Kennedy Farmhouse

April 2009

I made a trip out to Frostburg last Thursday for a visit with my daughter, and took advantage of the fact that I was traveling alone by making some fun side trips on the way back. My primary goal was to find the Kennedy Farmhouse, the secluded farmhouse in the shadow of South Mountain, south of Sharpsburg and north of Sandy Hook, where John Brown hid out, stockpiled weapons, and planned his raid on Harper's Ferry during the summer and early fall of 1859. Many winding roads and brown signs later, I finally came upon the historical marker which pointed me to the back of a clearing beside the road where, behind a chain link fence (and, unfortunately, a locked gate) stood the surprisingly small farmhouse. It is hard to believe that at one time during those exciting, secretive months in the life of this building, up to 21 people were hidden in the attic and could only emerge quietly in the dark of night to help unload shipments of arms and equipment and to make plans.



Since I was in the area, I decided to visit Crampton's Gap, the only one of the three 'gaps' involved in the Battle of South Mountain that I had not yet visited. After the war, a large portion of the battlefield at Crampton's Gap was purchased by George Alfred Townsend, a sometime journalist and author of the strange novels Katy of Catoctin and The Entailed Hat, who dubbed himself  "Gath." He covered his part of the mountain with buildings and other structures, including the War Correspondents Arch, which is dedicated to the artists and journalists who were active during the Civil War.


This is the arch as seen from the road coming up from Burkittsville.


A terra-cotta horse's head

Gath has been criticized for having an inflated ego, for obscuring the significance of the battlefield by overlaying it with the many constructions (monuments to himself?) on his estate, and also for leaving off the names of many who should have been named on the Arch, and including many who should not have been. Here is an article on the subject by a Burkittsville writer.

When I arrived at Crampton's Gap last Thursday, it had become overcast and was just beginning to rain. It was a warm day, and the wonderful smell of ozone was in the air. It was late in the afternoon, close to 5:00, and the park office was closed. I was the only person in sight, except for the occasional passing car. It was perfectly quiet except for the sound of the rain and the birds. The mountain pass smelled of 'clean woods.'


Forsythia and wild rhododendron at Crampton's Gap.

If it had been earlier in the day, I would have taken a walk along the ridge on the Appalachian Trail which passes right through the Gap, just behind Gath's mausoleum. Most of the buildings Gath constructed are now gone, some with only the foundations remaining. The strangest is definitely the mausoleum he built for himself, which he never occupied after death...by that time, his fortunes had changed, and for some reason he was buried in a cemetery in Philadelphia instead.


Gath's mausoleum and a nearby stone arch.


Gath's epitaph.


This is part of a strange, roofless enclosure, the size of a small house, with two openings to walk through. It's near the mausoleum, and nobody knows what he built it for. I just think he liked building drystone walls....it is pretty impressive!

On the way back down the mountain, heading west in the path of the Confederate retreat, I passed a huge old stone farmhouse with a very busy dog running around nearby. I stopped and he posed for a picture. I think he is one of the many 'black dogs' who have guarded the passes on South Mountain as long as anyone can remember. Fantastic, magical, and terrifying qualities are reported of these dogs, who go by the collective name of the "Snarly Yow." Whether they are related, all aspects of the same being, or whether they carry the spirits of long-standing guardians of this special place will, for now, remain a mystery.



Before I left for home, I made a quick drive up to Fox's Gap to check my favorite mirror at the site of the Wise Farm. This spot, too, was quiet and deserted, and I took a few more pictures. Maybe next time I'm up there I can pick some apples again...they were small and a little buggy but they made good applesauce :-D

Margaret Hopkins Fitzgerald and the Burning of Hampton

(April 19, 2010)

Today a friend remarked that it saddens him to see boxes of old photos in an antique or thrift store, knowing that the descendants of the people in the photos either no longer have an interest in them, or perhaps don't even know who they were. Names and dates are one kind of knowledge.....but stories are another. I have collected so many names, dates, and locations while learning the history of my family, and I am consumed by curiosity about what they did...what happened to them...what were the big events in their lives? ---as well as small clues about their personality traits. I want to learn things about them and write them down, so these stories and details aren't lost forever just because nobody remembers them. I will never know exactly what these people were like, but I can put together clues from the places and times they lived in and what details I can find. This is an exciting process.

So, last Friday when on a bored and idle whim I decided to search for historical documents about Thomas Fitzgerald (a great-great grandfather whose parentage I hadn't figured out yet), imagine my surprise when I found an article entitled "A Short History of Bascom's Chapel, Eastern Shore Methodism During the Civil War, and the Hopkins/FitzGerald Family Connection." I know. It sounds pretty boring. I'm not at all fascinated by church history, and although I am interested in the Civil War, I didn't think much of anything happened on the Eastern Shore, and it looks like it didn't......other than Federal troops taking over church buildings for barracks, and similar things. No, the exciting part was "the Hopkins/FitzGerald Family Connection", and while I'm not terribly interested in their religious affiliations and loyalties, this article contained an exciting passage about Margaret Hopkins Fitzgerald, Thomas' wife and my grandfather's great-grandmother:

"It was during the winter, late 1861 or early 1862, while the Yankee troops used the churches and schools in Onancock as barracks and set up tent encampments on private property throughout the town, that Margaret Anne Hopkins FitzGerald, an early war widow, slipped through the blockade and arrived with her seven children to live in Onancock. Her eldest son, Nehemiah, was serving with the 2nd Company of Richmond Howitzers. Her brother, John P.L. Hopkins, had sent a schooner to bring her home from wherever she had fled when Hampton, Virginia was burned to the ground (in August, 1861.) She had resided there in Elizabeth City County since her marriage on Christmas Day, 1837 in Onancock.

"With her husband dead, her home burned, and no means of support, Margaret moved to a house provided by her father, Stephen A. Hopkins, who most likely also provided financial support. She took in sewing to add a few pennies to her meager funds. Just a few steps away from her front door at 25 King Street, today known as the Fitzgerald House, was a church building---Bascom's Chapel."

........ I found another article today which stated that Stephen Hopkins (Margaret's father) was one of two men 'authorized' to run ships out of Onancock past the blockade, which must explain why her brother could go and fetch her from Hampton

Bascom's Chapel was formed in the 1840s, when the Methodist Church split over the question of ownership of slaves. Bascom's was the 'pro-slavery' church, from what I can determine. The article goes on to talk about Margaret's involvement and dispute with the chapel in later years.

I did learn several new things in this article--- First of all, that because Margaret is referred to as an "early war widow," Thomas E. Fitzgerald's death (which I have recorded as occuring in 1863, but according to this article he was dead by the beginning of 1862) had something to do with the war, whether he was a soldier or got caught up in the action as a citizen. I'm wondering if it had to do with the occupation or the burning of Hampton. Also, I learned the identity of the Fitzgerald (Nehemiah) who served in the Confederate Army. My dad had told me only that it was 'one of the boys.' After the war, Nehemiah went to California, where he worked as a teacher. He must have had an interesting life. During the course of my bored and idle searching on Friday, I also found the probable parents of Thomas Fitzgerald....wouldn't you know, he is descended from the Onancock Chandlers, into whose family his daughter would then marry. His grandson was Carson Fitzgerald Chandler, the first of three men to have that name. The youngest is my father.

The photo below shows the first Carson Fitzgerald Chandler, Margaret and Thomas' grandson, with his wife Edith Augusta "Gussie" Walsh Chandler and my grandfather, Carson F. Chandler Jr., as a baby. It was taken in about 1915 in Virginia.

The Background of a Lost Family Story

From the Richmond Times Dispatch, August 9, 1861:

The town of Hampton Burnt by the Hessians.
Norfolk. Aug. 8

A large fire was discovered last night about 1 o'clock in the immediate location of Hampton. It continued its flames until about 3 o'clock this morning. The impression here is, that the Federals have burned Hampton. Several prominent houses there were recognized by some of our citizens to have been in flames. From an elevated position, and with the use of glasses, they seem confident that Hampton is in ashes, and the further inference is that the Federals have evacuated that place.
[Second Dispatch]
Norfolk, August 8 1 o'clock P. M. --Burning of Hampton has been confirmed by the statements of several officers who have just reached here from Craney Island. Dense smoke continues to ascend, and the opinion is that the burning still continues.
The flames last night were intense, and the reflection of them on our steeples was plainly visible, although Hampton is about sixteen miles from Norfolk.


The burning of Hampton.
The news of this last crowning act of barbarity seems to be confirmed. The quiet, unoffending old village, which even the British spared in the late war, has been converted into a heap of ashes by the Black Republican invaders. A more wanton, unprovoked and infernal piece of pure diabolism was never committed.

In this life of mysteries, the heart of man clings with fond tenacity to all that has an appearance of permanence and certainly, and therefore about the homestead which he was born in, where he has felt a mother's love and a father's care, where he has played with brothers and sisters, and indulged all the sweetest dreams, joys, hopes, affections and aspirations of humanity, his heart clings as to an anchor that holds it steady and yet buoyant amid all the fluctuations of human affairs. Around the native house every tendril of his heart is entwined, mantling it as the green vine does the wall, and making the dull, inanimate materials fragrant and beautiful. When the dear old homestead is gone, it is an affliction second only to the loss of those whose presence and love have made it dear. And all this the families of Hampton have lost. They were first driven from those homes which they were not able even to defend, and then, after those homes had failed without resistance into the hands of the enemy, who had occupied them at their pleasure, they deliberately, without provocation, gave the town to the flames, an outrage which our British foemen in the war of 1812, even amidst the excitement of actual battle, refrained from perpetrating.

A more exemplary, refined and intelligent community than that of Hampton, was not to be found in Virginia. The cherished virtues of the State, its hospitality, its courtesy, its frankness, its kindness to strangers, shone there with peculiar lustre. And it is such a people who have received such treatment!--Surely, if a just God reigns in Heaven, such crimes as these will not remain unavenged.

Outrages at Hampton.

--The following, from the Fortress Monroe correspondence of the New York Herald, gives further information of the outrages committed by the Hessians at Hampton, previous to burning the town:
‘ The exodus of negroes from Hampton continued all day yesterday, and from the appearance that that unfortunate village presents, very little of value has been left there by these sable itinerants and by the soldiers, who have, I regret to say, committed not a few excesses and acts of violence. They have wantonly destroyed many articles of no earthly use to them, and taken off many others that they have found in the deserted houses that can be of no service to them. The spirit of mischief that sometimes seizes upon men is something that I cannot account for, and one cannot but feel indignant and outraged when he witnesses the ruin that marks the presence of some men. These outrages call for some more stringent-regulations upon the part of the authorities here, if we do not wish to be truly characterized as robbers and vandals. I hope I may never witness other such scenes as it has been my lot to see to-day. Hampton village is now a perfect picture of utter desolation. Even the negroes that in a degree enlivened it when we first occupied it, are fled inside our lines, and there is not a living thing to be seen in all its high ways and by-ways. Take out the straggling soldiers you now and then meet, and Hampton will equal in mournful desolation the buried cities of Italy, could the lava, which has for so many ages buried them from the eye of man, be instantly removed and they allowed to stand in all their beauty before us. The houses are closed, and nothing obstructs the sight on looking up either main avenue by the well built redoubts so recently deserted. Every pig, chicken, horse, cow or other domestic animal has been carried off.
As there are no troops in the village to hold it, and no patrols or scouts beyond it, it is liable at any moment to be scoured by the rebel horsemen, and, if they wish, occupied by them. It is a little too dangerous amusement to linger long through the lonely streets of that village, lost the curious visitor be picked up by one of the Dinwiddie dragoons or some other mounted Virginian — whose acquaintance it would not be pleasant to form. We have taken the precaution to remove about thirty or forty feet of planking on the enemy's side of the bridge, and we now await their movements with confidence in the result, if they should deem it best to make an attack.

Insult to Heaven.

--We see it stated that the heathenish concern, called the Rump Congress, have passed a resolution for the appointment of a committee to request the President to appoint a day of fasting, humiliation and prayer.
A more blasphemous proceeding than this could not well be imagined. It assumes that a just and holy God, who "is of too pure eyes to behold iniquity," and who has declared that he "will by no means clear the guilty." would accept those infinitely false and foul offerings of infinitely depraved and wicked hearts, wrung from the trembling wretches in the hour of their consternation, and accompanied by no remorse or penitences whatever for the monstrous crimes which they have perpetrated.--The idea that Lincoln, with his soul stained with the blood of the hecatombs who were slaughtered at Bethel, Bull Run and Manassas,--with hands red with the murder of those victims of his ruthless lust of power --that He should appoint a day for the observance of such a solemn ceremony as that of "fasting. humiliation and prayer," is impious beyond the power of language to express. That ceremony, if it were to be observed by the authors and prosecutors of this war, would be a gross insult to the A mighty, for it would be an avocation for His assistance in a work instigated only by the devil. To assume or suppose that the "Judge of all the Earth" could be moved by such an appeal from such diabolical wretches to "let the light of (His) countenance shine upon" them, is about one of the most outrageous profanations which human wickedness could prompt. Petersburg Express.
All articles from the following source: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/ ; The Daily Dispatch: August 9, 1861. Richmond Dispatch. 4 pages. by Cowardin & Hammersley. Richmond. August 9, 1861. microfilm. Ann Arbor, Mi : Proquest. 1 microfilm reel ; 35 mm.