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OLD BALTIMORE COUNTY (NOW HARFORD COUNTY) & CECIL COUNTY MD BETWEEN DEER CREEK & MOUTH OF SUSQUEHANNAH AT UPPER END OF CHESAPEAKE BAY.
0. [Surnames: FOY, FOYE, DE LA FOYE, FIE]
1. Seeking history and origins of the name "Foy's Hill" just outside Charlestown, Cecil County, MD.
2. Seeking location, history & origins of name "Foy's Landing" (circa 1725-1751) on Susquehannah River near the Upper or Lower Ferry linking what is today Harford County (then Baltimore County) to Cecil County, MD.
3. Seeking Grave of Miles Foy (1674-1751) at St. Joseph (Jesuit) Mission, on Deer Creek, in Harford County, (then Baltimore Co.) MD.
4. Seeking parish records of Jesuit Mission, St. Joseph's, established and run by Jesuit Priest, Father Bennett NEALE, on Deer Creek in Harford County, circa 1740-1756, which was associated with larger Jesuit/Roman Catholic Agricultural Estate (Bohemia Manor) & Church at the head of the Bohemia River, on the Eastern Shore of Chesapeake Bay, Cecil Co MD, so As To Trace Births, Baptisms, Marriages, Deaths, etc. of other Members of Miles FOY's Family.
5. Miles Foy, in his will (18 November 1751 - 9 December 1751, then Baltimore County), asked to be "buried at the Roman [Catholic] Chapel." I believe this very probably referred to "a Papist Chapel built on a hill", otherwise known as "The Monastery at Priest’s Ford," situated on the south bank of Deer Creek [Susquehanna Tributary] and three miles north of Churchville in what was then Baltimore County but is today Harford County, MD.
6. Between 1740 and 1747 a Jesuit Priest, Father Bennett NEALE settled on Deer Creek in this area and remained through 1756; he may have built a monastery known as the "Mission of St. Joseph," and less formally as "Priest Neale’s Mass House." Irish workmen at nearby Nottingham Iron Forge and nearby Lancaster Iron Forge may have constituted his flock.
7. Accompanying Fr. Bennett Neale (Neall) to MD were his kinsmen James Neall and Edward Neall, who formed a partnership for producing iron and built the forge on the opposite side of Deer Creek. (Mason, Samuel, Jr. Historical Sketches of Harford County, Maryland. Lancaster, PA: Intelligencer Printing Co., 1955. Dewey Call No. is 975.274 M, pp. 78-79; 173-174). Also, Walter W. Preston, (in History of Harford County Maryland; Bel Air, MD., Orig. Published in Baltimore, MD, 1901; Reprinted in Baltimore by Regional Publishing Co., 1972, LoC F187.H2P9 1972; Dewey 917.52’74’03), in a discusion of "The Catholic Church in Harford County," notes that very early in the 18th Century, members of the Catholic Church began to take up lands and settle about Deer Creek, and its tributaries, from the Susquehanna River in the east to the neighborhood of Cooptown in the west. Of the first names that are in evidence of this immigration, these are some of the more prominent: Wheeler, Clarke, Shea, McElroy, FOY, and at a period somewhat later, Flanagan, Cretin, Doran, McBride, Quinlan, Mattingly, Jenkins, Green, Cooper, Coskery, Cain, Bussey, Boarman, Macatee, etc. Preston clearly had access, in 1901, to some sort of parish records or perhaps to then extant tombstones at the site of this early Jsuit Mission. Does anyone know where the records are today? Perhaps we may infer from this that Miles Foy was a Roman Catholic; however, this also likely was the closest church to his home.
8. It is quite likely that this Mission of St. Joseph, run by Fr. Bennett Neill/Neale was subordinate to the much larger Roman Catholic estate, preparatory-school, agricultural establishment, and church over (eastward) at Bohemia Manor, across the Chesapeake Bay and on the Eastern Shore, at the head of the Bohemia River, in Cecil County, which was run by the famous John Carroll who later (1789) founded Georgetown University. Not clear whether any graves in the cemetery of this Jesuit mission on Deer Creek have survived (it later became a monestary) or whether they have been catalogued, or whether the parish records have survied, locally in Harford County, in Baltimore County, in Cecil County, at Bohemia Manor, in the Maryland Hall of Records at Annapolis, or at the Georgetown University Manuscript Collection & Archives.
9. Miles FOY and his wife Frances owned an Estate known as "EIGHTRUPP/AITROPP," etc. in Harford County, originally patented by Daniel JOHNSON.
10. Miles FOY was in 1736 employed up in Chester County PA as a "Wool-Comber" by Justice of the Peace Elisha Gatchell.
11. Miles Foy also may have operated one of two Ferrys across the Susquehanna, previously operated by his close friend Thomas CRESAP. One Ferry at Lapidum circa 1727-37 (possibly the Upper Ferry or Blue Rock Ferry). Miles FOY was a close friend & associate of the famous Captain Thomas Cresap and was jailed with Cresap in Philadelphia Prison for about a year in 1736-37 in connection with much fighting & violence during the MD-PA border wars.
12. Miles FOY was married to Frances, who previously had been married to 1.) Daniel Johnson, 2.) Edward Harris, and 3.) Hugh Grant.
13. "Foy's Landing" on the Susquehannah River (perhaps near one of the Ferries run by Thomas Cresap and/or Miles Foy (Upper Ferry, Lower Ferry, Blue Rock Ferry?) and "Foy's Hill" (just outside of Charlestown in Cecil County) may be named after Miles Foy or for other members of his family, although in the last century or two these names may have faded from local memory. Foy's Hill was still a term in common use when the British Fleet burned Havre de Grace & threatened Port Deposit & Charlestown during the War of 1812. Citizens of Charlestown rightly feared that the British Fleet would burn their town and so evacuated it, moving all their belongings outside the town to what they believed would be a place of safety on "Foy's Hill." Can anyone help me precisely to locate this hill on a USGS map or to explain how and why it was in May of 1815 still referred to locally as "Foy's Hill?"
14. Bottom Line:Seeking any records of Miles Foy's family, parents, siblings (he had a sister, Mary FOY, living in Baltimore/Harford County in 1751) children, origins in England, Ireland, Channel Islands, or elsewhere. Will welcome any assistance you can provide in locating Miles FOY's Grave, in locating the parish records of this Jesuit Mission on Deer Creek, and in discovering the origins of the Foys in early Harford, Cecil, Baltimore Counties, ca. 1682-1751. Regards, George H. Stevens (GHStevens3@AOL.COM); 705 Gleneagles Drive; Fort Washington, MD 20744-7012
Home: 301-292-1202
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