Augustine Hermann (1605–1686)

Maryland Historical Society

Augustine Herrman, noted cartographer, merchant, diplomat, mariner, surveyor, and land owner, was born in Prague in the Kingdom of Bohemia. He arrived in the new world in 1644 where he established himself on Manhattan Island as an agent for an Amsterdam shipping company. There, he engaged in the importation of wine, other materials and slaves, and the export of furs and tobacco to Europe. His mercantile and privateer activities were initially quite profitable, and he acquired the titles to 30,000 acres of New Jersey, to most of what is now Yonkers, New York, and to lots on Manhattan Island.

Herman's involvement in public affairs led him into conflict with Peter Stuyvessant, the resident Director of the New Netherland colony. Stuyvessant attempted to destroy Herrman financially and was briefly successful. Herrman, however, established a tobacco trading partnership with his brother in law on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, from which tobacco was shipped to Amsterdam and Rotterdam in violation of English embargos on foreign trade.

When the Dutch finally won their conflict with Sweden over the Delaware Bay in 1655, Herrman's attention turned to the proximity of northeastern Maryland to Delaware Bay. The Lords Baltimore claimed title to the Delaware below the 40th parallel, but the only actual settlements there were Dutch and Swedish. When, in 1659, Baltimore's agents prepared to invade the Dutch settlement at what is now New Castle, Delaware, Stuyvessant sent Herrman on an immediate mission to seek peace with the Maryland authorities. Herrman kept a diary of that trip, which is preserved to this date.

As the British prepared to block the Lower Chesapeake to the Dutch tobacco trade, Herrman, his family and associates acquired land grants from the Calverts giving them virtual control over the Bohemia and Sassafras rivers. Eventually, Herrman established an eight mile road from the upper reaches of the Bohemia River eastward through what is now Middletown and Odessa, Delaware to Appoquinimink Creek, a tributary of the Delaware Bay. Tobacco laden ships, of sufficient size to undertake trans-Atlantic voyages, were dragged on sledges by teams of oxen from the Chesapeake to the Delaware, where the ships were refloated and sent on their way to Europe.

The capture of the Delaware by the British in 1644 did not result in any serious reduction in smuggling, and the Bohemia-Appoquiinimink link remained active for many years, until the completion in 1832 of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal a few miles to the north.

Herrman is best remembered today for his remarkably accurate Map of Maryland and Virginia, published in London in 1673.

Hall, Clayton Coleman ed. Narratives of Early Maryland. New York: Chas. Scribner & Sons. 1911.

Heck, Earl L. W. Augustine Herrman: Beginner of the Virginia Tobacco Trade, Merchant of New Amsterdam and First Lord of Bohemia Manor in Maryland. Richmond: The William Byrd Press, Inc., 1941. Transcribed oral interviews conducted by University of Maryland students, 1987. And more random text here, too

Johnston, George. History of Cecil County, Maryland and the Early Settlements Around the Head of Chesapeake Bay and on the Delaware River: With Sketches of Some of the Old Familys of Cecil County. 1881; repr., Baltimore: Regional Publishing Company, 1967.

“C&D Canal: Charting the Course that Began with Mapmaker's Dream.” U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Philadelphia District. www.nap.usace.army.mil/sb/bayjournal.htm