Chapter 10: In Patriotic Frederick Town

The Baltimore iron foundry's long-delayed reinforcement and expansion of its prospering Frederick Town operation finally began in mid-November of 1774. Propped up in the back of a high-sided wagon and complaining steadily about the pace of the work, MacCorm supervised the loading of both supplies and men for the journey west. The weather had been cooperative, and the roads were still in reasonably good condition, even those corduroyed in low places, and most chilly streams were easily fordable.

Matthew and an indentured tinker, along with five other white workers, two of them former bondsmen, and a dozen African slaves skilled in various phases of iron work were making the trip. MacCorm had all of them issued heavy coats and raccoon or squirrel fur hats along with knitted gloves, wool stockings, new boots or hob-nailed shoes. Obviously, he expected winter in Frederick Town to be much harsher than it generally was near the Bay.

Oxen hauled two heavy wagons filled with parts for a bellows and hardware for another furnace. It would take the best part of two days for them to plod out to the western site, each with a black driver carrying a long goad. The men rode in horse-drawn, Consetoga-type wagons fitted with canvas tops and packed with plenty of food, casks of water and a small jug of stronger drink for the day-long trip.

They started in the frosty dawn and finished in the even colder twilight after more than eleven hours on the increasingly-hilly, steadily-rising road. There had been little to see or do along the way as they passed barren fields and second growth woodlots so the white men spent most of the time telling tall tales and spinning colorful yarns as they compared their experiences with bosses and women, both good and bad, cheap and dear. The slaves dozed off and on; they rode six to a wagon, and although all had been working for the company at least a year, their ankles were chained together. The slaves also had been provided with boots although most of them were accustomed to working shoeless, even the slag rakers.

One of the ironmasters also made the trip although he did not intend to remain at the Frederick works after he supervised the building of the new bosh and saw the space around it filled to his satisfaction. He rode his own horse, a broad-backed mare, and kept his own counsel. He also carried his own drink in a round, wooden canteen.

Frederick Town announced itself with a growing number of rude huts and log cabins scattered on the wooded hillsides, some built bank-barn fashion right into slopes of the rocky terrain. Large stone outcroppings, both slate gray and dark red were as common as cattle. These outlying farms gave way to surprisingly tidy rows of sturdy brick and stone houses and several churches, stores and wooden warehouses, all on deep lots along carefully laid- out streets. Smoke curled from dozens of chimneys, and a few children ran from their homes to wave as the wagons passed. "Old Dulany hisself planned out this place, 'bout thirty years ago," Mac said, looking at the fast-growing town. "They got, oh, couple a'thousand folks 'round here now, I 'spect. Big as Annapolis, bigger'n Joppa or Baltimore Town I figger."

"Anybody else makin' iron way out here?" Matthew asked him, half-expecting to see Indians at any moment.

"Oh Lord, yes, must be half a dozen furnaces blasting away, and lots of 'em's using slave labor jus' like we do. Some t'other side a'those blue hills, too. Bet there's more'n a hundred slaves 'round here now, mostly iron workers. These farmers, don' but a few a'them keep slaves. Some don't hold with it; most can't afford it."

"Country sure is growin' fast." Matthew said, standing up in the wagon and looking back toward the town as they turned south onto a little-used trail. He could see several half-finished houses and some sort of large building under construction.

"Some of 'em's making good wrought iron, nail rods, firebacks, even cookin' pots an' stoves. There's plenty of competition and lots of skilled workers around even if most of 'em don't ken English." MacCorm offered Matthew a pull on his almost-empty jug and then took another drink himself. "Wards off the cold," he had said when the earthen bottle was full, "an' keeps yer stones from freezin' up."

Frederick Town and the surrounding farms, some with very steep pastures, lay near wandering streams which cut across a broad valley between soft ridges of low, tree-covered hills. The steep-banked creek in the center of the growing town had been named for Charles Carroll of Carrollton who owned thousands of acres in the huge, frontier county.

Two roads led south for the port of Georgetown, one near the river and the other along the watershed ridge. A less-used, diagonal trail angled toward the port of Bladensburg. Another well-worn road wandered westward toward Elizabeth Town which people were starting to label Hagerstown for the first German chosen to the General Assembly. He still insisted on naming it for his wife in what had become a losing battle of wills. In that direction a series of higher mountains showed themselves, ridge after wooded ridge, hazy blue upon darker blue in the clouded distance.

The operating iron furnace stood near a stream south and west of Frederick Town on the edge of an Appalachian foothill and near supplies of both limestone and iron ore. From their hillside the men loading the furnace could easily see the wooded slopes of isolated Sugarloaf Mountain in the winter, a lonely sentinel on a rich and rolling plateau. The slaves and workmen lived in rude buildings little worse than the ones they had left near the Bay and soon were cutting trees, cooking batches of pig iron and building another furnace. Some of the slaves worked at quarrying and dressing stone while others toiled as mason's helpers on the new construction. Their iron-making skills would be used later.

Matt found himself paired with a local farm hand who hired on just to cut timber in the winter. Otto Deck had been born in Pennsylvania of parents who had come to Penn's fast-growing colony in mid-century as young and devout redemptioners. He was their sixth son and tenth child. He moved down to Frederick County at his childless uncle's invitation and now worked his uncle's wheat fields and lived in one of the several houses his father's shoe-making brother had built. Otto's wife was nursing their first child, a girl he called Tilda. Both she and her husband spoke only German at home as did most of their neighbors and perhaps half of the people in the Frederick Town area. MacCorn's estimate was correct, Frederick had become the largest city in Maryland.

Fair-haired Otto was almost as big a man as Matt, and just about as taciturn. They were soon the most productive team in the woods, and they seldom had to talk to each other as they felled trees, limbed them and then hacked or sawed the trunks into four-foot sections. Others followed behind them to split the wood, gather the limbs and saplings and cart them off to the storage areas for the charcoal burners. Both men had gotten in the habit of taking a meal into the woods with them so they would not lose time going back to the assembly area. They tied up their bread, cheese and sausages in squares of cloth and hung them from one the tress being spared for the lumber mills. One day Matt would bring a stoneware bottle of cider for them to share, and the next day Otto toted in a jug of beer. Both had made some effort to learn one another's lingo and soon had enough to laugh at each other's well-meant mistakes and feeble attempts at bi-lingual jokes.

The cold wind had swerved around to blow from the northeast by the time they stopped for dinner, sat on neighboring logs and ate diligently.

"What'd they pay you for this here work?" Matthew asked, chewing on a tough slice of venison the cook had put out at breakfast. "Y'know, Geld?"

"Vell, zwei shillinks undt das bonus. Enough, ja. Vielleicht, ah, maybe two, t'ree pounds 'fore der Schnee kommt, snow nicht, it makes us shtop." Otto, generally proud of his ability to switch back and forth in his languages, chewed on some spiced pork folded into a small, hearth-baked loaf. "Matt, du bist, verdammt, you ist the onliest bound vorker I meet here. Da ist none in town, I'm sure not."

"There's lot a'us in Baltimore Town, Joppa and Annapolis. We got another man, a tinsmith I think, come out when I did 'cept I think he's run away. Ent-something, Entkommen is it? You got slaves here, don'cha?"

"Oh, yah, slafes, schwarze, many of dem. Dot Johnson, ja, he haben twenty, maybe more, gute vorkers, most, undt some up north at Catoctin. A Frencher, Jacques, he has more, many more, undt Hughes at Beaver Creek alzo has maybe dries, thirty." Otto honed his ax blade while he chewed. "You come to dinner Sonntag, Sunday, Matt, ja? Vant you to meet my vife. Ve talk about militia, yah?"

"Militia?" Matthew said, shaking his head and feeling embarrassed. "I can't join no militia. I'm bound for three more years." He held up his fingers, "Drie," he said looking morose.

"Ve talk, maybe dot change." Otto's smile lit his ruddy face. "Ve got lots uf militia here. Dot Johnson undt his brudders, I tink dey gettin' ready for n' Krieg, for war."