40 VIRGINIA CARTOGRAPHY. 



good the title to the whole grant, for this region was afterward adjudged 

 part of Penn's territory. St. Augustine creek flows through the manor. 

 The will of Herman is on file in the archives of New Castle County. His 

 sons, took an active part in the afifairs of Delaware until one after the 

 other they were called to assume the lordship of Bohemia Manor, and 

 to live in the great manor house. 



There is a picturesque side light upon Herman's character to be obtained 

 from the annals of those Christian Socialists of the seventeenth century, 

 the followers of Jean de Labodie, successively an apostate to the Jesuits 

 and to the Protestants. Some years after Herman had set up as lord of 

 Bohemia Manor, Brothers Sluyter and Bankers of the Labodists came to 

 the peninsula of Delaware seeking converts and a home for their society. 

 Just about the time they fell in with Herman they had persuaded Samuel 

 Bayard, of the family distinguished in New York and Delaware, to join 

 them, and they had hopes of making even Herman a convert. But they 

 declare in their journal that they found him, though kindly disposed to 

 them personally, a worldly person, by no means to be won over. Herman 

 did, however, deed to the Labodists in 1684 3750 acres of the manor, 

 and to this day the land is called " the Labodie tract." Sluyter and 

 Dankers set up a Christian Socialist colony there, and were joined by 

 several families from New York. Sluyter proclaimed himself bishop of 

 the flock, and set up his wife as a sort of abbess. Part of the community 

 from Wiewert, in Denmark, came over to join the new society. They 

 built a large house and cultivated the land. Everything was in common. 

 The men and the women took their meals in separate apartments, and 

 no person spoke at table. It often happened that a man dined for 

 months without knowing the name of the next man at table. They 

 eschewed all outward show, and were pledged to give up the world. 



Herman never had the slightest leaning toward the Labodist faith, and 

 he came to repent having made a place for the colonists, as his son 

 joined the society, and, at the instigation of its leaders," deserted his 

 unbelieving young wife. The lands of the society were eventually par- 

 titioned, and some of the wealthiest of Maryland families are descended 

 from these, perhaps the first Christian Socialists to organize an industrial 

 society in America. 



By the year 1684 Herman, wearied toward the close of a feverish life. 

 harried by claimants to part of his great estate, and unhappy because of 

 his wife's temper, invested his son with the manor by deed 'of enfeoff- 

 ment. The provisions of this deed give one a notion of the state proper 

 to an American lord of the manor in the latter part of the seventeenth 

 century. The consideration to be paid annually by the son was: 



" Five thousand pounds of good, sound, and merchantable tobacco and 

 casks, and also six barrels of good beer and strong beer, one anchor of 

 rum or brandy, one anchor of spirits, two anchors or twenty gallons of 

 good wine, and one hogshead of the best cider out of the orchard, and 

 one cwt. of good muscovado sugar for my particular private spending; 

 and lastly, if I should remove with my abode to any other place in the 



