rrl PrinceGeorge's Counfy zU a HistoricalSociety News andNotes Prince Georgeansin the Old West By Alan Virta When I told my friends and colleaguesin Idaho that I was going to talk about Prince Georgeansin the Old West-they gave me funny looks and more than one askedme- How could I ever find them? How would I know who they were? Well, finding them was the leastof myproblems-because everywhereI think I've ever gone-in the United States,at least-l'vs found tracesof PrinceGeorgeans. In the ancientcemetery in the village of Roseville,Ohio-home of my grandparents, greatgrandparents, and two generationsbefore them-there is a huge gravestonewith the name"Grafton Duvall" carvedon it, as PrinceGeorge's a-soundingname as everthere couldbe. When I checkedHany Wright Newman'sbible of Duvall genealogyI found that this GraftonDuvall-one of a numberof men to bearthat nameover several generations-wasindeed a nativeof PrinceGeorge's County. When I moved to Mississippi,one of the first placesI went to visit was Natchez-for nearthere is a historical marker denotingthe site of what was known as the "Maryland Colony" early settlementof PrinceGeorgeans from the Aquascoarea who movedto the old Southwestin the early yearsof the 1800sto take advantageof the fertile soil and opportunitiesthere. PrinceGeorgeans have been heading West sincethe very beginning. PrinceGeorgeans were,indeed, some of the first Westerners-becausein the late 17thcentury, this unorganized,lightly-settled land betweenthe Patuxentand Potomac Rivers was the West. It was Maryland's frontier,where European settlement bumped up againstthe original Indianinhabitants. Stories of Indian raids on the AnacostiaRiver settlements;of Ninan Beall's Rangersw\o patrolledthe frontier line beyondthe river-are as dramaticas any storiesfrom the 19tncentury West of the Apacheand the Sioux. sink into poverty. So the greatWest But that'sthe West I'm goingto talk beckoned.This eveningI'll tell the story abouttonight-the West beyondthe ofjust a few of the thousandswho Mississippi,beyond the 100thmeridian. heededthe call. The West of Wyatt Earp,Billy the Kid, '49ers. 2O-muleteam Borax, the Were thereany PrinceGeorgeans on the Geronimo,Crazy Horse,Lewis & Clark, Lewis andClark expedition?I don't Pike's Peak,Astoria, and the OK Conal. know-I've looked at the list of names The Far West where I live now. and don't recognrzeany. But adventurersfrom PrinceGeorge's Why did men and women from Prince County were amongthe first to rushto George'sCounty headWest? The same the Gold Fieldsof Californiain 1849. reasonsanyone else did-Opportunity, adventure,land, freedom,new "Ho for California-the Washington beginnings. City and CaliforniaMining Association" was the headlinein the Baltimore And from the time of the Revolution up Clipperon March 3 1, 1849. From to the Civil War therewas a great Washingtonit reportedthat "we have, economicincentive to leavePrince on severaloccasions, noticed the George'sCounty. During thoseeighty- preparationsin this city of the five years,the populationof our county company.. ..Everymember is armed did not grow. Thoseof us who with a revolver,belt knife and hatchet, rememberthe extremegrowth of the anda rifle....TheAssociation will post-WorldWar II era,that might seem assemblein LafayetteSquare, fronting incredible,but it was true. The the President'sHouse on Monday populationnumbers remained steady for afternoon..." and from therethey would 85 years. headWest, first by rail, then by mule- drawnwagon. The paperprinted the The tobaccoand slaveplantation system namesof the company,including these had developedto a point where further men from PrinceGeorge's County- division of the land-was not B.B. Edmonston,Daniel R. Wall, J.W. sustainable.The tobaccoplanters knew Marden,Fielder Magruder, Augustus from a practicalpoint of view they could Capron,and Henry Vermillion. So when not divide their plantationsamong eight, the greatrush to the West beganin five, or eventhree children and expect earnest-Prince Georgeanswere in it. them to sustainthemselves Now, somestories about a few others economically. So most native-bornsons who went West in the latterhalf of the and daughtershad to leave. Few 19thcentury. immigrantscame. The old societyof plantationsand greathouses and tobacco The first story is that of a nativeof was one that only a minority of the Upper Marlboro namedWilliam Horace children of even the most favored Clagett. Clagettwas one of the familiescould expectto stayand enjoy. outstandingnational statesmen ever to Most everyoneelse had to move on, or comeout of PrinceGeorge's County. He helpedestablish two statesin the Fred Clagettrelated to me one of the West,mid-wifed the birth of America's storiesthat was passeddown through the first national park, and wrote, in part, yearsfrom William H. Clagett's throughlaw and litigation, the basic childhood. Let me quoteit directly as mining law of the United States,a law of Fred told it: "When he was aboutten, immenseeconomic significance to all [William H. Clagett's]grandfather sent the statesof the West. Clagettis of him on horsebackto Upper Marlboro, specialinterest to me because,like me, the countyseat.. .with moneyto pay a he endedup in Idaho. debt. ln town, beforecompleting his errand,Billy...stopped to seea slave Although William HoraceClagett auctionin progress.A youngboy of his movedto Idaho about 100 yearsbefore I own age-a boy he apparentlyknew- did, he was waiting for me, in a sense,in cameup for sale,and Billy decidedthe the personof his grandson,Fred Clagett, debt could wait. He madethe winning of King City, Oregon. Even beforeI bid, andback they went on the horse movedout West,I had gottento know togetherto face an irate grandfather." Fred Clagettduring his genealogical Young Billy Clagettcould not bearto researchvisits back to PrinceGeorge's seehis friend sold. County,when he visited the Historical SocietyLibrary, so when he learnedI'd Now Fred himself questionedwhether movedout to Idaho,he and his wife the auctioneersin Marlboro would have Dorothy gaveme a call and then drove really let a ten-yearold boy bid on a over from Oregonto visit. slave,but true or not, the story brings to light a rift that had developednot only in Fredwas justly proud of his grandfather the Clagett family, but in Prince William HoraceClagett, because he had George'sCounty, the stateof Maryland, a wide-rangingand distinguishedcareer and the nation as a whole over the great in the West,and is countedamong the issueof slavery. For thereis evidence foundingfathers of the Stateof Idaho. that young Billy Clagett'sfather, Fred spentmore than twenty years ThomasWilliam Clagett,was growing researchinghis grandfather'slife story uneasyover the questionof slavery,and and told me a few storiesabout him I beginningto questionsome of the basic will tell you tonight. tenetsof the tobacco-growing,slave- holding societyin which he was raised. William H. Clagettwas born in 1838at his grandfather'shome, Weston,the So in 1850,Thomas William Clagett family's ancestralestate a few miles uprootedhis family, including young from Upper Marlboro. His father, Billy, from the ancestralhome and ThomasWilliam Clagett,was a lawyer movedwest a thousandmiles to Keokuk, andtobacco planter who was elected Iowa. Thereyoung William H. Clagett twice to the Maryland legislature. His grew up, in a free stateopposed to grandfatherThomas Clagett,in whose slavery. As he matured,he went away to homehe was born, was a well-known law schoolin New York, and then,just and influential man not only in the as the Civil War was breakingout, Marlboro vicinity but county-wide. headedWest with his brother Georgeto the gold fields of Nevada. Nevadathen was the wildest of the wild wife left Nevadaand headedby wagon frontiers. Discoveriesof immenselodes for the boomingmining fields of western of preciousgold and silver causeda rush Montana.Along the way, while into the territory. The demand.for those encampedby the SnakeRiver, Mary versedin the law was immense-to Clagettgave birth to their secondchild, a organizeterritorial and county daughterthey namedIdaho. They goverrrments,to litigate and resolve arrivedin the MontanaTerritory in May mining disputes,and to formulatelocal of 1866and established themselves in law to fit the peculiarcircumstances of the town of Deer Lodge,their home for an economybased almost solely on the next ten years. mining. It was often said that after the miners, the first professionalsto arrive William H. Clagettthrew himself into were the prostitutes,and the secondwere the politics of the Montanaterritory. In the lawyers. William H. Clagettwas 1871he won a specialelection to serve part of that secondwave of asthe MontanaTerritory's delegateto professionals.And he did very well. Congress. Thoughhe servedonly one term-he was a Republicanin a heavily Clagettset himself up in law practicein Democraticstate-he had two major CarsonCity, Nevada'scapital, and very accomplishmentsin Washington:He shortly was electedto the territorial was instrumentalin the passageof the legislature.As a legislativeleader, he Mining Law of 1872,which finally was instrumentalin Nevada'squest for codified federalpolicy governingthe statehoodin 1864. He campaigned extractionof mineralsfrom public lands statewide,and, though still in his in the West-a law that still stands130 twenties,he earnedthe title, "The Silver yearslater--and he introducedthe bill to TonguedOrator of the West." Congressthat establishedYellowstone NationalPark, the first nationalpark in While in Nevada,William H. Clagett the United States.The