|
|
daughter of Dr. Joshua Warfield (?-1769) of Anne
Arundel County, a "practitioner of physic" and
millowner, and wife Rachel Howard (1732-1792).
Ruth was the niece of Ephraim Howard (1745-
1788). Her brothers were Joseph (1758-?), who
married Elizabeth Dorsey; Joshua. Her sisters
were Sarah (1752-?); Dinah (1754-?), who mar-
ried Caleb Dorsey; and Rachel (1759-?), who
married Nicholas Worthington Dorsey. CHIL-
DREN. SONS. Samuel, who married in 1819 Sarah
Ann Hatherly and moved to Calvert County;
James; Richard, who married in 1812 Elizabeth
Munro; Thomas, who married Ann Maria War-
field; Joshua W., who married in 1811 Elinor
Worthington, moved to Frederick County by 1829,
and later to Missouri; Basil, who married Eleanor
Griffith; Henry Howard, who married first, in
1829, Sarah Gist, and second, in 1842, Elizabeth
Dorsey; and Beal. DAUGHTERS. Polly, who mar-
ried William Welling; Ann, who married in 1813
Dominic B. Jessop, a merchant of Baltimore
County. PRIVATE CAREER. EDUCATION: literate.
SOCIAL STATUS AND ACTIVITIES: Esq., by 1790.
OCCUPATIONAL PROFILE: farmer, miller, mer-
chant. About the time of his mother-in-law's death,
Owings moved to Anne Arundel county and took
over the Warfield mill; by 1794 he had two mills
on branches of the Patuxent River. In 1797 Ow-
ings bought the "Windsor Mills" on Gwynns Falls
in partnership with Archibald Stewart, a Balti-
more City merchant, and later ran this mill with
William Jessop. He bought the "Guilford Mills"
on the Patuxent River in 1799, and another mill-
seat on the Patapsco River in 1801, the latter in
partnership with his nephew Samuel Owings, of
Thomas. The Patapsco mill was sold in 1817 for
$10,000. Shortly after purchasing a lot at Bow-
ley's Wharf on Pratt Street in Baltimore City in
1801, Owings began to call himself a merchant.
He was apparently involved in shipping flour from
his warehouse on the wharf. PUBLIC CAREER. LEG-
ISLATIVE SERVICE: Lower House, Baltimore
County, 1789, 1790. LOCAL OFFICES: justice, Bal-
timore County, 1785-1791; collector of the tax,
Delaware Hundred, Baltimore County, by 1781.
MILITARY SERVICE: captain. Soldier's Delight
Battalion, Baltimore County Militia, by May 1776,
commissioned June 6, 1776, replaced May 27,
1779. WEALTH DURING LIFETIME. PERSONAL PROP
ERTY: assessed value £764.8.4, including 10 slaves,
13 oz. plate, 1783; 21 slaves, 1790; 15 slaves, Anne
Arundel County only, 1798. LAND AT FIRST ELEC-
TION; 1,152 acres in Baltimore and Frederick
counties (487 acres in Baltimore and Frederick
|
counties inherited from father; 48 acres in Fred-
erick County by patent; 617 acres in Baltimore
County acquired through purchase, of which 377
acres belonged to the estate of Richard Owings
of Joshua (1738-1786), his cousin). SIGNIFICANT
CHANGES IN LAND BETWEEN FIRST ELECTION AND
DEATH: Owings resurveyed the land inherited from
his father, some of his Frederick County patents,
and several other tracts purchased after his elec-
tion into a 1,098-acre tract in Baltimore and
Frederick counties for a net gain of ca. 129 acres.
Although this tract was not patented until 1799,
Owings began selling parts of it in 1797. Over the
next five years, he sold at least 849 acres of the
tract in five transactions. Owings acquired pos-
sibly as much as 300 acres of land in Anne Arun-
del County when his mother-in-law died and Dr.
Warfield's property was released from her life
estate. Owings added land to his part of the War-
field land by various purchases until in 1798 he
owned at least 690 acres in Anne Arundel County.
The Windsor Mills property in Baltimore County,
purchased in 1797, comprised 167 acres, and the
Guilford Mills in Anne Arundel County, pur-
chased two years later, came with 32 acres. The
lot on Bowley's Wharf in Baltimore Town was
purchased with Owings's son Beal in 1800. Beal
was already dead when Richard Owings sold the
lot and warehouse to Beal's brother James in 1819
for $6,000.00. Owings bought additional land in
Baltimore County, mostly to increase tracts he
already held, amounting to at least 555 acres,
1799-1805; however he also sold 382 acres in
Baltimore County during this period. With his
nephew Samuel, Owings bought a 108-acre mill-
seat on the Patapsco River in both Baltimore and
Anne Arundel counties in 1801. They added to
it 95 acres with water courses in 1802 and 65 acres
in 1807, and sold the entire 268 acres with the
mill in 1817. Owings continued to acquire land
contiguous to his Anne Arundel County mills,
especially with the purchase of 439 acres on the
middle branch of the Patuxent River from his
wife's brother-in-law, Nicholas W. Dorsey. Of a
total of 744 acres in Anne Arundel County pur-
chased between 1805 and 1811, Owings sold 285
acres in 1811. The following year he resurveyed
the main Warfield mill land, including his own
purchases, into a 1,210-acre tract for a net loss
of 300 acres. In 1815 Owings gave the land in
Baltimore County he had originally bought from
the estate of his cousin Richard, plus additional
land purchased himself (a total of 599 acres), to
his son Joshua. In the five years before his death,
626
|
|
