Pennsylvania Was The Gateway

Source

Pennsylvania was the gateway and first resting place and the source of Scotch-Irish adventure and enterprise as they moved west and south. The wave of emigration striking the eastern border of Pennsylvania, in a measure deflected southward through Maryland. Virginia, the Carolinas, reaching and crossing the Savannah river... . 

Dutch In The Chesapeake Area Of Maryland

In the James Michener book Chesapeake, he mentioned Dutch settlers.

1790 names

Nanticoke Native Americans

Chesapeake by James A. Michener mentioned the Nanticoke tribe.

Source

The Nanticoke Indians of southern Delaware were first encountered in 1608 by Captain John Smith They then occupied the peninsula between the Atlantic ocean and Chesapeake bay.

Source

The River

Chesapeake by James A. Michener:

"The Susquehannocks...felt intuitively that they should be on the warpath, proving their manhood."  "...an old warrior predicted...when the day comes that we are afraid to fight, we lose the river."

Pentaquad, the first main character encountered, was an outcast of the Susquehannocks.  He paddled down the river towards the legendary Chesapeake Bay, where he found wading birds and plentiful flora and fauna.

Captain William Trent

From The Plains of Abraham by Brian Connell:

"As a stop-gap, Dinwiddie persuaded a frontiersman, Captain William Trent, to recruit a hundred men from among his fellow Indian traders. ..they were packed off post-haste to start constructing a fort on the neck of land between the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers."

Source

"In August, 1753, he (Trent) was directed by Governor Dinwiddie, to examine the site selected by the commissioners, in 1752, for a fort on the Ohio. This was at the forks of the Ohio, where Pittsburg now stands. In a letter from John Frazier to an Indian trader named Young, dated "Forks, August 27, 1753," we find the following reference to Trent: "There is hardly any Indians now here at all, for yesterday there set off along with Captain Trent...".

Early in January, 1754, Governor Dinwiddie commissioned Trent to raise one hundred men for immediate service on the frontier. By the last of the month this force was raised, and immediately

marched to the mouth of Redstone creek, where a temporary store house was erected for the Ohio company, in which to place articles and supplies, to be carried from thence to the mouth of the Monongahela. While at Redstone, the Captain received instructions from Governor Dinwiddie to build a fort at the forks of the Monongahela and Ohio... .

Fort Pitt and Redstone On Map (Source) (Also seen here)

On the 17th the fort was given up, but not until highly honorable terms were obtained from the enemy. At this time, a Virginia regiment under Col. Fry, with George Washington as lieutenant colonel, was at Wills creek, Maryland, on its way to the forks. 

...the French enlarged and completed the fort, and named it Fort Du Quesne, in honor of the governor of Canada. 

Baptisms And The Beginnings Of Notre Dame

Entries in the book, Chicago's true founder, Thomas J. V. Owen... (text version here):

Father Badin doubtless showed Indian Agent Owen his entries made for Chicago baptisms in the famous record book, which was supposed to have been lost or destroyed for the past seventy-five years. It is now preserved in the archives of Notre Dame University. Permission was given by Very Rev. James A. Burns, C.S.C., Provincial of the Congregation of Holy Cross, to quote the following: 

"Father Badin was the first Catholic priest ordained in the United States. The ceremony was performed by Archbishop Carroll on May 23, 1793, at the Sulpician seminary in Baltimore. When Indian Agent Owen visited Governor Cass at Detroit in July, 1831, the priest had been just one year in the Chicago Indian agency. Enroute for home by way of Niles, Mr. Owen met Father Badin, and discussed with him, as the official director of the government Indian school, the educational affairs of his Indian charges. And at this visit a momentous enterprise was planned."

"...the founder of municipal Chicago with the first Catholic priest ordained in the United States germinated the idea of Notre Dame University — a Catholic college in the Chicago Indian agency."

Reverend John Tevis

Science Hill Inn, Shelbyville, Kentucky

"Without my knowledge, I was appointed to take a list of the taxable property in one of the districts of Shelby County.*"

A church in Abingdon, Virginia (Not necessiarly Mr. Tevis's church)

Source - Sixty Years In A School-room

John and Julia Tevis enumerated with their family and students at the Science Hill School:

Census 1850

Shelby county, Shelby, Kentucky, United States

J Tevis M 58 Maryland [John]

J Tevis F 50 Kentucky [Julia]

B Tevis M 23 Kentucky

R Tevis M 21 Kentucky

J Tevis M 16 Kentucky

A Tevis F 14 Kentucky

B G Cyeryomios M 48 District Of Columbia

E Cyeryomios F 45 Kentucky

L Cyeryomios F 35 Virginia

H Martin M 35 Kentucky

A Martin F 36 Virginia

C A Martin F 4 Kentucky

A Martin F 2 Kentucky

A Bridgeford F 15 Kentucky

A Blood F 16

M Byers F 15 Kentucky

M Barber F 17 Kentucky

E Barber F 14 Kentucky

M C*D F 14 Kentucky

A Cook F 14 Kentucky

F Baker F 12 Kentucky

B Brush F 17 Kentucky

C Buchanan F 10 Kentucky

C Camaan F 14 Indiana

T Candy F 10 Kentucky

M Connelly F 12 Kentucky

M Davis F 13 Kentucky

A Daughtery F 12 Kentucky

T Cunningham F 15 Mississippi

M Elliot F 16 Kentucky

M Ellert F 16 Kentucky

E Delaney F 14 Kentucky

A Handy F 12 Louisiana

M Hutchinson F 14 Kentucky

E Jones F 17 Kentucky

F Johnson F 17 Kentucky

F Johnson F 15 Tennessee

F Johns F 12 Louisiana

H Jenkins F 12 Kentucky

A Jenkins F 12 Kentucky

M Lessute F 17 Mississippi

M C Lessute F 15 Mississippi

M Lacewell F 13 Kentucky

J Lindsay F 17 Kentucky

M Lindsey F 14 Kentucky

S Lampton F 16 Kentucky

A Lambert F 15 Kentucky

E Morgan F 17 Kentucky

M Morgan F 15 Kentucky

E Mills F 17 Tennessee

E Middleton F 14 Kentucky

M Moore F 16 Kentucky

E Moore F 16 Kentucky

L Moore F 14 Kentucky

T Miller F 15 Kentucky

M Miller F 13 Kentucky

E Miller F 16 Kentucky

E Mckay F 17 Missouri

E Putnam F 13 Kentucky

M Payton F 16 Kentucky

E Payne F 15 Kentucky

E Perry F 14 Kentucky

E Street F 14 Iowa

V Staples F 15 Kentucky

N Smith F 16 Kentucky

H Sidde F 15 Louisiana

H Surgent F 14 Kentucky

M Mckee F 17 Maine

M Thompson F 17 Missouri

V Williams F 16 Kentucky

L Wheeler F 15 Missouri

D White F 16 Kentucky

J White F 19 Kentucky

F Whitaker F 17 Mississippi

F Nielsen F 16 Louisiana

C Niven F 14 Kentucky

M Hidney F 14 Kentucky

E Hidney F 13 Kentucky

S Healecty F 16 Kentucky

M Wright F 14 Kentucky

E White F 16 Kentucky

E Adams F 12 Louisiana

M Carr F 12 Kentucky

J Wicklippe F 15 Kentucky

B Carr F 20 Kentucky

E Cammack F 15 Kentucky

H Marion Thor F 15 Kentucky

M Oren F 84 Maryland

C M Thorpe F 27 Kentucky

John Tevis's memorial at FindAGrave.

See portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Tevis here (in the book, Lessons in Likeness: Portrait Painters in Kentucky and the Ohio River Valley ..., By Estill Pennington, published in 2011).

Descendant Of The House Of Montrose

Source (Early Days Of Washington)

"...Mr. Bonaparte, a descendant of Prince Jerome Bonaparte, who gave his hand in marriage to beautiful Elizabeth Patterson, daughter of the well known banker in Baltimore. Mrs. Bonaparte, on her mother's side, was a granddaughter of Charlotte Grahame, of the "House of Montrose."

Who? Scotch Irish Pioneers In Maryland

Owls At The Salisbury Zoo In Wicomico County, Maryland

Scotch Irish Pioneers in Ulster and America,  By Charles Knowles Bolton

"Before 1690 there were three and perhaps four congregations in Somerset County which then included Worcester County, Maryland with their meetinghouses at Snow Hill (1684 ), Manokin, Wicomico and Rehoboth. These places lie south of the present southern boundary of Delaware."

Heights Of Georgetown

Early days of Washington, By Sally Somervell Mackall

Twelve Old Houses

Source

Twelve Old Houses West of Chesapeake Bay

Twelve Old Houses West of Chesapeake Bay

"Almost from the beginning the Marylanders and Virginians were lovers of the soil. Towns as centers of social and political life were few. Indians as a rule had been friendly, and it was safe for settlers to take up grants along the innumerable rivers, where land was most fertile and where tobacco could be shipped off so readily from private wharves."

Gunpowder Falls Friends

Some of the Malsby family members were Friends near Gunpowder Falls (Maryland).

Source

From Robert Sutcliff. Travels...1804, 1805, & 1806:

[Page 199] 2d Month, 16th. I attended Baltimore forenoon meeting... . In the evening we came to H. J.'s, a minister who is well respected in this neighbourhood. His house and plantation lie near the Gunpowder Falls, and not far from the meeting which bears that name.

Also see Gunpowder Falls And Friends Meeting.

Nemacolin Path

From The Plains of Abraham by Brian Connell:

...with a small escort of frontiersmen and friendly Indians, he (George Washington) was to strike north-west from the border mountains for Lake Erie. He carried a formal letter from Dinwiddie to be delivered to the first French officer of authority he found....Washington's starting point was at Wills Creek [north of Fort Cumberland], a tributary of the upper Potomac on the Virginia side of the mountains. ...joined by Christopher Gist, the Ohio Company factor, who had blazed the Nemacolin trail for eighty miles to the Great Crossing of the Youghiogheny. Thence they would have to rely on Indian guides as far as Lake Erie. The season was far advanced for such a journey.

First Governor Of Maryland, The Life Of Thomas Johnson

Since there is no free version of the book The life of Thomas Johnson: member of the Continental congress, first governor of the state of Maryland, and associate justice of the United States Supreme court online yet, other sources were used to identify some of the details in the life of Thomas Johnson.

Source Of Thomas Johnson Portrait

Wikipedia stated that "Thomas Johnson (November 4, 1732 – October 26, 1819) was an American jurist with a distinguished political career."

The Supreme Court Historical Society stated that:

"He was educated at home and studied law in the office of the Clerk of the Provincial Court in Annapolis, and later with an Annapolis attorney. He was admitted to the Maryland bar in 1760. Johnson began his public career in 1762 as a delegate to the Maryland Provincial Assembly."

"On August 5, 1791, President George Washington nominated Johnson to the Supreme Court of the United States. The Senate confirmed the appointment on September 19, 1791. Citing the rigors of circuit riding, Johnson resigned from the Supreme Court on January 16, 1793."

See the images of the Thomas Johnson letters held at the Frederick County Public Libraries here.

The Frederick News Post published an article entitled Thomas Johnson: Patriot, politician lost in history, November 11, 2007.  An excerpt:

"...Johnson was a progressive thinker and favored a book of the day that promoted the progressive education of women."

Thomas Johnson's descendant, Confederate General Bradley T. Johnson's speeches, An Address By Confederate General Bradley T. Johnson and The Confederate Soldier Address By Gen. Bradley T. Johnson, featured at Detour Through History.

Cousins Found In An Underground Railroad Story

While browsing through records at Still's underground rail road records:..., by William Still, one vignette in particular caught my eye.

It was the phrase "son of William Y. Day, of Taylor's Mount, Maryland," that really got my attention.  In my early Maryland family tree, Arthur Taylor's grandson, John Greer, married Sarah Day, daughter of Nicholas and Sarah Day.  I'm related to William Y. Day and his slave offspring, John Wesley Gibson, through both the Taylor and Day lines.

Sarah (Day) Greer was the sister of Edward Day, who married "Avarilla Taylor, daughter of John Taylor and granddaughter of Arthur Taylor of Baltimore Co. (Faulkner, 10; St. John's Parish Register, 17-R)... ."  "Edward [Day] and Avarilla lived at Taylor's Mount."

The story from Mr. Still's book:

WHITE ENOUGH TO PASS 

John Wesley Gibson represented himself to be not only the slave but also the son of William Y. Day*, of Taylor's Mount, Maryland. The faintest shade of colored blood was hardly discernible in this passenger. He relied wholly on his father's white blood to secure him freedom. Having resolved to serve no longer as a slave, he concluded to "hold up his head and put on airs."  He reached Baltimore safely without being discovered or suspected of being on the Underground Rail Road, as far as he was aware of. Here he tried for the first time to pass for white; the attempt proved a success beyond his expectation. Indeed he could, but wonder how it was that he had never before hit upon such an expedient to rid himself of his unhappy lot. Although a man of only twenty-eight years of age, he was foreman of his master's farm. But he was not particularly favored in any way on this account. His master and father endeavored to hold the reins very tightly upon him. Not even allowing him the privilege of visiting around on neighboring plantations. Perhaps the master thought the family likeness was rather too discernible. John believed that on this account all privileges were denied him and he resolved to escape. His mother, Harriet, and sister Frances, were named as near kin whom he had left behind. John was quite smart, and looked none the worse for having so much of his master's blood in his veins. The master was alone to blame for John's escape, as he passed on his (the master's) color.

*William Young Day, b. 1 Mar 1798, possible son of John Young Day [1772], d 31 Aug 1879. Charlotte Orso, wife, b. 4 Aug 1798, d. 19 Nov 1870. Both bur. Kingsville. [Source]

From The Banks Of The Gunpowder River

"My mother had told me nothing from which I could formulate a suggestion or give a reply that would throw any light upon my family history... ."

Excerpts are from A loyal traitor : a story of the War of 1812, a book described below in Publisher's Weekly:

The story purports to be the memoirs of a sailor, John Hurdiss, which are discovered by the editor and published. [Source]

 "...I [John Hurdiss] knew that the name of the river on which our plantation [Marshwood] bordered was the Gunpowder*, that the blue waters were the waters of Chesapeake Bay... ."  

Source

"I had been a mysterious waif in a Connecticut village, an instructor in small-arms on board a privateer, an English prisoner of war, an alleged Frenchman among the refugees in England, a lieutenant of a fine schooner, and the commander of two vessels, all inside of two years.  As for any other title than that of an American citizen, I care not so much as the snap of a finger... ."

*Note: The reference to Gunpowder River in Maryland was of interest because of ancestors who lived there, including John Greer.

Dr. Beanes And The Star-Spangled Banner

 Francis Scott Key, an attorney, was positioned to see "that our flag was still there" because he was on a mission to free Dr. William Beanes. Levin Winder addressed the letter below, dated August 31, 1814, requesting the Dr. Beanes' release to the British General, Robert Ross.
 
 From The British invasion of Maryland, (1812-1815:

Dr. Beanes was born in 1749 and died in 1828.

Greers & Days In Gunpowder River

From Grant Comes East by Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen:

From Wikipedia:


Joppa is the location of the fictional alternate history epic American Civil War battle called The Battle of Gunpowder River in Grant Comes East: A Novel of the Civil War, the New York Times bestseller written by Newt Gingrich, William R. Forstchen, and Albert S. Hanser.

Gilmor's Raid was a military action that actually happened in the Civil War; the Battle of Gunpowder River written about in "Grant Comes East" was fictional.

Guess I won't look for any Civil War battlefields in the Gunpowder River area of Baltimore, Maryland, where my ancestors John Greer & Sarah Day lived since it was a fictional battle! [Here's a link to another descendant's file which is much more complete than my bare-bones entry for these ancestors.]

A related blog post here.