Maryland Ridge in Indiana was an unincorporated community of settlers from Calvert County, Maryland in the early 19th century. The settlers came to Indiana after the War of 1812 in successive waves between 1818 and 1839. One community where they settled became known as Maryland Ridge. The geographic area follows the ridges and streams of Indian Creek along the Monroe-Greene County line.
Ancestral homes would include the family farm and homesteads of the Indiana writer Booth Tarkington; the home and family farmstead of country music legend Joe Edwards, and the family farmstead and ancestral home of Hoagy Carmichael.
The first land entries in Center Township, Greene County, Indiana: John Storms, on Section 36 (in the southeastern part), in October 1816; Isaac Storms, on the same section, in December 1816; William Carter, on Section 25, in December 1817; Abel Burlingame, on Section 35, in August, 1818; Daniel Rollins, on Section 1 (in the northeast part), in 1820; John Gardner, on the same section, in 1820; Garret Gibson, on Section 10, in 1822; and Joseph Burch, on Section 9, in 1826.
In the aftermath of the War of 1812, Joseph and his brother Benjamin Freeland where shipbuilders and former slave holders in Maryland who migrated west by 1817. Six named families from Calvert County, Maryland migrated at this time among them including Joseph and Lydia Richardson Freeland, Judge John Sedwick, Daniel and Rebecca Rawlings, Zebulon and Mary Whaley Alexander, and possibly others. The constitution of Indiana did not allow slavery, but some settlers arriving in the state simply “indentured” individuals for a period of time upon entering the state. John Sedwick made such a contract with his “negro woman,” Anaca Johnson on June 1, 1820. Where as Joseph Freeland had purchased several large sections of Franklin Township around the current location of Freedom Indiana where many waves of African Americans settled directly from 1817-1850. According to Pioneer Methodist Preacher Joseph Tarkington’s autobiography, published in 1899, Joseph Freeland and his brother Benjamin initially moved from Maryland to what is now Indian Creek Township in Monroe County in 1817.
The second and largest migration of settlers, the Carmichael Party, to the area appears to have originated in 1826 from Surry and Stokes Counties, North Carolina. The great number of these families appear to have direct ties to Calvert County, Maryland in at least one of three basic forms: they had previously lived in Calvert County; had brothers and sisters in Calvert County, or had married a spouse in or from Calvert County, Maryland.
The third migration of settlers occurred in 1834 from Calvert County, Maryland. This party was led by the Reverend Malden and Eliza Cullenbaugh Baker, and included the families of Thomas and Nicea Greaves Breeden, William and Christiana Greaves Fowler, Moses and Drusilla Graves Whaley, Joseph and Sophia Jane Hall Whaley, Samuel Hite, Cleverly Day, and David Coster. Upon arrival in the free territory in Indiana, the group began holding religious services calling themselves the Calvert Society.
The Calvert Society met in homes until a log church was erected in 1839. According to church records there was a debate as to whether to build the church in Stanford or 'on the hill' west of Stanford. The hill was chosen, and in 1839 Joseph Whaley and Allen Sparks deeded the property for the Church, and the first log church in the area was built. The Calvert Society, feeling they were on the 'right' side of the anti-slavery [9] issue, kept the traditional name of the Methodist Church, calling it the Methodist Episcopal Church.
The fourth and final group arrived in 1839 from Virginia. This group was led by Randolph Ross who built the Randolph Ross and Sonís Virginia Iron Works which became a touchstone of the early Maryland Ridge Community. Along Indian Creek on the very edge of a field cleared by the settlers, and purchased on contract from George Adams, Benjamin Freeland’s son-in-law, Ross built the blast furnace. According to the abstract of the present owner, Benjamin Freeland deeded the property to his son-in-law George Adams for his 'iron works venture'. Adams then sold the property on contract to Ross. In 1839 Randolph Ross was land granted or bought on contract a total of 156 acres along Indian Creek. By 1840 he was the largest single tax payer in both Greene and Monroe Counties.
Calvert County is located in the U.S. state of Maryland. As of the 2020 census, the population was 92,783. Its county seat is Prince Frederick. The county's name is derived from the family name of the Barons of Baltimore, the proprietors of the English Colony of Maryland Calvert County is included in the Washington–Arlington–Alexandria, DC–VA–MD–WV Metropolitan Statistical Area. It occupies the Calvert Peninsula, which is bordered on the east by Chesapeake Bay and on the west by the Patuxent River. Calvert County is part of the Southern Maryland region. The county has one of the highest median household incomes in the United States. It is one of the older counties in Maryland, after St. Mary's, Kent County and Anne Arundel counties.
The Cherokee are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in their homelands, in towns along river valleys of what is now southwestern North Carolina, southeastern Tennessee, edges of western South Carolina, northern Georgia, and northeastern Alabama.
Brown County is a county in Indiana which in 2010 had a population of 15,242. The county seat is Nashville.
The Northwest Territory, also known as the Old Northwest and formally known as the Territory Northwest of the River Ohio, was formed from unorganized western territory of the United States after the American Revolutionary War. Established in 1787 by the Congress of the Confederation through the Northwest Ordinance, it was the nation's first post-colonial organized incorporated territory.
John Ross was the Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation from 1828 to 1866; he served longer in that position than any other person. Described as the Moses of his people, Ross influenced the nation through such tumultuous events as the relocation to Indian Territory and the American Civil War.
The Southern Colonies within British America consisted of the Province of Maryland, the Colony of Virginia, the Province of Carolina, and the Province of Georgia. In 1763, the newly created colonies of East Florida and West Florida would be added to the Southern Colonies by Great Britain until the Spanish Empire took back Florida. These colonies were the historical core of what would become the Southern United States, or "Dixie". They were located south of the Middle Colonies, albeit Virginia and Maryland were also considered as the Chesapeake Colonies.
Joseph "Joe" Lane was an American politician and soldier. He was a state legislator representing Evansville, Indiana, and then served in the Mexican–American War, becoming a general. President James K. Polk appointed Lane as the first Governor of Oregon Territory. When Oregon was admitted as a state in 1859, Lane was elected one of Oregon's first two U.S. Senators.
John Ridge, born Skah-tle-loh-skee, was from a prominent family of the Cherokee Nation, then located in present-day Georgia. He went to Cornwall, Connecticut, to study at the Foreign Mission School. He met Sarah Bird Northup, of a New England Yankee family, and they married in 1824. Soon after their return to New Echota in 1825, Ridge was chosen for the Cherokee National Council and became a leader in the tribe.
Isaac McCoy was a Baptist missionary among the Native Americans in what is now Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, and Kansas. He was an advocate of Indian removal from the eastern United States, proposing an Indian state in what is now Kansas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma. He also played an instrumental role in the founding of Grand Rapids, Michigan and Kansas City, Missouri.
Charles Fenton Mercer was a nineteenth-century politician and lawyer from Loudoun County, Virginia who served in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Virginia General Assembly.
Joseph Bailly was a fur trader and a member of an important French Canadian family that included his uncle, Charles-François Bailly de Messein.
This article details a history of Lycoming County, Pennsylvania.
Forest Township is one of fourteen townships in Clinton County, Indiana. As of the 2010 census, its population was 760 and it contained 328 housing units. The township was named for the large amount of timber it contained at the time it was organized.
Madison Township is one of ten townships in Jefferson County, Indiana, United States. As of the 2010 census, its population was 17,415 and it contained 8,087 housing units.
Milton Township is one of ten townships in Jefferson County, Indiana, United States. As of the 2010 census, its population was 896 and it contained 470 housing units.
Lancaster is an unincorporated community in Lancaster Township, Jefferson County, Indiana.
St. Inigoes, sometimes called St. Inigoes Shores, is a small, rural, unincorporated farming, fishing and crabbing community at the southern end of St. Mary's County in the U.S. state of Maryland that is undergoing a transition to small residential subdevelopment plots. Its western side is bordered by a number of coves and creeks that are connected to the St. Marys River, a brackish tidal tributary, near where it feeds into the mouth of the Potomac River and close to its entry point into the Chesapeake Bay.
Benjamin Parke was an American lawyer, politician, militia officer, businessman, treaty negotiator in the Indiana Territory who also served as a United States federal judge in Indiana after it attained statehood in 1816. Parke was the Indiana Territory's attorney general (1804–1808); a representative to the territory's first general assembly (1805); its first territorial delegate to the United States House of Representatives (1805–1808); one of the five Knox County delegates to the Indiana constitutional convention of 1816; and a territorial court judge (1808–1816). After Indiana attained statehood, Parke served as the first United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Indiana (1817–1835).
Mary Kittamaquund, daughter of the Piscataway chieftain Kittamaquund, helped establish peaceful relations between English immigrants to the Maryland and Virginia Colonies and their native peoples.
The Carolina Road or the "Old Carolina Road" are names for various sections of the Great Wagon Road and other routes in colonial America. "The 'Old Carolina Road', extending from Lancaster, Pennsylvania to the Yadkin Valley, was one of the most heavily traveled roads in eighteenth century America." Parts of the 180-mile-long (290 km) Journey Through Hallowed Ground National Heritage Area scenic byway follow the Old Carolina Road through Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia.
