From the Shore to the Frontier

From the late eighteenth century through the mid-nineteenth century, members of the Wathen family moved in waves from Southern Maryland into Kentucky, and later into Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. These migrations were shaped by access to land, inheritance practices, Catholic community networks, and physical geography. 

Land, Inheritance, and the Pressure to Move

Mark Twain is often quoted as saying, “Buy land. They’re not making any more of it.”

Land was plentiful in early colonial Maryland, and young men like John Wathen were granted their own plantations as an incentive to help settle the New World. When John died, he was able to give tracts of land to three of his five sons—John, Ignatius, and James. As generations passed, however, the number of Southern Marylanders multiplied, but the amount of local acreage did not.

In an agricultural economy, access to land could make the difference between prosperity and poverty, so land-owning parents had to consider carefully how to distribute their property in their wills. Some, like Bennett Wathen, arranged for one child to inherit all their land, leaving their other children to find means of their own. Others, like Ignatius Wathen, divided their plantations among several children, but subdivided land could easily become too small to viably farm.

As a result, some Wathens began moving to other parts of Maryland. Ignatius Wathen Jr., Leonard Wathen, and John Wathen—three sons of Ignatius Sr. who each inherited and then sold a third of Wathen’s Adventure—moved north into Montgomery County, Maryland. Others from Southern Maryland settled in Frederick County, Maryland, where the spelling of the family name occasionally shifted to “Warthen.”

Kentucky and the Catholic Frontier

Because real estate on the frontiers of Kentucky was plentiful and inexpensive, many more Wathens moved farther west. Jeremiah and Dorothy Wathen were part of the “Catholic League of Families”, a group from St. Mary’s County that settled along Pottinger’s Creek in Nelson County, Kentucky to establish a Catholic community. Henry Hudson Wathen III instead moved to Rolling Fork in Washington County, Kentucky, where he and his descendants became pioneers in the bourbon industry. John Baptist Wathen, son of Ignatius, moved with his family from Montgomery County, Maryland to Cartwright’s Creek in Washington County, Kentucky.

The Road West: From Braddock’s Road to the Ohio River

The journey from Maryland to Kentucky was a long and arduous one. While the eastern parts of Maryland had well-established wagon roads by the mid-1700s, worn by a century and a half of settlement, the western part of the state was much less navigable. The rugged Appalachian mountain range, with its dense forests and steep inclines, spread from western Maryland to mid-Kentucky, making travel by wagon very difficult.

The most common migration route began on Braddock’s Road, which stretched from Cumberland, Maryland, to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Braddock’s Road was a military road in the Appalachian mountains, painstakingly cleared by General Braddock and hundreds of his troops to travel from Fort Cumberland to Fort Duquesne in 1755. In the decades that followed, the route allowed settlers to begin their journey into the mountain wilderness.

After arriving at Pittsburgh, it was often easier to travel by river than by road. Those heading toward Kentucky would load their wagons onto flatboats and travel down the Ohio River, which winds from Pittsburgh to the southern tip of Illinois. Some Wathens settled along the way: John and Raphael Wathen temporarily settled in what is now West Virginia; Mary Ann Wathen Clarke and her daughters settled farther downstream; and Henry Wathen settled in Ohio before continuing west.

Those floating down the Ohio River had to disembark before reaching Louisville. The Falls of the Ohio created a series of dangerous rapids that could not be navigated by a flatboat. Many Wathens settled nearby in what became known as the “Kentucky Holy Land”. Other Wathens continued farther down the Ohio River into places like southern Illinois or Missouri.

Memory, Myth, and Maryland Pride

Local memory in St. Mary’s County even preserved a humorous sense of regret about leaving Maryland behind. The late historian Edwin Beitzell recalled a tradition in which old pioneers from Southern Maryland would jokingly exchange kicks in Bardstown as a form of “penance” for having abandoned the peaceful shores of home. There is probably little truth to the story, but it remains an amusing reflection of Maryland pride, and of the deep attachment many families felt to the land they left behind.