Delmarva Heritage Series, by Dr. William H. Wroten, Jr.
John Bordley, Agriculturist
Salisbury Times - May 22, 1958
One of
the many famous old families of Maryland, which played prominent
roles in the development of both the state and the nation, was that
of the Bordleys. Thomas Bordley, the first of this great family in
Maryland, came from Yorkshire, England in 1694. By 1712 he had
reached such prominence that he was holding the office of attorney
general for Maryland. Bordley married twice, his first wife being
Rachel Beard of Annapolis. In 1723, a year after her death, he
married Ariana Vanderheyden, a granddaughter of the famous Augustine
Herrman of Bohemia Manor.
By his
first wife, Thomas had a son, Stephen, who besides becoming an
excellent lawyer, was one of the wealthiest and best educated men in
the colony. Libraries during this period were few and meager even
at Annapolis but Stephen Bordley's was an exception for he
maintained a fine collection of books. The story is told that
Stephen who, trained such famous Marylanders in the field of law, as
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Johnson, almost discouraged his
half-brother, John Beale Bordley, by taking him in to his rather
large library and saying, "There, Beale, when you have read through
all those books, you may then practice the law."
Besides
having good taste in books, Stephen Bordley maintained a fashionable
home in Annapolis. Although it was a bachelor's abode, it was well
furnished and the table he set was the talk of the colony. There
was an abundance of excellent wines in the cellar, and his letters
show that he frequently ordered a "pipe of your best Madria, cost
what it will," or a cask of champagne, or a cask or two, or a few
dozen Burgundy. It is any wonder that the judges were always made a
point of dining with this gentleman when they were in Annapolis?
The
member of the Bordley family who achieved the greatest influence in
American history was not Stephen, but his half-brother, John Beale
Bordley, the agriculturist. John was born in February, 1727, four
months after his father's death. His mother remarried for the third
time and the young boy did not have a pleasant home life. So at the
age to ten, he went to live with his uncle in Chestertown. He
received his early education under the direction of schoolmaster,
Charles Peale, the father of the later famous American painter,
Charles Wilson Peale. It is noteworthy that in later life, John
Beale Bordley arranged for Peale to study in England under the
famous Benjamin West. Bordley, with the aid of others, saw to it
that Peale had enough money for at least two years of study. Peale
later painted four portraits of John Bordley, and also a picture of
his two sons, Thomas and Matthias.
At
seventeen, John went back to Annapolis to live with and study under
his half-brother, Stephen. Before practicing law, however, he spent
more time in studying history, philosophy, mathematics, surveying,
and other fields of the arts and sciences.
Shortly
after his marriage to Margaret Chew in 1750, John felt it necessary
to break away from the luxurious and fashionable society of his
brother's world in Annapolis. He and his young wife went to live at
Joppa, then in the "wilderness" of Baltimore County. For the next
12 or 13 years he worked his plantation and at the same time held a
most lucrative clerkship, for Joppa at the time was the county
seat. Later he moved a Baltimore City, where he was appointed in
1776, a judge of the Provincial Court, and the following year judge
of the British Admiralty Court. In 1768, he had been one of the
commissioners to help determine the boundary between Maryland and
Delaware (some say Pennsylvania), and also he served as a member of
Governor Sharpe's and Governor Eden's Councils.
The year
1770 was of great importance in the life of John Beale Bordley for
his wife inherited from the Chew family half of Wye Island - the
other half going to his sister-in-law, Mary, wife of William Paca, a
signer of the Declaration of Independence and a governor of
Maryland. Although the Bordleys maintained their winter residence
in Annapolis, they moved to his beautiful estate on Wye Island in
Queen Anne's County.
For many
years he was able to devote much of his time and wealth to agrarian
experiments. From time to time he added to his holdings with the
purchase of Poole's Island and farms on the mainland in Kent,
Harford, and Cecil Counties. He farmed on a large scale and
endeavored to improve practices of agriculture with the aid of
imported machinery, seeds, and books on husbandry. It was because
of his farming practice at Wye Island, and his other farms, that
Bordley became widely influencial in the field of agriculture in
this period of American history were coming from Maryland and
Virginia in the writings of such Virginians as John Taylor of
Caroline and Thomas Mann Randolph, son-in-law of Thomas Jefferson,
and Marylanders as Thomas Moore of Montgomery County and, probably
most important of all, John Beale Bordley. Bordley personally
conducted what amounted to an agricultural experiment station on Wye
Island.
Although
tobacco had long been the basis of Maryland economy, with wheat and
flax, which he proved to the other farmers could be grown
successfully. He also condemned the two and three field rotation
system in favor of an eight field system, which included three
fields of clover in the rotation plan. Thus even without the aid of
chemistry he had hit upon the contribution of legumes to the soil.
He also experimented with hemp, cotton, fruits, many kinds of
vegetables, and animal husbandry.
Before
long, the wharves that he had built at his plantation were busy; for
he had established a profitable wheat trade with England and Spain.
However, despite the face he had made a small fortune from this
trade when the Townsend Duties were passed by England against the
colonies. Bordley showed his patriotism by abiding with the policy
of non-importation. Historian Scharf, quoting from memoirs of the
Bordley family says, "When his foreign beers, wines, porters, ales,
etc., began to diminish in his cellars, he started a brewery of his,
and planted a vineyard. He ground his own flour in his own
windmills; made his own brick in his own brickyard and kiln; clothed
his own servants in kersey and linsey woolsey, manufactured by his
own looms from led, spun and wove his own flax; rotted and twisted
hemp grown on his far in his won rope-walk; did his own carpentering
and blacksmithing, and had his own private granary for the ships.
When this independent Maryland farmer's beer was fermented, he put
it away in casks made by his own carpenters, from timber cut down
out of his own woods, and he even manufactured his own salt, from
the Chesapeake Bay water, rather than be dependent upon Great
Britain for anything."
And when
the Revolutionary War broke out, Bordley continued his personal
fight with Great Britain. Poole's Island early became an important
base for sending supplies to General Washington's army and other
military units. And although he had gone to Annapolis at the
beginning of the war, because of the danger of British raids on the
Eastern Shore, he returned to Wye Island in 1778 to raise provisions
for the American army. Shortly thereafter the British Tories and
army stragglers attacked his plantation, but luckily they were
driven off by the militia before much damage was done.
In the
meantime Bordley's first wife had died, and in 1777 he married Mrs.
John Miffin, a widow of Philadelphia. From that time on the Bordley
family wintered in Philadelphia instead of Annapolis. He soon
became a member of the famous American Philosophical Society. In,
1785 he made probably his greatest contribution to development of
American agriculture by encouraging the formation of the
Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture, of which he was vice
president and actively interested until his death. Although this
society was not the first of its kind, (the South Carolina
Agricultural Society specializing in rice culture was organized in
1784), it was by far the most influential in promoting general
agriculture. The Society's voluminous Transactions presented the
results of the members' experimentation in agriculture.
Bordley, himself, made important contributions with his writings
about agriculture. At first the results of his farming operations
and studies were published on cards, then on handbills, and as
essays, before coming out in book form. Some of these works are A
summary View Of The Courses of Crops, In The Husbandry of England
and Maryland (1784) and Sketches on Rotations of Crops and Other
Rural Matters (1797). His famous book Essays and Notes on Husbandry
and Rural Affairs, published in 1799, with additions in 1801,
contains 566 pages describing a system of farming based on rotation
of crops and deals with the several kinds of crops, fruits, and
animals grown on England and Maryland farms, manures, farm
buildings, dairy products, food, and even the diet for farm people.
Although the style of writing is clear and practical, some of the
advice would seem strange to us today - "threshing wheat by driving
24 horses in four ranks around a large threshing floor until they
traveled 25 miles."
Bordley
also had the time and knowledge to write on such other subjects as
yellow fever, manufacturing, national credit, money, weights and
measures, the last three topics being published in 1789 with a
supplement coming out in 1790.
Bordley,
who died in 1804 and is buried in St. Peter's Churchyard in
Philadelphia, has been characterized as a "beneficent, vigorous and
original" man. His tombstone is engraved with these words - "...of
probity and integrity unblemished - As a Philanthropist, Patriot,
and Man, Equaled by few, Excelled by none." Many may dispute his
right to such high praise, but none can dispute John Beale Bordley's
right to be placed among America's foremost agriculturists.
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