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HISTORY OF THE STILL POND MARKET – COVINGTON STORE

October 2, 2008 / Kent County News 
By Craig O’Donnell

 

STILL POND – This village was once a hub of commerce. By the late 1860s and 1870s, Kent County’s peach industry was starting to roll.

For example, a June 1869 newspaper ad offered nearby Bloomfield Farm for sale, 212 acres with 6,000 peach trees and 1,000 apple trees.

By 1877, both George Washington Covington and George W. Harper had stores at the crossroads that prospered over the next 50 years.

They’re both there today. Harper’s (or Medders’) became a boatbuilding shop and gallery. Restored by the late Frank Huggins, it’s listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Covington’s original mercantile venture is still in business as the Still Pond Market, in a building at least 130 years old. Covington started his village business about 20 years earlier than that.

Larry and Gerry Penn bought it in 1990, and named it Still Pond Market.

The Penns’ place still has the look of the perfect Eastern Shore crossroads store, with an awning out front and a closet-sized space rented out for the Still Pond Post Office.

The gravel parking lot next door is shaded by an enormous ginkgo tree. “Tom Speakman told me it’s well over 100 years old,” Larry Penn said.

“Don’t forget to mention our famous ginkgo. It’s a male … I’m not sure what that means.”

(It means Still Pond might otherwise smell pretty bad sometimes. Ginkgo trees come in male and female, and the female’s seeds, which look like fruit, have a distinctive aroma that, in polite company, could be called “stinky.” As a species, they’ve been around for about 70 million years and are relatively primitive trees.)

Sooner or later everyone in the village comes over to the veranda, where locals sit, teens sometimes sell corn and tomatoes, and George Bowie’s chicken wanders by. People chat with other people leaning from the windows of their pickup trucks.

You can get gasoline and kerosene – cash only, and the price won’t give Valero anxiety attacks – but when it’s five gallons for the mower, it’s nice to support a truly local crossroads business.

When the market was constructed is not clear, but Covington bought the property in 1862. A mortgage for $3,000 recorded in 1877 on the land, “Store House, dwelling, stock in trade …” might have been the loan he needed to put up the building that’s there now. It’s much the same as it must have been when new, but covered with white aluminum siding.

In 1917, Covington died, leaving the store to his two daughters. They sold the property to Carl Norris, and Norris’ widow sold it to Elmer Kennard Jones in 1934.

Hope Jones, his widow, sold the store in 1969 to Elmer and Grace Price and Louis and Nancy Grahamer. It became the P&G Market.

After 18 years, Penn said that they expect to turn the business over to new owners in mid-October.

And so the business that Covington started as a “druggist” will soon turn a new page after 150 years.

Penn said they moved to property on Lloyds Creek from Royal Oak to build a house. “We had an old store in Trappe. We were coming in here for six or eight months.

“There was a ‘for sale’ sign in the window, and we decided to buy it.”

He said they expanded the existing country store grocery with gas pumps by adding sandwiches. “We put the deli in.”

Inside, there are chairs to sit in a swap tales and a relaxed atmosphere.

“Saturday’s the busiest,” he said, “We have a lot of regulars who come in, but we’re busy seven days a week.” And on the Friday morning when we talked, every few minutes another local resident or two came in. The talk ran to the black bear that was on the front of the Star Democrat that day, and fishing.

He said hunting season typically brings a boost in the day-to-day business. There’s food, soda, beer, cigarettes, canned goods, ice cream, milk, candy, wine, soap, cat food, motor oil  … it’s a general store. It may be the last place in the county that sells pipe cleaners. If you need ’em, Larry has them.

The walls are covered with store-related artifacts, local maps, post cards and pictures that Penn said will stay.

There’s a framed century-old  “Wm. Medders & Co.” full-page ad announcing a “War On Prices!”

The finest artifact, of many, is above the register. “Buy Lucas’ Pure Liquid Paints. For Sale By G.W. Covington, Still Pond Md.”

Some of the things, like turkey trophies maybe, they’ll clear out, he said, “but the store-related stuff will stay.”

At the back of the store there’s “a real old cooler” from the store’s days as a meat market. A window, now covered, let the customers look into the walk-in icebox.

And it was an ice box. A door about six feet from the floor is located so the iceman could slide large blocks of ice into a loftlike area to chill the meat. Now it’s used for dry storage.

Various cleavers came with the store, along with “lots of old medicine bottles,” since the store was also a pharmacy for a long time.

Under the store, among other things, he found a roll of grocery flyers from June 1943: “National Brand Stores. E.K. Jones. Still Pond.” An 11-oz. Package of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes was 10 cents. Twelve pounds of Pillsbury flour set you back 72 cents.

The upstairs, Penn said, isn’t used. “There’s no electric, no plumbing … no heat,” he said. “There are lines for gas lanterns.” It probably hasn't been lived in since the 1960s.

But it’s a five-room, two-fireplace apartment waiting for a makeover. It may well have been where George Washington Covington lived during his years in the village.

 

Covington Connections

The records show two prominent, Eastern Shore George Washington Covingtons. They were born within four years, and died within six years, of each other.

Who would have thought it?

The better-known G.W. stakes his claim on being elected twice to Congress from Maryland’s 1st District.

Born in September 1838 in Berlin in Worcester County, he was schooled at Buckingham Academy and Harvard University law school, and began practicing in Worcester County in 1861. He was a delegate to Maryland’s 1867 constitutional convention.  In the 1880 census, he was living in Snow Hill with his wife Sallie B. Soon after he was in Congress, from March 4, 1881 to March 3, 1885. A Democrat, he went back to life as a country lawyer in Snow Hill, and died in New York City April 6, 1911.

The other is “Kent’s” George Washington Covington.

Born in Middletown, Del., in 1834, he became a Kent County storekeeper by way of Baltimore, and lived in Still Pond most of his long life.

According to his obituary in The Enterprise, Feb. 7, 1917, “Geo. W. Covington, a prominent druggist of Still Pond, died on Wednesday (Jan. 31) afternoon age 83 years. He was born at Middletown, Del., in 1834 and was the son of Nathaniel and Maria Covington. He came to Still Pond in 1851 and entered the store of Daniel Haines. A few years later he opened one of the best drug stores in the county. About 1861 he married Miss Helen Busick. Mr. Covington leaves three children, Miss Helen of this county; Mrs. W.L. Barnard of New York; Careton [sic] Covington, of Phila.; two children Mrs. J. Cougill Alston and Lester Covington are deceased.

“Funeral services were held Saturday at 11 a.m., interment in Still Pond Cemetery. He was a member of the M.E. Church. Bearers were Judge J. Harry Covington, Dr. W.E. Barnard, J. Congill [sic] Alston, Harry Busick, Howard Turner, H.C. Cacy.”

How Covington, merchant and druggist, got here is still murky. Covington is a Quaker name, and Still Pond in its early years was heavily associated with Quaker families like the Lambs and Turners.

The 1830 census shows a Nathaniel Covington, head of family in St. Georges Hundred, Del. He apparently moved here by 1840, since a Nathaniel Covington pops up in the census that year.

By 1850, George W. Covington, 16, and James H. Covington, 14, were living in Baltimore’s 15th Ward.

The head of household was Daniel Haines, 34, and his wife Sarah Haines, 35, both born in Delaware. Their daughter Hilda was 3.

It was a large household. Esther Haines, 21; Jane Lee, 40, black and probably a servant; and Boris (?) Lecompte, 1 year old, all born in Maryland, lived there.

So did Maryland-born Henry J. Strandberg, 34, “sea captain,” and a woman who may have been a wife or sister, Susannah Strandberg, 38, born in Delaware.

Strandberg had Chestertown ties.

His father, Carl Strandberg was a prominent Chestertown resident, a baker and businessman, who in 1828 had his name changed from Charles Stanley. At the same time, Charles Stanley Jr. became Charles Strandberg. Henry, Maria Charlotte and Eliza Stanley all became Strandbergs.

In that 1850 census, in Chestertown, elderly Carl Strandberg was living with Maria (28), Daniel (9) and Ann (5) Haines. So far the connection remains mysterious.

By 1860, the census shows George and Helen Covington in Still Pond. He is a Merchant worth $2,500, with no real estate. (The 1880 census gives 1859 as the year they married).

 

Living there was 18-year-old clerk Daniel Haines, the same Daniel who had been in the Strandberg Chestertown household in 1850.

Where the establishment he started in the 1850s might have been is not clear, since the 1860 Martenet’s map has little detail at Still Pond X Roads.

However, it shows N.T. Hynson living in what is now McDanold’s farmhouse just west of the village. It was a one-acre slice of Hynson’s land at the “cross roads” that Covington bought in March, 1862. The cost for “land and premises” was $400. From the deed it appears there was some kind of structure already.

Typical of the time, the property description reads, “Beginning at a stone set opposite the back door of the black Smith’s Shop …” There were easements on two sides for public roads.

The same deed description has carried down the years in each sale, but the Smith’s Shop and stone are long gone.

Looking into Covington’s mark on history raises another question. One of the witnesses to his 1912 will was “Hilda Hesse.” Could this be the same little Hilda who was 3 years old, living in the same house in Baltimore in 1850?

J. Cowgill Alston
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE
BY
HENRY C. CONRAD

Ex-Governor John Hunn was born in St. George's Hundred on a farm about a mile from Middletown. In the antebellum days, when slavery was a recognized institution throughout the South and in Delaware, Governor Hunn's father was the leading figure in this State in charge of the " Undergound Railroad," a systematic plan to help runaway slaves evade recapture and thus secure their freedom. Another Friend, John Alston, who owned a farm adjoining the town of Middletown, now occupied by his son, J. Cowgill Alston, was also identified with the movement. The Governor tells the following interesting incident relative to its history. When his old father was on his death-bed he called his son to him and exacted from him a promise to burn a history of the " Underground Railroad " which he had prepared, and which minutely detailed every fact and circumstance of that memorable secret chapter in Delaware's history. The son promised to do so ; but as he was turning away, something in his face caused his father to recall him. "Son, thee meant to copy that diary before thee destroyed it, is it not so?" The son admitted he had intended to make a copy, whereupon his father made him promise to burn the record uncopied, which was done.

558 HISTORY OF THE COUNTIES AND HUNDREDS.

This valuable and doubtless intensely interesting recital was fully prepared for publication ; but as the senior Hunn said, the issue was closed, and inasmuch as some of the actors in the affair were yet alive, and might be compromised thereby, he thought it best to cover the whole episode with oblivion by burning what was probably the only full and authentic account of this stirring drama of Delaware's " Underground Railroad."

J. Cowgill Alston
Swarthmore Colllege Catalog 1879, and 1883

John Alston (Cowgill’s father)
5002alst An Inventory of the John Alston Papers, 1797-1874 Finding Aid Prepared by FHL staff Encoding made possible by a grant by the Gladys Kriebel Delmas Foundation to the Philadelphia Consortium of Special Collections Libraries Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College. 1948 Text converted and initial EAD tagging provided by Apex Data Services, December 2000. ENG John Alston Papers, 1797-1874 FHL staff Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College. 1948 Descriptive Summary Papers, 1797-1874 RG 5/002 John Alston 1 box; 0.5 linear ft. Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College. Swarthmore, Pennsylvania 19081-1399 U.S.A. For current information on the location of materials, please consult the Library's online catalog. John Alston (1794-1874) was a Quaker farmer who lived in Middletown, Delaware. This collection contains his journals (1837 (?)-1847 and n.d.), account books and business papers (1821-1874), and essays by Nathan Lord on slavery and salvation (1797). Repository: Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College 500 College Avenue, Swarthmore, PA 19081-1399 Phone: (610) 328-8496 FAX: (610) 690-5728 BIOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL NOTE John Alston (1794-1874) was a Quaker farmer who lived in Middletown, Delaware. SCOPE AND CONTENT OF THE RECORDS This collection contains his journals (1837 (?)-1847 and n.d.), account books and business papers (1821-1874), and essays by Nathan Lord on slavery and salvation (1797). Arrangement The collection is divided into four series: Account books Journals Financial records Miscellaneous ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION Accession information Donor: John Cowgill Alston, Sr., 1948 Access Collection is open for research. Use Restrictions Copyright has not been assigned to Friends Historical Library All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in to the Director. Permission for publication is given on behalf of Friends Historical Library as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by reader. Preferred Citation [Indicate the cited item or series here], Alston Papers, RG5/002, Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College. SELECTED SEARCH TERMS This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the Friends Historical Library (TRIPOD). Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons, or places should search the catalog using these headings: Diaries - 19th century Alston, John, 1794-1874 Lord, Nathan Quakers - Delaware Delaware - Quakers Quakers - Social life and customs Farm life - Delaware Slavery - United States DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE RECORDS Note to Researchers: To request materials, please note both the location and box numbers shown below: Ser. 1. Account Books, 1821-1874 Account Book 1832-1857 1 Contains accounts of Appoquinminck Meeting, 1833-1847.        Account Book 1821-1845 1 Account Book 1847-1851 1 Account Book 1853-1874 1 Ser. 2. Journals, 1837 Journal 1837 5mo 15-1847 11mo 27 1 3 small journals n.d. 1 Ser. 3. Financial Records, 1795 Financial records, n.d. 1 Receipts, indentures, letters, leases, recipes, manuscript account of dying sayings, “Extract of a letter from a Gentleman in Barbados to his friend in Philadelphia dated November 10th, 1766.”      Deed to John Alston from Joshua Richardson and others, 5th mo. 14th, 1795New Castle County, St. George near Drawyers Creek 1 Ser. 4. Miscellaneous, 1797 Lord, Nathan, [Essay on Negro Slavery, and Salvation] 1797 1

John Hunn
Born on June 26, 1818 at the Kent County estate called Great Geneva near Lebanon, Delaware, John Hunn was the son of Hannah J. Alston and Ezekiel Hunn. He was the grandson of Jonathan Hunn of Forest Landing, a port at the confluence of the St. Jones River and Tidbury Creek, in the town of Lebanon. The Hunn family operated a large mill and iron foundry complex at Forest Landing, and leased several outlying farms to tenants, owned commercial establishments in Camden, and owned sailing vessels kept at port at Forest Landing. His father, Ezekiel was noted to have been "a great abolitionist and assisted many poor fugitives from the house of bondage."[8]

John's mother died in 1819, shortly after the birth of his younger sister, Elizabeth Alston Hunn. At the death of his grandfather in 1820, the substantial estate provided him with sufficient property and income to get an education.[9] His father, Ezekiel Hunn, passed away in 1821, leaving John in the care of an aunt, and then with his half-sister, Patience, after her marriage in 1824 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to George Washington Jenkins, of Camden, Delaware.[10] Patience Hunn Jenkins was very devout and felt called to the Quaker ministry early in her life. Like other sanctioned ministers in the faith, she traveled to other meetings to share her vision of the gospel. It was her influence that helped to bring young John back into the religious community and eventually to become a minister himself. John was well provided for by the large estates left by his father and grandfather. He was sent to a Quaker academy in Bordentown, New Jersey. Afterwards, he joined his elder half-brother Ezekiel in an apprenticeship to Townsend Sharpless, a wealthy and very prominent Quaker merchant in Philadelphia.

In 1835, at age 17, his Quaker membership was officially transferred to the Cherry Street Meeting in Philadelphia. While in Philadelphia John met, and later married, a non-Quaker, Mary Allen Swallow, and was disowned by the Cherry Street Meeting for "marrying out of union."

After the apprenticeship was over, their guardian, Richard Cowgill, funded the set up of a business for John and Ezekiel as silk merchants in Philadelphia. Ezekiel, the elder of the two, thrived in this environment, but John did not. In 1837 John wrote John Alston, his cousin whom he had never met, about apprenticing to him to learn farming. His proposal was accepted, and John Alston sold him a farm across the road from his home farm between Middletown and Odessa in southern New Castle County.

By 1840, John Hunn was working on his own farm. Alston's account books show that he was the source of a variety of goods for the Hunn farm and home, including seed corn, flax seed, sheep, potatoes, cloth and rope. He also allowed Hunn to borrow his farming equipment.[11] John and Mary's first child was born in 1843 and named John Alston Hunn. Elizabeth Alston was born on October 6, 1846 and Jonathan,[12] on June 23, 1849. On March 20, 1850, John Alston Hunn, the oldest child, died, and was buried at the Appoquinimink Meeting Cemetery. The judgement from the trial of 1848 was paid that year too, and John Hunn moved his family to the Camden, Delaware area to live with relatives. Their fourth child, Hannah Alston, was born there on November 17, 1851.

In 1840, John had officially apologized to the Meeting for "marrying out of union," and asked to have his membership transferred back home to Camden, Delaware, which was granted. In 1852, Mary and their three surviving children asked to be joined in membership with the Camden Monthly Meeting of Friends, and were accepted. Mary died on October 1, 1854 and was buried at Camden Meeting Cemetery. On November 13, 1855, John Hunn married his cousin-by-marriage, Anne E. Jenkins, in the home of his sister and her second husband, Patience and Jabez Jenkins.

It is quite possible that his activities in the Underground Railroad continued after his return to the Camden area. Local tradition talks about the participation of the Hunn family assisting escaping slaves. Hunn family homes in the Forest Landing area include Great Geneva and Wild Cat Manor.[13] It is not known precisely where he lived during this period. He was very active in the Camden Monthly Meeting, serving as a delegate throughout the 1850s and as clerk from 1854-1856. He maintained his ties to the Appoquinimink Meeting House, taking on the repair of the fencing in 1853. In June 1852, he traveled to the territory of the Northwest Fork Monthly Meeting with his sister, Patience H. Jenkins, to preach about the evils of slavery and oppression. In a reminiscence published in the Friends Intelligencer magazine in 1898, one of the members of that monthly recalled the visit, and the appearance and preaching of John Hunn:

"The two came together and visited our meetings in Caroline [County, Maryland], and though a mere boy, I well remember that he preached, and it then appeared to me that he was the most remarkable man I had ever seen or heard. He was handsome, tall and in person finely developed, — "a Nature's nobleman." His hair was as black as a raven, his manner the most courteous and humble, and as gentle as a child. I still remember his text; my impression is that the sermon was the first he ever preached: "The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, he hath sent me to heal the broken hearted, to preach deliverance to the captive, recovery of sight to the blind, and set at liberty them that are bruised; to preach the acceptable year of the Lord."[14]

On November 28, 1854, the Southern Quarterly Meeting of Ministers and Elders appointed John Hunn a minister.[15]

In 1862, after the successful assault on the fortification of Port Royal Harbor by the Union Navy, the slave-holding population fled the Sea Islands of the border between South Carolina and Georgia. Approximately 10,000 slaves were left on the Sea Islands. Once the source of the most valuable cotton produced in the South, the Sea Islands were isolated from the mainland. A Philadelphia philanthropic organization, the Port Royal Relief Association, under the direction of Reverend J. Miller McKim[16] of Philadelphia organized volunteers to work among the newly freed slaves. John Hunn traveled there, leaving Philadelphia on October 21, 1862, accompanying his daughter Elizabeth, and Charlotte Forten, a teacher, Philadelphian, and the daughter of a wealthy and prominent, free African-American family.[17]

Life on St. Helena Island changed dramatically after the Federal occupation. By 1863, a garrison of five thousand soldiers was stationed on one end of the island. After word spread that St. Helena was free, escaping slaves from nearby islands arrived in great numbers.[18] John Hunn initially ran a store for the Port Royal Relief Association, and worked on setting up the Seaside Plantation on St. Helena to produce crops again. By 1870, Hunn's son Jonathan, along with his wife, Sallie Emerson Hunn joined him on St. Helena.[19] His daughter Elizabeth (Lizzie) was a teacher among the freed slaves, and was mentioned in the diaries kept by other teachers on St. Helena, including Laura Towne and Charlotte Forten. John Hunn, Jr., invested in limestone as a fertilizer, and his time in South Carolina provided him with a substantial fortune. Neither the store nor the plantation under the management of the elder John Hunn fared well financially.

Some who came to the Sea Islands during Reconstruction came to help and were very religious people who felt there was good work to be done there. However, some came who were motivated by other factors. Historians of this topic tend to emphasize the corruption of those put in power in this vulnerable situation. In the midst of the influx of unscrupulous "carpetbaggers" to the Sea Islands to take advantage of the land give-away and the slave population, John Hunn stood out as one of the "local officers who managed badly but were apparently honest."[20] Called "Father Hunn," "Friend Hunn", and "Brother Hunn" and even "Friend Harris" in various accounts, John Hunn's work on the Underground Railroad and his prosecution for that activity were known to at least some of those he met on St. Helena. One account of Hunn's activities was described by Edward L. Pierce in his book Enfranchisement and Citizenship (Boston 1896). As quoted by Theodore Rosengarten:

"Friend Harris [sic]," once was "fined in Delaware three thousand dollars for harboring and assisting fugitive slaves," wrote Edward L. Pierce, paying Harris lighthearted respect, "but now he harbors and assists them at a much cheaper rate."[21]

John Hunn's correspondence with William Still for his book on the Underground Railroad was sent from Beaufort, South Carolina in 1871.[22] He returned to the Camden area by 1884, when he is noted again in the minutes of the Camden Monthly Meeting. John Hunn and his wife Annie lived in Wyoming, Delaware with relatives. In 1893, he responded to a letter from Wilbur Siebert, a professor at Ohio State University and historian of the Underground Railroad. Siebert was contacting those who participated in the Underground Railroad. He told Siebert that he was "Supt. of the U.G.R.R., from Wilmington down the Peninsula."[23]

John Hunn died on July 6, 1894 at age 76. Annie E. Hunn died on September 1, 1894. They were buried side by side in the Camden Meeting Cemetery. John Hunn kept a journal of his activities with the Underground Railroad and noted to William Still that he had helped hundreds on their way north, but, for reasons unknown, he had his son destroy it in front of him when he was on his death bed. His son, John Hunn Jr. recounted the event in Conrad's History of Delaware (1908) which states: "... but the senior Hunn said, the issue was closed, and inasmuch as some of the actors in the affair were yet alive, and might be compromised thereby, he thought it best to cover the whole episode with oblivion..."

Assisting Fugitives

On a cold evening in late November 1845 Samuel Hawkins, a free black man, left Queen Anne's County, Maryland with his wife Emeline, and their six children who ranged in age between 16 years and 18 months. Emeline and her children were slaves, the property of Charles W. Glanding and Elizabeth Turner, farmers on the eastern shore of Maryland. Along the route, the Hawkins family secured the assistance of Samuel D. Burris, a conductor on the Underground Railroad. On December 5th, 1844, at about 7:00 o'clock in the morning, the party arrived at the home of John Hunn. He later recounted:

"...as I was washing my hands at the yard pump of my residence,... I looked down the lane, and saw a covered wagon slowly approaching my house. The sun had just risen, and was shining brightly (after a stormy night) on the snow which covered the ground six inches. ...On closer inspection I noticed several men walking beside the wagon. This seemed rather an early hour for visitors, and I could not account for the circumstance. When they reached the yard fence I met them, and a colored man handed me a letter addressed to Daniel Corbit, John Alston or John Hunn; ... The letter was from my cousin, Ezekiel Jenkins, of Camden, Delaware, and stated that the travelers were fugitive slaves, under the direction of Samuel D. Burris (who handed me the note). The party consisted of a man and his wife, with their six children, and four fine-looking colored men, without counting the pilot, S.D. Burris, who was a free man, from Kent County, Delaware. This was the ... first time I had ever been called upon to assist fugitives from the hell of American Slavery. The wanderers were gladly welcomed, and made as comfortable as possible until breakfast was ready for them.

...They were all very weary, as they had traveled from Camden (twenty-seven miles), through a snow storm. ...In Camden they were sheltered in the houses of their colored friends. Although this was my first acquaintance with S.D. Burris, it was not my last, as he afterwards piloted them himself, or was instrumental in directing hundreds of fugitives to me for shelter."[24]

==

Geo. W. Covington

 born at Middletown, Del., in 1834
son of Nathaniel and Maria (Mary) Covington.
He came to Still Pond in 1851 and entered the store of Daniel Haines.
married Miss Helen Busick.
Children: Miss Helen of this county;
Mrs. W.L. Barnard of New York;
Careton [sic] Covington, of Phila.;
two children Mrs. J. Cougill [Cowgill] Alston and Lester Covington are deceased.

Bearers
Judge J. Harry Covington [James Harry Covington, II born 1870, founded Covington & Burling] now at http://www.cov.com/
Judge J Harry is the son of James Harry, George Washington’s brother, who retired to Betterton.

Judge J. Harry’s Daughter Ann (born 1906) and son James Harry III (born 1909)

Dr. W.E. Barnard,
[Forest & Stream, 1913, Mt Vernon NY Siwaney Gun Club]
[Dr. W.E. Barnard, Surgeon Dentist, office Southeast corner of Main and Scott streets. 1902 Middletown Transcript Nov. 15, 1902 Local News]
[Dec 16 1911 Sporting News, in tournament at Siwanoy CC

J. Congill [sic - Cowgill] Alston, (Stepson of John Alston of Odessa)

Harry Busick,
Howard Turner,
H.C. Cacy.”

 

1860
GW Born DE age 25 Kent
Jas Born MD age 23 Easton, Talbot

GW and Helen’s Children
Helen M. (Alive 1917)
James Carlton (alive 1917)
Edwin Lester (dead by 1917)
Mrs. J. Cowgill Alston (dead by 1917)  Irene
Mrs. W. E. Barnard (alive 1917)                       Ethel

William Elihu Barnard m Ethel Covington

 

1860		Born	Age			Living
	GW	DE	25			Still Pond Kent
	Jas	MD	23			Easton Talbot
1870
	GW	DE	34			Still Pond Kent		Merchant
	Helen E		30
	Edwin (Lester)		10
	Helen		9
	Jas C (Carlton)		5
	Irene		1
	Wm Wroth		21					Clerk
	Jas H	MD	"1/24"			Easton Talbot
	(living in the house of Elizabeth Robinson)
1880
	GW	DE	45			Still Pond Kent		General Merchant
	Helen E		41
	E. Lester		19					Clerk in Store
	Helen M		17
	Jas C (Carlton)		15
	Irene		11
	Ethel		5
	Wm Parr Boarder from Ireland Harnessmaker
	Fanny Usilton Boarder Teacher
	Wm Collins		Clerk
	Edw Handy (?)		Clerk
	Jas H	DE	43			Easton Talbot
	wife Marguerite
	neice Lilia Baldwin (?)
	James H		10
	(living in the house of Elizabeth & Ella Robinson)
1890	missing
1891	Dr. W.E. Barnard mentioned in Kent News
1900
	GW	DE	66			Still Pond Kent		General Merchant
	Helen (M)		34
	Irene	X'd out	no age
	James C	X'd out	no age
	James H (Judge)		30			Lawyer boarding in house of James Norris
	Ethel		21			wife
	James H		63			Bookkeeper, Chapel District Talbot
			Born Aug 1836
	Margaret (wife)		Born 1841
1910
	GW	DE	74				Merchant Druggist (Lived alone?)
							Still Pond Town
	Irene	X'd out	no age
	James C	X'd out	no age
	Helen M Covington		38				Companion in Montgomery Co
							Asa M. Stabler, president of savings bank, with a farm
							"Part of Colesville"
	James H	DE	73				Retired
	Margaret (wife)		70				Betterton Town
	James H (Judge)		39				Talbot Lawyer
	Ethel
	Ann		4
	James Harry III		1