The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1893-10-27
Robinson Crusoe.

The descendants of Daniel Defoe
in this part of the county will be
interested in reading this sketch Of
the great writer, which appeared in
the New York San:
Daniel Defoe, great. great. great
grandson of him that wrote "Robin-
son Crusoe," reached New York the
other day, naval apprentice on
board the British merchant ship
Priorhill. He is not the first OF his
race to visit America, and he could
find some of his kinsfolk and MANY
relics of his famous ancestor down
on the eastern shore of Maryland.
When Daniel Defoe, political pam
phletcer and novelist, was in fear Of
Imprisonment for political offences
he found asylum with his widowed
sister, Elizabeth Maxwell, of London
He set up his study in her house,
and sent forth from that study not
only many political pamphlets, but
as well the manuscript of Robinson
Crusoe."
When Defoe went to live with his
sister he found there Elizabeth. her
daughter, then a child of 5 years.
When Elizabeth was Is years old,
and year before Robinson Crusoe
was written, being forbidden to
marry the man of her choice, she fed
to America. AS she was penniless
she arranged with the captain that
he should sell her to service for
term of years when they should
reach the new country and apply the
proceeds of the sale to the payment
of her passage. This was no
uncommon arrangement in those
days, and immigrants who came thus
we're called redemptioners. Many
respectable Southern families are
decended from such ancestors, but
tradition lives long in the South, and
some Southerners set up as superior
to neighbors that come of redemp-
toner stock. Daniel Defoe's neice
Elizabeth was sold as redemptioner
at Philadelphia about the year IT'S
and her purchaser was Andrew Job,
resident of what is now Cecil Co.
Maryland. Elizabeth became in 1925
the wife of her purchasers son
Thomas, and, seemingly regarding
this as rise in the world, she for the
first time since her fight. wrote TO
her mother and her uncle Daniel
The reply came from her uncle, and
told that her mother was dead and
the girl herself heir to a large
property and her mothers furniture.
An inventory Of the goods accom-
panied the letter, and uncle Daniel
babe his niece have special care of
such furniture as he had used in his
study, because it had descended in
the family from Flemish ancestors.
refugees from the tyranny of Phillip
ii.
Elizabeth Job died in 1889, very
old woman. One of her grandsons,
Daniel Defoe Job was much with the
old lady and was long accustomed to
retail the stories of her youth,
received from her own lips. She
remembered, among other things, the
way in which uncle Daniel used to
expel her from his study when vexed |
by her childish meddling with his
papers.
There were some eccentric characters
among the defendants of Elizabeth Job
among them her grandson, Andrew,
long a hermit, living in woodland on
the ancestral acres near Brick Meeting
House in Cecil county. He clothed
himself in blanket only, ground his
own wheat and corn by pounding it
with stones and made his own cider by |
squeezing the apples between his hands
A family of Jobs, great great grand
children of Elizabeth, recently lived
near Brick Meeting House, and the
Grifiths of the same region are
descended from her on the mothers side.
The late James Trimble of Wilmington.
Del, was descendant of Elizabeth, and
there is preserved in the house OF the
Delaware Historical Society one of the
Defoe chairs, gift from MIR. Trimble.
This chair is one of two indicated by |
Daniel Defoe as having been part of his
study furniture, and there is tradition
that he occupied this very chair when
writing "Robinson Crusoe."