Archives of Maryland
(Biographical Series)

John Lloyd Tilghman (b. 1788 - d. circa 1832)
MSA SC 5496-051241
Property Owner, Bennet's Point, Queen Anne's County, Maryland

Biography:

John Lloyd Tilghman was born on May 21, 1788 to Major Richard Tilghman and Mary Tilghman (nee Gibson).1 In 1789, Charles Wilson Peale painted the one-year-old John Lloyd with his older brother, William Gibson, and their mother.2 John married Maria Elizabeth Gibson on December 27, 1807.3 They had at least five children: John Lloyd Jr., William, Horatio, Samuel Ogle, and Mary.4

The 1820 census showed Tilghman owning thirty-eight slaves.5 In 1824, he owned over 1900 acres of land in Queen Anne's County.6 However, he was not shown as owning any personal property in that county, since he was still living in the neighboring Talbot County. In 1826, his overseer, C. Clash, reported fourteen slaves on Tilghman's Talbot County farm.7 C. Clash was in fact Cloudsbury Clash (b. circa 1787), who appeared in Talbot County census records from 1820 to 1840.8 In 1844, Clash sold a variety of farm implements and produce to Tilghman for $300.9

Tilghman also owned half of Choptank Island, also called Tilghman Island. According to an 1886 article in the Centreville Record, Tilghman Island appeared on a 1796 map of the area by a cartographer named Lewis Woodruff.10 John Lloyd Tilghman built a dwelling house there, along with surrounding buildings that included a kitchen, a meat house, a spinning house, two barns, a brick quarter, and two tenant houses.11

Furthermore, Tilghman owned the Hermitage, a farm on Tilghman Neck north of Queenstown. The farm stood on Tilghman Creek, which overlooked oyster beds in the Chester River. Following Tilghman's death, his widow advertised the farm for rent, enticing prospective renters with the farm's "good Apple orchard and Timber sufficient for Rails and fire wood," with a location "Quite convenient to get fish and oysters."12

One of his slaves, Henry Gross, ran away in 1832, shortly after Tilghman's death.13 However, no will has been located in Queen Anne's or Talbot County records. Tilghman's son, Samuel Ogle Tilghman, appeared on J.G. Stong's map of Bennett's Point in 1866.14
 

1.     U.S. Census Bureau (Census Record, MD) for Richard Tilghman, 1790, Talbot County, district not state, Page 119, Line 4 [MSA SM61-19, M 2053-2].
3.     Eugenia Calvert Holland, Four Generations of Commissions: The Peale Collection of the Maryland Historical Society, March 3, 1975 - June 29, 1975 (Baltimore, MD: Maryland Historical Society, 1975) 137.
3.     Alice Norris Parran, Register of Maryland's Heraldic Families, March 25, 1634 to March 25, 1935 (Baltimore, MD: H. G. Roebuck and Son, 1935) 357.

2.     "Mary Gibson Tilghman and sons..." Maryland Art Source. Maryland Historical Society, http://www.marylandartsource.org/artwork/detail_000001949.html. Site no longer available.

3.     Robert Barnes, Marriages and Deaths from the Maryland Gazette, 1727-1839 (Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1973) 185.

4.     Stephen F. Tillman, Tilghman-Tillman Family, 1225-1945 (Ann Arbor, MI: Edwards Brothers, Inc., 1946) 80.
3.     Bruce Harrison, The Family Forest Descendants of Lady Joan Beaufort (Kamuela, HI: Millisecond Publishing Company, Inc., 2005) 976.

5.     "Marriages Recorded in Talbot County Newspapers: 1819-1823, 1841-1843, & 1870," Maryland Historical Magazine 81.3 (1986): 268.

6.     QUEEN ANNE'S COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF THE TAX, (Assessment Record), 1824, Description: Middle Election District, Second Part,
[MSA C1352-3], John L. Tilghman.

7.     TALBOT COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF THE TAX, (Assessment Record, Slaves), 1826, Description: Election District 2, [MSA C1835-3], John Tilghman.

8.     U.S. Census Bureau (Census Record, MD) for Cloudsbury Clash, 1820, Talbot County, Trappe District, Page 390, Line 5 [MSA SM61-78, M 2068-1].
3.     U.S. Census Bureau (Census Record, MD) for Cloudsbury Clash, 1830, Talbot County, district not stated, Page 37, 12th line from bottom [MSA SM61-93, M 70-1].
3.     U.S. Census Bureau (Census Record, MD) for Cloudsberry Clash, 1840, Talbot County, District 2, Page 28, Line 17 [MSA SM61-118, M 4725-1].
3.     U.S. Census Bureau (Census Record, MD) for Cloudsberry Clash, 1850, Caroline County, district not stated, Page 2, Line 22 [MSA SM61-133, M 1492-2].

9.     TALBOT COUNTY COURT, (Land Records), Liber JP 58, Folio 285 [MSA CE 90-61]. Cloudsbury Clash to John Tilghman, October 20, 1844.

10.   Qtd. in Frederic Emory, Queen Anne's County, Maryland: Its Early History and Development (Baltimore, MD: The Maryland Historical Society, 1950) 532.

11.   TALBOT COUNTY BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS, (Assessment Record), 1832, Description: Election District 2 [MSA C1832-2], John Tilghman (estate).
11.   Oswald Tilghman and Samuel Alexander Harrison. History of Talbot County, Maryland: 1661-1861, Vol. 2 (Baltimore, MD: William & Wilkins Co., 1915) 533.

12.   "A Farm to Rent." Centreville Times and Public Advertiser September 1, 1832: 3.

13.   "$100 Reward," Centreville Times and Public Advertiser 28 April 1832: 3.
13.   Holland 21, 137.

14.   Queen Anne's County District 5, J. G. Stong's Map of Queen Anne's County, 1866, MSA SC 5080-1, Courtesy of the Queen Anne's County Historical Society.
 

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