C. K. Thomas for President! (...of the Frederick Co. Agricultural Society)

Dear Friends,

With the Great Frederick Fair open for business (Midway all the way, y'all!), I thought it might be fun to look at one of the ways our battlefield families are connected to the fair.

Wait, what? The Monocacy National Battlefield and the Fair? How is that possible?

I'm so glad you asked.

The Frederick County Agricultural Society had been hosting a county agricultural fair off and on for decades prior to the Civil War. The earliest reference I've found to the society was in 1821, when the local newspaper mentioned the organization's constitution had been approved and the candidate for President had declined the position¹. The organization hosted a fair, or "Cattle Show," the following year².

As one might imagine, those festivities stopped during the war, and after the war the society took advantage of the break to reorganize the society. In the fall of 1867, they purchased property as a permanent home for their fair and elected one C. K. Thomas as president.³ Thomas would continue to serve as president of the organization for several years. In 1868, the Society decided to renew their annual fair⁴; Thomas sent a request to William Devries, a former business partner who was serving as president of the Maryland State Agricultural and Mechanical Association, requesting an endorsement of the Frederick County's fair. Mr. Devries complied, posting about it in the Baltimore Sun⁵.

In 1869, the Frederick County Agricultural Society appointed a committee of four to visit none other than President Ulysses S. Grant and request his august presence at the annual fair⁶. The newspaper mentioned the committee used the aid of General Crewel of Frederick County to get an audience with the President; it was during that meeting that the President agreed to attend. Believe it or not, that meeting was held the day before the fair; I can't even imagine the President of the United States having that much flexibility in his calendar today.

Portrait of President Grant by Henry Ulke. 

I was going to describe his reception in town, but perhaps you'd enjoy hearing it in the words of the local newspaper⁷:

FREDERICK, MD., Oct 14--2 p.m. --The train arrived here at 11:30 o'clock a.m., amid ringing of bells and cheering. The Presidential party, in carriages, were escorted by the marshals of the occasion. President Grant was in a four-horse open carriage, accompanied by C. Keefer Thomas, President of the Society, and others. The carriage proceeded to the residence of W. H. Falconer, where the officers of the Society were introduced to the distinguished visitors, and refreshments were served.
          The principal party was then escorted to the fair grounds, where thousands were gathered who rent the air with their cheering. The President bowed his acknowledgements and the party alighted at the committee rooms, when Colonel Maulsby addressed the President, thanking him for his sympathy and patronage of the arts and sciences shown in visiting the fair, and welcoming him in the name of the citizens of Frederick. The President responded, thanking the Secretary for the reception accorded to him, and expressing his pleasure in visiting the city of which he had heard so much, and which had done nobly in the support of the Government.

Would you believe that carriage ride was not the first time C. Keefer Thomas and Ulysses S. Grant had met? It's true. While General Ulysses S. Grant was not present during the battle, he took advantage of an opportunity to see part of the battlefield a month later. On August 5th, he held a war council with his generals at the Thomas House (known at that time as Araby). Of course, the visit gave the Thomas family the opportunity to meet the famous general; in the books Fighting for Time⁸ and The History of Western Maryland⁹, neighbor Glenn Worthington and historian J. Thomas Scarf, respectively, stated that the council was held in an upstairs room of the Thomas House above the library, and then each related a different anecdote about the family entertaining the General at breakfast the following morning.

Obviously, we don't actually know how well they got along, but Thomas seems to have had a talent for recognizing opportunities to make useful connections. He flowed in and out of business partnerships while a merchant in Baltimore¹⁰, and during the war his friendships with leaders of some of the units stationed at his property is well documented. A few years after the war, he used that talent for forming relationships to get involved in various organizations, most notably the aforementioned Frederick County Agricultural Society. While I've found no evidence to suggest Thomas was part of that 4-person committee to request the President's attendance at the fair, is it possible he had influence? I'll leave that to you to decide.

So we're standing on the fair grounds, President Grant had just listened to Col. Maulsby welcome him and was getting ready to say a few words of his own. According to President Grant's papers, his speech went something like the following¹¹:

I have great pleasure in visiting for the first time the City of Frederick, of which I have heard so much during the period of the late rebellion, and which, too, stood up manfully for the maintenance of a whole Union. I expected to visit this city some years ago, but found myself unable to do so; but now that I have found so many friends, and have been so gratified with what I have seen of your fair and enjoyed of your hospitality, I hope at some future time to visit you again.

Anybody else catch that? In his speech he talks about it being the first time he visited Frederick, and yet we know he was at our battlefield in August of 1864. In addition to the two books listed above, both President Grant's and General Sheridan's memoirs specifically mention that the transfer of authority from General Hunter to Sheridan happened at Monocacy Junction (where Hunter's troops were camped along the river banks). The first time I read the President's speech it took me back a step, but I suspect the reason is because, in the last 150 years, the limits of Frederick have expanded so that we consider the properties of the battlefield to be part of Frederick city and not the separate "Monocacy Junction" or "Araby" community that it was during the war. We have no reason to believe that General Grant actually entered the city in 1864; indeed, the local newspaper is astonishingly silent on the entire visit. If he truly held his war council on the 5th in the Thomas House, and then had breakfast with the Thomas family the following morning, it seems likely that he would have spent the night there instead of venturing into town. Certainly anything the Thomas House had to offer would be more comfortable than quarters in camp with the troops.

Either way, getting the President of the United States to attend your fair is quite an accomplishment for any county society, and since it was done while C. K. Thomas was president, he gets part of the credit. That was not the only good news that our battlefield families received at the fair that year. In the list of premiums awarded at the fair¹, C. K. Thomas won about $45 total by winning in 5 different categories, while John T. Best won about $29 in 4 other categories. And Mrs. C. K. Thomas was called out by the local newspaper for donating a chair that was bottomed "handsomely with cane by a totally blind soldier" and recognized for its excellence. I like to think that Mrs. Thomas donated the chair out of support for the country's veterans, but it is perhaps an unfortunate sign of those times that Mrs. Thomas was named for donating the chair but the soldier who did the work was doomed to anonymity.

As for more current events, I haven't entered anything in this year's fair, but I will be there this Thursday in the battlefield's booth to celebrate History Day. (Also to indulge in some carnie food like funnel cake. Here's hoping I don't get confectioner's sugar all over myself.) If you're planning to be there on the same day, please stop by to say hello! I'd love to meet you.

---

1 “[At a regular meeting of the Frederick County Agricultural Society]”, The (Frederick, MD) Republican Gazette and General Advertiser, 17 Mar 1821, p 3, col 1, ad 7.^↩
2 “Frederick County Cattle Show and Fair,” The (Frederick, MD) Republican Gazette and General Advertiser, 27 Apr 1822, p3, col 2, ad 4.^↩
3 ”Locals: Frederick County Agricultural Society," article, The (Frederick, MD) Examiner, 22 May 1867, p2, col 2.^↩
4 ”Agricultural Exhibition," article, The (Frederick, MD) Examiner, 17 Jun 1868, p2, col 4.^↩
5 ”Frederick City, MD," article, The (Baltimore) Sun, 14 Oct 1868, p2, col 2. ^↩
6 "Locals: Interview with President Grant," article, The (Frederick, MD) Examiner, 13 Oct 1869, p2, col 4.^↩
7 “Telegrams to the Star, This Afternoon's Dispatches,” article, Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), 14 Oct 1869, p 1, column 4, 3rd dispatches.^↩
8 Glenn H. Worthington, Fighting for Time, second revised edition (White Mane Publishing Co., 1985), first edition (Glenn H. Worthington, 1932), p204-07.^↩
9 Scharf, J. Thomas, History of Western Maryland, Vol I-II, online edition (Provo, Utah: Ancestry.com, 2015), 573.^↩
10 There a number of advertisements notifying readers of the formation and dissolution of a number of partnerships, including the following:^↩
      “Notice. T. E. Hambleton…” advertisement, American and Commercial Daily Advertiser (Baltimore, MD), 07 Nov 1849, p 2, col 8, advertisement 14.
      “Partnerships,” advertisement, American and Commercial Daily Advertiser (Baltimore, MD), 02 Jul 1852, p 3, col 3, para 8.
      “Partnerships,” advertisement, American and Commercial Daily Advertiser (Baltimore, MD), 05 Jul 1852, p 2, col 6, advertisement 1.
      “The Copartnership [Devries, Stephens & Thomas],” advertisement, TheSun (Baltimore, MD), 02 Jul 1861, p 2, para 9, col 4.
11 Simon, John Y (ed). The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant,Volume 19: July 1, 1868-October 31, 1869, (Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale and Edwardsville), p. 548; digital images, Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library.^↩
12 “List of Premiums,” article, The (Frederick, MD) Examiner, 20 Oct 1869, p 2, column 5-6.^↩

Johnson's Improved Plough

Dear Friends,

The entire 19th century - starting in the 18th century, actually - was a time of innovation and technology improvements. There's little question the Civil War used many of those technology advances - the telegraph! the railroad! mass produced guns! - and certainly many Americans' lives would never be the same after the war. However, in my opinion, the "let's figure out a better way" drive toward invention defined the American character as much as the blood shed on any battlefield. From agricultural tools to the mill industry to the railroad, our battlefield families had a front-row seat. I thought I'd talk about one of those inventions today:

On 29 April 1862, patent number US000035098 was issued to Ross Johnson of Frederick, Maryland, for what he called an "Improvement in Plows."¹ If you attended the Thomas Farm open house a few weekends ago, the Johnson name may be vaguely familiar to you. I believe that Ross Johnson is a son of Worthington Johnson², who purchased the Thomas House from the McPherson family in 1844 and then sold it a few years later in 1847³.

Diagram submitted with Ross
Johnson's patent application

So what does this fancy improvement look like? Please see the diagram to the left for an idea. I'm not going to go into all the technical details of Johnson's invention (you're welcome), but his patent application promised that a plow with his invention would be lighter to handle, wouldn't clog as often, would be more steady, and would create little "channels or small drains for the running off of surplus water after heavy rains."

Those all sound to me like things that would be good to have in a plough, but would other farmers see value in his invention? Since he wanted hard-working folks to find room in their budget for his invention, he realized he needed to market and prove  its benefits. Mr. Johnson arranged to have a handful of local farmers run a trial of a plow with his invention against a plow that didn't have his invention, and then ran a series of advertisements announcing the results and having those farmers certify to those results.

 One of those farmers was our very own John T. Worthington.

The first advertisement appeared on 14 Jan 1862⁴, while the plow improvement was going through the patent office. The advertisement refers to the improvement as a "Dynamo'er," and says the trial ran on Wednesday the 14th inst., which typically means the 14th of the current month. I have some questions about that date, but it's clear is that a member of the Johnson family created this technology improvement, and a member of the Worthington family was part of the certifying committee.

This particular advertisement ran in the local newspaper until his patent was granted, and beyond:

Improvement in Ploughs.
JOHNSON'S
PATENT PLOUGH.

     The subscriber is prepared to furnish Farmers and any in want of PLOUGHS WITH JOHNSON'S IMPROVEMENT. It's superiority will be seen by a glance at the annexed certificate.
     Those who desire, can have the Improvement put on old Ploughs at a moderate cost, by McCLINTOCK YOUNG, Jr.,
                                         "Vulcan Works,"
                             E. Patrick Street, Frederick, Md.

CERTIFICATE.

     The undersigned, appointed a committee to examine and report the trail of R. Johnson's Improved Plough do hereby certify that said Improvement was thoroughly and fairly tested, in our presence on Wednesday the 14th inst., up on the farm of J. I. Jamison, Esq., with the following result: The "Dynamo'er" being attached for the purpose of ascertaining accurately the exact difference in draft up in the same Plough with and without the Roller - indicated that the average draft in a two horse Plough.
Without Mr. Johnson's Invention was 675 lbs.
With                 do.            do.        do. 515 lbs.
                                                            160 lbs
     Showing a clear and undoubted reduction, by virtue of the Improvement, of one hundred and sixty pounds.
     The implement was first drawn through a heavy Clover, and Blue Grass sode - afterwards diagonally across the fresh ploughed ground to as to test perfectly the working efficiency of the Rollers - the latter revolving freely in both kinds of earth.
                      JOHN T. WORTHINGTON,
                      SEBASTIAN G. COCKEY,
                      HOWARD SIMMONS,
                      IGNATIUS FITZSIMMONS.
   May 30, 1862 - 1y.

Shortly after his patent was granted, another advertisement⁵ began running in the Frederick Examiner in addition to this one. It was written to read as an article, but it's an advertisement. This new one is much longer than the one that began running in January, and it provides more information about how this new-fangled invention produces such impressive results. Check this out:

     NEW PATENT--IMPORTANT TO FARMERS.--Letters Patent have lately been issued to Ross Johnson, of this county, for certain Improvements in Ploughs--which we understand from competent judges will prove of great interest to the farming community throughout the country. The Invention consists in part as follows:--One or more Case Iron Friction Rollers--with chilled journals--are inserted into the face of the 'Mould Boards'--working in close chilled Boxes which are firmly bolted onto the under side of the latter, and so disposed and secured centrally and longitudinally as that their working surface shall be in the direct line of the impact and present flush contact with the bottom of the furrow slice as it rises upon--passes over, and is thrown off from the face of the Mould Board--thus of necessity relieving the same from the severe pressure now incident to the employment of the ordinary Mould.
     The effect of the Rollers arranged as aboved described is obvious, and we will here merely state that the Invention has for its object:
     1st and chiefly.--The dimunition of the Draft or labour otherwise inseparably connected with the operation of Ploughing.
     2nd. The speedy and effectual clearing of the Mould Board without the necessity of halting the team--when it has "filled"--whilst passing through certain kinds of earth.
     3rd. The increased durability of the Mould Board--it being estimated by machinists that the implement constructed after Mr. J's. improvement will last much longer than those now in use.
    There are other features of the invention which we have no space to enumerate and explain in detail, but which persons interested in the matter can witness by calling upon the Inventor.
    We understand that M. Johnson has just associated with him--J. I. Jamison, Esq.,--a gentleman of long experience and standing in Agricultural matters--who has, during the present spring ploughing, thoroughly tested and proved the practical value of Mr. Johnson's discovery--and we further learn it to be the intention of these gentlemen to manufacture immediately in this city their Improved Implement, so that farmers may at an early day avail themselves of its use--the additional cost being trifling, whilst the saving in the item of feed alone in a single season, it is thought by farmers, will be far more than double this amount.
     A trial of the above was made on the 13th inst,. at the farm of J. Lewis, Esq, in the presence of Col. John McPherson, Michael Keefer, B. G. Fizhugh, C. Thomas, J. Staley and other gentlemen, who all concur in pronouncing the Invention a highly valuable Improvement upon the old mode of ploughing.
    We cordially invite the attention of our readers to it--being of opinion, so far as we can judge, that in point of utility it is entirely unequaled by any of the numerous Improvements heretofore made, in this first and decidedly most important Implement upon the farm.
    The following tests were made since the above and speak for themselves:
    Certificate.--The undersigned, appointed a committee to examine and report the trial of R. Johnson's Improved Plough do hereby certify that said Improvement was thoroughly and fairly tested, in our presence on Wednesday the 14th inst., upon the farm of J. I. Jamison, Esq., with the following result: The "Dynanometer" being attached for the purpose of ascertaining acurately the exact difference in draft upon the same Plough with and without the Roller--indicated that the average Draft in a two-horse Plough.
  Without Mr. Johnson's Invention was 675 lbs.
  With           do.                   do.       do. 515 lbs.
                                                              160
    Showing a clear and undoubted reduction, by virtue of the Improvement, of one hundred and sixty pounds.
     The implement was first drawn through a heavy Clover, and Blue Grass sod--afterwards diagonally across the fresh ploughed ground so as to test perfectly the working efficiency of the Rollers--the latter revolving freely in both kinds of earth.
                                           JOHN T. WORTHINGTON,
                                           SEBASTIAN G. COCKEY,
                                           HOWARD SIMMONS,
                                           IGNATIUS FITZSIMMONS. 

Now we have a second trial, this time in the presence of Col. John McPherson, Michael Keefer, B. G. Fitzhugh, C. Thomas, and J. Staley. These are all pretty prominent families in the county, so this advertisement is a slick way of implying their endorsement without actually getting it. (Think how much a t-shirt store's sales are going to go up when someone like Beyonce shops there.) More importantly for my purposes, a number of these families are connected to our battlefield, even if they didn't live on the land within our park boundaries.

• The McPherson family owned the Thomas Farm (plus the Worthington Farm, the Gambrill Mill tract, the Lewis Farm, the Baker Farm, and more) before the Johnson family.⁶
• Michael Keefer owned (and would have recently sold) the near-by Arcadia, which neighbored the Best Farm. ⁷
• C. Thomas is not our Christian Keefer Thomas, although he may or may not be related.
• I haven't done  nearly enough research into the Staley family to know the connection with J. Staley, specifically, but James H. Gambrill married Antoinette Staley⁸, and Alice Thomas named "my old friend" Charles M. Staley as the executor of her will⁹.

What I love most about these two advertisements - and the patent application - is how easily they demonstrate that life didn't stop because of the war. The first advertisement was published almost exactly nine months after Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumpter, President Lincoln called for troops, and closer to home, Baltimore lived through the Pratt Street Riot. By the time of that first advertisement, Frederick had raised - or helped to raise - several units to send to war to defend the Union. Other sons of Frederick scooted across the Potomac to fight for the Confederacy. U.S. Army General Hospital site #1 had already been established at the Hessian Barracks. General Banks had made Frederick his army's winter quarters, and the city of Frederick was under Provost Martial law.

And yet...farmers were still tilling their fields, planting and harvesting crops. Business men were still conducting business. The entrepreneurial spirit that so encapsulates America was still thriving, and - in spite of the stories we've all heard about friends, neighbors, and families turning on each other - people still had to work together.

---

1 "USPTO Patent Full-Text and Image Database," digital images, United States Patent and Trademark Office (http://www.uspto.gov : accessed 02 May 2016), Ross Johnson of Frederick, plow moldboard, patent file no. 35098 (1862); original file location not cited. Photograph used according to permissions and restrictions on this page of the USPTO website.^↩
2 Because the Johnson family name is fairly common, tracing the Worthington Johnson family is a complex undertaking requiring more than one artifact to prove and disprove a number of theoretical connections. I hope to do a blog post - or several - outlining this family at some point in the future.^↩
3 Joy Beasley, editor, Archeological Overview, Assessment, Identification, and Evaluation Study of the Thomas Farm(Report submitted to the National Park Service, National Capital Region, U.S. Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C., 2010), p. 31.^↩
4 "Improvement in Ploughs. Johnson's Patent Plough," image article, The (Frederick, Maryland) Examiner, 14 Jan 1862, p 1, col 6, ad 2.^↩
5 "New Patent-Important to Farmers," article image, The (Frederick, MD) Examiner, 21 May 1862, p 2.^↩
6 Joy Beasley, editor, Archeological Overview, Assessment, Identification, and Evaluation Study of the Thomas Farm(Report submitted to the National Park Service, National Capital Region, U.S. Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C., 2010), p. 31.^↩
7 “Valuable Real Estate at Trustee Sale,” advertisement image, The (Frederick, MD) Examiner, 15 Sep 1858, p3, col 3, ad 1.^↩
8 Identifying an accurate family tree for the Staley family requires more than a single artifact. I hope to do a blog post - or several - in the future that will more fully outline this family tree.^↩
9 "Maryland Register of Wills Records, 1629-1999," images, FamilySearch (http://www.familysearch.org : accessed 18 December 2015), Frederick > Wills 1904-1910 vol 25-26 > image 440 of 467, entry for Alice Thomas Anderson; Hall of Records, Annapolis.^↩

Thomas Farm Open House Recap

Photo by the National Park Service. Used with permission.

Dear Friends,

We did it! The Monocacy National Battlefield opened the doors to the Thomas House last weekend, the conclusion of the Open House trifecta. I had a blast.

The Open House events this year were each a full weekend. For the Thomas House, Diane and I met at the battlefield on Friday night to make sure we had our bearings before we went in front of the public. Basically, we had a group meeting while hiking the Thomas Farm trail, which has to be my favorite kind of meeting. The park has opened the Thomas House a few times before, but it was restored into office space for the park's headquarters, which makes for a unique interpretation experience.

Last Saturday's weather was beautiful - sunny, warm but not crazy-hot - and we had several living historians camping outside. I never got a free minute to go talk to them, but a few came in at the end of the day and mentioned they had a non-stop stream of visitors. Yay! Most living historians I've met love talking to people about their areas of research, and I'm so glad they had a great day.

Don't think the outdoor historians were the only ones talking, however! The star of the show was the Thomas House itself: we had rangers and volunteers stationed throughout the house to talk about some of its historic features as our visitors wandered through, and Tracy had arranged to give the ranger program in the parlor. We had so many people interested in attending the ranger program that they all quickly became standing-room-only.

Since I was stationed in the entrance just outside the parlor, that gave me an opportunity to give an impromptu program each time. Ask me how happy I was to do that. C'mon, just ask me.

I was elated.

I was even happier when several people I spoke with mentioned they or others in their group grew up in either the manor house or the tenant house on the property. While we preserve the houses on the battlefield because they are witnesses of war, these houses were homes. Personally, I tend to avoid researching the modern families who lived in our historic properties because so many are still living and I want to respect their privacy. However, hearing about the Thomas House's more modern history as a home, and meeting some of the people who still consider it home even though they no longer live here, was so wonderful.

The park dates the manor house to about 1780, but acknowledges that it's possible that construction began several years earlier. James Marshall, the original owner, seems to have made Frederick County his home well before 1780, and had purchased the property even before that. He was a Scottish emigrant who made his fortune in tobacco trading and then dabbled in a few other areas like timber prospecting and land prospecting. Like my waistline, the house footprint expanded over the years and the style decor changed, but you can see from the photo above that the facade is styled to show its Federal origins. Diane's beautiful blue dress (in the picture at the top of this post) reflects the era the house was constructed. I'd love to show you the close-up photo the NPS took so you could see her dress more clearly, but the angle of that photo gave both of us double-chins - especially me - and I object to that.

My dress, on the other hand, is more appropriate for the Civil War battle that did so much damage to the  house. I talked about a shell crashing into the dining room and exploding in earlier posts, but my favorite part of letting the public into the Thomas House is that I can point out some of the smaller bullet scarring in the front entryway. A woman and her sons came in about 10 minutes until closing on Saturday, and I asked if they just wanted to explore or if they'd like me to talk. Mom voted to hear me talk, but when Al gave me the 5-more-minutes-until-closing signal, Mom told the kids they could go explore very quickly while she listened to more stories. I asked them to let me tell them one quick story before they explored; naturally, I chose the story that ends with the bullet hole in the door and the scarring in the panelling. Mom, with a big grin on her face, said, "That was so the right call. They loved that."

(Shameless plug: If you're wondering what story ends with the bullet hole in the door, etc., come ask us at Museums by Candlelight. It's usually the second Saturday in December, and we like to host it in the Thomas House.)

Getting back to last weekend's event, the weather Sunday morning was less cheerful than Saturday's weather.  Weather reports threatened all-day thunderstorms, and it was raining when I drove up to the Visitor Center. Fortunately, the rain stopped just before the event began so even though it was a slower start than Saturday, we still enjoyed quite a few guests.

I gave the formal programs on Sunday, and a few guests came up to me afterward to show me family photos taken at the Thomas House when it was a tenant farm.  One brought a wedding photo from the 1930s; it was very obvious that it had been taken in the L at the rear of the house. She told me she would email us a copy; I haven't seen it yet but really hope she does.

After giving my last scheduled program of the day, I was cleaning up the parlor when Kelly brought in a couple who wanted to know more about the history of the house. I started talking, they found seats and settled in to enjoy themselves, and, a couple at a time, more and more people wandered in and decided to stay to listen. I'm learning that I really like being able to give off-the-cuff presentations. I would have thought I'd like the safety net of having slides, but I'm finding that I get more interaction from the audience when it's just me and them, and I like the flexibility to adjust if I'm seeing cues that something either isn't resonating or is generating more interest than I expected.

Because I was downstairs all weekend and Diane was upstairs, we didn't really get to see each other. Naturally, after the event, Diane and I had another "group meeting" over dinner where we recapped the weekend and talked about ideas for the future.

I have so many ideas I want to share with you, so please stay tuned for some exciting new posts!

Old McDonald Had a Farm (and the farm was run by horsepower)

Part of the Thomas Farm. Photo by Elizabeth Richardson.

Dear Friends,

The morning of the battle, Mr. Worthington and his slaves harvested as much of their crops as they could, and then he ordered his slaves to gather all the horses and take them to the darkest, most remote area on Sugar Loaf Mountain. The hope was to keep them out of the hands of the Confederate "thank you for your contribution to the war effort" raiders. Only Old Davy - the carriage horse - and an old mule were left behind. During the battle, Col. Randolph Barton had his horse shot out from underneath him. Apparently a colonel can't do what colonels do without a horse, so his orderly scouted around for a replacement. He found Old Davy. The old horse was brought to the colonel, who mounted only to have Old Davy shot out from under him a few minutes later. Poor Old Davy. As for the hidden  horses, SPOILER ALERT: the Confederates got them. They weren't alone; about 200 horses were "hidden" on that mountain from area farmers and they were all taken.¹

So when the battle was over and they needed to clean up their fields, hitching the horses to their wagons to go collect the debris was out of the question. Ditto for hitching their horses to their plows to clear out what's left of the summer harvest or planting a fall harvest for the next crop. I'll write another post about some of the technology advances that we know were being used or tested by the battlefield farms during the Civil War, but the bottom line is that animals provided most of the power on a farm. Not only did our battlefield farms lose their crops from the battle, but also a lot of the ability to just run the day-to-day aspects of a farm.

This is an extreme example of intentional livestock theft, but it wasn't a happy day when a farm discovered even one of his animals had wandered off this property, either. Good, strong fences help keep animals where they belong, but to add insult to injury for our battlefield farmers, whenever the Confederate and Union armies came through, they had a tendency to take off with our farmers' wooden fences. We know this from the damage claims some of our farms filed with the government² and also the following advertisement³ run in April 1863:

TO THE PUBLIC.
   The undersigned hereby give public notice to all whom it may concern, that they intend impounding all stock found tresspassing upon their lands.  In consequence of their fencing beind destroyed in a great measure by the army, it is impossible for them to have their farms fenced in time, and therefore hope and expect, that all those having stock in the neighborhood or otherwise, will see to having it secured in such manner as not to be found tresspassing at large upon their premises.
          RICHARD W. ROLLAND,
          JOHN T. WORTHINGTON,
          DAVID BEST,
          ISAAC H. HOWARD,
          J. H. GAMBRILL,
          JACOB C. KANODE,
          C. K. THOMAS,
          JOHN REICH,
          PHILIP REICH,
          CALVIN PAGE.
   April 8--paid

The Confederate and Union armies had both camped here and confiscated the local farmers' fencing during the Maryland Campaign on their way to Antietam. I've found no evidence to indicate whether these farmers found stray livestock on their lands that season, but anyone who has ever had Houdini-reincarnated-as-the-family-pet knows that animals have a way of getting past barriers if they really want to. It's become a bit of a running joke that the first newspaper notice I find about a new family I'm researching is usually an advertisement alerting neighbors they found a stray.

Interestingly, the tone of these advertisements have changed over time. In the 1700s and early 1800's, the tone is neighborly and informative, such as this advertisement placed by James Marshall⁴:

                                  Frederick County, September 15, 1773
THERE is now at my plantation, on Monocassy, a brindled STEER about three years old, with a swallow fork in each ear, and a piece cut off the top on the lower side of each fork. The owner is desired to prove his property, pay charges, and take him away.
                                  JAMES MARSHALL

According to the NPS's Archeology Assessment, Marshall owned most of what would eventually become the Monocacy National Battlefield⁵ (plus some); that's a lot of land for strays to hide. I don't yet know if Marshall had fencing around the entire perimeter of his estate, which would have minimized bovine trespassers if it was in good shape, but his "I found your livestock" notices didn't lose their neighborly tone as time went on:

                                    February 23, 1786
Taken up as STRAYS,
AT the plantation of the Subscriber, four miles from Frederick Town, TWO MARES; the one is a sorrel, about four years old, 12 hands high, with a large blaze, white mane and tail, and four white feet; a natural pacer, without any perceivable brand; the other a dark Bay, about ten years old, 14 hands high, with a star and a snip, high withers, ridged back, from the middle to the croupe, a natural pacer and goes narrow behind, without any perceivable brand.  The owners are desired to prove their property, pay charges, and take them away.
                                    JAMES MARSHALL ⁶

Of course, as we saw from the story at the beginning of this post, not all animals who left home did so under their own power. It wasn't long before someone who found stray animals on their property found it necessary to practice a little legal CYA. Fast forward about 40 years, and notices have a bit of a different tone. In fact, they all seem to follow the same formula; here's an example of an advertisement placed on behalf of David Best in 1863⁷:

ESTRAY.
Maryland, Frederick County, Sct:
I HEREBY certify, that David Best, of said County, brought before me, the subscriber, one of the Justices of the Peace in and for the said County, this 20th day of February, 1863, as a Stray, trespassing upon his enclosures, a very large RED STEER or OXEN, supposed to be about ten years old.  Given under my hand.
                                 J. M. HARDING.
   The owner of the above described Steer or Oxen, is requested to prove property, pay charges, and take him away.
                                         DAVID BEST,
   Living about two miles South of Frederick City.
                                              February 25--pd 

I can't help but wonder if that red steer belonged to one of our other families. This is an area where more research is needed to know what kind of incentives were driving those who found stray livestock to get the courts involved. After all, it seems far more neighborly (and cheaper) to just send one of the kids across the field to knock on the neighbor's door to see if they're missing a red steer than to haul that animal a few miles into town to appear before the judge and put a notice in the newspaper. Every "stray" notice that I've found so far in Frederick newspapers during the Civil War era follows this same formula, but what isn't clear is whether it was used as a last resort or the first step after finding that stray. I'm looking forward to learning more, and if anyone reading this happens to have done research in this area, please respond in the comments!

---

1 Glenn H. Worthington, Fighting for Time, second revised edition (White Mane Publishing Co., 1985), first edition (Glenn H. Worthington, 1932), p101-103, p155-56 and footnote on 167.^↩
2 "Claims for Civil War Damages," Synopsis of various Civil War damage claims by Frederick County farms on the Monocacy Battlefield, undated; Monocacy National Battlefield library, Frederick, Maryland, Interp files, Claims for Civil War Damages.^↩
3 "To the Public [impounding tresspassing stock]," advertisement article, The (Frederick, Maryland) Examiner, 08 Apr 1863, p2, col 7, ad6.^↩
4 "There is now at my plantation." Maryland Journal, September 05, 1773; p. 4.^↩
5 Beasley, Joy (2010). Archeology Overview, Assessment, Identification, and Evaluation Study of the Thomas Farm. Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior; p. 19.^↩
6 "Taken up as strays." Maryland Chronicle, or Universal Advertiser, March 01, 1786; p. 3.^↩
7 "Estray [found by David Best]," advertisement article, The (Frederick, Maryland) Examiner, 25 Feb 1863, p2, col6, ad3.^↩

Thomas Farm Open House

Photo by Elizabeth Richardson. Used with permission.
Not bad for a photo taken through the windshield, huh?

"The house of Mr. C. Keefer Thomas, which was occupied by the Union forces, suffered severely from the fire of the enemy.  One of the shells striking it, entered the dining room and bursting, occasioned considerable damage." 1  

The Monocacy Living Historians are already getting ready for our next event, the Open House at the Thomas Farm. We are neck-deep in archeology reports and newspaper articles, working hard to understand the lives of the families who  lived here. The Thomas House is preserved on our battlefield as a Witness of War, and the Thomas Farm was the scene of some of the heaviest fighting in the battle. Both sides fought pretty vigorously for it and, of all our houses, it sustained the most damage. If you want to see scars from the battle, this is the event to attend.

That said, the day it saw battle was only one of many, many days in its history. I mentioned in my last post that it was believed to have been built circa 1780, which means the one day this house saw battle was only .00005% of its history. Mostly, it was someone's home, with all the love and security and emotion that our homes evoke.

For those who have been visiting us throughout the series, the Thomas House is the last of our series. It's the most restored of all the houses - it's now our park headquarters - so I encourage you to come out and join us. Together we'll learn more about the stories it has to tell.

Date: Saturday 8/20/2016 and Sunday 8/21/2016
Time: Open house from 11-4 with ranger programs at 11, 12:30, and 2.

Address: 4460 Baker Valley Road, Frederick, MD  21704
Also known as Auto Stop #4.

Tips:
1) Wear comfortable shoes. Even if you don't hike, the grounds are uneven.
2) Bring water and sunscreen. While you won't need those inside the house, the Thomas Farm has some surviving outbuildings that you may want to see more closely. In addition, the walking trail on the Thomas Farm is beautiful. For those with middle-school aged kids who are up for a trek, I have great luck spotting deer plus some other smaller wildlife. In addition, the Middle Ford Ferry has its own history and is beautiful to see.
3) I highly encourage you to attend the ranger program before going through the house, and I'm not just saying that because I'm giving the Sunday programs. They'll paint an overall picture so that as you go through the house, you'll know what you're looking at.

Please come join us. You'll have fun, and I could use some friendly faces in the audience on Sunday. Don't hesitate to come up and introduce yourself; I'd love to meet you!

---
1 Locals: Houses and Furniture Destroyed (1864, Jul 13). The (Frederick) Examiner, p. 3, col. 4. Retrieved from www.genealogybank.com.

Maryland's 1778 Oath of Fidelity and Support

The Thomas House, previously known as Araby.

To Mr. Thomas Beatty, Sheriff of Frederick County.
SIR,
I Acquainted you, last time you called here, that I intended to be with you about the end of last week, to pay you my part of the public dues, for that I expected, by that time, the Assembly would reconsider their late act, imposing a treble tax on those who had omitted to take the oath they prescribed to be taken by the inhabitants of this State, by the first of last March, and make such alteration as justice and the nature of the case require.
     My judgment on that act is, that it is unreasonable, oppressive, and destructive of such peaceable inhabitants as have omitted to take that oath, and therefore unjust, supposing no Bill of Rights had been first made to guard them from such destruction; but as the act in question manifestly violates and destroys that Declaration of the People’s Rights, if the Assembly do not rectify it, this Bill of Rights, which ought to have been sacred, is a dead letter—a mere nothing!
     As you are an officer, it is not your business to judge of laws, but to execute them; nor do I write this to interfere with your office and duty, it rather flows (by the bye) from a sense of oppression, and of injustice.  It is a forfeiture expressly guarded against by the declared rights of the people at large, and which the Assembly ought carefully to have preserved.
     I have only now to desire of you to be under no uneasiness on account of the extent of what the present law requires you to collect from me, for if no alteration is made, I shall pay it (if I live) before the end of this month.  My equal assessment and levies come to 591, which I have now in readiness to pay; but the treble assessment.  I have not, in money, at present, but will take care to raise it in time, to prevent you from any further trouble on account of
Sir, your humble servant,
     June 16, 1778.              JAMES MARSHALL.      June 17, 1778.—I do hereby certify, that the above is a true copy of a letter directed to me as sheriff of Frederick County.—Witness my hand,                                            THOMAS BEATTY¹

I found the above letter while doing some research on James Marshall in advance of our Open House event for the Thomas farm. When C. K. Thomas purchased the farm in 1860, it was known as Araby, a portion of a much larger estate originally created by James Marshall. Marshall emigrated to the colonies from Glasgow, Scotland in 1747 and in 1758 began purchasing the land that would eventually become the Araby estate. There is some uncertainty about exactly when the brick manor house was built, but "is believed to have been about 1780."²

Since it would be impossible to talk about the Thomas house without talking about James Marshall, I wanted to know who he was. I haven't found the wealth of newspaper articles I've found about some of the estate's later owners, so I was especially thrilled to find the above article.

Most of us learned in school that not everyone living in the colonies was for independence: a third was for, a third was against, and another third was just waiting it out to see who would win. In 1777, Maryland's political leaders were struggling to tamp down chaos and insurrection from having voted for independence before Maryland's citizens were truly on board. That's a gross oversimplification, and if you're interested in learning more about this time in Maryland history, I recommend the first two articles published in the Summer 1973 edition of the Maryland Historical Magazine.^3,4 To make a long story very short, the new government passed the Security Act, which basically required that all free men sign the Oath of Fidelity and Support, or face some difficult consequences.

The first of those consequences were that Marshall would have to pay triple taxes on all personal and real property for the rest of his life. He was barred from many professions, not allowed to vote or hold office, and couldn't bring a suit to court. This last bit is especially important because as a businessman, you sometimes need courts to implement consequences if, for example, your tenants fail to pay rents.

Those consequences of not complying with the law were not enough to coax Marshall to sign the oath. As you can read from his letter, he did not see how the government could enact a law that was so contrary to everything against which it was supposed to be rebelling. He gambled that the legislature would see reason and repeal the law before the consequences kicked in, and he lost.

More research is needed to know if he is one of the many who applied to the legislature for relief, or if he waited them out.⁴ Fortunately, many of the consequences for not signing the oath were gradually relaxed over the next decade, and when he died in 1803 he was still a very wealthy man.⁵

---

1 Marshall, James (1778, Jul 23). To Mr Thomas Beatty, Sheriff of Frederick County. Maryland Journal, p. 4. Retrieved from www.genealogybank.com.^↩
2 Beasley, Joy, editor (2010). Archeological Overview, Assessment, Identification, and Evaluation Study of the Thomas Farm, p19-20.^↩
3 Hoffman, Ronald (Summer 1973). Popularizing the Revolution: Internal Conflict and Economic Sacrifice in Maryland, 1774-1780. Maryland Historical Magazine, p125-139. Retrieved from http://msa.maryland.gov.^↩
4 Richard A. (Summer 1973). A Patriot Dilemma: The Treatment of Passive Loyalists and Neutrals in Revolutionary Maryland. Maryland Historical Magazine, p125-139. Retrieved from http://msa.maryland.gov.^↩
5 "Maryland Register of Wills Records, 1629-1999," images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1942-24294-37509-50?cc=1803986 : 20 May 2014), Frederick > Wills 1794-1803 vol 3; image 306 of 332; Hall of Records, Annapolis.^↩

Clifton/Worthington Farm Open House

Dear Friends,

Does anyone know what it's called when an artist has a smash debut album and then flops on the second? Me neither, and that's going to bug me, but the good news is that the Monocacy Living Historians did not experience that. Our second event, this time at the Worthington House, was great!

Photo by Liz Richardson, but not at this event.

The Worthington farm open house was the weekend after our big anniversary weekend, so we didn't get an opportunity to run through everything - or anything - in advance the way we did the Best House. I was so proud of us, though, because we just rolled with it.

Diane's mid-19th century wardrobe isn't ready yet, so she dressed in the park's official volunteer uniform. Tracy asked if I wanted to be upstairs or downstairs, and since I didn't realize that downstairs meant the cellar, I didn't speak up quickly enough and say, "Heck, yeah, I want the cellar!" As a result, Diane and I were on the main floor on Saturday - she in the parlor and me in the dining room.

Diane sounded like she was on a roll in the parlor. Diane has spent a lot of time as a docent for another park; she was in her element and it showed.

As for me, I enjoyed getting to talk about the dining room. There are some...er...idiosyncrasies in the dining room that are fun to talk about, but more importantly, the servant access between the cellar kitchen and the dining room was right behind me. The servant access up to the bedrooms was also right behind me, but I was most excited about access from the kitchen. It was so easy to see how the house's operating rhythm would have worked.

On Saturday, I wasn't in the house at all. Tracy offered me an opportunity to give the program on Sunday, and I had jumped at it. I had done spiels before, of course, starting with the 2014 Museums by Candlelight event, but I had never yet done a formal program.

I mentioned that we had limited time to prepare for this event, simply because the anniversary event was the weekend before, and it's all-hands-on-deck until that event is over. But during the week in between the two events, Tracy sent me a bunch of out-of-order bullet points, I organized them and added from my own research, and then she added some more points from the architectural reports, and from there we each massaged it into the story we wanted to tell. This house was a witness of war, but more than that, it was a home. It was a home long before Jubal Early marched his Confederate army through, and it was a home long after. I'm so grateful that Tracy gave me an opportunity to share that story with our visitors.

By the second program, I had lost my stage fright, and by the third one, I was really rolling. It helped that I got a lot of questions, many of them about items I had been actively researching. That told me that others are interested in the same questions I'm trying to answer, and gave me confidence about my program content. I have a lot to learn, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Photo courtesy of Nicole Webb.
Used with permission.

I don't know for certain what I was talking about when my friend Nicole snapped that picture, but it would have been right around the time I started talking about the graffiti in the house added by its residents when it was turned into a barracks for migrant farm workers. Obscene graffiti would merit a grimace, wouldn't you say? (And clearly, I need to practice my programs more in front of a mirror.)

As you can see from the photos, the Worthington Farm has some beautiful scenery. I don't bring my camera when I'm dressed out because it spoils the illusion, but the Worthington Farm is one of my favorite places to go to practice my photography. The Monocacy River runs behind the tree line, and with the foothills behind that, I can easily imagine Mrs. Worthington and her family spending many a happy hour on the back porch enjoying the view.  When Mr. Worthington purchased the farm in 1862, it had been advertised as one of the most prosperous farms in the area; I can't help but think that a view like that would have helped to seal the deal!

History: One Puzzle Piece At a Time

Photo by Elizabeth Richardson. Used with permission.

Dear Friends,

As a volunteer for an historical park, some of my favorite moments are when visitors become part of the research process. With the surge in hobby genealogy, some folks have discovered that their ancestors fought in the "Battle of the Monocacy" - or lived on the land where the battle was fought - and decide to come take a trip to visit the place they're learning about. Sometimes they'll bring a letter or diary or other some other object from that ancestor to show us. When we're very, very lucky, that artifact changes our understanding of history.

That may sound odd, because some would think it impolite to say to a complete stranger, "I noticed you talked about ______. I have a letter from my great-great-uncle who was there, and he talked about that differently." I think there's a common misconception that our understanding of history is static and will never change. After all, something happened or it didn't, right? Well, yes and no.

We can't assess history as it happens; we're too close to see it objectively. The more time passes, the more information is blurred or lost. As historians, no matter the genre, we make assessments and conclusions based on the best information we have at the time, and as we find new evidence, we need to revisit our earlier conclusions to see if they still hold. Understanding our history is sometimes less like viewing a photograph and more like a billion-piece jigsaw puzzle with a blurry picture on the cover; with that many pieces, some are going to be extremely similar. A piece may seem to fit over here, and then 100 pieces later, we realize another piece makes more sense in that spot, and that original piece really needs to go there.

When I started this blog post, I was initially going to talk about an unpublished letter that was brought to the park's attention and has contributed to the conversation around the infamous "Lost Orders," or Confederate General Lee's Special Order 191. However, Ranger Tracy Evans has already written a great article that touches on all the information about S.O. 191; you can read that here. Instead, I thought I'd give a much shorter -and everyday - example using something I found about L'Hermitage.

If you've read my post on Victoire's business acumen, the following advertisement¹ from 1820 will look familiar:

A HANDSOME FARM,
FOR SALE.
THE subscriber offers for sale, her FARM, containing 500 ACRES OF PRIME LAND, the greatest part of which has been improved by clover and plaster. This Farm is beautifully situated on Monocacy River, three miles from Fredericktown, (Md.) on the George-town road, 38 miles from the latter city, and 10 from Potomac; about 60 acres of it are in fine tim[b]er.
   THE improvements are -- good two story STONE HOUSE with six rooms and a Cellar; stone barn; stone stable, large enough for 15 horses; a good two story log dwelling log house; a granary, corn, pigeon, meat log houses; ice house and others; a large well, which, altho' upon a hill, has never less than 20 feet of most excellent lime stone water, even in the driest seasons; a good and well situated garden, of four acres of fruit trees, of several kinds.
   Also, a tract containing 250 Acres of LAND, adjoining the above, and only two miles from Fredericktown, which will be sold with, or seperate [sic] from the first.
   Also, a tract of 37 Acres of Mountain LAND, on the east bank of Monocacy, opposite the above farm. For further information apply to Mr. PETER LAFONT, Baltimore, and the Owner living in said Farm.
                 VICTOIRE VINCENDIERE
   april 28

I found this advertisement very soon after the Monocacy Living Historians participated in the open house for this farm, so the conclusions made about it in the Monocacy National Battlefield Cultural Resources Study² were quite fresh in my mind. On page 59, the study asserts the following: 

The Vincendieres at the same time they were building the main house, probably also had constructed, or outfitted the upper log portion of the log and stone secondary dwelling, as the interior woodwork in the log portion matches that in the south wing of the main house.  The Vincendieres definitely were responsible for the construction of the stone French style barn on the property.  There were probably other buildings on the property, as well.  If Victoire had 90 slaves by 1800, they had to live somewhere, unless she leased them out to other farmers.

The implication from the phrase “probably other outbuildings as well,” is that we don’t have any information on those other outbuildings. Does the advertisement fill in some of those gaps? Yes, at least partially! This is the exciting part of finding real estate advertisements for our properties. We can now add a stone stable, a granary, a corn house*, a pigeon house, a meat house, an ice house, a well on a hill, and we now have confirmation there were other outbuildings as well.

While we still don't know how they were constructed or exactly where they were, knowing this helps us reconstruct in our minds the scenery and rhythm of their daily lives. In fact, with the exception of the stable, all of the listed outbuildings tell us quite a bit about the kinds of foods that could have been part of their diet at L'Hermitage. The reference to the garden and 4-acre fruit orchard, while not a building, does as well. We don't have to go much further than Marie Antoinette's infamous "Let them eat cake" comment to know that diets were very different among the different classes in France (and elsewhere, but the Vincendieres were French); knowing what they ate helps us understand who they thought they were. Did they see themselves as untitled American aristocracy? As part of a wealthier middle class?

Then, too, as we work to give a voice to the voiceless - and in many cases nameless - people who worked on her plantation, every piece of information we find can be tied back to their story. For example, the advertisement above tells us her stable would hold 15 horses. Knowing about the horse power used on their farm tells us more about Victoire's expectations of her slaves. The fewer horses she had, the more she would have needed to make up the difference in labor from people in order to get a maximum yield from her land.

Now if a visitor would just walk through the doors with a diary or letter passed down in their family from someone who was there and talked about what it was like, that would be a cherry on my ice cream sundae because it would help make sure we get it right.

*There is a wood frame wagon shed + corn crib on the farm today, and it is original. However, according to the Cultural Resources Study, it dates from the mid- to late-19th century (translation: well after the Vincendiere era).

  

---

1 Vincendiere, Victoire. "A Handsome Farm [advertisement]." Baltimore Patriot, 12 June 1820, p. 1.^↩
2 Reed, Paula Stoner. Monocacy National Battlefield Cultural Resources Study. Interior Department, National Park Service, 1999, pp. 58-60.^↩

Don't Tell Victoire About "A Woman's Place"

Note: This blog post is not intended to be a complete commentary on this subject. Those who have been to the Monocacy National Battlefield may read this and ask,"But what about the slavery at that plantation?" That's not a subject to which I can do justice in a single paragraph on this blog posts; it deserves a more complete commentary in separate blog posts devoted to that subject.

Dear Friends,

The Best Farm, formerly known as L'Hermitage

I'd really like to know what kind of education Victoire Vincendiere had that prepared her for the kind of life she lived. This is a woman who seems to have spent her life defying convention, and she was very successful at it. 

The National Park Service's records indicate that Victoire was born in Saint Domingue (present-day Haiti) in 1776. Much of her early life is unknown, but we do know that in 1795 she purchased from Daniel Dulaney 457 acres, and in 1798 she purchased another 291 acres from James Marshall.¹ This would become the home the family referred to as L'Hermitage.

Did you catch that? Victoire -- not her father or her older brother or a male "family friend" -- purchased both tracts of land. In fact, her father decided to set up his own household down in Charleston, South Carolina, while most of the rest of the family decided to stay with Victoire just outside Frederick, Maryland. If the 1776 birth year is correct, she would have been 19 years old when she purchased that first tract of land.

It's on the acreage she purchased from Marshall that she and her family built the manor house and associated outbuildings. Since she purchased that tract in 1798, and was hit with a massive tax assessment that same year for improvements, there is speculation that she may have had an agreement with Marshall that allowed her to begin building before the sale was made official.²

Just two years later in the 1800 census, Victoire is living in a household with 18 free whites and 90 slaves.³ We can speculate all day long why she had so many slaves, and we can debate how much credibility we should lend to data in a census while we work to track down more data, but it's clear that Victoire wasn't interested in running just a small family farm. She really embraced the philosophy "Go big or go home."

She doesn't seem to have been operating on a shoestring budget, either. In 1803, when James Marshall passed away, she had sufficient funds to join with Norm Bruce to lend William and Eleanor Marshall the 10,000 pounds they needed for the administrators bond to execute the will.⁴

Victoire wouldn't ultimately sell L'Hermitage until 1827, but several years earlier in 1820 she ran a newspaper advertisement that listed many of the buildings on the property⁵:

A HANDSOME FARM,
FOR SALE.
THE subscriber offers for sale, her FARM, containing 500 ACRES OF PRIME LAND, the greatest part of which has been improved by clover and plaster.  This Farm is beautifully situated on Monocacy River, three miles from Fredericktown, (Md.) on the George-town road, 38 miles from the latter city, and 10 from Potomac; about 60 acres of it are in fine tim[b]er.
   THE improvements are -- a good two story STONE HOUSE with six rooms and a Cellar; a stone barn; stone stable, large enough for 15 horses; a good two story log dwelling log house; a granary, corn, pigeon, meat log houses; ice house and others; a large well, which, altho' upon a hill, has never less than 20 feet of most excellent lime stone water, even in the driest seasons; a good and well situated garden, of four acres of fruit trees, of several kinds.
   Also, a tract containing 250 Acres of LAND, adjoining the above, and only two miles from Fredericktown, which will be sold with, or seperate [sic] from the first.
   Also, a tract of 37 Acres of Mountain LAND, on the east bank of Monocacy, opposite the above farm. For further information apply to Mr. PETER LAFONT, Baltimore, and the Owner living in said Farm.
                 VICTOIRE VINCENDIERE    april 28 

That sounds almost idyllic. When she did sell the plantation, she sold all 748 acres to John Brien for $24,025.⁶ When she had originally purchased the property back in 1795 and 1798, she had paid 7,023 pounds. Dollars and pounds are not an apples-to-apples comparison, but if we compare that to the value assessment placed on her property for taxes in 1798, we're comparing $24025 in 1827 to $1923 in 1798 for the land only and to $2323 for the land with improvements.² Minimally, she had realized a 10x increase in property value over the 33 years she had managed it, and that doesn't include the revenue she would have seen during her ownership from selling her crops, etc. Not bad for a female immigrant who started as a teenager.

Which practically begs the question: From where did she get this business acumen? I suspect we aren't going to find that her childhood education included classes on how to build and manage a plantation in America. While there is no question that her use and treatment of slaves was wrong, she was using business practices that were accepted during her lifetime. Who was guiding her, at least in the beginning, in these business decisions?

---

1 Reed, Paula Stoner, PhD. Monocacy National Battlefield Cultural Resources Study. Interior Department, National Park Service, 1999, p. 58.^↩
2 Ibid, p. 59.^↩
3 United States Federal Census 1800. Frederick, Frederick, Maryland; Series M32, Roll 10, National Archives and Records Administration, pp. 153. ^↩
4 Administrator Bonds Liber Hs No 1-2, 1799-1817. Frederick County, Maryland, Orphans' Court (Frederick County), James Marshall, 15 Jun 1803. Although William Marshall, Eleanor Marshall, Norm Bruce, and Victoire Vincendierre all signed the administrator bond, only the two Marshalls submitted and signed the inventory as executors, so it is likely that Bruce's and Vincendierre's role in administering the will was covering the loan.^↩
5 Vincendierre, Victoire. (1820, June 12) "A Handsome Farm," Baltimore Patriot, p. 1.^↩
6 Reed, Paula Stoner, PhD. Monocacy National Battlefield Cultural Resources Study. Interior Department, National Park Service, 1999, p. 60.^↩

L'Hermitage/Best Farm Open House

Dear Friends,

The Monocacy Living  Historians finally participated in our first official event, and I'm so excited to tell you about it!

Photo by Craig Kuhn. Used with permission.

There are three events on Monocacy's schedule this year during which we are going to open one of the houses on our battlefield. This is a big deal because, up until our sesquicentennial two years ago, the public had never been allowed inside the houses; even now these events are the only times this year the public is allowed inside 2 of the 3 houses. When we acquired these properties, they needed a lot of TLC - as, let's be honest, do all historic properties - and I suspect our team was eager to see what secrets these houses were holding about the families that lived in them. These houses are a reflection of the people who called them home, and some aspects of their lives would only be recorded in the structure and changes of the house itself.

Our first open house was at L'Hermitage, a.k.a. the Best farm. L'Hermitage is a particularly exciting house to interpret because it has a rich and unusual history for this region. There's still much we don't know, but maybe I'll do another blog post one day about some of the history we do know.

A couple weeks before the event, Diane and I met Ranger Tracy to go through the house and review talking points, and then we spent the rest of the afternoon in the park library with Tracy, asking questions and looking through photographs. Tracy would give three formal presentations each day in the stone barn, while Diane and I were responsible for guiding visitors inside the house and providing less formal interpretation. Since I'm still researching the family that lived there during the battle, I knew very little about the other families that had lived there. We were basically starting from scratch, and the park's reports were a huge help.

We knew that I would be dressed out in mid-19th century clothing, but Diane's Civil War wardrobe wasn't going to be ready in time. As luck would have it, Diane has also portrayed the time period in which the house was built. Sometimes things just fall into place, and  Tracy approved Diane dressing out in late 1700s clothing to portray the era of the original family while I dressed out in early 1860s clothing to portray the era of the family living there during our battle.

Both Diane and I had a grand time, and many of our visitors were vocal about being glad they came out. As you can see from the photo above, we had a lot of people come through! The counter tended to get stuck, but we think about 500 people came through the house each day that weekend. We had another living history unit that came out and set up little tents/booths, but we were so busy I didn't have much time to visit with them. I did notice that it was brutally hot under their tents, while it was wonderfully cool inside the house. The family that began L'Hermitage was from the Caribbean, and the house includes architectural features designed to keep the house as cool as possible. They may have regretted that in the winter, but I can attest that it's wonderful in the summer.

I mentioned earlier that part of the park's study of the L'Hermitage/Best house was to uncover some of its secrets. Unfortunately, one of those secrets was a massive termite infestation that had likely been eating away for years. Because parts of the house were in imminent danger of collapse, they redirected their efforts to stabilize the house and preserve what was left. As a result, we had to limit the number of people who could go through the house to about 10 at a time. The line got a little too long for comfort - a lesson for the next events - but with rare exception, everyone seemed very understanding of the wait.

More importantly, Diane and I showed the park staff that we could be a true asset to them when doing programs. We took away a number of ideas for next time, but we ended the weekend feeling very good about the contribution we made toward fulfilling the park's mission.

We're tackling the Worthington House next month, so wish us luck!

P.S. The photo above was taken by our park's volunteer photographer. He does incredible work, so I encourage you to click here to explore some of Craig's other photographs.

It's Finally Here!

Ever want something so badly you can't talk about it because, even though the rational part of you knows you're being ridiculous, you're afraid to jinx it? That's how I've been for the past several months about the Monocacy Living Historians.

Our group evolved from some volunteer work I was already doing at the park and from some volunteer work Diane was doing at a different park. When I first began volunteering at the battlefield, they  had a few military units that would help out with firing demonstrations, but the park itself just wasn't set up for civilian living history.

While Diane and I had a lot of ideas, we decided to scale our approach to something that would be just a step above what the park was already doing. Since the  houses on our battlefield are usually closed to the public, we pitched the idea of being outside docents: someone who could greet visitors outside the house, point out interesting tidbits to visitors, answer questions, and help create a visual to promote understanding. Our acting Chief of Interpretation tentatively approved the idea, so I rolled up my sleeves to dig further into my research while Diane rolled up hers to assemble a mid-19th century wardrobe.

The word that drives us is respect. Respect for the park service, their mission, their assets and limitations; respect for the families we were talking about; and respect for our visitors. This drove our decision to be as accurate as possible with our impressions, both appearance and activities.

The four primary families living on our battlefield at the time of the battle are (in the order of social prominence): the Thomas family, the Gambrill family, the Worthington family, and the Best family. As we grow, we can branch out to neighbors, friends, business associates, etc. That gives us a nice range of socioeconomic backgrounds to portray, and a seemingly endless need for more research.

As we make progress with our group, we plan to post about our events, our research, and our projects. I hope you'll join us on our journey!