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- PRINCE GEORGES COUNTY, MARYLAND ERECTED ON ST. GEORGES DAY, APRIL 2 3,1696
The Prince George's County Historical Society Vol. IX, no. 8 August 1981 Kent Island Celebration Kent Island, located right at the other end of the Bay Bridge, will be celebrating on August 14, 15 and 16, and the good people there invite Marylanders from all the other parts of the state to join in. What they are celebrating, however, is somewhat controversial--the 350th anniversary, they say, of Maryland's first settlement. Now the history books tell us that St. Mary's City, founded in 1634, was Maryland's first settlement, and indeed, it was the place that Lord Baltimore's settlers first made their home. But William Claiborne of Virginia claimed to have established a trading post on Kent Island in 1631, three years before the first Marylanders arrived at St. Mary's. Claiborne's presence within the boundaries of the new colony, and particularly his attitude that he did not have to recognize the authority of the new government, were great sources of controversy and conflict in early Maryland. Leaving the historical dispute aside, the Kent Island Festival will offer plenty to see and do. A professionally produced pageant entitled "A Patent for Conflict" will be staged at 8:30 p.m. on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings, and will dramatize Claiborne's landing and the island's early days. During the days, artisans and farmers will display their wares, sailboat races will circumnavigate the island, and there will be docking contests, seamanship demonstrations, and other events. On Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., there will be a heritage tour of six sites of local interest. Kent Island is right across the Bay Bridge, and signs will direct you to particular events. Call 301-643-2617 for more information. Just don't tell your cousins in St. Mary's County you're going. Society Receives Ray Portrait A fine oil portrait of the Hon. J. Enos Ray (d. 1934) was presented to the Society by the Prince George's County Board of Education on June 15. This painting formerly was located in the J. Enos Ray Elementary School in PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, MARYLAND ERECTED ON ST. GEORGE'S DAY, APRIL 23,1696 Takoma Park, a gift to the school from his widow at the time the school was named for him in 1936. Ray Elementary was one of those closed by the Board of Education this year because of dwindling school populations. J. Enos Ray was Speaker of the Maryland House of Delegates (1908) and served the county his entire lifetime as an attorney, banker, and political leader. As a close associate of the late Governor Albert C. Ritchie, Mr. Ray served in several appointive offices and was a leading political force on the state level. He was the first president of the Prince George's Bank and Trust Company, which later became Suburban Trust during the presidency of his colleague, T. Howard Duckett, (Mr. Duckett was the founding president of the Prince George's County Historical Society.) Mr. Ray lived on the family farm in the Chillum-Takoma area. In 1927 he and others convinced the school board of the need forr a school in the Prince George's County section of Takoma Park. In September of 1928 the new four-room building opened with three teachers and 100 pupils. By 1970 the school had twenty classrooms. The portrait of Mr. Ray was formally presented to the Society’s president Frederick S. De Marr at a meeting of the Board of Education in Upper Marlboro by board member Mrs. Catherine Burch (District 3), who sponsored the resolution making the gift to the society. Earlier, on May 5, at the final meeting of the school's PTA, which brought together parents and students from across the years, a symbolic presentation of the portrait was made by longtime principal Mrs. Rogene Higgins to society member Robert A. Cecil, a former Ray faculty member. The portrait now hangs in the library of Riversdale. The Washington Star The Washington Star, known until the 1970's as the Evening Star, will be out of business by the time this newsletter is in print, a victim of declining circulation and plunging advertising revenues. The first issue of the Star appeared on December 16, 1852, making it the older of the two city papers. In its first issue, this note appeared at the top of the editorial column: Today the "Daily Evening Star" appears, on the horizon of the newspaper world, and greets, with warm and kindly beam, a metropolitan public. Whether it shall be a fixed or wandering "Star," depends upon the patronage it will attract. Though the "Sun" of a neighboring city blazes in the same firmament, our little "Star" will not pale even in its luminous presence if it be encouraged to shine. In recent years, sadly, it was not encouraged to shine. A daily circulation of more than 300,000, a Pulitzer-prize winning staff, and the reputation as the best afternoon paper in the country were not enough to attract the advertising patronage needed to keep the Star beaming. "Fired Off in Prince George's County" In the Fall of 1884, an event of some significance in the history of the women's movement in America took place here in Prince George's County. The event was the kickoff rally for the Presidential campaign of Belva Ann Lockwood, and the place was Wilson's Station, a small community on the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad, now considered part of Landover. Belva Arm Lockwood, born Belva Ann Bennett, was one of the leaders of the feminist movement in the late 19th century, a contemporary of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. In the year 1884 many feminist leaders decided that a presidential campaign would be an ideal vehicle for promoting their causes--among them voting rights, equal pay for equal work, and reform of divorce, inheritance, and property laws. Mrs. Lockwood, an attorney in Washington, D.C., became their candidate, and she launched her campaign in Prince George's County. We publish below two items relating to her campaign kickoff. The first is an account, in her own words, written for National Magazine and published in its March 1903 issue (Volume 17, number 6). The second is a story reporting the event taken from the Baltimore Morning Herald, September 19, 1884. How I Ran for the Presidency by Belva A. Lockwood It was in the regular course of presidential elections in 1884 that I received the nomination to the office. The national conventions had been assembled, and had made their nominations early. James G. Blaine, then in the zenith of his popularity and one of the leading statesmen of the nation, had been nominated by the republican party, and Grover Cleveland, then a new possibility, and comparatively unknown, was nominated by the democratic party; John P. St. John headed the ticket for the prohibitionists, and Benjamin F. Butler was nominated in Michigan by the laboring men's party, and his nomination had been made by a woman. Progressive and thinking women from all parties had attended in greater or less numbers all of these conventions, and were pressing forward for recognition. About this time Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Mrs. Susan B. Anthony came out in a circular, directed to the leading women of the country, urging them to use their influence for the republican party: a copy of it was sent to me. I had been present, as had also Miss Phoebe Cousins and others, at the convention in Chicago which had nominated Mr. Blaine, and we had besought the resolutions committee in vain to adopt a plank giving some recognition to women. The circular of these distinguished ladies appeared to me to be so out of harmony with real conditions... I had now been ten years in the practice of law before the supreme court of the District of Columbia, and four years before the United States supreme court of claims, all of which courts I had opened to women by hand to hand work and dogged persistence, in the last two instances drafting the bill and lobbying it through congress in 1879. I had also secured the passage of an act in 1872, giving the women employes [sic] of the government equal pay with men for equal work; had secured the passage of an act appropriating $50,000 for the payment of bounties to sailors and marines; had secured the appointment of a matron in the district jail, and a sitting room and retiring room for women witnesses and women lawyers in the court house. My hands were full of legal work, often two or three cases a day, and my patronage, for a woman, was really marvelous. But I stopped at nothing, took hold of any class of case, from a common assault to a murder; had plenty of civil cases, giving no more thought to the nominations, when suddenly, like a clap of thunder from a clear sky, came a nomination to me for the presidency from the women of California. Fired by the situation, and believing that I had some grit, the women had called a convention and had nominated me for the presidency, with Marietta L.B. Stow as a running mate. I was utterly taken by surprise, was too busy in my profession to stop, and for three days carried the letter of nomination in my pocket before mentioning it to any one. On the Monday morning following, with the answer in my pocket, I went up to the supreme court of this district, where I had two civil cases to file, and three in the court of claims, with a claim to look after in the war department, when Mr. M.A. Clancy, assistant clerk in the District of Columbia court, then as now, who was filing my papers, said: “Mrs. Lockwood, you ought to vote for Ben Butler.” “Why?” I asked. “Because he is a woman suffragist, a temperance man, and a labor reformer.” Clancy had formerly been a private secretary to Butler in congress. I looked at him half in doubt as to whether I should give the matter away, and then, pulling the letter out of my pocket, and warning him not to mention it, replied: “Clancy, I’ve got the nomination myself.” He glanced at the letter, and burst out laughing, saying: “That’s the best joke of the season.” I again warned him not to mention it, and especially not to tell the court reporter, and sped away on my wheel to the post-office to mail my answer to the California women, and thence to the court of claims and the war department. . . In the meantime I had formulated a platform, thinking that we must take up every one of the current issues of the day, and at the same time make it so brief that the newspapers would publish it and the people read it. I had hardly returned to my office when the Evening Critic had sent up a reporter, who said: “Mrs. Lockwood, I hear you have a nomination for the presidency. The Critic wants a copy of it and the reply.” A young woman typewriter in my office, Miss Lillie Sadler, thereupon typed him a copy from the rough notes on my desk, and he had hardly closed the door behind him, when another reporter appeared and said: “Mrs. Lockwood, we hear you have a nomination for the presidency, and have accepted it. The Evening Star must have a copy, of course." Again the typewriter's fingers flow over the keys, and he was supplied with a copy... The secret was out and next morning I was famous. The letter of acceptance and the platform was not only copied in all the large dailies but in every country newspaper of any standing in the United States. The campaign having been uncorked, it seemed disposed to run itself. It was in vain that Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony and Lillie Devereaux Blake rose up and published in the newspapers that they had not made the nomination and, therefore, that it was not regular... Then the women of Washington became aroused, and determined on a ratification meeting, but no one in Washington has a vote. An electoral ticket was therefore gotten up for Maryland, and Mrs. Amanda Best, who at that time had a country home within the confines of Prince George county, and near to the railroad station, offered to act as hostess. Notices of the meeting and how to get there were published in the Washington papers and billed on the streets. On arriving we found a rambling old farmhouse, which was used as a dressing-room for the occasion. Huge, spreading old apple trees in the background were used for reception rooms and to shade the long tables of lemonade, sandwiches, pies and cake that had been spread under them. In the foreground on a pole was a large white streamer containing the names and portraits of the candidates, joined with the stars and stripes, a rough board platform and board seats in front, while the bright women of Washington and the sturdy old farmers of Maryland, who were almost amazed at the audacity of women holding a political convention, made the welkin ring. There was a lively speech from the presidential candidate, in which she counseled the women to rise up, and by their votes take possession of the affairs of government. There was a response from Maryland, and from the District of Columbia, with a marked appreciation of the repast spread under the apple trees a little later; and as the sun went down the merry ratifiers hied themselves to the railroad station to take the train back to Washington. There, sitting on the railroad ties with note books in hand, were nine reporters from Baltimore and Washington striving in the twilight to make an abstract of the candidate's speech for their respective papers before the cars came rushing down. What they did not remember they unconcernedly made up, never losing chance of an opportunity to add a little color. The scene was both laughable and serious, of course, both Baltimore and Washington had the report of the meeting next morning, with embellishments. . . . All of the Baltimore and Washington papers covered the rally. The following account appeared on page one of the Baltimore Morning Herald, September 19, 1834, under the heading "Mrs. Belva's Boom Afloat" and two sub-headlines: Hospitable Mrs. Amanda Best, of Prince George's county, adorned her farm-house in its gayest garb yesterday. She was expecting to entertain the Equal Rights party's nominee for the Presidency. Mrs. Belva Lockwood, the Washington lady Lawyer who rides a tricycle. Mrs. Best's house is situated about half a mile south of Wilson's Station on the Baltimore and Potomac railroad. It is an old frame building, two stories high. Built as it is upon an airy eminence, wind and rain have nearly rubbed off all the whitewash that once brightened its exterior. The situation, however, is delightful, and the spot is appropriately named Pleasantview, When the atmosphere is clear as it was yesterday afternoon, the capitol dome at Washington is distinctly discernable in the distance. At night the lamps of Washington cause a ruddy glow to skirt the horizon. The farm house is surrounded by corn patches, tobacco plots, a vineyard and an apple orchard. Early in the morning, Mrs. Best had a little platform erected near her house. Then a lot of pine logs were rolled out in front and planks placed on them, for seats. The platform was gaily trimmed with patriotic bunting, print mottoes and an engraving of Mrs. Belva Lockwood, by Mrs. Best, Mrs. Catharine McCullough and Miss McCullough. When that was done a big "stars and stripes" was hoisted to flap in the breeze on a tall pole behind the platform. A little way off several tables, covered with immaculate linen, were freighted with cups, saucers and plates. The odor of roast chicken and fragrant coffee exhaled from the kitchen. All this was in honor of the great event of the day, the opening gun of the Equal Rights campaign, which was to be fired off in Prince George's county, Md. The preparations were novel for a political gathering. A few minutes before 5 in the afternoon a well built, active lady, about 50 years of age, stepped off the Washington train. She was dressed in a close-fitting black brocaded silk and wore a small-black bonnet on her head. Her hair was of a grayish brown hue and was brushed back over her temples. Around her throat she wore a large circle of ruching, which looked a little like an Elizabethan frill. Her eyes were blue and keen and her cheeks were fresh and rosy. She was soon followed by about 20 other ladies, young and middle-aged, who surrounded her and addressed her as "President." Those who knew her at once recognized the lady tricyclist of Washington, Mrs. Belva Lockwood. A few men were also in the gathering, half a dozen being reporters. . . . A great big country wagon was waiting as a car of state. Nearly everybody piled in except Mrs. Lockwood, who said she was fully able to "foot it." Arrived at the farm house the party was met by a score or two of the residents of the vicinity, among others George T. Suit, Isaac Magruder, C.C, Magruder, Lewis Magruder, J.K. Wilson, G.C. Nichols, T.B. Lewis, Geo. Nagle, the Misses Magruder, Mrs. and Miss Brown, and Miss Nurse. When everybody was seated Mrs. Lockwood stepped on the little platform and sat just under her picture.... [The reporter then told of the preliminary remarks and the convention officers.] Mrs. Lockwood's turn came next. She advanced toward the front the platform with a firm, be-sure-you're-right-then-go-ahead tread. She took a roll of manuscript out of a side pocket, and proceeded to read her speech in slow, incisive style, holding her manuscript in her left hand and gesticulating angularly with her right. At times she swung her entire arm out at right angles with her body; then she emphasized her remarks by describing imaginary perpendicular lines in the air with her forefinger. [The reporter then summarized her speech in two paragraphs. Among her remarks were these: "The two great parties of this country, with blast of trumpets and rattle of drums, have set up their Presidential candidates, each, like a heathen god, for his opponents to throw mud at and his followers to worship. Neither is fighting simply for any high principle. The contest is a vile scramble for office, to decide who shall rule or be ruled. No great moral questions are involved." She continued: "Meanwhile woman is disenfranchised and enthralled. We want representation. We ask who are the people of the United States? The men and women or only the men? Is a woman a person or not?... The women of the. country fling the equal rights banner to the breeze and demand political liberty to all."] Three cheers were given for the Next President of the United States when Mrs. Lockwood had concluded. Then all were invited to that generous country collation which was prepared on the spot. The favorite dish seemed to be home-made huckleberry tart, which was promptly christened "Presidential pie." Supper over, several dozen torches were lighted, patriotic songs were sung and a few more speeches were made. . . . Mrs. Amanda Best, the hostess, and Mrs. Caroline H. Miller, of Sandy Springs, were then chosen with hilarious unanimity Presidential electors on the Lockwood ticket for the Fifth district of Maryland. When this had been done the visitors from Washington, headed by Mrs. Lockwood, formed in procession and with torches blazing and general good feeling all marched down to the station and took the train for Washington. Mrs. Lockwood will hold another meeting in St. Mary's county on October 15. She will also be present in Baltimore at the Woman's Congress, of which Mrs. Julia Ward Howe is president, and which meets here [Baltimore] October 23, 29 and 30. Mrs. Best's property is now known as Grigsby Station, and it is located at the corner of Landover Road (Route 202) and 75th Ave. There are two houses on that property now--Grigsby Station proper, believed to have been built a few years after the rally by a later owner, and a smaller one and one-half story structure which is much older. That older house may be the one referred to in the above accounts, or there could have been another house on the property, since destroyed. Whatever the case, the scene at Grigsby Station today reminds one of an earlier era. Grigsby Station and the smaller house are surrounded by trees and situated on a hill high above the hub-bub of the road below--an island of tranquility in a sea of hamburger stands, drive-in barks, and apartment complexes. It is easy to imagine the bunting, flags, tables under the trees, and women in 19th century dress assembled there even today. That scene will soon vanish for all time, however. Current plans for the property involve cutting the trees, grading the "airy eminence" down to road level, building a funeral home, and paving the rest for parking. --Alan Virta Postscript on Thomas Digges Last month's newsletter about Thomas Digges prompted a friendly letter from Robert H. Elias who first identified Digges as the author of Adventures of Alonso (the first American novel) almost forty years ago. Mr. Elias’ letter contains some good news for anyone interested in Thomas Attwood Digges. In the very near future--as early as next February--the University of South Carolina Press will publish an edition of Digges' letters edited by Elias and Eugene D. Finch. The volume will include a lengthy introduction presenting as much information as is known about Digges' life. Finch, like Elias, has been studying Digges for or several decades, and his recent research took him to the British Isles and Portugal, where he uncovered much interesting information. Unfortunately, Elias and Finch were unable to uncover any family or personal letters, nor were their able to locate the whereabouts of the portrait attributed to Sir Joshua Reynolds that was published in Potomac Landings. If any member of the Society has knowledge of the existence of any Digges letters still in private hands or the whereabouts of the portrait, Mr. Elias would be happy to hear from them. Contact Alan Virta at 474_7524 or Fred DeMarr if you have any information in this regard. Mr. Elias' and Mr. Finch's recent research has filled in some of the gaps in our knowledge of Digges' life and has answered some of the questions raised in our newsletter. We eagerly look forward to the publication of Digges' letters with their essay next February. New Members of the Society We welcome the following individuals to membership in the Prince George's County Historical Society: Sponsor Mrs. Florine Deckman College Park Dr. Hughes Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Korab College Park Dr. Hughes Rebecca Huffman Summot Parl, Utah Mr. DeMarr Mr. and Mrs. Victor E. Vermillion Saudi Arabia Mr. DeMarr Martha Roy Beltsville Mr. DeMarr The Prince George's County Historical Society Special thanks this month to Joyce McDonald of Hyattsville who passed on the information about Belva Ann Lockwood. This newsletter is published monthly. Subscription price is included in the annual dues of $5.00. Contact the society at P.O. Box 14, Riverdale, Md. 20737, or any of these officers: President: Fred De Marr, 277-0711; Corr Sec.: Edith Bagot, 927-3632; Treasurer: Herb Embrey, 434-2958 Editor: Alan Virta, 474-7524 The next meeting will be Saturday, Sept. 12, at Riversdale, 2 p.m. 
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