[The following
historical narrative about the McDivit
Family and their beloved "Home Place"
was written Florence McDivit Casey in
1963.]
This study of
the McDivit Family is based on the
family Bibles of James and Joseph
McDivit; upon the inscriptions on the
tombstones in the peaceful little
churchyard at St. Joseph's Church in
Emmitsburg, Maryland; upon the
clear-headed recollections of my
father's only surviving brother, Dr.
Harry N. McDivit, who was ninety-one
years old on January second of this
year, 1963; and also from the
impressions which I picked up through
the years from the conversations of
the members of my father's generation.
These facts and reminiscences gave me
a background for questions which
cannot all be answered without
genealogical research, especially
those prior to the time of James and
Sally Wise McDivit, my
great-grandparents. Perhaps there will
be someone in the generations to
follow us who will be interested in
visiting courthouses and county-seats
and in filling out the earlier
records.
THE McDIVIT
"HOME PLACE"
What
little we know about the family
centers around Emmitsburg, Maryland.
There the McDivit Home Place may still
be seen. The substantial and
attractive stone house was occupied
(1956) by a tenant of the owner, Gwynn
Topper, who also owns the orchards on
either side of the main road as you
approach the house. It was sold by the
McDivit family soon after the death of
Joseph P. McDivit, the grandfather of
my generation. He died September 7,
1875 and according to Uncle Harry the
family lived there five years or so
after that. Another of my father's
brothers, Uncle Joe, said the family
would probably never have lost the
property if grandmother's sons had
been old enough to protect her
interests.
According to
Uncle Harry, the old Home Place, as my
father always called it, was part of Carrolsburg, and I have wondered if
this in turn was connected with
Carrolton Manor, a huge tract of land
which had been acquired by Charles
Carroll of Carrollton. Incidentally,
the McDivit property was divided by
the Mason Dixon Line -- part of it
being in Maryland and part in Adams
County, Pennsylvania. At what period
the McDivit family acquired the land
and how extensive their holdings were
we do not know.
Uncle
Harry believes the existing stone
house was built by his father, Joseph
P. McDivit, and says that his sister
and brothers were all born there.
James McDivit, the father of Joseph,
was born in the "old mill house" which
sat on a little hill above the mill,
and there he raised his family of nine
children (see Bible record).
In determining
the exact age of the house, it would
be interesting to know if it was
actually built by James or by his son,
Joseph. James died in 1858, at the age
of seventy-six, and Joseph died in
1875, at the age of fifty-eight. There
is an interval of seventeen years
between their deaths, with the
disruption of the Civil War
(1861-1866) during this period. (With
Gettysburg so close at hand, it was
impossible for the family to remain
untouched by the war.) Research may
settle these questions some day.
The old home
may be reached from Baltimore by Route
140 to Westminster and then over Route
97 to Emmitsburg. Drive straight
through the town to the Emmit House
(old when I was young); take the fork
to the right; go one and a half to two
miles; the house is on the left just
before Tom's Creek. It is a stone
house with colonial columns and a
porch or gallery straight across the
second floor. There is an old stone
building beyond the house (possibly a
mill). A creek is lower down. It once
formed the mill race, but there was
little water in it the day we were
there, due to the clearing of a heavy
stand of timber from the mountains
nearby.
Uncle Harry
says there was an L-shaped addition to
the right rear of the house, the
second floor of which was used for a
school for the McDivit children. Miss
Belle Kidgely was the teacher and he
remembers her very well. She married
later and lived in Baltimore.
The Home Place
was designed to take care of the needs
of the family and to provide
additional income as well. Uncle Harry
drew a rough sketch of the farm layout
which is the basis for the following
description...
To the back
and left of the house was a very large
wagon shed open at both ends and with
corn cribs on either side. To the
right and beyond a paling fence was a
springhouse, the refrigerator of that
period, with a trough for cooling
milk. Still further to the right was a
big bank-barn which burned down in
later years. Behind the house was the
ever essential well. Lovely large
boxwoods and trees were near the
house. A beautiful walnut tree, which
"has never born nuts" according to its
present occupants, is at the left of
the house and a big ash tree near the
springhouse was a favorite of Uncle
Harry's. He also remembered the
fenced-in vegetable garden some
distance behind the house, as well as
the chicken house.
Then
there was a hill, and down in the
hollow beyond was the mill race with
the mill for grinding grain raised on
the farm (thus providing food for the
family as well as for the animals).
Oak bark, preferably white oak, was
stored on the hill to be used in the
tannery which was a level triangular
spot beyond the mill and close to the
junction where Friend's Creek (also
called Mountain creek) ran into Tom's
Creek, thus feeding the mill race. The
cattle, and probably the hogs as well,
provided hides for the tannery which
had two vats. In addition to all of
this, I can remember my father
speaking of a sawmill which must have
been a necessity in such an operation.
The Clarence
Alexander family lived in the house in
1956. They gave their address as
Fairfield, Route 2, Pennsylvania. They
spoke of the small house just back of
the main house as the old slave
quarters. Ike Downey, a former slave,
worked for the McDivits. His widow
lived on the road to Emmitsburg
according to the Alexanders. We tried
to contact her on the way home but
were unsuccessful. Older generations
of Alexanders had also worked for
them.
Uncle Harry
says the house in which Mr. Topper
lives was once a country store. The
McDivit children delivered eggs there
in exchange for groceries. Barter was
not unusual at this time, particularly
in the country.
CHANGING
TIMES
[Life for the
McDivits changed dramatically
following the death of Joseph P.
McDivit, who died suddenly in 1875, at
the age of 58.] Grandmother must have
been overwhelmed by her
responsibilities following the loss of
her husband. To be left a widow at
forty-three with six children, ranging
in age from ten years to fifteen
months, was indeed a tremendous
problem. The additional necessity of
successfully running the family farm
was doubly overwhelming. Her brother,
Felix Diffendal, returned from the
Midwest, where he had settled, to be
with his sister. Apparently, his
assistance was not sufficiently able
to make the farm pay, however, and the
family had to dispose of it. Life was
a struggle for them in those early
days, but Grandmother had reason to
feel happy at the results. She was
very proud of the McDivit name. (Uncle
Harry once teased her about it.) She
said she was not proud for herself but
for her children. Unfortunately, Uncle
Felix destroyed all the family
records, saying that they were of no
further value.
Uncle Harry
commented on the freedom Grandmother
allowed her sons, sending them off to
gather wild berries even when they
were quite young and putting no firm
regulation on how far they could go or
in what direction. Thus they enjoyed
the freedom to explore the country
around them and to learn the lessons
of nature. They fished in the streams
and when they reached sufficient age
were allowed to have guns for hunting
rabbits and other small game. The
physical, mental and moral training of
their boyhood enabled them to become
self-sufficient men of character, well
able to take their places in the
cities to which they gravitated.
The McDivit
children continued their education in
Emmitsburg at St. Euphemia's School
run by the Sisters of Charity --
receiving the limited education which
small towns all over America provided
in those days (but they lived in an
era when this was usual and all of
them were a credit to their mother and
their forebears). Mary Angela (Aunt Mame) attended St. Joseph's Academy,
now St. Joseph's College, in
Emmitsburg, which was founded by
Mother Seton, now on her way to
sainthood. Uncle Jimmy [James Vincent McDivit] went to Baltimore to seek a
wider field than Emmitsburg provided.
Uncle Joe [Joseph McDivit], having
attended Niagara University in New
York state for two years, settled in
Frederick. Uncle Pete [Peter Philip
McDivit] went west and made St.
Joseph, Missouri his home. Uncle Harry
[Harry Norbet McDivit] came to
Baltimore, followed by my father, John
[John Albert McDivit], the youngest
son.
In time, Uncle
Jimmy became the president of a large
spice company, the William N. Crawford
Co. Uncle Joe became vice president of
the Citizen's National Bank in
Frederick. Uncle Pete was vice
president of the John S. Brittain Co.,
a wholesale dry goods company in St.
Joseph, Missouri. Uncle Harry studied
dentistry at the University of
Maryland and practiced successfully in
Baltimore until retirement. John
McDivit became president of the Henry
H. Meyer Co., a concern which sold
construction and industrial equipment.
The unmarried
brothers provided for their mother and
sister as long as they lived. Uncle
Jimmy lived with them and Uncle Joe
came down from Frederick frequently.
The nearby grandchildren visited
Grandmother's often. The other sons,
Harry and John, lived not far away and
stopped by regularly -- not through a
sense of duty, but because they were
devoted to their mother. Uncle Pete
never failed to visit twice a year on
his way to New York, where he did his
buying for the Britain Company. His
arrival always signaled a get-together
at Grandmother's and young and old
enjoyed the gay banter of the
fun-loving McDivit boys. Grandmother
was next door to heaven when they were
all around her. She was a gentle,
refined little lady, slender in her
black silk dress.
The St. Joe
McDivits spent summers here on two
occasions, visiting at Grandmother's,
at Uncle Harry's and at our house in
West Forest Park. It gave us all a
chance to know Aunt Helene [Helene
Herrick McDivit], Herrick [J. Herrick
McDivit] and Philip [Peter Philip
McDivit III]. I was the oldest of the
grandchildren. My sister, Mary
Josephine ("Mate"), came next, with
Herrick following her three months
later. Mary Louise (Uncle Harry's
daughter) was next in line. Philip,
Margaret (another of Uncle Harry's
daughters) and my brother, John A.
McDivit, Jr., were all born the same
year. Sadly, a small son of Uncle
Harry's, Harry Norbet McDivit, Jr.,
died in infancy. These formed the list
for this particular generation. Since
my brother never married, the McDivit
surname has disappeared here in the
east, as far as our immediate family
is concerned. We must depend on the
children of Herrick and Philip, both
deceased at an early age, to carry on
the name in the Midwest where they now
live.
After leaving
the old Home Place, the McDivits lived
at Valley House on the road to
Gettysburg, and then at the Baker
House on the Pike. As soon as
feasible, Grandmother and Aunt Mame
joined the sons in Baltimore at 3000
N. Calvert Street. Later they moved to
2415 Maryland Avenue, which was
headquarters for the family for many
years until the neighborhood had
deteriorated and Grandmother, Uncle
Jimmy, Aunt Mame and Uncle Joe had all
found a resting place with their
ancestors in the little churchyard in
Emmitsburg.
OLDER
GENERATIONS
James McDivit
was the Justice of the Peace for the
surrounding countryside and was known
as the Honorable James McDivit.
Joseph P.
McDivit might be termed a gentleman
farmer, riding horseback as he managed
the work on his farm. He also dabbled
in politics. Uncle Harry said he did
not drink but provided a decanter on
the sideboard for those who did. He
was hospitable and they frequently
entertained at dinner the priests from
St. Mary's College who came over the
"back road" on horseback. he had great
ambition for his sons, planning to
educate them for the professions.
Grandmother,
Mary Josephine (Diffendal) McDivit,
was born in Libertytown, not far from
Frederick. In addition to her brother
Felix, she had another brother, Sam,
who developed an extensive peach farm
in Smithsburg, Pennsylvania. There
were others in her family, among them
the Diffendals of Frederick and of
Philadelphia.
Sally Wise,
wife of our great-grandfather James,
was born in Conawaga, Pennsylvania,
which is near McSherrystown, in Adams
County. Uncle Harry says there is a
long line of Wise family tombstones in
the churchyard at Conawaga. These we
hope to see when we go to Emmitsburg
and Conawaga on a trip which my
husband and I are planning for this
spring, taking Uncle Harry along if
possible. He says that Conawaga was a
Jesuit settlement and that the first
church was a log church situated on a
hill and dedicated to the Sacred
Heart. (It was from Conawaga that many
settlers started west, following the
trail along the Monacacy River.) There
was a block house there as a
protection against the Indians who
kept returning to the springs for
water. The Sneeringer family lived
there and later gave it to the
government.
THE McDIVIT
NAME
Incidentally,
the spelling of the name has sometimes
been questioned. Our authority is
found in the graveyard at St. Joseph's
Church in Emmitsburg, where about
fifteen of our ancestors are buried.
(The eldest, Philip McDivit, was born
in 1746.) I will list them all as a
matter of record later on in this
study.
The name has
been retained here in Baltimore by my
sister's son, John McDivit Tormey, now
a doctor doing research at Johns
Hopkins Hospital and by his son, John
McDivit Tormey, Jr., just a year old
at this writing (1963). It has also
been perpetuated by my grandson,
Thomas McDivit Casey (who will soon be
ten years old), the oldest son of
Harry J. Casey, Jr. -- the only one of
the four grandchildren of John McDivit
who was old enough to remember him.
McDivit's buried at
St Joseph's Church
Name |
Date of Death |
Age at Death |
Date of Birth |
Philip McDivit |
825 |
79 |
1746 |
Henry McDivit |
843 |
65 |
1778 |
James McDivit |
1858 |
76 |
1782 |
Catherine McDivit |
1835 |
34 |
1801 |
Sarah McDivit |
859 |
53 |
1806 |
Mary McDivit |
1872 |
57 |
1815 |
Joseph P. McDivit |
1875 |
58 |
1817 |
Jane McDivit |
1860 |
41 |
1819 |
Martha McDivit |
1888 |
58 |
1830 |
Julia J. McDivit |
1889 |
56 |
1833 |
Mary J. McDivit |
1916 |
83 |
1832 |
Felix Diffendal |
916 |
76 |
840 |
Mary Angela McDivit |
1939 |
75 |
1864 |
James V. McDivit |
1922 |
56 |
1866 |
Joseph McDivit |
1941 |
72 |
186 |
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