Hite vs Fairfax and the End of the Colonial Period
1786
The
Hite-Fairfax lawsuit again. The Hite v Fairfax lawsuit regarding
competing land claims was brought before the Virginia Courts for
another round of acrimonious debate. The scales of justice this
time tipped in favor of the Hite heirs, reinstating the original
court decree of 1769 that nullified Fairfax grants on land the Hites
had surveyed but had not been able to patent back in the 1730s!
It’s understandable how a Virginia court would tend to favor
a grant given by the colonial Council to Hite, rather than honor
grants issued by the former Proprietor who had ties to the hated
European feudal system. All those Fairfax grantees living on land
originally surveyed by the Hites, including the Swearingens, were
now required to pay to the Hite heirs the rents and fees dating
from 1750 - a very large sum of money. The Fairfax land office,
now run by Thomas Bryan Martin, (Fairfax’s nephew and namesake
of Martinsburg), was no longer in a strong legal position to protect
landowners holding a Fairfax title. The Hite heirs were not only
seeking title to surveyed but unpatented lands once held by the
family, as their original 1749 lawsuit requested, but also all those
surveyed lands that couldn’t show clear documentation of purchase
from the Hites in the 1730s! In other words, the burden of proof
was now on landholders to prove, with documents, that they had actually
purchased their land from the Hites, ignoring the fact that the
1770 Commission had found the Hites notoriously lax in their documentation
and record keeping. The Hite lawyers urged the Hites to try to “recover
of all intruders tho it should appear that we actually sold the
land to others” (Hyman 1996). Landholders on property claimed
by the Hites without a clear chain of title back to the Hites were
usually given the choice of buying or renting the property back
from the Hite heirs at current prices. Judge Wythe described the
Hites and their lawsuit “vexatious and oppressive” in
part because of their unwillingness to settle out of court (Hyman
1996). Col. Van Swearingen was in an impossible situation because
there couldn’t be any documentation showing chain of ownership
back to Hite on about 184 acres he currently held on Terrapin Neck--he
and others on the Neck had only held title via Fairfax for 25+ years.
His property within the original Poulson, Mounts and Jones patent
was not in question, including most of Springwood, because it was
clearly within a Hite patent. There were about 100 farm units in
Jefferson and Berkeley counties affected by this ruling, but uniquely,
the 1200 acre parcel on Terrapin Neck was the only property in question
that was never settled by a Hite purchaser, and the only one that
was surveyed past the 1735 deadline. Landowners were given 90 days
after being served with papers to appear in Court and defend their
property. Because Van Swearingen had chased off the Commission in
1770, Van Swearingen was the only property holder on the Neck on
the court’s list asked to appear in court. His strategy appeared
to be to find “some old paper” showing ownership back
to Hite, which perhaps wasn’t a bad strategy considering the
Hite’s notoriety for poor record keeping, fraud, etc. He did
have documents from the sale of Jonathon Simmons/Peter Beller’s
land in 1762 (Springwood), and Joseph Poulson (RiverView Farm) in
1758. But this strategy did not allow him to bring up the fact that
the 1736 survey on Terrapin Neck was invalid, or that the Brownings
had never occupied the land; apparently previous rulings forced
him to concede that these facts held no power.
Surveyor
Jonathan Clark (brother of both William Clark of “Lewis and
Clark” fame, and frontier military leader George Rogers Clark)
came to Terrapin Neck to survey boundaries and report on improvements
and agricultural acreage for the court and the Hite heirs; he had
a personal interest since he was married to a Hite. Clark described
two Swearingen tracts within the Browning claim. The first tract
of 184 acres, now roughly the area east of the footbridge and south
of the guardshack at NCTC, contained three “cabbins”,
and the portion in cultivation and “in pretty good order”
included “60 a. first rate high land”. A second tract,
the old York plantation out on the end of the Neck claimed by Indian
Van Swearingen, was described as occupied by “Peter Palmer
tenant to Van Swearingham” and contained “one indifferent
cabin”, 30 acres of bottom land and 40 acres of first rate
high land, as well as 50 apple trees (P.S. Joyner n.d.). Other landholders
on the Neck generally had small (16 by 20 feet) round-logged cabins
with chimneys made of mud and sticks (“cat and clay”),
small outbuildings without any doors, some cropland, and apple orchards
containing 50 to 200 trees. This was of course in stark contrast
to the large stone Swearingen mansion house in the neighborhood,
with fireplaces in every room. You can imagine the steam coming
out of old Col. Van Swearingen’s ears as this survey took
place, and since his 3 cabins were not described in any detail compared
to the others on Terrapin Neck, this may suggest that Clark was
not invited to take a closer look. A list of these Terrapin Neck
property descriptions is included in the appendix.
Josiah
Swearingen continued his duties as the new surveyor of Berkeley
County. Tragically, Josiah’s wife Phoebe died this same fateful
year. She was only 29 years old, and left four children, 9,7,4 and
2 years old. She was buried at Springwood in the Swearingen cemetery
adjacent to the present-day Hendrix house on NCTC property, near
Hezekiah’s wife who had died 5 years before. Phoebe was a
sister to Abraham Shepherd’s wife Eleanor, so presumably the
Swearingen and Shepherd families would both have mourned at her
graveside on the little hill east of the house (this hill and cemetery
were part of a large orchard described in a 1797 property division,
so you can also imagine the mourners surrounded by young apple trees
on three sides.)
Another Thomas Swearingen died this year, Col. Van’s nephew
Major Thomas Swearingen, son of Thomas of the Ferry. He lived next
door in the stone house at the site of the mill he ran at the mouth
of present-day Rocky Marsh Run. He had spent part of 1779 and 1780
exploring Kentucky territory and surveying property on an expedition
with several locals, including his brother Benoni Swearingen, his
son Van, and several of their slaves. His portion of the Kentucky
lands would be passed on to his heirs including son Van, already
in Kentucky, son Thomas, the “developer” of Hardscrabble
and operator of the old Jones Mill, and son Andrew, who would later
be given the task of administering the more than 30,000 acres of
land in Kentucky. Major Thomas specified that four juvenile slaves,
Adam, Dick, Charity and Nell, each with a mare, saddle and feather
bed, were to be left to certain of his children; the rest of the
enslaved Africans were to be divided up equally among his heirs,
including his daughters Drusilla and Lydia (BCWB 1, p. 414) Thomas’s
will, written in October 1780, mentioned that he had been engaged
in a lawsuit with Abraham Shepherd over recovering a 1/2-acre plot
of land near the ferry landing; his brother Benoni had supposedly
now settled this business with the purchase of the lot in 1784.
Maj. Thomas had applied to the Washington County, Maryland Tax Commissioners
in May of 1786 for permission to construct a tobacco inspection
and storage warehouse on land near the ferry on the Maryland side
of the river, but his bid was ultimately rejected and the warehouse
was instead built upstream near Williamsport (Wayland 1907).
Shepherdstown (i.e. Abraham Shepherd) also petitioned the Virginia
legislature for a tobacco warehouse this year, and again successfully
in 1788, citing the favorable location of the town on the Potomac
River (Crothers, n.d.) which was becoming more navigable every year
as the Potomac Company continued its work of clearing the river
of obstructions. A warehouse was built eventually just above the
Swearingen ferry landing on Princess Street. The timing of these
petitions seems to indicate that tobacco was still a potentially
valuable crop in the late 1780s, although wheat and other grains
had also become a major export of the lower Shenandoah Valley. And
Swearingens and Shepherds were again competing for the same business
on opposite sides of the river; in this instance the Shepherds were
more successful, though it is unknown if they ever made any money
from the tobacco. Abraham Shepherd’s account book for the
1790s doesn’t seem to include any tobacco transactions, though
it includes transactions from his other businesses including the
distillery and sawmill (Shepherd Family Papers 1790-1862).
In May of 1786 young Van Swearingen and William Bennett attended
the first court convened in Bourbon County, Kentucky. One of the
first orders of business was to handle the estate of Joshua Bennett,
presumably William’s brother, who had been so brutally killed
several years before.
Indian Van Swearingen, writing from his new plantation on the banks
of the Ohio in March of 1786, gave an update to cousin Josiah on
the ever-worsening conflict between the settlers and natives. He
ends the letter with: “...We are all well and wish the
same to you and family, give my most respectful compliments to my
old uncle your father and to all the family. My children Thos and
Drusilla is coming to your neighborhood and I suppose will speak
about their negros in the hands of Boydstone. I hope you will deliver
to my brother Joseph a public certificate of 2400 dollars in his
name.” (Van Swearingen Letters). This letter may suggest
Indian Van’s strategy for keeping his slaves until his new
plantation in the northern panhandle of Virginia was in order, and
gives further evidence that Josiah acted in the capacity of a local
business agent for his cousin, who still derived a portion of his
income from land and slaves in the Shepherdstown area. Note that
Boydstone (a.k.a. Boydston) mentioned in the above letter was a
neighbor just south of Springwood who also had the misfortune of
owning Terrapin Neck land that was embroiled in the Hite-Fairfax-Browning
dispute.
1787
Indian
Van Swearingen had more important issues than fighting over land
on Terrapin Neck this year. Writing from his home on the Ohio River,
he penned a letter to the military authorities describing what had
recently happened to his son Thomas, and asking for help. A father’s
anguish is clear as he writes to a Col. Butler on 29th September,
1787:
Sir
On Sunday evening last my son Thomas Swearingen was taken prisoner
by the Indians ten miles up Cross Creek west(?) of Ohio - he was
hunting for meat for a party of strangers three of which was found
dead, two escaped - he had lent his gun that day to one of the party
to hunt, and was without arms and I think was in a waste cabin by
himself when he was taken - he may be dead, but the parties have
not yet found him. If you think it is best that a message should
be sent to the indian chiefs or others in that country that may
have it in their power to be of service trying to save his life
- if you have faith in me please to employ any indian or white man
that may answer the purpose and I will pay to the utmost farthing
your contract with them. I am not well or I should have come to
you myself ....I am under many feeling apprehensions concerning
my son, and I hope you will do every thing in your power and will
forever oblige....
(Transcribed by Billy Markland, in Papers of the Continental
Congress, National Archives M247-164i150 v2 pg. 561).
Another
account of the incident is in the form of a 16 Dec. 1787 letter
from Indian Van Swearingen to his cousin Josiah Swearingen in Shepherds
Town after the disappearance of Thomas:
...“I have this opportunity by Mr. Isaac Haston to inform
you that my son Thomas is still missing and I can hear nothing from
him. A great deal of search has been made for his bones in vain,
the messenger that went into the nations to inquire after him has
not yet returned. I am on a ugly frontier and lost my best gun when
Dave Cox was killed. If I have any tenant that could be credited
for a gun or two that is good with small bore, as maybe they can
be payed in barter I wish you to send them to me by the bearer Haston
and give credit for the same to the tenant. I should not ask such
a unreasonable favor but I expect to be shut up or be after the
Indians all next season and want to be well armed. If you have not
made use of my certificate to answer some of my contracts please
to send it to me as it may serve to assist me in securing my Pennsylvania
lands which calls on me immediately for a large sum. Money is very
scarce and we have no chance of getting any in this country. Send
me a state of my affairs and your opinion of Hite’s grant
and of all other things you think of. You may send anything with
safety by Mr. Haston. I am troublesome to you but I hope you will
bear with patience. The Indians is constantly doing mischief and
I expect a desperate war. The Indian Nations have sent a late letter
to the Indian agent informing that they will not give any part of
their land up to Congress except they lose it by the sword, and
I believe they are backed by the British and their friends in the
Canada and Detroit countries. Give my most respectful compliments
to my good old uncle Van and to all the family...” (Van
Swearingen Letters).
A third account of the same incident explains that Cox and Thomas
Swearingen were among a group of young men collecting ginseng in
the vicinity of Cross Creek. The Indians had captured or killed
several others as they traveled upstream along the creek prior to
reaching the group that included Cox and Swearingen (Draper Manuscripts,
account by Caleb Wells). An interesting side note on a town south
of Cross Creek: the name Wheeling is of Indian derivation for “Place
of the Skull” in reference to human skulls on poles, placed
as a warning by the Indians to the whites moving into the area--
remember the Ohio River was the boundary the colonists had agreed
to in 1744, though the French and Indian War in the mid-to late
1750s followed by the Revolutionary War had changed the political
and demographic boundaries significantly. The Proprietary of Pennsylvania
had “purchased” from the Indian Nations all the land
east of the Ohio River in 1768, but land west of the Ohio River
still belonged to the Indian Nations. The Indians were understandably
serious about stopping expansion along this northern route, so westward
expansion into Kentucky tended to follow Daniel Boone’s southern
route through Cumberland Gap.
Young Van Swearingen, son of Major Thomas and still living in Bourbon
County Kentucky, apparently was considering a trip out of the area,
possibly to make a trip back to Shepherds Town or to join the military
forces gathering to deal with the Indian problem. The June 1787
court in Bourbon County recorded that he sold a Negro boy named
Jim, 5 or 6 years old, to Ann Strode for 30 pounds. He also gave
power of attorney to a Michael Cassady, who would handle his financial
affairs during his absence (Bourbon County Deed Book A, pp. 64 and
142).
James Rumsey launched his steamboat from the Swearingen ferry landing
in Shepherdstown, and demonstrated it before a large group of astonished
local dignitaries, including Capt. Abraham Shepherd, Col. Joseph
Swearingen, Benoni Swearingen and a Van Swearingen. Shepherd’s
wife was among the small group of women allowed to ornament the
boat during its first public viewing. An account of the spectators
present described Capt. Abraham Shepherd, who was apparently a backer
of the Rumsey invention: “Captain Shepherd was a thin-visaged
little man, of prominent features, full of energy, and a first-rate
farmer, and unfailing friend of the church.” (Dandridge 1910).
1788
Death of
another patriarch - Col. Van Swearingen died, 69
years old. In his will, written several
months before his
death,
he first told his heirs to divide his property between
themselves equally (his wife and four children were
each to get a fifth),
then a day later added a codicil to ensure that his daughters
received specific properties. His will specified, among
other details, that
the land was to be divided up so that water access was
retained for each of the parcels, and son Hezekiah
was to retain his
use of the “water meadow” just west of the
estate house (BCWB 1, p489). Van’s direct heirs included
4 adult children, and his widow and second wife Priscilla
and her daughter
Peggy,
who was still a child. A list of his personal property
included 13 slaves, 24 horses, about 30 beef or dairy cattle,
65 sheep,
66 hogs, various household goods and farming implements,
and 9 beehives. The complete list is included in the appendix.
Later
additions to this list include 2 casks of “Cyder”,
7 mill bags, 60 flour casks, 1 wagon, 1 harrow, over 260
bushels of wheat, 39 1/2 bushels of rye, 4 barrels of corn,
1 ton of
hay, and 18 barrels of flour in Baltimore (BCWB 2, p39,
146). His estate
also paid 320 pounds of tobacco for the recording of the
will and appraisement of the estate, paid for the repair
of three
tobacco
hogsheads, and sold 6 hogsheads of tobacco (for over £47),
all suggesting that tobacco was still a cash crop on Swearingen
land at this time.
1789
The
Swearingen siblings and heirs of Col. Van had not yet reached a
final agreement over settlement of their father’s estate,
but apparently the 4 siblings expected trouble from their young
stepmother: “...whereas doubts have arisen and controverseys
are like to take place respecting the will of the said Van Swearingen,
so far as relates to the said Priscilla...”, Priscilla
was given 150 acres on the eastern side of the home tract - which
was, of course, the acreage on Terrapin Neck that was involved with
the Hite controversy! This parcel included “the tenement
whereon Elizabeth Eade now lives”, a spring at the river,
and about 4 acres of meadow (suggesting 146 acres was not a meadow).
She was also given the negro man James, a woman named Grace, and
a boy named Clem, all to be “held during her natural lifetime
and no longer”. She and her heirs “forever”
were given horses, furniture, kitchen items, 40 barrels of Indian
corn, 100 bushels of wheat and one stack of hay in the meadow. She
was forgiven a debt of 42 pounds, 15 shillings, eleven pence “for
sundry articles purchased at the sale of the said Van Swearingen”.
The siblings also agreed to “in some short convenient
time finish the dwelling house of Elizabeth Eade” for
Priscilla “in a complete manner”, and fence
in a plot for a garden and build a barn. In return Priscilla had
to agree to give up any further claim on the Swearingen estate.
Priscilla, apparently unable to sign her name, made “her mark”
on the agreement. Van’s daughters Luranna and Drusilla, on
the other hand, were able to sign their names to the document (Berkeley
County Deed Book 10, p. 282 – a transcription is in the appendix).
It seems apparent that the four siblings had no intention of letting
their step-mother retain any control of their father’s house
and lands, though it had been her home for about 10 years or longer.
Estate documents some years later confirm that Josiah and Van’s
estates did pay some money to fix up a house for Priscilla, though
it is unknown how long she actually lived there. Considering that
Priscilla was still young enough to remarry, it was perhaps a prudent
move on the part of the Swearingen siblings if they wished the bulk
of the Springwood property to remain connected with the Swearingen
family (though it wasn’t particularly honest and forthright
to give her land that was tied up in a lawsuit). A note about Elizabeth
Eade: her husband Robert Eade died a few months before Van Swearingen,
the will witnessed by Van and Hezekiah (BCWB 2, p2). The Eades had
purchased Lot 41 in Mecklenburg in May of 1768 and it is unknown
why Elizabeth was now living in an unfinished cabin near Springwood.
Since another bereaved widow- Priscilla -was now moving in, the
arrangement must have been a temporary one. (A reasonable guess
for this cabin site would be east of the NCTC commons building on
a site overlooking the river where an old foundation can still be
seen, referred to as the Entler house; the Entlers occupied this
house site starting in the 1850s.)
Captain Abraham Shepherd now becomes prominent in the history of
Terrapin Neck. He was the son of Thomas Shepherd, founder of Shepherdstown.
The Shepherd family, like the Swearingens, had spent time on land
in Prince Georges County, Maryland and near the Monocacy River before
moving across the Potomac into Virginia in the early 1730s. The
Shepherds and Swearingens had both become moderately prosperous,
prominent families in the area, and squabbled over who would run
a ferry business across the Potomac.
Abraham was a local lawyer/land speculator/businessman/hero of the
Revolution who with his siblings literally “owned” Shepherdstown
after the death of their father Thomas Shepherd in 1776 (Abraham
did not have formal training in the law, but charged fees for acting
as a lawyer in various capacities). The Shepherds in the second
half of the 18th century had made their living from developing the
town, as well as running a distillery, saw mill, tannery, grist
mill and various farming, trading and mercantile operations. They
held title to about 591 acres in Berkeley County by the time of
Thomas’ death in 1776, which was divided among the heirs.
Prior to the Revolutionary War the Shepherds overall wealth and
influence in the region, at least outside the boundaries of their
town, may have been somewhat behind the extended Swearingen family,
who held title to about 3280 acres in Berkeley County alone, lived
in big stone houses near the river, ran a mill and the ferry business,
and held powerful political and military positions. Abraham had
been an interested observer of the court decisions affecting Swearingen
holdings on Terrapin Neck, particularly after several Swearingen
lawsuits had been filed against him. After the 1786 Court ruling
in favor of the Hites (his wife and mother were related to the Hites
and Van Meters), he sensed a serious opportunity and tracked down
and notified the heirs of John Browning on the Eastern Shore of
Maryland. He at first attempted to buy their old claim to Terrapin
Neck. They refused to sell, but finally agreed to give him 1/6 of
whatever he could get of their claim; Abraham then set about forcefully
asserting the Browning claim into the ongoing Hite-Fairfax legal
dispute. (It’s interesting that 1/6 of the acreage of the
Browning claim is just about the number of acres that Indian Van
Swearingen owned on Terrapin Neck). Because the Hites had recently
won in Hite v. Fairfax, Shepherd reasoned that the 1200 acres on
Terrapin Neck should go to the Browning heirs, who had a complete
set of documents showing their purchase from the Hites back in 1736.
Shepherd may have been hoping that the Swearingens, Boydstons and
other Neck landholders would have to buy back the property from
the Browning heirs, with him getting a percentage of the money changing
hands. Or it seems very possible that he was after the land all
along as payback for the disputes over a ferry, and stymied any
attempt at an out-of-court settlement. If the defeat over the ferry
business was his motivation, he was seeking revenge from the wrong
Swearingens, and he also didn’t seem to care about the several
other families living there with no connection to the Swearingens
who would also be affected by his legal actions. If he prevailed
in his suit on behalf of the Brownings, Abraham could force the
loss of a minor portion of the Swearingen land holdings at best,
but some of the Swearingen neighbors on Terrapin Neck could lose
everything they owned. In his court appeal, Abraham described the
Swearingens and other landholders on Terrapin Neck as “intruders”.
The Swearingen “intruders” probably circulated in the
same social strata as the Shepherds and even attended the same Church
of England. It’s unknown if they sat on the same side of the
aisle.
Note that three groups were now contesting the ownership of Terrapin
Neck:
1 - the Hite heirs claimed it because the 1736 purchaser Browning
never settled the land; (they had argued in 1770 that they owned
it because Browning was the first settler!);
2 - the Browning heirs claimed it (with Abraham Shepherd’s
urging) because their father bought it from the Hites back in 1736,
and they had the complete set of documents to prove it;
3 - and the current holders of the land, who held title based on
Fairfax grants issued in the 1750s. This group included the Col.
Van Swearingen heirs, Indian Van Swearingen, and the Williamson,
Lewis, Metcalf, and Boydston families.
For the heirs of Col. Van Swearingen, only about 184 acres outside
of the original 1734 Poulson, Mounts and Jones patent was in question.
Indian Van Swearingen, living out near the Ohio River, apparently
still claimed several hundred acres of the old York/Chapline tract
on the eastern end of Terrapin Neck, and may have been the true
target of Abraham Shepherd’s antagonism.
Legal abstractions were a side issue for the Shepherds at least
a part of this time, as Abraham Shepherd and his wife Eleanor lost
a 7-year-old son - James - this year. (They would name a later son
James Hervey Shepherd). Abraham kept an account book through the
1790s which gives many interesting details of his various business
accounts (Shepherd Family Papers 1790-1862). He kept accounts of
his legal fees and services for the Browning lawsuit in this book,
and one interesting fee that recurs frequently in the 1790s is for
“Clark’s Notes”, probably referring to the 1786
survey of Terrapin Neck by Jonathon Clark. Abraham billed a number
of clients for “Clark’s Notes” over several years
including a James Vandivere, a Dr. Jacobus Vandivere (same person?)
and the various Browning heirs. It’s unclear what role the
Vandiveres played in this particular lawsuit, since they were not
related to the Brownings and held no claim for Terrapin Neck. What
is clear, though, is that the dispute between the Swearingens, Shepherds,
and Vandiveres that began in the 1760s was still being fought in
the 1790s and perhaps later.
1790
Because “maney
unreasonable delays has hitherto prevented a division
of the said lands among the divisees” Drusilla
Swearingen Rutherford, one of the 4 sibling heirs of the deceased
Col. Van Swearingen, apparently became impatient and took legal
action to force her two brothers, Josiah and Hezekiah, and her
sister Lurannah, into an agreement that would select several men
to appraise and subdivide their late father’s estate (BCDB
9, p. 344). So the appraisers were chosen and went to work. The
315 acres of the Springwood tract were valued at £1260 pounds;
190 acres of this property including the estate house went to Josiah,
while the western remainder of 124 acres, including the river frontage,
went to Hezekiah (now called RiverView Farm); Priscilla had received
her 150 acres of this tract the year before. Hezekiah’s new
acreage included an odd corridor that cut across Josiah’s
property to the east, possibly in order to retain a route to the
Terrapin Neck road and Shepherds Town, or perhaps to retain property
where several slave cabins were likely located (what we now know
as Shepherd Grade probably did not yet exist). The 242- acre tract
close to Shepherdstown along the Potomac that Van had received
in a 1760 Fairfax grant was valued at a little over £302
pounds, and was given to Lurannah and her husband William Bennett.
Land in the old Van Meter Marsh patent (now the Heatherfield subdivision)
totaling 173 acres, valued at over £432 pounds, went to Drusilla
and her husband. To make up the difference in value between the
properties, Josiah was required to pay sister Drusilla £64
pounds, 5 shillings in 3 equal payments over several years. Van’s
will had earlier specified that Drusilla should receive the 2 houses
and lots in Shepherdstown while the sibling’s half-sister
Peggy, still a juvenile, was to receive 400 acres of land near “Big
Sandy Creek”, a tributary of the Ohio River,
(her mother is 2nd wife Priscilla) - this was bounty
land
given to Van
for war-time service.
The old
Hite - Fairfax lawsuit continued to add to the family
tension at this time. Judge Wythe
threw
out the
Swearingen
claim for their
remaining Fairfax grants on Terrapin Neck in Hite
v Fairfax. The “old
paper from the Hites” strategy didn’t
work--the Swearingen case no doubt also weakened
because of the death of the venerable
Van. An attachment was ordered against the Swearingen
estate in order to pay the back rent and profits
to the Hites. But inexplicably,
Judge Wythe then ruled that the 1786 ruling should
not go into effect on Terrapin Neck, and title should
go to the present holders
of the land - his phrase was they “should
be quieted in their possession”. The Swearingen
heirs and others on Terrapin Neck no doubt rejoiced
at this turn of affairs, and Priscilla,
Josiah and Indian Van could now retain their parcels
in question, but unfortunately, Wythe’s ruling
described them as “Tenants
of Browning’s representatives”, opening
the door for a Browning appeal. The Swearingens did
not appeal the ruling, perhaps
because the end result was they retained title to
the land, albeit as “tenants” of Abraham
Shepherd. The other Terrapin Neck landowners, i.e.
Boydston, Metcalf, Lewis, and Williamson,
had still not been officially notified by any court
that their titles were in question. Several months
later Abraham Shepherd,
the Browning representative who now, courtesy of
the court, had some “tenants”, urgently
filed an appeal on behalf of the Browning heirs after
he inadvertently
heard about the
Swearingen ruling (Hyman 1996).
Abraham
Shepherd had other business to attend to that year
as well. Late in 1790 George Washington
visited
the area
on a tour of potential
sites for a national capital. Shepherd and several
other prominent local boosters had taken the trouble
to collect
subscriptions totaling
$20,662.66 to help show their ability to defray
the costs of constructing federal buildings
(Crothers,
n.d.). The
Shepherdstown area, located
in a region that could supply farm products to
a rapidly growing new country, was experiencing
a business
boom
as well; two towns
in Berkeley County now exceeded 1000 people, Shepherds
Town and Martinsburg. The first federal census
in 1790 estimated that there
were 3,893,635 people in the new United States.
Virginia was the most populous state with 747,610
people counted
(59% were white,
39% were enslaved Africans, 2% were free blacks
- U.S. Bureau of Census First Census of the
United
States)
1791
John
Marshall was another prominent Virginia attorney retained by Shepherd
and the Brownings in this case. Within a few years he would become
the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States under
the Jefferson administration, and he personally would eventually
buy the remainder of the Fairfax holdings in Virginia. Shepherd
did not have the legal stature of John Marshall and other prominent
attorneys involved in the case, and Shepherd probably followed Marshall’s
lead in many aspects of the legal proceedings. In March of 1791,
for example, John Marshall wrote Shepherd regarding the landholders
on Terrapin Neck who held title via Fairfax, telling Shepherd “to
demand possession of them and if they refuse to give it, Let me
know immediately - only their names, that I may commence suits against
them - Let me know by what title they hold..” Marshall
had been involved in the Hite-Fairfax controversy for most of his
legal career, arguing the case on the side of Fairfax. His added
role in the Browning case on Terrapin Neck stemmed not necessarily
from being for the Browning cause, but only because the Brownings
were arguing, like the Fairfax estate, against the Hite claim (Hyman
1996).
When Abraham Shepherd’s appeal was heard on behalf of the
Browning heirs, Judge Wythe reversed his own ruling! about allowing
the present holders to retain possession of Terrapin Neck, but let
stand his ruling against the Swearingens. After being involved with
Fairfax and Hite-related litigation for most of his long career,
he now seemed to want to wash his hands of the whole matter. The
Hite attachment against the Swearingens now became a Browning attachment
against the Swearingen property. Abraham Shepherd also argued successfully
that since the other landowners had failed to submit their claims
in court (they had never even been summoned!), legal title to the
land must revert to the Brownings. With proper legal representation
at this point Shepherd’s arguments could have been easily
dealt with, but good legal advice came too late for the people living
on Terrapin Neck. The upshot: the judge previously had awarded an
attachment to the Hite heirs only on Swearingen property, but Shepherd,
via the Browning claim, used this as a tool to go after the whole
1200 acres! The Swearingens, Metcalfs, (Van’s second wife’s
family), Williamsons, Boydstons and others were on the verge of
losing Terrapin Neck, after “owning” it for decades!
On a cold rainy night in November, neighbor Thomas Boydston, a bachelor
farmer living just south of Springwood, received his first official
court notice that his title to the land was in question, in the
form of Abraham Shepherd, the local sheriff and a lawyer threatening
to throw him in jail if he didn’t give up his land. Presumably
they had also visited Josiah Swearingen about the same business
recently. Shepherd’s only legally enforceable action at this
point was the Browning attachment against the Swearingens, yet he
and the sheriff were fraudulently using it to threaten everyone
on Terrapin Neck. After the death of Col. Van Swearingen, Boydston
would now become galvanized into becoming the champion defender
of the Terrapin Neck property holders (Hyman 1996).
Josiah Swearingen no longer held his position as the official surveyor
for Berkeley County, having been replaced by David Hunter (Doherty
1972). He received this year another letter from his cousin Indian
Van living on the Ohio River dated March17, 1791:
Sir, I am going to give you the late news in this neighborhood.
The Indians lately killed and took seven people 2 miles from my
fort and four others in the woods in this neighborhood. Brady [his
son-in-law] and others 25 followed or scouted after the savages
returned with 4 scalps and a great quantity of plunder. They wounded
Indians that escaped and killed a squaw by accident which they did
not scalp. The Indians killed 17 Yankees in a blockhouse without
loss of a man. As it is said we expect a bloody general savage war
and should expect you in the field if you was as capable as you
was when we was held back by rascal GL McIntosh. The Indians has
burnt chiefly all the corn at the Garsey settlement at [Wheeling?],
the inhabitants chiefly escaped into a stockade and after a 24 hours
battle held the fort. I am sincerely sorry that I am confined to
my home that I cannot do myself the pleasure of spending a few days
with you this spring the war forbid. I expect you will come to see
the army start this summer. If you should not I will visit you this
fall. (Van Swearingen Letters)
(Brady and his men were later accused of plundering for their killing
of the Delaware Indians at the Big Beaver Blockhouse on March 9,
1791, there being a strong question regarding the participation
of this band in any depredations; rewards of $300 and $1000 were
posted for the capture of Brady. His trial in Pittsburgh ended in
a not guilty verdict, but the jury required him to pay the costs.
See J.R. Warren 1978 article “Did Sam Brady Jump” in
Milestones v.4(3), www.bchistory.org.)
Indian Van’s 30-year-old nephew, now of Bourbon County Kentucky
(also named Van Swearingen), son of his brother Major Thomas Swearingen,
would be one of several thousand young men helping to form the army
mentioned in the above letter. Perhaps with a sense of foreboding
young Van wrote his last will and testament in August of 1791, which
was witnessed by his uncle Indian Van, Indian Van’s wife Eleanor,
and Indian Van’s daughter Drusilla Brady and later recorded
in Berkeley County, Virginia. He became a captain, unfortunately,
in an army that was hurriedly formed, poorly trained, and suffered
from a lack of supplies, leadership and armament. Berkeley County,
Virginia, also contributed several dozen soldiers to the cause,
including a General Darke and his sons. On November 4th, this young
Van Swearingen was one of about 700 soldiers killed by a surprise
Miami-led Indian attack against the entire American Army then marching
to Indiana under General St. Clair (Van’s will was presented
to the Berkeley County court in July 1792). St. Clair was the second
in a series of commanders who had been ordered by President Washington
and the new Congress to put down the Indian menace once and for
all. The Indians of course differed in their opinion of who was
to blame for all the bloodshed on what the Americans called the
“frontier” and the Indians called “home”.
The battle is known to history as “St. Clair’s Defeat”,
and the loss sent shock waves of fear and disgust throughout the
new country. A congressional investigation exonerated General St.
Clair when it was discovered that the Secretary of War Henry Knox
and his friend William Duer had stolen $55,000 of the $75,000 appropriated
to buy supplies for the ragged, ill-equipped new army; they had
used the money for land speculation. In only three hours of fighting,
more U.S. Army casualties occurred at the battlefield site now known
as Fort Recovery on the Ohio-Indiana border than at any battle of
the American Revolutionary War. The few surviving soldiers reported
that the powder they were given was so poor that rifle balls were
seen bouncing off their foes. American officers had been selectively
targeted early in the battle, leaving the remaining soldiers in
hopeless disarray. General Darke helped lead the escape for part
of the army, but had to watch in horror as one of his sons was killed
in the melee (Dandridge 1910). The Indians lost only about 40 men.
Military service and prestige had been beneficial to the Swearingens
over the years, but it also resulted in the occasional funeral.
Several years later, another battle on the same site, part of General
Wayne’s Campaign, would lead to an American victory and finally
settle - by the sword - the question of settlement of the Northwest
Territory.
The deceased Van’s brother Andrew, with his wife Polly, would
now take over the administration of the Kentucky lands. The difficulties
were numerous and familiar - competing claims and overlapping surveys
would keep the courts and the Swearingens busy in Kentucky for decades
to come. Land claims that were based on military warrants always
took precedence, so it seems that most of the considerable Swearingen
land holdings in Kentucky were eventually safely patented. The buffalo
herds that had numbered in the thousands in Kentucky 20 years before
were now completely gone, as were most of the other game animals.
Horses, slaves, cattle, tobacco and hemp, much of it sold down the
river to the Spanish/French settlement in New Orleans, were now
a prominent part of the Kentucky landscape (Wharton and Barbour
1991).
The late Col. Van’s widow Priscilla remarried to a Marcus
Alder on Jan 20. It is unknown if she and her daughter were still
living in the little cabin by the river that had been fixed up for
her. At this point she still owned the 150 acres of land on the
Potomac for the duration of her life, but events would soon lead
to some significant changes. Her new husband Marcus was no doubt
related to George Alder, who was a tenant recorded by surveyor Jonathan
Clark in 1786 living on the Metcalf farm on Terrapin Neck (Priscilla
was a Metcalf prior to her marriage to Col. Van).
1792
In February,
the heirs of Col. Van Swearingen signed a conveyance of the Terrapin
Neck land in contention to the Browning heirs (BCDB 10, p.151) after
being threatened with contempt of court and a jail sentence by Shepherd
- the Brownings paid the Swearingens 5 shillings for the land, the
traditional token amount. In fact, Shepherd had won only an attachment
to the Swearingen property, but he seems to have convinced the Swearingens
that this meant that they had to turn over the property, or perhaps
they preferred to lose the property rather than other resources.
This transaction now required that about 184 acres of the northern
portion of Terrapin Neck be turned over to the Browning heirs -
and 100 acres of this total came out of step-mother Priscilla and
her new husband’s 150 acres!!! Perhaps from the perspective
of the four Swearingen siblings, this property had already been
“lost” in 1789 when they had deeded it over to Priscilla
for the duration of her natural life. Josiah Swearingen would lose
(temporarily) 84 1/2 acres from the remaining Springwood estate,
now the southern portion of NCTC adjacent to Shepherd Grade and
Terrapin Neck road. The Swearingen heirs also had to worry about
paying the rents and profits dated from 1786. One wonders if Abraham
Shepherd felt uncomfortable about relieving his fellow Revolutionary
War comrade-in-arms and brother-in-law Josiah of his land and money.
Col. Van Swearingen’s estate was billed 50 pounds this year
by Abraham Shepherd for the hundred acres on Terrapin Neck that
Van had sold to Adam Money in 1777, which was probably a percentage
of the rents and profits owed for the Swearingen period of ownership
(BCWB 2, p146). A new fence line now appeared, following the old
Brooke survey line of 1734 starting at Shepherd Island and ending
near Terrapin Neck Road, splitting Priscilla’s property and
leaving her and her new husband Marcus Alder with just 50 acres.
This property line passes under the present-day NCTC footbridge.
This same 50 acres would later be sold by the Swearingen siblings
to Abraham Shepherd in 1798 (BCDB 17, p13) for 400 pounds. The siblings
must have re-acquired their rights to the property in return for
paying off the Alder’s share of the Browning lawsuit - an
estate settlement document shows in 1796 a payment of 25 pounds
“To rents paid William Keating for Marcus Alder as agreed
by the Heirs of Van Swearingen Deceased” and another
25 pounds “To cash paid Abraham Shepherd in full of Alder’s
Claim on Estate” (BCWB 3, pp463-472). This 50 acres is
now the area of the NCTC campus that includes the Instructional
buildings, lodges, and the Entry Auditorium.
At the same time that the Swearingens signed a conveyance of their
property to the Brownings in 1792, so also did Boydston (on Feb.
6), Williamson (on Feb. 13), and John and Elizabeth Lewis (the Lowes?,
on Feb. 20). Like the Swearingens, they had been threatened with
contempt of court and jail time. But unlike the Swearingens, they
didn’t realize that because they had never been on a court
list of landholders, never been served with court papers, and never
been asked to appear in court, Shepherd had no legal right to demand
this (Hyman 1996). Never mind that the 1736 survey was conducted
past the deadline, and the Brownings had never settled the land,
which were both legal requirements for retaining title back in 1736.
“Capt. Henry is now employed in clearing the Shepardstown
Falls” was announced in the annual report of the Potomac
Company, as they continued their work in clearing the Potomac River
of obstructions (Corra Bacon-Foster 1912). The “Falls”
most likely refers to the series of limestone ledges near Packhorse
Ford a mile or so south of town.
1793
In December,
Abraham Shepherd successfully argued in Chancery
Court to get Terrapin
Neck holders to move
off the
land and give
title over to the Browning heirs. The
court was also asked to figure out how much rent
and profit
the
Browning heirs
were owed.
Neighbor
Boydston was thrown in jail for a day
after refusing to move off his land. A jury summoned
into Shepherdstown
by
Shepherd
had heard
the case, and actually voted against
Shepherd!
in favor of the current land holders
on the Neck. Local
opinion
apparently
wasn’t
going to get Shepherd very far, so Shepherd
appealed to the District Court at Winchester.
The Winchester jury
found for
Shepherd and
the Browning heirs, allowing the eviction
of Boydston and others on the Neck. Boydston
asked
for an injunction
against this
ruling, which was granted.
Indian Van Swearingen, nephew of Col.
Van, died at the age of 51 at his plantation
on the Ohio
River,
leaving
behind several
adult
children, as well as three juvenile children
he had with his last wife Eleanor including
a new
son named
Thomas
(his first
son Thomas
was killed in 1787). His will divided
up
several plantations, slaves, two yoke
of oxen, milk
cows, a mill, still
house and a smith shop.
Because his estate was still tenuously
connected to the old Yorke
place out on Terrapin Neck, his heirs
and executors would be dealing with the
never-ending
court
case shortly. His will
distributed various tracts of land in
Pennsylvania and
Virginia among his
heirs,
but made no explicit mention of the property
on Terrapin Neck except to state that “the
profit arising therefrom the sail or
otherwise of my estate which I have not
mentioned in this will to be equally
divided” among his heirs.
Andre Michaux, the renowned French botanist,
collected plants in then-Berkeley County
(now Jefferson County)
that he would be adding
to his growing herbarium in Paris. Over
the next ten years other prominent botanists
including
Frederick Pursh, Benjamin
Barton
and Thomas Nuttall would visit the area
on
collecting expeditions (Boone 1965).
1794
“In
the year 1794 the French Revolution
broke out, when
bread stuffs of every kind suddenly
became enormously
high; in consequence of which the
farmers in the Valley abandoned the cultivation
of tobacco and turned their attention
to wheat,
which they raised in vast quantities
for several years. It was no uncommon
thing for the farmer, for several
years
after the commencement
of the French Revolution, to sell
his crops of wheat from one to two, and sometimes
at two and a half dollars per bushel,
and his
flour from ten to fourteen dollars
per
barrel in our seaport towns.” (from
Kercheval 1833)
What did the Hites do with their
newly-acquired money from the Fairfax
lawsuit? Some
of the money acquired
by the
Hites went
to Isaac Hite, grandson of Joist
Hite. Isaac was a veteran officer
of the
Revolutionary War, married
James
Madison’s
sister and was a friend of Thomas Jefferson.
Jefferson, in fact, helped
to design a new mansion for Isaac Hite,
which was built of native limestone
on Hite land
south of Winchester
between 1794
and 1797;
the money for the new mansion undoubtedly
came in part from the successful lawsuit
against
the Fairfax Proprietary.
Isaac
eventually
owned over a hundred slaves and worked
several thousand acres of land. The
home, Belle Grove,
today is recognized
as a national
landmark and remains nearly unaltered,
and offers daily tours between
April and October.
1795
Tragedy
strikes again - on August 9, Josiah Swearingen died,
51 years
old (his cousin
Van
and his uncle Thomas
died at almost
the exact same age). There was
not a will recorded at the courthouse,
suggesting
a more sudden
death; the settlement
of the estate
over the next several years as
the probate legalities were
followed is detailed in over
9
pages in
Berkeley County Will Book 3,
pages 463-72. The children, now orphans,
were 18, 16, 13 and 11 years
old. Josiah was
buried
next to
his wife,
sister-in-law
and
two young nieces at Springwood.
(There may be other burials there
-
we don’t know where Col. Van, his first wife Sarah, his daughter
Rebecca, or his son Thomas were buried, for example, and this seems
a possible spot). The estate recorded the services of coffin-maker
Robert Selby who made two caskets, one presumably for Josiah, the
other for a negro woman. Two gallons of port wine were provided
by William Blackford, apparently for the memorial services, and
a quantity of whiskey was also necessary for the “Appraisement
of Estate”. A housekeeper, Sally Noland, was retained until
the following March. Daughter Eleanor went to live with the Henry
Bedinger family, while son James, born at Springwood and now 13
years old, took up clerking in Berryville the same year (H.H Swearingen).
Brothers Thomas and Samuel were probably still living in the Shepherdstown
area. Josiah’s estate settlement gives an interesting glimpse
of farming life in the mid-1790s. Crews were contracted over the
next few years to plant, harvest, haul and clean many bushels of
wheat and rye. One of the recurring payments was for whisky and
wine to the field crews, no doubt some or all of them slaves. For
example, on July 9th, 1796 the crew went through 4 gallons of whisky
and two quarts of wine. On November 7th another crew went through
5 1/4 gallons of whiskey while husking corn. Two quarts of whisky
were paid men working for Eleanor. A sequence of payments in 1797
shows how some goods were brought to market: 27 flour casks were
purchased from “Smurr and Williams”, a payment was
made for carriage of these casks to the river, another payment
for 27 barrels of flour floated to “the falls” (Great
Falls), another payment for storage
at the falls, another for carriage
to Alexandria,
and then a final payment
for cooperage
and storage
at Alexandria. Another shipment
of 31 barrels of flour was sold
at Norfolk,
though there
is no mention of how
the flour
got there.
Also mentioned are 1 1/2 bushels
of flax seed,
a sale of timothy seed, and various
quantities of corn. No mention
is made of
tobacco.
1796
Josiah’s daughter
Eleanor, now an heiress with land and slaves, married Thomas
Worthington, also from a wealthy, prominent local family. In addition
to administering his family’s estate, Worthington had been
working recently in Shepherdstown as a part-time deputy sheriff.
The wedding took place in the parlor of Eleanor’s aunt and
uncle - Capt. Abraham and Eleanor Shepherd. Apparently the Browning
lawsuit had not lessened Nellie’s affection for her aunt and
uncle, and perhaps she wasn’t aware of her uncle’s role
in all that had transpired . Thomas Worthington also became the
legal guardian of his new wife’s younger brothers. Worthington
had recently returned from Ohio territory, having first been sent
out to Ohio by General Darke to locate and survey Darke’s
land that had been given as bounty lands for his service in the
Revolution; Darke eventually sold the land to Worthington at a low
price. General Darke had become like a father to the young Worthington
after losing all his sons in various military operations, including
St. Clair’s Defeat several years earlier. As a child, Worthington
had lost his father in the Revolutionary War (Dandridge 1910). Josiah
Swearingen didn’t live long enough to acquire land “over
the river” in Ohio, but all of his children would eventually
settle there.
Josiah’s estate settlement included bills for other sundry
items such as school supplies, clothing and numerous silk handkerchiefs
for young James and his brothers. James Bell was hired to make
several suits of clothes. Also listed are several payments to Abraham
Shepherd and the Browning heirs. For example, 87 pounds, 15 shillings,
8 pence were “paid Joshua Browning 1/4 of 84 acres also in
part for damages”, while another 63 pounds were “paid
William Keating 1/4 of 84 acres also in part for damages”.
Exactly what these damages were is still an intriguing question,
but perhaps referred to back rents. Another 181 pounds, 10 shillings
were paid to “Abraham Shepherd as per decree High Court of
Chancery”. James Wood, son of the surveyor of Terrapin Neck
in 1736, was now Governor of Virginia. His wife was a sister-in-law
to Drucilla Swearingen Rutherford (Col. Van’s
daughter).
The Chancery Court issued
an attachment against the
Swearingen
estate and
other Terrapin
Neck holders for contempt
of court for not paying the
Browning
heirs the rents and profits
due them from
1786.The Hessian Fly, Mayetiola
destructor, named because
it was supposedly introduced
by straw
brought in to
New York by
Hessian
troops during the Revolutionary
War, made its first appearance
in Virginia.
By the
following
year the
fly almost completely
destroyed the wheat crop
in
the vicinity of the Potomac
River (Kercheval
1833). It remains as a serious
pest of grain crops today.
Josiah
Swearingen’s probate documents mention wheat numerous times
in 1796, but it’s unknown
what percentage of the crop
they may have
lost.
1797
Because
of the Boydston appeal, more court-ordered
depositions were
taken concerning
Terrapin Neck
lands.
By order of the court, Josiah Swearingen’s
lands and 8 slaves were divided among his heirs by Abraham
Shepherd and several others. In the court document, Josiah’s
property (the present-day Cress Creek golf course community) originally
purchased from his father was described as “The mansion
tract of the said Josiah Swearingen situate and lying near Shepherdstown
and joining the lands of Joseph Swearingen, William Bennett and
the heirs of Martin Stip containing Two Hundred and twenty-four
acres”, while Springwood (NCTC) was referred to as “One
other tract of land, also near Shepherdstown on the potomack river
and bounded by the lands of Hezekiah Swearingen, Browning heirs
and lands now in possession of Marcus Alder containing Two Hundred
seventy-five acres”(Berkeley County Rerecorded Deed Book
1, p 431). The northern 137 acres of Springwood, the kitchen, and
3 slaves were given to Josiah’s son Samuel, who was then just
13 years old! Sam eventually became a Capt. in the War of 1812 and
had a long military career, rising to the rank of General. In later
years he settled in Ohio near his siblings, and was a legislator,
merchant and farmer; he died, like his father and mother, at a relatively
young age, 48, in 1832. The south 138 acres of Springwood, 1 slave,
and the house were given to Josiah’s son Thomas, who was 18
years old at the time. He also eventually moved to Ohio to be with
his brothers and sister, and after his first wife died he moved
to Illinois. A map of the 1797 division of Springwood is shown above
and portrays the ownership of Terrapin Neck lands after the Browning
lawsuit. Siblings James and Eleanor were each given a half of their
father’s tract near Shepherdstown, as well as slaves. Many
Virginia soldiers of the Revolution and their families began migrating
into Ohio and Kentucky in the late 1780s and 1790s. Joseph and Andrew
Swearingen, descendants of Thomas of the Ferry, were included in
the Bourbon County Kentucky Tax roles in the early 1790s; a William
Swearingen was taxed there in 1797.
A Swearingen appeal was
at least partially successful:
on the
fifth of June, 1797,
the High Court of
Chancery ordered that
84 1/2 acres
of property, part of
the April 1750 Fairfax
grant
to Col.
Van Swearingen,
be conveyed
by the Brownings
back
to the
heirs
of Josiah Swearingen
(JCDB 3, p.325). This
acreage was not only
returned to
Josiah’s
heirs, it also went back to Abraham’s teenage nephews; if
Abraham had his eye on Springwood at the time he shed no tears
over this “loss” from the Browning lands, as it might
be more easily acquired if it remained “in the family”.
(This land is adjacent to present-day Shepherd Grade and Terrapin
Neck Road on the south side of NCTC, and includes the fields now
being converted to native warm season grasses.) The Browning heirs
didn’t hurry to carry out this order- Josiah’s son
Thomas was still waiting for this conveyance to take place in 1806
when he sold his land--to who else but Abraham Shepherd. Priscilla’s
100 acres on Terrapin Neck remained with the Brownings. A day later
on June 6, 1797 the same June Court required the administrators
of Josiah’s estate to pay the Brownings £60 pounds
for past rents and profits in three installments, and held the
Medcalf-Boydston-Willamson-Bennett defendants in contempt of court
for not answering the court summons. This particular suit was “abated” for
Indian Van Swearingen on
account of his death.
On November 7th, 1797
Abraham Shepherd re-acquired
the
property across the
river from Shepherdstown
known as Pell
Mell from the
Freemans of New Jersey
(his brother had sold
it in 1769
to a Jacob
Vandiver, who passed
it to his
daughter
Phoebe
and her husband
Dr. Clarkson Freeman
- Washington Cty
DB K, p. 532). Abraham
immediately entered into
a 10-year
agreement
with a George
Batson, who was
to live on Pell Mell
as part
of a profit-sharing agreement,
provided
that George built
a house and barn and
cleared 20 acres over
the
next 5 years. Abraham
reserved the right to
remove firewood
and plant
fruit trees
and other crops,
mentioning wheat,
rye, corn,
oats, barley, tobacco
and buckwheat. Abraham
also agreed
to provide
nails, planks, shingles
and brick
(WC DB
L, p.47).
1798
Taking
up the Terrapin Neck lawsuit
appeal on behalf
of Boydston
and the
Terrapin Neck landowners,
the Richmond
Court again
found in favor of
Shepherd and the Browning heirs.
One of the
witnesses
for Thomas
Boydston was
John Welch,
who,
when questioned by
Abraham Shepherd about why Shepherd
had undertaken the
Browning cause,
answered:
“
...he informed me some time in 1793 that he never should have undertaken
that business at all had it not been for a long law suit between
him and the Swearingens about Shepherds Town ferry and by reason
of some unfair turn they took of him he had lost the ferry, and
knowing or hearing that the Brownings had a claim to 1200 acres
of land in Tarrapine Neck in which the Shepherds held some quantity
of land and he determined to retaliate the loss of the ferry upon
them by recovering from them that land and further saith not” (Case
Papers, Boydston v.
Shepherd, #1, copy
from E. Hyman).
So there we have
it. Since Abraham
seems to
have asked
the question
himself, he
apparently wanted
everyone
to know that he was
motivated to remove
the landholders
on Terrapin Neck
because of his
prior disagreements
with the
Swearingens.
Terrapin Neck landholders
were now evicted
by the local sheriff,
and
the Browning
heirs were
allowed
to take
possession. One or
more of them actually
moved to Terrapin
Neck
within a
few years,
though some
sold off
their portion
to Abraham Shepherd.
Keating
daughters eventually
married into Sappington,
Newman,
Vansant, and
Johnson families--
the cemetery on
Terrapin Neck Road
is (reportedly) full
of Keatings and Johnsons.
Boydston appealed
on procedural
grounds to the Staunton
Court, but his claim
was getting weaker
and weaker.
The 3 remaining Swearingen
siblings and the
administrator of
Josiah’s
estate sold to Abraham Shepherd for £400 pounds the 50 remaining
acres that had been part of step-mother Priscilla’s share
of the estate (BCDB 10, p282); however it was arranged, Priscilla
was now off the property and Abraham had his first 50 acres of
the Swearingen holdings. This parcel now includes much of the NCTC
campus. The transaction wasn’t recorded at the Berkeley County
courthouse until 1801, since part of the process entailed rounding
up witnesses to vouch for the siblings having actually signed the
document. Drusilla was vouched for on 6th Nov. 1798, Lurannah on
19th Jan. 1799, Henry Bedinger (representing Josiah’s estate)
and William Bennett on 21 Jan. 1799, and Hezekiah, the last holdout,
wasn’t vouched for until 23 Feb. 1801. In April of 1798,
Priscilla and her new husband Marcus Alder purchased 127 acres
directly south of the Boydston place along the road to Shepherdstown,
probably using in part proceeds from the old Swearingen property
(BCDB 14, p.571). Abraham Shepherd seems to have been the moneyman
for the transaction: Alder was still making payments to Abraham
Shepherd’s estate
in the 1820s, which
were in turn
passed
on to Thomas
Tool,
whose family originally
owned the land (see
JCWB 6, p.222).
Eleanor
Swearingen and her
new husband Thomas
Worthington packed
up their
belongings and moved
near the new
village of Chillicothe,
Ohio. The area was
being surveyed for
Virginia soldiers
of the
Revolution, and was
formerly a large Shawnee
Indian
town
site
that would become famous
in archeological
circles for the large
Hopewell Culture /
Adena burial
mounds. Eleanor
was accompanied on
the trip by her brothers
James
and Samuel and several
other people
who would
become prominent in
the early
history of Ohio. The
Worthingtons apparently
had a
strong dislike
for the institution
of
slavery, and emancipated
their slaves in Ohio
(Sears 1958);
Worthington soon became
prominent in business
and
Ohio politics, serving
in the Territorial
Legislature 1799-1803,
US
Senate 1803-1807
and
1810-1814, and finally
was
Governor of Ohio 1814-1818.
Benoni Swearingen
died this year. He
left
his ferry operation,
personal and real
estate to
his son
Henry, and daughter
Sarah, who was married
to a John
Blackford
(Wash. Cty WB A,
p. 395).
His third wife Hester
was given a patch
of ground
near Sharpsburg,
their dwelling
house
(now 125
East Main
Street in Sharpsburg),
and a slave named
Jane and her daughter,
provided that Hester
would give up her
right
of dower
to the western lands
in Kentucky. The
ferry operation
would now
be known as Blackford’s
Ferry.
The former town of Mecklenburg was now officially renamed Shepherds
Town (this was contracted to Shepherdstown after the Civil War).
Abraham Shepherd at this time also was busy with land transactions
out in Ohio. Between 1798 and 1813 he would patent some 6895 acres
in the Virginia Military District near Chillicothe. He was the original
warrantee on less than half of this land, as he purchased or traded
other warranted tracts from several other men, including a John
Galt, Hugh Stephenson, Thomas Coverley, Jesse Bland and Robert Porterfield.
A number of other Shepherds Town men had also been buying, selling
and trading land there, including ferry operator Benoni Swearingen,
who at one time had acquired 1000 acres from Abraham Shepherd (this
land was originally warranted to a Christopher Brady, and was finally
patented by a Joseph Petty). The only Swearingen with a warrant
for land in Ohio was a Joseph Swearingen, possibly Benoni’s
brother, who put in for 227 acres; apparently most of the Swearingen
family bounty lands were located in Kentucky. (View original Ohio
General Land Office records at web site www.glorecords.blm.gov).
1799
Ill
health forced James Swearingen, son of Josiah, to give up his clerking
job, so at 17 years of age, he moved to Chillicothe, Ohio, in 1799
after swapping his Virginia land near Shepherdstown with land owned
by his brother-in-law Thomas Worthington out in Ohio. He began a
long military career a year later. He was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant
in 1803 and was among those given the task of building Ft. Dearborn,
which later grew to become the city of Chicago. (H.H. Swearingen
1884).
The heirs of “Indian” Van Swearingen then living in
Ohio County finally finished with their father’s old lawsuit
against Abraham Shepherd involving the property on the end of Terrapin
Neck. In Van Swearingen vs Abraham Shepherd, the appeal listed as
defendant the grandson! of William Chapline (Chalkley vol. 2, p.
105). William Chapline was the man who had sold the land to the
Swearingens back about 1770 despite the court ruling that had turned
the property over to the Hites, and the Chapline heirs several generations
later would be dragged into court to carry on the squabble. The
details from Chalkley are sketchy but it is apparent that debate
over land on Terrapin Neck spread a wide net of misery over multiple
generations of several families, many of whom had long since even
seen the place. This suit was archived under April 1799 Circuit
Court Causes Ended, in the same batch with Browning vs Swearingen
and Boydston vs Shepherd.
An entry in a Shepherd Family Account Book (sect. 3) for Moses Shepherd:
Received of Moses Shepherd one hundred and fifty dollars for
the [indecipherable] Abraham Morgan of ShepherdsTown in
part pay for negro girl bought by Abraham Shepherd from Abraham
Morgan April the 12, 1799
Abraham Shepherd’s sawmill also produced a large order of
lumber of various sizes including “scantling”, shingles,
rafters and planks sold to the “United States” in October
this year for buildings being erected presumably for the new Armory
in Harper’s Ferry. His distillery was very busy throughout
the 1790s, with hundreds of gallons of brandy and whisky sold nearly
every month (Shepherd Family Papers, sect. 1). He also found time
to keep up with political problems besetting the new nation. Consider
a rather non-committal letter he received written in the handwriting
of George Washington’s secretary Tobias Lear:
Mount Vernon, October 21, 1799
Sir: Your letter of the 15th inst. offering your services as Colonel
in the Provisional Army, has been duly received. Whenever the appointment
of the Officers of this Army shall take place, it will be pleasing
to find, in the list of Candidates, the names of such as were valuable
officers in our Revolutionary war. They will meet with due attention,
and among them your letter will not be forgotten. I am etc.
(Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library)
1800
Abraham
Shepherd and his wife had
the last
of their 8
children
this year, with
the birth of
Charles
M. Shepherd.
Older
brothers
still alive
included Henry, Rezin
Davis,
Abram, and
James Hervey,
along
with
sisters Annie
and Eliza.
Young Rezin
was named
for Rezin Davis,
a Revolutionary
War
colleague
of Abraham’s
that had commanded
the Light Horse
Brigade from
Hagerstown,
Maryland
1802-1803
The
court made its final decree on the judgement levied against the
Swearingen estate. Abraham Shepherd, the “thin-visaged little
man, of prominent features, full of energy” would shortly
begin acquiring various parcels of Terrapin Neck, and within a few
years would own 750 acres of Terrapin Neck and the surrounding area.
Much of the land acquired by Abraham Shepherd would stay in the
Shepherd family for almost a century.
William Bennett, son-in-law of Col. Van and husband of Luranna,
died in 1802, and one source lists him as buried in the Springwood
cemetery along with Josiah, Phoebe and Rebecca Swearingen. Two other
Bennetts, presumably William’s daughters, are also listed
as being buried there earlier - an infant Mary Bennet who died in
1779 (possibly while William was in Kentucky) and a second Mary
Bennett, 6 years old, who died in 1790 (Tombstone Inscriptions Jefferson
County WV).
By this year, many European plants with invasive properties had
become well established in the lower Shenandoah Valley. For example,
viper’s bugloss, Echium vulgare, was already described as
a “pernicious weed” in Jefferson County (Strausbaugh
and Core).
In 1802 the Potomac Company completed a canal around Great Falls
on the Potomac River, which made possible for the first time an
uninterrupted passage between the lower Shenandoah Valley and shipping
ports in Alexandria - for approximately three months out of the
year when the water was high enough to float a cargo-laden boat.
1805-1806
Final
depositions
were
taken
at
Abert’s
Tavern
in Shepherdstown
regarding
the Hite-Browning-Fairfax
legal
proceedings
on Terrapin
Neck.
Local
people
were
still
perplexed
at how
the landholders
on Terrapin
Neck
had lost
their
land.
The merits
of
the landholder’s
claims
had clearly
not been
presented
to a
court,
and even
back
then
the landholders
on Terrapin
Neck
were
considered
victims
of legal
maneuvers
to gather
Fairfax
assets
in the
wake
of the
Revolutionary
War.
Abraham
Shepherd
himself
was quoted
as saying
by several
there
that
at some
point “the
business
was so
riveted
that
it could
not be
gone
into
again”.
Shepherd
was also
quoted
in a
Boydston
case
deposition
as bemoaning
his fate
of having
incurred “the
everlasting
ill-will
of these
people”.
Shepherd
was correct
- in
Boydston’s
will,
he referred
to his
land
as having
been “wickedly,
deceptively,
artfully
and fraudulently
wrested
from
me by
Abraham
Shepherd” and
refused
to
concede
the
loss
(Hyman
1996).
1807
More
of the Springwood tract was sold to Abraham Shepherd. Abraham prior
to this time owned only the 50 acre parcel once owned by Priscilla,
but now Josiah’s son Thomas Swearingen, described in the deed
as a resident of the “Northwestern Territory” sold his
inherited 138 acres of Springwood to uncle Abraham Shepherd for
$1380 dollars “current money of Pennsylvania” (JCDB
3, p325). This left 137 acres of Springwood adjacent to the river
still in his brother Samuel’s hands, though brother Samuel
would also sell his portion to uncle Abraham in a couple of years.
RiverView Farm to the west was still owned by Hezekiah Swearingen
and his son Van, while the ferry service across the Potomac, the
original Bellevue mansion and surrounding lands were also still
owned by heirs of Thomas “of the Ferry” Swearingen.
Another Thomas Swearingen with his wife Margery still owned and
operated the mill and surrounding lands near Scrabble at this time.
Why didn’t young Thomas sell or rent the Springwood property
to one of his numerous Swearingen relatives in the area? Hezekiah
in particular should have been interested in the property, though
it should be noted that there are no records of Hezekiah acquiring
any local property other than that given to him by his father. Family
feud? Did young Thomas, like his sister, have a warm regard for
his uncle Abraham? Did Abraham Shepherd offer more than the Swearingens?
Were the remaining Swearingens concerned about retaining title after
over 35 years of wrangling over ownership of adjacent property,
or just uninterested, or perhaps hard up for money after years of
court battles? The young brothers could not hope to make a living
from the small acreage on the Potomac, and many of their peers and
neighbors were moving to Ohio and Kentucky. Perhaps it should not
be too surprising that Abraham Shepherd ultimately ended up with
the property, though not everyone in the neighborhood was happy
with his methods of acquiring land. It’s interesting that
Hezekiah deeded the northern 140 acres of RiverView Farm adjacent
to the new Shepherd property to his son Van this year, while he
kept the southern half of the property. Son Van likely built the
house and building complex west of the present-day NCTC water treatment
plant shortly before or after this time. In the 1807 deed Hezekiah
specifically asked that he be given the right to occupy and gain
profit for his own benefit for the remainder of his life “a
piece of meadow ground containing about 4 acres called the wet meadow
near Abraham Shepherd being part of the land conveyed to me by my
father” (JCDB 4, p. 106). The springs within the wet
meadow were perhaps the most reliable source of water for Hezekiah’s
property to the south, but were also the closest water supply to
Shepherd’s new house, the property line giving each of them
access to a part of the spring, a legacy of the instructions given
to the surveyors for Lord Fairfax in the 1750s. This 4 acres is
the area west of the estate house where the pond and cottage are
today. At the time, the route from Shepherdstown to the estate house
may not have been as direct, as “Shepherd Grade” had
probably not been built yet in its current alignment. The road to
Shepherd’s house would have had to go around the narrow corridor
owned by the Swearingens on RiverView Farm, and entered from further
east on Terrapin Neck.
The final court appeals of Boydston were exhausted, and the appeals
court again favored Shepherd and the Brownings. Abraham Shepherd,
53 years old, was now living in the Springwood estate house with
his family and slaves, and was on his way to acquiring over 750
acres of Terrapin Neck lands, including the old York tract that
Indian Van Swearingen had struggled so many years to acquire legally,
as well as the Boydston plantation – his fee for acquiring
Terrapin Neck for the Browning heirs. Abraham’s wife would
now be living in the house next to her sister’s grave. With
Springwood as his trophy, possibly Abraham felt now that he had
obtained “full satisfaction for every insult which they
have been good enough to bestow ...”.
While finishing his first term in the US Senate representing Ohio,
Thomas Worthington and his wife “Nellie” Swearingen
built a large mansion-Adena- in Chillicothe, Ohio, described as
the “most elegant mansion in that part of the west”;
the facade bears more than a passing resemblance to the Swearingen
mansion at Springwood. The architect was Benjamin Latrobe, who had
also been assigned by President Thomas Jefferson several years earlier
to complete the White House, Capitol and other federal buildings
in Washington. Eleanor’s brothers worked at Adena occasionally;
in 1811-12 James was general supervisor of the estate and flour
mills, while Thomas managed the textile mill and ropewalk in Chillicothe
(Sears 1958). Adena is now on the National Register of Historic
Places. One of the first sheriffs of Ross County, Ohio, which included
Chillicothe, was also finishing up his first and only year in office
- David Shepherd, grandson of the founder of Shepherdstown. He eventually
became a surveyor, rancher, innkeeper, and tavernkeeper, went bankrupt
and moved to Pickaway County, then on to Illinois, where he spent
the rest of his life.
Out in Kentucky, Andrew Swearingen and his wife Polly sold a number
of small parcels of the family’s Kentucky lands. The largest,
about 1500 acres, sold for $1 and “certain services”
to a Robert Hamilton. The deed mentioned that there was not a guarantee
there were no competing claims for the property (Bourbon County
DB F p 125). Predictably, courts eventually awarded 470 acres of
this property to a Stephan Miller, and a year later Andrew’s
siblings back in Berkeley County Virginia, Thomas and Drusilla,
were ordered by a Chancery Court to honor this and several other
agreements (Bourbon Cty DB G, p15 and 134). This suggests that Andrew
was selling some property without getting agreement from his siblings,
and shows that the Swearingens -again - were also caught up in the
frenzy of litigation over competing land claims occurring at that
time in Kentucky. More trouble was to come.
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