Double Pipe Creek Farm

In 1832, George Henry sold the Wakefield farm and bought a 585-600 acre spot of land, dubbed the Double Pipe Creek Farm. The land became extremely productive and benefited both the family and the community.
Here's a great article on the community of Double Pipe Creek. Some of the article, written in 1895, describes the area's history as follows:


The land on which the village now stands and the surrounding vicinity embracing about 600 acres called “Prosperity,” was in 1794 owned by Joshua Delaplane, in which year he founded a large grist mill with a capacity of 100 barrels of flour per day, on the Frederick side of the stream of Double Pipe Creek.  Joshua Delaplane was a manufacturer of some note in his day and carried on not only the grist mill, but a woolen mill, and a saw mill on the opposite side of the creek in Carroll county, with saw mill attached to said woolen mill.  The woolen mill still stands, but no looms have made music within its walls for these many years, (since 1849).

The said Joshua Delaplane in 1835 sold his mill properties and land in the vicinity to Henry Waesche, and from 1835 to 1847, no changes of any consequence occurred.  In 1849 Henry Waesche sold the milling properties to Henry McKinstry, and a few years later the land was purchased by Elder Daniel P. Sayler.  Waesche, during the “Gold Fever” of 1849, in company with William Waesche, John Landers, Frederick Miller, and many Baltimoreans, started to California in search of gold.

Land, Marriage, and the Beginnings of a Family

George Henry was a hard worker, 5'9", strong and well built, with fair blue eyes, and full of ambition. He studied with Mr. David Cassell for several years until he was ready to manage his own land. He and Catherine Cassell were married on the 27th of November 1828, in Frederick, Frederick County, Maryland. Around that same time, George Henry purchased the Wakefield Valley Farm; located near the town of Westminster, it was later called the John Smith Farm. His first purchase of land ushered in a series of land purchases and sales that occurred over the next fifteen years. Carroll county soon became well acquainted with the Waesche family. Here Catherine and George Henry's first son, George Washington Waesche, was born on 31 Oct 1829. Here's a picture of Catherine in her later years from Margaret's book.

Naturalization

I recently found a document that states that on 23 Oct 1828, George became a naturalized United States citizen. I found this naturalization card found on fold3.com which gives a glimpse of the journey he took in his youth. His passport, I later found on Ancestry.com records his naturalization, as well as his physical appearance. What stories lay between the years recorded in these documents? I assure you, there are several to tell.







National Archives and Records Administration (NARA),Washington D.C.; Passport Applications, 1795-1905; ARCIdentifier 566612 / MLR Number A1 508; NARA Series:  M1372; Roll # 29.
Index to Naturalization petitions to the US Circuit and District Courts for Maryland 1797-1951. 21. National Archives.

Adventures on Land and Sea

George Henry's brother Frederick had immigrated years earlier to work with their uncle, George Repold. George Repold  immigrated to America soon after the Revolution, and had become a successful merchant and influential figure in Baltimore. Margaret B. wrote of him, "His Clipper Ships plied the seas, and he directed with great foresight his wholesale business with England, Germany, and the Indies." Three of his ships were destroyed in the Napoleonic wars after their illegal seizures by the French. It is interesting to note, that the compensation claims for the ships have never  been entirely settled. Frederick received the inheritence of their uncle's real estate. Although he was mentioned Repold's will, George wasn't qualified to inherit as he was not yet an american citizen and considered "an alien."

After George Henry joined his brother in Baltimore in 1821, he made a trip to Europe and around Cape Horn on one of the Waesche clipper ships. His itch for seafaring life, as we will see, transcended the generations and has manifest in the lives of many Waesche decedents.

When his adventures turned back to the mainland, George was sent to Carroll County Maryland to become a farmer. While his brother was busy in Baltimore, George paid two hundred and fifty dollars each year for boarding and to be taught farming in the home of David Cassell. 

Margaret B. recounts, "How well farming was learned, the writer knows not, but from family gossip, he learned better how to love David's niece, Catherine Cassell."