USA > Maryland > Maryland's colonial Eastern Shore ; historical sketches of counties and of some notable structures > Part 13
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"Oak Lawn" is now owned by John K. Lynch.
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944
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CEDARHURST
BUILT 1782
THAWLEY HOUSE
BUILT 1783
A NOTHER example of eighteenth century brick architecture in the region between the Choptank and the Tuckahoe-where agricultural development has in the past two decades reached a remarkably high point-is "Cedarhurst," on the Oakland-Greens- boro road. This is one of the Boon houses, built in 1782 ; another is that on the "Marblehead" farm, in the same neighborhood.
John Boon was the owner of "Marblehead" early in the last cen- tury, the plantation being made up by him from various tracts. The doors and mantels and interior woodwork of these two houses speak eloquently of the consummate art of the olden-time carpenters and joiners. The first-floor windows of "Marblehead" are high above the ground, and give a fortress-like air to the structure. It passed out of the Boon family connection when the heirs of William Boon Massey, in 1904, sold it to Irwin T. and Albert G. Saulsbury, of Ridgely, sons of James Keene Saulsbury, one of the founders of that town. "Cedar- hurst," another Massey property, was sold about the same time, and for some years has been the home of James H. Pippin.
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Ten miles to the south of "Cedarhurst" and "Marblehead," on the north bank of the Tuckahoe River, (no longer designated as "creek" since it became known to the Rivers and Harbor Bill), is a third house of like age. This is called the "Thawley House," (origin- ally the "Daffin House"), from its late owner, William H. Thawley, of Hillsboro, whose widow and children now have title to the property. It faces a public road, with a view of the picturesque stream of the Tuckahoe at the back, and was built by Thomas Daffin in 1783. The Daffin family was prominent in the early history of Caroline, and Charles Daffin was for years a Justice of the County Court, and held many representative positions.
Andrew Jackson, of Tennessee, attending the sessions at Phila- delphia of the Fourth Congress as a Representative and of the Fifth as a Senator, is said to have visited Caroline, and to have been a guest at the Daffin home, as well as at others on the eastern bank of the Choptank. Here he made the acquaintance of young Charles Dickinson, whom he successfully urged to move to Tennessee, and the sequel to their one-time friendship and amicable business relations, which did not survive the exigencies of Tennessee politics and social life, was the duel on the Red River in Kentucky in which Dickinson fell.
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CASTLE HALL
BUILT 1781
T HOMAS HARDCASTLE, eldest son of the original settler of this name on the Eastern Shore, Robert Hardcastle, was the builder of this house. Its construction was delayed by the Revolu- tionary War, in which Peter Hardcastle, third son of Robert, was a Major of Continental troops. After the death of Thomas Hardcastle, "Castle Hall" was occupied by his son, William Molleson Hardcastle, (1778-1874), and its third owner was Dr. Alexander Hardcastle. father of Alexander Hardcastle, Jr., of the Baltimore bar. The name- sake of Dr. William Molleson, an early physician at "Bridgetown" and a prominent patriot in Caroline at the time of the Revolution, William Molleson Hardcastle was eleven times elected to the Mary- land Assembly. He married Anna, daughter of Henry Colston, of Talbot, and two of their sons-Alexander, and Edward B., of Talbot- were physicians. The former practiced for many years at "Castle Hall," and married a daughter of U. S. Senator Arnold Naudain, of Delaware. His later years were spent in Denton, where he died January 24, 1911, in his seventy-fifth year.
Robert Hardcastle came from England, and in 1748 patented
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lands in Queen Anne's County, (later included in Caroline). His home- stead was on the west bank of the Choptank, above "Brick Mills." Of his several sons, some removed to Virginia and the Western territory. The eldest of Thomas' eight sons, Aaron Hardcastle, was the father of Edward Bourke Hardcastle, long a merchant at Denton, who married Ann, daughter of Caleb Lockwood, of Delaware. Their sons, Edmund LaFayette and Aaron Bascom, became officers in the U. S. Army.
Edmund LaFayette Hardcastle, the first cadet appointed from Caroline to the West Point Military Academy, was named in 1842 by Representative James Alfred Pearce. He graduated in 1846, fifth, and a "star" member, of his class of fifty-nine, McClellan being second and Pickett last. Foster, Reno, Couch, Seymour, Gilbert, Sturgis, Stoneman, Oakes, Palmer, Gibbs, Gordon, Myers, Floyd-Jones, Wilkins, Whistler, Davis later rose to high rank in the Federal Army. "Stonewall" Jackson, (No. 17 in the class), Adams, Smith, Maury, Jones, Wilcox, Gardner, Maxey were among the graduates who joined the Con- federacy. Hardcastle, with nine of his classmates, was in civil life in 1861, and declined to take sides, although offered high command.
As Second Lieutenant of Topographical Engineers, (the "star" graduates having choice of this corps), Hardcastle was with Scott from the siege of Vera Cruz to the capture of the City of Mexico, rendering brilliant service in every engagement. Scott mentioned him at Cerro Gordo; "for gallant and meri- torious conduct" at Contreras and Churubusco he was brevetted First Lieu- tenant, and Molino del Rey gave him a brevet-Captaincy. Scott assigned him to make a survey for the drainage of the City of Mexico and its protection from lake overflows; he ran the northwestern Mexican-United States boundary under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo; was first engineer secretary of the Light House Board; planned the lighthouses at Seven-foot Knoll, at the mouth of the Patapsco, and on Minot's Ledge, Massachusetts, two triumphs of engi- neering skill; resigned from the Army April 30, 1856, and settled in Talbot, on the "Plaindealing" estate, becoming one of the largest landowners and foremost agriculturists of the county; delegate to the Charleston and Balti- more Democratic conventions of 1860; President of the Maryland and Dela- ware Railroad; Delegate in General Assembly, 1870, 1878; appointed brigadier- general of the Maryland Militia by Governors Groome and Carroll; died August 10, 1899.
Aaron Bascom Hardcastle, appointed from Caroline to the Army as Second Lieutenant of the Sixth Infantry, by President Pierce in 1855, was post adjutant of Fort Laramie when the Mormon Expedition was fitted out, and marched with it under Albert Sidney Johnston in the winter campaign of 1857-58. Resigning his commission as First Lieutenant at San Diego, Cal., in 1861 he came East with Johnston, raised a battalion in Mississippi, and took it into action at Shiloh; was a regimental commander at Missionary Ridge, and in all the battles of the retreat through Georgia. From 1876 till his death, in 1915, Colonel Hardcastle was a resident of Easton.
"Castle Hall" is now owned by J. Spencer Lapham, a noted mid- Peninsula agriculturist.
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PLAINDEALING
BUILT 1789
PLAINDEALING," the home of J. Boon Dukes, a half mile below Denton, on the State road through Caroline County, has a most attractive situation, and the trees, meadow, and well-kept farmstead closely copy a typically English rural scene. Mr. Dukes, a former State Immigration Commissioner, and active in the public life of his county for a long period, was born in this house in 1840, and has lived there ever since. His father, James Dukes, owned about 2,000 acres of land on the Choptank River, between the branches of Watts Creek, and on both sides of the old road to "Potter's Landing," now a State highway. He added the "Plaindealing" house to his holdings when it was sold by the county authorities in 1823, with six acres of ground.
This house, remodeled since it came into the Dukes family, was built for the county home of the poor of Caroline, in 1789, and its original construction evidences that it was the intention of the County Commissioners of that day to provide a home for their charges equal in comfort and almost in dimensions to any private residence then
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extant in the county. After being devoted to this purpose for about thirty years, "Plaindealing" was replaced as a county home by a farm much farther from Denton.
"Plaindealing" has been a hospitable social center of the commun- ity for the past ninety years.
Watts' Creek, a small tributary of the Choptank, has been a geographical landmark since the days of the first settlements along the upper Choptank. Tradition says it once provided a refuge for Captain Kidd, whose "buried treasure" has been sought in its banks. Now it is no longer navigable, even for small boats. "Rochester" and "Indian Quarter" were surveyed on it in 1665: "Hampstead," "Hall's Fortune," "Kirkham's Discovery," "Surveyor's Forrest," in 1682; "Apparly," "James' Park," "Rattlesnake Ridge," in 1683; "Parshar,"
"Hermitage," "Chettell's Lot," "Chestnut Ridge," and other tracts after the beginning of the eighteenth century. The creek's branches, "markt trees," and "bounded gumbs" are described minutely. "Plain- dealing," 200 acres, was surveyed October 22, 1706.
James Dukes died in 1842, and his widow survived at "Plain- dealing" until 1882. She was a daughter of John Boon, of "Marble- head," the first State Senator from Caroline County elected by popular vote. Most of the time from 1812 to 1836 he was a Judge of the Orphans' Court.
Referring to his own identification with "Plaindealing," Mr. Dukes says that he is "equally proud of the fact that a former slave of the family, Herbert, also born and raised on the place, has remained with the family to this time."
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WICOMICO COUNTY
1867
U INLIKE the other Eastern Shore counties, Wicomico, youngest of the nine, was created by a Constitutional Convention, the act of which became operative when ratified by the voters in the territory affected. Four of the twenty-three Maryland counties were created by Constitutional Conventions; two, (Washington and Mont- gomery), by that of 1776; one, (Howard), by that of 1851, and the fourth, (Wicomico), by that of 1867. That this section of the old Counties of Somerset and Worcester was becoming so thickly popu- lated as to justify the forming of a new county has been borne out by the recent growth of Wicomico and its county-seat, Salisbury. Wicomico is easily accessible to the Chesapeake Bay, but has no extensive bay frontage like six of its Eastern Shore sisters. Caroline is the sole inland Eastern Shore county, and Worcester lies on the ocean.
Indians held full sway in this forest-covered part of Maryland when the charter of 1632 was granted to Cecilius Calvert, and after the early settlements were made on the "Eastern Shore" they traded with the Swedes on the Delaware and brought beaver, wolf and other skins of wild animals down the Wicomico and Nanticoke Rivers to the old settlement of "Green Hill," the erection of which into a town was later authorized by Act of Assembly, (1706). Little of the geog- raphy of the country was known to the first colonists, and the rivers were their only routes of communication in that densely wooded locality. Not until 1760 did the present line between Sussex County, Delaware, and what is now Wicomico County become fixed, and in 1763 Mason and Dixon began to run the line between Maryland and Pennsylvania and Delaware.
The part of the old County of Somerset now embraced in Wicom- ico is co-extensive with the western and southern bounds of two of
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the old civil divisions of Somerset, once known as Wicomico and Nanticoke Hundreds. Then, too, these bounds are almost identical with the bounds of Stepney Parish at the time it was laid out.
Upon the assumption in 1692 of the government of the Province of Maryland by the English Crown, Sir Lionel Copley was sent as the first royal Governor and he at once had an Act passed by the Assembly establishing by law the Church of England in the Province, and in accordance with this law each county was divided into parishes. Of the thirty laid out in the Province four were in Somerset County. Stepney Parish was one of them, and its bounds were about the same as the bounds of Wicomico County. When the freeholders assembled to lay out the parish they met at the house of Rev. John Hewitt. who was the first rector. Prior to the making of the Church of England the established church of the Province all worship had been free and churches had been supported by voluntary contributions, but then all "taxables" had to contribute to the extent of forty pounds of tobacco per poll to maintain the establishment. Protestant dis- senters and Quakers were allowed their separate meeting houses if they paid the tax.
When "Green Hill" was made a town it became a port of entry. It was laid out in 100 lots and on Lot 16 Green Hill Church was built in 1733. One of the chapels of ease of this parish was known in 1768 as Goddard's Chapel, and as it had become unfit for use it was ordered torn down and rebuilt on "two acres of land on the south side of Wicomico River and above the branch whereon the mill of William Venables is built." This is the present site of the Episcopal Church in Salisbury.
Salisbury was laid out according to Act of Assembly in 1732, and is now the largest town on the Eastern Shore, and has many industries that insure its still further growth in the future. Situated on the Wicomico River, it presented to the observer a very unique position prior to 1867, inasmuch as Division Street of the town was the dividing line between Worcester County and Somerset County. Those living on the east side of the street were obliged to go to Snow Hill to attend to court matters, while those on the west side of Division Street went to Princess Anne. This condition obtained for many years prior to 1867. Tired of it and vexed by its annoyances the
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people of Salisbury, led by the Grahams, Leonards, Todds, Toadvines and Jacksons, succeeded in carrying the election in favor of forming the new county.
No company of old soldiers at a reunion can grow as animated in reminiscence as can a party of Wicomico countians, who took part in that memorable campaign of 1867, when discussing its strenu- osities. All the allied eloquence, craft and political sagacity of the leaders of all parties in both Worcester and Somerset were arrayed against the "upstarts" of this section, which wanted to deprive them, each, of one-third of their territory, and set up the presumption that Salisbury could possibly be in a class with either Snow Hill or Princess Anne. Geographically speaking, brother was arrayed against brother. The Franklins and Joneses and Crisfields and Dashiells were fighting the Grahams and Leonards and Todds and Toadvines and Jacksons.
The names of Wicomico's first officials are of men known to every Wicomico countian. Thomas F. J. Rider was chosen the first Clerk of the Circuit Court-his name is interwoven with much of the county's subsequent history. Salisbury's then leading merchant, William Birckhead, was chosen the first Register of Wills, and no man could have inspired greater confidence. To Barren Creek Dis- trict went the shrievalty, William Howard, being the county's first Sheriff. Who can even think of the earlier days of the Salisbury Advertiser without linking in the same thought the name of Lemuel Malone, its editor, afterward by an appreciative Governor given the title of "Colonel" ? To him was given the honor of being the county's first State Senator. Ritchie Fooks and George Hopkins were its first Delegates to the General Assembly.
For a number of years the county had neither court house nor jail, these being built in 1878. Terms of the Circuit Court were held in Jackson's Opera House, the various county officials having offices in nearby quarters.
The names of many living at the time the county was formed are of men who stood for what was best in civic, social and religious life, whose very living at that time, with their active participation in its stirring events, presaged successful and conservative business adminis- tration for the new county.
There was Purnell Toadvine, a man of affairs, who left large
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impress upon his community; and there was Gen. Humphrey Hum- phreys, of whom the same may be said, and Col. William J. Leonard, William Birckhead, whose name stood not only for business success, but for personal probity ; Milton Parsons, and the tall, angular, honest John White; Hugh Jackson, and his sons, Elihu, William, Wilbur Fisk; Col. Samuel A. Graham, Drs. Marion F. and Albert Slemons, Dr. H. Laird Todd, Dr. Kerr, Josephus Humphreys, William Howard, James Gillis and Beauchamp Gillis, William Levi and James Laws; Andrew and Nelson Crawford; Elijah, William and Peter Freeny, King V. White, Isaac H. Dulany, George Lowe, George Hitch. These men stood for much in their county and verily their deeds do live after them, and they have left a goodly heritage to the old and middle-aged men and women of today, their sons and daughters.
No cosmopolite character enters into the class making up Wicom- ico's citizenship. Most of us know who was the grandfather and the great-grandfather and maybe the great-great-grandfather of nearly everybody else, and what he was and did and whence he came. And we are proud of the knowledge both of what we are and who we are, and what and who our neighbors are. No community, so constituted, ever goes far wrong.
Two decades after its organization, Wicomico added a Governor of Maryland to the Eastern Shore list. Elihu Emory Jackson, elected in 1887, was inaugurated January 11, 1888, and remained the State's Chief Executive until January 13, 1892. The original territory of Somerset has furnished two other Governors. Levin Winder, of Somerset, held the office from November 25, 1812, until January 2, 1816, and John Walter Smith, of Worcester, was Governor from January 10, 1900, until January 13, 1004.
S. Irving Pollack
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OLD GREEN HILL CHURCH
BUILT 1733
O LD Green Hill" Church, was built in 1733 and stands on the banks of the Wicomico River, partly hidden from view of passing boats by the great oaks that surround it. It was the parish church of Stepney Parish, one of the original thirty laid out in 1692. The first vestrymen of this parish were James Weatherly, John Bounds, Philip Carter, Robert Collyer, Thomas Holebrook and Philip Askue. The land on which this relic of colonial days was built was sold to the vestry of Stepney Parish on April 19, 1731, by Neal McClester, and is described in the deed as "all that lot of land lying in a place in the county aforesaid called and known by the name of Green Hill Town which by the commissioners for laying out the said town was num- bered sixteen."
The chapels of ease of the parish were "Goddard's Chapel" and "Spring Hill Chapel." The first of these had become so dilapidated that the assembly authorized the vestry of Stepney Parish "to pur- chase two acres of land on the south side of Wicomico River and above the branch whereon the mill of William Venables is built" and
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to rebuild "Goddard Chapel" thereon. This is the present site of the Episcopal church in Salisbury. One hundred thousand pounds of tobacco were levied to be collected in 1768 and 1769 to rebuild the chapel. Two acres were purchased "near unto the place where Spring Hill Chapel now stands to erect the new chapel" there in 1768. For this chapel sixty thousand pounds of tobacco were levied to be col- lected in 1770 and 1771.
One of the distinguished sons of Somerset once rector of Stepney Parish, the Rev. William Murray Stone, became, in 1830, Bishop of the Diocese of Maryland. At that time the diocese was co-extensive with the State. During the war with Great Britain and until 1783 there was no rector in Stepney. Because of their loyalty to the crown the clergy were deprived of support, vestries ceased to exist in their official capacity and the churches were closed with few exceptions.
The Rev. Hamilton Bell, Jr., was the first rector of Stepney Parish under the Vestry Act of 1779, which Act of the Maryland Assembly gave to the churches the property they had held under the rule of the Lords Baltimore.
The following names appear in the Register of old Stepney Parish:
Ackworth
Crockett
Graham
Melson
Ritchie
Adkins
Culver
Griffen
Messick
Robertson
Bacon
Dashiells
Handy
Mills
Roberts
Ballard
Delaney
Haward
Mitchell
Stanford
Banks
Dennis
Hayman
Moore
Stevens
Bedsworth
Denwood
Hearn
Morris
Stone
Birkhead
Disharoon
Hoffington
Murrill
Tall
Bishop
Dickerson
Horsey
Nelson
Tull
Bounds
Dixon
Howard
Olliphant
Turner
Bozman
Dorman
Hughes
Owens
Twilley
Bradley
Dulaney
Humphreys
Parsons
Venables
Brattan
Ellingsworth
Hynson
Phillips
Wailes
Brewington
Elzey
Insley
Polk
Wainwright
Byrd
Evans
Jackson
Porter
Waters
Chaille
Farrington Finney
Laramore
Powell
Weatherly
Chapman
Fountain
Leonard
Price
Williams
Collier
Fowler
Linch
Ralph
Willing
Cooper
Gale
Lowe
Revell
Winder
Cottman
Giles
McClester
Richardson
Wootten
Covington
Gillis
McGrath
Pollitt
Waller
Cary
Lankford
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PEMBERTON HALL
BUILT 1741
A SHORT distance above the mouth of the Wicomico River this body of water narrows down and follows a winding course for many miles. High land is passed, at intervals, on both sides of the river, and the brick foundations of many old structures are seen on a trip up the Wicomico to Salisbury. On one of the banks of the many reaches of this river, after passing "Old Green Hill Church," stands a large red-brick house with a shingled gambrel roof and quaint dormer windows-this is "Pemberton Hall," one of the homes of the distinguished Handy family of Wicomico County.
This house was built in 1741 by one of the Handys, and the date of building can be seen in the brick end of the house, the figures being outlined in black bricks. "Pemberton Hall" is probably the third oldest building standing in Wicomico County-"Green Hill Church," built in 1733, and the "Ben Davis House," which was the church parsonage, are older. The interior of this colonial homestead is typical of the homes of that period. Upon entering the front door a wide hall is seen extending through the house from north to south, and in its
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earlier days might have been called a living-room. The west end of the lower floor is one large room, where the dances and celebrations of colonial times were held. On the east side of the hall are two large rooms, one of which was the dining-room and is so used today. The old staircase is very graceful and is made of heart pine, which wood was also used for all the floors. This woodwork is well preserved and in almost as good condition as when the house was built. The kitchen, located on the east side of the house, was separated from the main building by a colonnade, both of which were of wood and up to twenty- five years ago the original structure stood.
In addition to this place, the Handys were also owners of "Pem- berton," on the west side of the Wicomico River, and "Pemberton's Good Will," located on the opposite side of the river. In 1732, the town of Salisbury was established by an Act of the Assembly on the land of William Winder, a minor, and laid out, adjoining the cele- brated "Handy Hall" farm on the east. The Handys at that time owned "Pemberton's Good Will" and "Pemberton," which included "Pemberton Hall" and "Handy's Hall." These Handys and their descendants, many of whom were lawyers and jurists of distinction, owned both of these properties until 1835, when they were purchased by Jehu Parsons and by will devised to his son, Alison C. Parsons. On the death of the latter, in 1868, the farm was sold at trustee's sale to Elihu E. Jackson and James Cannon, who afterward divided the farm -Cannon keeping the part on the riverside until he sold it to Cadmus J. Taylor, who remained there until his death, and it now belongs to his son, James Ichabod Taylor, who continues to reside at "Pemberton Hall."
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POPLAR HILL MANSION
BUILT 1795
T 'HE property known as "Pemberton's Good Will" was purchased by Maj. Levin Handy, who came to Maryland from Rhode Island, in 1795, from heirs of Capt. John Winder. Major Handy's former State is used with his name in the deed to distinguish him from Col. Levin Handy, of the Revolutionary Army, although it is said that the Major was originally from Somerset. These Winder heirs were the three daughters of Captain Winder, who had married, respectively, J. R. Morris, Levin Handy and David Wilson. Capt. John Winder was the father of Governor Levin Winder and Maj .- Gen. William H. Winder. A son of David Wilson and Priscilla Winder was Col. Ephraim King Wilson, the elder, Representative in the Twentieth and Twenty-first Congresses, and the father of Senator Ephraim King Wilson, the younger. Colonel Wilson married a daughter of Col. Samuel Handy, of Worcester.
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