Showing posts with label my photos. Show all posts
Showing posts with label my photos. Show all posts

III. The Lawn

Just a hilltop or two away at Elk Ridge, Colonel Marshall had neighbors in Lawyers’ Hill, an enclave above the Patapsco River where several lawyers, judges, and doctors had their summer homes.

{During and after the war, they gathered socially on the wide lawn of Judge George Washington Dobbin, who hosted a Friday Club at his home, which was aptly named The Lawn. His daughter, Rebecca, noted in her journal that the sound of artillery from Manassas could be heard from this favorite vantage point during the first battle of Bull Run.}

On the wall of the porch near the front door, you can still find a string of wooden beads that Judge Dobbin used to keep track of the laps he walked on the wraparound porch.  There was something odd/special about the knocking, ringing, or locking mechanism on the front door, but I can't remember what it is right now!...  The glowing entrance hall where the smell of oil paints and linseed oil hit you upon entering.  On the right, the dark gallery/studio, and on the left the drawing room....then kitchen and butler's pantry.  Just inside the drawing room door, on the right, a desk with a phone.  Mrs. May Cobb, a family friend from church and my art teacher, had funny stories of things that happened back when phone lines were party lines and you could listen in on other peoples' conversations (or vice versa.)

Art lessons were either on the 'back porch' or in the drawing room.  My sisters had taken these classes too, when they were my age.....I had to bring a quarter with me to each Saturday afternoon lesson, to help defray the cost of supplies.  Sometimes during these sessions, she told me ghost stories about the house.  A vase of flowers on the mantel would float out into the room and dump itself out....and this was the poltergeist, she explained....a 'noisy ghost' that likes to move things, throw things, cause disturbances.  Once, a recently planted flower box was uprooted when her back was turned.  She speculated that this was Judge Dobbin, who had an observatory above the second floor, where the flower boxes were located.  

After Mr. Joe Cobb's death, Mrs. Cobb awoke in the night to hear his circular saw running in the workshop.  I thought it might be lonely and scary for an elderly widow to live alone in a big place like this, back in the woods, with spirits.  Fortunately, she rented out part of the second floor to tenants.  The tenants, a family, loved the house so much that when Mrs. Cobb went to live with family in Pennsylvania near the end of her life, they bought it and lived in it for about a decade.

~~

When I was older, she found some of my old paintings from class and had them matted for me.  I still have a fabric wall hanging that I made at her house, and I remember doing ink drawings over watercolor wash, and learning the principles of Japanese flower arranging...odd numbers always, earth, sky and water.  She let slip to friends that I had a fascination with buttons, and one of them brought me a small collection at church one morning.

My elementary school friend Alan Talbot lived in the gatehouse (one of the original tenant cottages) with his mother, and I remember attending one of his birthday parties there.

An oil painting in/near the front hall of a man with a floppy hat
"Merriman"

It was here that I first heard the word 'Europe' as a small child, and conceived of a place far away, that was different from where I lived.

The two tenant cottages had to be moved when Rt. 895, the Harbor Tunnel Throughway, went through in the early 1970s.

In the mid-2000s, the family who loved the house so much sold it, and shortly thereafter it was chosen to be the Howard County decorator's showhouse for 2007.  The home underwent restoration and refurbishment, and vendors and designers showcased their work all through the property in the fall of 2007.  The photos below were taken when my mother, sister, and I visited the showhouse on my mother's birthday in September of that year.

Sadly, about a year later, the then-owner of the property died by his own hand in the historic barn.  I don't believe the property has changed ownership since that time.


                                           Judge George Washington Dobbin, builder of The Lawn.



                                                                      Fairy swings

                                         Above, a view of the barn, to the west of the main house.

                   The main house with the original 'cottage' wing in the foreground, the two story 
                   double-parlor wing further back, with the observatory poking out above the second floor.



                                                         View from an outbuilding



                                              Here you can see the two extra extensions added
                                                 to the rear of the main wings of the house.
                             

                                                                         The beads!!


                                      Part of the porch on the cottage/library/studio wing.

I. The Beech Tree





While the house I grew up in was being built, my mother would sometimes come and watch, making a cozy spot for me at the feet of a huge beech tree that stood in the backyard, at the edge of the woods in our new neighborhood, Marshallee. We moved into the house in August of 1968, when I was 10 months old. The tree still stands behind the house, but after more than 40 years of residency, my parents sold the house a few years ago. I haven’t been back to see it since, although I’m often in the area visiting friends, or my sister, or my daughter who now lives with her aunt during the school year.
There are many things about beech trees that set them apart from their fellows in the tree world. First would be their smooth, silvery bark, which scars easily and is therefore a beloved target of graffiti aficionados who were obviously never Girl Scouts who were taught that tree bark is the equivalent of our skin. Second would be their interesting, rounded-pyramid-shaped seeds, housed in prickly little nut shells. Squirrels sometimes nested in this tree, but always loved scrambling around in its branches, feasting on these tasty (I imagine) little nuts. The shells would fall gently onto the back porch, and sometimes our heads, in the autumn months. I wonder if the squirrels made bets with each other about whether they could make their scraps hit us when they fell. The third, and most interesting, unique feature about this breed of tree is the way that its trunk seems to grow human faces. Knobs and whorls, which appear on the smooth trunk as it grows, resemble eyes and eyebrows, sometimes even a lumpy nose or a scowling frown. A single tree can glower down upon the forest from 6 or 10 different vantage points on its trunk. Because of these faces, beech trees have always seemed to me more likely to be inhabited by a spirit or soul than the average tree.
This exact tree, both in fact and in fancy, watched me grow from a baby into an adult…watched my sisters grow, and my family evolve. I miss it almost in the way I would miss a relative.
376





Clover Hill

A 1772 house that sat abandoned, just over the hill from my house, the entire time I was growing up.  I never knew it was there.



Caves and Goats at Harpers Ferry



This small cave is located in the hillside above Potomac Street and below High Street in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia-- a beautiful, sleepy old town at the junction of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers. Centuries of peace and quiet have enveloped the town, with the exception of the years before and during the Civil War, when it was the scene of John Brown's attempted takeover of the U.S. Armory and the object of constant contention between the Federal and Confederate Armies.

The photo above is a reminder of two of Harpers Ferry's more eccentric residents. The cave, I am told, is Dr. Brown's Cave, or at least that is the name by which it is currently known. There are stories of a cave located in or near town, yet the identity of which "Brown" used the cave, or if either of the "Browns" actually used this particular cave, remain unclear. "It is said" that there's a cave at Harpers Ferry that John Brown used. Local lore recorded in the papers of Grant Conway tell of a cave near the B&O Railroad tracks where slaves met and plotted to assist John Brown in his insurrection. This cave was said to have had a passage which ended at the basement of the Harper House. A Union soldier named Edward Schilling wrote a letter to his family in March of 1863 where he described a cave found by him and a group of friends while they were foraging for boards. He described long passages and large caverns, some containing water, as well as signs that someone had used the cave before them.

There was an earlier Brown, however, who may have used this cave first and given it its name. In the first decade of the nineteenth century, a former surgeon in the American Revolutionary Army, a native of Scotland, took up residence in Harpers Ferry. This Dr. Brown was a bachelor and was well enough off that he could afford to be eccentric and risk the disapproval of local society. One of the manifestations of his uniqueness was his great love of dogs and cats. It is said that in his strolls through this tiny town, Dr. Brown was sometimes accompanied by as many as 50 dogs. He used, as his storehouse and pharmacy, "a cave, partly natural and partly artificial." Dr. Brown's residence was on the south side of High Street, just above the cave in the photo above. When I looked into this cave, it appeared to be just a small chamber. Could there have been a passage in a corner that I overlooked, which may have led to more openings and passageways beneath the town? Maybe the natural portions of the cave have been closed off....or maybe they just remain hidden from the casual visitor. Then again, maybe this little chamber is just a conveniently visible feature useful for ghost tours and historical interpretations, something accessible that can be attached to the colorful legends of this town.

The most interesting thing about the cave I found to be the painting of a goat on the rear wall, facing the entrance. This made more sense, however, when I later came upon the story of a man who, shortly after the Civil War, lived across the Potomac River from Harpers Ferry and kept a herd of goats. Some of these goats got into the habit of climbing the steep cliffs of Maryland Heights, and became more and more wild as the years went on. In 1890, the herd was thought to number about a hundred, and goats could clearly be seen on most days by people on the train platform at Harpers Ferry, scrambling among the rocks in the inaccessible areas of the Heights above the river. The rocky hillside on which the feral goats loved to roam faced the opening of my goat cave, on the opposite side of the Potomac River. The goats remained and in 1980, there were still 28 wild goats roaming the cliffs. At one point following this, residents began to notice the absence of the once familiar goats, and still no one knows what happened to them. Harpers Ferry Park historian Kevin Frye has a theory, though....He believes that one cold winter night, the goats took shelter in the railroad tunnel and were killed by a freight train.



~~~






View of Maryland Heights and the railroad tunnel from the hillside near the Catholic Church in Harpers Ferry


Photos from my birthday ride (mostly)...

Dover Road, Talbot County, Maryland~

Kent County~near Coleman~

An old house on Dover Neck Road, Talbot County~

Dover Bridge; looking from the Caroline County side to the Talbot side~

A Ghost Story -- Fox's Gap, South Mountain, Maryland

This is a mirror on a tree at Fox's Gap, directly across the road from where Wise's cabin once stood. It is on the stretch of road here reflected in the mirror that Daniel would have seen the ghostly soldier approaching.

Late in the summer of 1862, more than a year after the start of the Civil War, Army of Northern Virginia General Robert E. Lee decided that it was time to carry the war into the North. Sentiment toward the war in the border state of Maryland was diminishing, and the Federal Army had just suffered a surprising defeat in Manassas. Furthermore, Lee was desperate to feed and supply his impoverished army. It was nearing harvest time in Maryland when Lee's army made its first of two forays into the North, crossing the Potomac into the Blue Ridge foothills of Maryland.

The Battle of South Mountain was not a huge battle, and was quickly overshadowed a few days later by the nearby Battle of Antietam, which resulted in the loss of 23,000 men in just one day. Still, a total of more than 5,000 men were either killed, wounded, or missing in action at the end of the day on September 14. Lee's army was positioned to the west of South Mountain, and General George McClellan's Army of the Potomac needed to cross South Mountain to pursue them and drive them back to Virginia. This battle was fought over control of three gaps in the mountain through which the Union Army needed to pass: Turner's Gap, Fox's Gap, and Crampton's Gap (from north to south.)

At the crest of the mountain on the road through Fox's Gap was the farm of Daniel Wise. A widower with two children, he awoke to find his farm overrun by frantic North Carolina soldiers on the morning of September 14 as they transformed it into a fortress to withstand the Union Army, quickly approaching from the east. Wise was advised to gather what he could and leave as quickly as possible, which he did, just as the battle began behind him.

This is a gap in the foliage along the stone wall behind which the North Carolina troops waited for the Union brigades to approach across the field ahead.

Within about two hours, the Union Army had gained possession of the Gap. Hundreds of dead and dying men, including one General from each side, were strewn over the fields of the Wise Farm, right up to the walls of the cabin. Although victorious and exhausted, the soldiers still had hard work ahead of them. They would have to bury the dead. They buried their own first, in the already-worked soil of Wise's fields. It was more difficult to figure out what to do with the Confederate dead. The ground at Fox's Gap was full of rocks and boulders, and digging into it was backbreaking work. Finally, exhausted, the burial crew dumped the last 58 dead Confederates into Daniel Wise's well, in the front yard of his cabin. They moved on.

On September 18, Daniel Wise and his son and daughter returned to the farm. Their harvest was destroyed, the fields full of fresh burial mounds, while other dead were buried in shallow trenches right against the cabin walls. The smell of decay was everywhere. Worst of all was the well, now ruined by its horrible contents.

A few days after his return, Daniel Wise was sitting on his front porch at the end of the day. He saw a solitary young man coming up the road from the west. Watching the young man approach, he felt a cold chill creep up his back. For some reason, the sight filled him with an odd feeling of dread. As the young man drew closer, Wise noticed how deathly pale his skin was....and the blank expression on his face. Finally the young man stepped into Wise's yard. It was at this point that Wise realized he could see right through the young man's body to the road and the trees behind him. When he asked the young man who he was, he was met with silence. Not even a bird was heard on the ridge at Fox's Gap in those long moments. Finally: "Our lives were stripped from us and we were not even given a proper burial. Be sure that I will return here every night until we are honored as fallen soldiers." The apparition then slowly turned to look at Daniel's well. Daniel's eyes followed his gaze, and when he looked back, the young man was gone. In a panic, he ran toward the well, inexplicably hoping to find the dead Confederate, to tell him that he was not the one responsible for his improper burial. Lifting the cover from the well, the stench literally knocked him over backwards. After struggling to his feet and hastily replacing the cover, he staggered inside the cabin and slammed the door, shaking like a leaf. As he had leaned over the well for that brief moment, he thought he heard voices coming from the depths.

This is the path along the stone wall just across the road from where the Wise cabin stood.

Maybe it was the stress of being caught in a battle zone, or anxiety over the fate of his farm and harvest. Maybe it was the panic over how his family would survive the winter that was creating strange effects in the farmer's mind. Maybe he was beginning to lose his mind. There was little time to wonder. He began to dread the evenings, and found it difficult to sleep. Still, every day was full of the customary work of a farmer. And yet finally, as the sun began to sink and it was time to relax on the porch with a pipe, the ghost of the young man continued to return. Daniel began to avoid the porch in the evenings, but found that even inside the house he thought he could feel the soldier's presence as he gazed over the fence into the yard, at the house, and at the old well.

This is Fox's Gap on a winter evening near sunset. This clearing, now a parking area, is where the Wise cabin once stood. The road is to the right. We are facing west, the direction from which the dead young man approached.

Daniel began writing letters to Washington, complaining bitterly about the mess the Union Army had left of his farm, and about the corpses resting at the bottom of his well. He continued his correspondence for years, although he never got a response from the government. He didn't mention the ghost in his letters, but the tale of the dead young man's ghost had begun to travel through the county. Other people started keeping an eye out for the dead soldier along the road at sunset, and some claimed to have seen him. This continued even after the war was over. Finally. In 1874, 12 years after the battle, the US military sent in an army detail to clean up Daniel Wise's farm. The remains in the well were removed, and the men buried elsewhere on his property were taken away for proper burial. Daniel never saw the apparition of the dead soldier again.

Daniel Wise was allowed to live out the rest of his life knowing that he had finally managed to see the right thing done for the soldiers that had been buried on his farm. After his death, the tale of the soldier's ghost became local legend. Although the cabin is no longer there, the fields are abandoned, and the well is long since filled in, the story of the casualties at Fox's Gap and their unorthodox burial remains one of the more gruesome footnotes of the Civil War.

The battlefields of South Mountain are now preserved within South Mountain State Park, Gathland State Park, and the Appalacian National Scenic Trail (which runs through all 3 gaps.)

http://www.friendsofsouthmountain.org/index.html



Self portrait at Fox's Gap. If you look in the mirror, I am standing on the edge of the clearing where the cabin once stood.

Although I have known the history of Fox's Gap for some time, and have visited several times, I did not know about this ghost story at the time...so, visits should be even more interesting in the future :)

~All photos above taken by Me~ .......except the one below. I was not able to find out the date of this photo, or the name of the photographer.



...Wise Farm at Fox's Gap...

Whitemarsh Cemetery -- Trappe, Maryland -- 10/10/10



On Sunday, I visited Whitemarsh Cemetery, which for any Maryland resident raised on the western shore who spent summer vacations on the Maryland shore is an instantly recognizable landmark. After 42 years of looking at the striking ruins while quickly passing on the nearby busy highway, I finally sampled the tranquility of this beautiful spot....and in spite of the nearby traffic, it does remain strangely quiet and peaceful, almost another place in time. There is an amazing legend associated with this cemetery which sounds like something out of Poe....except that it is supposed to be true, and at least we know that the characters in the story were real, lived nearby, and are buried in this very cemetery. I was going to tell the story myself, but the following article combines the many different versions of the story told over the years with correspondence and family testimony. We may never know for sure which parts of the tale are true and which are not. This article appeared in the Tidewater Times in July 2007. I hope its author would not object to my sharing it here. All photos were taken by me on my 10/10/10 visit.



Tales of Old White Marsh
Did Hannah Maynadier Rise From Her Grave?

by

James Dawson

Probably the best known Talbot County ghost story is supposed to have taken place at old White Marsh church, which dates from the mid-1600s. It burned in 1897 and the ruins and cemetery can still be seen just off Rt. 50 a few miles south of Easton.
Rev. Maynadier was rector at White Marsh from 1711 to 1745. It was said that he was “a good liver but a horrid preacher,” but he is only remembered now because of the story that his wife Hannah was roused from her grave by robbers attempting to steal her ring. This brought her out of a trance, the robbers fled and she walked home to greet her grieving spouse at the door.
The legend of Hannah Maynadier first appeared in print in 1898 in a book about Talbot County entitled Land of Legendary Lore by Prentiss Ingraham in the chapter “Weird Tales That Are Told” and is given in full here:

The story is that the rector’s wife died, and that her last wish was that she should be buried with a valuable family ring upon her finger, for it was customary in those days to bury a body without removing jewelry they had worn most in life.
Two strangers who had attended the funeral and observed this valuable ring and determined to secure it that night, so they went to the old church yard, for it was over half a century old, and digging into the grave, removed the coffin, broke it open and attempted to take the ring off the woman’s finger. It would not come off, and so a knife was used to sever the joint, and this revived the woman, who, not being dead, suddenly uttered a cry and sat up in her coffin. Tradition does not say what became of the two grave ghouls, but it is to be hoped that the fright they received turned them from their evil ways.
As for Mrs. Maynadier, she realized her situation, and though alarmed and ill, she was possessed of great nerve, so drew her shroud about her form and started upon her homeward way. What must have been her feelings, as she trudged through the night to the home she had been taken from in her coffin a few hours before! And what would have been the feelings of a benighted being who had met her on that lone highway? Verily he could have taken oath with truth to having seen one from the grave. In the rectory the old clergyman was seated before his hearth alone, doubtless recalling the wife he had won in the long ago, far across the sea, and whom he had just buried in her adopted land. Sad must have been his memories, deep must have been his sorrow, as he sat there looking into the past and thinking of the loved one in the White Marsh burying-ground.
Suddenly he was started by a fall against the door, followed by a low moan. A fearless man, he sprung to the door and beheld the fainting, shrouded form of his wife. The sight nerved him into action and drove away fear. He raised her into his arms, bore her to her bed, gave her stimulants, chafed her hands, one still bleeding from the cruel cut of the ghoul, and soon restored her to consciousness. Then he called his servants, told them the weird story and sent to Oxford for a physician.
Such is the story, and more, Mrs. Maynadier recovered from her illness and lived for many years. She and her brave old husband now lie side by side in the old White Marsh churchyard. It is alleged that the blood stain from Mrs. Maynadier’s hand still remains upon the door against which she fell.” [Ingraham, Land of Legendary Lore: Gazette Publishing House, Easton, 1898, pps. 85-6].



Ingraham claimed that this really happened and that he had heard the story from the Jenkins family of Easton who were descendants of Mrs. Maynadier, “the heroine of this true story.”
The story took wings and appeared a number of times in books, pamphlets and newspaper articles through the years and with each resurrection became more elaborate. It was said that the blood stain could still be seen at the rectory and no amount of scrubbing would remove it.
Someone even claimed to own the very chair in which Rev. Maynadier was sitting when his exhumed wife came calling:

CHAIR SAID TO BE 200 YEARS OLD

This well-preserved arm chair, now in the possession of Courtney Valliant at Hambleton, is said to be over 200 years old and used originally in the old White Marsh Church. Mr. Valliant said the chair was given to his father by a wealthy Baltimore physician who had purchased the old rectory and farm many years ago.
It is reputed to be the chair in which the late Rev. Daniel Maynadier, Huguenot rector of White Marsh during the time of Loius XIV, was found dead in 1745...
It was Mrs. Maynadier who, according to legend, had presumably died and was buried at White Marsh. When robbers attempted to take a ring from her finger she awoke, and made her way back to the rectory. Her husband was said to have been seated in this so-called “death” chair when she returned and some writers have called the chair the “missing link” in the Maynadier legend. [Star Democrat, Oct. 5, 1962]

In this version, it was Rev. Maynadier who died, presumably scared to death by his wife’s unexpected reappearance. One hopes that the “death chair” didn’t claim any more victims. But fortunately, the photo that accompanied the article showed that it was in the Eastlake style and dated from about 1880, not 1745, and was too new to have been that chair (it was too post era for Maynadier’s posterior).




Historian and folklorist Brice Stump told the most elaborate version in “The Lingering Legend of White Marsh Church – Did the Pastor’s Wife Return From Her Grave?” which is excerpted here:

The men worked quietly. Soon the shovel scraped against the wooden coffin.
Having uncovered the burial vault, they labored to remove the cover. Even though the night was cool, drops of sweat formed on their faces and backs. Fear gnawed at them.
With increased efforts the men pried at the lid, until the wooden top yielded. They moved the light into the gaping hole. The body of the woman had not been too greatly bothered by the moving of the coffin. The wind blew into the hole, and the dirt fell into the vault. The white shawl about the woman’s head moved from side to side as the breeze touched her body.
The light was brought closer. The diamond ring sparkled. One of the men gripped the ring and attempted to pull it from the finger. The ring slipped down and stopped at the swollen joint. The man reached for his knife to cut off the finger..” [Star Democrat, August 14, 1968].



But did it really happen? Even Hannah’s descendants couldn’t agree. Stump added that “Mrs. Charles Henderson of Lloyds Landing states that she is a descendant of Mrs. Maynadier and that her mother had not heard of the tale until she was educated in Talbot County schools. Commenting on the tale, she noted, ‘It is possible, but I doubt it.’ She had read similar accounts happening to others but believes the story of Mrs. Maynadier climbing from the grave and walking home is questionable.” [Star Democrat, August 14, 1968].

However, the next week another descendant, Charles Arensberg of Trappe, stated the contrary:

“My mother, Emily Wright Maynadier Arensberg, was a direct descendant of Daniel Maynadier. Unlike Mrs. Charles Henderson of Lloyds Landing, we sons heard the story of Hannah Maynadier and the grave diggers as small boys in Pittsburgh. Mother used to tell it to us as family history long before we ever came to Talbot County.
“So the story, far from appearing first to us in Talbot County school books, came direct from the lips of a great-great-grandchild of Daniel, having survived the family move from Maryland to Massachusetts after the Civil War and a further transplant to Pittsburgh.
“Mother never questioned for a moment the story. Nor did Dr. Gustavus Howard Maynadier, professor of English at Harvard, who was the family historian and who together with mother installed the bronze marker in the ruins over Daniel’s grave and that of his wife, Hannah.
“We always heard that Hannah, after the ordeal, actually survived her husband, but that fact always escaped the record.
“We also heard that Hannah was buried inside the church in a crypt ABOVE ground, a circumstance which would make it easier for the ghouls to perpetuate their evil deed....” [Star Democrat, August 21, 1968].

Or did it? The “plot” thickened. Fast forward two weeks:

Dear Sir:
With reference to your recent article about White Marsh Church, it is high time that Mrs. Maynadier’s ghost was laid to rest.
As a direct descendant of the Maynadiers, I feel it is safe to say that there is no truth to the tale that she was buried and then came to life again. None of the older members of the family have ever confirmed the story as a family legend.
The tale appears to have originated as pure fantasy in Ingraham’s “Land of Legendary Lore” and has subsequently appeared in other works, notably Shannahan’s “Tales of Old Maryland,” and Lee’s “Virginia Ghosts and Others”...
Yours Truly,
P. Kennard Wright
Easton
[Star Democrat, Sept. 4, 1968]



As historian Dickson J. Preston pointed out, not only did Hannah survive her husband, but the records of old White Marsh do not show that she died once, let alone twice. This would seem to be the stake in the heart of the legend of Hannah rising.
But it wasn’t until the early 20th century that legend became reality when grave robbers did hit the Maynadier grave:

GHOULS DESECRATE ANCIENT GRAVES AT WHITE MARSH: Vandals Exhume The Remains From Vault In Which The Rev. Daniel Maynadier Was Supposed to Have Been Buried

For at least the second time in the history of the ancient burial ground in which sleep some of the noblest of Maryland’s early settlers, ghouls within the past two weeks desecrated a grave at White Marsh Church by exhuming the remains of one who is believed by Col. Oswald Tilghman to have been the Rev. Daniel Maynadier, an early rector who lived about the time the Protestant Episcopal Church became the established denomination in Maryland. The sole motive for this act of vandalism seems to have been the procuring of any valuables buried with the deceased.
Colonel Tilghman, in an investigation of the case for his own satisfaction as Talbot’s foremost historian, says that he knows the grave in question was untouched two weeks ago. A few days ago Leeds Kerr, a guest of Colonel Tilghman and one of the noted Kerr family of Talbot, visited White Marsh and found the earth had been removed to a depth of five or six feet, laying bare the brick vault in which the coffin had rested. The remains had been removed...” [Easton Star Democrat, Dec. 4, 1915].

Did someone finally get that ring? No one knows. This incredible story was forgotten and appears in print here for the first time since 1915.
The empty vault gaped open for years until someone finally filled in the grave and laid a brick floor over it. The bronze plaque reads:

DANIEL MAYNADIER
HUGUENOT
16 -1745
RECTOR OF ST. PETER’S CHURCH
1711-1745
AND HIS WIFE
HANNAH MARTIN




But they weren’t there anymore.
And some of the genealogical information is in doubt, too. Hannah’s maiden name has been also given as Parrott, while an Internet site says it was Haskins. We only know that there was a Hannah who was born, married Rev. Maynadier, had children and then presumably died. But no one knows exactly where or when. Anything else is a question mark.
It is important to remember that no one has ever found proof that the Hannah Maynadier story predates Ingraham’s 1898 telling. He was also the prolific author of such dime classics as Satan’s Slave and Darky Dan and so probably wouldn’t have let any stray facts (like, oh, I don’t know, that it never happened) get in the way of his telling a good story. And if he did transplant the tale from somewhere else to Talbot County soil, the seed certainly took root and flourished. All the later versions seem to be based on Ingraham, but the bare bones of the tale were old when he told it.
The woman buried with a ring story is firmly rooted in folklore and probably dates back to Shakespeare’s day, if not before. Mark Twain called it a negro ghost story and told in a dialect variation of it on stage with great effect and even wrote a story about it. In these versions, she is definitely dead and most determined to get her ring back.
This is a tale best told late at night around a campfire. The version I tried goes like this:
A man dwelt by a churchyard and observed the funeral of a wealthy lady he knew. He decided to dig her up that night to steal the valuable ring she always wore. And so he did. As he gloated over his prize upstairs in the privacy of his bedroom, he looked out the window and to his horror saw the dead woman crawl out of her grave and stagger toward his house. Then he heard scratching and the front door scrape open. A voice from the grave called out, “Who’s got my golden ring?”
The man is terrified, but has no place to run. Maybe she will go away, but no, he heard her ascend the stairs step by step croaking, “Who’s got my golden ring? Who’s got my golden ring?”
Trapped, he collapsed in bed and hid under the covers. Next he heard his bedroom door squeak open and the ghastly moan was right there in his room, “Who’s got my golden ring?”
The floor boards creaked as she came closer and closer to his bed until, to his horror, he heard the cold, dead voice slowly and deliberately whisper in his ear, “Whooooo’s got my gooooooolden ring?”
Now, pause for an instant, then grab your listener by the arm and shout, “You’ve Got It!!!”
Don’t try this on anyone with a weak heart. It really works. But if something untimely should happen, be assured, there are burial plots still available in White Marsh cemetery.

The ride home

Before we know it, the mustard will be blooming again and the car windows will be down on the ride home from work. There are a lot of cows out this way. When my oldest daughter was little, we didn't know the names of the different breeds....still don't. She called these the "peanut butter cows."
I think this is a wheat field. After living over here for 16 years, you would think I'd be better versed in cow breeds and crop identification, but no....These are from the first year or two that I started taking digital photos. This field is just up the street and around the corner from our house.
This field is amazing. I pass it every day at least once. I don't race through life, and take the 'long way' to or from work at least once a day....the ride home is probably my favorite part of the day, depending on the season. I very often stop to take a picture or two. This field looks different almost every month of the year...it would probably make an interesting calendar. It's almost never planted with a crop, that I remember. Nearby stands an old victorian house known as "the milk house." I don't know if the "milk house" property is actually a farm. I think it has always been rented to groups of related or unrelated people since we've lived over here. I think my husband has been there once or twice. Anyway: a landmark. And a very pretty field.

MR. WALSH

(June, 2015) ~  Mr. Wm. Walsh, of New York, has bought a house and lot at Mappsville, of Mr. Nehemiah W. Nock, for $1,000. He proposes to en...