George F. Worthington (b. 1814 - d. circa 1860)
MSA SC 5496-006640
Property Owner, Anne Arundel County, Maryland
Biography:
George Fitzhugh Worthington was born on March 14, 1814 to Brice John Worthington and his wife, Anne Lee Fitzhugh.1 Brice John Worthington owned the Griffith-Worthington house in Annapolis, on Duke of Gloucester Street. He had inherited the house from his brother, John Griffith Worthington, in 1797.2 According to Yale University's class record for the class of 1834, George F. Worthington attended Yale in the class of 1834, but left before graduation due to health problems, and returning to farming. He married Elizabeth Harwood in 1835.3
In 1837, Worthington's father died, leaving 514 acres of his plantation to George. According to Brice John Worthington's will, his plantation bordered the south edge of the public road leading from Annapolis to Baltimore. The farm also "included the buildings at Bellevoir," in the area that later became Crownsville. The manor house stood on Wyatt's Ridge, overlooking Round Bay.4 Aside from land, George also inherited at least thirteen slaves, including the slave woman Lydia and her children, Basil, Cinderella, John Henry, Lucinda, and Eliza.5
The class record showed that Worthington then "ventured on a course of theological study, and in 1841, he was ordained as priest in the Protestant Episcopal Church, in Baltimore County, Md.... The greater part of his actual ministry was spent in the vicinity of Baltimore. But the failure of his voice and of his health compelling him to abandon the clerical office."6 Worthington's poor health resulted in him resigning from St. Timothy's Episcopal Church in 1846. He moved to Montgomery County, where he served as the rector of the Prince George Parish in Montgomery County.7
In 1846, Worthington added 205 acres to the farm he had inherited in Anne Arundel County.8 Two years later, his slave Cinderella fled from the farm, with the assistance of her free husband, Abraham Brogden. Worthington's overseer, Edward H. Brown, placed the runaway ad, directing people to contact him at the Brotherton Post Office.9 Another slave, Eliza Brogdon, fled from Worthington in 1852.10
Worthington was living in Washington D.C. by that time. He had resigned his position as rector in Montgomery County, again because of his health, and was working as a clerk in for the Third Auditor's office of the Treasury Department.11 He and his wife lived in Ward 1 with their children, Elizabeth (b. 1841), Nicholas B. (b. 1843), William (b. 1845), and Hester (b. 1848).12
Worthington had died sometime before the 1860 census. No references to a will have been found in Anne Arundel County.
Other members of the Worthington family, including George's brother
Nicholas
Brice Worthington, were still living on or near George F. Worthington's
farm in the 1860s. They appeared in the Second District of Anne Arundel
County in Simon J. Martenet's 1860 map.
They lived near Crownsville, near the former location of the Brotherton
Post Office.13
1. Yale University, Class
of 1835, Biographical and Historical Record of the Class of 1835 in
Yale College (New Haven, CT: 1881) 226.
4.
John Martin Hammond, Colonial Mansions of
Maryland and Delaware (Philadelphia, PA: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1914)
220.
Joshua Dorsey
Warfield, The Founders of Anne Arundel and Howard Counties, Maryland
(Baltimore, MD: Kohn & Pollock, 1905) 154.
2. "Worthington House." AA-471, Anne Arundel County, Annapolis. Maryland Historical Trust. www.mdihp.net.
3. ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY COURT (Marriage Licenses) [MSA C113-2]. George F. Worthington and Elizabeth Harwood, September 24, 1835.
4. ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY
REGISTER OF WILLS (Wills), Liber TTS 1, Folio 319 [MSA C153-10]. Brice
John Worthington, May 6, 1837.
4.
Hammond 220.
5. ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY REGISTER OF WILLS (Wills), Liber TTS 1, Folio 319 [MSA C153-10]. Brice John Worthington, May 6, 1837.
6. Yale University 226.
7. Ethan Allen, Clergy in Maryland of the Protestant Episcopal Church since the independence (Baltimore, MD: James S. Waters, 1860) 60.
8. ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY COURT (Land Records) Liber JHN 1, Folio 415, [MSA CE 76-72]. Richard C. Mackubin and Hester Ann Mackubin to George Fitzhugh Worthington, January 1, 1846.
9. "One
Hundred Dollars Reward." Baltimore Sun 23 December 1848.
"Anne
Arundel County Court." Baltimore Sun 30 April 1849.
10. "$50 Reward." Baltimore Sun 11 February 1852.
11. Reports of Committees of the
House of Representatives, made during the Second Session of the Thirty-Seventh
Congress. 1861-'62 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1862)
75.
11. Yale
University 226.
11. Allen
60.
12. 1850 Census Record (D.C.) for George F. Worthington, Washington City, Ward 1, Page 56, Line 31. Ancestry.com.
13. Anne Arundel County District 2,
Simon J. Martenet, Map of Anne Arundel County, 1860, Library of Congress,
MSA SC 1213-1-117.
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