toward the south can still be seen the remnants of an extensive deer park which he had built at the suggestion of one of the Baltimores. All around the manor house lay small farms with their tenants and servants. But farther back the land was left uncultivated with its native virgin timber. In 1681 Herrman wrote to Lord Baltimore complaining that one George Browning and George Holland had privately surveyed fourteen hundred acres of his “Middle Neck” land. The noble Bohemian did not hesitate to describe them in good plebeian terms as “a couple of damned rascals”. There was in fact much of the virgin forest left when Herrman took up his residence in Cecil County and he took much pride in his stately avenues of primeval trees.[1]
As early as 1660 Herrman appreciated the advisability of connecting Chesapeake Bay with Delaware Bay by a canal and it is believed that the site of Bohemia Manor appealed to him because of the ease by which tobacco might be shipped from Maryland to New Amsterdam. Although it is most likely that Herrman was primarily interested in trade and commerce in 1660, his interest in this direction began to wane, and he never carried his scheme of a canal to perfection, a task left for a later generation. He did, however, construct a good wagon road from the Bohemia River to the Appoquinimunk Creek in New Castle County (Delaware), a thoroughfare that indeed served its purpose in connecting the headwaters of the two bays.[2] From the Ordinance of the Government of Delaware promulgated by the Governor and Council at New York, June 14, 1761 we find, “About clearing the way between New Castle and Mr. Augustine Herman’s plantation, if those of Maryland are willing to do their part, the officers at New
