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Home , Josias Fendall, Leonard Calvert, Richard Ingle, Thomas Greene (governor)

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St. Maries Citty Militiaman Ancient and Honourable Order of the Followers of Calvert’s Black and Gold in the New World St. Maries Citty, Ancient and Chief Seat of Government of the Lord Baltimore’s proprietarie Colony of Mary-Land, 1634-1694 Number 351, May 2016 Editor: Ernest J. Willoughby

REPORT ON THE MUSTER AT THE VETERANS MUSEUM, APRIL 23

On Friday, April 22, 12 members gathered at the 1676 State House between 4:00 and 5:00 p.m. to gather needed equipment and pack it in four vehicles to transport next day to the muster. They were Alan, Julie, Max, and Scott Bradbury; Cocoa, Ivy, Logan, T. J., and Tristan Maday; Ernest, Paul, and Paula Willoughby.

Saturday morning all of them plus Hugh Pry, and Mark and Ruth Zalonis gathered for the muster, starting at 9:00 o’clock. The Maryland Veterans Museum, located on Rte. 301 near the intersection with Md. Rte. 234 was holding its Spring Patriots’ Day Festival. We set up fireplace for cooking, a dining fly, and wedge tent for our camp. Other units representing War of 1812, and Union and Confederate units of the American Civil War were also camping at the museum grounds.

The weather was somewhat windy, with intermittent showers, but our men succeeded in carrying out two drills with pike and musket while the distaff prepared a tasty midday meal, as well as waffles over the campfire the waffles were especially good as a midafternoon snack. Because of the cold wind and intermittent showers only a few visitors braved the weather to visit the camps, military displays, various booths, and vendors, many opting to stay indoors where awards presentations and speeches were scheduled through the day from 9:00 a.m. until closing at 3:00 p.m. Our first experience at this location gave us ideas on how we can work with the program chair, Susie Bender, and museum president, Larry Abel, to encourage visitors to spend more time with the outdoor living history displays if we are invited back in the future. The staff treated us well

The midday meal comprised a delicious salad with cold marinated chicken, hard boiled eggs, sausage, cheese, bread, and fruit cake.

After 3:00 p.m. we broke camp and packed it up in the four vehicles for return to the HSMC State House attic. Owing to ongoing wedding there Saturday afternoon and evening, we gathered on Sunday morning, April 24 at 10:00 a.m. to return the equipment to storage. 2

COME AND CELEBRATE MAY DAY AT HISTORIC ST. MARY’S CITY, SATURDAY, MAY 7, 10:00 A.M. TO 4:00 P.M.

Saturday, May 7 is the date for the May Day celebration at Historic St. Mary’s City, because May 1 is on Sunday when HSMC is closed to the public. This is a relaxed and fun event with 17th century games, dances, an amusing mock trial, and various festivities to welcome the arrival of summer. Come in 17th century costume to lend period atmosphere.

A BRIEF MILITARY HISTORY OF THE COLONY OF MARYLAND 1634- 1707 By Lee Offen (Continued from the April issue.) In July of 1641 Governor: instructed the residents of to shoot on sight any Native Americans. It was believed that the natives threatening Kent Island were a group located near Chestertown and had upwards of 60 fighting men armed with muskets, whereas Kent Island could muster no more than perhaps 25 men. In March of 1642 Governor Calvert summoned an assembly to discuss the hostility of Native Americans and how to respond. Of the 78 free men of the colony 30 were represented by six proxy holders. All the inhabitants of Kent Island were represented by two men who held all their proxies. In June of 1642, the Governor ordered that Native Americans could not be sold guns or ammunition, and that arms be provided for all “able to bear arms.” All available men were directed to be armed when away from home and that firing a weapon was to be an alarm. In the same month, orders were sent to Captain Robert Evelyn to levy, train and muster the settlers near Piscataway. A fort near the Patuxent was put under the command of Henry Bishop in August and orders were given that the alarm signal was to be three sequential discharges from a firearm that when heard was to be followed by the evacuation of women and children to local forts and strong houses. Once the evacuation had occurred, the militia was to “keep guard.” The forts were St Inigoes Fort, Thomas Sterman’s House in St Michael’s Hundred, Thomas Weston’s House in St George’s Hundred and Patuxent Fort.

In September the Susquehannock, Wicomico and Nanticoke tribes were declared “enemies to the province.” The colonial assembly raised an expedition to attack the Susquehannock by enlisting every third man out of each hundred armed, provisioned for two months and transported by their hundred with the cost divided between the residents of the hundred. Each member of the expedition was to be provided by the county, if he did not already have it, “one fixed gunne, 2 pounds of powder, 8 pounds pistol or bullet shot, 1 sword and 2 months provisions,” Uniquely, compensation for disability of those sent on the expedition was called for by the assembly. Captain Brainthwaite, the commander of the expedition, took sixteen men to Kent Island where 3

Captain Brent refused to force men to serve on the expedition, thereby preventing the expedition to continue due to lack of manpower. On 16 December 1642 Giles Brent was commissioned by Governor Calvert to be “Commander of our Isle and County of Kent,” including three commissioners allowing for a separate county court. In January of 1643 a peace treaty was negotiated with the Nanticokes but a state of war continued to exist between Maryland and the Susquehannock and Wicomico. Governor Calvert left the colony in April of 1643 leaving Giles Brent as governor in his absence. Brent and Calvert both attempted to put together expeditions against their Native American enemies but were unable to convince the colony’s council or assembly to raise the necessary men and supplies. was unwilling to join with Maryland in joint expeditions as well. The best that could be achieved was a ten man expedition to garrison Palmers Island at the mouth of the Susquehanna River to observe the enemy. In the summer of 1643, Captain Cornwallis led an expedition up the Susquehanna River to a Susquehannock village but was driven off, failing to end the continual raids against the settlements of the colony.

The Great Civil War that was already two years old in the British Isles reached Maryland in January of 1644. Captain was no stranger to Maryland as he had been involved for several years in the annual tobacco fleet which brought goods from to Maryland and Virginia and took back the annual tobacco crop to England. His Parliamentarian sympathies were known. His remarks about King Charles resulted in his imprisonment and the seizure of his ship, the Reformation. Both were temporary and it seemed that economic necessity of both the ship captains and the colonies overrode political loyalties, for the moment.

Leonard Calvert returned to Maryland in September of 1644 and by the end of the month went to Virginia leaving William Brainthwaite to serve as deputy governor of the colony. By October William Ingle was on his way back to Maryland with a letter of marque from Parliament in hand allowing him to seize ‘enemy’ ships. In December of 1644, made a failed attempt to raise the people of Kent Island. In January of 1645 Ingle sailed into St Mary’s and found a Dutch vessel, The Looking Glass, conducting a brisk trade with the Marylanders. Ingle departed for Virginia to find additional men to attack Maryland. Returning in February, Ingle attacked The Looking Glass, causing her to lower her colors and surrender. Ingle then proceeded to hunt down the Catholic colonial leaders and to loot the homes of the wealthy. Protestant settlers either supported Ingle or remained neutral and the outnumbered Catholics supported Calvert and his government. Calvert and his men built and garrisoned St Thomas Fort and Ingle’s men built a fort around Calvert’s abandoned house. By April Ingle had departed St. Mary’s for England with The Looking Glass as his prize only to be disappointed by the refusal of the Parliamentarian Admiralty Courts to recognize the legitimacy of his actions in taking her. Those who stayed back in Maryland asserted their control of the colony, taking St Thomas Fort by late in the summer of 1645. Leonard Calvert was not taken but fled to Virginia. With no legal basis for its existence, the government Ingle left behind was unable to perform but the most rudimentary functions of government. Captain Edward Hill went to St Mary’s City in July of 4

1646 to retrieve men who had fled from Virginia and found himself governor of the colony until December of that year.

Hill was operating under Leonard Calvert’s orders and found himself only able to control events in St Mary’s County, with Kent County refusing to recognize Hill’s or Calvert’s authority. By late December Calvert returned to Maryland with a company of men raised in Virginia comprising Virginians and refugees from Maryland, and assumed control with little or no resistance.

William Claiborne returned to Kent Island in December of 1646 and attempted unsuccessfully to convince the local populace to march on St. Mary’s City. Calvert and his men regained control of Kent County in April of 1647. Calvert died in June and was replaced by in June of 1647. In July of 1647 COL John Price was ordered to assemble a company of thirty to forty men and attack the Nanticoke and Wicomick villages. There is no record of the results of this expedition. Cecil Calvert, Lord Baltimore and Leonard’s brother replaced Thomas Green with William Stone, a Virginian and the first Protestant Governor of the colony in August, 1648. Recent events had shrunk the population of Maryland and Stone brought with him five hundred puritan settlers who had been made unwelcome in Virginia, who established the settlement of Providence, in current Ann Arundel County.

The first colonial assembly under Governor Stone was presented with an Act Concerning Religion which they modified and adopted as the law in Maryland. The Act called for religious toleration and forbade insulting language about religion, a first in British Law. The Act only applied to Christians. Thomas Greene was appointed Deputy Governor under Governor Stone. On 30 January 1649 Charles I was executed and in November of that year Greene declared, on behalf of the Colony of Maryland, Charles II as the rightful King, much to the dismay of the new Puritan immigrants and many of the other Protestant settlers. Governor Stone retracted the proclamation but Parliament in the face of opposition in Virginia as well as Maryland, sent two commissioners, Richard Bennett and William Claiborne from England to “reduce all the plantations within the to their due obedience to the parliament of the .”

The Commissioners went to Virginia first to establish Parliamentary control, and arrived in Maryland in March 1652. Governor Stone was initially displaced but by June was returned to the position of Governor with a council appointed by the Commissioners. The first Peace Treaty with the Susquehannocks was signed in November 1652. With the Susquehannocks pacified, CPT William Fuller was ordered to conduct an expedition against the Nanticokes and Wicomicoes of the Eastern Shore but the expedition was abandoned in part due to both the lateness of the season and the unwillingness of the settlers at Providence to contribute men to the expedition. 5

The Parliamentarian Commissioners, appointed by a Parliament dismissed by Cromwell in December 1653, were in Virginia when Governor Stone, in May, proclaimed Cromwell Lord Protector of England and the colony of Maryland. They returned to Maryland and in July replaced Governor Stone with a council to rule Maryland. In January 1655 after Lord Baltimore attacked him for surrendering to the Commissioners, Governor Stone began to organize an armed force in St Mary’s County of approximately 130 men. Operating under orders from Governor Stone, CPT leading a force of 20 men was involved in a raid in Patuxent to secure arms, ammunition, and the colony records.

Governor Stone set out to reduce Providence on 20 March 1655. Part of his force marched up the bay and part went by sea to the and arrived at the outer harbor of Providence by 24 March. Governor Stone landed his force, under fire from the ship Golden Lyon, and formed up his forces under the black and yellow colors of the Baltimore coat of arms. CPT Fuller with a force of approximately 170 men attempted to meet Stone’s force on the rear or flank. Hoping to resolve the situation with a parley, CPT Fuller ordered his men not to fire. Fuller raised the Commonwealth Colors and Stone’s men opened fire, killing one man. One volley and a follow on charge routed Stone’s army. The Proprietary force suffered seventeen men killed and thirty two wounded and CPT Fuller lost three men killed and several wounded. This was the only battle of the Great Civil War fought in North America. Following the battle, ten of the leaders of the Proprietary army were condemned to death, with four executed and the rest released as a result of the request from the inhabitants of Providence. The property of those who had opposed CPT Fuller was plundered and all were subject to fines. The were in control of the colony until 10 July 1656 when Josias Fendall was made by Lord Baltimore, whose claim to the colony was in dispute in England. CPT Fuller and others arrested Fendall until he swore “not to disturb the present government,” until a final decision came from England. By September 1656, the English Protectorate Board of Trade decided entirely on Lord Baltimore’s behalf and Fendall was confirmed as Governor. On 7 November Lord Baltimore’s brother, George, was confirmed as secretary of the colony. In 1657 Josias Fendall left the colony for England leaving Luke Barber, the former physician of Cromwell as the acting governor in his absence. The colony remained divided with separate governments in Providence and St Mary’s until April 1658, when Lord Baltimore assumed control of the entire colony. In March 1660 Fendall led an abortive attempt to take control of the Colony, which failed with the Restoration of Charles II on 29 May 1660. Lord Baltimore made Phillip Calvert the Governor of Maryland in June 1660. In 1661 a militia act was passed by the assembly that called for enlistment in the militia on an as needed basis only with those enlisted required to provide their own weapons, and fines or imprisonment for failure to do so. In this same year Maryland assisted the Susquehannocks in their war with the Seneca by providing a company of 50 men to help defend their fort. In May 1661, CPT John Odber was instructed by the assembly to “choose some fit place either within or without the forte which you are to fortify for your own security,” as well as to “cause some spurs or flankers to be laid out for defense of the Indian fort, whom you are upon 6 all occasions to assist against the assaults of their enemies.” Additionally, CPT Odber’s Company was to pay particular attention to Susquehannock interaction with the Dutch. His Company was raised by men levied or pressed with St Mary’s County providing 11, Calvert providing 15, Charles providing 7, Anne Arundel providing 11 and Kent providing 3. By November it became apparent that the Susquehannocks were unwilling to provide the agreed assistance to CPT Odber’s Company, that being provisions and assistance in constructing fortifications. The Company departed that same month. In 1662 Charles Calvert assumed the Governorship of Maryland. (to be continued in the next issue)

THE EDITOR’S PAGE

Your editor reminds you that he is looking for short articles, announcements, and items of interest pertaining to our St. Maries Citty Militia and to Maryland and other English colonies of the 17th century. If you have anything that you would like to see in The Militiaman, send it in! By e-mail: [email protected]; by postal service: 11740 Asbury Circle, Apt. 1302, Solomons, MD 20688.

At the Grand Muster in 2014