Land of legendary lore; sketches of romance and reality on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake

Front matter

SKETCHES OF ROMANCE AND REALITY ON THE EASTERN SHORE OF THE CHESAPEAKE

BY

PRENTISS INGRAHAM

Chapter I. The White- Winged Canoe

ITH faces turned toward the past, we look upon a scene two and a-half centuries ago, the beginning of the incidents that planted the corner stone of civilization in the midst of savagery, and the rising of the Star of Empire, which was to sbine upon a new world, lighting the retreat of one people to despair and death, and guiding another people to advancement and to power.

Our eyes turned thus backward fall upon a terra incognita, a wholly unknown wilderness to ihose of our race ; but then the abiding place of a mighty tribe of red men, the Indian Nation of the Nanticokes,* whose villages and hunting grounds occupied the beautiful peninsula formed by the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean ; today known as an Eden Land — for such it has become under the magic wand of the white man.

Other landings of Europeans had been made years before upon the coast of the now United States, on the Gulf and Atlantic shores of Florida, in Virginia, in Delaware and in New England, and an occasional ship had sailed up the Chesapeake, but the canoes alone of the Indian had broken the blue waters now known as the Choptank, Avon and Miles Rivers, that wash the white sands of this Land of Legendary Lore of which I write, a land of traditions indeed, of beauty and of promise.

Upon the peninsula where the pretty town of Oxford now stands, looking backward through the mists of over two centuries, we picture there the village of a race in no way akin to us, save through the kinship of humanity.

The lodges of these people dotted the woodland, women and children were gathered about the primitive homes, warriors, in

[* The Nanticokes were a tribe of the Algonqulan ( Algonkin) Nation, and their tribal grounds were east of the Chesapeake. They are now extinct.

all the glory of barbarous war paint and trappings, stood on the shore, or skimmed over the waters in their light canoes.

It was a scene of wild life, the home of a savage people.

Suddenly, around a point of land, now known as Benoni's Point, came a large canoe, urged on by a dozen paddles and fairly flying over the waters. Its prow was turned toward the Indian village, and a white wall of foam parting on either side told with what speed the red crew were urging their frail craft.

At once a cry of alarm rang through the village, for a foe must surely be in pursuit of the canoe to cause it to come on as it did. Men, women and children flocked to the shore to know the cause. What could it be? Was there to be an attack on the village by another tribe "?

There had been strange stories told of a people, whose skins were white, having come across the mighty waters and settled upon the land to the south and far to the north, but those on the Avon had not seen these pale faces. They had not yet learned to dread them, to find out that man's inhumanity to man dwelt in the white heart as in the red . They had only to fear foes of their own race, and these they could meet, as they often had before. They were yet to learn the bitter lesson that civilization advances into new lands with the Bible in one hand, and the sword in the other.

They were upon the threshold of a mighty discovery, the beginning of the end of their race.

Loud sounded the tom-toms in warning, for surely the large canoe must be pursued by many foes. Nearer and nearer it came and every eye was upon it, while the warriors of the village had armed for battle. Suddenly a cry arose, a wail as it were of alarm and horror commingled. A woman's lips had uttered it, and all eyes had turned upon her.

There she stood, both arms outstretched before her, and her hands pointing to the wooded shore that shut out from the village the sight of the majestic Chesapeake. All beheld now why her cry, why her outstretched, pointing hands.

Was it a low sweeping cloud, flying from behind the heavy woodland into view ? In speechless amazement all gazed, and the reason was before them, why the large canoe was urged on so desperately in flight. They saw not the canoe now, for their eyes were upon the flying cloud. On it swept, over the land it

THE WHITE WINGED CANOE 11

seemed, until suddenly it shot out from behind the sandy point and cries broke from all lips as there appeared a large dark mass like a giant canoe, beneath the clouds of white that rose far above it.

Never before had such a sight been seen by those who stood awestruck gazing upon it. Full into view it came, flying along before a stiff ten knot breeze, holding its course as though to glide on up the Choptank, and sighs of relief fell from every lip to think that the strange, mystic thing of apparent life was notcoming toward their village.

But afar off the sound of voices was heard, human forms were seen moving about, there were strange cries coming from the mysterious black and white cloud, and then the course was changed and it came rushing straight on toward the Indian village. There was no outcry now. All those untutored beings were too dazed for utterance. They could but stand and gaze in awed silence.

The canoe that had been flying from this strange cloud was now close to the landing and from it arose a cry of alarm followed by the words:

''Behold the Winged Canoe!"

Yes, it was a "winged canoe '' of the pale faces, for the first time entering those unknown waters.

It was a beautiful brig, spreading canvas from deck to truck, speeding along into the waters of the Avon, and come upon a mission good or bad.

Was her coming to bring light to a people struggling in the darkness of barbarism, or were despair and death to follow in her wake f A short half hour told the story, for the sails were taken in one by one as the brig came on, and sweeping up into the wind when near the shore, a heavy plunge was heard as the anchor was let fall and the "winged canoe," stripped of her white wings, lay motionless upon the waters.

Then from her black sides burst flashes of red lightning, the roar of thunder such as the poor Indians had heard from the black storm clouds when the Great Spirit was angry, and through their village tore a hail of iron dealing death and destruction. The roar of the guns was the death -knell of the Nanticokes!

Such was the coming of the first vessel and its pale face crew into this beautiful Land of Legends.

Chapter II. The Passing Of The Indian

F it is really true, for we have only tradition for it, that the Norsemen, those rugged sea kings of centuries past, ever visited the shores of North America eight hundred years ago, nothing tangible, nothing of good for the ad- ^ vanee of progress, ever came of it; and \^.- though the great captain of captains, Columbus, never actually set foot upon the mainland of our country, his voyage and discovery of the islands of the West Indies was the opening wedge that £^ir began American history.

Amerigo Vespucci, by his latter discoveries, and ignoring Columbus, managed to give his name to this grand continent; and Cabot and other adventurers, rather than explorers, followed and thus begun the peopling of our shores with Europeans — their motive being solely to find gold.

What the treatment of those adventurers and their cruel followers was to the natives of the New World, those who came after deemed it the right course to pursue, and the Indians' extermination even then begun, has been religiously adhered to down to the present day, when they remain but a mere handful of the once mighty race that roamed from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the frozen north to the shores of the Mexican Gulf.

The ''Passing of the Indian" forms a unique but bitter story told in the settlement of our country, for, from the first, they seemed marked for doom.

A few more years and the passing of the red man of North America will have been completed ; the prairies, mountains and valleys where he buried the ashes of his dead will know him no more ; only the ruins of that race of Americans alone remaining, for the last remnant will have gone truly beyond the Land of the Setting Sun. It will be the irony of fate, indeed, that the real

THE PASSING OF THE INDIAN 13

American will have passed away forever, while the descendant of races of other lands far across the sea will occupy his country.

So went from the shores of the Chesapeake the mighty tribe of the -Nanticokes whose villages, hunting grounds and giaves of their fathers were here in our very midst.

Traces of these people who have gone, in their rude implements of war and home utensils, are yet to be found, while hardly a white man of today whose age is fourscore years and ten can point out a single Indian grave.

What a sad commentary this upon the so-called Christian land of America, that even the graves of a mighty people are unmarked and unknown!

Homes have been built, churches erected ; school-houses dot the land; villages and towns where walk the busy throngs are everywhere, perhaps, and beyond doubt, occupying the very sites of Indian burying-grounds, and still no one of us can point bo the last resting place of a Nanticoke, a Delaware or those who lived, loved and went to rest on the snores of the Chesapeake only a century ago.

As the white invaders swept up the Chesapeake Bay in their mighty "winged canoe," dropped anchor in the depths of the Choptank and turned their iron guns upon the peaceful hamlet where the thriving town of Oxford now stands, so has the mailed hand of the conqueror since fallen, in his greed for a new world and the yellow metal for which men risk life to gain possession.

Coming in a vessel of war, if a lawless one, against a people who had no flag to protect them, the armed invaders beat back from their onward path those whose superstitious fears and teachings led them to look upon the white men as warriors from another world, or as braves sent by the Great Spirit to drive them into the Happy Hunting Grounds.

Was it a wonder that these untutored savages looked upon the palefaces as foes to the death, and, after their first superstitious dread was over, finding them fiesh and blood, sought to protect their homes and their kindred ?

Was it a wonder that, beaten back into the forests, they sought new homes 1 Still hounded by their white enemies, they could not believe in the claimed friendly intention of those who came with a sword in one hand, a torch in the other, to kill and to burn,

They were born warriors ; but they could not successfully resist the iron heel and mailed hand of oppression with only their crude weapons of warfare.

And so, back from the shores of the majestic Choptank, the beautiful Avon and picturesque Wye now a garden spot of loveliness, passed the red race before the march of the white; it being the same old story here in our midst, as it was else where, that the Star of Empire, though rising from a red and deadly horizon, must guide onward and upward in the advance of civilization.

With the passing away of a mighty race from this favored land there came hither to find new homes and associations those whom we call our ancestors, and the tales told of early days in Talbot cannot but be of interest to many of her citizens here, as well as to those who have gone far away who cling to this country as their Fatherland.

Chapter III. Retrospective Musings

WO centuries and a-half ago there was civilization in Talbot and its environs only in embryo. Towns and villages were not dreamed of ; those who came here then were intent upon finding gold in this New World, for the yellow metal was then as now an idol and had its abject worshippers.

When the newcomers did not find this "*~ '^~ country of the Chesapeake a gold field,

but instead, a land of milk and honey, of fair promise for getting riches, many of them were content to settle here and begin the good work of rescuing from the Indians, as well as building out of a wilderness, the beautiful surroundings we now call home and of which we are so proud.

The natural cruelties of the Indian, and to which they were trained from infancy, were more than matched by the barbarianism of the English settlers who, in their early days, knew only war, prosecuted along any lines to end in favor of the Englishman.

Going back to the seventeenth century, it is very true that along our coastlands the Indian had his innings most of the time, after he had learned the ways of the settlers, but there was more or less drifting this way of other comers to the New World who thus gained a firm footing, which no human red tidal wave could wash loose to be swept back across the Atlantic.

In this generation of the practical, even in poetry and fiction, what does it matter to our generation who was at fault, the untutored redskins or the gold-seeking palefaces?

Might is right in many empiric creeds and the red blot, on the page of history in the settlement of America, time can never blot out ; but the fact remains that the white man is here to stay, the red man has crossed the Great Divide and conscience has long since been buried in the grave of forgetfulness.

But though the red sovereigns of the soil have gone, we are reminded that he was a stern reality when we come across the relics of his war implements, turned up by the peaceful plough in many a field, or listen to the tales of the fireside of those days of the long ago.

It has been truthfully said that one does not wish to trace his ancestry too far back, as he will surely find them barbarians, buccaneers or perhaps worse.

It does not, therefore, become us to turn the sunlight into the dark recesses of the past, whether our ancestors came hither by the grace of God and the King's command, or left the old country for its good, else we might be horrified to know just what deeds were then done with the sword, or under the protection of the Cross, to lay the foundation for future progress.

Not that our ancestors cared a rap for the future of generations yet unborn, for they didn't; the almighty present and fight for self and spoils being the governing incentive, with gold their beacon. That the pure deviltry, as developed in the red man, was finally overcome by the wanton cruelty and inate wickedness of the white man stands to our advantage today. Hence those early days ended with our race in the ascendency.

Those in authority then did not stop to consider that Poor Lo had a grievance; that, if any inheritance comes by "Divine Right," he inherited these streams and forests and hills and vales to dwell in, fish, hunt enjoy life as best he could in his crude way until the Gitche Manito called him hence.

They simply wanted the land and sea, the brooks and fertile meadowlands, and took them.

If they traded with the Indian the latter came out at the small end of the horn.

If they taught the Indian the white man's ways those ways were crooked and evil.

Not going too closely into history it will yet be well to trace Talbot back to its early settlers, and who established here many landmarks that time has almost entirely obliterated — yes, even from the memory of the "oldest inhabitant."

Of course Talbot is, or rather was, English in its inception. Then there were, too, as the names of today show, Irish, Scotch, and a few French, while, with its shores open to the world, there drifted hither a number of Hollanders ; and all, as has been prov-

RETROSPECTIVE MUSINGS 17

en, when they became Americanized by renewed generations, made a race that has mastered the world in all that goes to add to enlightenment.

So much for the early settlers of Talbot and their descendants, many of whom now can look back over half a score of generations and point with pride to their ''family tree."

To those whose ancestry may cause them to suffer qualms of conscience instead of to swell with pride from traditionary lore, by discovering deeds in the misty past, or a few closet skeletons and other things not conducive to fond recollections, let them hud consolation in the lines of Moore, slightly transposed :

"When cold in the earth lie the friends thou hast loved Be their faults and their follies forgot by thee then. 1 '

Chapter IV. The Romance Of Reality

OW many localities in our broad land, where high cliffs and picturesque scenery lend color to the legend, boast of possessing a "Lover's Leap ?" All have about the same old romance of an Indian girl and he*- lover, driven, from some mischance, to go separate ways thus severing heart- .'■ '.;":-•' ■'-...' strings, and despair driving the dusky a>^£k"""-- maiden to end her unhappiness by taking

*3$4* tbe fatal leap from some lofty cliff desig-

nated by nature for just such a contretemps. Sometime the legends have it that both lovers took the leap together, and this makes the story doubly interesting and pathetic.

ISTow Talbot has no "Lover's Leap" within its borders, and is thus, in this respect, behind the other localities that have; but Talbot has no spot to so designate, Nature not having built this particular country in that way, as it lacks high cliffs for despairing red skins, or even paleface lovers, to throw themselves off of as a means of getting rapid transit to the Happy Hunting Grounds.

Yet let it not be for a moment believed that because lacking in Lover's Leaps, Talbot has not Indian legends equally as sad, if not thrillingly dramatic. One legend runs of how a band of brave Algonquins, driven by their foes to the point of laud now known as Bachelor's Point, where stands the home of Dr. Couucell, and where their wives and kindred awaited them in their village, calmly determined to die before the faces of the victors.

Quickly they weighted themselves, their wives and children down with heavy war implements, and chanting their weird death song, waded boldly out into the Choptank that stretched its blue waters away for miles before them. Deeper and deeper they went into the waters that were to be their grave, while their foes, crowded upon the shore amid the deserted tepees,

THE ROMANCE OF REALITY 19

witnessed their splendid courage as they disappeared beneath the waves while the echo of their song of death still floated in the air.

Another point of interest in Talbot is what is known as "Evergreen," the home of Mr. McKenny Willis on Island Creek, for there it is said the first white child was born in a settlei's cabin. The first grave dug for a white woman in Talbot county was on the little island at Oxford, and there are old people still living who remember hearing their grandparents tell of the little burying ground a woman's form first consecrated, and which in time grew apace until another site was chosen as the last resting place of the dead.

It was in those first days in Talbot that a young Englishman landed here, having come over before the mast in a vessel that was driven into the Chesapeake and found a haven of refuge in the mouth of the beautiful Avon River, as now known. A man whose lot in life had been cast above that of his fellows, but who seemed to carry a shadow in his heart, and separating from his shipmates he cast his fortunes among the Indians.

How long he dwelt with them is not told, but he quickly learned to speak their language and taught them much of the white man's mode of life until the great Chief was glad to honor him in many ways. It has been said that the influence of this young man made peace between the ISanticokes and the white invaders; giving the latter a stronger foothold upon the Maryland Peninsula. Be that as it may, the mysterious stranger was made a chief among the Indians, and the beautiful daughter of the redskin king was offered to him as a wife, for the maiden had learned to dearly love the handsome paleface brave from beyond the big waters.

Realizing this fact, and a man of honor, the stranger told the pretty Indian girl how he already loved a fair maiden ofhisown race in England, but she was the daughter of a great and rich man, while he was poor and unknown. It was because she had promised to be true to him that he had come to the new world to seek a fortune in the yellow gold he had heard was to be found here ; but alas ! he had found nothing and dare not return a poor man to claim the hand of her he loved. Lalaree, the Indian girl, listened to his story, and gazed with a\*e upon the gold-mounted miniature of her fair rival.

THE ROMANCE OP REALITY 21

Then she seemed to realize that the man she loved was not of her people, and her heart was prompted to a noble deed instead of mad jealousy, and she told how there was an Indian tradition handed down for generations, that a large winged canoe had, one terrible night of storm, been driven upon the shore of the big waters, three sleeps* from where they then were, and all the white braves had perished, for their bones rested in the wreck. The eyes of the young man glistened with hope at this story, and he asked the Indian maiden for all the information she could give him, and was surprised to hear her reply :

"Lalaree will guide the paleface chief to the wrecked winged cauoe, and there he will find that she has not spoken with a crooked tongue, for there is the yellow metal to make him rich, so that he can return beyond the big water and marry the beautiful white maiden he loves."

True to her word, the good Lalaree guided the young Englishman to the eastward by a well- beaten Indian trail leading to the ocean, and after several days came to the point where now stands the summer resort of Ocean City. There, driven upon the shore, by some mighty tidal wave, it would seem, was the wreck of a vessel, which the young man's sailor eye told him at a glance was of Spanish build. And there, in decaying cabin and forecastle, were found the skeleton forms of a score of seamen, their bones bleached white by the waters. And more, in the cabin were chests of Spanish gold and silver, with precious stones and massive plate and other valuables half covered with sand.

"There is indeed a fortune here, and this ship was surely a Spanish pirate," cried the young Englishman, and, with those who had accompanied Lalaree and himself, he gathered up the treasure, packed all in the iron-bound chests and hid them in the sand beyond the reach of the waters, f

It was just two months after that a homeward bound English brig anchored off the Sinepuxent shore, and two boats landed through the surf their crews, led by the Englishman, to get the buried treasure.

Homeward, with his fortune went the young Englishman and

*Indians count journeys by nignts tliat pass, calling a journey of days so many "sleeps. "

t Until a lew years ago there were still signs o£ the treasure wreck to be seen at Ocean, City.

matching the riches of the father of the maiden he loved, he claimed and was given her hand.

Lured by the beauties, adventure and possibilities of the Chesapeake country, at his own expense he fitted out a ship and with a number of good people, set sail for the new world once more, and where he and his bride were to make their home. In the waters of the Avon Eiver the vessel dropped anchor and on the picturesque shores of that stream was erected their comfortable home and where dwell their descendants today, for their name is woven deep into Maryland history past and present.

But the Indian maiden who sacrificed her love for another, what of her ? With her love she gave up her life, for with the going of her lover across the sea to claim another for his bride, she faded away as an unnourished flower, and when the English vessel dropped anchor in the Avon the wild myrtle was growing

upon her grave.

For a long time her grave was marked by a stone that bore the simple name :

"La-la-eee."

But Time, the merciless iconoclast, crumbled it away and no trace remains of where rest the ashes of the Indian girl, though the story goes that she was buried on the point of land formed by Trippe's Creek and the Avon, and now the home of Mr. J. L. Banning.

^ for

Chapter V. Gleanings From Early History

NCE the loveliness of the landscape, the climatic advantages of this part of the conntry, with its marine advantages, wealth of woodland, richness of soil, and munificence @^fCp of natural food in its waters and its game ^p^S-- were known, it became an attractive region people of the better classes, with ordinary means in which to seek a home. Attrac- =-_ tive indeed must be the scene that will allure a ■$S^3b^^ man fr° m nis Fatherland. With the authority of "^King James I. of England, issuing patents to colonize all the coast from Cape Fear River in North Carolina to Passama qnocldy Bay in Maine, and thence across to the Pacific, this narrative of our Eastern Shore country has nothing to do, for it is the work of the historian who details events in a groove of dates. It was through a severe storm on the Atlantic that three ships under Wingfield and Smith — the latter better known as ' 'Pocahontas Smith"— intending to land further south, were driven into the Chesapeake, and the country at once attracted them, thus causing the first settlement on the James Eiver, and where the landmarks of those early days still remain. This was a hundred and ten years after the discovery of America by the early Cabot and over forty years after the founding of St. Augustine, Florida by the Spaniards.

After founding the Jamestown settlement Captain John Smith returned to England and came out with other vessel loads of people, while he surveyed the coast from the Penobscot downward, to discover if he had selected the best locality for his colony. This survey convinced him that the storm had accidentally driven him to the most delightful of all places, for the Chesapeake and its tributaries, the James, Rappahannock, Potomac, Patapsco, Choptank, Wye and Avon added to the climate and grandeur of scenery rendered it all that heart could desire and eye delight in. Thus it was that early in the seventeenth century the Chesa-

24 LA^TD OF LEGENDARY LORE

peake Bay and its environs became the Mecca of the adventurous pioneers of the Old World.

Lord Baltimore's first colonization was in New Foundland, but the climate and barren country made the venture a failure, and he then turned the prows of his ships to the sunny land of the Chesapeake. From the King he received a domain that gave to him all of the Maryland and Delaware of today, with parts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Here was established an asylum for Catholics, and the name of Maryland was bestowed on the new province.

Lord Calvert had founded meanwhile a colony, the St. Mary's, in 1633. Thus it was that this favored land adjacent 'to the Chesapeake begun to grow in white population and prosperity, until Oxford, in Talbot, recognized as a splendid harbor and surrounded by navigable waters and fertile lands, formed the nucleus of what has been builded into the garden spot it is today; in fact, a number of citizens of the ancient regime still strongly maintain that here was the original site of the Garden of Eden.

That nothing is said of the Choptank and Avon in the Bible does not disturb their equanimity in the least, they simply know that no other place can be so beautiful as Talbot, and I know several who know just where that fateful apple tree of Eden stood, though I dare not point out the locality — the farm is not for sale.

Bringing their different creeds, orthodox or otherwise, over with them along with their goods and chattels, there was of course more or lesss friction engendered among these new-comers to America; for man is not content to serve God in his own way without discussing the gigantic mote that is in the eye of his neighbor who selects a different method; and though "Peace and Goodness" and "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you" are diamond -studded golden rules with silver lining they appear to suit well enough for "others" but not for ourselves, as witness the Eeligious wars of the world, the carrying of the cross in one hand the sword in the other.