset Court ordered that the "Great Bridge" at Snow Hill be repaired. Snow Hill, the present county-seat, was then a village near which a band of friendly Indians, numbering about 120, lingered until 1756, refused inducements to leave, and what finally became of them is unknown. It was not until many years after the "Great Bridge" was repaired that the town of Snow Hill was incorporated.
"Newtown," now Pocomoke City, was then unknown. Col. Wil- liam Stevens established a ferry about 1670 across the Pocomoke River where the bridge at Pocomoke City now is, and called the place "Stevens' Ferry." A warehouse for tobacco, then a legal tender in Maryland and other colonies, built of cypress logs, was established on "the hill," a short distance below "Stevens' Ferry," about the year 1700, and from that the hamlet below the ferry took its name of "Warehouse Landing." Later, as "Newtown," the village flour- ished until it soon outgrew Wagram, just across the Virginia line. "Newtown" also outgrew Rehoboth in Somerset County, eight miles down the Pocomoke River, a port of entry and a place of comparative importance when Baltimore City was young.
Rehoboth boasts the oldest Presbyterian church building in exis- tence in America, and one of the oldest Episcopal churches. The year 1683 is notable, not alone to Worcester County but to the nation, because it was in that year that the first Presbyterian preacher
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reached the colonies. The young missionary from Ireland, Francis Makemie, began that year his ministerial work at Snow Hill and in Somerset County. He established at Snow Hill, about 1690, what is generally believed to be the first Presbyterian church erected in America, and at about the same time a second church at Rehoboth. Soon he organized a third church, "Old Manokin," at Princess Anne. After an active and useful career, by no means free from difficulty, hardship and persecution, Makemie died, and was buried on the farm of his daughter, Anne Holden, on Holden's Creek, Accomac County, Virginia. For many years the place of his burial was unknown, his grave unmarked, but finally after persistent and careful examination of records, documents, etc., and the most painstaking, energetic effort, his burial place was accurately located. Thereupon a suitable monu- ment was erected some eight or ten years ago to mark his grave, paid for by subscriptions given by the Presbyterians of the United States, who showed this long postponed and much deserved respect to the memory of their first minister.
One small, and otherwise comparatively unimportant, incident is of value, because it throws a vivid light on the relative size of the struggling settlements, and the bonds of friendship which united them. After the great Boston fire in 1760, Worcester County contributed, (as did all the other counties of the Province of Mary- land), to the stricken New England city, her gift being £73 4s. 6d. Quite a generous contribution it was, when the resources of Worcester County in 1760 are considered. Great events were soon to follow this donation, significant as an expression of sympathy. Fourteen years afterward we find that the sum of £533 was raised in Worcester County to aid Massachusetts in her opposition to taxation by the British Parliament without representation. After the Revolutionary War actually began a great mass meeting was held on June 7, 1775, at Snow Hill and a set of resolutions adopted in which, among other things, it was pledged "That we will from time to time, as often as it shall be found necessary, contribute cheerfully for the support and relief of our brethren in Massachusetts, now actually experiencing the fullest extent of ministerial vengeance and tyranny, and groaning under the horrors of war in the defense of their and our common rights."
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On July 26, 1775, about sixty of the foremost citizens of the county, (men whose names are still familiar, being perpetuated by many descendants now living in Worcester), met at Snow Hill and signed the Association of the Freemen of Maryland. Maryland, how- ever, and particularly Worcester County, was by no means unanimous in favor of the war, and there were many "Tories" in Worcester loyal to the British Crown. So that the men who so boldly wrote their names on the roll of the Association of Freemen undoubtedly wrote their own death warrants had the colonies lost. The presence and pernicious activity of so many "Tories" in Worcester and Somerset Counties was a source of grim satisfaction to Governor Eden. He wrote, with some elation, that in February, 1777, General Smallwood, with 500 men and a company of artillery, had been sent to the lower peninsula to reduce the "Tories" to obedience. When Smallwood arrived the trouble was over. Nevertheless, many of the trouble- makers were arrested by him and hustled to Annapolis for trial, where it is unlikely that any too great deference or tenderness was shown them.
The Sinepuxent Battalion, with about 318 men, Capts. Matthew Purnell, William Purnell, E. Purnell, Thomas Purnell and Dale; the Snow Hill Battalion, with about 578 men, Capts. Spence, Stewart, Layfield, Handy, Walton, Patterson, Smyley, Parramore and William Richardson, were volunteers in the cause of independence organized in the county, and comprised about 13 per cent of the total white population. In addition many men enlisted from Worcester County in commands elsewhere. Col. Peter Chaille commanded the Tenth Battalion and Col. William Purnell the Twenty-fourth Battalion of the Maryland Militia authorized by the Convention of 1775. Worces- ter sent Samuel Handy, Peter Chaille, Smith Bishop and Josiah Mitchell, who was for many years county surveyor, as members of the Provincial Convention which framed the first Constitution for the State of Maryland, and held its sessions at Annapolis between August 14 and November 11, 1776. And as delegates to the State Convention of 1788, which ratified the Constitution of the United States, Worcester sent John Done, Peter Chaille, William Morris and James Martin.
Worcester County has much fast land and semi-waste land in the
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long stretches of swamp which for many miles border the dark. deep reaches of the tortuous Pocomoke River and its tributaries, and make the river, with its coffee-colored waters, one of the loveliest streams in America. Again, the narrow sand spit that pens the waters of the shallow bay extending from Virginia to Delaware along the east coast of the county, and that in some miraculous way has sustained for years and still sustains the pounding of the ocean breakers on one side and the wash from the waters of the bay on the other, and that keeps the ocean and the bay apart, is barren. Worcester has valuable resources in its salt-water fisheries in the sheltered bay to the east known at various parts of its length as Isle of Wight, Sinepuxent and Chincoteague.
The county has all varieties of soils. Soils that will produce more wheat per acre than the best lands of the West, and also phenomenal yields of corn and vegetables, sometimes lie within gunshot of sandy "pine barrens" that scarcely repay the cost of clearing. Diversified farming, the raising of truck and fruits, improved methods of market- ing and transportation, and good roads have wrought an agricul- tural miracle of recent years in the county.
Worcester has been well and honestly governed, and the people of the county have enjoyed, among the first in Maryland, the best fruits of a liberal free school system. Peace, security of personal and property rights, good order, sufficient for all the necessaries of life and many, (though not too many), of its luxuries have almost without intermission blessed the people and been the county's portion. If the words of Voltaire be true, that "history is little else than a picture of human crimes and misfortunes," then Worcester is happily without a history.
Janie K. Denne,
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EEFFE
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BEVERLY
PATENTED 1669
B EVERLY," the old colonial homestead of the Dennis family, is situated on the east bank of the Pocomoke River, about eight miles from its mouth, in Worcester County, on a tract of land patented in 1669 under the name of "Thrum-Capped" to Donnoch Dennis, who was the first settler of the name in Maryland.
Donnoch Dennis lived on Dividing Creek in Somerset County, on "Dennis First and Second Purchases," and his son John inherited the "Beverly" or "Thrum-Capped" tract and lived there. He built the first dwelling house on the tract, which was of brick.
The present house stood on a tract which, until recently subdi- vided, consisted of 1,700 acres. The present house was commenced in 1774 by Littleton Dennis, a lawyer; and he, dying in the same year, it was completed by his widow, Susanna (Upshur) Dennis, both of whom, with many others of their family, are buried in the family burying ground near the house.
The house is of the large, old English style of brick and faces east. The porch to the side facing the Pocomoke River is of wrought
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iron, fashioned by hand, and the circle in the arch was formerly the receptacle for a large iron lamp, which served as a beacon light for miles up and down the Pocomoke River, which in the absence of good roads, furnished then the only easy means of communication.
The first floor rooms are all wainscoted, in whole or in part, with panels beautifully designed, and all hand work, and in each room, where was originally a fireplace, there are on each side of the latter closets in the wall, presumably to hold firewood.
The walls are very thick, allowing room for deep window seats, and the framing and timbers, which are still perfectly solid, were hewed out. The boards used in construction were sawed out from the log by hand.
The property has never been out of the Dennis family, but has passed 'down through successive generations by will or inheritance from the original patentee.
LIVING ROOM AT BEVERLY
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TIMMONS MANSION
1812
A LTHOUGH not built in colonial days, the Timmons House in Snow Hill, recently torn down, was for a century an architec- tural landmark of Snow Hill. The original part was built of hewn logs by Timothy Irons, and its first site was at the southerly end of Market Street. Purchased a quarter of a century later from Irons by Dr. Thomas Spence, it was moved to a new site, an addition built on and the colonial type of porches constructed. Dr. Spence at that time owned nearly all the land from Washington Street to Purnell's Mill Pond, on the Berlin road. He sold the house to Sheriff Samuel Harper, and later owners were Edward Bowen and John F. Purnell. About 1860 it became the home of Capt. William E. Timmons, then a political leader in Worcester, who occupied it until his death a few years ago.
The demolition of this notable structure of Snow Hill, in the inter- ests of modern progress, caused a sentimental pang to the residents and descendants of former residents who revered the building for its long and intimate connection with local and family history.
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INGLESIDE
BUILT 1755
F ROM the builder of this house, Robert Morris, Register of Wills of Worcester County, who erected it in 1755, its ownership passed to Judge William Whittington, the maternal grandfather of United States Senator John Walter Smith. Judge Whittington died in 1827, and was buried on the "Ingleside" place. The property was later occupied by his son-in-law, Judge William Tingle, for some years in the middle period of the last century. The ballroom of the mansion is now used as a kitchen, the original kitchen having been a semi- detached building. "Ingleside" is owned by Mrs. Eugene Riggin, of Los Angeles, California.
Judge Whittington succeeded John Done, of Somerset, as Chief Justice of the Fourth District of Maryland in 1799, Judge Done, appointed under the Judiciary Act of 1790, having been promoted to the General Court. The Fourth District, (there being five in the State), included Caroline, Dorchester, Somerset and Worcester Counties-all the Eastern Shore south of the Choptank. Judge Whittington served a little less than two years, when his tenure was ended by the Act of
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1801, which likewise divided the Eastern Shore into two districts, Cecil, Kent, Queen Anne's and Talbot being the Second.
William Polk, of Somerset, was appointed in Judge Whittington's stead, for party reasons. By Luther Martin, Whittington sued Polk at the only assize of novel disseisin known to the Maryland law reports for "having disseised him of his freehold, with its appurte- nances," in the office of Chief Justice of the County Courts of the Fourth District, and the General Court, upon a jury's special verdict, found that when Whittington qualified "a right vested in him to hold office until his death or conviction in a court of law of misbehavior"; and that the repealing Act of 1801 in depriving him of his office was "an infraction of his right and does not accord with sound legislation." However, the General Court held that the Act was not repugnant to the State Constitution, and was within the power of the Legislature; and nonsuited Whittington because the writ of assize of novel dis- seisin, (a Clarendon statute of Henry II), the use of which in Eliza- bethan England in a certain action for the recovery of land had been set up as a precedent by Martin and Robert Goodloe Harper, had never been extended to Maryland, and could not be availed of in the case at bar. Polk's counsel were Thomas James Bullitt, Gustavus Scott and Josiah Bayley.
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