Talk:Rose Hill (Port Tobacco, Maryland)

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Contents

[edit] Addtional details on Brown

Ancestry of Frances Fowke.

More ancesters/relationships of Brown/Fowke.

Tedickey (talk) 13:39, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Relationship between Brown and Floyd

The sources are obscure and contradictory. Some additional sources give some insight, but still incomplete.

Here are some links and comments:

Refers to an Ignatius Semmes born in 1773 of Anthony and Mary. (Curious if this is the same "Semmes" as in the next cite - but 5 years different?).

The interesting pieces here are:

22. SEMMES,  IGNATIUS
Son of Ensign Robert Doyne Semmes and Mary Ryan.
August 22, 1778 - January 2, 1826.
Probably buried here next to his wife, Mary Holmes Semmes
(#22).  See The Maryland Semmes and Allied Families by
Newman.

23. SEMMES, IGNATIUS (JR.)
Youngest son of Mary Holmes (#24) and Ignatius Semmes
(#22).
September 6, 1821 – April 27 to June 13 1843.
Died without issue. Probably buried here near his mother.

24. SEMMES, MARY HOLMES
    Born about 1777.  Died June 9, 1825.
Daughter John Holmes and Eleanor Neale (sister of Father
Charles Neale).

Ignatius junior was the last born and only survivor of 13 children. Mary Holmes Semmes died at 48. Perhaps the gravestone should be "August 22, 1773" for Semmes senior.

CHAPTER 52. 

Ad act to incorporate a Company under the name of The
Hydrant Company of Port Tobacco.
Sec 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Maryland, That
John B. Wills, Jr. John Ferguson, William Vincent, Basil Spal-
ding, Nicholas Stonestreet, Samuel Chapman, Edward Pye, Ig-
natius Semmes, William Penn, Gustavus Brown, and John Mere-
dith, be and they are hereby incorporated and made a body politic,

That sounds as if Brown junior and Semmes senior were well acquainted.

Photocopy of will of Ignatius Semmes (1843) bequeathing his table silver to St. Ignatius Church

MITCHELL VS. HOLMES. 289

of opinion, that during the life of William Holmes, the uncle of
the testator, and of his aunt, Sarah Floyd, the income should
be divided between them in equal moieties; and that the title
of the children of the aunt, to participate in the income of the
trust estate, is postponed until after the death of the uncle.
With regard to the proper application of the income, during the
joint lives of the uncle and aunt, there does not seem to me to
be much difficulty, it beiqg clearly the intention of the testator
to divide it equally between them.

In the event of the death of the uncle, living the aunt, a
question of some difficulty might arise respecting the proportions
in which, upon that contingency, the income of the estate should
be divided among the aunt and her children; but as this con-
tingency may not happen, there does not appear to be any ne-
cessity for an expression of the opinion of the court upon it.
As the case is submitted without argument, there seems to be
af peculiar propriety in confining the opinion of the court, to
the questions which the condition of the case at this time, ren-
ders important.

The will was executed in April, 1843, and the testator died
soon afterwards. By it he gives freedom to several of his
slaves, to each of whom he bequeathed a pecuniary legacy of
three hundred dollars

The decision of the question raised by the pleadings in this
case depends upon the construction which should be given to
the will of Ignatius Semmes, deceased, or rather, to the follow-
ing clause of that will, for, as it seems to me, the other parts
of the will throw no light upon the subject. The clause in
question is as follows: "I give and devise to Walter Mitchell,
Esq., my farm called Rose Hill, together with all the rest of
my negroes, stock of every description, and plantation utensils,

... (page 163)

This bill is filed by William Holmes, the uncle of the testator,
to whom, together with his aunt Sarah Floyd, the income of
the trust estate was given for life

Walter Mitchell is not the uncle, but a business associate.

Date: 1847/06/24
8297: William Holmes vs. Walter Mitchell, John B. Piet, Mary Piet, Sarah Floyd, Oliver Floyd, and Robert S. Floyd. CH. Estate of Ignatius Semmes - Rose Hill.
Accession No.: 17,898-8297-1/2 MSA S512-10-8276 Location: 1/38/3/

Tedickey 00:34, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bibliography for Floyd

google has a preview for part of this

  • Kinchen, Oscar A. (1972), Women Who Spied for the Blue and the Gray, Philadelphia, PA: Dorrance, pp. 27 
  • Larson, Rebecca D (1993), Blue and Gray Roses of Intrigue, Gettysburg, PA: Thomas Publications, pp. 57-58 
  • Leonard, Elizabeth D. (1999), All the Daring of the Soldier, New York: W. W. Norton and Co., pp. 67-68 
  • National Archives "Official Records, Ser. 2, Vol 4. [S# 117]", National Archives, Washington, DC, pp. 698 

[[[User:Tedickey|Tedickey]] (talk) 23:16, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Leonard's book

It states that all of the material is from Kinchen's book - which is not readily available. Here are the relevant chunks from Leonard's book, noting that some errors are apparent:

Pages 67-68:

as did Olivia Floyd, a native of Port Tobacco, Virginia, who served the Confedacy as a spy and smuggler. Over the course of the war, Floyd—an unmarried woman in her early thirties—frequently conveyed through the lines both materiel (clothes, money, and letters) and information (which she, like the Sanchez sisters, gathered while entertaining Yankee soldiers in her family home). By November 1862 federal officials were convinced that Floyd was engaged in a variety of disloyal activities and ordered her arrest. Floyd evaded the order, however—or perhaps the federal authorities failed to carry it out. In any case, she continued throughout the war to serve as a link in what one historian has called the "great chain of spies and messengers that operated along the great spy route between Richmond and the Confederate agents in Canada." When she died in 1905, even the New York Times published the news of her death, calling her a "famous woman Confederate blockade runner."

[edit] Arrested, or not?

Other architecturally and historically important features of the site include the 19th century quarter, one of remarkably few such buildings to survive in this area, the former corn crib, which is the largest structure of its type recorded in Charles County and one that exhibits many construction features not represented elsewhere, and the cemetery, where many parishioners prominent in Charles County history were interred, including the legendary Confederate agent, Olivia Floyd of nearby Rose Hill.

Brigadier-General and Assistant Adjutant-General. WAR DEPARTMENT, Washington, November 10, 1862. Hon. EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretory of War. SIR: I have the honor to report in the case of Richard H. Clark and others implicated, as already disclosed in the accompanying report* of E. J. Allen, detective, &c., that it is manifest that Richard H. Clark (now in custody) has been quite actively engaged in corresponding with persons within the rebel lines and in forwarding correspondence to and from such persons and is otherwise implicated in disloyal practices. It is also disclosed that Edward Ives, a Boston merchant, is in clandestine correspondence with his brother, Col. Joseph [C.] Ives, an aide to Jefferson Davis, and expresses himself in sympathy with the rebellion: that there is an officer in the Federal Army stationed near Alexandria who is in treasonable communication with the rebels, aiding the escape of Southern sympathizers to Richmond, writing treasonable letters and signs himself "J." In one of these letters, postmarked "Alexandria. October 18," ultimo, addressed to Mrs. Wood, of Dorchester, Mass, (the mother of Colonel Ives, of the rebel army), the writer says: Our division is still at the same place as it was after Hull Rim the second, and are willing to remain rather than meet Jackson or his confreres again. \Ve have become very peaceable in our dispositions lately and anxious that our names should not be used in the effective measures to crush out the rebellion. This letter of " J." discloses the name of Miss Olivia Floyd, at Port Tobacco, and that she is engaged in all sorts of disloyal practices and is in frequent and intimate communication with this officer in our army who signs himself " J." Miss Olivia Floyd has been ordered arrested and conveyed to the Old Capitol, and from her it is expected can be obtained the name of the traitorous officer who signs himself "J."1 There would seem to be hardly room to doubt the disloyal and treasonable complicity of the persons above named with rebel officers, in aid- iug and assisting the rebels and acting as spies, &c. I have the honor to be, very respectfully, vour obedient servant. L. C. TURNER, Judge-Advcocate.

Pryce Lewis Who Leaped to Death from the Top of a Park Row Building Betrayed the Union's Most Famous Secret Service Man to Save His Own Life. Thrilling Stories of Heroism by Spies in the Civil War.

Custis Grymes of Virginia was the man who really made the Confederate Secret Service a possibility. He came of the old Virginia family which gave a wife to George Washington, and in the civil war he ran a sort of "underground railroad" to the South. Many of his emissaries were women, and high-born women at that, women belonging to the best society in Maryland and Virginia; another was a clergyman, the Rev. Dr. Stuart, an irreproachable Episcopalian rector. At one time, when Mr. Grymes was undertaking to save those daring conspirators who undertook, late in 1864, to attack the North by way of Vermont, he employed a girl named Olivia Floyd. Here is the story, as Kate Mason Rowland told it ten years ago: "She (Olivia Floyd) concealed her documents in her hair which, as was then the fashion, was covered by a curly net, and, mounting her horse, rode the ten miles on a bitter cold evening, finding when she arrived, to her great relief, that the man she was sent to was to cross the river that very night. She delivered the papers into his hands and rode home, nearly frozen."

Tedickey 00:28, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Possibly-related topics

Tedickey 11:03, 21 October 2007 (UTC)