The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1884-10-17

SWaanendael, now LeWeS creek, OusseA
county, Delaware, was founded, but the next
spring the Indians tomahawk destroyed all
the settlers. A few years later, however,
New Amstel, now New Castle, and Altoona,
now Christina, were founded. But Lord
Baltimores claim was for some 4,250,OOO
acres more than is now included in Mary land.
for the whole of Delaware, for strip OF
Pennsylvania, including the site OF Philadel
phia, and for q portion of Virginia. In 1869
Colonel Nathaniel Uty, one of the first set
tiers in Hartford a member of the Governors
Council, and most energetic and popular
frontiersman, was made emissary to the New
Amstel Dutch, asking them to retire. WORD
was sent to Stuyvesant, who sent soldiers
south, and ordered Uty's arrest, but the lat
ter was wise enough to return so soon as his
message was delivered. Stuyvesant then
sent Ambassadors Hermann and Waldron,
September 80, 1869, to Maryland, across
Cecil county, through the woods, down Sas-
safras River, and in small, leaky boat" to
st. Mary's ancient walls. This Augustine
Hermann, an educated man of talents, re-
moved to Maryland not long after, and was
granted the famous Bohemia Manor" on
Bohemia River, near Cecilton, Cecil county,
where he and his descendants were long
prominent in colonial affairs.
Colonel Uty led expeditions against the In
dams and parties of exploration, from his
Spesutia fort, now in Hartford county, and
welcomed Charles Calvert in 1868 on his
journey to visit the Dutch settlements. He
was probably present at the first County
Court held "at the house of Capt. Thomas
Howell" in July, 1861. In 1888, according
to "Hermann's Mapp," "Old Baltimore town"
had fairly started on the Bush River, ION the
town laid out near the Court House." and it
held its own with its many rivals for half
century, when it faded before the rising
glories of Joppa. one of the most famous of
the lost towns of the Chesapeake
Joppa, on the Gunpowder River, was Wis
tied about two years ago by party from
Johns Hopkins University, who took with
| them an old map, and made number OF eX-
cavations, obtaining, however, little OF value,
except some interesting inscriptions copied
| from the town graveyard. One old stone
mansion remains with few buildings; the
very foundation stones have been carried OF,
and the wharves where ships from Europe
and the West Indies were moored have nearly
disappeared The town was created along
| with forty-one others by an act of the Mary
| land Assembly in 1906 There was western
| furOre for landing places every manor want
| ed one, as every orchardist or the Sacramen.
| to would like to have an "embarcadero."
There was good deal of difficulty about the
exact SITE but in 1712 1t became port of en-
| try, and in 1924 the complete Town Act was
passed The Dorseys, Pacas, Roberts, and
other families familiar to Baltimore history
| were residents of Joppa. All who came to
| the thriving town were given lots on condi'
| ton of making certain improvements. A
| ship. yard was established, and capital began
to flow in. When Baltimore was founded,
the rivalry was for time intense, but Joppa
/ had "a, urola az m q went
| the way of Old Baltimore, of ST. Mary's, of
| Calyert's colony of Avalon, of a countless
| number of towns and seaports from st.
Saveur, on Mt. Desert Isle, to the New
| York of the Pacific" city founded in 184S
| in the Suisun sloughs, California, and at
present represented by a zinc house, ten feet
square, and the hulk of schooner.
Joppa was in its prime when Lord Balti-
more, in 1888, wrote to Governor Gordon, of
Pennsylvania, asking for a meeting of COM
missioners from each colony, to be held in
May, at the town of Joppa, but nothing came
of this proposal, and the border dispute con,
tinued to cause almost constant warfare, in
| which tho Crosaps took O notorious part. As
| it fell waste and houses were torn down or
moved away. the time came when its ancient
| townsriehts were "annulled and taken up;" 1t
was again wheat land and meadow, and lies
| to-day almost as solitary as when Captain
Smith sailed past in his jamestown barge.
But there are thousands who will chiefly
remember Hartford county as the home OF
the elder Booth, and the birthplace of his
children. "And Bouths," saith an old book
| "were created for the entertainment OF the
people, and were much resorted to-" 1t was
in 1899 that Junius Booth bought the farm in
Hartford county, twenty-five miles from Bal
timore. On one side of the old house the
tsoI fnEt n ftrafr
ground. 1t is three miles to Bel Air, the
county seat, and about the same distance from
Hickory and Churchville, all three then bu,
hamlets in the wilderness, and Bel Air the
only one that has grown since. stony
highway along which weekly the post-boJ
rode and blew his shrill horn, extended neal
the house; great hickory and chestnut trees
arched overhead above the log cabin in which
Edwin Booth was born. Four rooms and {
separate kitchen it had, with the chimney
built outside, in pioneer fashion. A spring
of cold and delicious water flowed from thu
shaded rocks near the door. Here the eide
Booth planted an orchard and vineyard, mad
fish.ponds, mingled in his note books, still
preserved, theology, philosophy, Literature
and agriculture. Three engravings were II
the house, and about twenty books, including
an old Herbalist and a Farmers almanac
Booth made his Journeys to Richmond, Balti
more and Philadelphia in his own carryall
{ The younger Booth was born on the meteo
night, November 10, 1888, was educated a
, Old Town by Miss Hyde, afterwards secretar.
of the Peabody Institute, and first appeare,
in public in Shaksperian readings, August
, 1860, in the old court house of Bel Air. Sto
ries of the Booth family, and evidence of tn
warmest affection for its members, abound il
this entire region. The childlke, generous
eccentricities of that stormy genius, the eide
. Booth, live in neighborhood traditions, AM
have made the Booth Farm" place tina
many strangers visit. y. ii. :.