The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1876-05-20
LOCAL "REMINISCENCES.
A LEGEND OF MARYLAND.
IAN OWRE TRUE TALE"

The framework of modern history is, for
the most part, constructed out OF the ma
terial supplied by national transactions de-
scribed in official documents and contem-
poraneous records. Forms of government
and their organic changes, the succession
of those who have administered them, their
legislation, wars, treaties, and the statistics
demonstrating their growth or decline,-
these are the elements that furnish the out
lines of history. They are the dry timbers
of a vast old edifice; they impose dry
study upon the antiquary, and are still
more dry to his reader.
But that which makes history the richest
of PHILOSOPHERS and the most genial pursuit
of humanity is the spirit that is breathed
into it by the thoughts and feelings of for
mer generations, interpreted in actions and
incidents that disclose the passions, motives,
and ambition of men, and open to us
When we can contemplate the people of
past age employed in their own occupa-
tions, observe their habits and manners,
comprehend their policy and their methods
of pursuing it, our imagination is quick to
clothe them with the flesh and blood of
human brotherhood and to bring them into
full sympathy with our individual nature.
History then becomes Il world of living
figures,-a theatre that presents to us
majestic drama, varied by alternate scenes
of the grandest achievements and the most
touching episodes of human existence.
In the composing of this drama the au-
thor has need to seek his material in many
a tangled thicket as we'll as in many an
open field. Facts accidentally encountered,
which singly have but little perceptible
significance, are sometimes strangely discov-
cred to illustrate incidents long obscured
and incapable of explanation. They are
like the lost links of a chain, which, being
found, supply the means of giving cohesion
and completeness to the heretofore useless
fragments. The scholars experience is
full of these reunions of illustrative Incl
dents gathered from regions far apart in
space, and often in time. The historians
skill is challenged to its highest task in the
effort to draw together those tissues of per-
sonal and local adventure which, at first
without seeming or suspected dependence,
prove, when brought into their proper re-
lationship with each other, to be unerring
opponents of events of highest concern.
1t is pleasant to fall upon the course of
one of these currents of adventure,-to
follow solitary rivulet of tradition, such
as by chance we now and then find modestly
flowing along through the obscure coverts
of time, and to be able to trace its progress
to the confluence of other streams,-and
finally to see it grow, by the aid of these
tributaries, to the proportions of an ample
river, which waters the domain of authentic
history and bears upon its bosom clear
testimony to the life and character of a
people.
The following legend furnishes striking
growth, in the unfolding of romantic
passage of Maryland history, of which no
annalist has ever given more than an am
bguous and meagre hint. 1t refers to a
deed of bloodshed, of which the only trace
that was not obiterated from living rumor
SO long as century ago was to be found
in a vague and misty relic of an old memory
of the provincial period of the State. The
facts by which | have been enabled to bring
it to the full light of an historical incident,
it will be seen in the perusal of this nara
tive, have successfully, and by most curious
process of development, risen into view
through series of accidental discoveries,
which have all combined, with singular
coincidence and adaptation, to furnish an
unquestionable chapter of Maryland his
tory, altogether worthy of recital for its
intrinsic interest, and still more worthy of
preservation for the elements it supplies
towards a correct estimate of the troubles
which beset the career and formed the
character and manners of the forefathers
! of tine State.