AN OLD MARYLAND TOWN
                          Susan Eichar Clagett (1859 - 1952)

     It was a glorious day.  Along the branch the sumac, birch, willow and maple vied with one another in beautifying the curving banks.  Far back were the forests, brilliant in greens, reds, and yellows, the coloring intensified against the dark background of the pines.  Pausing an instant on the bridge leading to the grounds of the Agricultural Association of Southern Maryland, the visitor wondered at the changes time had wrought.  Old landmarks had disappeared. The eyes rested upon a swift, muddy, narrow stream, and upon acre upon acre of mosquito-infested swampland.  From the depths of the tangle of water lilies and cat-tails came a deep-voiced requiem for past glories, and over all hung the pall of miasma.
     Bullfrogs instead of merchant vessels!  The small boys who market them, in place of the hurrying feet of the boats crew!  The village lads swing their heels over the abutments of the bridge that stands where sailing vessels once anchored.  Important for over a century as a shipping wharf, the former busy landing of old Marlborough Town now suggests nothing to the casual observer.  He probably entered the place over one of the two railroads that connect it with the outside world, and would never associate the present town with colonial times.
     It is a sleepy little place, never fully awake except during court and fair weeks, at political meetings, and at mail time.  Then the buggies are driven backward and forward.  Groups of men lounge on the porches; others lean against the iron fence in front of the court house and discuss the tobacco and wheat crops or the last political scandal. 
     Carriages stand close behind one another against the curb.  The ladies chat while waiting for the mail or their packages, brought in the large department store, a recent innovation.  The latter stands as a monument to the industry of a Jewish merchant, who also owned the coal and lumber yards, a saloon, and ran the postoffice.  If he had lived, he would probably have held the largest share of stock in the new bank.  In sharp contrast to the pretentious frame building with its large show windows and long paved portico is the flock of geese sauntering with dignified mien down the middle of the street.  Following them come cows of varying degrees of color and breed.  They have been pasturing along the pike.  There is an ordinance against  the straying cattle that the "city fathers" have vainly tried to enforce.  They have given up the struggle.
     But the town is an improvement on the one of the past.  The once muddy streets are now macadamized.  A handsome courthouse adorns the main thoroughfare.  Besides these evidences of progress, there are three newspapers, and agricultural association, and a bank.  The Pope's Creek and Chesapeake railroads take the place of the old shipping wharves.  With such material advancement, Upper Marlborough should still hold its own.
     There is no landmark to identify the town with the ancient history of the Province, yet its existence dates back to 1690.  Even at so early a time the wisdom and foresight of its founder was evident in the selection of a site that shortly became prominent throughout the newly settled country.  With a party of Scotch Covenanters, Nathaniel Taylor sailed up the Patuxant river looking for a "place of peace and hope where conscience might have breathing room".  Turning into a broad estuary, he anchored some distance from its mouth and there built one of the five Presbyterian churches erected during the early existence of the Province.  It is from the minutes of that religious body that we know the date of the settlement of the town.  As an instance of the close relations between the past and the present, the communion service used by those sturdy pioneers is in the possession of the Presbyterian Church in Hyattsville, and with reverence the communicants still touch the cup once lifted by hands that toiled for the preservation of their religion.
     Nestling in a half circle formed by the Western branch of the Patuxant, Taylor was peculiarly fortunate in location.  Then, and until quite recent years, there was sheet of water sufficiently broad and deep to make it the shipping point for the surrounding country.  Export warehouses were erected, and the planter received from the ships that carried his tobacco to England "the groceries and osnaburgs" (a species of coarse linen made in Germany), "with such things as were needed to supply the cellar and pantry and his wife's kitchen and basket".
     But the settlers were not dependent upon the water for communication.  Three thoroughfares were opened.  One to Annapolis, another to Alexandria, Va. from which a road in later years branched to Georgetown, and the third to Nottingham.  It is probable that the same system of road making instituted in Anne Arundel County was adopted by the Prince Georgians, and "rolling roads were marked and cleared for the rolling of barrel, hogsheads, logs, and even houses".  The hogsheads of tobacco were moved by primitive contrivance which can be seen in the National Museum in Washington.  Within the past twenty years it was still in use in some sections of Virginia.  Consisting of shafts or pole with a simple fork work, it was attached to the hogshead that rolled between and was drawn be horses or oxen.  The writer not so long ago saw a similar vehicle on the turnpike leading into Marlborough, and it vividly recalled the time when such was the only means of conveying the casks from the plantations to the vessels.
     Not far from it was another evidence of earlier days.  In a pile of moldering logs lying near the fence dividing the road from private property no one would suspect a tragedy.  Yet they were mute testimony of colonial justice.  Once an immense elm tree, upon whose branches were hung the quartered bodies of robbers and murderers, it lay hidden in a clump of kindly bushes.  The trumpet vine, with its gay flowers, made of the rotting wood a thing of beauty and its story was forgotten.  Although Marlborough as the county seat, was provided with such instruments of punishment as a "pillory, ducking stool, whipping post, stock and branding irons", summary justice was meted to all marauders of the above class, and the tree stood for many years as a landmark upon the public road.  Its decayed body at last became a menace to the passerby, an the owner of the property, Mr. Charles Clagett, ordered it cut down.
     Sixteen years after Taylor anchored on the shores of the western branch the village became something more than a frontier settlement.  With Daniel Carrol as one of the commissioners, it was raised to the dignity of an incorporated town.  How it came by its name is a matter of conjecture.  It is likely that the Scotch pioneers called it after the Duke of Marlborough.  In the absence of any definitive information the following explanation is probable.  Surrounding the town are banks of  marl.  That word added to borough, which means "an incorporated town or village" gives the name as it has been spelled since the first settlement.  Upper was used to distinguish it from Lower Marlborough in Calvert county.  Unfortunately the metes and bounds of the little village became obliterated and it was necessary forty years later to make a resurvey.
     As there was a law in the Province making it obligatory for every householder "to pay at least ten shillings for every taxable person in  his family, paying for it in tobacco at two pence a pound", there must  have been other money than the few English coins in circulation.  It is on record that a mint was established at St. Mary's Town for the coining of money.  Specimens of such are extremely rare, but the Maryland Historical Society has been fortunate as to secure a number, including shillings, sixpences, pennies and groats.  A fact that makes the foregoing of even greater interest is that the present State motto, "Crecite et multiplicamini", is upon them.
     From the time of its incorporation Marlborough grew rapidly in importance as a shipping, political and social center.  An Assembly room and club house were erected, of which rude sketches are still extant.  These show buildings "as one storied structures of modest proportions with hip roofs and large windows".The former building stood until the past quarter of a century at the corner of what is still called Commerce street, the street that once led to the busy wharves.  At the time of its destruction silver buckles and other ornaments of that gay period were found within its walls.
     The following letter written by Col. Burgess, was of sufficient importance to be quoted by the Maryland historian, Sharf.  It igives a realistic picture of Marlborough as a colonial town and it also shows the epistolary attainments of a gentlemen of that period.
     "I retain a vivid recollection of the state of society during my youth in Prince George County, and I attended many of the horse races, balls, plays, and other diversions of that time.  They were under the  management of the oldest and most distinguished gentlemen  of the county.  The strictest order and decorum were observed, and a special regard was paid to the nicer points of etiquette.  There were many horse races in  Prince George and it was very much the practise of the gentlemen and ladies of the county to attend the races near George Town, Upper Marlborough, and elsewhere.  Drunkeness  and disorder of every kind were severely frowned upon.  The ladies were delighted to attend, and a handsome ball was given to wind up the festival.
     The Assembly rooms of Upper Marlborough were used for a variety of purposes, for plays, balls, recitations, by a musical class of which I was a member and which Bishop Claggett sometimes attended.  You call it a club house.  There was another clubhouse in the forest, (note: this last mentioned was situated just below Bowieville, the home of Mr. Jerry Berry. S.E.C.) not far from the residence of the Bowies, and about six miles from Westphalia, the family seat of the Burgesses.  The balls at the forest clubhouse, to give the gentlemen and ladies an opportunity to go to their homes and so get comfortable lodgings, commenced at three o'clock in the afternoon and closed at midnight.  Those at Marlborough kept up till a late hour.  We occacaionally had very fine actors in Upper Marlborough, some of the most eminent in the country at that time.  When we had a grand theatrical entertainment the houses at Upper Marlborough were crowded and so also was every householder within five miles of the town, ladies and gentlemen coming in costly carriages, with postillions and outriders from George Town, Alexandria, Baltimore, and other places.  Assemblies were given in the Marlborough and forest clubhouse every month during the season.  At these assemblies intoxication was not tolerated.  Card parties were a regular feature of entertainment, and the game usually played, always for money, was whist".
     Rich, with thousands of acres of fertile land and owners of many slaves, the planters and townspeople enjoyed their ideal life until the stirring times preceding the Revolution.  Then they roused to concerted action.  Hearing that "ships loaded with dutiable goods were bound for the Patuxant River", a meeting was held in the town to take such action as would prevent the landing of the cargoes and to assist the Association of Freemen to carry out the resolutions of that body.  Committees were formed of such men as Allan Bowie, Richard Duckett, Thomas Clagett, and others prominent for resolution and executive ability.  The same families, with additional and well known names, figured in the Continental army, and the people of the town and vicinity can well be proud of the men it sent in the defense of liberty.  The Prince George's contingent was among the four hundred Marylanders who held the British in check at Gowanus Creek, Long Island.  Outnumbered many times, the brave men rallied again and again.  Fighting hand to hand against an overwhelming force, with no chance for life except the ignomy of surrender, they died rather than ask for quarters.
     In its most flourishing condition Upper Marlborough never numbered as many as eight hundred people, yet it took the lead in sending men of brain and ability into the world.  Here lived the "father of the Catholic Church in America", and later its first archbishop, John Carroll, a staunch patriot and always prominent in matters pertaining to his country and church.  His house, a simple frame structure of two stories, formerly stood across the street from the present "Marlborough House", a brick building whose age is problematical.  No mention is made by Sharf of such an inn, but there is a possibility that the original edifice, which has been twice enlarged, is the clubhouse referred to by Col. Burgess.
     Two years after Dr. Carrol's appointment Thomas John Claggett was elected bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church.  His estate, Croome, was not far from the old town, and Trinity Church of the place owes its existence to his efforts.  Unlike his eminent contemporary, Bishop Claggett was a tory.  As the services of the Church of England was objectionable to the people, he was waited upon by a company of soldiers and ordered to discontinue its use.  The divine waqs conducting the service at the time.  Calmly facing the lowering countenances and bristling array of bayonets, he read on with steady voice to the end.  But when he left the pulpit it was to retire to private life.  He realized the futility of continuing his ministrations with the public mind it its the inflamed condition, and his principles prevented him from adopting the lower form of worship.
     The bar as well as the clergy has been recruited from the families in and around the ancient place.  Such names as Reverdy Johnson, Thomas F. Bowie, John B. Brooke sr., John M .S. Causin, with many others shed a luster upon the profession that can be pointed to with honest pride.  Here it is that Reverdy Johnson made his first oratorical effort and failed.  The old courthouse is gone, but the little brick office where he studied still stands at the corner of the two principal streets.  
The small building has long been occupied by a negro cobbler.  Where once rang words of eloquence is now heard the sound of shoe menders hammer and the guttural voice of its colored inmate.
     During the war of 1812 the town was the center of much excitement.  It was sufficiently near the river for the inhabitants to fear the depredations of of the British who had followed Commodore Barney to Pig's Point, four miles distant.  Acting under orders from the Secretary of War, Barney destroyed his flotilla  and crossed the country to Bladensburg, while Admiral Cockburn proceeded to Marlborough to join Gen. Ross.  The latter had left  the British fleet at Benedict and was then quartered, with its officers, in the house of Dr. William Beans jr.
     Up to this time it had not been known whether it would be advisable to attack Washington, but the nearness of the Capital decided them to try and effect its capture.  Plans were outlined and so closely followed that the battle of Bladensburg occurred the next day, and the Capital of the nation lay in the palm of the enemy's hand.  As the English left the town that night Dr. Beans, who had learned of the movement, headed a party of citizens and followed the army.  He succeeded in capturing several of the soldiers, and in retaliation was himself taken prisoner by the victorious English when the returned from Washington.  
     To this incident is due the inspiration of The Star Spangled Banner.  The author, Francis Scott Key, was a nephew of Dr. Beans.  He was sent by the many friends of that gentleman to demand his release as a non-combatant.  Under the flag of truce Key reached the admiral as he was about to bombard Fort Mc Henry, and so became an unwilling witness of the scene.  Anxiously he waited for the dawn, fearful lest the flag he honored had been laid low, but as the fog and smoke of battle cleared away he saw Old Glory flaunting the stars and stripes in the enemy's face and he voiced his joy in the poem that has since become the nation's hymn.

                                        Signed, Susan E. Clagett