15-3 Rezin Moxley House (ca ) 3597 Medd Avenue, Mt Airy Private Access. Capsule Summary

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "15-3 Rezin Moxley House (ca ) 3597 Medd Avenue, Mt Airy Private Access. Capsule Summary"

Myrtle Bailey
5 years ago
Views:

1 15-3 Rezin Moxley House (ca ) 3597 Medd Avenue, Mt Airy Private Access Capsule Summary #15-3 Rezin Moxley is a six-acre farm that straddles Montgomery and Frederick Counties. According to family history, the residence, built ca , is the homesite of Jacob Moxley, son of Nehemiah Moxley of Anne Arundel. The farm has a Mt. Airy mailing address and is accessed from Medd Avenue, in Frederick County. The property is primarily open fields, sloping down gently to the east. A portion of the Fahrney Branch runs through the eastern portion of the property. The dwelling house and a gambrel-roofed barn are located on land within Frederick County, and a milk house and another gambrel-roofed barn are located on land in Montgomery County. The farm remains in the Moxley family and is currently owned by a fifth-generation descendant of Jacob. The resource was not accessible for on-site survey.

2 15-3 Rezin Moxley House USGS Damacus Quad 3597 Medd Avenue, Mt Airy Private Access

3 Inventory No Maryland Inventory of 1. Name of Property historic other 2. Location Rezin Moxley House Homesite of Jacob Moxley (Jacob, son of Nehemiah Moxley of Anne Arundel); Risdon Moxley House street and number 3597 Medd Avenue not for publication city, town Mt. Airy vicinity county Part in Frederick County, part in Montogmery County 3. Owner of Property (give names and mailing addresses of all owners) name Roger B. and C.D. Buxton street and number 3597 Medd Avenue telephone city, town Mt. Airy state MD zip code Location of Legal Description courthouse, registry of deeds, etc. Registry of Deeds liber 7551 folio 231 city, town tax map FZ31 tax parcel P618 tax ID number Primary Location of Additional Data Contributing Resource in National Register District Contributing Resource in Local Historic District Determined Eligible for the National Register/Maryland Register Determined Ineligible for the National Register/Maryland Register Recorded by HABS/HAER x Historic Structure Report or Research Report at MHT x Other: Montgomery County Locational Atlas Classification Category Ownership Current Function Resource Count district public X agriculture landscape Contributing Noncontributing X building(s) X private commerce/trade recreation/culture buildings structure both defense religion sites site X domestic social structures object education transportation objects funerary work in progress Total government unknown health care vacant/not in use Number of Contributing Resources industry other: previously listed in the Inventory

4 7. Description Inventory No Condition x excellent deteriorated good ruins fair altered Prepare both a one paragraph summary and a comprehensive description of the resource and its various elements as it exists today. #15-3 Rezin Moxley is a 6.04-acre farm that straddles Montgomery and Frederick Counties. Its mailing address is Mt. Airy, MD. The farm is accessed from Medd Avenue, which runs perpendicular to Penn Shop Road in Frederick County. The property is primarily open fields, sloping down gently to the east. A portion of the Fahrney Branch runs through the eastern portion of the property. The dwelling house and a gambrel-roofed barn are located on land within Frederick County, and a milk house and another gambrel-roofed barn are located on land in Montgomery County. The resource was not accessible for on-site survey. Dwelling House on Frederick County Portion of Property (circa ) The dwelling house has been considerably altered over time. The dwelling house appears to be a two-story, L-shaped building with a side ell and a replacement wrap-around porch. The main section of the house is a three-bay wide, cross-gabled building with diamond-shaped windows in the gables and replacement one-overone windows on the front façade. The front façade is symmetrical, and windows have decorative shutters. The gable-roofed rear ell was not completely visible. The main section and rear ell have standing seam metal roofs. To the north is a two-story, flat-roofed side ell or addition that is two bays by three bays, with an exterior brick chimney on its north façade. The house is clad in vinyl siding, and there is a wrap-around one-story porch with a shed roof that is located on the north, west, and a part of the south façades. The porch roof is made of composition shingles, and there are narrow rectangular porch supports with cut-out brackets, a balustrade, and latticework under the porch. Buxton notes that there is a foundation of an old house on the property. 1 Gambrel-roofed Barn, Milk House, and Small Building on Montgomery County Portion of Property To the southeast of the house, is a 50-foot by 35-foot gambrel-roofed dairy barn and attached 35-foot by 10- foot, gable-roofed, one-story milk house. Both the dairy barn and milk house have standing seam metal roofs. Wall materials could not be determined from off-site. To the northeast of the gambrel-roofed dairy barn is a small rectangular building, per aerials of the site. Gambrel-roofed Barn on Frederick County Portion of Property To the northeast of the dwelling house is a gambrel-roofed barn made of standard, plain-faced concrete block, with corrugated metal in the gables. The barn is about 50 feet by 20 feet. There is a concrete-block exterior chimney on the west façade. The full extent of the barn could not be observed from off site. 1 Allie May Moxley Buxton, Nehemiah Moxley His Clagettsville Sons and Their Descendants, BookCrafters, Chelsea, Michigan, 1989, page 355.

5 8. Significance Inventory No Period Areas of Significance Check and justify below x agriculture economics health/medicine performing arts archeology education industry philosophy x architecture engineering invention politics/government x art entertainment/ landscape architecture religion commerce recreation law science communications ethnic heritage literature social history community planning exploration/ maritime history transportation conservation settlement military other: Specific dates c Architect/Builder Construction dates Evaluation for: National Register Maryland Register not evaluated Prepare a one-paragraph summary statement of significance addressing applicable criteria, followed by a narrative discussion of the history of the resource and its context. (For compliance projects, complete evaluation on a DOE Form see manual.) According to Buxton, #15-3 Rezin Moxley House is the homesite of Jacob Moxley, son of Nehemiah Moxley of Anne Arundel. In her book, Buxton identifies a picture of the dwelling house currently on the Frederick County portion of the site as the present dwelling on Jacob s land, home of Roger and Chandra Buxton, and she notes that Roger Buxton, one of the current owners, is a fifth-generation descendant of Jacob. 2 Nehemiah Moxley (b. 12/19/1737 or 1738, d. 2/18/1836) 3, a farmer from Anne Arundel County, started purchasing land in the upper tip of Montgomery County in an area now known as Clagettsville in the last quarter of the 1700 s. He allowed three of his sons William, Ezekiel, and Jacob -- to take up residence on various parcels and set up plantations. 4 Their three homesteads were each listed on the October 1976 Locational Atlas and Index of Historical Sites in Montgomery County Maryland and have remained on the Atlas since then. William s homestead is listed as 10-1 Friendship and is located at Ridge Road, in Clagettsville, in Montgomery County. Ezekiel s homestead is listed as #10-3 John Moxley House, which is located at Kemptown Road, also in Clagettsville, in Montgomery County. Jacob s homestead is listed as #15-3 Rezin Moxley House, located at 3597 Medd Avenue, Mt. Airy, MD, and as noted, part of this farm is within Frederick County and part in Montgomery County. Remarkably, Moxley descendants still own and/or live on each property. Nehemiah Moxley himself (b. 12/19/1737 or 1738, d. 2/13/1836) apparently never resided in Montgomery County, but lived and died in Anne Arundel County in an area that is now Howard County. 5 His obituary states he was present, and assisted with many others of his fellow citizens, in throwing the tea overboard at Annapolis, at the commencement of the Revolutionary War 6 a significant event in Maryland s Revolutionary War history. As related in Nehemiah Moxley, on 10/15/15/1774, colonists boarded the Peggy Stewart brigantine at Annapolis, dumped its tea cargo overboard, and then burned the ship. The colonists did so to 2 Buxton, op. cit., page 360. Staff has not researched the genealogy of the current owners. 3 See Buxton, op. cit., for background information on Nehemiah Moxley and his family, including page. 4 Op. cit., page 8. 5 Op. cit., page 6. 6 Op. cit., pages 6-7.

6 Maryland Inventory of Inventory No. Name Continuation Sheet Number 8 Page 1 protest the ship s captain actions -- paying tax on the tea to the British and then smuggling the tea into the colony despite the ban on imports from Great Britain imposed by the first Maryland Convention, which opened in Annapolis on 6/22/ In 1795, Nehemiah Moxley Sr. of Anne Arundel purchased from James Norwood Jr. of Montgomery County 162 acres of land from a tract known as Prospect Hill. 8 Judging from deed references, the land purchased was situated on part of the land that lies between current-day Kemptown and Ridge Roads. Prospect Hill was a resurvey of land first known as Friendship and then as Friendship Enlarged. In 1760, Captain Henry Ridgely of Anne Arundel surveyed and patented Friendship, a 1575-acre tract. Friendship was one of the earliest and largest patents in the area now known as Clagettsville, and Captain Henry Ridgely went on to become one of the largest land owners in what eventually became Montgomery County. 9 In 1770, Captain Ridgely resurveyed Friendship 10 as Friendship Enlarged, acres (patented on 10/25/1796 to Thomas Snowden and Charles A. Warfield). In 1775, he once again resurveyed the land as Prospect Hill, acres (patented on 10/31/1796, again to Snowden and Warfield). Jacob (b. unknown, d. between 1829 and 1830) was Nehemiah s seventh child. He married Sarah Mockabee on 11/26/1794 in Anne Arundel 13. Census records show he took up residence in Montgomery County by He and Sarah and nine children, including Stephen, Reuben M., and Risdon. 15 Per Buxton, 16 Nehemiah s will was dated 11/5/1827. In it, he willed Jacob 150 acres on which he now resides. Jacob predeceased his father, and thus Nehemiah revised his will via Codicil II (dated 1/19/1830), stipulating that Jacob s 150 acres were to go to Jacob s wife, Sarah, until she remarries, and thereupon to the children Jacob and she had, except for son Stephen, to whom he separately wills two acres of land including a 7 Richard K. MacMaster & Ray Eldon Hiebert, A Grateful Remembrance The Story of Montgomery County, Maryland , page Deed F-6/ (Perhaps James Norwood Jr. received this land from James Norwood, to whom Henry Ridgely conveyed 300 acres in 1789 to rectify a great error in the original deed see Deed D 253.) 9 See the 1783 Census for Montgomery County, which show that Henry Ridgely had 2172 acres in Sugarloaf and Linganore Hundreds, and his son, Henry Ridgely Jr. had 800 plus acres. According to Richard K. MacMaster & Ray Eldon Hiebert, A Grateful Rememrance: the Story of Montgomery County, Maryland , Montgomery County Government and Montgomery County Historical Society, Rockville, MD, 1976 and 1996, page 44, only 6 persons, owned more than 3000 acres at this time, namely Robert Peter, James Brooke, Richard Thomas, George Plater, Henry Ridgely, and Daniel Carroll. 10 Maryland State Archives Accession # MSA S , in Frederick County. 11 Maryland State Archives Accession # MSA S , in Anne Arundel County. 12 Maryland State Archives Accession # MSA S , in Anne Arundel County. 13 Buxton, op. cit., page Jacob also purchased additional land for his farm, see Frederick County Deed J#13/36-40, in which he buys part of a 75-acre tract known as Rattlewood Forest. See Buxton, op.cit., pages 360 and also Op. cit. 16 Buxton, op.cit., page 355.

7 Maryland Inventory of Inventory No. Name Continuation Sheet Number 8 Page 2 spring where Stephen already lived and had erected improvements and buildings. Buxton states that there is an old foundation on the property at 3597 Mead Avenue, and perhaps it was Stephen s house. (Stephen eventually moved to Ohio.) 17 The property passed from Jacob s wife to her children, including son Reuben M. 18 In 1862, Reuben M. and his wife, Sarah, sold to Reuben s brother Risden 162 acres of the land called Friendship and Prospect Hill. 19 Risdon is shown as living in Montgomery County with his wife and children in the 1860 census. In 1892, trustees passed Risdon s property to Basil F. Buxton, who was married to Risdon s daughter, Louisa. 20 In 1928, the 168-acre property then passed to Louisa s son, Basil Walter Buxton, 21 and in 1956 to Basil Walter Buxton s son, Roger Basil Buxton, and his then wife, Patsy Cleo Buxton. 22 Roger Buxton and his second wife, Chandra, are the current owners. 23 The 1865 Martenet and Bond map lists the property as R. Moxley, probably for Risdon. The 1879 G.M. Hopkins Atlas lists the property as Rezin Moxley. This is probably a mistake: Risdon Moxley did not have a child named Rezin, and the only Rezin Moxley shown by the Census lived in Anne Arundel in 1810 and 1820 (probably the son of Nehemiah Moxley (Sr.)). Buxton s book includes two photos of Jacob s log house 24, and states that it was probably built between and that Risdon s family lived there. Buxton notes that Roscoe Buxton, who is her husband and the older brother of current owner Roger, was born in the log house in She states that one of the photos was taken around 1940, when the house was no longer occupied and in poor shape, and that the other photo was taken about However, she does not specify where on Jacob s property the log house was located, whether it is still standing, and whether it was incorporated into Roger Buxton s current residence, of which she also has a photo, 25 which she labels as the present dwelling on Jacob s land, home of Roger and Chandra Buxton. Hence, further research (discussions with family and on-site visits) is necessary to determine the age and significance of the existing dwelling house, the fate and location of Jacob s log cabin, the significance and dates of the outbuildings and twentieth century dairy barns, and the location and origins of any house foundations that may be on the property. 17 Buxton, op.cit., page Buxton, op. cit., page , Identure #4, discussing a sale of real estate from the Jacob Moxley Estate , BS4-149, perhaps reference to a chancery or equity case, with Charles, Reuben, Risdon, and Stephen Moxley (sons of Jacob Moxley) each v. Charles T. Ervin. Heirs are listed. 19 Deed JGH 8/ Deed JA 36/ Deed PBR 470/ Deed 2200/ See Deeds 5772:92 and 7551/ Buxton, op. cit., pages 222and Buxton, op. cit., page 360.

8 Maryland Inventory of Inventory No. Name Continuation Sheet Number 8 Page 3 Overall, this property is significant because it has been continuously occupied by descendants of Nehemiah Moxley through his son Jacob since about 1795, and is one of three properties still occupied by descendants of Nehemiah s Montgomery County sons. It is also significant because Nehemiah was associated with an important local Revolutionary event, as described previously.

9 9. Major Bibliographical References Inventory No See attached. 10. Geographical Data Acreage of surveyed property Acreage of historical setting Quadrangle name unknown Quadrangle scale: Verbal boundary description and justification That portion of parcel P316 lying within Montgomery County, Maryland. 11. Form Prepared by name/title Sandra L. Youla organization M-NCPPC/MCPD Historic Preservation Section date 12/15/2008 street & number 8787 Georgia Avenue telephone city or town Silver Spring state MD The Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties was officially created by an Act of the Maryland Legislature to be found in the Annotated Code of Maryland, Article 41, Section 181 KA, 1974 supplement. The survey and inventory are being prepared for information and record purposes only and do not constitute any infringement of individual property rights. return to: Maryland Department of Planning 100 Community Place Crownsville, MD

10 Maryland Inventory of Inventory No Name Parr s Spring Continuation Sheet Number 9 Page 1 Boyd, T.H.S., The History of Montgomery County Maryland (Westminster, Maryland: Heritage Books, Inc., 2001; originally published in Clarksburg, Maryland, 1879). Brugger, Robert J., Maryland A Middle Temperament (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press in association with the Maryland Historical Society, 1988). Cavicchi, Clare Lise [Kelly], Places from the Past: The Tradition of Gardez Bien in Montgomery County, Maryland (The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission: 2001). Census Records: United States Department of Agriculture National Agricultural Statistics Service, 1850 Census of Agriculture,1950 Census of Agriculture, 1997 Census of Agriculture, at United States Federal Census, , Heritage Quest Online, through the Maryland Public Libraries SAILOR Project at and directly at Deeds, MdLandRec.Net, at and Lanier, Gabrielle M. and Bernard L. Herman, Everyday Architecture of the Mid-Atlantic (Baltimore, Maryland: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997). Lounsbury,Carl R., An Illustrated Glossary of Early Southern Architecture and Landscape (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994). MacMaster, Richard K. and Ray Eldon Hiebert, A Grateful Remembrance: The Story of Montgomery County, Maryland (Rockville, Maryland: Montgomery County Government and the Montgomery County Historical Society, 1976). Maps: Hopkins, G.M., Atlas of Fifteen Miles Around Washington Including the County of Montgomery Maryland 1879 (originally printed Philadelphia: 1879), reprinted as Atlas of Montgomery County, Maryland, 1879 (Baltimore, Garamond/Pridemark Press: Montgomery County Historical Society, 1975).

11 Maryland Inventory of Inventory No Name Parr s Spring Continuation Sheet Number 9 Page 2 Martenet, Simon J., Martenet and Bond s Map of Montgomery County, 1865, Library of Congress, MSA SC Worksheet, Nomination Form for the National Register of Historic Places, National Parks Service, #15-3 prepared by Christopher Owens, Park Historian, January 8, Montgomery County Commissioner of Slave Statistics , see Slave Census of , Montgomery County. Noble, Allen G. and Richard K. Cleek, The Old Barn Book (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1995). Patents, Plats.Net, at or Slave Census of , Montgomery County, Maryland, copy at Montgomery Historical Society. Original at the Maryland State Archives: see Montgomery County Commissioner of Slave Statistics, , MSA Citation C (paper) or MSA Citation CM750-1(microfilm). Tax Assessment of 1783, Montgomery County: See General Assembly House of Delegates (Assessment Record) 1783, at the Maryland State Archives, MSA Citation S to S

Maryland Historical Trust Inventory No. 15/6 Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties Form

Maryland Historical Trust Inventory No. 15/6 Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties Form Inventory No. 15/6 Maryland Inventory of 1. Name of Property (indicate preferred name) historic Becraft Farm other 2. Location street and number 28500 Ridge Road not for publication city, town Mount Airy