#52 Ancestors 2022 Week 32 At the Library: The Autobiography of Gustavus Weems

 

So, I have always been a fan of libraries.  Even as a child, I could happily while away an afternoon among the books. As a genealogist, of course I love searching for family history treasures, and I make it a point to visit the local library whenever I am on a genealogy trip.  

My very best library discovery, however, was close to home at the University of Maryland library.  They hold a large collection of Weems family papers and among them is a 330-page hand-written autobiography of my cousin, Gustavus Weems. When I found that listing in the library catalog, I knew it was gold. I had to see it. Besides giving details of his family, his autobiography provides a fascinating look at life in Anne Arundel County MD in the late 18th and early 19th century. It was so fascinating that I paid for the library to make me a copy that I could bring home and study at leisure. (Weems-Reynolds Family papers, Special Collections, University of Maryland Libraries. http://hdl.handle.net/1903.1/1310 Accessed July 27, 2022.)

Gustavus Weems, referred to in his narrative as Gusta, was the grandson of David Weems, the Scots immigrant (my 7X-great-grandfather), and the second of seven children of David Weems and Margaret Harrison, born in 1779 at Marshes' Seat in southern Anne Arundel County MD. The map below shows the area where Marshes' Seat was located.

David Weems children, Gusta's siblings, were:

*David 1778: went to sea about 1800 and was impressed by the British.  The last the family heard from him was about 1814. 

*Gusta 1779: more on him later

*Rachel 1780: married Jesse Ewell and had three children with him--David Weems, Mary Frances, and Margaret Ewell.  Rachel died in Anne Arundel County in 1817.

*Sydney Bedolf 1782: never married.  Gusta comments in 1851 that she was blind and crippled. She outlived the rest of the family, and it was she who erected a memorial to her family at St. James Parish in Anne Arundel County. 

*Captain George 1784: one of the founders of the famed Weems Steamship Line, about which I have previously written. Married Sarah Sutton and had six children with her: Margaret, Thomas Sutton, Mason Loch, Gustavus, Theodore Mason, and George William Weems. He died in 1853 in Anne Arundel County.

*Theodore 1786: died in Baltimore in 1817, shortly before his intended marriage and just a few weeks after his sister Rachel.

*Mason 1789: Not married. Drowned in 1811 after he fell overboard on a return trip from Baltimore.

Gusta and his siblings were raised as Methodists. Although his mother was a Catholic, she "gave up her priest for Jesus, and I think she done well," in her son's words. In any case, it was an orderly and prayerful household, according to Gustavus. His father was strict and "his rules had to be kept and orders obeyed or our backs paid for it. . . .We were brought up in the fear of God, and faithful admonitions, and taught to love God and all mankind, to keep holy all the commandments, not allowed to use bad words or sinful expressions. . . .We loved to oblige and feared to displease, for here was the ruling and governing principle with parents and children."

David Weems, like many in the Weems family, made a living from the sea, running a shipyard, which he owned in partnership with his brother-in-law, Thomas Morton. 

However, as Gusta reports, his father was in considerable debt, due to a number of misfortunes such as lightning striking and destroying one of his ships and some cheating on the part of his business partners. "God had smitten him Job-like." David had to borrow money from his brother William (a ship's captain) to keep the business afloat.  So, there was not much money to spare in the David Weems household.

There being no school near them in Anne Arundel County, Gusta and his brother David went to live with their childless Aunt and Uncle Susannah and Thomas Morton in Montgomery County so they could attend school there. Gusta was apparently quite a prankster, and he delighted in describing the jokes he played on his aunt and uncle, his schoolmasters and his fellow scholars. Since these tricks

sometimes involved tripping people or jumping out to scare them, or throwing dust in their eyes, I'm not sure everyone else saw the humor that Gusta seemed to enjoy. (He never seemed to get over this love of tricks because he describes these throughout his story.)

His tricks must have gotten him in trouble, because his academic career involved switching schools frequently.  Even Gusta acknowledges that "his little innocent playful tricks kept me back from learning as much and as fast as I ought, together with the short time at each school, so that after all, I had but little education and knew as much about languages as a cow would." 

Gusta was put to work on the family farm, but desperately wanted to run away to sea. His parents persuaded him to stay and promised to open a small store that he could manage, and so he agreed to stay. After about three years on the farm, he ventured into commerce, opening a general store. "No more a plough boy, but a merchant." He immediately felt his lack of real education and set about buying books to improve his reading and math skills.  He particularly relied on a copy of Lord Chesterfield's letters to help him improve his manners. He also cites his uncle, Parson Mason Loch Weems, the famous biographer of George Washington, as an important influence and follows a schedule somewhat like that of Benjamin Franklin, rising early in the morning to read and study, and eating very abstemiously. 

His business prospered, but most of the money he made went to paying back his father's loan to Uncle William (who turns out to be quite a villain in Gusta's story and eventually comes to a very bad end!). I have previously written about Uncle William Weems.  

In the end, Gusta acknowledges, his hard upbringing strengthened him and led him to a righteous life, as opposed to his relatives "those lazy Harrisons and bragging Weems (his Uncle William)."  Our father, Gusta says, "brought us up right and my brother George and myself have brought our children up in the same way." If he had had his own will, he says, he "should have gone to the dogs with the Harrisons and the Weems." 

Rejected Suitor

When he was about 18, Gusta says that he was beginning to feel very big among the girls."I have ever
and anon loved the Dear Creatures." He considered girls, "the most refined, pleasant and improving company." He describes his unsuccessful first romance with Miss Rebecca Lane, who was quite willing to marry him provided that he would join the Methodist Church.  Alas! Gusta said, that would not work since "she was too good to leave her church and I was too bad to go into it." A second marriage proposal to his cousin Sophia Weems also came to naught. Yet another marriage possibility was turned down because Gusta refused to convert to Catholicism. And another father refused him because he didn't want his daughter to marry a merchant. Picky, picky, picky!

Parson Weems

When he turned 21, about 1800, Gusta set off to visit his Virginia relatives and stayed with his uncle, Parson Weems.  While he was there, he met a number of members of the Ewell family (Parson Weems' wife, Frances, Gusta's aunt, was a Ewell.) and became engaged to Miss Fanny Ewell, a cousin of his aunt Frances.  But yet again, his romance was foiled, this time by his wicked uncle William, who had married Miss Fanny's older sister, Ann Ewell. Uncle William told Col. Ewell that he should by no means allow his daughter to marry his spendthrift nephew Gusta, and Fanny obediently called off the engagement. Gusta never really forgave Uncle William for this final insult. 

After several other false starts at engagement, Gusta moved his store to Calvert County and finally did get married to a local girl, Dorcas Gray, the orphaned daughter of George and Jeanette Gray, who lived at the house where he boarded. He says that he was first attracted to her because she was able to pleat the ruffles on his shirt so well. (Apparently, he was quite the clothes horse in those days!) 

But to be fair, he also admired her "amiableness," so on a rainy day when he wasn't doing much business at the store, he decided to go up to her guardian's house and propose marriage. Gusta said the whole neighborhood was amazed that "so moral and fine a girl" would marry such a "frolicsome and wild fellow, so full of fun and devilment."  Indeed, Gusta said he was surprised himself that she accepted. Later, he acknowledged her as "the instrument in the hands of God of saving my soul." 

They were married a few weeks later in October 1806, when Gusta was 27 years old and Dorcas 20.  More than 100 people attended the wedding, leading Gusta to say "Good Lord, Madam.  Are you kin to all of Calvert County?" 

Gusta and Dorcas had seven children together, four of whom lived to adulthood. 

*Margaret, 1807, named after her grandmother, died in infancy.

*David Gustavus 1809.  Married first his cousin Rachel Weems.  Married second Martha Richardson and had fifteen children with her.

*Jane Dorcas, 1812.  Married Dr. John Fletcher Petherbridge and had nine children with him.

*George Gray, 1815. Died young.

*George Gray, 1817.  Died young.

*Rachel Thomason, 1821.  Married Dr. Thomas Reynolds and had two children with him.

*Theodore Mason, 1822.  Married Eleanor Stanforth and had one child with her. 

Gusta served in the Calvert County militia during the War of 1812 under Captain Mackall.

Gusta's mother Margaret Harrison Weems died when Gusta was a teenager.  His father David died in 1820, while Gustavus was serving in the Maryland Legislature in Annapolis. Gustavus reports that he hurried from Annapolis to his father's bedside as soon as he got the news but arrived a few minutes too late to see his father before he died. 

Dorcas Gray Weems died in 1839 and is buried at St. Mark's Chapel in Tracy's Landing, near the Weems family residence.

Discussing Gustavus Weems, Charles Petherbridge described him this way:

Your grandfather Weems was a man of very commanding appearance.  His very presence inspired respect--tall, stout, and well-formed, a fine person.  He was a great lover of the flute, his favorite tunes to play on it "Hail Columbia" and "Star Spangled Banner." 

I should also note another debt owed by family historians to dear Gusta.  It was he who kept up all the entries in the Weems family Bible.  He carefully added the dates of births, deaths and marriages that we depend on for so much information about his family.

Gustavus Weems died in 1852, at Marshes' Seat, a year after finishing his Autobiography, at the age of 73. He is buried beside his wife. 

It took me many years to get through reading Gusta's story.  The copy is sometimes faint, the handwriting is often difficult, and the spelling is idiosyncratic, to say the least. But the effort was totally worth it. Gusta is a fascinating character whose story deserves to be told for its own sake. I can't begin to do it justice in the short space I have here. His store of local gossip and legend, plus his pungent observations about his family and neighbors, and his strong opinions about how life should be lived provide an absolutely unique take on life in Anne Arundel County.  Someday, I hope that I can transcribe his entire book and get it published somewhere because it deserves to be better known.