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From: "Mike Hitch" <>
Subject: FW: [LDR] Old Somerset and Adam Hitch's Land circa 1700
Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 20:36:11 -0500


fyi to the list - another good Neil pontification! My apologies for trying
to make Penn the "bad guy" when it was really "Calvert" who had the brain
lapse!

Sincerely.
Mike Hitch

www.geocities.com/~mikehitch



-----Original Message-----
From: Family Tree Bookshop [mailto:]
Sent: Saturday, December 02, 2000 10:06 AM
To: Mike Hitch
Subject: Re: [LDR] Old Somerset and Adam Hitch's Land circa 1700


Dear Mike:
Yes, we certainly can go onto a really long and arduous discussion of
the border between the two--something that has gone on since the original
dispute. My sense from what I have read and seen concerning the subject is,
that it was not necessarily Penn who did any persuading of the surveyors.
Yes, Cape Henlopen was the agreed upon place to begin running the line, but
on the map that was put before Calvert was the "false cape" which is today
Fenwick Island, and it was based on that "false cape" that Calvert
originally agreed. Later, when he realized his mistake he tried to
backtrack and much of the legal shenannigans that took place between the
Penns, the Calverts, and the Lord Chamberlain were over that agreement.
Locally, if one looks at the depositions taken in the Outten murder
case---one that threatened the whole agreement to actually run the
boundarys---in 1760, one can see how the locals and local governments had
customarily treated the boundarys for tax purposes. There is within the
depositions one of a former sub-sherrif of Somerset who claimed that the
agreed upon arrangement was that all lands lying to the south and east of
the "drains of the Nanticoke" --which included all creeks and branches that
fed the Nanticoke--were considered Maryland as well as all land lying to the
south and the west of St. Martin's river. Obviously, the converse was
true--that all land lying to the north and the west of the drains of the
Nanticoke were considered to be Delaware, and to the north and the east of
the drains of the St. Martin's river to also be Delaware. If one looks at
the map, then one can see that Maryland claims extended well into Delaware
and that the settlement of the boundary along the line from the false cape
would do much to change the face of the shore. Additionally, with such soft
boundaries, it was a hell of a lot easier for those with a mind to, to avoid
paying taxes when the under-sherrif came around. There is a deposition also
taken during aftermath of the Outten murder, which claimed that one resident
of the area traditionally upon seeing the sherrif from Maryland would jump
to the other side of the branch, and thus claim himself to be a resident of
Delaware and not have to pay for any "taxables" within his household.

Indeed the situation was as murky and as boggy as the Cypress swamps that
are so much a part of the area.
Have a good weekend all
<<<Neil>>>
-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Hitch <>
To:
<>
Date: Saturday, December 02, 2000 6:48 PM
Subject: RE: [LDR] Old Somerset and Adam Hitch's Land circa 1700


>I agree with the vagueness of the MD/DE border in early times. The Broad
>Creek-to-Indian River boundary seems to be a "hard" line where south of it
>was MD and north, DE, wit no real argument by contemporary landowners.
>However, north of that line, I realize there were many inhabitants who
>considered themselves Marylanders. In fact, I believe the intended
boundary
>line was originally supposed to be an east-west line beginning at Cape
>Henlopen bisecting the peninsula until Penn convinced the surveyors that
the
>line should begin at Fenwick in the 1760s. The land north of the Broad
>Creek-Indian River line was even sometimes alternatively considered to be
>Maryland and Delaware by the very landowners - according to which tax
>collectors was stopping by for a visit! :-)
>
>One of my Hitches owned land in Bridge Branch as well, called "Hales
>Choice." This later became Bridgeville, DE. He (William Hitch) was west
of
>the Nanticoke - right in the town limits - and considered in Dorchester
Co.,
>MD when he purchased the land in 1770. However, later records show this in
>Northwest Fork Hundred, Sussex Co., DE. Note, though this was considered
>MD, it was Dorchester and not Somerset Co. I have encountered that much of
>the land north of Broad Creek but west of the Nanticoke to be once
>considered as Dorchester Co. until the Mason-Dixon era. That is why I show
>Somerset as such in my map.
>
>I do agree, however, that land east of the Nanticoke from Broad Creek to
>Seaford and perhaps Bridgeville eastward to Georgetown and Millsboro was a
>"fuzzy" zone that records may show as Somerset or Delaware. North and east
>of Millsboro-Georgetown always seemed to be loyal to Delaware (my maternal
>WILTBANKs were there in old Whorekill). Thanks for your response - it is
>most appreciated and I really enjoy this type of dialogue. I will modify
my
>map some to show the "fuzzy" area!
>
>Sincerely.
>Mike Hitch
>
>www.geocities.com/~mikehitch
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: [mailto:]
>Sent: Friday, December 01, 2000 11:52 PM
>To:
>Subject: Re: [LDR] Old Somerset and Adam Hitch's Land circa 1700
>
>
>Mike -
>
>I took a look at your website and will make one comment - the northern
limit
>of Somerset/Worcester County was not Broad Creek. It went a lot further
>North
>- almost to Kent County. Somerset included the headlands on the East side
of
>the Nanticoke as far as the Nanticoke went. The division between Maryland
>and
>Delaware was pretty indefinite, until the Penn/Calvert settlement in 1760,
>but the basic understanding seemed to be that Delaware got what drained
into
>the Ocean side and Maryland got what drained into the Cheaspeake. Most of
>the
>Nanticoke Hundred of Sussex County DE (see the 1876 map) was originally in
>Somerset/ Worcester, until the 1760 agreement. For that area, it is only in
>the Cedar Creek Hundred that you find lands that were always in Delaware.
>
>I know this because I have been doing what you call a "single family" study
>on the Polks of Delmarva and have researched all their land records in MD
>and
>DE. A good contingent of the Polks, as well as other closely allied
families
>- Owens, Laws, Knox, Manlove, Nutters - settled along the upper reaches of
>the Nanticoke in the first half of the 18th century, taking up lands on
both
>sides. The acquisition of these lands appears in the Dorchester records for
>land on the West of Nanticoke and in Somerset on the East. The latter
became
>part of Worcester after 1742. These reach from Seaford up to Bridgeville
DE
>and beyond, as far as St. Johnstown. To East and North of Bridgeville, on
>the
>East side of the Nanticoke, was the area known as John's Neck, and this was
>included in the Nanticoke Hundred of Somerset/Worcester. Plenty of Polk,
>Owens, Manlove tracts in here, all patented in Somerset.
>
>Further East, the dividing line between MD and DE was a bit vague but the
>inhabitants seemed to have had a pretty clear idea where it was. There was
a
>famous case in 1759 involving the murder of the deputy sheriff of
Nanticoke,
>William Outen, whose death occured in the border area. The perpetrator was
>taken into custody in Delaware, but Maryland claimed the crime occurred in
>its territiory and they had jurisdiction. This resulted in a lot of
>documented testimony concerning the division line, which is recorded in
>Archives of Maryland, Volume XXXI, p.300,ff (you can access this on line).
>The depositions indicate that they had a pretty definite understanding of
>when they crossed the line from MD into DE. See for example testimony of
>John
>Pollock (Polk) on p.333.
>
>There is a plenty of confusion about the exact location of the many land
>tracts patented in Somerset, Worcester, Wicomico and Sussex. There are
about
>5000 of these altogether and getting them all sorted out is a mammoth task.
>You have probably read John Lyon's notes on LDR that he is working hard
with
>MD Archives on sorting these all out and developing a complete digitized
>land
>tract map for the entire area. At present he has about 3000 of these in his
>database.
>
>Hope this helps -
>
>John Polk
>Havre de Grace MD
>
>
>
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