Lewis Neth (b. circa
1752 - d. 1825)
MSA SC 5496-050634
Biography:
c.1752-1825. Married: Elizabeth Adams. Children: Lewis Neth Jr. (m. Harriet Maynard, June 24, 1832; d. October 10, 1832).
Born around 1752,1 Lewis Neth immigrated to America from Germany. He had settled in Annapolis by 1774, when his name first appeared in the Maryland Gazette and Political Intelligencer: On May 25th of that year, a number of Annapolis citizens had resolved to end trade with Great Britain. Their resolution countered the Coercive Acts, by which Great Britain had halted trade with Boston following the Boston Tea Party. However, on June 2, 1774, the Maryland Gazette printed the names of 161 Annapolis citizens protesting the May resolution. They included Lewis Neth, James Tilghman, John Randall, James Williams, and Robert Couden.2
Neth and his first business partner, Joseph Eastman, sold imports at the Annapolis City Dock as early as 1777.3 They dissolved their partnership in 1781.4 In 1782, Neth was appointed by Daniel St. Thomas Jenifer as clerk to the Intendant of Revenue's office where he continued working until the closure of the Intendant position in 1786.5 Neth also continued his business of selling import goods and had partnered with Joseph Williams until June of 1786.6 He left Maryland that month,7 but had returned by July 4, 1786, the day that he married Elizabeth Adams.8 Lewis and Elizabeth Neth had at least five children,9 and attended St. Anne's Episcopal Church in Annapolis.10
In
1791, Neth rented out his Fleet Street property11
and moved
to a three-story building that Frederick
Grammar had built on the eastern corner of Green and Church
(Main)
streets.12 Neth and Grammar—also a German
immigrant—operated
a bakery in the rear,13 while Neth sold European
imports from
the front of the store.14 On November 3 and 10,
1791, the Maryland
Gazette printed Neth's advertisement for a variety imported
goods,
including textiles, groceries, ammunition, hardware, stationery, and
Queen's
Ware (creamware).15 Textiles ranged from basic
cloths like flannel,
osnabrig, and linen, to finer fabrics including velvet, silk, and "rich
white and black Satins." Groceries included sugar, molasses, "West
India
and New England rum," various teas, and an assortment of spices.16
In 1797, Neth sold "vast quantities of textiles" to Edward
Lloyd V of Talbot County, who was altering the decor of his residence, known as Wye House.17
Lewis Neth is also recorded in documents regarding repairs made to the Maryland State House in 1801. A receipt recorded that he had supplied the State of Maryland with a variety of paint including lampblack, white and black lead paint, blue, and yellow ochre. John Shaw, who did a significant amount of work furnishing the State House paid him along with a variety of other workmen.18
Neth purchased numerous slaves during his residence in Ann Arundel County. In 1794, for instance, Neth purchased the twenty-year-old slave Will from the late John Petty's estate.19 Another slave, forty-five-year-old Cyrus, bought his freedom from Neth on April 18, 1795, for thirty-seven pounds and ten shillings.20 A search of Anne Arundel County manumissions did not show Neth freeing any other slaves.21 He owned two slaves in 1800, and five in 1810.22 On December 18, 1814, one of Neth's slaves, fourteen-year-old William Ross, escaped to the British ship Menelaus.23
On July 9, 1814, a Mr. Duvall of Anne Arundel County had written in his diary that "The news of this post is the British are up the Bay again, much alarm about Traceys & Herring Bay.... They are much alarm'd at Annapolis, & moving out."24
Neth
himself left Annapolis in 1815, although he kept his business there. He
purchased Primrose Hill25 that year, a
"beautiful colonial home
about five miles out of the ancient city which he used as a country
place."26
Once the home of the Swedish-American painter John Hesselius, the
circa-1760
Georgian manor house overlooked farmland south of Annapolis.27
The 1820 census showed Neth living at Primrose Hill, while still owning
property in Annapolis. He owned seventeen slaves, fourteen of whom
worked
on Primrose Hill. Another three African Americans—two women and one
boy—were
enslaved on Neth's property in Annapolis.28 He
had purchased
the William Paca House on Prince George Street in Annapolis around 1802.29
Records show Neth's life intersecting with those of other historical figures, including Charles Carroll of Carrollton. When Charles Carroll of Carrollton wrote his will in 1820, he bequeathed personal property and real estate to "my friends," including "Lewis Neth of the City of Annapolis." He also appointed Neth one of three trustees over his daughter Mary Caton's inheritence.30
In 1824, the Marquis de Lafayette visited the campus of St. John's College in Annapolis, and observed a rifle shooting contest. The award was "presented by General Lafayette to the Company of Captain Louis Neth."31 However, this probably referred to Lewis Neth Jr., a St. John's College alumnus and a veteran of the War of 1812.32
Lewis Neth died intestate on May 27, 1825.33
He was still
renting Frederick Grammar's building on Church Street.34
His
son, Lewis Neth Jr., died only seven years later. Neth Jr. was buried
at
Primrose Hill, with his tombstone reading "Louis Neth—the last of his
name."35
An 1833 miniature of Lewis Neth Jr. still exists, portraying Neth as a
blonde-haired infant. The watercolor-on-ivory miniature was likely
created
around the time of his death.36
1. William Faris, The Diary of William Faris: The Daily Life of an Annapolis Silversmith (Baltimore, MD: Maryland Historical Society, 2003) 119n.
2.
"To the Printers," Maryland
Gazette and Political Intelligencer 2 June 1774: 3.
3.
David Ridgely,
Annals of Annapolis: Comprising Sundry Notices of That
Old City (Baltimore, MD: Cushing & Brother, 1841) 155.
3.
GOVERNOR AND COUNCIL,
(Letterbook), 1777-1779, [MSA S1075-6].
3.
Elizabeth Blessing Anderson and Michael P. Parker, Annapolis:
A Walk
Through History
(Centreville, MD: Tidewater Publishers, 1984) 44.
3.
Thomas W. Cuddy, Revolutionary Economies: What Archaeology
Reveals About
the Birth of American Capitalism (Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press,
2008)
49.
3.
Edward A. Papenfuse, In Pursuit of Profit: The Annapolis
Merchants in
the Era of the American Revolution, 1763-1805 (Baltimore, MD:
Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1975) 81 and 143.
4. MARYLAND INDEXES, (Maryland Gazette, Annapolis Items, Index), 1745-1820, [MSA S1456-13].
5. MARYLAND STATE PAPERS (Series A), 1782, MSA S 1004-48, MdHR 6636-36-24.
6. Untitled, Maryland Gazette and Political Intelligencer 29 June 1786: 3.
7. Ibid.
8.
ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY
COURT, (Marriage Licenses), 1777-1813, [MSA C113-1]. Lewis Neth and
Elizabeth
Adams, July 4, 1786.
3.
Gaius Marcus Brumbaugh,
Maryland Records: Colonial, Revolutionary, County,
and Church. 459 (Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Co.,
1993)
459.
9. U.S. Census Bureau (Census Record, MD) for Lewis Neth, 1800, Anne Arundel County, Annapolis, Page 4, Line 11 [MSA SM61-23, M 2054-2].
10. Ethan Allen, Historical Notices of St. Ann's Parish in Ann Arundel County, Maryland (Baltimore, MD: J.P. Des Forges, 1857).
11. "Lewis
Neth,"
Maryland Gazette
and Political Intelligencer 3 November 1791: 3.
3.
"Ideal Hotel," AA-37. Maryland Historical Trust, Inventory of Historic
Properties. www.mdihp.net.
3.
Faris 119n.
12. "Customs House." AA-535. Maryland Historical Trust, Inventory of Historic Properties. www.mdihp.net.
13. Ibid.
14. Cuddy 57.
15.
"Lewis Neth."
3.
Anderson 44.
3.
Ethel Deane,
Byways of Collecting (New York, NY: Cassell and
Company,
Limited, 1908) 62.
3.
N. Hudson Moore, The Collectors Manual (New York,
NY: Frederick
A. Stokes Company, 1905) 31.
16. "Lewis Neth."
17.
Chipstone Foundation,
American
Furniture, Vol. 10 (Hanover, NH: University Press of New
England, 2002)
31.
3.
"Wye House (Wye Plantation, Wye Farm)," T-54, Maryland Historical
Trust,
Inventory of Historic Properties. www.mdihp.net.
18. MARYLAND STATE PAPERS (Series A), 1801, MSA S 1004-113, MdHR 6636-84-80.
19. ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY COURT, (Land Records), 1793-1795, Liber NH 7, Folio 95, [MSA CE 76-35]. William Petty, ex., to Lewis Neth, February 25, 1794.
20. ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY COURT, (Land Records), 1793-1795, Liber NH 7, Folio 513, [MSA CE 76-35]. Lewis Neth to Negro Cyrus, April 18, 1795.
21. ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY COURT, (Manumission Record), 1797-1851, [MSA C109].
22.
U.S. Census Bureau (Census Record,
MD) for Lewis Neth, 1800, Anne Arundel County, Annapolis, Page 4, Line
11 [MSA SM61-23, M 2054-2].
U.S.
Census Bureau (Census Record, MD) for Lewis Neth, 1810, Anne Arundel
County,
Annapolis, Page 2, Line 3 [MSA SM61-42, M 2059-2].
23. Slave Lists/, compiled 07/10/1827 - 08/31/1828/*, *ARC Identifier 1174163 / MLR Number PI 177 193, National Archives, College Park. Lewis Neth, pg. 18.
24. MARYLAND STATE ARCHIVES SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, Diary of * Duvall. [MSA SC 210-1-3].
25. "Primrose
Hill," AA-169, Maryland
Historical Trust, Inventory of Historic Properties, www.mdihp.net.
3.
J.D. Warfield,
The Founders of Anne Arundel and Howard Counties, Maryland
(Baltimore, MD: Kohn & Pollock, 1905) 527.
3.
Elihu Samuel Riley, "The Ancient City": A History of
Annapolis, in Maryland,
1649-1887 (Annapolis, MD: Record Printing Office, 1887) 307.
26. Hammond 42.
27. Warfield
527.
3.
Ernst Wilhelm Olson, Martin J. Engberg and Anders Schön, eds., History
of the Swedes of Illinois (Chicago, IL: Engberg-Holmberg
Publishing
Company, 1908) 844.
3.
"John Hesselius," Maryland ArtSource,
http://www.marylandartsource.org/artists/detail_000000029.html.
3.
"Primrose Hill."
3.
Anne Arundel County District 2, Simon J. Martenet, Map of Anne Arundel
County, 1860, Library of Congress, [MSA SC 1213-1-117].
28. U.S.
Census Bureau (Census Record,
MD) for Lewis Neth (Primrose), 1820, Anne Arundel County, District 2,
Page
1, Line 7 [MSA SM61-62, M 2063-2.
3.
U.S. Census Bureau (Census Record, MD) for Lewis Neth, 1820, Anne
Arundel
County, Annapolis, Page 4b, Line 2 [MSA SM61-62, M 2063-2].
29. John
Martin Hammond,
Colonial
Mansions of Maryland and Delaware (Philadelphia, PA: J.B.
Lippincott
Company, 1914) 36 and 42.
3.
Anderson and Parker 123.
3.
"Restoration Archaeology at the Paca House Annapolis," Papers
of the
Conference on Historic Site Archaeology 2 (1968): 28.
3.
Bud Hannings,
American Revolutionary War Leaders: A Biographical Dictionary
(Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2009) 325.
30. Kate Mason Rowland, The Life of Charles Carroll of Carrollton: 1737-1832., Vol. 2 (New York, NY: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1898) 396-399, 404, 419, 420, 423.
31.
St. John's College,
St. John's
College Commencement and One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Anniversary
(Annapolis,
MD: Press of Advertiser-Republican, 1909) 20.
3.
Dorothy K. Williams, "First Action to Set Up College Taken in 1966 by
Legislature,"The
Maryland Gazette 19 May 1949: 1E, 19E. Access Newspaper
Archive.
32.
William M. Marine and Louis Henry
Dielman,
The British Invasion of Maryland, 1812-1815
(Baltimore,
MD: Society of the War of 1812 in Maryland, 1913) 391.
3.
St. John's College, 1789-1889: Commemoration of the one
hundredth anniversary
of St. John's College (Baltimore, MD: William K. Boyle
& Son, 1890)
113.
33.
"Obituary,"
Maryland Gazette
and Political Intelligencer 2 June 1825: 3.
3.
CHANCERY COURT, (Chancery Papers), 1826-1827, Case 6263: Nicholas
Brewer,
Jr. vs. William Kilty and Lewis Neth, Jr. AA. [S512-8- 6333].
34. Anderson 50.
35. Qtd. in St. John's College 20.
36. "A Miniature
Portrait of a Young Boy (Lewis Neth)." MutualArt Services,
Inc.
http://www.mutualart.com/Artwork/A-Miniature-Portrait-of-a-Young-Boy--Lew/AEF5911F6965218D.
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