Words from Dr. Richard Mudd

[bob_summers]

(06-22-2014 02:25 PM)L Verge Wrote:  I hope Bob Summers will chime in on a question I have related to Dr. Richard's interview: The Doctor mentions visited the home of his great-grandfather, Henry Lowe Mudd, as a child. That home was Oak Hill, and our Booth Tour narrators point out its location when we go past. However, it is my understanding that Oak Hill burned - I thought in the late-1800s - and took with it one of the largest private libraries in the area. Bob, do you know if that is correct and the year that it burned? For some reason, I didn't think it was still standing when Dr. Richard was a child.

Mention is made of a Dr. Stone that Booth could have been treated by. I believe that is referring to Dr. Michael Stone of Aquasco (whose home still exists). I have long tried to make a connection between Stone and Booth because Stone was very likely on the Doctor's Line that served the Confederacy. However, his home is miles further down the road past Horsehead Tavern and the road that we old-timers believe that Booth and Herold took to get to Mudd's.

As for the "new" road that they could have taken, there was one somewhat close to what we now call Maryland Route 5 that leads into Waldorf. It took a somewhat circuitous route out of T.B., however, and entered Charles County from Prince George's County right onto the Huntt family plantation (where grand-grandpappy Eli Huntt was born in 1837). At that time (1865), the plantation was on the banks of the Mattawoman Creek and owned by my great-great-grandfather, Joseph Riley Huntt, who inherited it when he married Julia Ann Tippett. If you trace the property back far enough, you find that it was originally part of a Mudd farm in the late-1700s. The graveyard (est. 1858) for the Huntts still remains on what was the long plantation road to the house. The farm was literally sliced in half in the 1950s with the dual-lane Route 5 and is now a conglomeration of commercialization.

The next question mark may involve Eva's help: Dr. Mudd mentioned Waldorf. It was originally named Beantown and was a little farther down the road than what is now Waldorf. The commercial area that we know as "old" Waldorf received that name in 1880, when the railroad went through. The name was supposedly changed to honor William Waldorf Astor, a great-grandson of John Jacob Astor, who was born in Walldorf, Palatinate, Germany. I really don't mean to sound crass here, but what was/is the big deal with William Waldorf Astor? Or his namesake town?

Laurie: You are correct. In Richard Mudd’s genealogy The Mudd Family of the United States, he says:

“The home of Henry Lowe Mudd was .8 miles South East of his son Samuel A. Mudd’s home. It was a fine home, larger than Dr. Samuel A. Mudd’s home, and contained a chapel in which Mass was said at intervals until the beginning of the Civil War. About the year 1881 this fine home with its library burned and everything was lost. “

One observation about the tape. Dr. Richard Mudd characterizes George Mudd as posing as a Unionist, citing his ownership of slaves. Everything I have read about Dr. George Mudd indicates that he was a true Unionist, not just posing as one. I also haven’t found any evidence that he was a slave owner.

I think the confusion results from there being two George Mudds living in the Bryantown area at the time. According to the 1860 Federal Census, Dr. George Mudd, whose wife died in 1858, lived with his 5-year-old son DeSales Mudd. The census doesn’t tell us exactly where he lived, but we know from various other accounts that Dr. George Mudd lived and worked right in the town of Bryantown.

The Federal census shows that the other George Mudd is part of a large 13-member family. It seems reasonable to assume that such a large family lived on a farm, which needed slaves to operate.

The 1860 Federal Slave Census for the Bryantown area shows only one George Mudd as a slave-owner (11 slaves). It seems more likely to me that the farmer, not the doctor, was the slave-owner.