USA > Maryland > Maryland's colonial Eastern Shore ; historical sketches of counties and of some notable structures > Part 12
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The first court sat at "Melville's Warehouse" on March 15, 16, 17, 1774, the justices named in the commission being Charles Dickin- son, William Haskins, Thomas White, Richard Mason, Joshua Clarke, (these five of the quorum); Benson Stainton, Nathaniel Potter, William Richardson, Matthew Driver, Jr. George Fitzhugh was appointed Clerk, William Hopper, Sheriff; Robert Goldsborough IV, "Prosecutor of the Pleas of the Crown and Clerk of Indictments." Other county officers were William Richardson, deputy clerk; Ben- jamin Sylvester and Robert Dixon, coroners; Thomas Mason, Thomas Wynn Loockerman, John Webb, John Cooper, Francis Stevens, sub- sheriffs; Christopher Driver, Joshua Willis, James Cooper, Solomon Mason, Nathan Downes, constables, the court dividing the county into five hundreds-Bridgetown, Great Choptank, Fork, Choptank and Tuckahoe. At the August term the first juries were drawn:
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MARYLAND'S COLONIAL EASTERN SHORE
GRAND JURY
Ezekiel Hunter
Abraham Collins
Samuel Jackson, Sr.
William Peters
Thomas Hughlett
l saae Baggs
John West
John Robertson
Giles Hieks
Oneal Priee
John Dehorty
Peter Jumpe
Athel Stewart
Jacob Rumbley
Philip French
Thomas Garrett
Richard Andrews
William Salisbury
John Covey William Smith (Fork)
Waitman Goslin
Andrew Fountain
Aaron Alford
Maeeabees Alford
Thomas Noel
James Lecompte. Jr.
Solomon Hubbert
Aaron Downes Morgan Williams
ORPHANS' JURY Henry Stafford Thomas Smith William Bradley
John Stevens (Forest) Jonathan Clifton David Sylvester
And eleven grand jurors.
The Caroline "warehouses" of colonial days, around which clus- tered the commercial life of the period, were "Melville's," "Hunting Creek," "Tuckahoe Bridge," (now Hillsboro); "Bridgetown" and "North-West Fork," (now Federalsburg).
Nathaniel Potter and Isaac Bradley were elected Burgesses, (Dele- gates to the General Assembly), in April, 1774, Richardson and White retaining their seats, but White alone appeared in the Lower House at the March Session, 1774, the last Colonial Legislature. Until Mary- land became a free and independent State in 1776, the Province was ruled by conventions. With Benson Stainton and Thomas Golds- borough the four were sent to the Convention of 1774 by the mass- meeting at "Melville's Warehouse" which passed the "Caroline Resolutions," affirming loyalty to George III, but proposing an embargo on importations from Great Britain by an association of the American Colonies until the Boston Port Bill should be repealed.
As the struggle for independence drew nearer, public sentiment in Caroline turned sharply to separation from England. When Thomas Johnson, who was a little later to nominate George Washington for commander-in-chief, and to become the first Governor of the State of Maryland, was refused a seat in the Convention of 1776 from the other side of the Chesapeake, "the firebrand of the Revolution" was promptly placed on the Caroline delegation-an offer of a constituency that decided Johnson's place in American history as a statesman, and had a far-reaching effect throughout the colonies upon the course of events.
Edward J. Tubbs
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PETIT JURY Robert Hardeastle
John Mitehell Jere : Colston Thomas Penington Edward White William Bell
1
FRAZIER'S FLATS HOUSE
ANTEDATING REVOLUTION
W THEN "Skillington's Right" was surveyed in 1663, and "Rich- ardson's Folly," 1,400 acres, in 1667 for John Edmondson, they were "reputed to be in Talbot"; and John Richardson, later taking up "Willenbrough," 982 acres, surveyed November 14, 1678, invoked the aid of the Colonial Land Office to straighten out a tangle of boun- daries. A tax return for Great Choptank Hundred of Caroline County in 1782 assessed 1,394 acres of the tracts named "Skillington's Right," "Richardson's Folly," "Barnett's Purchase," "Plain Dealing," and "Sharp's Cost," to William Frazier. The area fronting on the Great Choptank River between Skillington's and Edmondson's Creeks has long been known as "Frazier's Neck." Dover Bridge, the sole one across the river from the Chesapeake Bay to Denton, is a short dis- tance above Edmondson's Creek.
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MARYLAND'S COLONIAL EASTERN SHORE
Since the time of Capt. William Frazier, the plantation upon which this house stands has been called "Frazier's Flats." A colony of Hollanders was established on the property two decades ago and named "Wilhelmina," after the Dutch Queen. The plantation is now divided into eight farms, the one upon which the house is located being owned by George W. Lankford. The house, the finest specimen of colonial architecture extant on the upper Choptank, is traditionally said to be one of eight pretentious brick dwellings of contemporary construction in this region. Another, (one of four that have been destroyed by fire), stood on "Poplar Grove," on the lower side of Skillington's Creek, the home of Capt. Charles S. Carmine, father of Capt. G. Creighton Carmine, U. S. Coast Guard, and of Mrs. B. Washington Wright, the present owner of "Poplar Grove" home- stead. A third is the "Jamaica Point" house, on the opposite side of the Choptank in Talbot, and a fourth the "Warwick Fort Manor' house at the mouth of Warwick River-Secretary's Creek-in Dor- chester. Much of the original furniture of the "Frazier's Flats' house, remaining in it until a generation ago, was made in Drury Lane, London.
Capt. William Frazier came from Talbot, and was a militia officer of the Revolution. He figured largely in Caroline affairs after taking up his residence east of the Choptank; was a Justice of the Caroline County Court for some years prior to 1790; long in the commission of the peace, and died in 1808. He was a leader in organizing Methodist societies in lower Caroline, and the second house of Methodist worship in the county was "Frazier's Chapel," said by Capt. Charles W. Wright to have been located on the site of the town of Preston, and to have been the forerunner of Bethesda congregation, out of which grew Preston M. E. Church. The Bethesda records are continuous from 1797. An intimate friend of Francis Asbury, the greatest of Methodist itinerants in his journeyings along the Atlantic seaboard was often the guest of Captain Frazier. "Dover Ferry," across the Choptank, named from the old town of "Dover" on the Talbot side, joined the road from Easton with that leading from the eastern Choptank bank to lower Delaware, and this road ran across the front of the Frazier plantation, the house standing a mile from the entrance gate. Dover Bridge is some distance above the old ferry. Jesse Lee, traveling with
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MARYLAND'S COLONIAL EASTERN SHORE
Asbury in May, 1799, from Easton, over "Dover Ferry," speaks of their spending the night at William Frazier's:
This place was once a home for me when I rode this circuit, almost fourteen years ago. I was truly thankful to the Lord for bringing me here once more.
Asbury's journal of the same date says "we held meeting in his [Frazier's] dwelling house," and further records:
May, 1801-We had a long ride [from Cambridge] to William Frazier's, through dust and excessive heat. It was hard to leave loving souls, so we tarried until morning.
April, 1805-We came to brother Frazier's. The fierceness of the wind made Choptank impassable; we had to rest awhile, and need had I, being sore with hard service.
March, 1806-I stay at Captain Frazier's, Caroline County. My hoarseness is afflictive, but my soul is filled with God. . ยท I only exhorted a little at Frazier's Chapel.
May, 1807-At Easton we met Joseph Everett, who conducted us to William Frazier's to dine.
April, 1913-Rode 15 miles to preach in Frazier's Chapel.
Capt. William H. Smith and Mrs. Smith, parents of H. Dimmock Smith, of Baltimore, lived at "Frazier's Flats" for about 25 years from 1859, the property having been left Mrs. Smith, (Miss Henrietta Maria Frazier Dimmock), by her great aunt, the widow of Captain Frazier, after whom she was named. Mrs. Smith was a daughter of Capt. Charles Dimmock, of Richmond, Virginia, an officer of the old army, and a West Pointer, who went into the Confederacy with his State. Captain Smith, a civil engineer, built the former Dover Bridge, and was later right-of-way agent of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad between the Susquehanna and the Schuylkill.
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MURRAY'S MILL
BUILT 1681
AS S soon as a community of settlers had been formed in early Mary- land, a grist mill made its appearance, and these were the first manufacturing plants of the Colony. The pioneers could make or import their clothing and furniture, and grow and prepare for the table many food products upon their land holdings, but an indis- pensable adjunct of every settlement was the old-time grist mill, on the bank of a stream which furnished power to turn its wheel. These mills were geographical landmarks that still survive, in many cases, in place-names. For instance, the nomenclature of Worcester County's old election districts was taken from its mills, and these in all parts of the Eastern Shore have an interesting history.
The first mention of a mill at the site of the present Linchester is found in the Dorchester Rent Roll, where a survey of May 20, 1682, for Thomas Pattison, is described as being on Hunting Creek, "above the mill-dam." Until 1881, Linchester was known as "Upper Hunting Creek," and the "Upper Hunting Creek Mill" for 200 years had been an important point in that territory. Both sides of the
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MARYLAND'S COLONIAL EASTERN SHORE
creek were settled at an early period. Before the Revolution the mill became the property of Col. James Murray, upon whose plantation were 70 persons. In May, 1770, the Council of Safety at Annapolis was assured that flour, then greatly needed for the Maryland troops with the Continental Army, could be had "at the head of Hunting Creek," from Murray's Mill. About 1800 the mill was rebuilt by Wright and Corkran, and a large portion of the old structure still stands, although the interior has been remodeled for the introduction of modern roller-process machinery, and steam power provided as an auxiliary to that of water; but the huge undershot wheel is as ready as ever to perform its duty whenever there is a "head" of water.
The southern boundary of Caroline County in the Act of 1773 was fixed by this mill, among other landmarks:
Beginning at a point on the north side of the mouth of Hunting Creek in Dorchester County, and from thence running up and with the said creek to the main road at James Murray's Mill; thence with that road by Saint Mary's White-Chapel Parish Church to the North-West Fork Bridge; thence with the main road (that leads to Cannon's Ferry) to Nanticoke River to and with the exterior limits of the aforesaid County of Dorchester to the exterior limits of Queen Anne's County, [etc.]
The Delaware boundary was reached at Johnson's Cross Roads, before the new county line extended to the Nanticoke River.
St. Mary's White-Chapel Church had been built in 1755, the parish, almost co-extensive with the later Caroline County, having been taken from Great Choptank Parish in 1725, the parish church at Cambridge being inaccessible to the upper part of Dorchester. After 1776 the church fell into disuse, and about 1812 was torn down.
James Murray was assessed with 2,55 1 acres of land in Caroline County in 1782, the land names being "Mischance," "The Plains," "Point Ridge," "Summers' Ridge," "Taylor's Kindness," (surveyed 16th June, 1674, for John Edmondson "on the south side Great Choptank River in Hunting Creek"); "Andrews' Desire," (surveyed 5th January, 1718, for Richard Andrews, "in the woods on the north side a branch of Hunting Creek"); "Harry's Valley," "Joseph's Valley," "Addition to David's Venture," "Square Chance," "Willis's Lot," "Bank of Pleasure," "Connaway's Beginning," "Murray's Pre- vention," "David's First Venture," "Murray's Adventure," "Nehe- miah's Venture."
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POTTER MANSION
BUILT 1808
Z ABDIEL POTTER, a sea captain from Rhode Island, and a scion of the noted colonial family of that name in New England, came up the Choptank before the middle of the eighteenth century, and made his home in the vicinity where "Coquericus Creek," known only to this generation by its appearance on the records, entered the river. "Coquericus Fields," of 600 acres, was surveyed June 16, 1673, for Thomas Phillips, and "Coquericus Creek" became "Phillips' Creek." Later surveys gave "Lloyd's Hill Improved" and "Lloyd's Grove" to the Potter holdings, these three tracts being owned in 1782 by Dr. Zabdiel Potter.
The original settler built a small brick house on the knoll over- looking the river 160 or more years ago, and made "Potter's Landing" a point of commercial importance on the upper river. In those days vessels sailed directly to British ports with tobacco, the colonial crop, from the northeast branch of the Choptank, and brought back car- goes of the many things the colonists had to import. Capt. Zabdiel Potter commanded one of these vessels, and, in 1760, "being bound
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MARYLAND'S COLONIAL EASTERN SHORE
on a voyage to sea," with its attending uncertainties, he made a will, which was probated in 1761.
Two sons survived him, Dr. Zabdiel Potter and Nathaniel Potter. Both were especially active during the Revolution, and Nathaniel served in the Maryland Conventions. Nathaniel, who never married, died in 1783, and Dr. Zabdiel Potter ten years later. One son of the latter, born in the original home, became Dr. Nathaniel Potter, a founder of the School of Medicine of the University of Maryland, and a Baltimore practitioner and teacher of widespread fame. William Potter, the second son, who built the "Potter Mansion," died in 1847, and is buried near the house, where his wife, a daughter of Col. Wil- liam Richardson, also lies. He became a brigadier-general of the Maryland Militia, after long service in lower ranks; was three times a member of the Governor's Council, and its "first-named" in 1816 and 1831, ranking next to the Governor in the State administration; and was repeatedly elected to the Legislature.
General Potter left one son, Zabdiel Webb Potter, who died in Cecil in 1855. While none of the Potter name are now in Caroline, General Potter has a number of descendants in Baltimore City and elsewhere in the State. Dr. Walter S. Turpin, of Church Hill, Queen Anne's County, married Ann Webb Richardson Potter, and after her death married her sister, Maria C. Potter, both daughters of General Potter. Commander Walter S. Turpin, U.S. Navy, is his great-grand- son, and among other descendants in Queen Anne's is Mrs. J. Spencer Wright, (formerly Miss Annie W. R. Turpin), a granddaughter. The late William S. Potter, of Baltimore City, was General Potter's grandson, and the only son of Zabdiel Webb Potter.
After the death of General Potter, the property was bought by Col. Arthur John Willis, who lived there until his death in 1889. Colonel Willis maintained the social traditions of the old homestead, and the standing of "Potter's Landing" as the chief business center of Caroline County. It had been called "Potter's Town" earlier in the century, and was the leading shipping point of Caroline County from the first Zabdiel Potter's time, until after the Civil War. Both Gen- eral Potter and Colonel Willis kept lines of sailing vessels in the Baltimore trade, and until the late nineties, the river was the one route of communication of central and lower Caroline with the State's
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metropolis. Colonel Willis was an active and influential Union man during the Civil War, initiated the raising of the First Eastern Shore Regiment, Maryland Volunteers, four companies of which were recruited at "Potter's Landing" ; represented the United States abroad at a critical period of the war, and served in the field during the 1863 campaign. He was elected to the Senate of Maryland in 1849 and 1863, and also served in the House of Delegates. The post office name of "Potter's Landing" was changed to Williston in memory of Colonel Willis. One of his daughters, Mary Virginia, married B. Gootee Stevens, and Mrs. William D. Uhler, wife of the State highway engineer of Pennsylvania; Mrs. H. Earle Smith, of Denton, and Mrs. Elmer E. Wheeler, of Baltimore City, are granddaughters of Colonel Willis.
The brilliant social regime at the "Potter Mansion" during the lifetime of General Potter and of Colonel Willis ended with the death of the latter, the house since having been partly occupied by tenants. The kitchen wing of the building is the original structure erected by Zabdil Potter in the middle of the eighteenth century. When the property was sold by the heirs of Colonel Willis, three years ago, it was purchased, with the wharf and other buildings, by Lawrence B. Towers, Clerk of the Circuit Court for Caroline County. The Towers Wharf property, just below on the river, is owned by his brother, Thomas Frederick Towers-this being the homestead of their father, William Frank Towers, and where Chairman Albert Garey Towers, of the Maryland Public Service Commission, and his elder brother, Lawrence, were born. The younger brother was born at "Gilpin's Point," also a homestead of this family, and famous in a bygone day as the home of Col. William Richardson, (1735-1825).
Colonel Richardson is buried on the place, which lies opposite the mouth of the Tuckahoe, and was surveyed in 1683 as "Mulrain." He gave his seat in the Convention of 1776 to Thomas Johnson; was colonel of the only Eastern Shore Battalion of the Flying Camp, which at Harlem Heights made the first bayonet charge of the Revolution. From January 1, 1777, until his resignation on October 22, 1779, he commanded the Fifth Regiment of the Maryland Line, John Eager Howard being its lieutenant-colonel. He held many public offices, and died as Treasurer of the Eastern Shore.
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NECK MEETING HOUSE
NEAR DENTON
S TANDING in a grove on the north side of the road leading west- ward from the Choptank River at Denton, and a short distance from the river, this homely and weatherbeaten wooden structure has for several generations been a landmark of the "Logan's Horns" tract. For years, however, no religious service has been held in it, and the "Neck Meeting" of Friends, which sent reports in the first and middle quarters of the nineteenth century from this house of worship to the next higher meeting, the Third Haven Monthly Meet- ing at Easton, which kept the records, has passed entirely out of existence. No members of the "Neck Meeting" are left in the com- munity, and far and wide are scattered the descendants of those who once gathered here for prayer and praise.
Early in the last century, or in the latter part of the eighteenth, this property passed to the Friends from the Nicolites, a small sect very similar in thought and practice, but of independent origin. The "Neck Meeting House," so called from its location on the upper verge of Tuckahoe Neck, is the last of the three places of worship that belonged to the Nicolites on the Maryland and Delaware Peninsula.
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Their founder, Joseph Nicol, born in Delaware near the Caroline border about 1700, was wild and thoughtless in his youth, and fore- most in the rude merrymaking and worse of a band that then infested the State line of the same character as that described in George Alfred Townsend's "Entailed Hat." The sudden death of a comrade at a dance impressed Nicol, and he became quiet and meditative. When he spoke of the serious problems of life and the importance of being prepared for certain death, it was with such power and fervor that many people assembled to hear him discourse. Meeting places were provided, but he never promised to "preach." He said he intended to be "obedient" only. He was the sole leader of his sect, and with his death, while yet in the prime of manhood, his followers seem to have been absorbed by the Friends, "who were then at the zenith of their zeal for reforms in the world which have since largely been made, if we except the great question of war," writes Wilson M. Tylor, of Easton. "The Nicolites were quietists in form and endeav- ored to lead the simple life," according to Mr. Tylor :
I well remember the last remaining Nicolite. With his death the departing ray of flickering light from that sect forever set. His name was Elisha Meloney, (remembered still, perhaps, by some of the older citizens of Caroline), who died about the beginning of the Civil War. He lived between the farms of Col. Richard C. Carter and Capt. Robert W. Emerson, on the road leading from Denton to Hillsboro. He was a real Samaritan. Elisha Meloney never identi- fied himself with Friends, though he attended the "Neck Meeting" regularly until his death.
In the graveyard of the "Neck Meeting House" lie a few of the former members of this Friends' organization, among them the par- ents of Mr. Tylor, whose brother, J. Edward Tylor, now owns the property, title having been given him by the Third Haven Monthly Meeting, with the sanction of the General Assembly of 1904.
And a sheltering place for the birds of the air May this house become, where once echoed prayer, But the Spirit of God is above heat and frost, And the echoes of prayer can never be lost. The life of a Christian for ages may gleam, Though his sect cannot wear Christ's coat without seam-
are the concluding lines of a poem on Joseph Nicol's life and work written by the late Miss Rachel B. Sattherthwaite, of Talbot, a half- sister of Mr. Tylor.
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7
OAK LAWN
BUILT 1783
O N one of the gables of this fine specimen of colonial architecture, built at the close of the Revolution, is the legend, traced in the customary way, "B. S., 1783." These initials testify to the identity of the builder, Benjamin Silvester. Many land grants in this region of Caroline run in the names of Silvester, Purnell and Boon, dating back a hundred or more years before Benjamin Silvester erected this house upon one of them.
"The Golden Lyon," August 5, 1675, 200 acres; "Mischiefe," March 2, 1679, 100 acres; "Bear Garden," July 24, 1683, 353 acres; "Silvester's Forrest," August 3, 1682, 250 acres; "Silvester's Addition," March 17, 1689, 214 acres; "Woodland," May 17, 1689, 100 acres, were surveyed for James Silvester, and some of these tracts were "possest" by Benjamin Silvester and James Silvester, Jr., when the rent roll of 1722 was made up. Richard Purnell owned "The Golden Lyon" and "Dudley's Chance," 200 acres, surveyed June 26, 1679. "Partnership," 500 acres, was surveyed October 27, 1683, for William Purnell, Richard Purnell, and John Boon; and "Pur- nell's Forrest," 500 acres, July 4, 1683, for William Purnell. In 1722
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MARYLAND'S COLONIAL EASTERN SHORE
it was "possest by William Boon, who married Purnell's widow." Other lands are also mentioned as being held by William Boon "in right of his wife." "Purnell's Chance," 100 acres, was surveyed October 27, 1683, for William Purnell, and "Purnell's Addition," 150 acres, April 27, 1688, for William and Richard Purnell. William Boon owned part of "The Oak Ridge," 380 acres, surveyed November 25, 1678, for John James and John Boon; "Boon's Pleasure," 250 acres, surveyed February 5, 1720; "Boon's Park," 200 acres, Novem- ber 7, 1679; "Hiccory Ridge," 150 acres, November 15, 1678, and "Haddon," 400 acres, February 3, 1689, were surveyed for John Boon. Some of these tracts were contiguous to or lay nearby "Dicken- son's Plains," 860 acres, surveyed for William Dickenson and Love- lace Gorsuch, "on the east side the main branch of Tuckahoe Creek."
'Swanbrook," 770 acres, surveyed 1688, for Lovelace Gorsuch, was, like "Dickenson's Plains," "possest" by William Dickenson in 1722.
Benjamin Silvester died in 1797, and Isaac Purnell was his execu- tor. In this house was born Mrs. Mary M. Bourne, and she inherited the "Oak Lawn" estate from her grandfather, Benjamin Silvester, and many ancestral acres in the Silvester and Purnell families. Allen Thorndike Rice, editor of the North American Review, spent part of his boyhood at "Oak Lawn" with his grandmother, Mrs. Bourne, who later had built on "The Plains," nearby, a magnificent summer home, now converted into St. Gertrude's Convent of the Benedictine Sisters. Mrs. Bourne died at Newport, Rhode Island, in 1881.
"Oak Lawn" is two and a half miles from the town of Ridgely, founded in 1867. Bayard Taylor came down the newly built railroad from Clayton to Easton in 1871, on a tour of the Eastern Shore and breathed "the oldest atmosphere of life" to be found "anywhere in this republic." His classic "Down the Eastern Shore" in Harper's comments on the English character of the scenery, the attractive country of Caroline and Talbot; the estates and genealogies of the region. The town of Ridgely was named after Rev. Greenbury W. Ridgely, who lived at "Oak Lawn" from 1858 until his death in 1883-a native of Kentucky, of Maryland lineage, once a law partner at Lexington of Henry Clay, and for forty years before his retirement to Caroline an active clergyman of the Episcopal Church.
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