The history of Maryland : from its first settlement, in 1633, to the restoration, in 1660 ; with a copious introduction, and notes and illustrations, Part 15

Author: Bozman, John Leeds, 1757-1823
Publication date: 1837
Publisher: Baltimore : J. Lucas & E.K. Deaver
Number of Pages: 1062

USA > Maryland > The history of Maryland : from its first settlement, in 1633, to the restoration, in 1660 ; with a copious introduction, and notes and illustrations > Part 15

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§ From what is stated in these two last sentences above, we must necessarily suppose, that Smith and his party, after " entering the river of Tockwogh," and visiting the " towne," returned to the Susquehanah river, with the two interpre- ters above mentioned, and there waited till the Susquehanocks came down the river, where the five Susquehanock Werowances embarked with them for the Tockwogh.

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solemnitie the poore salvages much wondered, our prayers being SEC. VII. done, a while they were busied with a consultaion* till they had 1608. contrived their businesse. Then they began in a most passionate manner to hold up their hands to the sunne, with a most fearful song, then embracing our captaine, they began to adore him in like manner : though he rebuked them, yet they proceeded till their song was finished : which done with a most strange furious action, and a hellish voyce ; began an oration of their loues; that ended, with a great painted beares-skin they covered him : then one ready with a great chayne of white beads, weighing at least six or seaven pounds, hung it about his necke, the others had 18 mantels, made of diuers sorts of skinnes sowed together; all these with many other toyes they layd at his feete, stroking their ceremonious hands about his necke for his creation to be their governour and protector, promising their aydes, victualls, or what they had to be his, if he would stay with them, to defend and revenge them of the Massawomeks .- But we left them at Tockwhogh, sorrowing for our departure, yet we promised the next yeare againe to visit them. Many descriptions and dis- courses they made vs, of Atquanachack, Massawomek, and other people, signifying they inhabit upon a great water beyond the mountaines, which we vnderstood to be some great lake, or the river of Canada : and from the French to haue their hatchets and commodities by trade.t These know no more of the territories

*Whether this be a typical error, or the use of an obsolete word, it certainly means the same as the word-consultation. The latin verb-consulo-seems to be the root of the term.

t From the structure of the above sentence, some doubt arises, whether " their hatchets and commodities by trade," were procured immediately from the French by the Susquehanocks themselves, or through the intermediate traffick of the Massawomeks, or some other northern Indian tribes, with the French. The cir- cumstance of a war then existing between the Susquehanocks and the Massa- womeks seems to preclude a supposition of the latter case ; but it is possible, that even in case of the war, a few articles of that kind might have been obtain- ed from the Massawomeks either by capture or some other means, without sup- posing a traffick carried on by the Susquehanocks with the French in Canada. It has been before stated, in the Introduction to the History, (already published,) that the French commenced their fur-trade with the Indians on the St. Lawrence about the year 1600, and had annually continued it, (it being found to be very profitable,) until this year of Smith's exploration of the Chesapeake, 1608, in which year also Champlain laid the foundation of Quebeck. As Hudson did not discover his grand river of the present State of New York until the year 1609, the Dutch were as yet guiltless of furnishing the Iroquois with fire-arms or any other commodities. From the circumstances attending the remarkable battle between the Iroquois and the Adirondacs and Hurons on lake Champlain in the year 1610, with the two latter of whom Champlain and a few Frenchmen,

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SEC. VII. of Powhatan, than his name, and he as little of them,* but the Atquanachuks are on the ocean sea.t

1608.

" The highest mountaine we saw northward we called Pere- grine's mount, and a rocky river, where the Massawomeks went

as allies, fought with their fire-arms, the Iroquois (or Massawomeks if they were the same) were then entirely ignorant of their use ; except such know- ledge as they might have acquired from the accidental observation they might have made of them, when they met with Smith in the Chesapeake in the year 1608. Useful articles of domestic life, such as hatchets, &c. might have been procured from the French by the Iroquois or Massawomeks, before their hostili- ties in 1610, either mediately through other Indian tribes or immediately by themselves.

* The Susquehanocks were, however, subsequently found to be at war with the Yoamacoes, seated on the St. Mary's river,'in St. Mary's county, Maryland, when the first Maryland colonists arrived there in the year 1634. These Yoa- macoes, as well as all the Indians in the peninsula between the Patowmack and the Patuxent, were said to have been in subjection to. Powhatan, and consequent- ly lived within his " territories" by conquest. At what period between the years 1608 and 1634, the Susquehanocks commenced their warfare on the Yoamacoes does not appear.

t Smith has laid down on his map the seat of the Atquarachuks, as being near- ly in a north-eastern direction from the head of the Chesapeake, on what he has above called, and described on his map-" the ocean sea ;" but which, from our present knowledge, was certainly the present Delaware river or bay. The At- quanachuks must have been, therefore, some nation or tribe of Indians, who in- habited the country on the Delaware, some where about the present towns of Wilmington or Newcastle. It is possible, that they might be the same as those, or a tribe of them, mentioned by Mr. Charles Thompson, in his annotations on Jefferson's Notes, under the denomination of Lenopi, called by Heckewalder Lenni-Lenape, by the French Loups, and by Penn's early settlers-the Dela- " wares. A little below the Atquanachuks, on the same " ocean sea," as he erro- neously supposed, Smith has laid down on his map the seat of the Macocks, se- : parated from the Atquanachuks by a peninsula. A little lower again, on the same " ocean sea," but nearly due east from the head of the Chesapeake, he , has placed the Chickahokin ; who appear to have been the same Indians as those mentioned by Mr. Thompson, in his annotations just cited, under the denomi- nation of the Chichohocki, a tribe, as he says, of the Lenopi, and " who dwelt on the west side of the river now called Delaware, but which by the In- dians was called Chihohocki."-They must, therefore, have inhabited that part of the present Delaware State, on the Delaware river, lying between the Apo- quinimy and Red Lyon creeks.

# It will readily be observed by an inspection of Smith's map, that this " moun- taine called Peregrine's mount," was supposed by him to have been at the head of the third branch, (or the third one of the "foure heads,") of the Chesapeake eastward from the Susquehanah. The next to the Susquehanah was, as herein before stated, the present North East river, called by Smith in his map-" Gun- ter's Harbour." The next to that (the third head) appears to have been the Elk river, at the head of which he has placed this mountain-called by him Pe- regrine's Mount ; and which is, most probably, that since celebrated mount- called Gray's Hill, where Sir William Howe, in the revolutionary war, in 1777, made his first lodgment, after debarking his army at the head of the Elk river.

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vp, Willowbyes river,* in honor of the towne our captaine was SEC. VII. borne in, and that honorable house the Lord Willowby, his most 1608. honored good friend. ¡ The Susquesahanocks river we called Smith's falles ;} the next poynt to Tockwhogh, Pising's poynt ;§ the next poynt Bourne. | Powell's Isles and Smal's poynt is by the river Bolus ;T and the little bay at the head-Profit's poole ;** Wat- kins, Reads, and Mumford's poynts are on each side Limbo;tt

* This river, as before stated, can be no other than Bush river, on the western shore of the Chesapeake, as is evident from an inspection of Smith's map.

+ Smith was a native of the town of Willoughby, in Lincolnshire, and, when a very young man, travelled to France with Peregrine Bertie, the second son of Peregrine Bertie, Lord Willoughby, of Lincolnshire, in the capacity of servant. In testimony of his gratitude to the family, he therefore gave the above names to the mount and river.

# A place in the Susquehanah river, about five miles from its mouth, is still denominated-Smith's Falls, in the latest (Griffith's) map of Maryland.

§ In his map it is called-" Poynt Pesinge," (probably after Edward Pising or Pesing, one of the " souldiers" of his party, and possibly the first discoverer thereof,) and is denoted thereon as the next promontory on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake, below the mouth of the Tockwogh. Supposing the Tockwogh to have been the same as the Sassafras, "Poynt Pesinge" must have been one of the two head-lands between the mouth of that river and Worton creek in Kent county.

|| "Poynt Bourne" is evidently the same as that now called Swan point, in Kent county, directly opposite to the Bolus or Patapsco river.

T Powell's Isles, probably so called from Nathaniel Powell, one of the " gen- tlemen" of the party, are evidently the three islands on the western shore of the bay, one of which is now called Pool's island, (possibly a corruption of the name-Powell,) all of them delineated on Smith's map very exactly agreeable to modern maps, the former one, (Pool's island,) just below the Bush river, and the two others at the mouth of what is now called the Gunpowder river, imme- diately below the mouth of which is Small's point, probably the promontory formed by what are now called the Middle and Back rivers.

** This little bay, called by them-Profit's poole, (probably after Jonas Profit, one of the " souldiers" of the party,) appears to have been that, now obviously perceptible on the latest maps, formed by the two small islands last mentioned, near the main land, and the southern promontory or cape of what is called Mid- dle river. The river, now called Gunpowder, was evidently passed by and un- known to Smith, though he seems to have intimated on his map, that he sup- posed there was a river there.

tt Smith's exploration of the Chesapeake appears to have been very imperfect, though very exact so far as his examination of the bay and its shores extended. In this account of his voyage, the whole of the Eastern Shore of Maryland, from Swan-point in Kent county to the lower part of Dorchester county near to Limbo, is skipt over by him without notice. His delineation, on his map, of three large islands, called by him-Winstone's Isles, represented by him as being nearly of equal size, and stretching along the Eastern Shore from Swan point to an indentation of the shore, which we may suppose he intended for the Chop- tank river, demonstrates, that in both his excursions up the bay, he kept close to the Western shore, without minutely examining any part of the Eastern be- low the Tockwogh. Hence the Isle of Kent must have been entirely unknown

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SEC. VII. Ward, Cantrell, and Sicklemore, betwixt Patawomek and Pamaun- 1608. kee,* after the names of the discoverers. In all those places and the furthest we came vp the rivers, we cut in trees so many crosses as we would, and in many places made holes in trees, wherein we writ notes, and in some places crosses of brasse, to signifie to any, Englishmen had been there.

"Thus having sought all the inlets and rivers worth noting, we returned to discover the river of Pawtuxunt, these people we found very tractable, and more civill than any, we promised them, as also the Patawomeks, to revenge them of the Massawomeks, but our purposes were crossed."+

Here ends all that is said in Chap. VI. of Smith's History, as to "what happened the second voyage in discovering the bay," that has immediate relation to Maryland. The narrative of this "second voyage" up the bay is subscribed in like manner of that of the former one, thus-"Written by Anthony Bagnall," (who appears to have acted as surgeon on the occasion, as Dr. Russell had done before,) "Nathaniel Powell, and Anas Todkill."

Prior to the preceding narratives of Smith's two voyages up the Chesapeake, he has inserted in the "Second Booke" of his General History of Virginia, a kind of prefatory and sum- mary account and description of the country called Virginia; in which he has confined himself, for the most part, to that part of the country contiguous to and bordering on the Chesapeake bay, comprehending both Virginia and Maryland; and in which are many remarks as illustrative of the first discoveries in the latter

to him, or considered by him as main land. The Chester, the Wye, the St. Michael's, and the Choptank rivers must also have been unobserved by him ; though, by two slight delineations on his map, he has intimated, that he sup- posed there were rivers, both where the Chester and the Choptank are now known to be, and on the former has placed the seat, or king's residence, of a tribe of Indians denominated the Ozinies. The country from the Chester south- ward to the Choptank he has called-Brooke's Forest. By " Momford's point," he must have meant either Hooper's or Barren islands, contiguous to Dorchester county, both unascertained by him ; next below which, and just above the Cus- carawaock or Nanticoke, he has laid down a river, called by him Rapahanock, but which is most probably that now called Hungary or Hunger river. Watkins's point must have been the most southern promontory of Somerset county on the bay, and what may be termed the exterior cape of Pocomoke bay. Read's point, still further eastward on the same bay, seems to be the northern cape or head- land at the entrance of Pocomoke river, called by Smith the Wighco.

* In Virginia.

Smith has been somewhat more explicit in relation to the river Patuxent and its inhabitants, in his chapter containing his summary account of Virginia, an extract from which the reader will presently find herein inserted, to which will be added more particular comments than the above passage requires.

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as in the former province. So much of it as relates to Mary- SEC. VII. land is, as follows :-

"By these former relations* you may see what inconveniences still crossed those good intents, and how great a matter it was all this time to finde but a harbour, although there be so many. But this Virginia is a country in America between the degrees of 34 and 45 of the north latitude. The bounds thereof on the east side are the great ocean : on the south lyeth Florida: on the north nova Francia: as for the west thereof, the limits are un- knowne. Of all this country we purpose not to speake ; but onely of that part which was planted by the English men in the yeare of our Lord, 1606. And this is under the degrees 37, 38, and 39. The temperature of this country doth agree well with En- glish constitutions, being once seasoned to the country.t Which appeared by this, that though by many occasions our people fell sicke; yet did they recover by very small meanes, and continued in health, though there were other great causes, not onely to have made them sicke, but even to end their dayes.

"The sommer is hot as in Spaine; the winter cold as in France or England. The heat of sommer is in June, July, and August, but commonly the coole breesas asswage the vehemency of the heat. The chiefe of winter is halfe December, January, and halfe March. The cold is extreame sharpe, but here the pro- verbe is true, that no extreame long continueth.}

* These "relations" were the accounts, inserted in what he called his " First Booke of the General History," of the different voyages made to North America, prior to the first settlement in Virginia in the year 1606; as of those of Columbus, Cabot, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Amidas and Barlow, Sir Richard Grenville, Pring, and Weymouth ; which have been heretofore touched upon in our introductory volume already published.

t Mr. Henley, in one of his annotations on Shakspeare's "All's well that ends well," commenting on the word "seasoning," says, "the word is still used in the same sense in Virginia, to which government, and especially on the Eastern Shore of it, where the descendants of the first settlers have been less mixed with later emigrants, many expressions of Shakspeare's time are still current. The word "seasoning" is still well known in Maryland, as well as in Virginia, in the sense above used by Smith, as also by him in another passage before stated. Shakspeare and Smith were nearly cotemporaries.

# The observations of Smith on the climate and weather, peculiar to Virginia and Maryland, which are nearly the same, are very just and correct; as expe- rience teaches us at this day. They suggest reflections upon two very interest- ing subjects in the science of meteorology, when considered in relation to the Uni- ted States, and more particularly to Virginia and Maryland. First, why the me- dium temperature of our winters is below, and of our summers above, that of the corresponding latitudes in Europe ? And secondly, whether any percepti- ble alteration of the climate of these states has taken place, since the first set-

1608.

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SEC. VII. "In the yeare 1607 was an extraordinary frost in most of Eu-

!- 1608.

tlement of them by Europeans, and if so, what is the cause or causes of that effect? A full discussion of these questions here would far exceed the limits of a note. A remark or two only can be added. It has been assumed as an acknowledged fact, that the medium temperature of our winters is 28° below, and that of our summers 8º above (in Farenheit's scale) that of the corres- ponding latitudes in Europe. The most obvious cause of this occurring im- mediately to the mind, would be the ancient and superior cultivation of the country in Europe in comparison with that of North America. The im- mense forests, which clothed the country of these Atlantic States, when Eu- ropeans first settled here, by preventing the rays of the sun from warming and drying the soil, must have constituted a considerable variance in the tempera- ture of the atmosphere adjacent to the surface of the earth, from what it was in the same latitude in Europe. The gradual clearing away of these forests then, and the admission of the warm rays of the sun to the soil, must in the eye of reason, have created an alteration, if not an amelioration, of the climate. This opinion, so rational in its appearance, seems to have been of long standing in America; but some facts occur which seem to shake the basis of this theory. Among some " Remarks concerning the gradual alteration of the temperature of the air in America and in Ireland," by an anonymous writer, (who appears to have been then a resident of Ireland,) in or about the year 1676, and published in the Philosophical Transactions, ( Lowthorp's Abridgment, vol. ii. p. 42,) I find the following :- "That in America (at least as far as the English plantations are extended) there is an extraordinary alteration, as to temperature, since the Eu- ropeans began to plant there first, is the joint assertion of them all. The change of temperature is, and not without some reason, generally attributed to the cutting down of vast woods, together with the clearing and cultivation of the country. But that Ireland should also considerably alter, without any such manifest cause, doth very much invalidate that reason." This idea of an alteration, if not an ameliora- tion, of the climate of Virginia and Maryland, seems to have continued with the progress of their growth. In "An account of Maryland, by Mr. Hugh Jones," an inhabitant of the Western Shore of Maryland, written in or about the year 1699, and published in the Philosophical Transactions, (Lowthorp's Abridgment, vol. iii. p. 600,) the supposition is again mentioned. "The air is now more wholsome than formerly, which I suppose proceeds from the opening of the country, that giving the air a freer motion : our summers are not extreme hot, as in the first seating ; but our winters are generally severe, towards what they are in England. The north west wind is very sharp in winter, and even in the heat of summer it mightily cools the air; and too often at that time a sudden north-western strikes our labourers into a fever, when they are not careful to provide for it, and put on their garments while they are at work." A modern philosophic writer of America, (Mr. Williamson, in his "Observations on the cli- mate of America,") has also adopted this opinion of both the alteration and ame- lioration of our climate, and accordingly affirms-"It is well known, that in the Atlantic States the cold of our winters is greatly moderated." But, notwithstand- ing the generality and currency of this opinion, rational as it appears to be, some stubborn facts rise up and militate against it. The opinion, that Italy has under- gone a great improvement in the mildness of its climate from what it was in the time of the Romans, sems to have prevailed in Europe as generally as that of Ame- rica here. But Mr. Eustace, in his late classical tour through Italy, has combated this idea with apparent success, contending that the climate remains the same as it was fifteen hundred years ago. That the greater degree of cold in the Atlan- tic States of America than what prevails in Europe, is principally owing to the

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rope, and this frost was found as extreame in Virginia .* But the SEC. VII.

1608.

opening and clearing the forests of the country, seems to be further invalidated by a fact, I find stated both by Mr. Jefferson, in his Notes, and by Mr. Volney, in his "View of America ;" which is, that at places in the new states west of the Allegany mountains and bordering on the Mississippi, there is a greater de- gree of warmth, amounting at least to three degrees of latitude in favour of these western states, compared with the places on the Atlantic coast of either Virginia or Maryland in corresponding latitudes. But these western states, particularly towards the valley of the Mississippi, must be near a century behind the States of Virginia and Maryland in the clearing of their forests and in the denudation of their soil, and in the consequent exposure of it to the rays of the sun. Mr. Pike, in his voyage up the Mississippi, in the year 1805, found on the eleventh of August, his thermometer as high as 108°, in the latitude of 39º, which is about or nearly in the parallel of Annapolis, in Maryland ; a degree of heat never known, I believe, in Maryland. In the State of Illinois, where this heat occur- red, although there are prairies of considerable extent, yet vast forests must still abound, to cool the air, if they act at all in that manner. Again, in the winter of 1780, the Chesapeake in Maryland was frozen over from its head as low down as the mouth of the Patowmac,-a circumstance never known before in Mary- land, not only in the memory of the oldest men in the State then living, or hand- ed down to them by tradition from the first settlement of the province in 1634. The coldness of the climate or winters of Maryland, we may therefore suppose, has not abated, although its forests are nearly extirpated. On the other hand, however, the diseases incident to the climate seem to have undergone a very per- ceptible alteration. Intermittent agues and fevers arising from the heat of sum- mer and the first of autumn, or pleurisies from extreme cold in winter, are cer- tainly not now so commonly known in the country as formerly ; but to them have succeeded fevers of a typhous and malignant nature. This seems to indicate some great change in the climate.

* This is corroborated by the observations of other cotemporary writers. That there was "an extraordinary frost in most of Europe," in the winter of 1607, im- mediately preceding the summer of Smith's exploration of the Chesapeake in 1608, receives considerable proof from a pamphlet, entitled, " The Great Frost, Cold Doings, &c., in London, 1608." This pamphlet is cited by Mr. Steevens in his annotations on Shakspeare's play of King John, in illustration of the pas- sage in king John's last dying speech in that play, when he supposed himself to have been poisoned.

" And none of you will bid the winter come,

"To thrust his icy fingers in my man."

A similar passage occurs in the pamphlet .- "The cold hand of winter is thrust into our bosoms." The words, "in London, 1608," appear to denote the date and place of the publication, to wit, "in London," in the spring of the year 1608, soon after the "Great Frost" of the preceding winter. Shakspeare and Smith, as herein before observed, were nearly cotemporaries. The former died in 1623 ; the latter in 1631; each above fifty years old. The commentators on the language of the former, therefore, throw much light on that of the latter .- Of the severity of this winter, of 1607-8, throughout North America, other au- thorities attest. In the life of Gorges by Belknap, it is noticed as being very se- vere in New England; and L'Escarbot, who was in Canada about this time, (in his Hist. de la Nouv. France, ) remarks, that "the last winter of 1607-8, was the hardest that ever was seen. Many savages died through the rigour of the wea- ther." It is stated also in Purchas's Pilgrimages, that "by the bitterness of that great frost, above half the Virginian colonists took their deaths," but, agreeably

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The history of Maryland : from its first settlement, in 1633, to the restoration, in 1660 ; with a copious introduction, and notes and illustrations, Part 15

Author: Bozman, John Leeds, 1757-1823 Publication date: 1837 Publisher: Baltimore : J. Lucas & E.K. Deaver Number of Pages: 1062

Author: Bozman, John Leeds, 1757-1823
Publication date: 1837
Publisher: Baltimore : J. Lucas & E.K. Deaver
Number of Pages: 1062