USA > Maryland > Montgomery County > The history of Montgomery county, Maryland, from its earliest settlement in 1650 to 1879 > Part 2
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
game they almost exceeded the best trained dog in following its course. The principal weapons used by the Indian hunters were bows and arrows, some had rifles. Their hunting exeur- sions sometimes continued for months. The Potomac River fur- nished an abundant supply of fish for those who were fond of piscatorial pursuits. Henry Fleet, who was the first navigator who ascended the Potomac River to the head of navigation, in 1625, describes the country as abounding in game, such as deer, buffaloes, bears and turkeys, while the river abounded in all kinds of fish,-the Indians commonly catching thirty sturgeon in one night. If in their travels they had occasion to pass a deep river, they set about immediately and built a canoe, by taking a long piece of bark of proportionate breadth, to which they gave the proper form by fastening it to ribs of light wood, bent so as to suit the occasion. The Indians, like all human flesh, were heirs of disease. The most common was pleurisy, weakness and pains in the stomach and breast, consumption, diarrhea, rheumatism, ague, inflammatory fevers, and occasionally the small-pox made dreadful ravages among them. Their general remedy for all their disorders, small or great, was a sweat. For this purpose they had in every village an oven, situated at some distance from the dwellings, built of stakes and boards, covered with sods, or, were dug in the side of a hill, and heated with some red hot stones. Into this the patient crept naked and in a short time was thrown into a profuse perspiration. As soon as the patient felt too hot, he crept out and immediately plunged himself into a river or some cold water, where he continued about thirty seconds, and then went again into the oven. After having performed this operation three times successively, he smoked his pipe with composure, and in many cases a cure was completely effected. Indian doctors never applied medicines without accompanying them with mysterious ceremonies to make their effect appear supernatural. A missionary, who was present on an occasion when an Indian physician had been sent for to see a patient, says : "He had on a large bear skin, so that his arms were covered with the fore legs, his feet with the hind legs, and his head entirely concealed in the bear's head, with the addition of glass eyes. He came in this attire with a cala- bash in his hand, accompanied by a great crowd of people, into the patient's hut, singing and dancing, when he grasped a hand-
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
full of hot ashes, and scattering them into the air with a horrid noise, approached the patient and began to play several leger- demain tricks with small bits of wood, by which he pretended to be able to restore him to health." The principal remedies X used by the Indians in curing diseases were, such as rattlesnake root, the skins of rattlesnakes dried and pulverized, thorny ash, toothache tree, tulip tree, dogwood, wild laurel, sassafras, elder, poison ash, winter green, liverwort, Virginia poke, jalap, sarsa- parilla, Scobians or devil's bit, blood wort, euekoopint, and others. Immediately after the death of an Indian the corpse was dressed in a new suit, with the face and shirt painted red, and laid upon a mat or skin, in the middle of the hut. The arms and effects of the deceased are then piled up near the body; in the evening, soon after sunset, and in the morning, before daybreak, the female relations and friends assemble around the corpse to mourn over it. Their lamentations are loud in proportion to the love and the esteem they bore the deceased, or to his rank, or the pains he suffered in dying, and they are daily repeated till his interment. The burying places are some distance from the dwellings. The graves were gene- rally dug by old women, as the young people abhorred this kind of work. Before they had hatchets and other tools, they used to line the inside of the grave with the bark of trees; but after- wards they usually placed three boards, not nailed together, over the grave in such a manner that the corpse lay between them, a fourth board was placed as a cover, and then the grave was filled with earth. Now and then a proper coffin was pro- cured. The language of the two tribes had an agreeable sound both in conversation and public delivery, although there was great difference between the two. The pronunciation, say those who were skilled in the tongue, was quite easy. The following is the Lord's Prayer, in the language of the Piscataways.
"Sougwaucha caurounkyauga leh Sutaro an Saul woney aoita, es a sawaneyou okettanlısela ebueawoung, na carounky- auga nugh woushauga, neallewehue salauga tangwounant oranoatoughsick tontaugwelee wheyon stoung cheneyent eha- quatant aleywhey oust anna thughsang long wass areuch tawan tottenan galoughtounga, nysawne Sascheautang whss conteh- sale paungaekaw, esa sawauneyou, esa sashautzta, esa soung wasoung cheuneaw houngwa, auwen."
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
Their language was lofty, yet narrow, somewhat like the Hebrew, in signification full; like short-hand in writing, one word served in the place of three, and the rest were supplied by the understanding of the hearer. Their language was also highly figurative. The following specimens may offer an idea of their metaphors: "The sky is overcast with dark, blustering clouds," meaning we shall have troublesome times; we shall have war. "We shall lift up the hatchet,"-we shall have war. "The path is already shut up,"-war has began. "The rivers run with blood,"_war rages in the country. "To bury the the hatchet,"-to conclude peace. "You did not make me strong,"-you gave me nothing. "Look this way,"_join our party. "I will pass one night yet at this place,"-I will stay one year at this place.
CHAPTER III.
The Founder of Maryland. Granting of the Charter. Powers conferred by the Charter. Sailing of the Colonists. Arrival in the Chesapeake Bay. Landing on Blackiston Island. Settle- ment at St. Mary's. Friendly relations secured with the Indians. Extending the settlements to St. George's and Mont- gomery. Peace and Prosperity: Missionaries. A period of thirty years.
SIR George Calvert, afterwards Lord Baltimore, an English gentleman of finished education, was the founder of Maryland. Being one of the principal Secretaries of State and a mem- ber of the House of Commons, he always maintained the rights and interests of the King, who, in consideration for this devo- tion, granted him a charter dated the 20th of June, 1632. The country granted by this charter was named Maryland, in honor of Queen Henrietta Maria.
Before the execution of this patent Lord Baltimore died, and his eldest son, Cecil, having inherited his father's title and estate, succeeded to the charter, he and his heirs, becoming absolute proprietors of Maryland. The Proprietary had full, free and absolute power to enact laws, with the advice, assent and approbation of the freemen of the province. The Proprietary had full power to grant to his colonists such tracts of land as they might purchase.' He was also granted the license and faculty of erecting and founding churches, chapels and places of worship in convenient and suitable places, and of causing the land to be dedicated according to the laws of the Kingdom of England. The territories described by the charter extended from Watkins' Point, opposite the mouth of the Potomac River, northward to the fortieth degree of north latitude, and from the Atlantic Ocean and Delaware Bay on the east, to the Potomac River on the west. It will be seen that this included a part of what is now Pennsylvania and Delaware.
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
As soon as the grant was obtained, Cecil Calvert completed his arrangements for the establishment of a colony. Deeming that the interests of the enterprise demanded his remaining in England, he confided the colony to his brother, Leonard Cal- Y vert, whom he constituted Lieutenant General or Governor. The colony consisting of about two hundred persons embarked in two vessels, the Ark and the Dove, from the Isle of Wight on the 22nd of November, 1633. After many difficulties and some dangers, these two vessels, though separated by storms on the ocean, arrived safely off Point Comfort in Virginia, on the 24th of February, 1634. They landed on the 25th of March on an island, to which they gave the name of St. Clement's, now Blackiston's.
The colonists took solemn possession of Maryland with reli- gious services conducted according to the usages of the Roman Catholic Church, and erected a cross as an emblem of Christi- anity and Civilization, which they were about to plant on these shores.
In order to make further discoveries, Governor Leonard Calvert proceeded up the Potomac, near to the place now called / New Marlboro', where there was an Indian village governed by Archihu, unele to the King, or Werowance, who was at that time an infant. When the Governor asked the Indian Chief if . he were willing that his people should settle in this country, he replied, "I will not bid you go, neither will I bid you stay, but you may use your own discretion." Using this discretion, the Governor concluded it was not safe to settle so high up thre river. He explored the St. George, a small river on the north side of the Potomac, and about twelve miles from the mouth, anchored at the village of the Yoacomico Indians. The Gover- nor explained to the Chief, or Werowance, his object in coming to his country. The Werowance, after the custom of the Indians, made but little answer to the proposition of Governor Calvert; but, nevertheless, hospitably entertained him and his companions, giving up his own rude bed for the accommoda- tion of the Governor.
Having carefully examined the surrounding country, and finding it possessed of many advantages which rendered it an eligible site, Calvert determined to commence at this place, his first settlement. The ship and pinnace which he had left at St.
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
Clement's were ordered to join him at Yoacomico. To pre- pare the way for a peaceable admission into the country, he presented the Werowance and principal men with clothes, axes, hoes and knives; in return for which they granted him about thirty miles of territory, which he called Augusta Carolina, afterwards the County of St. Mary's. The character of these presents to the Werowance indicates the desire of the colonists to introduce among the savages the first rudiments, as it were, of civilization-the implements of agriculture.
V
The Indians agreed to give up one-half of their village for the immediate accommodation of the settlers, including one-half of their corn grounds, which they had already commenced to plant. Upon the 27th day of March, 1634, the Governor took possession of the place and named the town St. Mary's.
The Indians lived in the greatest harmony with the settlers, they hunted together for deer and turkeys, while the women and children became domesticated in the families of the Eng- lish. The principles of Christianity and philanthropy always governed the colonists in their treatment of the savages. Earnest and persistent efforts were made to teach them reli- gious truth and the arts of civilized life, while their territorial and personal rights were scrupulously respected. The rights of the aborigines were purchased for a consideration which gave them satisfaction. While no rewards were offered for Indian scalps, they gave them words and acts of love and mercy.
The relations that existed between the natives and the settlers continued to be friendly until William Clayborne, called by historians the Evil Genius of the colony, excited the fears and jealousies of the Indians, by persuading them that the new comers were not English, but Spaniards, the enemies of the English. The simple natives believed him and suddenly withdrew from St. Mary's.
The settlers fearing a hostile attack, postponed the building of their own houses, and erected a block-house' or fortification, regulating their conduct in the meantime towards the savages, so as to re-awaken the old feelings of confidence and intimacy. The natives became convinced of the falsehood of the insinua- tions against the settlers, and again resorted to the colony. The land was divided among the settlers under the instructions (
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
of the Proprietary. Owing to the dangers both from the savages and their own countrymen from Kent Island and Virginia, the colonists were not disposed to extend their settlements beyond the limits of St. Mary's. Lots of five and ten acres, within the city, were granted to all who might apply for them, while tracts ranging from one hundred to three thousand acres were granted to those persons applying. A rent of twenty shillings for every thousand acres was reserved for the Proprietary.
The settlements continued to grow and prosper; already the plantations had extended to the west side of St. George's River, and large accessions were being added from the northern country. \New hundreds-or divisions similar to our election districts-were erected.
The two missionaries who accompanied the colony confined their efforts to converting the Indians who were friendly with the settlers. As the colony increased new missionaries arrived from England, and immediately began to penetrate into the interior and visit every tribe and village. The Indians at Patuxent received them very kindly and bestowed upon them a plantation called St. Mattopany on the Patuxent, where a mis- sionary station and store house were immediately erected. Three men travelled in a boat, subsisted by hunting, and at night slept under cover of a slight tent. In five years they had extended them throughout the greater part of the province. They visited many tribes and made many converts. They had four permanent stations, the most distant of which was one hundred and fifty miles, located on the Monocacy River, near where the City of Frederick now stands. Another was on the Patuxent River, near where Triadelphia is located.
The conversion and baptism of Tayac, the chief of the Piscata- ways, the most extensive and powerful tribe in Maryland, was the cause of considerable rejoicing among the colonists. The chief was taken violently sick, and the forty medicine men that surrounded him failed with all their arts of conjuring to cure him, one of the missionaries obtained permission to treat him and soon restored him to health.
Tayac after this abandoned the habits and dress of the savage and adopted that of the English, and learned their language. What is Prince George's County now was rapidly settled, emigrants moving up the Potomac and Patuxent Rivers.
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
Frederick County embraced all that section of country lying west of a line drawn from the mouth of Rock Creek to the Patuxent River, which had formerly been embraced within the limits of Prince George's. Thus it will be seen that what now constitutes Montgomery County belonged to Frederick County in the early settlement of the colonies. The earliest settlement within the limits of Montgomery commenced in the year 1650, by Robert Brooke, who founded a Protestant settlement of forty persons, including his wife and ten children, at Della Brooke on the Patuxent River. /[During the next thirty years peace and prosperity reigned throughout the province. Persons of wealth and distinction sought the new world for enlarged and unoccupied fields in which to employ their wealth and talents, while those who were proscribed for their political or religious opinions, were eager to abandon the shores of their native land and seek homes in this, the Eldorado of the West.
When it is remembered that steamships were then unknown, with no submarine cable to flash along its electric wire the intelligence of weal or woe to friends at home, and an equally wild and trackless wilderness before them, the abode of wild beasts and savage inen, is it not indeed wonderful to contem- plate the progress of settlement in the American colonies ? Still, amid all these dangers and difficulties, they subdued the wilderness, founded communities, erected town and cities, and in a little more than two hundred years, have founded an Empire that wields a sceptre equal to the combined powers of the East.
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CHAPTER IV.
Climate and Productions. Tobacco and Corn, staple productions. Oysters, Game and Fish. Indentured Whites. Slaves intro- duced from Virginia. Tobacco the medium of barter and ex- change. Tobacco shipments. Silver coins. Fruit and Cider. Mails. Quakers or Friends. Indians. Toleration.
THE climate and beneficent laws that governed the colony of Maryland continued to attract immigratiou, and the number of counties continued to increase. They speedily made clearings in the forest, and reduced the land to cultivation. Tobacco and corn were the principal articles cultivated. Great attention was paid to fruit ;- while the waters of the bay and rivers furnished the greatest of delicacies, oysters, wild ducks and fish. The people were planters and farmers, and there were no influences to draw the people together, like in towns and cities, but left the people free to lay the foundation of that peculiar domestic life which has always been the characteristic and charm of Mary- land. Slavery was introduced from Virginia, and superseded the white servants that were so frequently to be found in the early days of the colony. These were white emigrants, who, wanting the means to emigrate, apprenticed their time, for a certain period, to those who would bear that expense. This was made a matter of barter. Usually the captain of a ship would bring out a party of emigrants, taking an indenture from the emigrant, instead of passage money, for which he agreed to serve for a given time. On the arrival of the ships with such emigrants, their unexpired time was sold to the highest bidder; the price was paid in tobacco, which was at that time the cur- rency of the province. The cultivation of tobacco claimed the attention of almost every one; it was the great bonanza of the times, and hundreds of ships were employed in its transportation abroad. There was no money in general use at this time, and trade was conducted through the medium of barter, or the
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
exchange of one commodity for another. In 1650, silver coins were issued by the Proprietary, of various denominations, hav- ing Lord Baltimore's arms on one side, while on the other was the motto, Crescite et Multiplicamini. Very little of this coin came into general cirenlation; tobacco had become the common currency of the province-one pound of it being equal to three pence English money. It was made a legal tender, at one penny a pound, in 1732.
The luxuries of the present day were unknown; they sat upon stones and benches; the back of the bench was so con- structed that it could be turned up, and form the top for a table, around which sat the hardy pioneers, after the toils and excite- ments of the day, consequent upon the life of a frontiersman, drank their cider and sack, in lieu of coffee and tea, which were seldom used. Apples and peaches were raised in great abund- ance; two or three varieties of white apples were cultivated for summer use, while long stem, red, red streak, and black red streak were the principal varieties in use for autumn and winter.
Communication was had, in the absence of post roads and mail facilities, by sending letters through private hands, and it is astonishing with what rapidity a letter or communication would travel through these sparsely settled communities. Each and every one of the settlers were alike interested in the prompt and safe delivery of the letters intrusted to their care to for- ward, and would often leave their work and mount the fastest horse on the plantation, and speed to the next settlement, where it would again be taken in charge, and in a like manner for- warded to the next settlement or plantation, and so on until it reached the person for whom it was directed; in this way letters travelled fifty and sixty miles in the course of twenty-four hours, rivalling, in point of time, the delivery by some of the local mails at the present time.
Travelling was done on horseback by land, while canoes or small boats were brought into requisition when it was desirable or expedient to travel by water.
The Quakers, or Friends as they are called, found in this province a refuge and home from their persecutors. In the province of Massachusetts, laws had been passed that pro- scribed them as a " Cursed Sect." They were imprisoned "with- out bail," and sentenced to banishment upon "pain of death."
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
They were to be maimed, whipped, and "men or women to have their tongues bored through with a red hot iron." These perse- cutions led George Fox, a zealous leader, to come to Maryland; being delighted with the country and realizing the fact, that the laws and liberal policy of the province placed no restrictions upon religious liberty, he remained in the colony and preached the doctrines of his sect, both to the settlers and the natives, Indian chiefs and their subjects. The members of the Legisla- ture and the Council, men of distinction, justices of the peace, and even the heir of the Proprietary himself came to listen to him preach. Maryland was indeed, to the Friends, the Land of Promise. Whatever difficulties they may have had with the government came from refusal to perform military duty, and their rejection of oaths; but they were subsequently relieved even of these requirements. They established settlements or meetings through St. George's and Montgomery Counties, and accomplished a great deal towards promoting the material development and intellectual advancement of the country. The first house built by the Friends in Montgomery County, was by James Brooke, on "Brooke Grove," granted in 1728.Y Here Friends gathered in sufficient numbers to establish a flourishing meeting, and, a little more than a century ago, they took a step that distinguished them from surrounding communities, by the emancipation of their slaves. The house is occupied at present by William J. Schofield. By their patient industry and perseverance, combined with their intellectual culture, social intercourse, agricultural knowledge, their fidelity to the princi- ples of moral truth and human advancement, the Quakers have left an impress upon the character of the whole people, which has given an emulating stimulus to their aims and energies, which will be in powerful and unabated operation, when the marble and bronze, that now commemorates less meritorious achievements, shall have disappeared under the corroding influ- ences of the march of time.
During this time the aborigines and the colonists were living side by side upon terms of the greatest friendship.
The Chesapeakes had disappeared entirely from Maryland, and the remnant of the tribe had removed to the banks of the Elizabeth River, in Virginia, under the protection and dominion of the Powhatans." The Yoacomicos still lived upon the St. 3
-
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
Mary's River, and had become mostly domesticated with the settlers. The Susqnehannocks, at the head of the Chesapeake Bay, who were at some distance from the colonists, and less under the influence of the whites than the Yoacomicos, with whom they were at enmity, and constantly at war, gave the settlers some trouble; but as the pioneers were constantly push- ing their discoveries and explorations northward and westward, and as the stream of emigration continued to pour into the colony from all parts of Europe, but more especially the English, Scotch and Welsh, the Indians were compelled to withdraw from the homes of their fathers, and seek new hunting grounds towards the setting sun.
The Piscataways and Anacostians, under the fostering care of the settlers, and the wise and beneficent teachings of the mission- aries, were fast becoming civilized and adopting the habits of the whites. Their ideas of civilization seemed to centre in the possession of a hat. When once the Indian consented to wear a hat, it was prima facie evidence that the Indian heart had been changed, and his savage instincts converted from the war-path and the chase, to those of a more modern and civilized charac- ter. Among the numerous cases of the Indians' friendship towards the first settlers, the following incident will illustrate the friendly feelings existing among the Piscataway's for the whites. Madam Perrie, her three sons and son-in-law left Europe in 1695, and commenced a settlement on the Patuxent River, near where Magruder's Ferry is now located. As they were journeying along on the evening of a summer's day, they reached the verge of a hill commanding a view of the valley of the Potomac. It was a beautiful woodland scene; a vast forest stretching along as far as the eye could reach, inhabited by wild beasts and birds of prey. No indication of civilized man was anywhere near; scattered along the banks of the river, amidst the dark green hazel, could be discovered the Indian wigwams, the smoke issuing therefrom in its spiral form. No sound was heard but the songs of the birds; in silence they contemplated the beautiful prospect which nature presented to their view. Suddenly a number of Indians darted from the woods-the females shrieked-when an Indian advanced, and, in broken English, said to Madame Perrie, "Indian no harm white-white good to Indian-go to Mattawoma-our chief-come to Matta-
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