More Than 200 Years of Confusion

Pete and I continue piecing together the various land patents that comprised the area in and around Port Tobacco. The pieces often are difficult to fit together and today, we found an important reason why we often encounter trouble. Take a look at the plat for Moore's Ditch Resurveyed, dated January 1, 1790, and patented (Certificate 756) for 305 acres.

As you can see, surveyor Theophilus Hanson noted the placement of Moores Ditch relative to three other tracts: Goodrichs, Lines [aka Lynes] Delight, and part of Beeches Neck. Notice the profusion of lines? These tracts overlapped in some areas and, in other areas, were separated by vacant lands.

Even Theophilus Hanson, with his precise distances and bearings, could not make perfect rational sense of the patented lands. He contended with 'elder' surveys that were not only imprecise, but inaccurate. Broken topography and rolling hills, thick forest in some places, and crude surveying instruments (that probably required, but seldom received, periodic maintenance and recalibration) contributed to the confusion. Surveyors also were aware that magnetic north constantly shifted and they tried to account for the change when resurveying older tracts by assuming one degree of variance every twenty years.

The result is a hodge-podge of surveys that can be reconstructed and related to current maps, but there remains always a degree of imprecision and uncertainty.

Jim

Bottles & Shells Mark Property Bounds

Typically, when archaeologists find scatters of oyster shell or bottle glass in an area under investigation, the obvious and generally accurate conclusion that we come to is that we have found trash that somebody threw out and, therefore, we have located a site. Such finds in the Port Tobacco area of Charles County, and perhaps farther afield, could represent something quite different: a surveyor marking property bounds.

Theophilus Hanson, Charles County surveyor in the late 18th century, laid out Mattingly's Hope for Richard Gambra on the eighth of September 1784. He marked the beginning and end of each course of the survey with a large stone. On each stone he inscribed a Roman numeral, I through X, which he described as "a large stone fixed in the earth with some oyster shell under and around it." One or two ocassions we could dismiss as coincidence, the stone happening to be placed on an ancient Indian shell midden (trash heap); but ten points over 459 acres!

One month later, on October 1, 1784, Hanson laid out the 510 acre tract Plenty for Thomas Stone. For two of the eleven bound points he noted a locust post and one or three stones "fixed in the earth" with "some Glass" or "some Glass bottle" under them. Most of the other points were those of adjoining tracts. Pete and I have looked at three other Hanson surveys from the 1790s. None of those mentioned the use of shell or glass.

Presumably, the oyster and glass highlighted the boundary stones and locust posts that otherwise would have been difficult to distinguish from random occurences of stones and trees. Locust posts are particularly troublesome as property markers because, while they can last a century or more, they have a tendency to root. See the photograph below of an old post that gave root to a tree that now encapsulates much of the old post. I took this photograph at Southampton Farm near Bel Air in Harford County...it was one of several examples around a possible family cemetery site. I noted several other instances at the Cedar Hill Cemetery in Havre de Grace, Harford County, several weeks ago.


Locust fence post and the tree that took root from it.

As more of the land around Port Tobacco was resurveyed after the confiscations from Tories during the Revolutionary War and the many foreclosures after the war, such special markings may have become less necessary. The new tracts were surveyed more meticulously and there were fewer vacancies between patented lands.

Find a stone that you think is an old boundary stone? Probably few were ever highlighted with oyster or glass--Theophilus Hanson was an unusually meticulous surveyor for the 18th and 19th centuries--but the combination certainly supports the possibility that it is a genuine boundary stone from the late 18th century.

Jim

Execution in Port Tobacco

The New York Times is proving to be an interesting source of information about Port Tobacco. The edition of February 10th, 1877, details the capture, arrest, and execution of two men for the murder of John W. Everett. Surprisingly, it was the first execution in Charles County in 52 years.

Mr. Everett was a store clerk who was found bludgeoned in an upper room of a store in Glymont. Several people were immediately arrrested for the crime, but released for lack of evidence. Col. L.W.B. Hutchins of Charlotte Hall took over the case. Soon after, Charles Henry Simpson and Martin Henry were arrested and carried to Leonardtown. They were then removed to Port Tobacco for trial, convicted after 3 days, and sentenced to hang.

Apparently, back in the day, a public execution was a festive occasion. On February 9th, the streets of Port Tobacco were packed with thousands of spectators, anxious to see the hanging. Simpson was described as a "blood-in-the-eye-nigger" and Henry as "not as sharp." The execution was completed by 11:30 am and the bodies buried by 1 pm. The crowds went home.

As they say in the business: "That's entertainment!"

Research Update

Well it's been close to two months now since we were last in the field and I can't wait to get warm weather back to go out again!

As Jim stated the other day we are working on several different aspects of our research at the moment. I have been (and still am) working on digitizing all of the maps and plats and deeds that we can get our hands on to make some semblance of the Port Tobacco town and surrounding area.

I am also working on going through the State Archives to find anything on Port Tobacco, Charles Town, and Chandler's Town, all of which are the names for our wonderful town. The other day I came across two different supplements to laws in the 18th and early 19th Centuries that intrigued me. Here they are:

Session Laws, 1801 Chapter XVII
A Supplement to an act, entitled, An act to establish and regulate a market in Charles-town, in Charles county, and to prevent perfons from suffering goats, hogs and geese, to go at large in the laid town.

Hanson's Laws of Maryland 1763-1784
CHAP. IV.
An ACT to prevent the raising of geese and swine in Elizabeth-town in Washington
county, Leonard-town in Saint-Mary's county, and Charles-town in Charles county.

Now the question is why? Commerce seems to be the most likely culprit. Let me know what you think.

- Peter

Post About Port Tobacco From Elsewhere

Today, a Civil War blogger posted a letter about Port Tobacco, written in 1863. This is the second Charles Bates letter written from Port Tobacco to be posted on the Crossed Sabers blhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifog. The first letter is here.

According to Charles Bates, he and his company took up residence in the courthouse, almost exactly 145 years ago. He describes the courthouse as newly painted and renovated but describes the rest of the town as "played out".

-April

Another Logo Submission

Here is our latest submission for our logo contest.



Pat describes her logo as follows:
" I thought to bring the present and past together. Within an outline of the Courthouse (present), a simplified scales of justice ( past county seat & court), weighted with pre-historic & historic artifacts (the present dig & past)and tobacco leaves for the river-creek-town name and exports."

Great job Pat!

This is the last call for logo submissions. Please send me your logo ideas by Saturday February 9th. Voting on logos will begin Sunday February 10th.

-April

Patented Lands around Port Tobacco

I know that it often seems like we jump around alot in our blogs, each day's note often referring to something we wrote about days or even weeks earlier. In part that is because there are four of us contributing blogs and we are all working on different things and have different interests. (Wait until Carol or Elsie or one of the other folks starts contributing ocassional pieces!) But the diverse topics that we cover also reflect the breadth and energy of the work. Eventually, we will bring all of this material together in exhibits and books and through other media. For today, however, here is yet another foray into our myriad questions and the varied data that we use to try to answer them.

Pete and I are looking at land titles--deeds--and using them to reconstruct on modern maps who owned what land. We look at patents (original conveyances from Lord Baltimore or the State of Maryland) and deeds, and the descriptions of the land and neighboring lands provided by the surveyors. A brief description of one such tract appeared in the blog about the courthouse and jail lot the other day. These documents often require a great deal of patience to decipher--translate is not too strong a word--and then patience to record and draft so that we can compile a series of plats--drawings of each tract--and piece them together. And then, of course, we examine how the land is further subdivided and, ocassionally, reconsolidated.

Below is an example of a plat provided by a surveyor along with a table of courses. Most early deeds did not include a drawing or convenient table of courses; the descriptions, or metes and bounds, were written out. While less convenient, the written descriptions often mention roads, stream banks, dams, neighboring tracts, and bits of the parcel's history of ownership, so they are well worth reading. Each course, or line bounding a property is described in terms of distance and bearing. Distances were generally in perches in the 17th and 18th centuries, and often in the 19th and early 20th centuries as well. A perch is equal to 16.5 ft. It was a convenient measure, just like yards are today; e.g., one can say 10 perches or 165 feet, 100 perches or 1,650 ft. I think you get the picture.

Thomas Stone's patent called Plenty, dated October 1, 1784.

Surveyors of the 17th century often used a mariner's compass, giving bearings like North Northwest or East Southeast, but more typically measured bearings in the 18th century and later relative to north or south. For example, northeast would be N45 degreesE. Minutes (e.g., S32d 10'W) rarely were used before the 20th century in Maryland.

Table of courses for the Plenty patent. It includes metes and bounds for the original tracts and for the entire resurvey that combined tracts and otherwise vacant lands.

In future posts we will illustrate some of the plats that we have reconstructed and their relationships to other parcels.

Jim