Author Archives: susantichy

More on family of William & Matilda Bowie

James Louis Bacon, a descendant of William & Matilda Bowie, is working on a family history that includes the Bowies, as well as his Jackson ancestors who were key figures in the Underground Railroad in Jersey City, New Jersey. He has very kindly shared information about the Bowies and answered many of the questions left open in my page about William & Matilda. I have updated that page, accordingly.

William & Matilda and three of their children were manumitted by the will of Roderick McGregor. (Two older sons were not included in that manumission.) One of their grandsons (William A. Bowie, son of Nathaniel Bowie) was co-founder of a bank in Washington D.C. and prominent in the black community. Considering that Nathaniel was 15 when he was manumitted, that his parents were illiterate and that he himself received little formal schooling, it is truly impressive that his son William achieved so much. I am very grateful to Mr. Bacon for sharing this information and pointing me to articles and advertisements in the Washington Bee (a black newspaper in  D.C.) that detail William A. Bowie’s career. I look forward to reading the history of his family, on both sides.

I also have new information about slaves inherited by Roderick McGregor’s wife, Ann Eleanor Eversfield Berry (widow Eaton), in 1832. I’ve not yet had time to update the page on the slaves of Roderick McGregor, but will do so soon.

Anchovie Hills Wildlife Sanctuary

As some of you already know, Anchovie Hills–Alexander Magruder’s home at the time of his death–is now under permanent protection from development. Originally patented at 400 acres, the plantation was subdivided several times among heirs and remained in Magruder ownership at least through the early 19th century. It has been in the family of the present owner, Mary Cross Zoeter, for about 150 years. The present property is 171 acres, privately owned but protected by two conservation easements–one ensuring it will never be developed, the other specifically protecting its wildlife from hunting and trapping.

Anchovie Hills is located on Croom Road in Brandywine, Maryland, close to the original Magruder’s Landing, at the location now called Magruder’s Ferry Boat Ramp on Magruder’s Ferry Road. The boat ramp is public, but Anchovie Hills itself is private land with no public access. 

You can read about the Anchovie Hills Wildlife Sanctuary and watch a short video on the website of the Humane Society’s Wildlife Land Trust. Please consider making a donation.

Your comments & a new year

Well, it’s a new year, with all its resolutions…. but I still have only a little time to devote to Magruder’s Landing. Thanks to all who have encouraged me to continue. I will! I HAVE had time for some new research, and will add that to the list of topics pending.

I was surprised when I got the year-end summary by how many people have come to this site–several hundred, though few have left any trace of themselves behind.

And speaking of that…I just found out by browsing through the comments, as stored on the web provider, that I haven’t been receiving emails every time someone posts a comment. That’s how it’s supposed to work, and sometimes it does…. So if you didn’t see your comment appear, and I didn’t respond, I hereby apologize. I have just approved the ones I missed, and will start checking regularly to make sure I’m on top of it.

 

Directions to Belliclone Farm

For Liz, who is cycling around Crieff and Perthshire…traveling vicariously for us all…here are directions to Belliclone Farm.

I took this this partly from memory (from two previous visits) and partly from someone else’s typed directions.

Belliclone is east of Crieff on the old Perth-Crieff road. You can come from that direction, or reach it off the A85 east of Crieff.  About 6 miles from Crieff is an unnumbered road on the right that leads in about a mile to the ruins of Inchafray Abbey. You’ll see them on your right, not very large, across a field. There’s a private house there but the owner let myself and friend in to see the ruins in ’99. His electronic gate says Inchaffray Abbey. To find Belliclone, keep going on that road past Inchaffray about 2.5 miles to a paved road, which is the old Perth-Crieff road. Turn right. There are new houses along that road, in case you have to ask directions. The typed directions say it’s about a mile from there to the Bellyclone road on the right, a private road. I recall that it was or seemed farther. Once you turn right on the Bellyclone road it will run north a short way then hook back to the right (east) and you’ll see Belliclone on the right, if new houses haven’t been built in front of it. The tenants in ’99 were reasonably friendly toward our visit. Because of the plaque placed on the house by American Magruders in ’75 they weren’t too surprised to see strangers at the gate.

If you look at the outbuildings, you’ll find a partition wall between two sections where the stonework looks markedly older than the rest. It is visible from the outside where the end of the partition wall forms part of the exterior wall. This is said to be stonework dating from Alexander Magruder’s time, though I don’t’ know how this was established, nor what kind of building it is supposed to have been.

Also nearby is Maderty Church & cemetery.

Good luck, Liz!

McGruder / McGregor / Campbell / Drummond : Are you confused yet?

The more I learn about the McGrouther/McGruther/McGruder family in Scotland the more outlandish it seems to imagine they were part of Clan Gregor or that Alexander ever identified himself as a MacGregor. The Drummond family, to whom the McGruders were connected for many generations, were closely allied with the Glenorchy Campbells, with whom the MacGregors feuded bitterly. And, more particularly, the Drummonds and McGruthers had a powerful reason to feud with Clan Gregor themselves. See the new page I’ve just put up, with the same title as this post, under the heading Scotland.

McGruder/MacGrouther sites in Glen Artney

Well, I’m back from a summer spent 12 miles from the nearest internet, so you can expect more posts and new pages in the coming months. Jill asked if I had birth or death dates for the 16th c. McGruders in Alexander’s family tree–and the answer is no, no one does. Don McGruther and the other researchers mentioned on that page have reported the records that survive–mostly land transactions, legal proceedings, and the like. From those fragments we can make educated guesses about the the life spans of some of those named, but we can’t go any further.

So, where is Meigor, where Alexander’s uncle acquired title to land? And where is Craigneich, where we believe Alexander was raised by McGruder relatives after the death of his father…………?

I have moved this information to a new page, McGruder Sites in Glen Artney, under “Scotland,” with a couple of useful links added to help you find ’em.

 

Finding Magruder plantations in MD

Actually, I haven’t made much effort to do this, but here are some ways to start…

Use the link at right to Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties, where you can search by name, browse within counties, and so forth.

  • Magruder sites include Anchovie Hills and Dunblane. Most of the early Magruder plantations were in what is now Prince George’s County.
  • Magruder’s Landing (now Magruder’s Ferry) can easily be found on the map, as it’s now a park and public boat launch. Anchovie Hills was/is just uphill from there. When I tried to find in about a dozen years ago, the property was overgrown and going unused.
  • Descriptions of the properties were current when application was first made for historic protection, so check the date on the documents, and browse for other information, like where the original surveys and deeds may be found.
  • I have had the best luck searching with a “Begins with” string, rather than trying to match the exact name they have in the database.

In her 1959 book, Prince George’s County Heritage, Louise Joyner Heinton included a fold-out map of tracts as they were laid out in the early years of the county. There little correlation to modern landmarks, but major watercourses and the rail line give some aid. The early Magruder properties were all in the portion that had been Calvert County before P.G. was founded. The original of this map should be at the Maryland Hall of Records, according to a note in the book.

  • I used this map as I drove around the area back in the 90s, and was able to locate some properties, at least approximately. It helps when developers name streets for the old plantations.
  • Alexander’s plantations Anchovie Hills, Good Luck, Alexandria, Craignecht, and Dunblane all appear on this map.

Use the link at right to Find a Grave. Family cemeteries are one way to locate a vanished home site. Several significant Magruder cemeteries in Prince George’s County.

Oakley Cabin African American Museum, Olney, MD (Montgomery County). Oakley Farm was purchased by Dr. William Bowie Magruder in 1836. Lots of interesting sites near-by.

Will of William Mordecai Bowie/Af-Am Addisons

I’ve just put up a new page, with info from the 1863 will of William Mordecai Bowie, including a probable link between the 1880 census and two slaves named in his estate inventory–Roderick Addison and Aaron Addison. In 1880, three Addison households + other Af-Am families named Coats, Simms, Ferley, Shaw, Pottinger, Sprigg, Marshall, Fletcher, and Diggs were living in close proximity with Margaret Bowie (William M. Bowie’s widowed daughter-in-law), as well as Roderick McGregor (II), his mother Susan E. McGregor. Af-Am servants named Williams were in the Bowie and McGregor households. And not far off lived John T. Sansbury (“Sandsbury” in this census) who had previously been an overseer for Roderick’s uncle, the first Roderick McGregor.

An Af-Am McGruder family tree

Thanks to Jill Magruder Gatwood for sending this link. Ned Wynne McGruder and Maria McGruder were born in slavery at the turn of the 19th century. This family tree was created by two of their descendants, Wilmar McGruder and Kevin McGruder, from census records, family stories, and other sources. Check it out, and celebrate!

Ned Wynne McGruder & Maria McGruder family tree

And check out all that’s new on African American Magruder Descendants on Facebook.

Conditions of Indenture in Alexander’s Time

Page numbers are from Russell Menard’s Economy and Society in Early Colonial Maryland (Garland Publishing, 1985), unless otherwise noted. See Sources for more. 

  • Most indentured servants in 17th c. Maryland were young men and boys. A 22 year-old immigrant would live about 18-23 years (pp 68, 135). As a man already in his early 40’s on arrival, Alexander Magruder was a great exception.
  • Most were probably from “middling” families–yeomen, husbandmen, artisans. They differed from free settlers primarily in being unable to pay their own passage. (pp 68, 71)
  • In later generations, more came from the lower classes.
  • Alexander and others transported as prisoners of war were the exception, not the rule, as were transported criminals.
  • Few had formal education and only about half could write their name. It is possible that some could read who could not write. The colony’s public affairs were conducted orally. Alexander Magruder appears to have been fully literate. (p 58)
  • Servants probably worked 10 to 14 hours a day, six days a week, as specified by English law. (p 69)
  • Servants could be sold, and faced severe punishment for running away (p 69). Historians’ analyses of how many ran away–and where and why–vary.
  • Servants’ rights included adequate food, clothing, and shelter, Sundays off, and the right to protest ill-treatment in the courts. They were subject to corporal punishment. Surviving records indicate few cases of abuse, though some cases that do survive are extreme. (p 69)
  • No actual documents of indentures survive. A model document from the 1635 promotional publication A Relation of Maryland, specifies that the master was to pay the servant’s passage, provide food, lodging, clothing, and other necessities. At the expiration the indenture, he was to provide clothing, food for a year, and 50 acres of land. (Menard p 69, or read the document in Narratives of Early Maryland p 99)
  • By a 1640 act of the Maryland Assembly, at the end of his term a servant was entitled by law to “one good cloth suite of Keirsey or Broadcloth a Shift of white linen one pair of Stockins and Shoes two hoes one axe 3 barrels of Corne and fifty acres of land five whereof at least to be plantable.” (p 70)
  • Masters did not give their servants 50 acres of their own land, but only a “headright” to 50 acres of uncleared, unimproved land–typically valued at a mere 100 pounds of tobacco. To make use of his headright, a man newly “come out of his time” had to locate the 50 acres, pay a surveyor, and then a clerk’s fee to register his ownership (p 70). Headrights could be, and often were, sold. Most who entered indenture never acquired land.
  • The usual term of service was 5 years, but shorter terms could be assigned to someone with artisan skills. Earlier release also could be purchased, and such arrangements sometimes obligated the servant to continue providing some services to his former master. (p 70-71) See my page on Alexander for my beliefs about why he served a much shorter term.
  • In the first generation, only about half of indentured servants survived their indenture. Most who died, died of disease–cholera in summer, pneumonia in winter. The death rate among newly arrived settlers was only a little lower than the catastrophic death rate among Natives.
  • “Seasoning” was the period after arrival, when a settler faced a high likelihood of death. Seasoned men were more valuable as servants, having proved their ability to survive.
  • Edmund S. Morgan has argued that the high mortality rate increased opportunities for those who did survive. Menard finds too little evidence to support this theory. (p 177)
  • In any case, those who did survive indenture could expect to become substantial members of society. Once this early generation secured their places in the food chain, opportunities for later arrivals narrowed.
  • Menard studied 137 indentured servants who arrived in Maryland between 1648 and 1652. Just over half appeared later in the records as free men–though 5 of those died soon after completing their indenture, and another 11 vanished from the records soon after. Of the 56 remaining, most became small, land-holding planters, holding on average between 50 and 400 acres. (p 174)
  • Alexander Magruder is named by Menard as one of just 3 in this group who owned more than 1000 acres when they died. (p 174-75)
  • Around half of those who did not acquire land nevertheless established families and participated in local government. (p 175)