History of Western Maryland. J. Thomas Scharf
a similar grant in the neighborhood of Fairfield or Millerstown, and the latter now goes by the name of the Carroll Tract. Hanover, at that time known as McAllisterstown, or Kallisterstown, was within the disputed territory, and became a refuge for disorderly characters, and hence was called " Rogues' Harbor."
This vexatious boundary question, which had agitated the two colonies since the arrival of William Penn in America in 1682, was decided, as we have shown elsewhere, in favor of the province of Pennsylvania in 1709 by Mason and Dixon, two surveyors sent out from London for that purpose, and Mason and Dixon's line has ever since remained the unquestioned boundary between the two commonwealths. The dispute having reached a definite conclusion, an impetus was given to development. Settlers multiplied, the country was cleared up, and convenient farm-buildings were erected. The inhabitants soon learned to appreciate the fine water-powers so abundant in this portion of Maryland, and in 1760 David Shriver, the grandfather of the older members of the family of that name now living in Western Maryland, purchased a tract of land on Little Pipe Creek and erected a mill and tannery. Mr. Shriver was a prominent and useful citizen. He represented Frederick County in the convention called in 1776 to frame a constitution for the State of Maryland, and for a number of years he was the representative of that county in the Senate and House of Delegates. In May, 1765, a bateau loaded with iron was successfully navigated from the Hampton furnace on Pipe Creek to the mouth of the Monocacy River, in Frederick County. There is no record of the establishment of this furnace, but that it must have been in operation for some time prior to the date given above is evident from the advertisement which appeared May 28, 1767, in which Benedict Calvert, Edward Digges, Normand Bruce, William Digges, Jr., and James Canady offer for sale the " Hampton Furnace, in Frederick County, together with upwards of three thousand acres of land. The furnace (with casting-bellows) and bridge-houses were built of stone, also grist-mill and two stores, the whole situated on a branch of Monocacy River."
The entire stock of negroes, servants, horses, wagons, and implements belonging to the works were offered for sale. There was on hand at the time coal for six months, fourteen hundred cords of wood, five hundred tons of ore at the side of the furnace and four hundred tons raised at the banks. The advertisement concludes with the announcement that Normand Bruce lived near the works.
Solomon Shepherd, grandfather of Thomas, Solomon, and James F. Shepherd, married Susanna Farquhar, the youngest child of William Farquhar, Oct. 27, 1779, and settled on a portion of the Farquhar estate, about three-quarters of a mile east of Union Bridge. Mr. Shepherd was a wool-comber and fuller, and established a fulling-mill where the factory now stands. For some time after the construction of his mill he was without a house of his own, and boarded with his father-in-law, at some distance down Pipe's Creek; and it is related of him that in walking back and forth along the banks of the stream from the mill to the house at night he was wont to burn the ends of a bunch of hickory sticks before he would set out on his hazardous journey, and when the wolves (which were savage and ravenous) approached too near he would whirl his firebrand about him to drive them away. He afterwards moved into a log house, which is still standing, and in 1790 built the brick house in which Shepherd Wood now resides. The latter was at that time considered a palatial extravagance, and the neighbors dubbed it " Solomon's Folly." In 1810 he built the present factory, and put in carding and spinning-machines and looms for the manufacture of cloths, blankets, and other fabrics. In 1815 he purchased land of Peter Benedune, and removed to the place now owned and occupied by E. G. Penrose, where he lived until his death in 1881:.
In 1783, David Rhinehart and Martin Wolfe walked from Lancaster County, Pa., to Sam's Creek, where they purchased a tract of land and soon afterwards settled on it. Wolfe was the grandfather of Joseph, Samuel, and Daniel Wolfe. He was somewhat eccentric after a very unusual fashion, and is said to have been unwilling to dispose of property for a price which he believed to exceed its real value. David Rhinehart was the grandfather of David, Daniel, William H., E. Thomas, J. C, and E. F. Rhinehart. William H. Rhinehart, the great American sculptor, received his first lessons on the farm now owned and occupied by Daniel Rhinehart, twelve miles southeast of Union Bridge.
Joel Wright, of Pennsylvania, married Elizabeth Farquhar, daughter of William Farquhar, and settled on a part of the land acquired by his father-in-law. He was a surveyor and school-teacher, and superintended a school under the care of Pipe Creek Monthly Meeting, at that time one of the best educational institutions in the State. His pupils came from all parts of the surrounding country, and many were sent to him from Frederick City and its vicinity. It was common in those days for ladies to make long journeys on horseback to attend religious meetings or to visit friends. Mrs. Wright traveled in this way to Brownsville, then called " Red Stone," in Pennsylvania, to attend meeting and to visit her relatives. She brought back with her, on her return, two small sugar-trees and planted them, and from these have sprung the many beautiful shade-trees of that species which adorn the vicinity of Union Bridge.
Francis Scott Key, whose name the " Star-Spangled Banner" has made immortal, was born at Terra Rubra, near the Monocacy, in what is now the Middleburg District of Carroll County, Aug. 9, 1780. In his day he was well known as an able lawyer and Christian gentleman, but with the lapse of time his reputation as a poet has overshadowed his n)any other excellent qualities.
Col. Joshua Gist was an early settler in the section of Maryland now embraced within the limits of Carroll County. He was an active partisan in the Revolutionary war, and during the administration of President John Adams, near the close of the last century, was marked in his disapproval of the riotous and insurrectionary proceedings of those opposed to the excise duty laid upon stills. The disturbance, known in history as the " Whisky Insurrection," became so formidable, especially in Western Pennsylvania, that Mr. Adams appointed Gen. Washington commander of the forces raised to suppress it. The excitement extended to this region, and the Whisky Boys in a band marched into Westminster and set up a liberty-pole. The inhabitants of the town becoming alarmed sent out for Col. Gist, who then commanded a militia regiment. The colonel, a very courageous man, mounted his horse, rode into town, drew his sword, and ordered the pole to be cut down, which was at once done, and placing his foot on it, he thus remained until it was hewn in pieces. The Boys, concluding discretion to be the better part of valor, stole out of town, and the incipient revolution was stayed by the coolness and judgment of a single individual. In 1748, Frederick County was created by the Colonial Legislature, and that portion of the present county of Carroll which had previously belonged to Prince George's was embraced within its limits, as was almost the whole of Western Maryland. Col. Gist and Henry Warfield were elected to the House of Delegates of Maryland towards the close of the eighteenth century, for the express purpose of securing a division of the county into election districts for the convenience of the inhabitants, who were at that time compelled to cross the Monocacy and go all the way to Frederick City to vote.
Joseph Elgar, in the latter part of the last century, established a factory at Union Bridge for the manufacture of wrought nails, — that is, the nails were so designated, but in reality they were cut from the bar of iron, lengthwise with the fiber of the bar, which gave them ductility and clinching qualities equivalent to wrought nails. Elgar subsequently removed to Washington and entered the service of the United States, where his genius was duly appreciated. About the year 1809, Jacob R. Thomas, a neighbor of Elgar, conceived the idea that the very hard' labor of cutting grain in the harvest-field could be done by machinery driven by horse-power. Prior to this time, and for some years afterwards, the old system of cradling grain was the only process generally known for harvesting, and the reaping-machine may be truthfully said to have been invented by him. Thomas worked at his machine with great assiduity, and added to it an automatic attachment to gather the cut grain into sheaves, it being substantially the self-raker of the present day. During the harvest in the summer of 1811 his machine was so far perfected as to admit of a trial. It had not been furnished with a tongue and other appurtenances for attaching horses, and was therefore pushed into the harvest-field and over the grain by a sufficient number of men. Thomas Shepherd, recently deceased, and William Shepherd, his brother, and father of Thomas F. Shepherd and Solomon Shepherd, and Rudolph Stern, father of Reuben W. Stern, of Westminster, were three of the men who aided in the trial, and their testimony is unanimous that it cut the grain well and perfectly, but that its delivery was defective and did not make a good sheaf. There is no evidence on record as to the manner in which the gathering attachment was constructed, whether