USA > Maryland > Maryland's colonial Eastern Shore ; historical sketches of counties and of some notable structures > Part 5
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Ho Tellenne Lauford
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WORKINGTON
BUILT IN 1793
W ORKINGTON" manor house is of pure Georgian architecture and stands on the grassy banks of picturesque Back Creek, not far from its junction with the Manokin River. This estate adjoins two others of prominence-"Arlington" and "Westover"; the former is built of glazed bricks and stands today as originally constructed, the latter has been rebuilt by the owner, Western Starr.
Henry Jackson emigrated to Maryland from Workington, Eng- land, and obtained a grant for the land on which he built, in 1793, this home. Fortified by the courage and spirit that typified the founders of this great Nation. Henry Jackson built the magnificent home in what was then the primeval forest of the Eastern Shore. The house is substantially built of brick and the woodwork is of the heart pine of this section of Somerset. From these forests he selected the most perfect material, that has lasted and will yet last for years to come.
One wonders at the patience exhibited by the workmen in carry- ing out the various details in hand carvings seen in the finishing of the cornices and paneling throughout the house. This adherence to
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detail is in evidence in the doors, moldings and mantels, too. No expense was spared in making the house complete, according to the architecture of that period.
Luckily, "Working- ton" remained for several generations in the hands of those who made no alterations to mar its beauty, and fortune still followed this old home- stead when the present owner, Ralph P. Thomp- son, came to Somerset and found and purchased this estate.
Mr. and Mrs. Thomp- son saw this gem of col- onial architecture buried in the dust and neglect of time. To their refined tastes, time and labor must be given the credit for the restoration of "Workington" to the home it was at the close of the eighteenth cen- tury, when this house was the pride of the builder, Henry Jackson.
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REHOBOTH CHURCH
BUILT 1706
F RANCIS MAKEMIE, a pioneer Presbyterian minister, came to Maryland in 1683 in response to a request sent to England in 1681 by Col. William Stevens, and built in 1706 upon land which he acquired the present Rehoboth Presbyterian Church, familiarly called "Makemie's Church." A man of wonderful talents, he aroused the latent religious energy of the settlers of lower Somerset and upper Accomac County, Virginia, and to him more than anyone else is due the credit for establishing the Presbyterian Church in America. The same year he built Rehoboth Church he organized at Philadelphia the first General Presbytery of America and was chosen the first moderator. He retired in 1707 to his home at Holden's Creek, Va., where he died in July, 1708.
Col. William Stevens, a native of Buckinghamshire, England, was one of the earliest settlers in this part of Somerset County and obtained a grant of 1,000 acres which he named "Rehoboth," taking the name from a verse found in the Old Testament-Genesis, 26th chapter, 22nd verse:
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And he removed from thence, and digged another well; and for that they strove not : and he called the name of it Rehoboth; and he said, For now the Lord hath made room for us, and we shall be fruit- ful in the land.
A man of wealth and great prominence, Col. William Stevens was made a commissioner of the county, which place, it is said, he retained until his death in 1687. Upon his tombstone the following inscription appears: "He was twenty-two years judge of this county court, one of His Lordship's Council and one of the deputy lieutenants of this Province of Maryland." Writing of this one of Maryland's earliest settlers, Rev. John D. Howk, in his "Rehoboth by the River," from which these notes are taken, says: "It seems only proper that the Presbyterian Church, the County of Somerset and the State of Mary- land should take some step, in recognition of his prominence and long and faithful services, to guard this historic relic, [Col. Stevens' tomb], from oblivion." As early as 1670, as the Scotch, Scotch-Irish, French and Quakers continued to seek these friendly shores a small hamlet was growing up at the great bend of the Pocomoke River, first known as "Pocomoke Town," but later taking the name of Colonel Stevens plantation, "Rehoboth." The prominence of Colonel Stevens, who was the owner of over 20,000 acres of land in the colony, made it a place of importance far beyond its size.
Upon the death of the Rev. Francis Makemie in 1708 the Rev. John Henry took up the work of Rehoboth and married the widow' of Col. Francis Jenkins, one of the Justices for Somerset, and a member of His Lordship's Council. She was the Lady Mary, daughter of Sir Robert King. Rev. and Mrs. Henry had two sons, Robert Jenkins and John, both of whom became prominent in the Province. The Rev. John Henry died in 1717 and he was succeeded by the Rev. John Hampton, then in charge at Snow Hill. He married the beautiful widow of the Rev. John Henry, who survived her last husband, she dying in 1744. Her grave is still to be seen near the old town of Rehoboth.
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MAKEPEACE OLD LANKFORD HOME
SURVEYED 1663
BUILT ABOUT 1750
SHORTLY after King Charles I granted to Cecilius Calvert, Baron of Baltimore, on June 20, 1632, the charter for the Province of Maryland, there arose a contention as to the southerly boundary. The boundaries of Maryland are described in the charter as begin- ning at Watkins' Point and running east to the ocean. This point, which caused early contention, is located in Cedar Straits, which con- nect the waters of Tangier and Pocomoke Sounds, and is five miles from the thriving town of Crisfield.
Almost within sight of Watkins' Point and just beyond the town limits of Crisfield are standing two very old houses, "Makepeace." and the "Old Lankford Home," the birthplace of Benjamin Lankford in 1797. John Roach probably built "Makepeace" shortly after the sur- vey for him of the tract, February 9, 1663, which contained 150 acres. The bricks used in building the house are glazed. The first owner of "Makepeace" died in 1717, leaving the estate to his son, John, who devised it to his son, Charles. The estate remained in the Roach family until 1826, when William Roach sold it to Robert Moore.
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The following year Jacob James Cullen purchased "Makepeace," he having a short time before emigrated from Ireland and settled in Annamessex Hundred, on Johnson Creek. The place remained in the Cullen family for many years, it being owned, in turn, by Trevis and John Cullen. The latter sold "Makepeace" to Capt. Elijah Sterling, whose son, Luther, inherited it and in the ownership of whose widow, the present Mrs. Mary Chelton, it now rests. The families who have been connected with "Makepeace"-the Roaches, Gunbys, Atkinsons, Sterlings, Cullens and Cheltons-are all prominent ones of Somerset.
The "Old Lankford Home," located in Lawson's District, is very odd in design and construction. But few houses now exist on this Pen- insula having brick ends with the sides built of logs. The writer has observed the ruins of houses of similar construction at Port Tobacco, once the county-seat of Charles County, today a "deserted village."
Benjamin Lankford, the son of Benjamin Lankford, born 1797, was elected Commissioner of Public Works of Maryland under the Constitution of 185 1 and was also elected from Somerset to fourteen sessions of the House of Delegates and two sessions of the Senate. The last of the name to own the property was James F. Lankford, who died in 1897, when the property passed out of the family and was purchased by John Betts.
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KINGSTON HALL
BUILT 1683
A' BOUT ten miles from Princess Anne, at the head of King's Creek, is situated one of the notable places of the lower Eastern Shore- "Kingston Hall," known in the earliest records as "Kingland," the successive owners of which, almost to the present day, have been prominently identified with the social, professional and political life of the county and State. It is the ancestral home of the King-Carroll family, and contained, it is said, 6,000 acres in the original grant to Robert King. On one of the divisions, formerly a corner of the estate, the little village of Kingston sprang up, and near this is the railroad station of Kingston.
Built in 1683 by Major Robert King, a member of an ancient and honorable family in Ireland, who came to this country a short while before, "Kingston Hall" was the home of his descendants for more than a century and a half. Major King, who had been a member in the House of Burgesses and Justice of the Provincial Court of Mary- land, was for years prior to his death Naval Officer of the Pocomoke District. Upon the death of Major King the estate of "Kingland"
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passed to his son, Col. Robert King, and at his death, to the son of Robert King III. This son, Thomas King, married Miss Reid, of Virginia, and had but one child, Elizabeth Barnes King, who inherited the estate, upon which she continued to live after her marriage to Col. Henry James Carroll of Susquehanna, St. Mary's County. It became the property of the elder of her two sons, Thomas King and Charles Cecilius Carroll. Thomas King Carroll, a man of rare intellectual gifts and elegant culture, married Miss Stevenson, daughter of Dr. Henry Stevenson, of Baltimore. He was elected a member of the Legislature and later Governor of Maryland. At the expiration of his term as governor he returned to "Kingston Hall," where he continued to live until he removed to Dorchester County in 1840. The estate was purchased at this time by a member of the distinguished Dennis family of Somerset, a friend and neighbor of Governor Carroll, remain- ing in the possession of his descendants for a great many years. In later years it has been divided into several farms and sold to various owners, being now the home of Mr. Hallberg, formerly of Alabama.
During the life of Col. Henry James Carroll there were 150 slaves occupying quarters on the estate. Everything needed for them was produced on the place. A coach and four, with liveried outriders, was the style in which Colonel Carroll and his wife traveled yearly to the White Sulphur Springs. The stately old manor house remains practically unchanged to the present day. The main building is of brick, three stories high, and had extensive frame additions at either end. One of these wings has been removed, but the house now contains twenty-two rooms. Surmounting the main building is a tower room commanding a view of the surrounding country for miles. Many of the rooms at the Hall retain their colonial features, while quaint cup- boards and "secret" panels enhance the charm of the house. In former years a long avenue of Lombardy poplars and cedars formed the approach to the mansion, and magnificent trees, terraced gardens, box-bordered walks, magnolia and native tulip trees, hedges of roses, lilacs, mock-orange, hollyhocks, and sweet-scented shrub bushes made a setting of indescribable beauty, much of which time has failed to destroy.
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WASHINGTON HOTEL
BUILT BY JOHN DONE
W THEN Princess Anne was laid out in lots way back before the Revolutionary War, one of them, No. 15, was bought by John Done. Here he built a home and it is generally supposed this home embodied the nature of a tavern, for it is known that Zadok Long bought the place from Done on the 17th of June, 1797, and that Long had rented the property prior to buying it and had conducted it as a tavern.
Here in the "land of the cedar and vine, where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine," this old Washington Hotel has been the stopping place for travelers from all walks of life. Here they have dined upon the tempting viands prepared by good old cooks of long ago, here they have slept, laughed and sighed. The long list of those who found welcome and partook of its hospitality include the famous barrister, Luther Martin, the first Attorney-General of the State of Maryland. Luther Martin was of counsel for Aaron Burr in his trial for treason at Richmond. Judge Samuel Chase, one of the Signers
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of the Declaration of Independence, a native of Somerset, was a frequent visitor, as was also his distinguished father, who was rector of Somerset Parish at one time. During the life of Governor Thomas King Carroll, he made this old Washington Hotel his headquarters. Here, too, Governor Levin Winder shook hands with his host of friends and felt the warmth of the support of his fellow Eastern Shoremen.
Writing entertainingly of this old hostelry, one of the Eastern Shore's fair ladies says, "it has sheltered statesmen, State officials, members of the Army and Navy, politicians, historians, poets, minis- ters and novelists; all have found here a welcome and hospitality equalled by few, surpassed by no other hotel in America." Here over the poker table negro slaves have been wagered, lost and won by their masters. Gambling was entered into by the gentlemen of the good old days and poker was a favorite with them.
How surprised would those guests of the Revolutionary times be if they found their rooms lighted by electric lights instead of the old tallow "dip." The great open fireplaces are still in use, but those old- time guests would be surprised by the steam radiators in their rooms. and the telephones-but the story would be too long to tell of the progress made in the intervening years. Then no trains connected Princess Anne with the outside world nor were there the steamboats that ply between this old town and Baltimore, and which have sup- planted travel by sailing vessels.
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TEACKLE MANSION
BUILT ABOUT 1801
TUST west of the limits of Princess Anne stands the Teackle Mansion, built on the lines of an English castle by Littleton Dennis Teackle. The main or central part of the old house is quite large with the usual colonial trimmings on the windows and doors. The two wings of Teackle Mansion, while smaller, are also splendid examples of the colonial workmanship and architecture.
Littleton D. Teackle was a progressive man and entered into the financial and political life of Somerset County. He was the founder and first president of the first banking institution in the county- the Bank of Somerset. He was at one time a member of the Maryland Assembly and took an active part in the work of that body.
The old house stands on a part of the original grant "Beckford," and which part was bought in 1801 by Mr. Teackle from George Wilson Jackson. The property is now owned and occupied by three families. The main part is the home of E. Orrick Smith. Miss Euphemia A. Woolford owns the north wing and the south wing is the home of Francis H. Dashiell.
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BEECHWOOD PATENTED 1668
O F the nine county-seats of the Eastern Shore, Princess Anne seems to lead in the number of existing historical places. In fact, Somer- set, which is the third oldest county of our peninsula, is rich in history. This may be attributed to its geographical location, being our southern- most county, into which many of the early settlers came from Virginia.
East of Princess Anne, and just outside of the corporate limits of this picturesque town, is "Beechwood," the home of the late Hon. Levin Lyttleton Waters.
After leaving Princess Anne on a north-bound train, a forest of stately oak and beech trees is passed, through which a winding road is seen, leading to the homestead of the Waters family, and which has been their ancestral home for over 200 years in Somerset County.
Under the name of "Manlove's Discovery," George Manlove pat- ented "Beechwood" in 1668. Robert Elzey, the father of Anne Glas- gow Elzey. and from whom she inherited the property, purchased the estate from George Manlove early in the eighteenth century, and it has been held in the Waters family by direct inheritance ever since.
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"Beechwood" takes its name from the numerous beech trees sur- rounding the spacious lawn and mansion house. Under some of these trees in the old family burying ground lie the remains of some of its former owners, their last resting-place being marked by marble slabs, shown by the picture at the end of this sketch.
The Waters family is closely related to many of the former owners of other colonial estates in Somerset County. Levin Lyttleton Waters married Lucretia Jones, a daughter of Col. Arnold Elzey Jones, of "Elmwood," on the Manokin River, and a sister of Gen. Arnold Elzey of the Confederate Army. Mrs. Waters' mother was Anne Wilson Jackson, a daughter of Henry Jackson, who owned and built the colonial mansion on the "Workington" estate. Henry Jackson also owned and built the "Beckford" mansion. Mrs. Waters was related to the Wilsons and Elzeys, former owners of the "Westover" and "Almodington" estates. "Westover" adjoins "Workington," and is located on Back Creek, a tributary of the Manokin River, and is now owned by Western Starr. "Almodington" is situated on the Manokin River and adjoins "Elmwood." These homesteads face "Clifton," which is located on the opposite side of the river.
Two surviving brothers and two sisters inherited "Beechwood," Arnold Elzey Waters and Mrs. William C. Hart, of Baltimore City, and Miss Emily Rebecca Waters and Henry Jackson Waters, of Princess Anne.
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BECKFORD
SURVEYED 1679
T HE records of the Land Office of Maryland, in Annapolis, show that the tract of land called "Beckford" was surveyed in Novem- ber, 1679, in the name of Col. William Stevens, and that the certifi- cate of survey was assigned by him to Edmund Howard, and that a patent was issued to Howard in November, 1681. In 1697, Edmund Howard conveyed the plantation to Peter Dent, who built a dwelling house upon it where he resided for some time. Peter Dent was a man of distinction in his time, and was Clerk of the Somerset County Court and also Attorney-General of the Province of Maryland. By his will, executed in 1710, he devised this property to his wife, Jeane Pitman Dent, and his daughter, Rebecca Dent. Rebecca Dent married an Anderson, and her son, John Anderson, inherited the property, and in 1771 conveyed it to Henry Jackson, a merchant and planter of large means, who built the brick mansion now standing in an excellent state of preservation. Under the will of Henry Jackson, who died in 1794, "Beckford" passed to his son, George Wilson Jackson, and he in 1803 conveyed it to his brother-in-law, John Dennis.
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John Dennis was a Representative from the Eighth Maryland District in the House of Representatives in the Sixth Congress, 1801, during the contest for the Presidency of the United States between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr. He served in five other Congresses and died in 1807, and under the terms of his will this property passed to his son, Robert Jackson Dennis, who sold it to his brother, John Dennis, in 1831. John Dennis, the second, was also a member of the House of Representatives, for four years, and died in 1859. His family continued to reside on the property until 1886, when it was sold under a decree of the Circuit Court for Somerset County.
That part of the farm upon which the dwelling and other buildings stand was purchased by H. Fillmore Lankford, who has since resided there. The house stands upon the crest of the slope rising from the eastern bank of the Manokin River and faces the town of Princess Anne. It is a two-story brick structure of colonial design and was erected in 1776. The spacious rooms of this mansion are well lighted by numerous large and deep-seated windows. The massive doors with their quaint locks and bars bespeak the customs and manners of an age long since passed. It is surrounded by a most beautiful lawn covering an area of five acres and is approached by a long, well- shaded lane which leads from Beckford Avenue to the river bank. An immense grove of shade and nut trees, some of which are more than a century old, covers the lawn. One of these trees, a pecan, shades the ground over an area of 120 feet.
To "Beckford" more than to any other place in this delightful Eastern Shore town belongs the honor of keeping alive colonial tradi- tions and customs. Here have been entertained men of culture and distinction, men of political fame and men of letters. All have come and gone realizing the truly genuine welcome of the host and hostess.
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CLIFTON
BUILT ABOUT 1700
C OMING with Governor Leonard Calvert and his "Pilgrims" on their voyage across the Atlantic in the Ark and the Dove to estab- lish the Province of Maryland was Randall Revell. it is said. He was called upon to testify at a court held in Accomac in Virginia in 1634. giving his age at that time as twenty-one years. In 1662 Randall Revell appears as one of the Commissioners for the "Eastern Shore" as the territory south of the Choptank and east of the Chesapeake was then called. His name does not appear again in the commissions, but it is said that he was a Burgess in 1666 when Somerset was created a county of the Province. In October, 1665, he was granted "Revell's Grove," a tract of 1,500 acres of land, and while he may have held land on the Virginia peninsula prior to this, it is the first record of his being granted land in Maryland.
On this tract of land it is said that he built his manor house, "Clifton," which stood on the site now occupied by the present house, which was built by his son, Randolph Revell, about 1700. The house overlooks the beautiful Manokin River, which leads to Princess
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Anne, and is about half a mile from where the river branches. It is on one of the few hills in that section of Somerset County, which rises to about forty feet above high water. From this old house the lawn slopes gradually to the river, about one hundred yards distant. From the house a beautiful view of the Manokin River and the sur- rounding country is afforded. The house is built entirely of the type of English brick so common in colonial times and is a gem of colonial architecture embodying all the art known to the builders of the time.
In addition to this property Randolph Revell was the owner of "Arracoco," 2,800 acres, and "Double Purchase," 3,000 acres, which were surveyed for him on the 19th of November, 1679. . With the exception of Col. William Stevens, to whom was granted over 20,000 acres, Randolph Revell was the largest landowner at that time in Somerset County. He owned in 1679 over 7,000 acres.
"It would appear," writes one familiar with this family, "that after a time the Revells played in hard luck and were forced to sell their property and take property of less value in Somerset. However, until very recent years the Revells have been large landholders in the county and have always taken a prominent part in public affairs. Some of the descendants still own land here. "Clifton" is now the prop- erty of W. F. Pendleton, who makes his home there."
Not far from "Clifton" once stood a court house that was the seat of justice for Somerset. The foundation of the old building is, due to the subsidence of the land, now entirely under water except at very low tide.
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DORCHESTER COUNTY
1 669
A S historically appears to have been the custom in the earliest days of England, when knights of the shire were by royal writ first summoned to Parliament and the various counties and shires were subsequently laid out and defined by exact boundaries, so the County of Dorchester and most of the earlier-formed counties of the Province of Maryland seem to have been called into existence by writ issued by the Governor and his Council, then sitting at old St. Mary's in Southern Maryland, directing the Sheriff named in the writ to hold an election for the election of Delegates to the General Assembly, in the county named in the writ, without any previous precise territorial definition of the county thus designated.
Thus Dorchester County appears to have been summoned into being by a writ issued by Governor Charles Calvert and his Council on February 4, 1669, directing the Sheriff of the county to hold an election for delegates from that county to attend the General Assem- bly of the Province on the following 13th day of April, at the then capital of Maryland, St. Mary's, in St. Mary's County. There would seem to have been some kind of government already established in the locality, as the writ was addressed to "Raymond Staplefort, Sheriff of Dorchester County," but no record of the same appears. At the session of the General Assembly thus called, on May 6, 1669. eight commissioners were appointed to govern the county in all mat- ters administrative, civil and criminal, subject only to the Governor and Council for the Province. Specifically were they authorized and enjoined to inquire into "all manner of felonies, witchcraft, enchant- ments, sorceries, magic arts," etc., in the county; arrest the guilty and send them to St. Mary's for trial, the commissioners not being given powers of life and death.
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