Archives of Maryland
(Biographical Series)

John Dare (b. 1775 - d. circa 1826)
MSA SC 5496-050626
War of 1812 Claimant, Calvert County, Maryland

Biography:

Dr. John Dare was born on February 16, 1775 in Calvert County, Maryland.1 In 1800, Dare had twenty slaves working on his farm near Huntingtown and Prince Frederick in the All Saints Parish2 (in the future Second District, as shown on an 1865 map).3 Dare belonged to the Maryland Agricultural Society,4 and was an original member of the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of the State of Maryland, joining in 1800 or 1801.5 In 1809, Dare purchased 386 acres of land from Walter Greenfield for $3,854. The land included parts of the tracts "Tillington," "Wilson's," and "Clay Hammond," and bordered "the east side of a small branch that runs into Clay Hammond swamp."6

Dare's first wife, Elizabeth Brooke (b. 1789), passed away on October 6, 1805 at the age of twenty-four.7 He married his second wife, Margaret Mackall Wilkinson (b. 1783), in May 1810.8 Dare had at least three children through his two marriages: Susan, Ann B., and Nathaniel.9 In 1818, Dare served on the Maryland House of Delegates for Calvert County, along with Captain John Beckett, James A.D. Dalrymple, and Daniel Kent.10

In July 1814,  John Dare's enslaved man William Dare, escaped to a British Vessel lying in the Patuxent River. Two slaves, fifty-five-year-old William Mitchel and fifty-year-old Richard "Dick" Corn (a.k.a. Cornelius), who belonged to his daughter Ann, also escaped to a British ship.11 William Dare eventually settled in Nova Scotia, where he opened an inn, called the Stag Inn. Following the war, Dare and his daughter Ann submitted a claim for compensation for the loss of their escaped slaves. John Dare died on May 21, 1826,12 and was buried near the grave of Elizabeth Dare, his first wife.13 In 1828, John Dare's estate received $280 for the slave William Dare.14  

Footnotes

1.     Patricia Wilkinson Weaver Balletta, The Wilkinson Book (Published by the author, 1994) 90.

2.     U.S. Census Bureau (Census Record, MD) for John Dare, 1800, Calvert County, All Saints Parish, Page 5, 10th line from bottom [MSA SM61-25, M 2054-4].
        CALVERT COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT (Land Records), Liber SS 1, Folio 343, 1851-1881, [MSA CE 4-1]. Joseph A. Wilson and Sarah E. Wilson to Wallace W.L. Dalrymple, May 27, 1874.
         "All Saints Episcopal Church," CT-15, Maryland Historical Trust. Inventory of Historic Properties. www.mdihp.net.
         Eugene Fauntleroy Cordell, The Medical Annals of Maryland, 1799-1899 (Baltimore, MD: Williams & Wilkins Company, 1903) 370.

3.     Calvert County District 3, Simon J. Martenet, Map of Calvert County, 1860, Library of Congress, [MSA SC 1213-1-117]. Maryland State Archives.

4.     John S. Skinner, ed., The American Farmer. No. 6, Vol. 8 (Baltimore, MD: John D. Toy, 1826) 48.
        Skinner, No. 39, Vol. 7, 307.

5.     Cordell 43 and 156.

6.     Ailene W. Hutchins. Calvert County, Maryland, Early Land Records. (Prince Frederick, MD: Printed by the author, 1992) 36.

7.     Jerry O'Brien, Mildren O'Brien, and Merle L. Gibson, Calvert Co. Maryland: Old Graveyards. Sunderland, MD: Calvert County Genealogical Newsletter, 1986.98.
3.     Maryland Historical Society, Maryland Historical Magazine (Vol. 1. Baltimore, MD: J. H. Furston Company, 1906) 287.
3.     Helen W. Ridgely, Historic Graves of Maryland and the District of Columbia (New York, NY: Grafton Press, 1908) 49.
3.     Ailene W. Hutchins, compl., Calvert County, Maryland, Early Land Records (Printed by the compiler, 1982) 77.

8.     Balletta 90.
3.     CHANCERY COURT, (Chancery Papers), 1830-1831, [MSA S512-20]. Farmers Bank of Maryland vs. Samuel Chew, et al, March 29, 1831, Calvert County, Case No. 10427.
3.     1850 U.S. Federal Census Record (MD) for Margaret Dare, Calvert County, District 2, Page 12, Line 24. Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009.

9.     GENERAL ASSEMBLY (Laws), 1826-1827. Available through Archives of Maryland Online, Volume 437.
3.     Balletta 483.

10.   Stein 156.

11.   Claim of Ann Dare, Case Files, compiled ca. 1827 - ca. 1828, documenting the period ca. 1814 - ca. 1828, *ARC Identifier 1174160 / MLR Number PI 177 190,* National Archives, College Park.
3.     Claim of Susannah and Juliet Rawlings, Case Files, compiled ca. 1827 - ca. 1828, documenting the period ca. 1814 - ca. 1828, *ARC Identifier 1174160 / MLR Number PI 177 190,* National Archives, College Park.

12.   Balletta 90.
         Claim of Dr. John Dare, Case Files, compiled ca. 1827 - ca. 1828, documenting the period ca. 1814 - ca. 1828, *ARC Identifier 1174160 / MLR Number PI 177 190,* National Archives, College Park.

13.   Helen W. Ridgely, Historic Graves of Maryland and the District of Columbia (New York, NY: Grafton Press, 1908) 58.

14.   Claim of Ann Dare.
 

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