The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1927-11-17
When Maryland Belonged To Already,
People Then Moved With Leisure

blacksmithing, and every manor was
complete in itself.
For $50 years after the two ships,
the Ark and the Dove, sailed into the
Chesapeake, there was scarcely town
of any note with the exception of tiny
St. Mary's. Annapolis superseded st.
Mary's as the capital and put on much
more of a front.
AS for Baltimore, Baltimore town"
at the Revolution did not contain more
than 5000 inhabitants. 1t came into
prominence at the time of the Revolu-
ton, when, being the city most secure
ly defended against the British, many
people came down from the invaded
North, established themselves and
built up the city residentially and in
dustrially.
Thus can be understood the impor-
lance in Maryland's history of this
immortal life. 1t continues down to the
rise of Baltimore in the nineteenth
century as business center, and even
down through most of the century as
an influential tradition.
1t is long and continuous tradi-
ton. 1t can be separated into three
fairly distinct periods: the early Col
onial, the late eighteenth Gentry when
Annapolis entered upon the scene and
lent its aristocratic town to the social
life, and the nineteenth century, when
Baltimore became the center of a
group of estates no longer manorial,
but still distinct from the urban life of
which they were the elegant fringes.
In the first place the life of the
early planters was the life of those
who are monarchs of all they survey,
but whose realm was opulent only
with the largesse of nature itself.
Wealth in the modern sense they did
not have; their houses were, even at
best, two-story brick affairs, the ma
terial for which was dug from nearby
clay pits.
Their multitudinous acres were fill
ed with COWS, horses, roaming wild
hogs, featherde game and waterfowl
that frequented the creeks and inlets
as "millionous multitudes."
There were innumerable servants
and helpers to organize this natural
opulence-slaves and the so-called re-
demptioners who paid for their pas
sage from the Old World with several
years of service.
There were no real troubles with
the Indians as in other American colo
MES. There was abundant drink to
crown it all-cider and perry, import
ed rum, brandy, matheglin, claret,
"Fayal," or canary, and sack
The mental counterpart of this life
of natural abundance, so different
from the harsh conditions of the New
Englanders, was a geniality which dill
fused mems spirits and manners. One
could be opulently hospitable-there
was never a shortage of food to worry
about with the unexpected guest.
There was a merry out-of-door
sport life-hunting, fishing, racing,
cock-fghting, boating. Saddle horses
and barges-carriag there were
none-put every planter in touch with
his neighbor and enabled abundant
social life in the large dance room or
at the hearth of blazing logs.
Nor was the cheerfulness of life
confined merely to the externals. AS
we have said, there was real kindli-
ness which dominated the essential re-
lations of men, both between equals
and between masters and their ser
wants.
The lords of the manor who never
adopted the formal titles which Lord
Baltimore had the right to grant them
were democratic in their relations
with their dependents and servants
They were religiously tolerant to de-
gree which is nowhere else exhibited
in early Colonial history. They were
punctilious in honor and honesty.
| George Alsop, one of the redemp'
TONERS who spent four years on an es-
tate in Baltimore county after coming
in 1858, published on returning te
England his Character of the Prov
ince of Maryland" as highly fulsome
and poetic tribute to the land to which
he induced others to emigrate.
81 think" he says in the opening
paragraph, "there is not any place un-
der the heavenly altitude, or that has
footing or room upon the circular
globe of this world, that can parallel
this fertile and pleasant piece Of
ground in it's multiplicity, or rather
Natures eXtravagancy of super.
Astounding plenty. So that those
parts of the Creation that have borr
the Ball away (for many ages) for q
vegetable Righteousness, must now il
silence strike and vayle all and whis-
per softly in the audital parts Of
Maryland that none but she in this
dwells singular"
Getting finally down to details, hi
speaks mainly of the plenteous vic.
tuals, among which venison was sc
common a meat as to be in disfavor