Thomas’s Story

At some time by the mid 1760’s Thomas Brown appeared in a settlement called Monocacy Manor along the Monocacy River in what is now Frederick County, Maryland. Whether he was born there about 1738 or whether he was born elsewhere and came with his parents or a sibling or just wandered in on his own is a mystery. In fact, a lot about Thomas is a mystery. First, was his name Thomas Brown or Thomas Browne or Thomas Braun? The use of the “e” is English spelling and for years, although it has been speculated he could have been German, the conclusion seems to be that he was of English heritage and at some point dropped the “e” and became just plain Thomas Brown.

Family lore from Fannie Brown Wolf, who was quoted by Andree W. Wilson-Taylor in her research in 1991, insisted that the Browns descended from a William Browne who came at an early age in 1634 as an indentured servant on the “Ark” into the Maryland Colony at present-day St. Mary’s County. And this story took off and is now promoted and accepted by many, yet it has not been definitely proven. Thomas’s parentage remains unknown. He simply appears on the scene.

In the 1740’s, most of the land in Monocacy Manor was owned by the then Lord Baltimore and leased to tenants. A typical lease might require that the tenant build “one good substantial dwelling house, thirty feet long and twenty feet wide, with a brick chimney.” Leases were supposed to last for the natural lifetime of the lessee plus two generations, or about 70 years. The first tenant on the land was John Biggs, Sr., who in 1741 settled on lot #2, which he named “Biggs Delight” along the Monocacy River. After his death in 1761, a neighbor Casper Devilbiss tenanted the parcel because the Biggs sons who were heirs to it had moved east to what would become part of Carroll County.

The Biggs family arrived first in 1741 and they were followed in 1745 by another family from Somerset Count, the Pittingers. The Biggs and Pittinger families have been extensively documented elsewhere.

What is known about Thomas really starts when he met young Hannah Pittinger. Hannah’s mother was Elizabeth Amy Biggs, the daughter of John Biggs, Sr. She had married Daniel Pittinger around 1734 in Somerset County, New Jersey.

Around 1770 Thomas and Hannah were married. Thomas would have been around age 32 to 35 and Hannah would have been 25. They started a family in 1771 in the Monocacy Manor settlement as tenants of lot No. 63 where their first four children were born: Susannah, William, Thomas, Jr., and Mary Elizabeth.

According to the research of Andree W. Wilson-Taylor, on May 1, 1778, Thomas Brown enlisted in the militia as a substitute for John Devilbiss, the son of a neighbor Casper Devilbiss, who was Moravian and would not serve. She believed that Thomas was in the Second Maryland Regiment commanded by Colonel Thomas Price and was discharged January 10, 1780, as a corporal. There is a listing from Records of Maryland Troops in the Continental Service of a Thomas Brown in a list of substitutes who served in 1778 in the Second Regiment under a Colonel Thomas Price. There is also a listing in this same source for a Thomas Brown who enlisted in the militia from Fredericktown as part of the Seventh Maryland Regiment from January to April of 1780. In Revolutionary Patriots of Frederick County, Maryland 1775-1783, by Henry C. Peden, Jr., there are two listings, one under the other, for a Thomas Brown: one took the Oath of Allegiance in March 1778 and enlisted on May 1, 1788, as a private in the Second Maryland Regiment; the other enlisted as a private in the Seventh Maryland Regiment from “Frederick Town” from January 1780 to April 1780 and was reported as “gone to Camp.” Whether this is our Thomas and whether he possibly served twice in two separate Regiments is unclear.

After the American Revolution in 1781 the new government confiscated the lands and sold them at auction and often to former soldiers for the price of their pay certificates, so the lots were mostly bought by former officers or those with wealth and thus poorer tenants were evicted. On October 10, 1781, lot #63 was bought by Colonel P. Adams.

The Brown family may have stayed as tenants. The ownership of the land may have changed or it may have been confiscated again in 1786. Perhaps they again were able to remain as tenants or they may have been evicted. It is known that they remained in the area of the village of Creagerstown, which was laid out between 1760 and 1770 at the crossroads of what was known as the Monocacy Road and the road that led from Baltimore to points west. As the town grew it eventually supplanted the old Monocacy settlement. Between 1780 and 1784 their last three children were born: John Nathan, Ignatius, and Catharine Dorothea.

There is nothing more known about Thomas. He is presumed to have died between 1786 and 1789 and been buried on a farm along the Monocacy River in the Pittinger Family Cemetery that has now been plowed over.

SOURCES:

“The Brown Family,” by Andree Taylor-Wilson in Antietam Ancestors, Volume 5, issue 1. Copyright 1991, Waynesboro Historical Society.

Ancestors and Descendants with a Connection to The Brown Family, by Nancy Bruce, privately printed.

The Brown Family, a handwritten history by Eldon Buhrman.

Muster Rolls and Other Records of Service of Maryland Troops in the American Revolution, Volume 18, page 294.

Pioneers of Old Monocacy: The Early Settlement of Frederick County, Maryland 1721-1743, by Grace L. Tracey and John P. Dern, Baltimore, MD, Genealogical Publishing House, Copyright 1987 by the Historical Society of Carroll County, MD, pp. 308-313.