Tuckahoe

"Tuckahoe" is a Native American word for the large, truffle-like fungus that grew in the rich, moist soil along waterways, as well as for "tubers" like Indian Turnips. From those edible "bulbs," the Cherokees and others got starch to make their bread.

I am amazed that my Loveday ancestors from the 1700s lived along the Tuckahoe in Talbot County, Maryland, and then my Loveday grandparents coincidently lived along the Tuckahoe in Knox County, Tennessee!

Cousin Guy Merritt shares that all of our Tuckahoe and Thorn Grove area was once owned by the Derioux family. Peter Derioux was next in line to be the King of France, but when the French Revolution beheaded the king and his wife, Peter decided he should leave. He lived across the road from Thomas Jefferson, and Peter's grandson, also named Peter, came to East Tennessee, where he was a doctor in Dandridge. He owned many acres, and local families, including the Cokers, married into the Derioux holdings.

The Coker/Tuckahoe Mill stood just below the location of our grandparents' home place and was run by Guy's great grandfather William Lafayette Merritt. Mr. Merritt first ran a mill in Wear's Valley for Ahas Bryan and then moved to Newport to run the mill downtown there before eventually moving to Tuckahoe to run the one pictured here.

Maryland Loveday Legacy

Although the Loveday lines in Maryland have dwindled since the days of the Revolutionary War, their name is remembered in local landmarks.

Cecilius Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore, was the first Proprietary of the Province of Maryland. He named Talbot County, established in 1661 along the Eastern Shore, for his sister Grace Talbot, wife of Sir Robert Talbot. Initially, Talbot County stretched to include all territory between the head waters of the Choptank and Chester Rivers and eastward to the Delaware border. Later, portions of Talbot were divided among the counties of Queen Anne’s, Caroline, and Kent. In 1706, the boundaries of Talbot County were clearly defined to include Sharps Island, Choptank Island, Poplar Island, and Bruffs Island, as well as all the land north of the Great Choptank River up to the Tuckahoe Bridge and over to Sweatman’s Mill, then down the south side of the Wye River to the bay.

When colonists came to the Eastern Shore area of Maryland, they divided the settlement into “hundreds,” like those established by the Angles and Saxons a thousand years earlier when they first arrived in old England. The old English custom divided the lands among ten families, estimating that each family and its servants numbered ten people, totaling a hundred people in each area. Although the Maryland divisions of hundreds were originally just geographic divisions, they were later used as election districts. The Lovedays owned land in the Tuckahoe Hundred, as well as others.

Their original holdings dated back to the 1600s and over the years included several hundreds of acres and parcels named Friendship, Upper Range, Jordan's Hill, Middle Spring, Matthew's Chance, Francis Plains, Swine Yard, Parker's Farm, Dudley, Middle Neck, Hampton, Bloomsberry, Baildon, Bennetts Freshes, Crooked Lane, Frankford, St. Michaels, Hatton, Knave Stand Off, Holland's Spring, Loveday's Hope, Loveday's Purchase, and Loveday's Lot.

Revolutionary War Repercussions

So what happened to those Maryland Lovedays and their wealth? After reading much about the history of Talbot County and looking at its records, I personally believe that the situation was similar to what happened in Sevier County during and after the Civil War. The people of Talbot County were divided in their loyalties, many of them being Quakers who were pacifists, while others were passionate colonists fighting for independence. Although the Loveday men fought in the Revolution, they were also closely associated with their Quaker neighbors, even attending many of their meetings. During the war itself, their area was ravaged by the burning and looting of plantations and the pirating of the waters, and the cost of the war itself took its toll.

Details may be found in Oswald Tilghman's book, History of Talbot County Maryland, 1661-1861, Vols. I & II, published in Baltimore by Williams & Wilkins Company in 1915.

Edward Loveday's Birth State: Maryland

One of the most exciting adventures I've had in my genealogical research involved a trip to Maryland, Sevier County progenitor Edward Loveday's birth state. Although we've not been able to determine which of the Maryland Loveday sons was Edward's father, we do know a lot about them.

Prior to the Revolutionary War, they were great landholders, owning several tracts in Talbot County and even some in other counties as well. Imagine the thrill I had as my husband and I drove through the county and began to see roads that bore names similar to the lands those Lovedays once held. Amazingly, I discovered that the Loveday home established in the 1600s was still there! What an incredible experience to introduce myself to the owner and be given a tour of the house and grounds, seeing the cellar, the footprint (an impression in the back yard that reveals a brick floor) of what was probably an early detached kitchen, the household tools and implements found in the walls during remodeling, the shards of kitchenware found in the dirt, and a lonely grave, which is all that remains of a cemetery on the property (located at the tree on the right of the field in the photo). Our lovely host generously gave me one of the original bricks, and I in turn gave her a piece of pottery I created, which now sits in her window sill, holding some of those broken treasures from the past. It was a wonderful connection to the Lovedays of the past with a Loveday from the present.