Democratic messenger. [volume] (Snow Hill, Md.) 1869-1973, 1899-09-30
ONCE PROUD ESTATE.
Bit of History That is of Real
Local Interest,


II is not without cause that the East
crn Shore of Maryland has won rcputc
of a unique and peculiar region, sort
of unPerium i'll nmper'o, differing in
many respects from its sister shore of
the bifurcated palatinate. Most of
those, however. who know the Eastern
Shore only as name would he puZ-
zled not only To say what are the char
acteristics that mark il as peculiar. but
even define its geographical position.
Briefly, the Eastern Shore is the region
Immediately west and south of Della
ware, composed of nine counties. all
but one bordering upon the Chesa-
peake. The oldest but one of these is
Somerset, organized in the year 1866.
and out of this county was carved less
than II century later the County of
Worcester. These counties border up
on that portion of the peninsula belong
ing to Virginia, and present i'll cXag
gerated form the peculiaritics of the
Eastern Shore, pcculiaritics that spring
in part from the fact that the inhah-
itants are III large measure descended
from the few earl" English settlers. and
in part from an isolation that has tended
to intensity and pcrpetuate inherited
rats
In all the counties of :hc Eastern
Shore. and perhaps especially in Som
ersct and Worcester, there still linger
family traditions that would 20 far i'll
the hands of skilled historion towards
reconstructing the social life of the
eighteenth century; and perhaps even of
the seventeenth. The story of the Robins
family and of the families with which
its members intermarried, furnishes
much interesting material for such a
social reconstruction. The family tra
dition is of a cavalier and Church of
England ancestry, and the crest Of the
family is robin. but the tombstone of
a certain seventeenth century Obcdi-
encc Robins has decidedly Roundhead
suggestion.
Be that as it may, the representative
man of the family in the present cen
tury. Judge Edward Robins, was a
staunch churchman of marked aristoc
ratio instinct. He was born well back
in the eighteenth century. and he died
when the nineteenth was still young,
leaving behind no little personal proper
" and Il large realty thirty farms, it is
said. cntailed upon his only sou. John
Purnell Robins. and his heirs made in
primogcnture Ii was the hope aud
intent of Judge Robins to establish Il
great cntailed estate such as should bc
perpcnatcd in the male line to remote
generations. and should make its sue
ceSSivc owners county magnates. "A
scheme which like most such in this
country was doomed 10 disastrous fail
urc, for the son disappointed the judges
expectations by turning Presbyterian
and by joining with the grandson i'll
cutting the entail.
John Purncll Robins. inheritor Of
the cntailcd estate. married the daught
or Of Major Joshua Prideaux. another
characteristic product of the Eastern
Shore. The major came Of Huguenot
stock, and the tradition is that the origi
nal migrant, being wrecked at sea.
tioated ashore upon a hencoop. Be
.a.l
nilcss fugitive and the birth of Major
Pridcaux. considerably less than cen
turv later. the family managed 90 be-
come persons of some importance on
the Eastern Shore.
The major himself was a man of af
fairs-membcr of the governors conn.
ell. miller. Storckeeper. farmer on a
large scale. vessel owner. and slave
holder His house was open To all who
choose to come; his choice stock. South
down sheep and Muscovy ducks, Were
given away that the stock of his neigh
hors might he improved; round his
roaring hearth fire gathered his cronieS
To spin their yarns and 10 drink apple
tnddy, His daughters were busted in
making garments for the slave fami
lies and bolting clothes for the mill.
There were dependents in the house
hold, male and female, one sort of
chaplain, and every night the slaves
were gathered in for family worship.
The major had great sein-haulings AZ
night by the light of flaming pitch-pine
torches. and he tanned porpoise leather
To make watcr-tight boots. He boiled
his own and his neighhor's salt on a
sand reef facing the Atlantic seven or
eight miles across shallow bay from
his home. His portrait in oils, done by
Il travelling artist of some skill. shows
smooth -shavcn grizZled man of sixty or
face. full lip. and merry brown eye.
His daughter. maiden lady, who
died late in the '60's, never ceased re-
grcttng the loss of a great silver ladle.
carried off to the West by married
sister. and never tired Of repeating the
traditions of her youth. She spoke in
whispers of the "Black Camp where
Tories of the Revolutionary period plot
ted mischief against the infant republic,
and to her dying day believed that
Great Britain still hoped to make herself
once more one of her colonies. She told
with pride of her drive with the majorin
his zig from Snow Hill, the county seat
of Worcester, 2O0 miles to Philadelphia,
and recalled the song of the peppcr-pot
men a. they vemded their wares i'll the
street. The majors one visit To New
| York was also fresh i'll her memory. He
made the voyage in one of his own
schooncrS, aud, told when he came back
of an elegant lady whom he had seen
sweeping down 10 the street from her
door. and dragging marvellous train
in her wake.
The early COS found the owner of