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HARMONY
This section, because of its nearness to the Choptank River and Talbot
County, was one of the first to be settled in the county.
Fowling Creek is mentioned in one of
the earliest surveys made and was doubtless early known far and wide as
the haunt of game and fowl.
The earliest mill seems to have been
farther down the stream than the present one-probably where the road
leading from the state road to Gilpins Point crosses the stream. General
Potter was a part owner of the mill when reestablished
near its present site.
The name of Harmony was evidently not
applied to the village until some time after 1840, about which time the
first church was erected, though there had been a chapel nearer Fowling
Creek for years before this time.
It seems that a public school was
started at this point rather early too, for in 1865 when the public
school system was established, Harmony school was included in the
provision.
With a one-room school for many
years, the population of the community has so increased that a two-room
school is now a practical necessity. At present the patrons are
much interested in securing a school site of two or three acres and
building a model two-room school.
Harmony Methodist Protestant Church
was first a church of another denomination. On the 12th day of
October, 1840, William A. Barton and
wife, by their deed conveyed to Deliha Sparklin and
others, trustees, and their successors in office for the use of the
members of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States of
America, according to the rules and discipline of that church, the
"parcel of land lying and being in Caroline County and State of Maryland
and immediately on the cross roads leading from Fowling Creek and Hog
Creek, one-half acre of ground be the same more or less."
On this piece of ground a church was
built and dedicated to the service of God and the use of the
congregation. For over seventy-five years services were held in
this church and from it came a number of ministers who are now prominent
in the Methodist Episcopal church, and many other useful and active
Christian workers. At last through mismanagement and neglect, the
congregation went away from the church and it was closed.
During the Fall of 1916 the people of
the community desiring religious services, requested Mr.
Wm. H. Johnson, a local minister of the Methodist Protestant church
of Federalsburg, to hold services in the church. He responded and
a gracious revival came in which about 51 persons were converted.
These desiring to have church organization asked for help from the
Federalsburg church. With the old members of the church who still
remained a healthy organization was formed, and on the 5th day of August
1919, for the sum of $250 the people of the community bought back their
church and rededicated it to the service of God as a Methodist
Protestant church. It is now in a vigorous condition and doing the
great work for which it was first deeded by William A.
Barton and wife.
GROVE
This section made famous on account of its furnishing the birthplace of Charles
Dickinson who fell in a duel with Andrew
Jackson as recorded elsewhere in this volume and lying
directly on the colonial thoroughfare from Potter's Landing to Hunting
Creek (now the Harmony-Preston road) was cleared and settled very early.
A few years before this county was
organized Charles Dickinson, the grandfather of the
later duellist, and who had been a prominent resident of Dorchester
County as evidenced by his being for awhile the chief jurist of that
county and the chief of the committee in the construction of her first
Court House, secured by grant and purchase several hundred acres of land
in the Grove neighborhood and had settled there, moving from Lower
Dorchester. This Mr. Dickinson was
the man who presided over the well known meeting held at Melvill's
Warehouse in 1774, when resolutions were adopted urging resistance to
Great Britain in her treatment of the colonies.
Henry Dickinson, the son, acquired
possession of nearly 2000 acres of this land at the death of his father,
together with other valuable property including many slaves.
During the Revolutionary Period Henry Dickinson was
active in the affairs of his county and at one time collected and headed
a troop of horsemen for the war. A member of the first
Constitutional Convention he became later one of the judges of our
County Court.
Possessed with broad acres and many
slaves to do the bidding of the family it seems only natural that the
home of Henry Dickinson was the center
of social activities. In this home the boy Charles
Dickinson and his brother Philip along
with the two sisters Elizabeth and Rebecca were
reared and evidently in accordance with their opportunities and the
customs of the day, these young people were among the leaders in the
various social functions of the county at the time.
It seems that the family were
Episcopalians and attended the Hunting Creek Chapel (near Hynson).
Henry Dickinson died about 1790
and left his large estate probably worth $50,000 to his children.
Reared in luxury for the time it seems only natural that the call of the
city should be strong to them. Not long after the reaching of
manhood by these boys, Charles and Philip,
do we find them selling their land, Philip in
small sections, while Charles made larger sales. Elizabeth who
married William Richardson of Talbot
County, soon disposed of her interest as did Rebecca who
became the wife of Thos. B. Daffin and
resided in Tuckahoe Neck on the farm now known as the Thawley Farm.
Thus in 1803 we find Charles
Dickinson who had married Jane Erwin of
Tennessee, conveying the remainder of his real estate in Caroline County
to his father-in-law for the sum of about $12,000. Shortly after
this he relinquished his citizenship in Maryland and moved to the
vicinity of Nashville.
In this connection may it be said
that Andrew Jackson, then a rising young man of
Tennessee and slightly older than Charles Dickinson,
had been elected to Congress then held in Philadelphia (about
1796-1797). Going to Philadelphia as he did on horseback over the
well established trail via Baltimore, it seems likely that Jackson met
in the latter city prominent men of this state and section. Col.
William Richardson, a relative of Charles Dickinson,
was one of these. Naturally enough, he was, on one of these trips
invited by Col. Richardson, the owner of a fast
sailing sloop, to visit the Eastern Shore and accepted, staying while
here at the Richardson, Dickinson, Daffin and Potter homes
in this county. Charles Dickinson, with whom he was
apparently much associated while on these visits, was a very good sport
and proved a very interesting man to Jackson with
the result that Jackson invited him to
his home and associations in Tennessee, an offer which Dickinson clearly
accepted.
For years Grove has been the site of
a church and the parsonage of the Caroline Circuit of the Methodist
Protestant church--American Corner, Choptank and Smithson comprising the
remainder of the charge.
The first public school in this
section seems to have been taught by Mr. Peter James
Patchett shortly after the Civil War in a dwelling
house provided by Mr. Perry Taylor. Shortly
afterwards a new school building was erected near the site of the
present one and Miss Annie Hains was
the first teacher. This building was used for school purposes
until 1887 when the present school was erected.
After awhile a cannery was erected on
one side of the school to be followed in a few years by another cannery
on the opposite side of the school. Hence the origin of the term
sometimes applied "Cannery Grove."
LAUREL GROVE
Erected as a school site in 1870 when Ager Andrew gave
one acre of land to the School Board, this school has been in operation
ever since. After the decay of the old building about twenty years
ago, the present structure was erected.
Like the church which is immediately
across the county road, this school takes its name because of the fact
that formerly the pine woods completely surrounded the school abounds in
laurel, which in bloom is indeed very pretty.
The church here was formerly in the
Southern Methodist denomination, Easton charge, but latterly has been
the worshipping place of the Holiness Society.
To the general section hereabout the
name of Pinetown is given, and doubtless to many of the older residents
the school is better known as Pinetown than by its official name.
FRIENDSHIP
The first church built in this community was made of logs near the site
of the present building.
The present edifice, the third one
built, was completed about 1880 and is ministered to at present by a
pastor from Williamsburg, in which circuit it is located.
The first school building in this
community was erected about one hundred years ago and was likewise made
of logs. It was burned in 1851 because of a defective stove.
School was kept in a shack for awhile until the first of the present
building was erected. In 1911 a new room was added, making
Friendship a two-room school.
About three hundred yards from
Friendship on the Hynson road may still be seen some walnut trees which
mark the site of the polling place of this district fifty years ago.
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