nnnnnnnnn
Being an
Essay of Conjecture on the
Times,
Triumphs, Travails and Adventures
of a
Noble House
Shirley Calvert-Faoro, Editor & Peter Faoro, Scribe ©2005 All rights reserved.
Introduction & DIRECT FAMILY GENEALOGY
1 .Positioning For Power - Up to the year 1625
2. The Flourishing of Power - The critical years between 1625 and 1632
3. Cecil & Leonard - The adventure begins: 1632 to 1675
4. Peerage and Pioneers - Making their own rules: 1675 to 1782
5. Frontiersmen, Farmers and Families - The Bluegrass: 1782 to 1890
6. Denouement - The end of the Calvert aristocracy: 1732 to 1771
The errors and real or perceived lapses in judgment in these pages are mine. The rest of the project wouldn’t have been possible without the kindness and generosity of volunteer genealogy research groups. As just one example, we were at one point contacted by one of the participants in these groups, who, along with her husband, spent a full day climbing through an obscure church cemetery in rural Kentucky poring through the church’s faded handwritten records of a century ago in search of William Baltimore Calvert.
Particular thanks are extended to Barbara Mullendore Calvert in New Jersey and Jean T. Gillett in California, and to Mike Gallafent of Reading, England for making the trek to the Oxford library, providing copies of period articles on the last Lord Baltimore, and for reviewing sections of the manuscript for accuracy in the portrayal of Elizabethan and Georgian English society.
Special mention and appreciation is extended to Sandi Gorin, who was kind enough to dig through her archives at our request and retrieve gems of Kentuckiana which have been woven into the text to help give depth and flavor to this project. I never met any of these people, yet consider them friends as well as colleagues. Two people I happily have met are Uncle (Albert) Earl Calvert, whose exceptional retention of oral tradition provided the foundation of our work, and Shirley Jean Calvert, advisor, the reason behind this effort, and the patient editor of my drafts. Happiness is indeed being married to your best friend.
Disclaimer
The Calvert Chronicles is an essay intended solely for private
distribution among family, friends and colleagues interested in the
subject matter. Some parts are compilations of commentary by others
more familiar with certain aspects of the topic. Sources and authors
have been cited when possible, but much of the material was gathered
from the public domain or otherwise acquired well before the present
project was envisioned. In some instances, sources which would have
been noted were simply lost. In addition to those mentioned above, in
writing The Calvert Chronicles we’ve looked to material from That
Dark and Bloody River, by Allen W. Eckert, and Frederick Jackson
Turner’s theses, The Significance of the Frontier in American
History. Other sources include: Descendants of the Virginia
Calverts, by Ella Foy O’Gorman; a series of articles published in The
Maryland Genealogies by John Bailey Calvert Nicklin; The
Flowering of the Maryland Palatinate, privately published by Harry
Wright Newman; various issues of Maryland Historical Magazine
published by the Maryland Historical Society; and The Calvert Papers
held by the Maryland Historical Society and the State of Maryland. If
copyrighted material is contained herein for which credit is not given,
or for which payment would have been demanded by the author, the
transgression was unintentional, and my apologies are sincerely
extended.
“The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.”
- William Shakespeare
2 KING HENRY VI, Act 4, Scene 2
The following essay isn’t intended to be a history of the Calvert family, but rather a social account of their times. The historical record has been amply mined, and has proven to be abundantly clear in some places, but in most other places too scanty, contradictory and poorly documented for any further attempt to rise above the level of mere speculation: very shortly after Sir George’s death gaps covering years and decades begin appearing in the family records, and the chances of finding reliable material to fill in those voids after the passage of centuries are slight at best.
Though every effort has been made at accuracy, some relationships and observations may, in fact, be wrong, again due to the absence of records: in many instances we can’t be absolutely certain that one particular Calvert fathered another, but our objective has been to create a reliable sense of the places and periods in which we know the Calverts were present, and keep our assumptions about specific Calverts as informed as possible
There has been no attempt made in the following pages to include the names and birth and death dates of each and every Calvert down through the ages. Such material, primarily of interest to genealogists, is usually tedious in the extreme and lends little “color” to the story itself.
There is a difference, though, between
speculation about individual lives, and reasonable assumptions drawn
from our understanding of how societies functioned in the past. What
drew the ships “
Commemorative postage stamp issued in 1934
This is an effort to take what is known (or probably known) about the line extending from Sir George Calvert, through his second son Leonard, down to Omer Triplett Calvert, with side trips to the world of Sir George’s eldest son Cecil and his descendants, and place them in context. In short, these are descriptions of the stage and not the actors; a picture of the backdrop to add perspective to the chronicle of a family’s journey.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Some of what follows will represent arrogance
and unacceptable conduct to modern observers. Even by the general
social standards of their times the aristocratic Calverts operated
under a code of behavior that was - to them and their social peers -
assumed, even considered laudable, while dramatically at odds with the
standards of behavior expected of the general population both then and
now. As the tale extends into adolescent
We are unfair in making judgments about yesterday by the assumptions of today. The laws, as well as the arguments devoutly held by various societies down through the years concerning the standing of women, slaves, religious freedom, censorship, and so on, are but the most obvious examples of changing values. Aside from such large issues, however, most of a culture’s values evolve in an almost imperceptible series of small, seemingly innocuous steps, as illustrated by an example from a most surprising source.
George Washington, a Calvert relative by marriage through Cecil’s line, appears to have been every bit the man his reputation describes, to the point of being absolute and unbending in his judgments of right and wrong. Apparently he wasn't a particularly fun guy to hang around with, though; poor sense of humor and all that, although he was reportedly an enthusiastic dancer, and a devoted card player. (2) Without a doubt he is deserving of the place in history accorded him. But consider:
Abundant documents confirm that from early
adulthood the Father of our Country unabashedly used his position,
wealth, and influence to acquire extensive land holdings in the
The historical Calverts would in many ways be strangers to us today, but in the context of their times they were, with one notable exception, upright and honorable men and women, representative of the society from which they arose. That society, however, was often harsh, uncouth, largely illiterate and unlearned, frequently violent and, in a style still finding expression on today’s Wall Street, it could be a cynical, calculating age.
Having said as much, let us start at the middle of the beginning.
POSITIONING FOR POWER
------------------------
George Calvert, 1579 - 1632
************
Rather than start with George Calvert
himself, let us take a quick look at Anne Mynne, who would become his
wife on
Henry I, King of England (son of William the Conqueror)
Henri I, King of
William de Vernon, 5th Earl of Devon
Henry Grey, 1st Baron Grey of Codnor
Richard Grey, 2nd Baron Grey of Codnor
Baron FitzPayn
Richard Poynings, 3rd Baron Poynings
....and a lengthy list of Knights and Ladies
The tradition of strategically adept marriages would continue into following generations as successive Lords Baltimore would marry into (or otherwise dally, with resulting offspring) families claiming the hereditary power and influence of monarchs and nobility, including Charles II, King of England, and later George I, King of Great Britain (the title changed as the empire grew). How did George Calvert gain sufficient access and acceptance to the upper classes to marry into that rarefied society and thereby secure his own family’s rightful place at Court?
Of George’s own parentage very little has been recorded beyond their names; Leonard Calvert, an obscure Yorkshire gentleman, being George’s father, after whom his second son and direct ancestor of the Kentucky Calverts was named, Alicia Crossland his mother, John Calvert and Marjorie (of unknown maiden name) being his paternal grandparents, and even less being known about George’s maternal grandparents other than a dispute over whether Alicia’s father was Thomas or John Crossland. And yet both of George’s parents were of high enough standing to boast a family Coat-of-Arms, and George himself was formally educated.
The fact of George’s education is itself an indication of relative wealth (perhaps “upper middle class” in 20th Century terms) for in the last quarter of the 1500’s when he was a boy relatively few people could even read or write, and monarchs themselves were often only moderately educated. Formal education had only recently ceased to be the exclusive province of the clergy, scholars (often one and the same), and those who supported the clergy or the Crown with donations of land or gold.
Although schools for the poor and deserving began in this era, the family’s right to a Coat-of-Arms probably indicates that George’s attendance at such a school was not an option. (One was not normally granted a Coat-of-Arms unless there was either land which one, at least in theory, had a right to protect or as an honor bestowed by the Crown in return for political or monetary support). Moreover, the education received at such an institution would not have been sufficient preparation for admittance to the University. Had Leonard and Alicia been of the merchant class, their son would have been apprenticed rather than being sent to a university at considerable expense.
The near absence of information about George’s forebears, in combination with the fact of his schooling, also tells us a great deal about him. His parents were quite possibly unlettered, but at the very least tithed their estate to the established church, probably more than the requisite 10% as a sign of both devotion and an overt attempt to acquire influence in this world or the next - probably both. That they were able to do so suggests that George’s father was a successful landowner who accumulated his modest wealth through a combination of the beef and cattle trade (as indicated by the word calvert itself) and sub-renting portions of the family’s land.
Presumably then, young George grew up in a home where he saw first-hand the benefits of hard work, and must have been informed in unmistakable terms that education and hard work combined were a route to success. By inference and observation he learned that society’s institutions were tools to be used to one’s own advantage when possible.
In an age when childhood ended rather abruptly at 10 or 12 (early adulthood when the median life span was 35) these ideas must have been very fresh and pronounced in the boy’s mind when he was sent to Trinity College, Oxford, from which he received his Bachelor’s degree at age 17 in 1596/7, and his Master’s degree in 1605.(3) Education at the time was limited in scope to put it mildly: two centuries after George was born the first edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica was published. That first edition consisted of three volumes, each about the thickness of a big-city telephone directory, and claimed - without argument - to summarize all knowledge. Of those three volumes, fully one-third of the whole was devoted to Astronomy, Arithmetick (sic), Anatomy and Medicine and their subsections, with a substantial portion of the rest given over to navigation, geography, and the various arts of war and fortification.
Another inference can be made by the fact of
George’s admittance to Trinity, and that is that whatever the schooling
he received previously, his teachers were accomplished and their
student receptive. In reading and in arithmetic he was clearly quite
good or he wouldn’t have survived Trinity and gone on to amass a
fortune. His writing, however, was another matter. King Charles I would
later tease him that he “writ as fair a hand to look upon from afar
off, as any man in
It is unlikely that the marriage of George Calvert and Anne Mynne was a matter of the heart, although affection may well have grown out of the union. Romance would not be considered an important element of matrimony for nearly two centuries. That George was sharp enough to recognize the possibilities of such a marriage is certainly plausible, but it would have been the parents who first broached the subject as a practical matter for both families.
Wanting to improve his son’s station in a society governed by class and connections certainly was in Leonard Calvert’s mind, and George Mynne knew that his daughter’s family affiliations were valuable assets, not to be handed away frivolously. But what did the Mynne family stand to gain from the agreement? The man Anne Mynne married when she and her husband were both 25 was of a good family, wealthy if not rich, educated, and of an “acceptable” class of landowners. (Merchants, however successful they might have been, were still looked down upon). He had probably been identified as an up-and-coming individual in that small society.
It was a sensible match. While the Calverts stood to gain in what we would today call “upward mobility”, the Mynne’s agreement to the marriage addressed a much more basic reality. In an age when women of any class were of secondary standing, the union of their daughter to the promising son of a prominent family represented significant assurance that Anne would be able to continue living in a manner appropriate to her inherited station in life. The concern was not unfounded, for society held many examples of titled ladies in threadbare gowns.
It was, of course, a gamble of sorts for the Mynnes to betroth their daughter to anyone, but there were likely strong indications already that young George was not a man to take undue risks with his own station in life. Ella Foy O’Gorman has described George Calvert this way:
"George Calvert was not a man of brilliant talent and boundless confidence in his own abilities, nor was he one of those who found the most attractive fishing in troubled waters. His talents were solid: he was cautious, laborious, exact, of unimpeachable integrity, and a true lover of his country."
George found a great deal of sense and utility in his improved circumstances.
THE FLOURISHING OF POWER
George Calvert, 1579 - 1632
First Lord Baltimore
-------------------------------------------
(1585 - first English colony in
************
Then, as now, access to the halls of power was a source of power itself provided, of course, that the person having access remembers that his is a derived power secure only so long as he is viewed favorably by the higher authority. George Calvert knew that well.
By his marriage to Anne Mynne, George was able to combine his own personal attributes of relative affluence and education with the implied right, derived from his wife, of access to the company of nobles and the royal household itself. O’Gorman’s description of his cautious, meticulous nature fits the recorded progress of his career. He didn’t immediately gain - or probably even seek - access to the King himself, but rather those quite close to the King and took advantage of successive opportunities to increasingly demonstrate his capabilities.
One year following his marriage to Anne, and
eight years after he had taken his Bachelor’s Degree, George received
his Master’s degree from Trinity,
The same year he became a Member of Parliament (in which he was to serve three non-consecutive terms over twenty years) and was appointed Private Secretary to the Earl of Salisbury. Salisbury himself was to leave a prominent mark on British history and George’s association with the Earl clearly provided the foundation of his own involvement in matters of state, for within months he was further appointed Clerk of the Crown (analogous to our modern District Attorney) for County Claire, Ireland.
It would be another eight years before his
major entry onto the stage of British history would occur, but his
progress then would be steady: at the age of 34 (in 1613) he became a
member of the Privy Council - similar to combined membership in the US
President’s Cabinet and the Supreme Court. Four years later he was
knighted; a year following that he was appointed one of the King’s
Secretaries of State (becoming Principal Secretary of State in 1619).
Only a few months before Anne died in 1621, the King granted him an
estate of 2300 acres in
As a basis for measuring his growing wealth during this part of his career, the position of a lesser Secretary of State, as opposed to his subsequent appointment as Principal Secretary, had carried with it a lifetime pension of £1000 Sterling per year - a sizable sum in itself when measured against the cost of the eventual “Adventure to Maryland” which was £550 - but during two months in 1627 he spent no less than £25,000 for what he described as “a little pain and care” for some improvements to his holdings in Newfoundland. Those are the words of a man accustomed to wealth.)
During this span of 20 years he became involved in the New World as a minor investor in the Virginia Company, where he nonetheless served on what we would recognize as the Board of Directors, remaining in that capacity until the organization’s eventual dissolution. His relationship with the Crown and Court must have played a role in his appointment to such a senior position: The potential financial risk was quite high, and the project eventually failed, but cautious George put very little money into it, having only two shares in the venture which couldn’t have carried much weight with the principals.
In looking at George’s involvement with the Virginia Company, and his later career path, some conclusions can be drawn about his diplomatic skills in and around the King’s Court. George Calvert was not only able to openly profess Catholicism to a Protestant King, but managed to have his grant of baronial title omit the usual obligation that he be “conformable in point of religion”, i.e., that his religion and the King’s be identical. Something more than loyalty, intelligence, and access were at work here. The most probable explanation for the King’s forbearance on such matters, and his evident assistance in furthering Calvert’s interests can be found in the power of political reality.
James I understood politics, and though
George Calvert’s religious leanings might not be “politically correct”
the King was free to overlook them. With a freedom denied to later
monarchs by enactment of legislation ordered by Parliament, James was
able to view George’s religion as little more than an inconvenience
rather than a significant obstacle to the elevation of a skilled,
wealthy and loyal supporter. After the Reformation, which was not
universally welcomed, there were many in
The
The Seventeenth and the Twentieth Centuries shared a desire for get-rich-quick schemes, but George Calvert doesn’t appear to have been a man taken in by such dreams. His dreams had a decidedly more practical flavor. While probably hoping to find gold, George would never have spent £25,000 on improvements to real estate had his primary objective been mining or the spice trade. George wanted developed land, real estate itself, pure and simple. Towns, villages, farms, shipping, self-sustaining economic communities generally in which he would have a vested interest were his chosen vehicles. (5)
In 1623 Sir George, Lord Baltimore, a Member
of Parliament, Principal Secretary of State to the King, and a Royal
relative, successfully prevailed upon the King for a grant of lands in
Newfoundland, to be called Avalon.
..He came at the most favorable season and remained but for a month or two, so that he could scarcely have had time to visit the interior of the island [and] we cannot but think that when he compared the reality with Whitbourne’s glowing descriptions and the fancy pictures he built upon them, his disappointment must have been deep.
The second Lady Baltimore, Joan, accompanied
Sir George on his second visit, and remained about a year, at which
time having had enough of the harsh climate and surroundings; she
packed her bags and sailed for
Lady Baltimore, and her younger children by
George, remained in
The processes of government were as slow in
the 1600’s as today, and Sir George’s petition for a grant of new lands
in
The Charter of Maryland was therefore issued
to his eldest son, Cecil, Second Lord Baltimore. At the time of his
passing, Sir George Calvert bequeathed an appreciable estate of
developed land (in
CECIL & LEONARD
-------------------------------------------
Cecil Calvert, 1605 - 1675, Second Lord Baltimore
Leonard Calvert, 1606 - 1647
************
(1611- King James Version of the Bible
published * 1619 - first slaves brought to
************
Cecil, like his father before him, realized
the benefits of a politically adroit marriage, and with the advantages
of an established title and existing access to the Royal household that
his father had made possible by marrying Anne Mynne, Cecil also entered
a marriage to a woman of a lineage at least as distinguished as that
which his own mother had brought to the family. Anne Arundel, who would
marry Cecil, on
Edward III, King of
John of Gaunt, Duke of
Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmoreland
Richard Neville, 1st Earl of
William Bonville, Baron Harington & Bonville
Cecily Bonville, Baroness Harington & Bonville
Thomas Grey, 1st Marquess of
Thomas Grey, 2nd Marquess of
Thomas Arundel, 1st Baron Arundel of Wardour
Anne’s ancestry might have been “noble”, but
it wasn’t necessarily illustrious. The royal families, nobility, and
aristocracy so firmly established in the
"[In the winter of 1379/80] delayed by winds and the threat of a French raid, [Sir John] Arundel took part of his force to Southampton to guard against an enemy landing and, while there, to conduct himself indistinguishably from the enemy. Besides robbing the countryside, he quartered his men-at-arms and archers in a convent, allowing them to violate the nuns and a number of poor widows who lived there, and carry them off to the ships when ready to sail. Arundel was the man who had demanded money in hand before he would defend the south-coast towns against earlier French raids.... Sailing in December, his convoy was caught by a violent storm during which he ordered the kidnapped women thrown overboard to lighten the ships."
From left: Leonard Calvert, Anne Arundel, Cecil Calvert
Under the law of primogeniture (7), second son Leonard, although he came into reasonable circumstances with George’s passing, inherited no title or particular riches from his father. Primogeniture was the legal method by which estates and wealth passed intact from generation to generation through the firstborn son. George Calvert’s Will specified a bequest of £900 for Leonard. Two years after George’s death Leonard personally put up three-quarters of the total cost of the expedition to Maryland (£550), so he must have had other resources - probably land - beyond the relatively small amount left by his father’s final wishes. Nevertheless, as Governor of Maryland after Sir George’s death, he would write to his brother the Baron complaining that he could not afford the £30 (in hard cash) needed for the purchase of arms and supplies in a particular transaction he had been directed to undertake.
In some instances primogeniture was also a
tool by which second children and beyond were effectively disinherited,
but the Calvert family engaged in no such fratricide. The law was the
law: Cecil was the Baron, Leonard wasn’t. Minorities and
disenfranchised groups of all sorts have accepted such laws without
question from the beginning of history and the Calverts were no
different. Moreover, Cecil clearly recognized certain executive
qualities in his younger brother and called upon his sibling to help
run the family business --- as Governor of Maryland. That Leonard
didn’t object to the concept of primogeniture, at least not too
vociferously, can be inferred by his introduction of a similar law in
Second son or not, Leonard, too, married well, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say he probably married prestigiously since there are no surviving records of the marriage. The woman credited with being his wife, Anne Brent, claimed Royal ancestry but primarily Spanish and despised French rather than English and therefore somewhat less “clout” than the Ladies Baltimore. Anne’s forebears included no less than:
Alfonso V of
Alfonso VI of
Sancho II of
Alfonso VII of
Alfonso IX of
Louis VIII of
Louis IX of
Edward I of
Cecil, though the official founder of
Leonard was given substantial leeway in
achieving the objectives set for him by his older brother. Leonard
carved a society out of the rough woods and swamps of the new world
amidst the almost constant hostility of the Virginians. Where there
were forests before he arrived, there were communities and farms and
estates when he died, leaving as his executrix his sister-in-law (and
attorney) Margaret Brent (8), a powerful colonial landowner who, because
of her remarkable business and legal acumen, has been called
Margaret Brent – National Geographic Society
True, the society from which Leonard departed
was still rough, still violent and somewhat dangerous, but it was on a
solid footing and subsequent Governors of Maryland were only to build
upon and refine what Leonard had created. It is not inappropriate that
the Maryland flag is the only one of the 50 state flags to honor its
founders by name through the use of the family crest, and one of the
very few to commemorate its pre-colonial past at all. Only
The
The natives in Maryland were part of the great Iroquois Confederation, consisting of tribes controlling territory extending from the modern Canadian Maritime provinces, south to Virginia, and west to the Allegheny Mountains of western Pennsylvania, with disputed claims extending even further; all told, a territory larger than that controlled by Rome at the height of her Empire. But thirty years of interaction between coastal native Americans and the Europeans had led to some manner of understanding between the two cultures. The frictions had evolved into a generally more civil standoff, with Indians recognizing they were no match for gunpowder and the colonists being more interested in establishing their crops and fortunes than killing heathens.
In
To a far greater degree than the other
colonies,
While Leonard and Cecil agreed in principle
on most things, it was Leonard who was able to add a sense of
pragmatism to the directions he had received, particularly in the realm
of religion-as-politics. English Catholics of the time were primarily
landowners and otherwise drawn from the class of gentry.
When Cecil directed his brother that the
subject of religion was not to be discussed at sea during the voyage to
the new colony, his intention was obviously to prevent disaster and
keep the peace, for Catholics were a minority even on their own ships.
It was Leonard who translated this concept into a greater principle.
Even though
The practical reality of the situation was
that Cecil had inherited the full weight of managing his father’s
holdings and participating in the affairs of state appropriate to one
of his station.
Beyond that, it is highly probable that Cecil
was not fully aware of the completely pristine circumstances in which
he had set Leonard to work. While Cecil made references to the natives
in his letters (demanding, for instance, that they “surrender their
rights to me this year”), his primary goal was to establish the colony
as a Calvert mini-kingdom, mirroring
An excellent example exists today of the
communities Leonard caused to be established in early
St. Mary’s and Plimouth would have resembled
each other closely in technology and architecture. The roads were muddy
when wet, dusty when dry, and pigs and chickens roamed almost at will.
Homes, constructed of wood, stone and earth, were more often than not
only a single room often occupied by large families. Both
As Dorothy might have said in a different Oz,
"We're not in
PEERAGE & PIONEERS
-------------------------------------------
Cecil’s line:
Charles Calvert, 1637 - 1715, Third Lord Baltimore
Benedict Leonard Calvert, 1679 - 1715, Fourth Lord Baltimore
Charles Calvert, 1699 - 1751, Fifth Lord Baltimore
Frederick Calvert, 1732 - 1771, Sixth Lord Baltimore
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Leonard’s line:
William Calvert, (died 1682)
George Calvert (dates unknown)
George Calvert, 1700 - 1782
************
(1656 * Harvard College accepts concept of
sun-centered universe * 1664 - British seize New Netherland (New York)
from the Dutch * 1670 - Estimated colonial population is 114,500 * 1677
- Peace treaty conference held between Maryland, Virginia, New
York and the Seneca Indians at Albany * 1687 - Isaac Newton publishes
his Principals of Natural Mathematics * 1705 - Idea of declaring
independence from England first shows up in print * 1707 -
Scotland united with England * 1740 - Estimated colonial
population is 889,000 * 1750 - Benjamin Franklin flies a kite in a
thunderstorm and isn’t electrocuted * 1760 - George III becomes King of
Great Britain. * 1769 - Daniel Boone leaves
************
The developments in Calvert history during
the period noted above are best explained by an event that happened
when it was all over. That descriptive event took place in 1781 when
the Governor of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson, commissioned one George
Calvert, age 70, a descendant of Leonard’s line and cousin to a Omer
T’s great-great grandfather, as a Captain in the Virginia Militia. The
Governor’s action is significant for a number of reasons and points up
the differences that had evolved between the titled Calverts of England
and those who settled in
Cecil’s descendants remained primarily British and aristocratic in outlook and upbringing, their numbers multiplying while the wealth remained the property of whomever was the current Lord Baltimore. Portraits of the successive Lords, often as children, show the offspring of class and position often in settings of comfort and opulence.
Although several of Cecil’s descendants had
been dispatched to the colony where they served as Governor, Attorney
General, Secretary of the Province, and other lofty positions, they
held those positions as subjects of the Crown and on behalf of the
Baron and the King. These families continued to move - and marry - in
the upper circles of society as it had developed on this side of the
Several years earlier, in 1771, Frederick
Calvert, the Sixth Lord Baltimore, had died in
George Calvert, proprietor of Deep Hole Farm
in
Whatever else this George may have done,
Jefferson must have understood that offering the old man a commission in the militia would be taken as it was intended: a deliberate slap at the King, a sign of encouragement for Virginians who had not had much good news from the battlefield, and many of whom were not as favorably disposed toward independence as was Jefferson himself.
The American Revolution was only part of a
truly world war. The major powers of
In such an environment public opinion could
not be expected to be cohesive, and it wasn’t. Later studies of
publications, court records and other barometers of contemporary
sentiment have shown that the population at large was about evenly
divided into thirds over the subject of independence. The actively
pro-independence faction was balanced by an equal number who wished to
remain part of the
How did George Calvert, at age 70, find
himself possessed of strong enough sentiments to renounce his
inheritance? The most likely answer is to be found in de Tocqueville’s
observations about the contrast of family structure in democratic and
aristocratic societies. From Volume Two of his Democracy in
In
In
In countries organized on the basis of an aristocratic hierarchy...men confine themselves to controlling those next on the chain [and] society is, in truth, only concerned with the father. It only controls the father; it rules him and he rules his sons....He is the author and support of the family; he is also its magistrate. He is given a political right to command.
In democracies, where the long arm of government reaches each man among the crowd separately to bend him to obedience to the common laws, there is no need for such an intermediary. In the eyes of the law the father is only a fellow citizen older and richer than his sons.
When conditions generally are very unequal and this inequality is permanent, the concept of superiority works on the imagination of men. But when men are little different from one another and such differences are not permanent, the general conception of superiority becomes weakened and less defined.
When men {in aristocratic societies} are more concerned with what their ancestors thought than to think for themselves, the father is heard with deference, he is always addressed with respect, and the affection felt for him is ever mingled with fear. In democratic societies father and son live together in the same place and carry on the same work. Habit and necessity bring them together and force them to communicate.
In democratic society a son addresses his father with freedom, familiarity and tenderness all at once. Under democratic laws the members of a family are perfectly equal, and consequently independent; nothing forcibly brings them together, but also nothing drives them apart as in aristocratic societies where age and gender irrevocably fix the rank for each. Democracy overthrows or lowers all these barriers. Perhaps the division of patrimonies which follows from democracy does more than all the rest to alter the relations between father and children......
The “division of patrimonies” to which de Tocqueville refers is the breakup of estates made inevitable by the elimination of primogeniture within the American colonies.
Simply put, George Calvert, along with most of Leonard’s descendants, had decided, perhaps without realizing it, that he was American and not British. Cecil’s descendants might see themselves as superior by birthright, but on this side of the Atlantic, the aged Captain Calvert probably saw himself as no more and no less than another landowner. His frame of reference was American; his sense of class distinctions was less ingrained than his English kin. At the time of the American Revolution, residents of these shores had been making their own decisions for nearly 300 years, almost always on the basis of self-interest and not often influenced by “tradition”.
George wouldn’t have felt particularly superior to his fellow citizens, nor that he was giving up all that much by declining the honor of title. He may also have been influenced by the knowledge that his deceased cousin Frederick (of whom more in a separate section) had squandered much of the family estate and irreparably damaged the family’s social and political standing in aristocratic circles.
More and more distanced from power and position, their property divided by succeeding generations, surrounded by a population which largely didn’t care who your grandfather was, Leonard’s descendants probably didn’t experience their evolution of social status as anything but normal and natural. Rather than mourning the loss of the Calvert fortune, which they never held, Leonard’s descendants most probably saw an opportunity to rise - on their own merits - in this new and unbridled land.
The
The exodus from
If you stopped your grants, what would be the
consequence? The people would occupy without grants. They have already
so occupied in many places. You can not station garrisons in every part
of these deserts. If you drive the people from one place, they will
carry n their annual tillage and remove with their flocks and herds to
another. Many of the people in the back settlements are already little
attached to particular situations. Already they have topped the
In
|
V FRONTIERSMEN, FARMERS
& FA William Calvert, 1732 - 1812 Gerrard Calvert, 1765 - 1840 William B. Calvert, 1799 - 1864 Burgess Durury Calvert, 1832 - 1923 William Burgess Calvert, 1863 - 1955 Omer Triplett Calvert, 1890 - 1974 |
|
(1775 - Battle of Lexington and Concord * 1781 - British surrender at Yorktown, VA *1803 - Louisiana Purchase * 1790 - United States population is 3,929,214 * 1792 - Kentucky becomes 15th state * 1807 - Fulton’s steamboat makes it from New York to Albany without blowing up * 1836 - photography invented * 1846 - US extends from Atlantic to Pacific * 1869 - Union & Central Pacific Railroad across the US completed *1876 - Telephone invented * 1903 - Wright Brothers first flight)
************
By 1797 Leonard’s great-great-grandson
William had packed up the family and moved from
Until 1744, when the first white
explorers set foot in the region, the settlement of the North American
continent was restricted to the Atlantic coast. As late as the 1760’s
there were still only small, widely separated settled areas of
The settlement of
The settlers were pretty much on their own
until the demand for land became a political issue in Congress and
President Washington dispatched General “Mad Anthony”
Indian raids and full-scale battles (not to mention unscrupulous land speculators and the general riffraff that follows any migration) were major concerns for the entire period from 1744, when the first whites entered Kentucky, until the early 1800’s when the Iroquois, Cherokee, Delaware, Wyandot, Kaskaskia, Chippewa and Shawnee who vigorously and aggressively resisted the settlers’ encroachment on their lands, had been driven off or killed and Kentucky emerged from “frontier” status to join the rest of the states as a settled community.
By the early 1800’s
The success and early rapid growth of the
city can be attributed to the fact that
This part of the family history is open to
speculation, but it is significant that several of William’s
descendants are recorded as having married Tripletts, prominent
Democracy and aristocracy notwithstanding, families of similar social station then, as now, tend to familiarity. Accordingly, the marriages to Tripletts are additional “clues” that the Calverts didn’t arrive in Kentucky as poor farmers, but as a family of reasonable substance already owning land purchased while living in Virginia ($60.00 per 100 acres for first rate land; $40 for other lands of "inferior quality"), rather than claimed as no-cost “tomahawk improvements” when they arrived.
Though opposition from local tribes had diminished substantially by the time William arrived, the hazard was far from gone. Indian attacks - and white provocations - would continue for decades yet (14). Due to conditions that were initially as primitive and much more dangerous than Leonard had encountered in settling Maryland, little if any significance should attach to Basil’s marrying the daughter of large landowners while his brother Gerrard (Omer T’s great-great- grandfather) married a woman for whom we have not found any particularly notable social standing.
Such considerations didn’t matter. What would
have mattered was that Rosanna McIlvane was a strong and resilient
woman who could hold her own in the
Following the initial exploration by Boone,
The abundant game that made the region such prime hunting ground for the native population fled before the massive influx of white men but that was not a problem of major consequence. Farmers do not have the time to hunt for food as a regular activity. Almost all of the settlers arrived with, or quickly acquired, hogs and chickens and often cattle, only using wild game as a sporadic supplement and even recreational variation to these domesticated staples. (One notable transformation from 19th to 20th Century domestic life, quite aside from implements and appliances, took place at the breakfast table. In an article on the economic battle that took place between Post and Kellogg when cold cereal was invented at the start of this century we learn that prior to the Age of Corn Flakes the typical American breakfast for farmers and city dwellers alike included ample portions of greasy bacon, fresh buttered home made bread, three or four eggs, often fried, pancakes in syrup, whole or buttermilk ....and whiskey (15). Coffee was restricted to the adults.)
The original settlement of
George Washington desired to settle a State at a time in the Northwest, and a few years later Jefferson wanted to reserve settlement of his Louisiana Purchase to north of the thirty-second parallel, in order to offer the balance of it to the Indians in exchange for their settlements east of the Mississippi. "When we shall be full on this side," he writes, "we may lay off a range of States on the western bank from the head to the mouth, and so range after range, advancing compactly as we multiply."
It didn’t work. As old and well settled as it was, even the “idea” of “Virginia” itself was not at all clearly defined: the term included some or all of modern Illinois, Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Kentucky. The European-based concept of boundaries as clear lines, often running through dense populations, simply had no meaning in a land that hadn’t even been decently mapped. And even if boundaries had held some meaning the settlers were not of a mind to comply. The early settlers had been tied to the coast by the need of salt, without which they could not preserve their meats or live in comfort. An annual pilgrimage to the coast for salt thus became essential. Taking flocks or furs, tobacco and ginseng root, the early settlers sent their pack trains to the coast each year according to the seasonal rhythms of their respective occupations. This was important since it was almost the only way in which the pioneer learned what was going on in the East.
When discovery was finally made of salt
springs beyond the Alleghenies the region was freed from dependence on
the coast, enabling settlement by the Calverts and thousands of other
families willing to cross the mountains. The West and the East began to
get out of touch of each other. The settlements from the sea to the
mountains had a certain solidarity. But the over-mountain men grew more
independent. The settlers’ and trader's "traces” widened into trails,
the trails were widened into roads, and the roads into turnpikes, and
these in turn were often transformed into railroads. These paths led
West, away from the coast. The second steam locomotive built in the
The differences between the Atlantic seaboard
states and the new “Western” states were more than simply a difference
in opinion as to what constituted a responsible approach to expansion.
But, sir, it is not the increase of population in the West which this gentleman ought to fear. It is the energy which the mountain breeze and western habits impart to those emigrants. They are regenerated, politically I mean, sir. They soon become working politicians; and the difference, sir, between a talking and a working politician is immense. The Old Dominion has long been celebrated for producing great orators; the ablest metaphysicians in policy; men that can split hairs in all abstruse questions of political economy. But at home, or when they return from Congress, they have Negroes to fan them asleep. But a Pennsylvania, a New York, an Ohio, or a western Virginia statesman, though far inferior in logic, metaphysics, and rhetoric to an old Virginia statesman, has this advantage, that when he returns home he takes off his coat and takes hold of the plow. This gives him bone and muscle, sir, and preserves his republican principles pure and uncontaminated.
Churches, for believers and skeptics alike, were the anchor of these early communities and played an important role by serving up a blend of morality, civility and heavy- handed social control. Settlers who didn’t give a whit what Congress, or even the state legislature had to say, were reluctant to challenge the secular authority of their local church. The result was a rapid stabilization of society to a degree conspicuously (and murderously) absent from the later settlement of the American West. The churches’ role in social control was exercised through not only peer pressure, but the formal procedure of Exclusions. This meant being kicked out of the church, and therefore the social life of the community. Until the individual made their peace with the church, the membership (and, by the way, with God) they were excluded. Infractions that might result in exclusion were therefore taken very seriously.
Normally the process of exclusion began after one church member complained about another member by reporting the problem at a regular business meeting. The church appointed a committee to talk to the individual and try to persuade them to confess and ask forgiveness. If the first step didn't work, the church would send out letters through the clerk to other churches in the area inviting them to come and help them. There was no appeal of their decision.
Tobacco, hemp (for the baling and bagging of
tobacco) and horses quickly established themselves as the dominant
economic forces in
William’s son Gerrard and his siblings were
not settlers, as their father had been. Rather, they were among the
builders of
The wheels kept turning. Hardly had
Generally, in all the western settlements, three classes, like the waves of the ocean, have rolled one after the other. First comes the pioneer, who depends for the subsistence of his family chiefly upon the natural growth of vegetation, called the "range," and the proceeds of hunting. His implements of agriculture are rude, chiefly of his own make, and his efforts directed mainly to a crop of corn and a "truck patch." The last is a rude garden for growing cabbage, beans, corn for roasting ears, cucumbers, and potatoes. A log cabin, and, occasionally, a stable and corn-crib, and a field of a dozen acres, the timber girdled or "deadened," and fenced, are enough for his occupancy. It is quite immaterial whether he ever becomes the owner of the soil. He is the occupant for the time being, pays no rent, and feels as independent as the "lord of the manor." With a horse, cow, and one or two breeders of swine, he strikes into the woods with his family, and becomes the founder of a new county, or perhaps state. He builds his cabin, gathers around him a few other families of similar tastes and habits, and occupies till the range is somewhat subdued, and hunting a little precarious, or, which is more frequently the case, till the neighbors crowd around, roads, bridges, and fields annoy him, and he lacks elbow room. The preemption law enables him to dispose of his cabin and cornfield to the next class of emigrants; and, to employ his own figures, he "breaks for the high timber," "clears out for the New Purchase," or migrates to work the same process over.
A generation later, Burgess Durury Calvert
was among those who headed on. O’Gorman reports that sometime between
1868 and 1870 he took the family into
It appears the universal disposition of Americans to emigrate to the western wilderness, in order to enlarge their dominion over inanimate nature, an actual result of an expansive power which is inherent in them, and which by continually agitating all classes of society is constantly throwing a large portion of the whole population on the extreme confines of the State, in order to gain space for its development. Hardly is a new State or Territory formed before the same principle manifests itself again and gives rise to a further emigration; and so is it destined to go on until a physical barrier must finally obstruct its progress.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Other considerations and circumstances common
to the settlement of
Although the 1850 Fleming County census includes a column labeled "persons over 20 years of age who cannot read and write” which lists his parents, William B. and Hettie Calvert, Burgess Calvert’s signature on his discharge from the Union Army shows a floral style indicating that he had, in fact, been educated at home if not in a school. In this regard a newcomer to the society of Calverts, having a certain interest in history, is struck by the reminiscences of family members who have recalled William Burgess Calvert in anecdotes. William Burgess is invariably described as a formal, reserved and proper gentleman, ramrod straight, whom one is led to believe always wore a suit. Pretentious? The Kentucky Calverts don’t seem the sort who would tolerate or encourage pretension. That is a family value judgment passed from generation to generation, not easily dismissed or abandoned. Esteem for knowledge falls in a similar category of values and Burgess Calvert’s apparent education, still evident in a son who lived into the Atomic Age, gives credence to a family tradition of pride and bearing first exemplified by Sir George Calvert.
On the subject of marriage, the oddities
reign though they become fully understandable when placed in context.
Most important to understanding that context is that the proportion of
men to women on the
Farming at the time, and long after, required large families. In this, William B. (16) appears to be the Calvert family record-holder, fathering at least sixteen children by two wives. Child mortality rates were high and eligible women were as scarce as eligible husbands were abundant. Death at an early age was not uncommon. The result was that not only the Calverts, but very many of the families who were in the Kentucky (and Tennessee) territories not uncommonly have in their history first cousin marriages, extremely early marriages, and marriages between widows or widowers and their former in-laws as a means of keeping property within the family.
These practices were legal, accepted, and an unavoidable product of the numerical imbalance between the sexes. The risks associated with close unions were known if not understood, and another accepted by-product of the period is that it was not uncommon for a couple to postpone a formal marriage for a suitable period of time, to see if the children were “all right”. If a child was found to be “lacking”, papa was free to head down the road unencumbered, for an unmarried mother had little recourse.
Under these confusing circumstances, the attempt to trace the descendants of George Calvert which by definition usually involved following the male line carrying the family name sometimes required trying to explore the maternal lines in order to determine which Calvert fathered which later Calvert. Too often, however, the mother’s married name rather than her maiden name was all that was available, and that was usually no help at all. It was under these circumstances that we made the acquaintance of Constance Calvert.
There is debate over William B. Calvert’s
parentage owing to a ten-year discrepancy in his reported birth date,
variously reported as 1790 and 1799, the error probably deriving from a
confusion of handwritten “zero’s” and “nine’s” which were often
difficult to distinguish. Depending on the birth date chosen and the
ages of the available mothers possible and living in the vicinity (a
key consideration for obvious reasons), the choices among Calvert
parents narrows down to either Zeal’s brother Gerrard Calvert and his
wife Rosanna McIlvane, toward whom the most convincing evidence points,
or Gerrard’s twin sister Constance (also recorded as “
As regards a lineage back to Leonard, this distinction is unimportant since both lines, whichever choice of parents one supports, extend back from William B. to the first Governor of Maryland. The confusion created by the conflicting accounts of William B.’s birth is symptomatic of the marriage predicament early settlers faced. In another instance from this period, Calvert step-siblings - not half-siblings - married. Or perhaps a married couple became step-siblings after their parents married; the dates are uncertain, but very close. William B. Calvert, son of Gerrard Calvert, married Elizabeth Evans following the death of his first wife Hester Rigdon in 1851 or 1852. William and Elizabeth had their first child, Isaac, in May of 1853. (William and Hester are the direct ancestors of the Kentucky Calverts of Georgetown and vicinity.)
Elizabeth Evans had previously been married to Houston Jackson, with whom she had a daughter named Louisa. In 1853, around the same time that her mother married William B., Louisa married Burgess Durury Calvert, “a kind hearted man with a jovial disposition” who was William B.’s eighth child by Hester Rigdon. Between the death of Hester, and his marriage to Elizabeth, William - finding himself with two very small children - struck an agreement with his daughter Nancy and her husband William Hardeman in which the Hardemans cared for the little ones and lived on William's land in exchange
William Calvert was the last “colonial”
Calvert. The environment he left behind in
Gerrard, then William B., Burgess Durury, and
then William Burgess after him, would see the birth of the modern
Burgess Durury Calvert and Louisa Jackson
He, and his sons and grandsons, would see the
Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentucky, made possible by a
federal land grant in 1865, grow into the
The generations after Gerrard saw
The impact of what these generations of
Calverts saw must have been stunning, and perhaps not altogether
welcomed. The Annual Calvert Family Reunions, still going strong as the
20th century draws to a close, are in many ways the embodiment of
American history. When Burgess Durury, whose arm would be permanently
crippled by a shot through the wrist while fighting for the Union with
Kentucky’s 124th Infantry, was born in 1832 covered wagons were
carrying families to the Great Plains, and further. When he died men
were flying, women were voting and Einstein had already published the
theories that would be dropped on
Denouement
The End of The Aristocracy
--------------------
Frederick Calvert, 1732 - 1771
Sixth Lord Baltimore
***********
The last Lord Baltimore exemplifies the
depths of self- indulgence to which the nobility of his time often sank
(18). He was himself a contributing factor in
George of Virginia and the British government quite possibly acted from the same assessment of the circumstances: the titular head of the Barony of Baltimore, and therefore the Barony itself, had become a very public embarrassment to all with whom he was associated. The embarrassment, however, was not because of conduct considered to be depraved by the standards of a later age, but that the conduct, hardly unheard-of amongst the privileged elite, became a topic of public scandal and ridicule.
The early 1700’s in
By the time
He had attended
No less an authority than Samuel Johnson’s
biographer James Boswell recorded that in January of 1764 the Principal
Secretary of Maryland, Frederick’s uncle Cecilius, urged his nephew’s
early return from his travels in order to attend to pressing business
of the colony. Lord Baltimore determined that it was more important
that he remain several months longer in
He [Frederick] lived luxuriously and inflamed
his blood, then he grew melancholy and timorous and was constantly
taking medicines. In short, (in
Frederick and his immediate forebears lived in the same general period in which Charles Dickens wrote of the miseries of the English lower classes in Oliver Twist and other works. Education and the basic necessities of decent life were denied to the mass of the King’s subjects. Child labor and the conditions under which it occurred were nothing less than atrocious. Early death from malnutrition and from diseases that were preventable even then was common for those who held no rank or position in society. The role of His Majesty’s average subject, as every member of society understood, was no less and certainly no more than to keep the upper classes living in the manner to which they were entitled while the lower classes often lived their daily lives in filth. Sir George’s heirs were not bothered by such mundane inconveniences in their own lives.
While very little of
Others who have researched the life of the last Lord Baltimore have written of him as being “infinitely conceited”, “selfish and extravagant”, and a “disreputable and dissolute degenerate”. Richard Cox, of the Maryland Historical Society, states,
...His management of
In 1768
Frederick Calvert and his accuser
The public controversy and condemnation resulting from the trial, comparable in its time to the Lindbergh kidnapping trial in the 1930’s or the O.J. Simpson trials of the 1990’s, was so pervasive that following his acquittal Frederick felt compelled to abandon England forever, giving away his home and furnishings and dying in Naples, Italy as a near recluse only a few years later. He was 39 and without legal heirs, though there were a number of children who could call him “Father”. Some, though likely not all, have been documented in his will and elsewhere.
Two centuries after the scandal surrounding Frederick Calvert has died down one can look at the circumstances with a bit of detachment. Repeating the caveat that His Lordship and his accused accomplices were acquitted, and noting that defendants in criminal cases were prohibited from speaking in their own defense (on the grounds that they were biased), an understanding of the milieu in which the trial took place seems appropriate.
On one hand, the concept of trial and judgment by one’s peers was already a part of British jurisprudence: Justice was dispensed by generally honest men who were consciously attempting to uphold the law. A system of juries and a method of recourse to law for infringements, even minor ones, was firmly established although the decision of the court was made by a jury of men only, who would not be expected to be sympathetic to the plaintiff. Yet for a presumed gentleman of such rank to be accused with sufficient credibility by a commoner that a trial was required, itself speaks volumes. Under normal circumstances in Georgian England, which included not only the nobility’s tacit exemption from common standards of conduct, but also the lowly legal status of commoners generally and all women in particular, the notion of a rape trial would have been out of the question unless Frederick was living in penury and beset by debts, which was hardly the situation.
For gentlemen of means the usual procedure
would have been to settle the matter privately. Ironically,
Class tensions in
One physician who had examined Miss Woodcock said her account of escaping from her captors was highly implausible: his examination couldn't confirm her story, and had she suffered the indignities she claimed she "wouldn’t have been able to walk, let alone run," when an opportunity for freedom presented itself, he asserted.
Whether or not the specific incidents claimed
by Miss Woodcock were true, there is no argument that they accurately
described activities that were a routine element of
Although the colonial government in
Cox, writing in the Society’s official
publication in 1975 again comments in his own voice as well as quoting
Professor Clayton Hall: Some Marylanders could not understand why
one man, Lord Baltimore, gained merely by birth such a lucrative
possession as their colony. They were particularly angered by the
hedonistic Frederick Calvert, who was only concerned with
None of the Lords Baltimore had clearer
warning of what the future held or better opportunity to avoid
disaster. And none failed the memory of Sir George more thoroughly.
Deprived of honor as well as their American source of wealth, the House
of Calvert quietly ceased upon
The modern legacy of Sir George
FIN
1 The term “Adventurer” as applied to the
passengers on the “
2
3 In
1517, only 62 years before George’s birth, Martin Luther nailed his
Theses against the Church’s selling of indulgences to the chapel door
in
4 Spices were the focus of such intense activity for reasons quite foreign to modern times. Though recognizable as an acknowledgment of the economic power of a mass consumer market, flavoring was far less important than the function of spices simply as food preservatives in an age before refrigeration. The term “spices” also included foundations for perfumes at a time when bathing was viewed as unhealthy. A crowded room on a hot summer night must have been a remarkable experience.
5 Capitalism was then in its early stages of development and most of society still functioned as an agricultural / barter economy. Many taxes, as well as commercial transactions could still be paid in livestock, produce, or commodities and contracts often went to great pains to establish fair terms of trade. Paper money was unknown and credit as a formal procedure was extremely rare. For men of substance, however, gold was the only acknowledged immutable repository of wealth, and for the Monarchy gold was the only means by which to pay for castles, courts and the raising of armies and navies. There was often not enough of it, and it is probable that George Calvert’s influence derived in part from loans made, on very favorable terms, to the King and his representatives. Today we would call it “buying influence and favor”; at the time it was done openly, honestly, and was recognized as a good business practice for those able to engage in it.
6 The modern sons, husbands, and in-laws, of today’s Kentucky Lady Calverts apologize profusely and in unison for a remark that would be life-threatening if uttered by anyone still living.
7 In Democracy in America, written in
the early 1800’s, Alexis de Toqueville accurately noted that the
abandonment of primogeniture in the new nation was a primary reason why
the
8 On
9 Probably not coincidentally.
10 At the Battle of Bunker Hill, which the British won at a cost of several hundred troops, versus fewer than two dozen Minutemen casualties, the British commander is said to have remarked, “Another such victory and all is lost.”
11 So many did so that
12 One of the arguments in favor of the nation
adopting the Constitution was that the federal government would assume
the considerable debts incurred by the individual states in supporting
the War for
13 “
14 The Indians of the area were not amenable to
departing their lands, as their
15 In 1886 there were only two automobiles in
the entire state of
16 We have been unable to find records directly
confirming William Baltimore’s middle name. All surviving
documents attached to him (known to friends as “Buck” and reportedly a
formidable wrestler) show only the middle initial “B”. Only one of the
major Calvert researchers, James Bailey Calvert Nicklin, who wrote in
the 1940’s, asserts without hesitation that William’s middle name was
However, following Hester Rigdon's death,
William's second wife Elizabeth Evans (
In the affidavit
17 Although small skirmishes and raids would
continue until 1813, the last major Indian confrontation in
18 The Kentucky Calverts are to be reassured before the tale unfolds, as delicately as possible, that this Lord Baltimore was not a direct ancestor, but even then a distant cousin several times removed, being a direct descendant of Cecil and not of Cecil’s brother Leonard.
19 A seraglio is defined as a harem, but
the formal definition implies a far more sophisticated patina than the
reality. It was his private traveling whorehouse. Under the
circumstances, the derision and abuse heaped on