Food for Thought

[L Verge]

(08-09-2019 05:17 PM)mike86002000 Wrote:  That pretty much matches the story I heard. thanks for the details.
"Brookefield" sounds very dignified. I worked in a gas station, there, part time, during high school.
The pocket doors isn't an 'issue" anymore than the origin of the name "T. B.". As I said, carelessness in the details, detracts from the credibility of the story, in this case the newspaper story quoted above.
As I understand it, land grants in Maryland, in early colonial times, weren't granted by the king, to individuals. Lord Baltimore was granted Maryland, with extraordinary powers, as an alternative to the failing Virginia colony. Lord Baltimore doled out estates, to be operated as though "owned" for three generations, in exchange for a token rent. Out right ownership of a large estate would only have come later after the Protestant take over, in Maryland. I don't think it would have been granted by the king.
I've always considered the story about ballast stones, even bricks, to be dubious. There was profitable cargo to be transported to America, from England.
Mike

Usually, the profitable cargo (especially in the early years) was composed of furniture, china, silver, tea, and other more light-weight commodities. The stones provided the extra weight needed. These ballast stones were found near every port in Prince George's County - and probably others. I have quite a few of them stored at my house right now. We salvaged them from the home place as well as farms that we owned. They were used as foundations for outbuildings as well as houses. My grandmother said that her father gathered many of them from Piscataway, near St. Mary's Church. That would have been over a century after colonial commerce and after the broad creek had silted up.

I'll let you win the one about the land grants coming from the Lords Baltimore instead of the king of England. Maryland was a proprietary colony to begin with.

If you pumped gas in T.B. after the mid-50s, it must have been at the new Dyson store. Until our family store went out of business, it was the only one with gas pumps. If so, the Maryland historical marker about Thomas Brooke would have been in the median strip of Route 5, where Accokeek Road crosses over. Now that the new construction has changed everything, the marker has been moved closer to the original part of the village and is a bit more protected. It tells you that Brooke was a fairly influential member of society with political positions.

As for the Dr. Mudd house near Clinton, I would love to see photos and diagrams. Where did you see them? The only thing I can guess is that someone confused the old Griffin home with the Mudds' because the U.S. Representative Sydney Mudd married into that family. I remember the old house as a wreck when I was growing up. Crestview subdivision was built on the farm in the early-1960s.

Another possibility is that your source incorrectly identified Dr. Blandford's home as belonging to a Mudd because Dr. Blandford married Dr. Sam's sister. Booth actually rode right past that home on his escape. It stood and was lived in until about 1970 (where Burch Hill Road dead ends into Brandywine Road). Some of the Mudds and the Gwynns that married into the family lived in that area when I was a child. Ed Mudd, who died several years ago, was a friend and volunteered at the Dr. Mudd House.

Sorry for the reminiscences, folks. There's a smattering of history hidden in this message to Mike. We are also discussing an area just south of Surratt House that is quickly being destroyed in favor of McMansions and commercialization. Gotta keep a little history still alive somehow.