OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, MARYLAND.
 

367
 

CHAPTER XXIV
 

^^HE close of the Civil War found the people
of AA'ashington County greatly impover¬
ished. Their losses had been heavy and
there was yet a decade before substantial
recovery began. I'he County as a whole had lost
the wealth producing energies of one or two thou¬
sand able-bodied men who had gone into the
army and were withdrawn from industrial work
for a period of four years. Fifteen hundred
slaves had been set free. Crops had been destroy¬
ed, horses and all farm animals carried off and
fencing burned by inarching armies. But possibly
the largest loss was caused by the fluctuating cur¬
rency. Prices in gold for lands and farm pror
ducts had remained steady. But the depreciated
greenback was the measure of values. As the
greenback became less valuable the price, or rather
the nominal price, of lands and wheat and corn
advanced. The high price of wheat tempted many
to buy lands at inflated values, giving mortgages
to secure deferred pa3'ments. Many farmers were
compelled to mortgage their lands to pay for horses
and cattle which they had to buy in place of those
taken by the soldiers, and upon these mortgages
the interest charged was at the rate of from 8
to 10 per cent. The cost, too, of farming during
these years was excessive compared to the present
cost. The binding reapers had not been invented
and the use. of steam engines in threshing grain
did not become general for more than ten years
after the close of the war. Harvest wages were
very high, more than double the daily wage paid
for other farm work—and a great band of men
had to be engaged to do the work that three or
four men do now with the use of the binder.    To
 

thresh a crop of 2000 bushels of wheat with horse
power was the work of over- ten days and it re¬
quired from fifteen to twenty-five men, whereas
the same work can be done now in three days with
six or eight men. Therefore after the farmer had
paid the fertilizer bill, the cost of seed and seeding,
the cost of harvest and threshing there was little
left, even though wheat was selling at from two
to three dollars a bushel to pay the annual inter¬
est on the mortgage. The farmers generally bor¬
rowed from the banks to tide over temporary em¬
barrassments. Each borrower had to give person¬
al security and he went to his neighbors to endorse
his notes. One failure frequently involved a half
dozen farmers in a neighborhood. Money would
be borrowed and the currency so borrowed might
be worth only fifty or seventy-five cents on the
dollar. AVhen it was paid several years later it
had to be paid in money worth a hundred cents
to the dollar. Thus every debt contracted during
or immediately following the war, if it had not
been paid within a few years thereafter was doubled
or greatly expanded. As the greenback more
nearly approached the gold standard, land values
made a nominal shrinliage and many acres which
had been bought in the flush times at $100 or
more per acre were sold under the hammer at mort¬
gagee's or trustee's or sheriff's sale for less than
half that sum. For ten years after the close of
the war the work of liquidation went on. Many
made deeds of trust of their property for the ben¬
efit of creditors and the columns of the County
papers were filled with advertisements. Many
farmers sold their property and emigrated to the
West.    For years each spring two or more special