Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1914-11-29

MaryS City in the spring OF 1859, WnlcH
in addition to many other good things
imposed fine of 10 shillings on any
man who would 'stigmatiZe his fellow
man as hereto. schsmatic. idolater,
Puritan, Independent, Roundhead.
Presbyterian. popish priest. Jesuit.
Jesuited Papst, Lutheran. Calvlnlst.
Anabamist. Brownist. Antinomian, Bar
rowist or Separist. or any other name
or term in reproachful manner re-
lating to matter of religion"
During the pre-revolutionary and
the revolutionary period Piscataway
seethed with excitement. There was
some Tory sentiment, but 1t was
swamped under the weight of patriotic
sentiment. In the taverns and ware
houses. in the stores and on the
wharves-relcs of which you may see
or denounced the Grenville ministry
and the stamp act, and the opposition
that set in in Massachusetts and Nlr-
ginia quickly spread in Maryland
There were anti-stamp outbreaks at
Annapolis, Baltimore, Frederick and
Elkridge, and old Piscataway would
have none of the stamps or stamped
paper. The colonial congress and Mary
lands representation in it were absorb
ing topics, and the Sons of Liberty
movement had no more enthusiastic
advocates than the people of Plscata-
way and it's tributary territory. IL one
had lived in Pisca taway he would have
heard excited denunciation of the tea
act and uproariouS approval of the DIS
position of the tea-laden ships, the bark
Good Intent, the brigantine Mary and
Jane and the brig Peggy Stewart
Lexington and Concord set this part
of Maryland aflame, and the work OF
the committees of safety and of enroll
ing and equiping troops was the fire
side and street-corner talk in OLD
Piscataway. Uniforms of militia troops
and of Marylanders in the Continental
army were no rare sight in the town.
During the revolutionary period Pts
Getaway was the thrifty mart and busy
center of a rich, populous and prosper
Gus region. The drain of emigration
to the trans-Allegheny country had
scarcely begun. That tide of emigra-
ton was to draw very many OF the
most venturesome and energetic men
into the rich, new and cheap lands OF
the Ohio and Mississippi valleys.
In the second war with England, and
especially in the unhappy campaign of
August, 1914, Piscataway was full OF
troops, and the name of this village is
mentioned in the chronicles nearly as
often as the names of Benedict, Marl-
boro, Old Fields, Meadows and the
woodward, but, of course. not SO often
as Bladensburg.
The decline of Piscataway set in with
the decline of creek and river traffic.
but it continued to be place of some
ambition until about the outbreak OF
the civil war. 1t has decayed, as have
so many others of the waterside towns
in the Potomac and PatuXent valleys,
among them ST. Marys City. Port To-
bacco and Dumfries. a few houses
stand on the sites of these places ana
the names survive, but the greatness
that was theirs in the olden times is
now a memory.
Nobody knows who was the first
,,r,1
the town of Piscataway. He may have
been a Spaniard, for it seems to be
matter of record that early as 1856
explorers of that nation visited great
bay in the 37th degree of north lati-
tude, which they named the Bay of
Santa Maria and which has been iden-
titled as Chesapeake bay. They ascend
ed some of the rivers entering this bay,
but whether they entered the Potomac,
or, if they did, whether they assembled
as far as PiScataWay creek, is not
known to men of this time.
Capt Smith of jamestown fame, in
the summer of 1908 explored the Po-
tomac as high as the Little Falls-or
Piscataway creek. which he jotted
down on the sketch of his travels as
the Indian village of Mayowanee.
Smith made two trips of exploration in
the Potomac. On the first he was ac-
companied by Walter Russell, Ralphe
Marston, Thomas Momford, William
Cantrill, Richard Featherstone, James
Burne and Mitchell Sicklemore. gen.
kill, Robert Small, James Watkins,
John Powell, James Reade and Richard
Keale. On his second trip the names
of Walter Russell. Ralphe Marston.
William Cantrill, Robert Small and
John Powell are omitted from the ros-
ter of the party. and these names add
ed: Nathaniel Powell and Anthony
BagneI, gentlemen, and Edward Pts