SERIAL-1722-When the Old Lads Absconded From the Charles County Jail

Jackson Tel

Charles County, Maryland

Late at night on April 1st, 1722, five barnacled crewmen from the old two-master, the Jillian II, absconded from the Charles County timber-framed jailhouse at Moore’s Lodge, three miles outside of Port Tobacco, and disappeared into the darkness. Thus, the ‘Old Lads,’ as the local folks called them, became the topic of much-amused speculation in taverns up and down the Patuxent River.

The ad hoc leader of that rag-tag lot was a wiry ex-pirate named Julius Teller, who was forever hatching a scheme, by hook or by crook, to make his fortune. Julius dreamt of trading his rough life under sail for that of a landed gentleman, complete with a grand house, a lovely wife, and servants at hand and foot.

Like many superstitious sailors, Julius relied on charms and rituals to ward off bad luck. But time and again, just when the riches he desired were within grasp, they were snatched from him, leaving Julius with only a memorable story to tell. And not even that, because he was incapable of telling the truth without stretching it past the point of believability.

Second in the unofficial hierarchy was Hugh Patrick Hughes, once sensationalized in Irish broadsheets as the infamous “child priest,” cornered by Protestant authorities at fifteen, branded on the cheek with a P, and exiled to Barbados. Hughes carried three cherished objects with him at all times. Those were a well-worn miniature Bible, a brass-encased glass loupe to read it with, and a penal rosary with a simple wood cross and eleven beads carved from the fallen limb of an ancient aromatic cedar growing on the slopes of Mount Lebanon.

Next was ‘Bajan,’ an enslaved Creole free-diver, originally from the French West Indies, who bought his freedom by swallowing ‘select’ pearls for retrieval later, you guess how, and selling them hugger-mugger in the shadows to hinky dealers. What was genuinely eye-popping about Bajan was that he could hold his breath for a full ten minutes, which provided a reliable source of extra income from wagers with drunken marks in taverns where he was not recognized. I said ‘eye-popping’ because that is how the onlookers looked, after about thirty seconds, when they tried to hold their breaths in concert with Bajan. One stubborn fool even lasted three minutes before he passed out.

Then there was the jack-of-all-trades Billy Jones, who could repair anything except his own heart. That precious thing was broken beyond repair when the exterior brick wall of a London factory collapsed onto the street, upon his wife and children, and took them away from him forever. Billy’s sorrow was so enormous that only the vast ocean could contain it. So he took to the solace of the sea and never spoke of it again. Oddly, Billy’s quiet sadness proved attractive to many women who felt compelled to console him, much to Julius’ chagrin, who considered himself quite the cavalier when it came to the fair sex but whose brash demeanor mostly turned them away.

And always pulling up the rear was John Stump, whose prescient surname aptly described his physical appearance. He was a Royal Navy gunner who lost both legs at the hips, but not his indefatigable spirit, to an exploding cannon barrel during the Battle of Solebay in ’72.

The attending physicians touted John’s survival as a miracle. And they were equally astonished when he learned to move about with great agility and speed by pushing up on his knuckles and swinging his torso forward. His arms became so muscled that he decisively defeated a circus strongman at the borough fair in Colchester, first in a dumbbell lifting competition and then in an arm-wrestling match. That incident caused such a stir that the master of the troupe attempted to recruit him. But John Stump had seawater in his veins, and the life of a performer was not for him.

Although the Navy would not take him back into the ranks, John hung about the dockyard at Chatham with such annoying persistence that they finally employed him to repair damaged hulls in tight spaces. Working alongside masterful maritime engineers, shipwrights, and carpenters fostered in John a keen interest in ship design. Soon, he was transferring full-scale section drawings for new ship hulls in chalk on the assembly room floor. It was a job he could do more efficiently than his co-workers, crawling around on aching knees.

Then, just three years later, John Stump met Cap’n Robert Mann, who inquired of the dockmaster about shipwrights to help him design and build a merchant ship for the burgeoning tobacco trade with the Virginia and Maryland colonies on the Chesapeake Bay of North America.

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(To Be Continued)

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