The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1880-10-01
VOL. XXIV---NO. 80.

which the present church is q successor,
stood near Gravelly, below Michaelsville, in
| Bush River Neck. A stone, bearing the
| date 1853 is retained in the arch over the
| doorway of the present structure.
The rector of St. Georges Parish accom-
panied me through the graveyard surround
| Ing the church, and pointed out the grave of
Colonel Thomas White, the bishops father,
| and the oldest ofthe tombs. The tombstones
| that are standing are nearly all of compare
lively modern date. The stones and nearly
every other sign of the older graves have
entirely disappeared This is so much the
case that the sexton, a colored man named
sep York, ole John York's son, b'longed to
Ned Griffith" told me that in digging graves
he frequently cxhumcd the bones of some
long -forgotten occupant
Sep says that once he began to dig grave
upon aspot which gave no indication what
ever that the earth had ever been disturbed.
VI guess | dug bout five feet down, and well
sab, have handled right smart O bones in
my day, but there come cross the bigges'
skeleton | ever saw afore in all my bon DAYS.
III was jess perfcct-a man-and got tape
line and the minister and the ncighbors all
come, and we measured him and he was Jess
z feet inches tall, and he had the biggest
head on him ever saw on mans shoulders
They calkilated he must have laid there mon
u Hunurcu ana l1ty years.
Sep says that he is not at all afraid of
ghosts. "T'aint the dead Pm afraid of, but
the livin' that's what l allays says But
I've seen people mighty skeered One night
was working here long after dark l put
the lights out in the church and started
home across the grave yard, film my pipe
as went. heard wagon comm slow
along the road there, and just then l struck
n match on Il tombstone Well, sab, SIGH
yell as come from that wagon never heered.
The folks licked up the horses, and they went
full tilt, galloping as hard as they could go.
An the mex day heered ghost had been
seen yer. Its the only ghost ever heered tell
Of bout yere"
The records of Spesutia Church are in the
possession of Mr.. John Jay, one ofthe yestry-
men, whose home just off the post road"
is, perhaps, four or five miles from the church
These records would be mine of informa-
ton to the enthusiastic genealogists of Nor
thern and Eastern States. In Maryland,
although there is q continual talk about first
families, the pride is not of that practical
kind which makes haste to print histor-
ical information, like these records, in order
that it may not be lost
Beginning in 1896, there are two volumes
of births, deaths, marriages, and minutes Of
vestry meetings, carefully written upon parch-
ment.
In 1881, the vestry agreed with William
Dallam, for one thousand pounds of tobacco
to make alphabet clean church, open doors,
&c. "Also to burn We leaves Round Bout We
yard"
In 1853, a new church was being built, and
the vestrymen resorted to an ingenious way
of raising the money. They placed tax
upon every bachelor in the parish, the older
the bachelor the heavier tax, and ordered
the register to make two copies of the list
of bachelors taxed. One of these lists was
posted upon the church portals, so that the
bachelor could make explanations or objec-
tiOns. The names of these bachelors are pre-
served upon the parchment records.
These volumes were in dilapidated condi-
ton when MIR. Jay took charge of them and
restored them as far as possible.
The house upon the "Dairy Farm" was
built by Aquia Hall, about the middle of the
last century. Byhi marriage, Thos. White
the Bishops father, was fortunate enough to
come into possession of this home, the finest
specimen of colonial architecture in Hartford
county The bricks were brought from Eng
land. The house was built by convict labor.
The exterior hasa bare appearance, owing to
the absence of porches, The front is over
sixty feet The hall is twenty-one feet wide
and ON both sides of it are rooms about twen-
W lttU NluC. ucSC Will
oak. The stairway leading from the hall to
the second story is of oak, and in Hartford
county there is but one other like it in
construction. have not seen another like
it elsewhere. Both front and back flight
of stairs ascends along the wall two-thirds
of the distance to the second story. Her
these two flights meet upon a platform from
which single flight leaving the wall passes
directly across to the platform on the opposite
side of the hall. From there two flights
ascend to the second story. There were
formerly 1000 acres in the Dairy Farm"
but it is now divided into two farms. The
house can be seen plainly on the right, as
the cars of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and
Baltimore railroad pass over the Bush River
Bridge.
Another of the most interesting houses in
Harford county is "Shandy HILL" within a
few miles of Spesutia Church. The bricks
i'm the walls of Shandy Hall were brought
from Malta The present house was built in
1902. The people of that day had not begun
To save ground by increasing the height of
their houses, and Shandy Hall is built in the
then prevailing shape, long and low. The
upper rooms are paneled, and in the lower
rooms are great fire-places, almost capable
ofholding the trunk of n good sized tree.
AT Shandy Hall there are several remarka-
girth, and at its foot is the old stone, set for
corner, which in a deed dated 1872, is de-
scribcd as the spreading Oak" showing
TINT the tree was large even at that carly
day. Mr.. Henry Reed, of Philadelphia says
that it compares favorably with the finest
oaks seen by him in Sherwood forest, some
ofwhich are known to be five and six hun
bred years old. He pronounces the oak at
Shandy Hall to be $50 years old if it stood
in England, he would think it at least 800
years old.
At the corner of the house grows some
lockwood, set out when the house was built.
Ithad evidently been planted in two rows
along the edges of q garden path. In one
hundred and seventy-eight years the plants
have grown to be trees, with thick trunks
and branches that, meeting high over ones
head, form an arbor, sun-proof and almost
rain.proof
In the last century the Halls were, perhaps,
Hartford county's most distinguished and
wealthiest family. They were colonial judges,
planters and revolutionary colonies. They
owned hundreds of slaves, and the lowlands
of Hartford county, from Havre de Grace to
beyond the Dairy, a distance of twelve or
fourteen miles, belonged almost entirely to
them. Socially, they were on terms of close
intimacy with the Morrisses, Rawles. Cad
waladers and others of the leading families Of
Philadelphia, then the metropolis of the coun-
try. Most of their lands, including the Dairy
Farm, have long since passed into other hands.
Shandy Hall is owned by Messrs. Henry
Carroll and William White Ramsay Hail.
Few of Maryhnd's leading country fam
lilies of century ago have escaped the in
fluence of malarial climate, slavery and
too frequent intcrmarriages. Under some
what altered conditions many of the descend
ants of the Halls still live in Hartford county.
You have heard of the lady attired in
profound Grape, who entered car and aban-
loned herselfto melancholy. A woman be-
hind her, with red nose, green veil and blue
| snectacIes leaned forward and inquired -