Our ancestors hated each other

This year marks Nancy’s and my 30th wedding anniversary. On our honeymoon, we travelled through the mid-Atlantic states, visiting sites associated with our respective family histories. In April and May of this year, we returned to some of these places, especially Baltimore, Annapolis, and St. Mary’s City, the first capital of Maryland in the seventeenth century. 

As a Calvert, Nancy’s ancestors were the Catholic Lords Baltimore, who founded Maryland and controlled it as a feudal fiefdom between 1634 and 1689. Her sixth great grandfather was Benedict Leonard Calvert, the fourth Lord Baltimore, who succeeded in recovering control of Maryland in 1715 after converting to Protestantism.

Sworn enemies

When we first visited Maryland in 1996, I had no idea that my own ancestors had lived in the colony in the early decades. But as increasing numbers of records were posted online and genealogical sites established, I discovered one ancestor, Cornelius Howard, Sr., who served in the Maryland assembly and may have been descended from the Dukes of Norfolk. Howard was my ninth great grandfather. This was during the Calverts’ proprietorship.

During our most recent visit, I discovered that two more ninth great grandfathers also served in the assembly, but only after the Calverts had been overthrown in 1689, following the Glorious Revolution in the British Isles. One of these was Nicholas Gassaway, whose fourth great grandson, Senator Henry Gassaway Davis of West Virginia, was the Democratic Party’s candidate for vice president in 1904.

Powerful ancestors

Another ninth great grandfather I found especially interesting. John Hammond was born in England in 1643 and died in Annapolis in 1707. He began life as a Quaker and a pacifist – stances which seem to have gotten him in trouble with the law in his youth. Whatever happened to him then appears to have elicited a change of heart. Eventually he joined the established church and rose to the highest rank in the local militia. He is buried under an impressive grave monument in the churchyard of St. Anne’s Parish in Annapolis which I saw during our visit.

Both Gassaway and Hammond served in the assembly after the “Revolution of Government” deprived the Calverts of their position. Both were known to be “anti-proprietary” and in favour of empowering the assembly.

I find it ironic that God brought together as husband and wife two people whose ancestors were political opponents nearly 350 years ago. That might make us a latter-day Romeo and Juliet except that we lived to tell the tale. I’ve long thought that God has a sense of humour, especially after reading the book of Jonah. How amusing, then, that he would see fit to bridge an ancient cleavage between two families by bringing two of their descendants together in holy matrimony!