Handsell House summary

YouTube video in 2010 about Handsell House...HERE

"Indiantown Road in Vienna, MD seems unassuming at first glance. Open fields of farmlands, trees, and houses at distant intervals, no one would have guessed it has one of the only remaining colonial plantation houses left in the state. This structure is known as the Handsell House, named for the term "handsell" which means "honest money." This name was given to refer to the area's function as a trading post with American Indians. The house, when it was built, changed hands several times in its early life. It became a site of much strife through the 1700s, first because of more and more Englishmen encroaching upon the natives' territory, and also because of British raids taking place there around the time of the Revolution.

"When I visited the house, I met the restoration crew in the midst of their cleaning operation and study of artifacts. They were working towards their goal of developing an accurate picture of the original house, which they hope to utilize when they restore it to its former beauty. Hopefully in a few years, after the work is finished and word gets out, the house will be top on the list of visitors to Dorchester County. (from YouTube description)

Jamboree at Handsell House a video

The link above goes to a video from 2012, where lots of things were happening at the Handsell House in Vienna, Dorchester County, MD.

2nd Annual Nanticoke River Jamboree held at Handsell, the historic site near Vienna, MD. The event featured groundbreaking on a Native-American lodge, War of 1812 reenactors, talks about Harriet Tubman and local African-American history, a program on Native-American life skills, nature walks, Colonial-era blacksmiths, and tours of Handsell. The Jamboree was sponsored by the Nanticoke Historic Preservation Alliance (NHPA).

The Nanticoke River Jamboree is an annual event held at Handsell  to celebrate the natural and historic resources of the Nanticoke River watershed area and three cultures who have occupied this land.  Each year the Jamboree features exhibits and demonstration by regional environmental and historic groups, a variety of living history performers and demonstrations by spinners, sheep-shearers, wood turners, open hearth cooks and more!  In addition you will find music, food and activities for the whole family. 

The 2019 Jamboree was held Oct. 12 of this year, (2019) before I (your blogger) even knew about it! Here was their preview, with lists and descriptions of the demonstrations:

Historic Handsell to Host Nanticoke River JamboreeOctober 12 (2019) @ 10:00 am - 5:00 pm

Visitors to Dorchester County’s largest living history event will enjoy hands-on interaction with a variety of activities on October 12 at the 9th annual Nanticoke River Jamboree at the historic Handsell site near Vienna.

Designed as an event for families, the Jamboree will feature open-hearth cooking as experienced by African American slaves, displays and hands-on demonstrations by Native Americans who once lived on the site, and crafts of early European settlers who built the house at Handsell hundreds of years ago.

In addition to displays and demonstrations by people in period dress, this year’s Jamboree will showcase model boats crafted after historic vessels of the Chesapeake as a tribute to Dorchester’s 350th Anniversary and the Smithsonian Water/Ways Exhibit. Examples include native dugout canoes, skipjack, deadrise oyster boat, crab scrape, log canoe and skiff, among others.

“The Jamboree is a way to take people back in time, to partake in a fun variety of historic skills and craft activities that African-Americans, Native Americans, and European settlers engaged in during three centuries in America,” said Midge Ingersoll, a trustee and president of the Nanticoke Historic Preservation Alliance, which owns and maintains Handsell.

Handsell honors three cultures that made up its history: Native Americans who lived in a sprawling Chicone Village at the site, European settlers who built the house at Handsell around 1770, and African Americans, who worked as enslaved and free people at Handsell. The Jamboree’s purpose is to educate visitors through living history presentations.

In the kitchen at Handsell, Jerome Bias, of the Slave Dwelling Project, will be demonstrating activities from a 19th century plantation kitchen while discussing life as an enslaved cook. Dontavius Williams will be performing “The Chronicles of Adam,” an interpretation of life as an enslaved person of the 19th Century. Noah Lewis will portray “Ned Hector,” a Revolutionary War soldier. Nearby, Roberta Perkins, a “laundress,” will be discussing 19th century life as an enslaved woman, recently freed, for the family at Handsell.

Living history interpreter Rachel O’Connell will demonstrate many favorite 18th century activities such as: trapball, croquet, Game of Graces (hoop toss), Shut the Box (dice game), lawn bowling, mirror box, Newtons Inertia toy, tablecloth pull trick, friction tug o war, bed of nails, and singing wine glasses.

Antique doll specialist Carolyn Hoiler, of Crisfield, will display and discuss early period dolls. In addition to the new performers, traditional crafts people and living history interpreters will also be exhibiting at the Jamboree as they explore life in the 18th and 19th centuries. This year there will be more craftspeople than ever and will include basket weaving, wood lathe turning, doll making, spinning, rug-hooking, wool dyeing and broom making.

Representatives from the Pocomoke Indian Nation, the Lenni-Lanape of Delaware, Hermann Jackson of the Nanticoke of Delaware and Nause-Waiwash Band of Indians as well as Handsell’s own Village Volunteers will explore many life skills of the Native people who once lived at Chicone. These demonstrations include fire-making, weaving, pottery, chipping of implements, and techniques used for the building of the longhouse. These demonstrations occur in the Chicone Village (longhouse, garden and work shelter) and are ongoing through the day.

Drew Shuptar-Rayvis, a new addition to the Jamboree family travelling from Connecticut, whose traditional name is Pekatawas MakataweU (Black Corn) is an Algonkian living historian of the 17th and 18th century of Accomac and Pocomoke descent. He has interpreted Algonkian life for a multitude of institutions and will be interpreting late 17th century Pocomoke life on behalf of the tribe for the Jamboree. Acclaimed flutist Ron Warren will be entertaining visitors with his mystical native-inspired music throughout the day.

Handsell is located on the site of the pre-historic Native Village at Chicone, later set aside as an Indian Reservation (1721-1769). Today it is a State and National Register Listed Historic site, held with a Maryland Historic Trust Preservation Easement on a Maryland Scenic By-Way and listed on the Michener Chesapeake By-Way and John Smith Historic Water Trail.

Partner organizations for the 2019 Nanticoke River Jamboree are the Harriet Tubman UGRR Visitors Center and State Park, National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom, and the National Park Service. Business sponsors include NRG Energy, Healing Hands Animal Hospital, Dorchester Center for the Arts and Chesapeake Country 106.3 FM.

And of course Handsell House has a FaceBook site as well.

Handsell House as African American historic site

By Don Morfe, June 1, 2013

1. The Nanticoke Historic Preservation Alliance Marker

By Don Morfe, June 1, 2013

2. The Nanticoke Historic Preservation Alliance Markers

By Don Morfe, June 1, 2013

3. The Nanticoke Historic Preservation Alliance Markers

Handsell-Original Land Grant 1665-A Restoration Project of the Nanticoke Historic Preservation Alliance-www.restorehandsell.org

Inscription.   The Nanticoke Historic Preservation Alliance Inc. is a non-profit 501(c) 3, all volunteer organization that was formed in December of 2005 to purchase, study and restore the brick house at the Handsell plantation site and make it available for public tours and special education events in celebration of the Native American, Colonial and African American connections to the Indiantown-Vienna area.

Further up-to-date information and membership forms can be found at: www.restorehandsell.org or by contacting restorehandsell@aol.com.

The Nanticoke Historic Preservation Alliance, Inc. shall research, restore and preserve document, artifacts, and sites important to the history and heritage of the Nanticoke River watershed; shall promote community awareness of history through education, and shall cooperate with and support all other groups with a similar mission for the benefit of all people.

VisionArmed with knowledge of what the Indiantown has been and how the history was lost over the centuries, a dedicated group of volunteers in committing their time and talents to telling the forgotten story. Here on this site the NHPA celebrate the saga of the native people and their village at Chicone, the 17th century trading post known as “HANDSELL”, the early settlement of the Steele and Henry families among others and the important contribution of the African Americans who worked this soil and called the Indiantown their home.

ArchaeologyWith grants from the Bartus Trew Foundation and support from the Maryland Historic Trust, Mid-Shore Community Foundation and others, the NHPA began and will continue archaeological study of the property surrounding the brick house at HANDSELL. Keenly aware of the sensitive nature of the precious, irreplaceable and sacred artifacts that may remain in the Indiantown soil, every effort is being made to protect those historic resources and safe guard their survival now and in the future.

RestorationThe restoration of the “old brick house at Chicone” as Hansell has been known locally for many years, will take several years and a great amount of resources, heavily relying on local volunteerism and financial support. In every way, the restoration of this house is a community effort and everyone who joins the NHPA is helping to insure the preservation of not only the house, but the story.
SOURCE: https://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=66629


African American Story at Handsell

One of the missions of the Nanticoke Historic Preservation Alliance is to pay tribute to the people of African descent who worked the fields and labored at Handsell for 300 years as both free and enslaved people.  As a commitment to this goal, NHPA has produced a 25 minute documentary film with video interviews of those who grew up in the Indiantown area around Handsell who were the children of Sharecroppers.  Families with the names of Pinder, Jackson, Chase, Robinson have stories to tell of what life was like growing up in rural Dorchester County in the early to mid-20th century during a time of segregation.  These stories tell of the schools and churches attended and chore and jobs done on the farm that lead to further education and professional careers in adulthood.  NHPA is proud of this endeavor to capture these voices from the past to ensure they are heard in the future!

Life in Indiantown, a Work in Progress - a video link here 

Interviews with former Indiantown residents about the history of sharecropping and farming at the Handsell historic site near Vienna, Maryland. The footage is part of an NHPA film project, produced by Doug Sadler and the Pocket Media Group. (Indiantown is an African American Community.)

TV interview in 2016 video link here 
about Delmarva Treasure - Handsell House. 

Harriet Tubman was born in Dorchester County, MD, as mentioned in an interview as part of the Black History Month celebration.

And one of the main people in the organization, "Restore Handsell House" is Margaret Wright Ingersoll, who wrote the following:

The Old Brick House at Chicone

 She slept so long under ivy shroud

That all who knew her passed.

So far gone in a village’s thoughts

There was no one left to ask.

Alone but strong, yet still she stands

Her walls at last are showing

The tilt and stress of weakened knees

And mortar cracks are growing.

Ancient hopes and dreams are hiding,

Sorrows, still, are lost to dust.

Plaster walls hide memories here

 As stairways sag and hinges rust.

Oh heal with mortar and patch with nails

And bless the ground below!

A thousand years she guards for us

And begs for us to know!

Find her a mason!  Call her a Carpenter!

She has not died, she waits and more

To see sunlight though new glassy eyes,

And feel breezes through her door.

by Margaret Wright Ingersoll, 2012

I apologize to only giving links to videos. I still can't get blogger to post a video directly. All this information was sourced from RestoreHandsell.org

Sharing again with Sepia Saturday.

Where did Frederick Andrew Williams live?

My great times 4 grandfather was born in Orangeburg SC 13 Feb 1764, and  I've been exploring where he lived. He is on my mother's family tree.

Orangeburg SC - 18th Century: European settlement in this area started in 1704 when George Sterling set up a post here for fur trade with Native Americans. To encourage settlement, the General Assembly of the Province of South Carolina in 1730 organized the area as a township, naming it Orangeburg for William IV, Prince of Orange, the son-in-law of King George IIof Great Britain. In 1735, a colony of 200 Swiss, German and Dutch immigrants formed a community near the banks of the North Edisto River. The site was attractive because of the fertile soil and the abundance of wildlife. The river provided the all-important transportation waterway to the port of Charleston on the Atlantic coast for the area's agriculture and lumber products, and for shipping goods upriver. The town soon became a well-established and successful colony, composed chiefly of small yeomen farmers.

Orangeburg's first church was established by a German Lutheran congregation. It later identified as an Anglican Church, which was the established church and exempt from colonial taxation. The church building was erected prior to 1763 in the center of the village; it was destroyed by fighting during the Revolutionary War. A new church was built; during the Civil War...

After the American Revolution, the character of the county changed dramatically. Invention by Eli Whitney of a mass-produced cotton gin for processing short-staple or "green seed" cotton made this type of cotton profitable. It was easily grown in the upland areas, and the county was rapidly developed into large cotton plantations. Agricultural labor was provided by enslaved African Americans.  SOURCE: Wikipedia

In 1780 Frederick Andrew Williams lived in Saxe-Gotha, listed on "the Petit Jury List for the "District of Orangeburgh." SOURCE: US Census Reconstructed Records, 1660-1820.

In 1785 Frederick married Casandra Tate (Casiah) in Orangeburg County, SC, and they had their first daughter's birth in 1785, recorded in present day Pickens County SC. It had been known as "Cherokee Territory. During the American Revolutionary War, the Cherokee sided with the Kingdom of Great Britain. (w)hen Great Britain was defeated in the war, the Cherokee were forced to surrender their land. In 1791, the state legislature established Washington District that comprises present-day Greenville, Anderson, Oconee, and Pickens County." (Wikipedia)

Their second daughter's birth in 1787 was recorded in Orangeburg County SC. 

By 1790 they lived in Kentucky where their daughter Nancy was born. Logan's Trace (trail) had led to Crab Orchard KY, as an offshoot from the Wilderness Rd. forged by Daniel Boone in 1775. Coming from South Carolina, I wonder if they would have come on the Wilderness Rd, which led from Virginia into Kentucky.

Their son, Richard Frederick Williams (soldier in War of 1812) was born in 1792 in Crab Orchard KY. There was another son Shadrack Waite Williams, who was born about the same time, but his life didn't get into any records, so he may have died young, while another Shadrack was born a few years later. And a daughter, Elizabeth Williams, was also born about the same time.

Daughter Mary Ann (Polly) Williams (Short) was born in Somerset, Pulaski KY in 1794. Somerset was founded by Thomas Hansford, another of my ancestors, and wasn't named Somerset until 1798) She married Rev. Samuel Short, who served in the new Friendship Baptist Church with his father-in-law, Frederick Andrew Williams, in Tennessee.

"Friendship Baptist Church was established June 8, 1826, only seven years after the Indians were removed from the area under the Hiwassee Cession of 1819.That makes Friendship the oldest church in what is now known as Polk Co., Tn.

"Frederick Williams, was the father in law to the first pastor of the church, Samual Short." Source:  Information from Brown Family Tree Robinwarner 1

Before 1820 Casaih and Frederick Williams had 6 more children in Somerset, Pulasky KY.

Then in the 1830 census, 66 year old Frederick Andrew Williams was lliving in McMinn County TN with his wife only. However, he is listed as owning 13 slaves. 

There was another Frederick Williams living in South Carolina and this Williams has (by a bill of sale) sold a slave, and received a South Carolina land grant...but those happened at the same time Frederick Andrew was farming and having his children in north central Kentucky, so I've deleted those records from my tree.

He wrote his will in 1831, August 21, in McMinn County TN. (It borders Polk County, TN) His surviving children were (in the will): Lavina Copenhaver, Elizabeth Prather, Richard, Polly Short, Robert, Daniel, Sally White, Patience Gardner, Shadrack, and Cassie Baker.  My records indicate his daughter Susanna Williams Hawkins was still alive and living in Polk County TN as well, but she wasn't mentioned in his will. His son Richard Frederick was to become my third great grandfather.

He died in Linsdale, Polk County, TN, (Nov. 18, 1831) and some records exist in Cleveland, Polk County, TN. He was buried in Linsdale, Polk County TN, near Benton, TN, in the Friendship Baptist Church Cemetery.

Casiah Williams was interred next to him when she died in 1851.

He has no parents that I've discovered on Ancestry, so I call him a primary ancestor.