The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1932-05-05
THE CONTROVERSY
OVER KENT ISLAND RE-
MAINS IN THE BACK
GROUND
By MARK S. WATSON, In the Bal
timore Sunday Sun

oSSIIlS llhSly W dUSOTU IH0 dLIeILlOu
of most of the tourists engaged in
this years historical pilgrimages,
Maryland antiquarians are already
engaged in blowing through sources
of information on Chesapeake Bay
events of the pre-Washington era.
For the State is committed to some
sort of celebration of the Tercenten-
airy of 1884, concentrating the Off
ial start of Lord Baltimore's colony
at st. Mary's on the Potomac.
But before the Calvert party en-
tered Chesapeake at all, white men
were dwelling on Maryland soil, and
without waiting for the leisurly Ter
centenary Commissions plans for ST..
Mary's to get under way, the prior
Maryland invasion by William Clai-
borne and his men in 1881 is being
studied. Episcopal churchmen of the
Eastern Shore last October, for eX-
ample, celebrated the first Christian
service on Maryland soil with pag-
cant on Kent Island, not far from the
spot where, presumably, the Rev.
Richard James oficiated three CEN
turtles ago.
In the current issue of the Mary
land Historical Society's Quarterly
Raphael Semmes, curator of the Peale
Municipal Museum, brings source of
information on Kent Island history
the Claiborne Cloberry papers from
the High Court of Admiralty Records
in London. A transcript of these pa
pers, giving a detailed account of the
charges of piracy and misappropria-
ton, made against Claiborne, plus his
vigorous rejoinders, was sent to the
society years ago. 1t was dealt with
at some length at that time by Mrs.
Hester Dorsey Richardson, who now,
by the way, is engaged in new book
including the subject. Mr.. Semmes,
too, is preparing book of his own,
to follow the Historical Society's SER
ial publication of the Claiborne
Cloberry papers.
Meantime the Anglo-American Rec
ords Foundation is engaged in the
large enterprise of organizing re-
for research into the origins
of Anglo-American life; one of its
principal sources would be these same
High Court of Admiralty Records,
which it aims to publish in detail in
so far as their entries concern the
American scene.
That costly ventures work is far
in the future, but the labor now being
performed with the transcripts in the
Maryland Historical Society library
promises to clarity greatly the some
what hazy knowledge of Claiborne's
exploits in the years before the Ark
and the Dove nosed their way up the
Chesapeake and in the critical years
Immediately afterward when two adj
venturous groups of Maryland pion
GERS were jostling each other into
armed conflict. From that conflict
Calvert emerged with success, thanks
to his greater influence at court, but
it was not many years before the Vir-
ginians with whom Claiborne was al
lied moved into Maryland and, with
the shifting politics of Britain, even
tually broke down the Calvert pala'i-
nate.
Inevitably the bitterness Of the
times was perpetuated in the contenl-
porary record, so that Claiborne has
come down into modern history as an
interloper and an absconder and pi-
rate, from one viewpoint, and, from
another viewpoint, as a courageous
and defiant pioneer defrauded of his
rights. In this dual role he has am
pie company; Drake was pirate or
patriot, according to viewpoint, just
as Washington was rebel until his
side won and Lee to this day remains
merely rebel to the G. A. R. veteran.
The Admiralty's Cloberry- Claiborne
papers themselves fail to establish
either side firmly, for, naturally, they
include both the charges and the coun-
tercharges, the denunciations of Clai-
borne and his Qualifications, and one
can hardly emerge from study of
them with any fixed belief other than
that the Kent Island pioneer was a
vigorous and dashing adventurer
whose enemies had no reason to adore
him.
z Even the point of whether he was
deprived of his rights can hardly be
disposed of Lord Baltimore, to be sure,
was granted rights of settlement in
such territory up to the fortieth par
allel as was not already settled; and
there is no doubt whatever that Kent
Island was "settled" by Claiborne, so
that Baltimore's title to it was OBJ
viously cloudy. But encouragement
from the royal government to Clai-
WI. i L H..