Hugh Wallis (b. 1797- d. 1857)
MSA SC 5496-34405

Property Owner and Slaveholder
Kent County, Maryland

Biography:

            The Wallis family has been a prominent part of the community in Kent County for nine generations. Born about 1674, Samuel Wallis came to Kent County where he raised all of his children until he died in 1724.¹ Samuel served twenty one years as a vestryman for Shrewsbury Parish, as would many of his descendants.² He acquired and farmed several tracts of land in Morgan’s Creek Neck, as well as parts of Queen Annes County, which were granted down the Wallis line for over 100 years. He bequeathed to his sons Samuel, John, and Hugh (Hugh Wallis’s grandfather) a tract of land called “Partnership,” containing 900 hundred acres.³ Grandfather Hugh married Hannah Brooks, who acquired a tract of land called the “Agreement,” beginning on the northeast corner of “Partnership.”⁴

            Hugh Wallis, Samuel’s great grandson, was a white wealthy land owner, slaveholder, and farmer in Kent County, born on September 7, 1797.⁵ His main farm, according to the 1860 Martenet map (completed after his death) was located just north of the road from Chestertown to Millington (Route 291) and southeast of Urieville. In his will, however, he writes that "my Home Farm in Morgans Creek Neck in Kent County called the Maiden's Lot Farm, now occupied by me, containing about five hundred acres.”⁶ Hugh Wallis owned over 1,800 acres of land, divided into at least seven plots known as Wyatt’s Chance, Maiden’s Lot, Plain Dealing, Partnership (or Upper Farm), Darnell’s Farm (or Middle Farm), Morgan Creek Farm, and Buckingham.⁷ By 1850, Hugh owned $43,500 of real estate.⁸  He grew wheat and corn on Buckingham, Middle, and Upper Farms. At Buckingham he was also growing oats, and at his home farm, Maiden Lot Farm, he solely grew wheat.⁹  

               Hugh Wallis's personal possessions amounted to over $12,000. Among his possessions were his slaves and livestock (horses, cows, mules, pigs, and sheep), dinnerware, a piano with a cover and stool, 36 yards of carpet, a mahogany wardrobe, 4,500 pounds of pork, 4,500 feet of lumber, 1,500 bushels of corn, 125 bushels of oats, 80,000 bricks, a wagon, a carriage, a reaping machine, and nine feather beds.¹⁰ From his inventory, Hugh Wallis was obviously engaged in several facets of agriculture, building resources, and entertaining. Prosperous in land, crops, and labor, it is no wonder that Hugh Wallis was one of the wealthy elite of District 2, Kent County, Maryland.

            Hugh Wallis married his cousin once removed Margaret B. Woodland, daughter of Isaac Woodland and Hannah Brooks, on November 10, 1817 by Rev. George D. Handy.¹¹ With Margaret, Hugh had four children: John Brooks Wallis, William Woodland Wallis, Margaret Araminta Wallis, and Hannah Isabelle Wallis. On April 16, 1823, Margaret B. Woodland died at only 21-years-old.

            Five years after the death of his first wife, Hugh married Hannah Brooks Wright, his cousin once removed, (as well as cousin of Margaret Brooks Woodland) of Kent County on June 26, 1828.¹² Hannah B. Wright was recorded as an orphan on February 7, 1825 and Thomas Brooks, Philip Brooks, and Hugh Wallis entered an obligation with the state to serve as guardians to Hannah. Hannah was also Hugh Wallis’s first cousin once removed, as Hugh’s paternal grandmother was also named Hannah Brooks.¹³ Hugh Wallis purportedly impregnated Hannah when she was 14-years-old then married her several months later.¹⁴ Hannah Wallis, according to her father Thomas Wright’s will, was to receive a slave girl named Susan, one-twelfth of her father’s funds, and one-fourth of his lands and if she were to die before having children, this land would pass to her brother William.¹⁵ Hugh Wallis, however, married Hannah four years after her father died in 1824, which ensured that the money and land would stay with them. With Hannah, he had at least three girls (Mary E., Ruth A., and Margaret Hellen Rosabella) and five boys (Hugh Maxwell, Walter G, John B, Samuel W, and Benjamin F.).¹⁶ Hannah kept a family bible and recorded family marriages, births, and deaths.¹⁷ Hannah died on April 14, 1855, at age 41, a couple days after giving birth to her twelfth child Marion Brooks Wallis.¹⁸

            After Hannah died, Hugh’s first cousin twice removed Sarah Ann Groome, daughter of Isaac Perkins Groome and Emily Smith, moved into the household, most likely Maiden Lot Farm, to help take care of the children. Just short of two years later, Hugh and Sarah Ann were married. Hugh succumbed to a deadly case of pneumonia three months later.¹⁹ Sarah and Hugh had no children together, though Hugh had a total of sixteen children from his two previous marriages.

According to The Wallis Family of Kent County, Maryland, Hugh Wallis was generally feared and seen as a cruel slave owner.²⁰ In 1840, Hugh Wallis had 19 slaves in his household, and had 13 slaves on his slave schedule in 1850.²¹ Isaac Mason, a slave who escaped from Kent County and then in 1892 published an account of his life as a slave, mentions that his “darkest days of slavery” were under the ownership of Mr. H. Wallace. While it has not been proven that Hugh Wallis was Isaac Mason’s owner, it is possible as Mason mentions Wallace’s farm was on Morgan’s Creek Neck in Kent County, Maryland.²² Isaac Mason was also listed as Will (his name at the time) on the Hannah Perkins Woodland’s inventory, mother to Margaret B. Woodland, Hugh Wallis’s first wife. Hugh Wallis also served as administrator for this inventory.²³ Another slave belonging to Hugh Wallis was Joseph Cotton who was valued at $400 on Hugh Wallis's inventory.²⁴ In Hugh Wallis's will, Joseph was bequeathed to his daughter Mary E. Knock in 1857, but in the 1860 census, 17-year-old Joseph was listed as a laborer under Hugh Maxwell Wallis's household.²⁵ No record of Joseph's manumission has been found, but he did eventually join the United States Colored Troops by 1864, and then in 1865, established his own household and family in Kennedyville, Kent County, Maryland.²⁶

Hugh Wallis had several agreements and exchanges with the free black community on Morgan’s Creek Neck, despite the fact that Hugh Wallis was a slaveholder. There was a chattel record between Hugh Wallis and Joseph Cotton, a free black property owner, which stated that Joseph Cotton would sell his wife Rachel’s livestock, equipment, and apprentice boy named Emory on the condition that Rachel could continue to use the equipment.²⁷ This agreement indicates that Joseph Cotton and/or the Cotton family lived in close proximity to Hugh Wallis, whose farm is located on the north side of Maryland Highway Route 291. The record also conveys a positive relationship between the free black and white community, whereby Hugh Wallis charges Joseph Cotton a minimal $1 for Rachel Cotton to continue the use of the livestock and equipment.²⁸ This positive relationship continued until Joseph Cotton’s death, one of his last acts was authorizing Hugh Wallis to fairly divide his land.²⁹

 Like his family before him, Hugh Wallis served as a vestryman at Shrewsbury Church, starting in 1826 and through 1828. He was elected again in 1848 and served until 1851. He may have served more years, though they were not indicated in parish records. Hugh Wallis was confirmed at Shrewsbury Parish on August 20, 1847, five days after the baptism of his daughter Margaret Hellen Rosabella and his son Samuel Wright. His children by Margaret Woodland were baptized in September 20, 1840.³⁰

            In 1839, Hugh Wallis and his wife Hannah granted land to the trustees of the Primary School District Number 4 in the Second Election District for $5. This land was “on the Public Road leading from Perkins’ Hill to New Market it being part of a tract of land called Darnells Farm.”³¹ Darnel’s Farm started on the road from Chestertown to Millington, extended east almost to Morgan’s Creek, then south just short of the Chester River, then east to Travilla Farm.³² Hugh Wallis also deeded part of his land (most likely part of Darnel’s Farm) to the nearby black community, who then founded and built Joshua Chapel, an African Methodist Episcopal Church.³³

On January 29, 1840, his fodder house and one of his fields of corn two miles from Chestertown were set fire, though it is not known who started the fire and for what reason.³⁴

In 1846, Hugh Wallis ran as a Whig candidate for Levy Court in Kent County.³⁵ His popularity in Kent County, however, did not prove as high as he had hoped and he lost the election on October 7, 1846 to Thomas Burgess.³⁶

            Hugh Wallis died of pneumonia on November 27, 1857. A notice was printed in the Kent News on November 28, that read “Died at his residence near Chestertown yesterday morning. Hugh Wallis, Esq. aged about 62 years. [His friends and the public are requested to attend the funeral to take place on Sunday tomorrow morning at 10 o’clock.].”³⁷ Though Hugh served as a vestryman at Shrewsbury Church, he does not appear to be buried there.

Hugh Wallis deeded his land, slaves, and personal property among his sixteen children. His son Hugh Maxwell Wallis was named executor of his will and inherited "Maidens Lot Farm." ³⁸ Going east on Route 291, about 0.35 miles after crossing the Morgan Creek Bridge, there is a brick marker on the right for Maiden’s Lot Farm and Buckingham Road is about a mile further east on the right.  Maiden Lot Farm was granted to John Wallis in 1773 through a land petition. The farm began just south of John Wallis’s warehouse and was marked with a large white stone with a “W,” near the mouth of Morgan’s Creek. Maidens Lot was bound on the east by Buckingham.³⁹ Hugh later devised Maiden’s Lot Farm to his son Hugh Maxwell Wallis.⁴⁰ Hugh Wallis’s father, William Wallis, granted the land “bounded by Chester River and Morgan Creek” know as the Morgan Creek Farm (perhaps the same as Maidens Lot Farm), to Hugh Wallis in 1807.⁴¹ This land was owned by Hugh Maxwell Wallis (Hugh Wallis’s son) in 1860. Hugh Maxwell had $20,000 real estate and $2,500 personal estate.⁴² Hugh Maxwell became a slaveholder and trader. He eventually moved down to Louisiana, where he raised his family. He sold several Kent County slaves in the port of Baltimore to be sent down to New Orleans.⁴³ As a Louisiana resident, he was asked to renounce his status as executor to his father’s will by Samuel H. Knock (his brother in law), who petitioned that Hugh Maxwell’s absence from Kent County was “a great hindrance as well as a severe embarrassment in the execution of the same.”⁴⁴

Darnell’s Farm," bequeathed to Hugh Wallis’s daughter Hannah Isabelle Wallis, contained 214 acres and was located “on the Old Road leading from Chestertown to Millington [today this is Maryland Highway Route 291] on the West side of ‘Travilla Lane’ joining the lands of William B. Wilmer and the ‘Mason Farm.’”⁴⁵ This tract of land most likely encompasses the land on which Joshua Chapel, an African Methodist Episcopal Church, was built. "Partnership" was bequeathed to Hugh’s son William Wright Wallis, Buckingham to daughter Mary A. E Knock, and Plain Dealing and Wyatt’s Chance were to be sold to settle any remaining debts after Hugh’s death.⁴⁶

Return to Hugh Wallis's Introductory Page

Researched and written by Kathy Thornton, 2012.  
 

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