09/20/2026
Good read !
So here is the answer to yesterday's pic!
Blakeford, Queen Anne's County, Maryland
According to Earle, located in Queen Anne's County, "a mile or two below 'The Hermitage' is another old Wright homestead, 'Blakeford.' The house, well placed is in a spacious lawn, looks out through a grove of stately forest trees to the mouth of the Chester and across Queenstown Creek, formerly Coursey's Creek, to quaint little Queenstown, originally the county seat of Queen Anne's. The special interest of these old places on the Eastern Shore is their individuality, and the manner of the first ownership of 'Blakeford' is of unusual note. Secretary of the Province Henry Coursey (DeCourcy) had proved staunch and loyal during certain disturbances in the province and had also effected a certain treaty with the Susquehanna Indians of the Iroquois Confederacy. In recognition, Charles, third Lord Baltimore, gave to Henry DeCourcy as much land shown on a certain map as he could cover with his thumb. The extreme tip of the thumb covered the part of the present 'Blakeford' which was called 'Coursey's Neck'; the rest of it covered 'My Lord's Gift,' just across the creek and stretching to the south. Retaining 'My Lord's Gift,' Henry DeCourcy allowed his younger brother, William, to patent 'Coursey's Neck.' William retained it until he sold it to the Blakes upon acquiring at the death of his brother, John DeCourcy, in 1663, his half of 'Cheston-on-Wye,' which they had taken up together. The Blake of that day had 'Coursey's Neck' and two other tracts resurveyed under the name of 'Blake's Fort.' That militant-sounding title came from the yet existing old earthworks fortification on the Chester River side of the southwestern most extension of 'Blakeford,' as the name became through popular usage, because between it and 'My Lord's Gift,' just across the harbor entrance, there was at low tide an available ford. The old fort was used in Indian times, in Revolutionary days and during the War of 1812." See: Earle, Swepson, The Chesapeake Bay Country (Baltimore: Thomsen-Ellis Company, 1923), 339-340.
Holding Institution
Baltimore Museum of Art
Collection
Photograph Collection, Swepson Earle Lantern Slides of Chesapeake Bay Architecture
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Danny b
