John Wesley Bordley (b. ? - d.
1833)
MSA SC 5496-051247
Property Owner near Centreville, Queen Anne's County, Maryland
Biography:
The son of James Bordley and Mary Ann Hopper,1 John Wesley Bordley was a Methodist reverend for the Queen Anne's County circuit.2 He married Deborah Fisher, the daughter of John Fisher. John W. and Deborah Bordley had five children: James, Sallie Fisher, Christopher, William Wesley, and Thomas.3 Bordley owned the family homestead, Bordlington, near Centreville, along with farmland near Wye.4
Around 1886, the Centreville Record described the ruins of the "Bordley mansion" in Wye as an
...old brick building, which was never completed as designed, ... intended to form a square, in true oriental style, with a spacious court-yard in the centre, for flowers, fountains and trees, and in which stood a magnificent weeping willow. Around the old house stood a few old trees in regular rows. marking the location of a once splendid park. Nearly opposite the manor house, on the shores of both Front and Back Wye, are to be seen the remains of substantial stone piers. These were formed of stout blocks of granite, firmly imbedded in layers of lead.5Along with his farms near Centreville and in Wye, John W. Bordley also owned the farm Emorys Forrest on Kent Island, a house in Easton, and another house in the town of Centreville.6 His wife owned Corsica Farm northwest of Centreville.7 The original 1787 plat, patented by William Ringgold, showed the farm as bordering Corsica Creek and Bishop's Cove.8
Bordley intermixed his land transactions with a number of slave manumissions.
Writing that "never could have peace of conscience" until he freed his
slaves, Bordley manumitted the slaves Phill, Moses, and Charles in 1806.9
In 1813, he also manumitted Simon, Hannah, and John.10 However,
in 1820, Bordley still owned fifty-seven slaves, mostly men.11
That year, he purchased "one negro man Thomas, otherwise called Tom Smith"
for $350.12 Between 1824 and 1825, he manumitted five more slaves:
Noah, Sid, Nance, Sid's daughter Mary Eliza, and Nance's son Simon.13
In May 1828, he advertised for
the capture of a fugitive slave named Samuel.14
In February 1832, Bordley signed a petition against stricter manumission
laws, and which also promoted the deportation of free blacks to Liberia.
The petition stated that Virginia's strict manumission laws had "probably
led in part to the disasters of South Hampton."15
Three weeks before his death in April or May of 1833, Bordley took a steamboat across the Chesapeake Bay to Baltimore, where he consulted doctors and wrote his will.16 According to his obituary in the Centreville Times, Bordley died from "marasmus," which caused him to "waste down to a mere skeleton."17 Some doctors of the time considered marasmus in the elderly as the "natural disease of death," and consequently incurable.18 Bordley was buried in Queen Anne's County at the family cemetery.19
Bordley had amassed significant debts by the time of his death. For instance, Bordley owed at least $2,900 to the M.E. Reverend (later Bishop) Robert Emory for a mortgage on "Hilsdon Enlarged," with Emory later suing Bordley's estate.20 Shortly before his demise, Bordley had sold three farms, with their growing crops, to Judge Philemon Blake Hopper. Corsica Farm and Bordlington Farm in Centreville, along with "my farm in Wye called Hillson," or Hillsdon, sold for a total of $5,500.21 His will instructed the selling of the rest of his land towards his debts. Bordley's will requested that his slaves not be sold for these debts, if possible, and appointed his son, Dr. James Bordley, and his nephew and son-in-law, William Hopper Bordley, as executors.22
Around 1835, William D. Bordley purchased twelve
slaves from John W. Bordley's estate: the boys Bill, Charles, Sam,
and Washington, the girls Henny, Eliza, Mily, and Judy, two girls both
named Harriet, the woman Caroline, and the man Ned.23
1. Mary Bourke Emory. Colonial Families and Their Descendants (Baltimore, MD: Press of the Sun Printing Office, 1900) 192.
2. Edward J. Drinkhouse,
History
of Methodist Reform: Synoptical of General Methodism, 1703 to 1898,
Vol. 2 (Norwood, MA: Norwood Press, 1899) 139.
Frederic Emory,
Queen
Anne's County, Maryland: Its Early History and Development (Baltimore,
MD: The Maryland Historical Society, 1950) 236.
3. QUEEN ANNE'S COUNTY
COURT, (Land Records), 1811-1813, Liber JB 1, Folio 445 [MSA CE 143-29].
John W. Bordley and Deborah Bordley to Arthur Holt, November 23, 1812.
Release.
Mary
Bourke Emory 192.
4. Mary Bourke Emory 192.
5. Qtd. in Frederic Emory 534.
6. QUEEN ANNE'S COUNTY, REGISTER OF WILLS, (Accounts of Sale), 1833-1837, Liber TCE 3, Folios 271-276, 302-303, and 363-369 [MSA C1333-3], John W. Bordley.
7. Mary Bourke Emory 192.
Isaac Newton
Earle, History and Genealogy of the Earles of Secaucus: With an Account
of other English and American Branches (Marquette, MI: Guelff Printing
Company, 1925) 212.
8. Queen Anne's County Circuit Court, Land Survey, Subdivision, and Condominium Plats, (Certificates, Patented, QA), [MSA S1204], Corsica Farm, William Ringgold, 1176 1/8 Acres.
9. QUEEN ANNE'S COUNTY COURT, (Land Records), 1805-1807, Liber STW 8, Folio 160 [MSA CE 143-26], John W. Bordley to Phill, Moses, and Charles, April 6, 1806. Manumission.
10. QUEEN ANNE'S COUNTY COURT, (Land Records), 1811-1813, Liber JB 1, Folio 545 [MSA CE 143-29], John W. Bordley to Simon, Hannah, and John. Manumission.
11. U.S. CENSUS BUREAU, (Census Record, MD) for John W. Bordley, 1820, Queen Anne's County, Page 176, 6th line from bottom [M 2067-1, MSA SM61-75].
12. QUEEN ANNE'S COUNTY COURT, (Land Records), 1818-1822, Liber TM 2, Folio 174, [MSA CE 143-32], Turbutt Harris and Henrietta Maria Harris to John W. Bordley, January 7, 1820. Bill of Sale.
13. QUEEN ANNE'S COUNTY COURT, (Land
Records), 1822-1825, Liber TM 3, Folio 404 [MSA CE 143-33], John W. Bordley
to Sid, Mary Eliza, Nance, and Simon, December 29, 1824. Manumission.
Ibid,
Folio 416 [MSA CE 143-33], John W. Bordley to Noah, January 25, 1825. Manumission.
14. "$100 Reward." Centreville Times 21 June 1828: 4.
15. James Wood Poplar Grove Collection, MSA SC 5807-13-0268.
16. "Deaths." Centreville Times 5 May 1833: 3.
17. Ibid.
18. George E. Day, A Practical Treatise on the Domestic Management and Most Important Diseases of Advanced Life (Philadelphia, PA: Lea and Blanchard, 1849) 65.
19. "Deaths," Centreville Times 5 May 1833: 3.
20. CHANCERY COURT, (Chancery Papers),
Robert Emory vs. Deborah Bordley and John W. Bordley, June 30, 1837, Case
No. 7669, Mortgage foreclosure on Hilsdon Enlarged [MSA S512-10-7672].
Frederic
Emory 235.
21. QUEEN ANNE'S COUNTY COURT, (Land Records), 1831-1833, Liber TM 6, Folio 382 [MSA CE 143-36]. John W. Bordley to Philemon Blake Hopper, January 11, 1833.
22. QUEEN ANNE'S COUNTY REGISTER OF
WILLS, (Wills, Original), 1789-1849 [MSA C1496-22], John W. Bordley, April
10, 1833.
Mary
Bourke Emory 192-193.
23. QUEEN ANNE'S COUNTY, REGISTER OF
WILLS, (Accounts of Sale), 1833-1837, Liber TCE 3, Folios 367-368 [MSA
C1333-3], John W. Bordley.
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