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| Asilomar Visitors’ Lodge in Pacific Grove |
just interested in this colorful character from early America?
The 2018 Cresap Family Reunion offers a unique opportunity to gather with
Cresap family and fans this summer in Pacific Grove, California. The event, partly organized by Cresap Society Board member and CGS research team leader Lavinia Schwarz,
includes three nights’ room and board at the historic Asilomar Lodge designed by Julia
Morgan. Attendees will enjoy
visits to Carmel Mission, the Presidio at Fort Ord, and the Sherman headquarters
in Monterey. There will be plenty of time to visit the beach, the famous
Monterey Aquarium, and to chat by the roaring fire in the old lodge. A banquet Saturday night includes two historical
talks.
emigrated to America as a teenager.
In Maryland, he worked as a carpenter, ferryman, and a land agent for
Charles Calvert, Lord Baltimore. Reputedly the first permanent white settler in
western Maryland, Cresap is credited with having surveyed upwards of 40 percent
of the western Maryland wilderness. With Delaware Nation chief Nemacolin, he
established a trail across the Allegheny Mountains from the Potomac to the Ohio
River. This route tied together the eastern and western portions of the country
and became the first National Highway (today’s U.S. Route 40).
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| Braddock’s Road map shows the route established by Cresap and Nemacolin |
An adventurous and belligerent personality, Cresap is best
remembered for his involvement in “Cresap’s War,” the bloody border dispute
that raged between Maryland and Pennsylvania in the 1730s. Cresap secured a great deal of land for
himself and Lord Baltimore by force, driving out both Indians and white
settlers in the lower Susquehanna Valley. His various skirmishes led to his
arrest. When he was taken to jail in Philadelphia, the defiant Cresap declared
it “one of the prettiest towns in Maryland!” Dubbed “the Maryland
Monster,” by his detractors, Cresap was notorious in Pennsylvania and
something of a hero in Maryland, which still has municipalities named after
him. He figures as a conniving character in Thomas Pynchon’s epic novel Mason & Dixon.
Cresap’s wife, Hannah Johnson (c. 1705-1774) matched her husband
in fierceness. A daughter of
Lancaster County pioneer Daniel Johnson, she was handy with a musket and
reportedly fought by her husband’s side while pregnant. When a Pennsylvanian
was shot and wounded outside her door, Hannah allegedly swore she would be
happy to “wash her hands in his heart’s blood.”
The Cresaps eventually settled near Cumberland, Maryland, where
Thomas became a large landowner and frequent host to notable figures including
a young George Washington. He lived through the French and Indian War,
Lord Dunmore’s War, and in 1765 organized the Sons of Liberty in Maryland supporting
the American Revolution. A memorial plaque at the site of his home reads: “In Memory of Col. Thomas Cresap, Pathfinder – Pioneer – Patriot.” It is thought that all American Cresaps can trace their ancestry to
the immigrant Thomas.
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| Artist’s depiction of U.S. naval ships arriving in Monterey |
Just as Thomas Cresap influenced the history of the Mid-Atlantic
colonies, some of his descendants helped to forge the history of California. Union
Major General Edward Ord, a great-great-grandson of Thomas Cresap, was one of
12 children born to Rebecca Cresap and James Ord. Edward Ord and many of his
siblings came from Maryland to California in the early to mid-19th century. Edward
Ord arrived in 1847 to direct the building of the fort that is now the Presidio
of Monterey. He helped survey numerous California districts and made the first
map of Los Angeles. His siblings married into some of the old Californio and
Mexican families and their stories are intertwined with those of the Gold Rush
and the Civil War.
“Sometimes I think of the early Cresaps as being like Forrest
Gump,” says Schwarz, alluding to the
fictional character who manages to be on the scene for many seminal moments in
history. “You have Cresaps involved in the colonial world, exploring the wild
west of Maryland; a founder of the Sons of Liberty, acquainted with George
Washington; fighting at Bunker Hill.
Cresaps fought on both sides of the Civil War, explored California
during the Gold Rush and married into old Californio and Mexican families. They
really were everywhere.”
Don’t miss the opportunity to meet Cresap cousins and share
stories in a beautiful setting on the Pacific Coast. Register for the reunion
at this link.
Copyright © 2018 by California Genealogical Society
MAY
2018