Chapter VI
THE LORD OF BOHEMIA MANOR
When Augustine Herrman came to Maryland in the autumn of 1659 to treat with Lord Baltimore and Colonel Utie, he chanced to travel through the extreme northeastern part of the colony, then quite sparsely settled by white inhabitants. Through the pleasant rolling land flowed a wide river, gradually forming an estuary connecting with Chesapeake Bay. The Indians called this river the Oppoquimimi,[1] which Herrman renamed the Bohemia after his native land. Traveling southward to St. Mary’s he became more and more impressed with the English province. As a Dutch diplomat he was successful in his mission; yet his attachment to New Amsterdam was diminishing and his interest in things Dutch, with the incessant arguments and bickerings, were becoming wearisome. He could not forget the rich fields along the River Oppoquimimi. By the beginning he had made up his mind to become a subject of the British Crown and had taken the initial steps toward that direction. The denization of Herrman, January 14, 1660,
- ↑ Compare this name with “Appoquiminick”, the name of a stream which flows easterly into the Delaware Bay, a little below St. Augustine on the Delaware. The word “Appoquiminick” means in the Indian tongue “wounded duck” and was given by reason of the tortuous windings of the stream. Inasmuch as the characteristics of the Delaware stream and the Bohemia River are radically different it seems strange, perhaps, that the name of the one should be so similar to that of the other. It is possible, however, that though the names sound so much alike they may be derived from different roots. It would seem that the Indians who occupied the land surrounding both streams belonged to the same tribe. Johnston’s map in his History of Cecil County, Maryland calls the Bohemia River the “Oppoquermine”.
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