When compared to later border wars, the lack of frontiers in the 1730s helped Pennsylvania secure victory over its rival. In this earlier case, as colonists with malleable loyalties compared the two proprietary colonies, they expressed their preference for Pennsylvania’s model with its promise of peace and prosperity, giving Pennsylvania the backing it needed to displace Maryland and secure its future expansion west. But in the 1770s, in the conflicts that Pennsylvania lost to Virginia and Connecticut, colonists possessed a far different geopolitical imagination. After the Seven Years’ War, a large portion of the colonial population in the contested regions believed they inhabited “a frontier” against Indians. Instead of embracing Pennsylvania’s promise of tranquility with Native neighbors, those once again caught in the middle blamed the colony for their inadequate defense of frontier people. To make sense of this later collapse of Pennsylvania, it is important to understand the colony at its apogee, when it was able to defend itself against a colonial competitor and win the allegiance of settlers who had the power to choose the government they preferred.
Before moving to the action, however, the name of the conflict should be discussed. People have labeled it various things over time: Cresap’s War for the leader of the Maryland cause, the Conojocular War for the Indian name of the contested region, or occasionally the Maryland War by Pennsylvanians who fought in it. The Conojocular War may be the most accurate and was the term most people used at the time (often spelled various phonetic ways). The name also better reflects the nature of the conflict. The war was fought over territory called the Conegehally. It was not a war of Cresap’s making, since Pennsylvanians were often the instigators, nor was it Maryland’s War, since from the Marylanders’ perspective, Pennsylvania was the one invading their land.1
“One Crissop, Particularly, Is Very Abusive”
The conflict between colonies began almost as soon as Lancaster County was created. One of the first hints of trouble came on an otherwise inconspicuous late September afternoon in 1731 when a group of men gathered at a cleared lot in Lancaster, the seat of the new county with the same name, to erect a courthouse on the town square. The new court symbolized the expansion of the colonial government and all that its creators hoped to accomplish with it. In this building, legal disputes could be mediated, offices filled, and punishments meted out. Within a year, however, these county offices and the powers they held would be used for an unexpected purpose: war.2
Samuel Blunston stood at the head of the operations that fall day. Blunston held the titles of justice of the peace, recorder of the deeds, and county prothonotary—a central position in county government that had important powers of oversight. Blunston had the perfect pedigree for the job. His roots in Pennsylvania went back to the colony’s founding. His father followed William Penn’s call and eventually rose to the highest levels of government, serving in various local offices and in both the Assembly and Provincial Council. Samuel, now forty-two years old, was following in his father’s footsteps. Blunston arrived on the banks of the Susquehanna in 1728 after purchasing a three-hundred-acre farm.3
By 1731, after only three short years in the area, Blunston had become more than a leading figure in the new county. Blunston’s many roles meant that he was the new government. His task was no small one. It fell to him to establish the colony’s authority in a region populated by, in his words, the “idle and dissolute persons who resorted hither to keep out of the hands of justice.” A functioning courthouse was going to be essential to his success. He would administer its daily operations, ranging from marriage licenses to road maintenance; enforce its laws; and oversee its expansion through a land office. The courthouse may have been the symbol of the expanding colonial government, but it was Blunston who would give it real force.4
As Blunston helped the other men from Lancaster raise the walls of this courthouse, Captain Civility, the Conestogas’ chief representative to Pennsylvania, approached him with an interpreter in tow. Civility, worried that the burst of colonial settlement would fray the good relations Gordon had recently cemented, came to express his concerns. He began by presenting a “string of wampum” before Blunston that carried the following urgent message for the governor:
That the Conestogoe Indians have always lived in good friendship with the Christian inhabitants of Pensilvania, and have behaved themselves agreeable to their treatys with them. That William Penn had promis’d them they should not be disturbed by any settlers on the west side of Sasquehannah, but now, contrary thereto, several Marylanders are settled by the river, on that side, at Conejohela; and one Crissop, particularly, is very abusive to them when they pass that way, and has beat and wounded one of their women who went to get apples from their own trees…. And further says, that, as they shal always take care their people do us no hurt, so they also expect we shall protect them.5
Civility’s message came as no surprise. The border controversy that Penn first confronted in 1682 still simmered. For most of the intervening fifty years, the dispute was a minor squabble between proprietors based in England. Occasionally, testy neighbors in the disputed southern region would use their loyalty to one lord as a way to exacerbate a personal feud that they had with someone loyal to the other. More recently, however, Maryland began to assert its rights by instigating jurisdictional clashes in an attempt to regain territory Pennsylvania occupied. Most of these disputes occurred on the Delmarva Peninsula in which Delaware and Maryland jurisdictions collided. Early in 1731, as Captain Civility was then discovering, Maryland moved to gain control of the western side of the Susquehanna. By settling the territory, Maryland forced an issue that had only been considered in the abstract until that time: both colonies needed to agree to a border between them if the empire was to function properly. Civility felt the pressure of this uncertainty, and he looked to his allies in Pennsylvania for protection from Maryland.6
Maryland, however, had a strong case in the west. The charters of Pennsylvania and Maryland both contained vague wording about the fortieth parallel of latitude forming the extent of each colony. When the charters were first written, no one was sure of the precise location of the line. In fact, most of the Greater Philadelphia region fell under the parallel; a literal reading of the charters employing what eventually became the fixed fortieth parallel line meant that the capital of Pennsylvania belonged to Maryland. While Baltimore demanded compensation for his loss, the Penns argued that Baltimore had it all wrong. They pointed to an early map that gave Penn control of territory well south of the fortieth parallel, evidence they said of the true intent of the Crown. Still, the wording of the charters gave Baltimore the ground, and the competing interpretation created an opportunity for the current Lord Baltimore to reassert his claims.7
There was another significant difference in the dispute over the west—the man named “Crissop.” Thomas Cresap arrived in Maryland from England sometime in the 1720s. His early years in North America remain unclear. There is evidence that after finding little initial success in Maryland, he traveled to Virginia and rented land from the Washington family. In any case, by the 1730s, he had developed a reputation as a wily and pugnacious individual. Having no particular loyalties to Maryland or its Catholic founding—though rumors circulated that he harbored sympathies for Rome—Cresap’s sole purpose in the colonies was to better himself. Rather than follow the staid, conformist path of the Blunstons, Cresap seized opportunity, if necessary, by force. He was perfect for Maryland’s plans. In time, Cresap showed a devotion to Maryland and Lord Baltimore as strong as Blunston’s was to Pennsylvania. He also possessed an audacity that made his gambit nearly successful.8
Evidence suggests that in 1730 or early 1731, Cresap received a patent from Lord Baltimore