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Facts and Events
Note: Page is a Work in Progress
Property Records (for Further Review)
Harford County: Misc.
- Maryland State Archives - Angus Grem Plat and courses of tracts sold by John Lee Gibson to Angus Greme, Harford County
- Maryland State Archives - Angus Grem Deed, John Lee Gibson, to Angus Grem, Rumseys Neighbour, Harford County
- ... keep reading - there is more at the Maryland Archives
- 21 Dec 1821 Act relinquishing the right of the state to the lands therein mentioned and authorizing a conveyance of the same.
- Wilson's Farm - present day Wilson's Farm, former home of Capt. Angus Greme, 2826 Conowingo Road (aka Rt.1), Bel Air, MD 21015
Harford County: The Greme House (aka Maiden's Bower)
- Maryland State Archives - Angus Grem Deed, William Paca to Angus Grem, Maidens Bower Secured and Pacas Industry, Harford County
- ... keep reading - there is more at the Maryland Archives
- Gover-Greme House, ca 1822, listed on National Register of Historic Places
- from MD Historic Trust App
- The 1798 Federal Tax Assessment lists Angus Graham [sic] as owning 860 ac of the tract, Maiden's Bower. Tenants listed include: Daniel Loughry, Matthew Judd, and Michael Daugherty. Greme owned one slave. The house is described as a two story stone house measuring 30'x30' with numerous outbuildings such as a 10'x10' brick springhouse.
- The 1814 Maryland Tax List lists two entries for Maiden's Bower, including one in the 3rd District, Part IV: 500 ac of the tract Maiden's Bower with 19 slaves and a house measuring 30'x32'. The owner's name is difficult to read, but appears to be Mary F. Greme.
- Title Search: JLG - M - 434 - 29 Feb 1796, Grantor: William Paca ; Grantee: Angus Greme ; Acreage: 465 acres.
- Title Search: HD - 5 - 425 - 2 Jan 1822, Grantor: Angus J. Greme, et al ; Grantee Stevenson Archer ; Acreage: 465 acres.
Burial Notes
- Trappe Church is AH-166 on the list of MD Historic Properties. It was previously known as St. George's Chaple of Ease and/or St. James Chapel of Ease until 1957.
Additional Resources
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 22720432, in Find A Grave
[Includes headstone photo].
[Inscription: ANGUS GREME, Captain in the French Army under Lafayette in the American Revolution, Died June 11, 1800, Aged 50 years.]
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Maryland Historical Society. Fund Publication. (Baltimore, Maryland: The Society)
No. 32, 1891.
Fund-Publication, No. 32.
LA FAYETTE'S SECOND EXPEDITION TO VIRGINIA IN 1781.
A Paper read before the Maryland Historical Society, June 14th, 1886. BY E.M. ALLEN. Baltimore, 1891.
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p 16 -
... The names of all the aids of the division commanders do not appear. In the campaign, La Fayette had Majors George Washington (nephew of General Washington), Richard C. Anderson and Wm. Archibald, of Virginia, and Captain Angus Greme, an officer of the French Army. ...
p 24 -
... La Fayette did not command Frenchmen in the war of the Revolution, as some believe, but when he was ordered to Virginia with his detachment, he asked and obtained leave to take with him Colonel Gimat and Captain Greme, French officers then with the French troops in the United States.
A son of Captain Greme, who lived to a great age, and died in my house in 1880, has often related to me incidents connected with this march, told him by his father or family. ... Colonel Gimat and Captain Greme had long been soldiers together, and the sufferings and triumphs of their profession had united them in more than a common friendship.
Gimat was a man of wealth, and death having robbed him in early life of her whose "witching smile" had caught his "youthful fancy," his chief aim was to seek some quiet spot, when wars alarms were past, where, in the company of his friend, he could be at peace.
The two friends then and there agreed that when the war was over, they would return to France, and, after arranging their affairs, they would return to America, buy the property, now the beautiful home of Dr. Magraw, and there,
"In the cool sequestered vale of life,"
Keep "the noiseless tenor of their way."
They did go home to France, and they did return, and purchased the property which they had selected as the home of their old age.
Gimat paid for it, and presented it to his friend, Greme, and they went back to France to make their final arrangements before leaving their old home forever.
They looked forward to many years in which each might "Shoulder his crutch and show how fields were won."
But "this world has no fulfilment [sic] for hopes that rise above it," and all their plans were frustrated. That mighty cyclone, I may call it, the French Revolution of 1789 came on.
Napoleon Bonaparte, the mightiest of the race of man since Julius Caesar, appeared upon the scene.
That wonderful man intoxicated the French people with grandeur of his aspirations, and the marvels of his career. Colonel Gimat and his friend, dazzled by the glory of France, and by the mighty achievements of her wonderful leader, deferred their return to America until peace and order should triumph over the horrors of the Revolutions.
When order was restored at home, Gimat and Greme were induced to go with the French army to San Domingo to suppress the insurrection there.
Greme, in the meantime, had married in Paris, and taking his bride to Martinique, both intended to come from there to Maryland, when the insurrection was suppressed. But Colonel Gimat, the friend of Washington, the chosen companion of La Fayette, lost his life in San Domingo, falling a victim to the fury of the savage population of the island.
Greme did come, bringing with him his wife and several children, and he lived and died on the place he and his friend had chosen as the most beautiful spot they had seen in America. He lies buried, having died in 1800, in the grave-yard of the Trappe church, in Harford county, where a stone marks his grave, having an inscription stating his connection with the army under La Fayette.
- Preston, Walter Wilkes. History of Harford County, Maryland: from 1608 (the year of Smith's expedition) to the close of the War of 1812. (Baltimore, Maryland: Press of Sun Book Office, 1901).
p 138 -
CHAPTER XIII. LAFAYETTE'S EXPEDITION THROUGH HARFORD, 1781.
On April 6, 1781, Washington wrote from New Windsor, in Connecticut, to Lafayette, then at Elkton, Md., directing him to move with a detachment of the American Army and reinforce General Greene in the South. In response to this order Lafayette departed from Elkton on April 11 and crossed the Susquehanna into Harford county at a point now known as Bald Friar. ...
p 142 -
... Mr. Angus Greme, who died in 1880, at the residene of Mr. Edward M. Allen, near Darlington, in Harford county, aged eighty years, was a son of Captain Greme, who served on La Fayette's staff on this expedition.
When the officers reached that part of the road which descends to Deer Creek, at Priestford, from the Trappe Church, opposite the beautiful Indian Spring farm, they were enchanted with the scene. Looking westward in descending Deer Creek they beheld the valley that stretches across the creek and up Thomas' Run. Capt. Greme agreed with his friend Capt. Gimat, that when the war was over they would return to France, and after arranging their affairs, come back to America and buy the land which so enchanted their eyes. This plan they carried out, and after gentle peace had spread her wings over the land the two friends returned and bought the rich farm, lately the home of Dr. James M. Macgraw, on Thomas' Run. Gimat, who was wealthy, paid for the land and presented it to his friend Greme, and both returned to France, intending to come back to America. But they served in the French Army in the war then in progress on the continent, and Gimat went to Santo Domingo in the service of France and was killed there.
Greme, however, returned, bringing his wife and several children, and he lived and died on the estate he and his friend had chosen as the most beautiful spot they had seen in America. He died in the year 1800, and lies buried in the cemetery of the Trappe Church, in Harford county, where a stone marks his grave, bearing on it an inscription stating his connection with the Army of La Fayette.
Colonel Gimat was especially distinguished at Yorktown, whither La Fayette led his detachment which passed through Harford.*
[* From address before Maryland Historical Society by Mr. E.M. Allen.]
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[Note: heavily based upon Allen's 1886 paper2]
- Arnett, Earl; Robert J. Brugger; and Edward C. Papenfuse. Maryland: a new guide to the Old Line State. (Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1999)
p 476.
"... By the time of the Revolution, the countryside was dotted with small manor houses, a few churches, and mills along Deer Creek, many constructed from local granite. ... During the Revolution, French and American troops under the command of the Marquis de Lafayette crossed the Susquehanna at nearby Bald Friar, and a number of the french officers were struck by the natural beauty of the countryside. Angus Greme, a captain, and his friend, Col. Jean Joseph de Gimat, returned after the war and bought 800 acres west of Priest Neale's Mass House. Gimat was killed in Saint-Domingue during the French struggle with Toussaint L'Ouverture, but Greme settled here with his family and farmed the land until his death in 1800. His simple tombstone still sits in the churchyard at Trappe Church (Trappe Church and Priest Ford Rds.), once a chapel of ease for St. George's Parish. ..."
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[Note: Greme is buried in the cemetery at what was originally called St. George’s Chapel of Ease. However, precisely where is difficult to determine. The tombstone stands in amongst a row of other stones which were moved when the cemetery was restored after years of neglect... Trappe Missionary Baptist Church has called this spot home since 1957.] ...
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