USA > Maryland > The founders of Maryland as portrayed in manuscripts, provinical records and early documents > Part 3
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" Hereupon I have had strong temptations to leave all proceedings in plantations, and being much decayed in my strength to retire myself to my former quiet, but my inclination carrying me naturally to these kind of works, and not knowing how better to employ the poor remainder of my days, than with other good subjects, to further the best I may, the enlarging your Majesty's empire in this part of the world, I am determined to commit this place to fishermen that are able to en- counter storms and hard weather, and to remove my- self with some forty persons to your Majesty's domain, Virginia, where if your Majesty will please to grant me a precinct of land with such privileges as the King, your father was pleased to grant me here, I shall en- deavor to the utmost to deserve it." 1
Waiting for no reply he sailed away, and early in October 1629, with his children and their step-mother and attendants arrived at Jamestown. He expressed a desire to John Pott the acting Governor, who pro- bably received the degree of A.M. from Oxford on
' Virginia State Papers.
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THE FOUNDERS OF MARYLAND.
the same day as he obtained the honor, to settle in that country, but was informed that it was the law that every new-comer should take the oath of allegiance and supremacy, but this he refused and the following statement signed by Governor John Pott, Samuel Matthews, Roger Smyth and William Clayborne pre- pared on November 30th, 1629, was forwarded to the King's Privy Council. 1
" May it please your Lordships to understand, that about the beginning of October last, there arrived in the colony the Lord Baltimore, from his plantation at New Foundland, with an intention, as we are in- formed, rather to plant himself to the southward of the settlement here, although he hath seemed well affected to this place, and willing to make his resi- dence therein with his whole family.
" We were readily inclined to render to his Lord- ship all those respects which were due unto the honor of his person, which might testify with how much gladness we desire to receive and to entertain him, as being of that eminence and degree whose pre- sence and affection might give great advancement to the plantation.
" Thereupon, according to the instructions from your Lordships, and the usual course held in this place, we tendered the oaths of supremacy and allegiance to
1 Va. MSS. Library of Congress.
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BALTIMORE TAKES THE OATH.
his Lordship and some of his followers, who, making profession of the Romish religion, utterly refused to take the same, a thing we could not have doubted in him, whose former employments under his late Ma- jesty might have endeared to us a persuasion he would not have made a denial of that, in point whereof, ` consists the loyalty and fidelity which every true sub- ject oweth unto his Sovereign.
" Ilis Lordship, therefore, offered to take the oath, a copy whereof is included, but, in true discharge of the trust imposed on us by his Majesty, we could not imagine that so much latitude was left for us to de- cline from the prescribed form so strictly exacted, and so well justified and defended by the pen of our late Sovereign, King James of happy memory; and among the blessings and favors for which we are bound to bless God, and which this colony hath re- ceived from his Most Gracious Majesty, there is none whereby it hath been made more happy than in the freedom of our religion which we have enjoyed, and that no Papists have been suffered to settle their abode amongst us, the continuance whereof we now humbly implore from his Most Sacred Majesty, and carnestly beseech your Lordships, that by your mediations and counsels, the same may be established and confirmed unto us."
Not discouraged by his cold reception, leaving his family, he went to England to sue for a grant of land.
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THE FOUNDERS OF MARYLAND.
In the British State Paper Office there is the following petition preserved, addressed to Lord Dorchester, Sec- retary of State, in Baltimore's own hand.
" That your Lordship would be pleased to procure me a letter from my Lords of the Council to the Go- vernor of Virginia in favor of my wife now there, that he would afford her his best assistance upon her return into England in all things reasonable for her accom- modation, in her passage and for recovery of any debts due unto me in Virginia, or for disposing of her ser- vants according to the custom of the country if she shall think fit to leave any behind her or upon any other occasion, wherein she may have use of his law- ful favor.
" Moreover that your Lordship would be pleased to move his Majesty that whereas upon my humble suit unto him from Newfoundland for a proportion to be granted unto me in Virginia, he was graciously pleased to signify by Sir Francis Cottington that I should have any part not already granted, that his Majesty would give me leave to choose such a part now, and to pass it unto me, with the like power and privileges as the King his father of happy memory did grant me that precinct in Newfoundland, and I shall contribute my best endeavors, with the rest of his loyal subjects, to enlarge his Empire in that part of the world, by such gentlemen and others, as will adventure to join with me, though I go not myself in person."
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BALTIMORE SECURES A TRACT.
Joseph Mead, Chaplain of Archbishop Laud, on February 12, 1629-30, writes : " Though his Lord- ship [Baltimore] is extolling that country to the skies, yet he is preparing a bark to send to fetch his Lady and servants from thence, because the King will not permit him to go back again."
In October, 1629, Sir Robert Heath, the Attorney General of England, obtained a grant of land in America, between the degrees of 31 and 36 of north latitude, under the name of the " Province of Carolana," and two days before Mead wrote, an association of gentle- men asked for two degrees of land, to be held under Heath, as Lord Paramount, with liberty to appoint all officers both civil and ecclesiastical. On April 30, 1630, the Privy Council ordered, that no aliens should be settled in Carolana, without special direction, nor any but Protestants.1
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Lord Baltimore at length, in February, 1631, se- cured a tract of land south of James River, and a charter was prepared ; but Clayborne, Secretary of Vir- ginia, and ex-Governor Francis West, a brother of late Lord Delaware, then in London, made such representa- tions that it was revoked. Undaunted, he persevered, and on the ground that it was not occupied by English subjects, obtained a grant for lands, north and east of the Potomac.2 The King said, " Let us name it after
Sainsbury's State Papers.
2 See Charter.
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THE FOUNDERS OF MARYLAND.
the Queen. What think you of Mariana ?" Balti- more objected, because, that was also the name of the Spanish historian, who taught that the will of the peo- ple was higher than the law of tyrants. Charles then modified the name and said, " Let it be Terra Maria."] At this time, Clayborne had a plantation on the east side of the Chesapeake Bay, and trading posts at Kent Island and Palmer's Island at the mouth of the Susque- hanna, the latter of which he claims to have discovered.2
As soon as it was known that Lord Baltimore had obtained a patent for the Chesapeake region, on the ground that it had not been occupied, the London partners of Clayborne and Virginia planters com- plained, that the grant was within their limits, cover- ing the places of their traffic, and so near to their habitations, as will give a general disheartening to the planters if they be divided into several governments. George Lord Baltimore died on April 9, 1632, and his son Cecil succeeded to the title. On the 28th of June, 1633, both parties were heard, and on the 3d of July the Privy Council " for the preventing of further ques- tions and differences did order that the planters on each side shall have free traffic and commerce, each with the other," also that Lord Baltimore should be left to his patent, and the others to the course of law according to their desire.
Upon the arrival of Leonard Calvert's expedition at
' Ayscough MSS.
Annapolis MSS.
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CALVERT AT JAMES RIVER.
the James River, Calvert claimed that Clayborne and the people of Kent Island should acknowledge his jurisdiction. As the inhabitants had been repre- sented in the Virginia Legislature, Clayborne consulted the Council of Virginia as to the proper course to pur- sue, and they replied " that they knew no reason why they should render up the right of the Isle of Kent, more than any other formerly given by his Majesty's patent." Governor Calvert forbade his trading in the Chesapeake without his license, and under the influ- ence of Fleet was made to believe that he was inciting the Indians to resistance.
Clayborne on the 20th of June 1634, held a confer- ence with the Chief of the Patuxents in the presence of George Calvert the brother of the Governor, Fred- erick the brother of Sir John Winter' and others of the Maryland Colony, and two prominent Virginians John Utie2 and Samuel Mathews.3 After examining the Chief, through a sworn interpreter, the whole was written out and approved by both Marylanders and Virginians.
1 Frederick Winter died before 1638; George Calvert lived and died in Virginia.
2 John Utye or Utie came to Virginia in 1620 in the ship Francis Bona Ventura and was followed in 1621, in the ship Sea Flower by Ann his wife, and an infant son.
3 Samuel Matthews came to Virginia in 1622, in the ship South- ampton, and lived at Blunt Point, a little distance above Newports News. Ile was thrifty and intelligent. His wife was the daughter of Sir Thomas Hinton. He was a type of the early planter, "lived bravely, kept a good house, and was a true lover of Virginia."
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THE FOUNDERS OF MARYLAND.
The Chief, in his statement, denied that Clayborne had prejudiced his tribe against the Marylanders, and said that Fleet " was a liar and that if he were present he would tell him so to his face."1
The explorer of the Delaware River Captain Thomas Young, a friend of Lord Baltimore, who was at James- town in July, 1634, wrote for Secretary Windebank an entirely different version and adds : " This, so far as I can learn, is the true state, wherein my Lord of Baltimore's Plantation stands with those of Virginia, which perhaps may prove dangerous enough for them, if there be not some present order taken in England for suppressing the insolence of Clayborne and his ac- complices, and for disjointing this faction, which is so fast linked and united, as I am persuaded will not by the Governor be easily dissevered or overruled, with- out some strong and powerful addition to his present authority, by some new powers from England. And it will be to little purpose, for my Lord to proceed in his Colony, against which they have so exasperated and incensed all the English Colony of Virginia ; as here it is accounted a crime almost as heinous as treason to favor, nay, to speak well of that colony of my Lord's.
" And I have observed myself a palpable kind of strangeness and distance between those of the best sort in the country which have formerly been very
Streeter's Early Papers.
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THE POCOMOKE CONFLICT.
familiar and loving to one another, only because the one hath been suspected to have been a well wisher to the Plantation of Maryland." 1
Of the Council of Virginia but two were friendly to the Maryland Colony. Lord Baltimore upon receiving intelligence of the position of affairs on the 4th of September, instructed Leonard Calvert and his Com- missioners in Maryland, that if Clayborne would not acknowledge his patent, to seize and detain him close prisoner at Saint Mary, and if they can, " take posses- sion of his plantation on the Isle of Kent."
On October 8th however, the King wrote from Hamp- ton Court, to the Virginia Council and all Lieutenants of Provinces in America, requiring " them to be assist- ing the planters in Ketish Island, that they may peace- ably enjoy the fruits of their labors, and forbids Lord Baltimore or his agents to do them any violence."
It is not strange that orders so contradictory should have induced bloodshed. In the spring of 1635, Corn- wallis proceeded, as one of the Maryland Commis- sioners, to search in the waters of the Chesapeake, for Virginians trading without a Maryland license.
The goods of a trader named Harmon were seized, and a pinnace called the Long Tail belonging to Clay- borne captured.2 Clayborne sent from Kent Island a
1 Young in Aspinwall Papers. Mass. Hist. Soc. Publications, 4th Series, vol. ix.
2 Report of Parliament Committee of the Navy Dec. 31, 1652.
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THE FOUNDERS OF MARYLAND.
boat with Lt. Ratcliff Warren and thirteen others to recover his property, and on the 23d of April, in the Pocomoke met Commissioner Cornwallis with two pinnaces the St. Margaret and St. Helen, when a con- flict took place and William Ashmore of the Maryland side, and Lt. Warren, John Bellson, and William Dawson of the Virginians were killed. Again on the 10th of May, in the harbor of Great Wighcomoco, Cornwallis net Thomas Smith of Kent Island who was arrested, tried for piracy by the Maryland Assembly, and sentenced to be hung.
1
When the Virginians learned that their Governor, John Harvey, approved of Governor Calvert's course towards Clayborne, they were very indignant, and de- termined no longer to acknowledge his authority.
Four days after Warren was killed, a public meeting was held at Yorktown at the house of William Warren, perhaps a relative, Speaker of the Virginia Assembly, to consider the conduct of Harvey. The next day the Governor called a meeting of his Council. His friend and Secretary of the Colony Richard Kemp writes :
" The Governor demanded if they had knowledge of the people's grievances. Mr. Minifiel answered that
1 George Minifie arrived in the year 1623, in the ship Samuel. His plantation was between Blunt Point and Jamestown. De Vries visited in 1633, the James River and in his journal writes " Arrived at Little- town where Menifit lives. He has a garden of two acres full of prim- roses, apple, pear and cheery trees, the various fruits of Holland, with different kinds of sweet smelling herbs, rosemary, sage, marjoram,
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GOVERNOR HARVEY ARRESTED. -
their chiefest grievance was the not sending the answer of the late Assembly. The Governor rising from his place replied, 'Do you say so ? I arrest you upon sus- picion of treason to his Majesty.' Whereupon Captain Uty and Captain Mathews both of the Council laid hands upon the Governor using these words : 'And we, you, upon suspicion of treason to his Majesty.' The Council then demanded that he should go to Eng- land, to which he reluctantly consented, and on the 7th of May John West a brother of Lord Delaware was chosen acting Governor, and a Committee consist- ing of Uty and Peirce were sent to confer with the Governor of Maryland.
A correspondent of Thomas Wentworth, the Earl of Strafford, on August 19th, 1635, alludes to this diffi- culty, in these words :
" Sir John Harvey Governor of Virginia being in- vited on board of a ship, was suddenly carried away and is now brought into England. The company allege he was a Marylander, that is, one that favored too much my Lord Baltimore's Plantation, to their prejudice ; but it is ill taken, that the Company of their own authority, should hurry him away in that manner." I
thyme. Around the house were planted peach trees which were hardly in bloom."
The Dutch Captain says that these were the first peach trees he saw in North America.
1 Strafford Papers.
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THE FOUNDERS OF MARYLAND.
While the examination of Harvey was proceeding in England, Clayborne remained in undisturbed posses- sion of Kent Island, until 1637, when he went to England leaving George Evelyn1 in charge, who ac- knowledged the jurisdiction of Maryland, and Clay-
1 The Evelyns and Calverts were of Flemish extraction. Sir John Evelyn had a son Robert of Goodstone Surrey who died before 1639, whose wife was Susan daughter of Gregory Young of York. George and Robert Evelyn were nephews of Capt. Thomas Young who was authorized on Sept. 22, 1633, by the King to fit out ships, appoint officers, and to make discoveries in America. Among the officers ap- pointed were Robert Evelyn, a surgeon named Scott, and Alexander Baker of St. Holborn's parish, Middlesex, described by Young as " skillful in mines and trying of metals."
Stopping at Point Comfort for repairs and supplies, he left there on the 20th of July 1634, and on the 24th entered Delaware Bay. Slowly ascending the Delaware on the 22d of August he reached the Schuyl- kill, and after stopping five days again sailed, and on the 29th came to shoal water below the Falls.
Early in 1635 Lt. Robert Evelyn returned to England, and in 1637 appears again in America, and is appointed Surveyor of Virginia. His brother George probably came to Maryland at this time. At Piney Point on the Potomac George obtained a grant called the Manor of Evelynton and on April 3, 1638, entered lands for the following persons.
Thomas Hebden, Daniel Wickliff,
Randall Revell,
James Cloughton.
Hugh Howard,
John Walker,
Henry Lee, John Wortley,
John Richardson,
John Hill, Wm. Medcalf, Philip West,
Edmund Parris, Howell Morgan,
Roger Baxter,
Thomas Orley,
Matthew Roedlen, Wm. Williamson,
Thomas Keane, Samuel Scovell,
Andrew Baker,
John Hatch.
Through the Mynne family the Evelyns were related to the Calverts. Elizabeth Mynne, daughter of George Mynne, a relative of the wife of the first Lord Baltimore married a Richard Evelyn, and when she died in 1692, left the Manor of Horton, to Charles, Ith Lord Baltimore.
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CLAYBORNE'S ISLE OF KENT,
borne's goods were seized at Palmer's Island,1 as well as this point. While the Maryland Assembly was confiscating his estate, Clayborne was not idle in London, and on the 4th of April, 1638, the Commis- sioners of Plantations reported the right and title to the Isle of Kent to be absolutely with him, and that the violence complained of, by him, to be left to the courts of justice."
The following note on the 14th of July was also sent to Cecil, Lord Baltimore : " The King understands that contrary to his pleasure, Lord Baltimore's agents have slain three persons, possessed themselves of the island by force, and seized the persons and estates of
1 Among others, the following were taken by Lord Baltimore's agents at Palmer's Island.
Servants.
Edward Griffin, Richard Roymont,
William Jones, William Freeman.
Books. A Statute Book. Five or Six Little Books. One Great Book of Mr. Perkins.
The latter may have been one of the volumes sent out from London. At a meeting of the Virginia Company on November 15, 1620, as the reading of the minutes was finished, "a stranger stepped in " and presented a map of Sir Walter Raleigh's, containing a description of Guiana, and with the same, four Great Books, as the gift of one who desired his name might not be known. Three of these folios were the works of Perkins the distinguished divine of Cambridge University. The donor desired these books might be sent to the college in Vir- ginia, there to remain in safety to the use of the collegiate educators, and not suffered at any time to ve lent abroad. See History of Vir ginia Company. published by Munsell, Albany, page 197.
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THE FOUNDERS OF MARYLAND.
the planters. These disorders have been referred to the Commissioners for Plantations. He is therefore commanded to allow the planters and their agents to have free enjoyment of their possessions without further trouble, until the cause is decided."
In the year 1644, between October and Christmas, with a party of men from Chicacoan in Virginia, Clay- borne took possession of Kent Isle but did not remain, and in 1646 came again with forty persons under a commission from Governor Berkeley of Virginia, but in the next year was compelled to retire.
During these troubles Sir Edmund Plowden, who as early as July 1632, had obtained a patent for Long Isle, and forty leagues between 39 and 40 degrees of north latitude was visiting Virginia and Maryland, and in the "Description of the Province of New Albion," published in 1648, speaks of " Captain Claiborne, heretofore Secretary now Treasurer of Virginia," and adds :
" Now Kent Isle, was with many households of English, by Captain Clayborn before seated, and be- cause his Majesty by his privy signet shortly after declared that it was not his intention to grant any lands before seated and habited, and for that, it lyeth by the Maryland printed card, clear northward, within Albion and not in Maryland, and not only late Sea- men, but old depositions in Clayborn's hand shows it to be out of Maryland, and for that Albion's privy
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BALTIMORE'S OFFICERS REMOVED.
signet is elder and before Maryland patent, Clayborn by force entered and thrust Master Calvert out of Kent."1
In 1640, we find that Clayborne had returned to America, and on the 20th of June petitioned the Vir- ginia authorities for 3000 acres of land at the town of Patomack where in 1622 the English had built a fort, which was on the Virginia side of the Potomac, a few miles from Potopaco, Maryland.
The beheading of King Charles by the Parliament of England led to a compromise with the Virginians. In 1652 William Clayborne and Richard Bennett as Commissioners of Parliament removed Lord Balti- more's officers in Maryland and appointed others, in the name of the keepers of the liberty of England. For five years he performed the duties of Commis- sioner, and after this period lived at the junction of the York and Pamunkey on the site of the Indian village Candayack, now called West Point. In Herrman's Map prepared for Lord Baltimore, and published in 1673, the neck of land is called Clayborne. After the
1 In 1632 Plowden and others petitioned for Long Isle or Isle Plow- den, and other isles between 39th and 40th degree of north latitude, with 40 leagues square of adjoining continent to be granted " a County Palatine or body politic by the name of New Albion." The King, on the 24th of July, ordered the letters patent to be granted. See Straf- ford's Letters, vol. I, pp. 72, 73. In Hazard's Annals of Pennsylvania there is a deposition that Sir Edmund Plowden, residing in Virginia in 1643, bought of Philip White of Kiquotan, the half of a bark. He returned to England, was imprisoned for debt and died A.D. 1655.
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THE FOUNDERS OF MARYLAND.
restoration of Charles the Second, he was again hon- ored with the Secretaryship of Virginia, which he had first held about forty years before, and in 1666 was chosen a member of the legislature. The time of his death has not been ascertained. His son Thomas was killed by the Indians, and his tombstone a few years ago was visible. The Quaker preacher, Thomas Story, speaks of visiting, in 1699, William Clayborne of Pamunkey Neck, who was probably another son of the old Virginia Secretary, and Parliament Commis- sioner.
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EMBARCATION OF MARYLAND COLONISTS.
W. E are now prepared to notice the pioneers of Lord Baltimore's Plantation in Maryland. It has been al ready stated, that the Privy Council, after hearing the arguments of the Virginia planters, ordered, on July 3d, 1633, that Lord Baltimore should be left to his patent, and the Virginians " to the course of law, ac- cording to their desire." A number of friends joined with Cecil Lord Baltimore, in fitting out an expedition On the 31st of the same month, in which the decision of the Council was announced, the following order was issued by that body.
" Whereas the good ship called the Ark of Maryland of the burthen of about 350 tons, whereof one Lowe is Master, is set forth by our very good Lord, the Lord Baltimore for his Lordship's plantation at Maryland in America and manned with about 40 men. Forasmuch as his Lordship hath desired, that the men belonging to his said ship, may be free from press or interruption, these are to will and require you, to forbear to take up, or press any, the officers, seamen, mariners or others belonging to his Lordship's said ship either in her voyage to Maryland, or in her return for England,
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THE FOUNDERS OF MARYLAND.
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1
and that you permit and suffer her quietly to pass and return without any let or hindrance, stay or interruption whatsoever."1 A pinnace of twenty tons, commanded by Captain . Winter, called The Dove, accompanied the Ark.
On the 19th of October, Coke the Secretary of State,2 informed Admiral Penington " that the Ark, Richard Lowe3 Master, carrying men for Lord Baltimore to his new plantation in or about New England, had sailed from Gravesend contrary to orders, the company in ' charge of Capt. Winter4 not having taken the oath of allegiance,"5 and directed him to have the expedition
1 Copied from original in British Public Record Office.
2 Sainsbury's State Papers.
$ In the M'd Assembly of 1638 was Richard Loe probably the same person. He died in 1639 and John Lewger, the first Secretary of the Province, was his executor. He bequeathed to Lewger's wife, " a satin petticoat." See Annapolis MSS.
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