In a former article of this author's 45 an attempt was made to identify the whole of the present Old Joppa Road between Towson and the Bel Air Road, and the Camp Chapel Road, which connects the Old Joppa Road with the Philadelphia Road, with the road called the Court Road, which was "cleared” in the year 1729 from the Long Calm to the Garrison Ridge. This assumption was, however, a serious error; for the original Joppa Road crossed what is now the Bel Air Road more than a mile and a quarter east of the present Joppa Road. It would appear that the Old Forge Road, which runs from Germantown on the Bel Air Road to the Philadelphia Road near the Great Falls, is a remnant of the old road, and ran originally straight to the Long Calm. Whether this road already existed in 1729, and was merely made passable in that year, is uncertain; but there is at least a strong possibility that it had existed for many years. It may have been, in fact, that lost military road the

. former existence of which in that part of the country we so strongly suspect.

(To be continued.)

46

extinct in that part of the country to which John Greer referred in his deposition that most of the inhabitants could hardly be convinced that they ever existed there.

* “ The Old Indian Road,” Part 2, in the Maryland Historical Magazine, September, 1920.

46 It may be remembered that in 1754 the Court Road is described as running from the Great Falls “ up opposite to Heathcoat Pickett's house "; and that Heathcoat Pickett was probably at that time residing on a tract which he owned called “Good Hope,” which lies south of the present Harford Road and does not come nearer than half a mile to the present Joppa Road.

A plat of “Good Hope," " Darnall's Sylvania,” Darnall's Camp " and other tracts, made in connection with an ejectment suit, Risteau versus Armstrong, 1849, shows a road marked “Old Joppa Road” passing from “Darnall's Camp” into and through the western part of

Darnall's Syl. vania" and headed towards “Good Hope.” This road ran far to the east of the present Old Joppa Road. (See Pocket Plats, 101-102.)

This was the road which, in the following depositions, is alluded to under the name of the Garrison Road. Whether the road had acquired the name of Garrison Road because it went to the Garrison Ridge, or whether it was, in fact an original "garrison road” we cannot decide.

It was certainly the road called in most early records the Court Road.

On July 25th, 1743, before a land commission held to determine the bounds of a tract called “ Thompson's Lott” laid out for George Thompson October 26th, 1685, John Greer, aged 55 years, deposed as follows: " that thirty years ago or therabouts Mr. John Taylor who then lived on the south side of Gunpowder River near the ferry and afterwards went for Carolina and if now living is seventy-eight years of age or therabouts being in the woods together the Said John Taylor shewed this deponent a bounded black or red oak which this deponent now sheweth unto us fairly bounded on three sides . . . the aforesaid oak stands on the east side of a swampy drean descending into Hornigold Run (now called Honeygo Run-W. B. M.) by a small grasey glade and a small distance to the westward of the Piney Glade and to the south west of the Garrettson Road and this deponent further saith that the aforesaid John Taylor then told him that if a course was run south west 96 perches there would be found a bounded white oak which was the second tree of the Adventures Addition (surveyed for George Linghan or Lingham July 11th, 1683—W. B. M.), ... and this deponent being asked if the aforesaid John Taylor told him anything of the bounds of Thompsons Lott says that the said Taylor told him that Thompsons Lott began at the falls at the end of the north west line of Adventures Addition and running thence with Adventures Addition.” (Land Commissions, Liber H. W. S. No. 4, f. 78 et seq.)

On November 22nd, 1782, a land commission was held to determine the bounds of “Darnalls Sylvania,” surveyed for John Darnall, 28th Sept., 1683. Walter Tolley “ being at a spot of ground in the woods to the southward of the road leading to the Nottingham Works (i. e., The Nottingham Iron Works at the Long Calm Ford—this road now called the Old Forge Road and evidently identical with the Garrison Road of the other depositions here quoted—W. B. M.) and between that and Mr. Gough’s Gate (i. e., Harry Dorsey Gough, who then owned “Lingham's Adventure” which he called “Perry Hall ”—this was before the Bel Air Road was built) and about a quarter of a mile of the place called the pines " deposed "that about thirty-three years ago to the best of his remembrance he was appointed a commissioner to settle or prove the bounds of a tract of land called Thompsons Lott and John Greer Senr proved a red or black oak bounded tree of said Thompsons Lott to stand where the deponent now is, etc., etc.”

Before the same commission Samuel Clark and John Buck, “ being duly sworn at the same place described in Walter Tolleys and Annanias Divers depositions of this date” deposed “that about four or five years ago this deponent with Mark Alexander and others was appointed a commissioner for proving the bounds of a tract of land called Thompsong Lott when John Roberts aged then about 95 years was evidence and declared on his oath that before Ann Arundel and Baltimore Counties were divided he the said John Roberts was present at the spot described as above and carried the chain under the direction of John Taylor who was Deputy Surveyor under John Dorsey of Elk Ridge on a

Sworn as

an

survey for one Brian (probably means Michael Byrne who took up “ Michael's Chance" in 1721, a tract which adjoins Adventure's Ad. dition ”) and that the said John Taylor told him the spot where he then stood and where deponent now is was the beginning of Thompsons Lott and that at the same spot where the two red oaks stands as before described upon a small branch of the Honey Gold southerly from the Garrison Road and near the place called the Gunpowder Pines was then a bounded tree an oak deponent believed but says it was then green and growing and that the said John Taylor run from the said tree 94 or 96 perches he cannot recollect which to a bounded white oak tree and deponent further saith that since he hath been generally informed that Thompsons Lott lays on the Traynes of the Horney Gold and further saith not.” (Baltimore County Land Records, Liber W. G. No. L., f. 414 et seq.)

Among the papers which relate to the division of the real estate of General Charles Ridgely of Hampton will be found (Baltimore County Land Records, Liber T. K. No. 336, f. 61) a large map, prepared by Alexander J. Bouldon, the well-known surveyor, for the use of the commissioners appointed to execute this division. This map which is entitled “ Plat of the Principio Company's Lands, Part of the Nottingham Company's Lands, Clark's Chance Enlarged and Part of Sewell's Fancy Belonging to the Devisees of Charles Ridgely of Hampton,” covers a large extent of country. Early surveys are not marked on it, except in one or two instances, but the original lines of many of them appear, and can be identified by reference to the text. On this map are shown part of the first, the whole of the second and part of the given line of “ Thompson's Lot.” If the first and given lines are extended they will meet at the beginning of the tract. The beginning of “Thompson's Lot” will then be seen to lie a little less than a mile and a quarter west of the Great Falls and slightly less than half a mile south of the Bel Air Road. This would place it at the head of one of the main branches of the run now known as Honeygo Run and a short distance southwest of the Old Forge Road. I think there cannot be the slightest question that the road referred in the foregoing records as the “Garrison Road” or as “the road leading to the Nottingham Works" is identical with the Old Forge Road of today, and that this road is a continuation of the “Old Joppa Road” which passed through “Darnall's Camp,” “Darnall's Syl. vania ” and “Good Hope.”

Among some old manuscripts which, in December, 1913, were presented to the Maryland Historical Society, I found copies of two depositions of William Pickett, the son of Heathcoat Pickett or Peckett, the Tory, who was hanged during the Revolution at the gate of Joppa Town. These two depositions, which were taken April 26th, 1779, both have reference to the bounds of “ Thompson's Lot.” I do not know where these depositions are recorded. In 1782 Pickett made a deposition (see Land Commission on “Darnall's Sylvania,” 1782, to which we have previously referred) about the bounds of “Thompson's Lot” which is so entirely similar in intention and sometimes even in language to one of these two depositions that it seems certain that the two are versions of the same deposition taken down at the same time by different persons. In each case the deponent's age is gven as fifty and a certain event is described as having taken place forty years before. The authenticity of these two depositions is therefore not to be doubted. One of them is as follows:

“ The deposition of William Pickett aged about fifty years declares that he was present in company with his father Heathcoat Pickett and a certain Oliver Harrod (i. e., Oliver Harriot) upwards of twenty years ago and to the best of his knowledge says he heard his father and said Harrod in conversation about the land called Thompsons Lot and Darnalls Camp and the said Harrod (he was then about eighty-two-W. B. M.) told the said Pickett that a certain Coll Richardson and John Taylor who had formerly bean surveyors of Baltimore County met in the road by a run called the Duble run and one of them asked the other whose land that was where they then was and the other replied that it was Thompsons Lot if there was any such land."

Colonel Thomas Richardson died in the first decade of the eighteenth century. John Taylor was born about 1671 or earlier. We have already quoted a deposition in which it is shown that he was present with Coll. Richardson at the laying-out of “Bear Neck” (1694) or “Cub Hill" (1695) or both. He was evidently Colonel Richardson's pupil. The date of the meeting of the two surveyors on the road by the Double Run may well be earlier than 1700. Whether the Double Run was the Hang Gold or Horney Gold Branch (a singular name for which no explanation offers—this stream had two main branches) or whether it was the run which we identified with First Cabin Branch, which was also called the Double Run, is not certain. If it was the latter, as it seems probable, then the surveyors were mistaken as to the location of “ Thompson's Lot.” Vague as it is, I am inclined to take this record seriously as evidence that a road existed somewhere west of the Falls near Germantown late in the seventeenth or very early in the eighteenth century. Taken alone it might seem negligible, but taken with other records, it may serve to strengthen, if ever so little, our belief in the theory that an old military road passed through this region in the direction of the Long Calm, and that a cabin” or outpost on this road stood somewhere in the valley of the First Cabin Branch.

Unfortunately, in this neighborhood of strange place-names and interesting historical possibilities, which lies between the Harford Road and Bird River, west of the Great Falls of Gunpowder, descendants of the old population, who might conserve some traditions, have almost all dispersed or died out, and the old gentry-Ridgelys, Days, Tolleys and the Carrolls of Perry Hall--have gone away, never to return. Today an industrious class, largely of peasant stock and devoid of local American traditions, has replaced the old English families; and the landscape itself disappears under the process of a rapid suburbanization, or becomes utterly unrecognisable amid the litter of signboards and of villas built of concrete blocks.

SOME LETTERS FROM CORRESPONDENCE OF

JAMES ALFRED PEARCE

EDITED BY BERNARD C. STEINER

a

James Alfred Pearce was a distinguished Whig statesman, representing the State of Maryland in the United States Senate from 1843 until his death in 1863. His son, the late Judge James Alfred Pearce of Chestertown, placed many of his father's

papers in the hands of the editor, to be given ultimately to the Maryland Historical Society, in whose collection they may now be found. The papers which appropriately find a place in a biographical sketch of Senator Pearce, will be included in such a study of his life, which will be published in future numbers of the Magazine. There were some letters, however, contained in the collection which are too important to leave unpublished and yet which do not form a part of the biography. These letters are printed at this time.

Edward D. Mansfield was born in New Haven, Conn., in 1801 and died in Ohio in 1880. He graduated from the Military Academy at West Point in 1819 and at Princeton in 1822. He studied law at the Litchfield Law School in Connecticut and soon removed to Cincinnati. From 1836 until his retirement in 1872, he was occupied as a newspaper editor and as the author of several books.

From Cincinnati on December 28, 1829, he wrote Pearce:

“ The town has increased with a rapidity altogether unprecedented in any Country, and such are its abundant and permanent resources that, I can see no sound reason why it should not continue so to increase allowing for ordinary vicissitudes in business, at the same rate for the next 30 years, when it will probably have reached the population of New York. The opportunities for speculation in real estate and money here are very great. Money is ... scarce, and rents high. In