Maryland's Colonial Eastern Shore
The following is an excerpt from "Maryland's Colonial Eastern Shore, Historical Sketches of Counties and of Some Notable Structures". By Swepson Earle, editor, Percy G Skirvin, Assistant Editor. Published in 1916 by Weathervane Books, a division of Barre Publishing Company.
Below is an excerpt from pages 89 and 90.
REHOBOTH
Built about 1725
UNTIL 1684 Somerset County claimed "Nanticoke Hundred" in Dorchester.
The dispute over the territory was finally settled by a commission,
which decided that the northeast branch of the Nanticoke River was the
boundary and not North-West Fork.
One of the most prominent families living in this vicinity were the
Lees, allied with the distinguished Lee family of Virginia. A tract of
2,350 acres, known as "Rehoboth," was patented to Capt. John Lee in
1673. upon which fifty years later was built the quaint old brick house,
which is unchanged and in a perfect state of preservation at the present
time.
Upon the death of Capt. John Lee the estate was inherited by his
brother. Col. Richard Lee. of "Mount Pleasant" Virginia, who had large
holdings in that State in addition to this property. Dying in 1714. he
devised the place to his son. Philip, who then lived in Prince George's
County. Maryland, and who died in 1744, leaving to each of his sons.
Corbin, John. George and Francis, and to his grandson. Philip Lee.
portions of the estate.
Thomas Lee. son of Richard Lee II, the father of Richard Henry Lee and
Francis Lightfoot Lee. both of whom were signers of the Declaration of
Independence, owned 1,300 acres of "Rehoboth,' which he left at his
death in 1770 to his eldest son, and entailed it. on his second and
third sons. Thus Philip Ludwell Lee became the next owner of the 1,300
acres, but the record of his disposition of the estate has been lost.
Francis Lee was living upon his share of the original estate in 1745
when he was a member of the Assembly of Maryland: at his death in 1749
the property passed to his son. Francis Leonard Lee. The land records of
Dorchester County show that Lettice Corbin Lee, sister of Philip, sold
in 1787 "a tract of land of 200 acres called "Rehoboth" " to John Smoot,
which seems to have ended the ownership of the Lees.
The next owner of whom there is a record was Major Frank Turpin, who was
first a captain in the militia of Dorchester County during the
Revolutionary War, when the house was a rendezvous for many military
men. Major Turpin, who died in 1820. was interred on the estate which
has since been known as the "Turpin Place" and has had numerous owners.
Situated upon the banks of the Nanticoke River, the venerable old house
is visible from both the little towns of Eldorado and Brook-view.
Besides the usual carved wainscoting, high mantelpieces, and deep
windows, indicative of the colonial period, it has a distinctive feature
especially worthy of note. Over the mantels in the parlor and
dining-room, built into the walls, are panel-paintings, which seem to be
reproductions of some magnificent country estate of the old English
type, and "thereby hangs a tale" which, because of its antiquity, will
doubtless never be revealed.