4 generations of Edi’s family
Last week, our family took a trip to Hagerstown, Maryland. Edi was born there and her family still lives there. Her mom’s parents are still alive, though they’ve been in poor health lately. Fortunately, we were able to visit with them and managed to get a picture with all of us together. I asked them about their family history and they don’t know anything before their parents’ generation, so Edi’s family history might be a dead end.
My dad’s side of the family is traced all the way back to the 1600s. I’ve known for a long time that some of those early-American ancestors settled in Maryland, but I didn’t know that one of them actually lived in Hagerstown until fairly recently. Before going on this trip, I decided to research a bit more about the parts of our family that lived close to Hagerstown.
Our North American family history begins with Garret Van Sweringen (or similar spellings), who left Texel, The Netherlands, in December of 1656 bound for New Amsterdam (now New York). He was the supercargo on the Dutch West India Company’s Prince Maurice, which departed December 21st, 1656 and shipwrecked near Long Island on March 8th, 1657. He went on to New Amstel (now New Castle, DE), and then spent the last ~3 decades of his life in St. Mary’s, MD. A book of the Swearingen family genealogy (original 1894; 3rd edition 1906) lists Garret and his descendants, all the way through my grandfather’s generation. My grandfather is not mentioned in the book (he was born in 1903), but his older siblings are.
The original steps from Ringgold’s house
Our line begins: Garret > Thomas > Van. Thomas dropped the “Van” from his last name. Then, maybe to confuse matters, he named one of his sons Van, known as Maryland Van (there are several “Vans” descended from Garret of whom this was the first). He wound up settling in (or near) Hagerstown.
Ringgold’s Bake House (1793)
Van built a place in Ringgold manor, not knowing that the land he built on was covered by a prior claim. Van’s presence at Ringgold manor appears to well predate Samuel Ringgold’s birth, so it likely wasn’t named Ringgold manor at that time. It may have been part of George Talbot’s 32,000 acre grant from Lord Baltimore (probably Charles Calvert. Coincidentally, his father happened to have previously appointed Garret alderman of St. Mary’s City).
We visited St. James School, where Samuel Ringgold built a house in the late-1700s. The house burned down in the 1920s, but the school’s administration building is built on the same site and the original steps remain. The original bake house still stands.
Sign indicating Swearingen Ferry started in 1755
It’s not clear that Van’s house was actually on this property. I spoke to a history professor at school who said Ringgold’s holdings had dwindled from many thousands of acres to just 100 by the time he built his house there in the 1790s. Van probably died in 1787, but some sources say 1801. Still, there may be some connection to that place.
Sign detailing early residents at Ferry Hill
Van’s nephew Thomas (Garret > Thomas > Thomas > Thomas) started a ferry in the mid-1700s across the Potomac to Shepardstown, Virginia (now WV), also not far from Hagerstown. We went to the location of the ferry and the museum was closed. I found a worker who let me in to photograph the sign showing the Swearingen family history there. We also found the outdoor sign for the ferry which says Thomas started the ferry in 1755.
The worker also indicated some of the buildings across the road might be parts of the original Ferry Inn, so I photographed the buildings that looked like they could have come from that era.
Was this the original Ferry Inn?
In other fun trivia, Thomas (or maybe his son, also Thomas) beat George Washington in an election for a seat in the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1757.
An old house near Ferry Inn