Thomas DRAPER and Henry ANKENY  vs Amos ADAMS, 
Henry TRITLE and Elizabeth his wife, 
Michael KEGERICE and David KEGERICE dated 6 Jan 1842

The object of this suit is to procure and _______ of the personal 
estate, and a decree for the sale of the real estate of Michael 
KEGERICE, deceased, in order to pay and satisfy the debts due by the 
said deceased, at the time of his death.

The Bill states that Michael KEGERICE at the time of his death, was 
indebted to Thomas DRAPER in the sum of $159.32 and unto Henry ANKENY 
as trustee for Joshua NEWCOMER, in the sum of $25.54 - and that said 
Michael KEGERICE was also indebted to diverse other persons.  That the 
said KEGERICE, being indebted, died intestate in the beginning of the 
year 1841 having Elizabeth, Michael and David, his children and heirs 
at law - the said Elizabeth being intermarried with Henry TRITLE - and 
the said Michael and David being minors under twenty-one years of age. 
That administration of the personal estate of said deceased, has been 
granted by the Orphan's Court of Washington County unto Amos ADAMS.  
That said personal estate is insufficient to pay the debts due and 
owing by said Michael KEGERICE, deceased, at the time of his death.  
And that said Michael left certain real estate in Washington County, 
which descended to his heirs at law.  And acting by the Petition of 
said Thomas DRAPER and Henry ANKENY, and also by the return of the 
Sheriff of Washington County, to the writ of subpoena issued in this 
case, that the said Henry TRITLE and Elizabeth his wife, the said 
Michael KEGERICE Jr and David KEGERICE are not citizens of the State 
of Maryland and do not reside therein.

It is therefore adjudged and ordered this 6th day of January, 1842, that 
the complainants by causing a copy of this order to be inserted in some 
newspaper published at Hagerstown once in each of three successive weeks 
before the 3rd day of February, 1842, give notice to the said absent 
defendants of the object and substance of this bill; and warn them to 
appear in this Court in person or by solicitor, on or before the first 
day of July, 1842, to answer the premises and show cause if any they 
have, why a decree ought not to be passed as prayed - otherwise the bill 
will be taken as confessed against them.
(True copy - test - O.H. WILLIAMS, Clerk - Jan 14, 1842)

John D. WELTY, being desirous of removing to the western country, will 
sell at public sale on Wednesday, 16th of February in front of the 
Court House in Hagertown between 10 and 2 o'clock - his valuable farm 
situated in Ringgold's manor, adjoining the lands of Benjamin FITZHUGH,
John MALOTT and others, five miles from Hagerstown and four miles from 
Williamsport.  Consists of 117 1/2 acres of first-rate Limestone Land, 
20 acres are well timbered and the balance in fine state of cultivation.  
Improvements consist of Log House and Barn, elegant Stone Spring House 
and all necessary out buildings; a superior spring of the best and 
never-failing water, most elegantly situated with all stock from different 
parts of the farm having free access to the streams.  Also, fine young 
orchard of fruit trees, apples, peaches, pears, cherrys, plumbs, etc.

George BEARD, the subject of this sketch, who died on the 28th day of 
February just passed, was the only son of Andrew BEARD, and was a 
descendant of one of the earliest families that settled in the valley of 
Maryland.  Before the red man was fairly ousted from his hunting grounds 
in this valley, Nicholas BEARD, the father of Andrew, emigrated hither. 
He was a native of Germany and first settled in Pennsylvania as most of 
the emigrants from the fatherland did at that time; but afterwards, for 
the purpose of acquiring cheap lands, removed to this locality, the then 
backwoods of America.  This place, by common consent, received the name 
of "Beard's Church" and the "Beard's Church Settlement" from the fact 
that, at an early day, the fathers made provision for some sort of a 
house of worship and pitched upon this locality as a site for their 
church.  Thus "Beard's Church" is a name and a place that in all 
probablilty will descend to the latest posterity.

George BEARD was born, lived and died at or near the old homestead of 
the Beard family.  Here he tilled the soil his father and his father's
father tilled before him; here he raised his family, where his father 
and his father's father before him raised theirs; and here he is buried 
in the old graveyard of the church.  He was the last and only survivor 
of the name, in whose possession remained any portion of the patrimony 
by descent from the old sire who nearly a century and a half before, 
had located here in the wilderness.  True, there is, in the hands of 
other branches of the family a certain portion of those lands, but it 
was acquired by purchase.

The first church building of this name has long since passed away.  It 
was merely a blockhouse.  I well recollect when a boy, the house that 
was pointed out to me, standing on the high bluff on the banks of the 
Antietam, that was said to have been built of the logs of the first 
Beard's Church.  This ancient building has long since been demolished. 
It was in this old church that ZULIPHEN and SCHRADER, and the likes of
them, held forth, immediately succeeding the war of the revolution.  
Some of them, it is said, practiced exorcism.  It is said that they 
were of the soldiers that Wilhelm of Hesse Cassel had hired to the king 
of England to fight our forefathers in the revolution.  He had made
conscripts of many of the students of his university.  Hence, they were
men of parts.

The fathers of those days replaced the old building by a new blockhouse 
which served as the Beard's church for successive generations.  I 
distinctly recollect seeing the date of the building of this house; it 
was inlaid in the wood (which was black walnut) of the old stem-glass
pulpit which stood on the northwest side of the church.  This date was
1787 and around it were written with a pen or pencil the names of the
worthies who had been chiefs in building this house of worship.  Among
those names were Nicholas BEARD, Francis PRETZMAN, Philip OSWALD and
others.  I can remember the old organ and organ gallery, and many other
things connected with this second church, which, in time, had to give 
way to more modern improvement.  The interior of the old church was
remodeled; the stem glass pulpit, the old organ and gallery - indeed, 
the entire interior was gutted, and with it those ancient relics and
records above mentioned disappeared, and the inside re-arranged after 
the newer style of churches.  This state of things, however, did not 
long endure; the material of which the house was built was going to decay.
 The congregation, some years ago, resolved to take down this house too,
and replace it with a more substantial brick building.  The material of 
the old house was sold, and from it was built a house, standing to this 
day not very far from the forks of the roads leading to Hagerstown and 
Funkstown and not such a great way from the site of the other old building 
already mentioned.

Thus, I close my reminiscence of the ancient Beard's Church.  Of the new, 
I have nothing futher to say.

Nicholas BEARD, the grandfather of the subject of this notice, took up 
and patented a large tract of land in this locality on which he and his 
posterity of generations lived.  The patent name for this land was "The 
Dutch Lass".  The old surveyors who usually named those lands, were very 
fruitful in the choice of names, generally selecting one from some 
circumstance or cause connected with the peculiar parcel in question; 
and, I have no doubt, "The Dutch Lass" was suggested in this case, because
Beard was a German, in consequence of which the name was regarded as 
appropriate.

Old grandfather Beard selected a very oddly shaped piece of land for his 
possessions.  He employed a surveyor to run it out for him, as was the 
custom at that day.  They started out, Beard in advance, and the surveyor 
following after, and whenever they came to a place that did not suit him, 
he would run it out of his parcel, and whenever a place suited, he would 
run it in.  It is said that, when they were running lines in the vicinity 
where the Western Maryland Railroad now cuts through the ridge at WALTZ's, 
he thought they were approaching the mountain (at that time, the country 
was a wilderness) so he turned off short, and made a very sharp point of 
land at that place, which he afterwards corrected, by trading with the 
owners of the adjoining lands.

Those adjoining lands had been subsequently patented by JOHNSTON and CHASE 
under the name of "Gleanings".  This, likewise, was a significant name as 
it ws intended to include all that was left in the field over which land 
gatherers had been reaping a harvest.

And now we say, in conclusion, in reference to the subject we have been 
considering, thus has passed away another of the ancient landmarks of 
civilization.  What stupendous changes are wrought by time, and what an 
interesting chapter in the chronicles of the past might be written of but 
a single precinct, if the reocrds of families would be more carefully 
preserved.  O.