USA > Maryland > The Day-star of American freedom, or, The birth and early growth of toleration, in the province of Maryland : with a sketch of the colonization upon the Chesapeake and its trobutaries, preceding the removal of the government from St. Mary's to Annapolis > Part 4
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2 Edward, who came from Virginia, was many years a privy councillor of Maryland, but died at an advanced age, in the city of London. James, a descendant of the privy councillor, was the
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THE DAY-STAR.
progenitor of the Marshes of Kent Island, now represented,1 through a female line, by the For- mans of Rose Hill and of Clover Fields, and by several other distinguished families of the Easterir shore. Two of them, James Cox and George Puddington, represented Anne Arundel at St. Mary's, in the legislature of 1650; the. former being elected the speaker of that assembly. And they both signed the celebrated Declaration setting forth the "fitting and convenient freedom " which Protestants enjoyed, in the "exercise," of their religion, under the government of the Roman Catholic proprietary.2 The name of the Puritan speaker is the very first upon the list of signers.
ancestor of the family of Nichols, now residing at Derby, in Kent county. The Tilghmans also are descendants, through another female line, of the Hon. Edw. Lloyd, the emigrant.
1 Capt. Marsh, of Kent Island, with a residence also at Chester- town, and the fourth in the direct line from the Hon. Thomas Marsh inclusive, died, at an advanced age, during the early stage of the American Revolution. Each generation was represented by one gentleman only ; and they all bore the name of Thomas, still perpetuated in the Rose Hill branch. The captain was the last of the male line The first Thomas held a seat in the council. " In Langford's " Refutation " of Leonard Strong's "Babylon's
1
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SOUTH RIVER.
The settlement also upon South River was an interesting one. It was founded in 1650; and con- sisted chiefly of Puritans of a milder type than
· Fall," and in Bozman's Maryland (see vol. 2, pp. 672-673), we have this important document.
DECLARATION.
" The declaration and certificate of William Stone, Esquire, lieutenant of the Province of Maryland, by commission from the right honorable the Lord Bal- timore, Lord Proprietary thereof, and of Captain John Price, Mr. Thomas Hatton, and Captain Robert Vaughan, of his said Lordship's Council there, and of divers of the Burgesses now met in the Assembly there, and other Protes- tant inhabitants of the said Province, made the 17th day of April, Anno Dom., one thousand, six hundred and fifty.
"We the said Lieutenant, Council, Burgesses, and other Protestant Inhabi- tants above mentioned, whose names are hereunto subscribed, do declare and certify to all persons whom it may concern, That, according to an act of Assembly here, and several other strict injunctions and declarations by his said Lordship for that purpose made and provided, we do here enjoy all fitting and convenient freedom and liberty in the exercise of our religion, under his Lordship's government and interest; And that none of us are anyways troubled or molested, for or by reason thereof, within his Lordship's said province.
James Cox,
Tho. Steerman, John Hatche, George Puddington, Robert Robines, Walter Bain, William Brough, Francis Poesy ._ *William Durand Anthony Rawlins Thomas Maydwell
William Stone, Governor.
Jo. Price,
Robert Vaughan, Council.
Tho. Hatton,
Burgesses.
Nots .- That James Cox and George Puddington were then Burgesses for the people at Ann Arundell.
* Note .- That this is the same man who attests Mr. Strong's pamphlet be- fore mentioned.
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THE DAY-STAR.
those upon the Severn, and of Anglo-Catholics from England. One of the most prominent colonists upon this river was the Hon. Wm. Burgess, who bore the arms1 of the family at Truro, in Cornwall (or, a fesse chequy, or and gules, in chief three crosses-crosslet-fitcheé of the last), but sustained a very near relationship to the Burgesses of Marl- borough in Wilts, and whose daughter was the
Marke Bloomfield
Ellas Beech
Thomas Bushell
George Sawyer
William Hungerford
William Edis
William Stumpson
John Gage
Thomas Dinyard
Robert Ward
John Grinsdith
William Marshall
William Edwin
Richard Smith
Richard Browne
Arthur Turner
William Pell
William Hawley
Willlam Warren
William Smoot
Edward Williams
John Sturman
. Raph Beane
John Nichols
John Slingsby
Hugh Crage
James Morphen
George Whitacre
Francis Martin
Daniel Clocker
John Walker
John Perin
Stanhop Roberts
Patrick Forrest
William Browne
George Beckwith
John Halfehead
Thomas Warr
William Hardwick
Walter Waterling."
1 An impression from his seal is still preserved.
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SETTLEMENT UPON SOUTH RIVER.
· wife of Lord Chas. Baltimore's step-son. About 1680, he founded the once little flourishing, but now extinct, town of London. From this town's successful rivalship with Annapolis, during the first few years ; from the antiquity of the South River Club (the oldest probably on the continent); and from the superior style of the monumental inscrip- tions at the parish church and upon the planta- tions ; I infer, the settlement, in point of intellec- tual culture and refinement, upon this river, was in advance of the one upon the other. Of all the provincial governors, whose tombstones are pre- served, or I have been fortunate enough, at least, to find, Col. Burgess is the one whose epitaph is the oldest 1
1 EPITAPH.
Here lyeth ye body of W. Burges, Esq., who departed this life on ye 24 day of Janu., 1686 ;
. Aged about 64 years ; leaving his
Dear beloved wife Ursula, and eleven
Children ; viz. seven sons and four daughters,
And eight grand children.
In his life-time, he was a Member of
His Lordship's Council of State ; one 4
١
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THE DAY-STAR.
Twenty miles from the mouth of the Patuxent, during the same year (1650), a Protestant settlement (probably Anglo-Catholic) was founded by Robert Brooke, from England; consisting originally of forty persons-their names are still preserved'-
Of his Lordship's Deputy-Governors ; A Justice of ye High Provincial Court ;
Colon. of a regiment of ye Trained Bands ; And sometimes General of all ye Military Forces of this Province. His loving wife Ursula, his Executrix,
In testimony of her true respect,
And due regard to the worthy Deserts of her dear deceased Husband, hath erected this Monument.
1 "The names of people come out of England, and arrived in Maryland, June 30, 1650, at the cost and charge of Robert Brooke, Esq.
Robt. Brooke Thomas Brooke John Brook.
. - Mary his wife ;
Charles Brooke Wm. Brooke
. His children
Roger Brooke Francis Brooke
Baker Brooke
Robt. Brooke
Mary Brooke Anna Brooke.
.
MEN - SERVANTS.
Marke Lovely
Wm. Bradney
Rich. Robinson.
Marke King
Phil. Harwood
Anthony Kitchin
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SETTLEMENT UPON THE PATUXENT.
and including his own very large family, now represented by the Brookes of Brooke-Grove in Montgomery, and by a vast number of descendants in Prince George's, and in other counties of the western shore. One of his representatives, through a female line, is Roger Brooke Taney, the present chief justice of the United States. The settlement was crected into a county, under the name of Charles ; and one of Mr. Brooke's sons created lord of the manor,' which formed the chief seat of the little colony. Under a commission from the proprietary, Mr. Brooke was the first com- mander of the county. He also held a seat in the
Wm. Jones
Thos. Joyce Robt. Hooper
John Clifford
Henry Peere Wm. Hinson
James Leigh Thomas Elstone John Boocock
Benjamin Hammond- Edward Cooke David Brown!
Robt. Sheale
Ambrose Briggs
Henry Robinson.
MAID-SERVANTS.
Anne Marsball Abigacl Mountague
Katherine Fisher
Eleanor Williams
Elizabeth Williamson
Agnes Neale
Margarite Watts.
Forty perzons.
LAND RECORDS, Lib. No. I. pp. 165, 166.
. The name of the manor was De la Brooke.
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THE DAY-STAR.
. privy council; and, at a little later period, but during the ascendency of the Puritans, was elevated to the post of president-an office analogous to that of lieutenant-general, or governor.
The mild and gentle Friend also came- unkindly treated, it is said, at first-the rea- sons have been suggested-but in due course of time, much better understood, and saving a single exception (the one relating to the oath1), made joyful and happy, in a religious and in every other particular. Fox, himself, appeared- the chief of the Quakers-a great reformer- a man of rude, but powerful eloquence, and whose fame had preceded his mission to the New World-travelling with an energy almost incredible over various parts of the continent, through forests and thickets, through deep marshes and dangerous bogs-crossing rivers and bays in canoes-and sleeping in the open woods by a fire -preaching at the cliff's of the Patuxent, and upon the banks of the Severn, upon the Choptank and
1 Even from the statements and few extracts in Ridgely's excel- lent Annals, it is quite evident, that the constitutional question (ante, p. 63) was mooted, at an carly day.
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THE QUAKERS.
elsewhere, to Indians and crowds of colonists 1- speaking before aboriginal kings, and leading emigrants from the old world-giving utterance to the Spirit, in words of fire and with all the appa- rent life of an apostle-thus promoting the growth of a denomination which soon absorbed a large number of the Puritans, and embraced many of the most respectable and some of the most distin- guished families of the province. In 1672, exclu- sive of Fox, there were at least seven ministers of the Society of Friends in Maryland ! The names are all of them still known.3
' Fox's " Journal."
" The cliff's of Calvert, the banks of West River, and the Chop- tank, were, it seems, the early rallying-points of this denomination. And while some of the Puritans sympathized with Episcopacy, a large number embraced the faith of the great preacher. The Prestons, the Sharpes, the Thomases, and many others, might be cited. The Richardsons also of West River-originally, it is supposed, of the Puritan type-became prominent Quakers ; and the prevalence of Fox's doctrines is evident from the preservation of the wills (to omit other proof) containing contributions to the fund for the support of the body, and bearing the strongly-marked phraseology, for which the Friends have always been noted.
3 An island of the Chesapeake, near the mouth of the Choptank perpetuates the name of a well-known Quaker. It was originally
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THE DAY-STAR.
Flying from discontent, from turmoil, and misery, some of the Swedes' and of the Dutch, called Clayborne's. For there the founder of the Kent Island colony, we may presume, established a trading-post, like the one upon Palmer's, now Watson's; or perhaps planted a small settle- * ment, as he also did, as early as 1636, through the agency of his
"cousin," Ri. Thompson, upon Poplar, still nearer Kent Island. But Sharpe's Island was held by Doct. Peter Sharpe, for some time before 1672, or the year of Fox's appearance. "I give," says the Doctor (see his will of 1672, Lib. No. 1, 1635 to 1674, p. 496), " to Friends in ye ministry, viz. Alice Gary, William Cole, and Sarah Mash " (intended doubtless for Mrs. Marsh, the widow of the Hon. Thos. Marsh), "if then in being ; Winlock Christeson and his wife; John Burnett, and Daniel Gould ; in money or goods, at the choice of my executors, forty shillings' worth apiece ; also for a perpetual standing, a horse, for the use of Friends in ye ministry, and to be placed at the convenient place for their use." There is also other evidence in the will, that Doct. Sharpe was a Friend. But writers as respectable as Kilty (see "Land-holder's-Assistant," p. SS) are so orror-struck at the "indignities" with which the " strangers" were treated, that they do not even admit the probability, that the testator of 1672 was a disciple of Fox. Nor are they in the least aware of the early and extensive spread of the Quakers in Maryland.
' The settlement and subsequent fate of the Swedes suggest a subject for one of the saddest. yet sweetest chapters, in the history of American colonization. Planted upon the Delaware, under the 1 auspices of a crown distinguished for its noble qualities ; but ' overlaid. if not crushed, in the infancy of the colony, by the supe-
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THE SWEDES AND DUTCH.
who had founded the respective settlements upon the Delaware, received a glad and joyful welcome.
rior numbers, first of the Dutch, and then of the English; they still retained, in the midst of all their reverses, the fond remem- brance of their native land ; and cherished, with a gentle but glowing love, the faith and traditions of their original ancestry. Light generations also have lingered around the gravestone and the hearth of their early American forefathers ; nor have they yet lost those elements so characteristic of their race, and which, in spite of so much that is mean in every age, have imparted such real dignity to human nature. But some of them wandered off, at the period of their severest sufferings, and three were upon Kent Island about 1665. There also did Valerius Leo and Andrew Hanson find their early grave. The heart of Major Joseph Wickes was touched at the lonely condition of Hanse, the orphan of Mr. Hanson ; and to the young Swede he was, it seems, a father. The child became a man. He rose to a high official rank, and held the most honorable posts in Kent County. Upon the seal of Col. Hanse Hanson's near descendant, is preserved a coat of arms, consisting of f. . lilies, with something strongly resembling a cross; and there are representatives of his family cow living in Maryland. One of his descendants was the late Mrs. 1 Doct. Wrotb, of Chestertown.
The number of the Dutch refugees was larger than that of the Swedish ; including the governor, Alexander Diniossa, and his children, originally from Gilderland. Ile lived sometime upon an island of the Chesapeake, then called "Foster's;" but subse- quently, it seems, upon the western shore. And the last glimpse I obtain is in Prince George's county, where his family dwindled
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THE DAY-STAR.
They lived and died among us. Their blood, for many generations, has been mingled with that of the other colonists. And from them have sprung some of the most patriotic sons of Maryland.
In 1660, a small colony from the mouth of the Hudson was founded upon the Bohemia River, by Augustine Herman, a very remarkable man.1 A manor also of the same name, still a well-known locality, was erected in consideration of the highly meritorious services? he had rendered the propric- tary. And he has descendants through various female lines who now do honor to the State.
down into a state either of extreme misfortune or of great obscurity.
2 Honorably connected with the early diplomatic histories both of New York and of Maryland. See Albany Records ; and his embassy to Maryland, Bancroft. See also Brodhead. It is due to the memory of Herman to add, that he derived a title to the land upon the Bohemia, not only from the proprietary, a sufficient security, but also from the Indian ?. The consideration is given in one of his journals preserved in the Land Office, at Annapolis. A copy is also in the possession of Col. Spencer's family.
' The preparation of a map of Maryland and Virginia-a work, at that time, of great labor-and the best, in the opinion of the English Crown, which bad appeared-but a great curiosity, no doubt, at present-and a good illustration of the imperfect state
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ENGLISH AND WELSH.
The tidings went also to the Old World. Glad- dened with the prospect of religious liberty, and invited by a policy so liberal in all other respects, strangers arrived from England' and from Wales ;? of geographical knowledge at the date of its publication. I have never seen it ; but presume it is still extant.
I have been informed that the Oldhams, the Bayards, the Maclanes, and other families, claim a descent from the proud Bohemian. But the only ones coming within the proof to which I have had access are those of Thompson, Forman, Chambers, Spencer, and their various branches. Within, or near the Manor, was a small community, which heid the principles of Labady ; including the one which abolishes private property, by a sur- render of every thing to the common stock. One of Herman's sons embraced the faith of that visionary French divine-a source of real grief to the lord of the manor during his latter years -- and the occasion which demanded a codicil, in which he tied up the title to bis large possessions.
1 In Appendix, No. 1, I shall notice the arrival of the families of Burgess, Ringgold, Ilynson, Dunu, Wickes, Leeds, Stone, Carroll, Paca, Chase, Pearce, Pratt, Chambers, Goldsborough, Tilghman, Hawkins, Thompson, Wroth, Sewall, Sprigg, Taney, Tyler, Lowe, Claggett, Addison, Dorsey, and of Darnall. Most of them were Protestants. They furnish some of the best representatives of the early provincial gentry of Maryland. And they nearly all held some post of honor, under the dominion of the first and of the second proprietary.
.2 The Lloyds, the Thomases, the Snowdens, the Richardsons. the
4*
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THE DAY-STAR.
from Scotland ' and from Ireland ; from the domi- nions of the kings of France and of Spain; from
Shipleys, and many other families, came, it is supposed, from the Principality. The Severn and the Wye, upon which the Hon. Edward Lloyd resided, were no doubt named after the rivers of Wales, in honor of his native land.
The Thomases, it is said, first lived upon Kent Island ; but according to the carliest recorded information I have been able to obtain, they resided in Anne Arundel, near Thomas's Point, about 1655. Philip, the emigrant, was a privy councillor, and many of his descendants held high public positions, including Phil. Evan Thomas, now living at a very advanced age, the projector and first president of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. Upon a gold-headed cane, handed down from an early genera- tion, I have seen the arms borne by a well-known family of Wales, a branch of which once existed near Swansea and Bristol.
The Snowdens arrived about 1660. They were the ancestors of the large family living in Prince George's and in other counties.
The Richardsons resided many generations upon West River. They came, probably, about 1665. TI ? is a branch at Eutaw- Place, near the Monocacy.
The Shipleys, a family of planters in Anne Arundel, and sub- scquently in several other counties, arrived, I am inclined to think, at a period but little later. One branch of this family is at Enfield Chase.
1 The settlement, near the site of Washington city, long before the erection of Prince George's, bat which subsequently formed a hundred of that county, bore the name of New Scotland.
83
SCOTLAND AND OTHER COUNTRIES.
the States of Holland, and from various parts of Germany ; from Sweed-land, the country of the
And two of the largest families of Maryland-the Magruders and the Beales-undoubtedly came from Scotland. So, also, it seems, did the Bowies, the Edmonstones, and other families. The Magru- ders arrived about 1655. One of their earliest scats was upon the western branch of the Patuxent. Alexander, the emigrant, died about 1680, leaving his children, Alexander, Nathaniel, James, John, Samuel, and Elizabeth. The Beales, I think, came some time after the Magruders. Col. Ninian Beale is the earliest I remember. The Bowies (ancestors of the governor) and the Edmonstones, did not arrive, it would appear, before the Protestant Revolution. Archibald, the progenitor of the latter, is the first representative of whom I have any knowledge ; and a relation, it is supposed, to the family of Sir Archibald Edmonstone, of Scot- land. He was the progenitor of the Edmonstones, near Bladens- burg, one of whom was a leading provincial judge of Prince George's County Court; and the ancestor, through a female line, of the Lachlans of Montgomery, but now in the State of Missouri ; and of the wife and children of Gov. Hempstead, of Iowa.
A few only of a high social rank arrived from Ireland. I remember no prominent ones, excepting the De Courcys, who, it is supposed, emigrated from that country. Cheston, their present family seat, has been held for a period of nearly two hundred years. It is difficult to say, with certainty, at what time, or from what country, the Worthingtons came. John, of Anne Arundel County, who died about 1700, and who, it appears, was the first of the Maryland line, gave his home planta-
5
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THE DAY-STAR.
great Gustavus, the champion of Protestant chris- tendom ; and from the very heart of the kingdom of Bohemia, the land of Jerome and of Huss.
The pious emigrant of every name, who believed tion upon the Severn, to his son, John ; "Greenberry's Forest" to Thomas ; and to William, "Howard's Inheritance," with two other tracts, the one near "Mr. Richard Beard's Mill," the other at " The Fresh Pond, in the Bodkin Creek of Patapsco River."
The Causins, of Causin's Manor ; the Jarbos, of St. Mary's ; the Lamars, of Prince George's and other counties (one of whom was & gallant officer of the American revolutionary army) ; the Du Valles, of Anne Arundel, ancestors of a judge of the United States Supreme Court ; the Brashaers, of Anne Arundel and of Prince George's, represented also by the late Doct. Brashaer, of New Market, Frederick county ; and the Lacounts, of the eastern shore, ancestors of the chief justice of Kansas ; are some of our oldest French families. There is also but little doubt that the Ricauds of Kent, represented by the Hon. Jas. B. Ricaud, came also, originally, if not directly, from France. Colonel Jarbo, and the ancestor of the Hon Jno. M. S Causin, arrived before the year 1649 ; the Ricauds, about 1650; aud the Brashaers (directly from Virginia) at a period not much later. They all arrived before the Protestant Revolution of 1689. There is the strongest presump- tion that the Contees (about the time of their arrival closely connected with the family of Gov. Seymour, and lately represented by the gallant John Contee, of Java) came also, originally, from France ; though there is evidence of the fact, that they had lived at Barnstaple, in Devonshire, as did some of the most distinguished
.
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FMIGRANTS FROM MANY LANDS.
only in CHRIST, could securely sit under his own vine or bower, or still more unpretending roof ; and the weeping penitent at his rude altar or hum- ble hearth-stone, might offer up his confession and his prayer. To the children of sorrow and to the victims of persecution, to men of various races, of divers languages, and of many religions, the voice
Huguenots in other parts of England before their emigration to other countries. The arrival, however, of the Contees in Mary- land was late. I doubt if it was before the year 1690.
Four of Capt. James Neal's children were born within the Spanish or Portuguese dominions, and subsequently naturalized by an Act of our Assembly. So also were Anthony Brispoe, Barbara de Barette, and probably other emigrants. See Liber, " Laws, C. & W. H., 1638 to 1678."
A large number came from Holland and Germany, including the families of "Comegyes" and Lockerman. See last-named liber, where also I have obtained the birth-place of many alien emigrants.
Axell Still, John Elexon, Oliver Colke, Marcus Syserson, Jeffrey Jacobson, Mounts Anderson, Cornelius Peterson, and Andrew Clements, may be named among those who were born in Sweden.
Augustine Herman, the founder and original lord of Bohemia Manor, was born at the city of Prague. Manhattan, now New York, was the birth-place of most of his children. See Liber, " Laws, C. & W. II., 1638 to 1678," p. 158. His wife also was probably born at Prague.
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THE DAY-STAR.
· of our early legislators was like the " sound" from a better world-like a second evangely from the skies ! For they spoke, " every " one in his " own tongue," " the wonderful works of God."
I have attempted to trace the birth and early growth of our religious liberty, under its succes- sive phases ; showing the harmony between the proprietary and the planters ; explaining the legis- lation of the provincial Assembly according to the rights and obligations springing out of the charter; and sketching the effects of so liberal a system upon the colonization of Maryland. Without refe- rence to the credit due either to the Roman Catholic or to the Protestant Assemblymen of 1649, it is but proper to add, what will be denied by no one at all familiar with the colonial records, that the legislative policy so honorable to our ancestors and so benef ial in its influence, under- went no material change, except a few years later, at the short period of the ascendency of the_ Puritans ; and in 1689, at the complete overthrow of the proprietary's government-an event which resulted in the establishment of the Anglican church, and in the persecution of the Roman Catholics.
J
87
REVOLUTION OF 1689.
The history of the Protestant revolution in 1689 has never yet been fully written. But there is evidence upon the records of the English govern- ment to show it was the result of a panic, produced by one of the most dishonorable falsehoods' which
' The following documents are taken from the English State Paper Office. As specimens of the spelling, of the method of abbreviation, and of the punctuation, nearly two hundred years ago, the first five are printed in a style which resembles the copies sent me :
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