Gary Ditto Newsletter - Local Information and News - Kensington, Chevy Chase, Silver Spring & Bethesda

Home

GARY H. DITTO
DIANA T. DITTO
Long & Foster.® Real Estate Inc.
4650 East West Hwy.
Bethesda, MD 20814
301-215-6834

Bethesda-Gateway Office
301-907-7600

Joseph’s Park: A History of Kensington Part 1

May 1989

One Tuesday evening in April 1989, Edith Ray Saul spoke about the early history of the Kensington area before a large gathering of almost 100 members and guests of the Kensington Historical Society. Miss Saul’s family’s connections to Kensington go back several generations. A retired librarian, Miss Saul is a charter member of the Kensington Historical Society. What follows are excerpts from her talk.

In early records of this area they refer to us here as living on the reaches of Rock Creek. Until well into the 19^th century, Rock Creek supported any number of mills: Veirs Mill, Ducall Mill, Jones Mill, etc.

“There was once a big mill on the little stream that comes under St. Paul Street and Dupont and down along Kensington Parkway. My grandfather said that it dated back to the reign of William & Mary. The early maps show all these little creeks, streams and runs draining into Rock Creek. Almost all of those little streams have disappeared now. Of course, you might come across one of them in your basement. If you do, consider is your legacy from the ice age.”

When the ice receded, it left this area covered with grass, a cold weather crop. After the grass came the forest and as soon as the forest was established, the first settlers, the Indians, came in from the west. In this area there was an Indian settlement at the mouth of Rock Creek and another one at the mouth of the Anacostia River. The Indians would come up here where we are now and they would not only hunt to for furs to sell to the English settlers down on the Chesapeake Bay.

The Algonquin Indians that were here when the settlers arrived were friendly and cooperative. In fact, the early settlers and the early administration treated them very justly and with great respect. In the early days they were very beneficial to each other.

As I said these Indians came up here to the Piedmont to hunt to vary their diets and to participate in the fur trade. When I walk along Howard Avenue I wonder if it was an Indian Trail. If so, it has been a commercial center for many years.

The first Lord Baltimore (1560-1632) was the one who conceived the “Maryland Adventure.” He didn’t live to see the charter that was issued a few months after his death to his son, Cecil Calvert.

I’ve always called him “See-sill” Calvert. The new historians are very meticulous about calling him Cecilius because that’s the way he signed his documents. Being a Yorkshireman, he probably called himself “Sess-ill.”

Cecil Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore (c.1605-1675) was the first Proprietor of Maryland, a position he held for 40 years.

[ED.NOTE: Cecil Calvert sent the first colonists to Maryland on the ships Ark and Dove which landed on the shores of Southern Maryland in 1634] Maryland was issued in the charter as his private property, his landed estate. In fact, Maryland was really the last gasp of feudalism. Lord Baltimore tried to establish manors – that’s spelled “manors,” not “manners”! – and he didn’t get very far with that.

The Lord Baltimore that we’re interested in on account of Joseph’s Park is the third Lord Baltimore (c.1637-1715). Historians don’t give him quite as much credit as the other two men, but it seems to me he had a much rockier system to work with. [ED.NOTE: This Lord Baltimore had problems with charges by the largely Protestant population that he favored Catholics. He was also involved in a bitter boundary dispute with William Penn of Pennsylvania.] The thing I like about him is that he was the only Lord Baltimore who really lived in Maryland. When he was in his early 30’s he was appointed governor by his father and he came here to live. When his father died he stayed on as governor so he really was almost a native Marylander and understood all of our problems.

By 1648 things were getting pretty confused in England so he thought he had better go home to straighten out his problems in Maryland and England. He left his 4-year-old son as governor. I think this was probably so that the governor’s salary would go into the family coffers. And he left the Council, of course, to govern. In July, 1684 he sent over as President of the Council and Deputy Governor William Joseph, Esquire.

We’ve had a lot of different kinds of governors in Maryland, but William Joseph was the worst. On a scale of 1 to 10, he was about minus one.

William Joseph believed in the divine right of kings. Of course, Charles I had been beheaded 40 years ago, but he still believed in the divine rights of kings! William Joseph also believed in the divine right of Lord Proprietor – that was a new idea in Maryland. And he also believed in the divine right of the governor of Maryland – that was William Joseph!

(Miss Saul’s history of William Joseph’s will continue in the next issue of this newsletter. In the second installment she describes more of William Joseph’s role in Kensington’s early history, the role of the Carroll family, and Joseph’s Park’s connection to Georgetown University and the Titanic. – Diane Ursano, Ed.)