The Minor Family of Somerset

albot County Free Library
The Worties of Talbot

The Lloyds of Wye
EDWARD LLOYD(VI)
THE FARMER
1798-1861
When Edward Lloyd the fifth of the name, who wascommonl
y called Governor, arrived at his majority, the happy event wa
s suitably celebrated at Wye House by a convivial assemblage o
f relatives and friends, who in the midst of their hilarity, aft
er dinner, called for the infant heir to the name and estate, Ed
ward Lloyd (VI) Jr., who was brought to the table and made to g
o through the form of drinKing his father's health. He was the
n more than one year old, having been born at Annapolis, Dec. 27
th,.1798.He was the eldest son of a large family of children, a
ll of whom at this date(Oct. 1885) are dead with a single excep
tion, the widow of Admiral Buchanan,who, in a serene and beauti
ful old age, still represents the high born graces of the famil
y and the sterling virtues of her distinguished father. Young Ll
oyd grew up in the seclusion of his home, with no other companio
ns than his own brothers and sisters, or, as unsophisticated you
th knows few distinctions, the young negroes upon the plantation
. His early education was at the hand of Mr. Joel Page a privat
e tutor in the family, who long continued to be anhonored and b
eloved inmate of Wye House, and who, there ending his Days unde
r painful circumstances, being distracted in mind, was interre
d in the ancestral burial ground where a stone is erected to hi
s memory, consecrated by the affection of more than one generati
on of the Lloyds. As all his ancestors had been farmers or plant
ers, young Lloyd seems to have been predestined to the avocatio
n of a tiller of the soil. Under the erroneous impression that t
he agriculturist is not benefited by higher education, or rathe
r condemning, as he justly might do, the sciolism or pedantry o
f the college bred men of hisDay, his father neglected to giv
e him the advantages of even that poor training and culture whic
h could be obtained in the superior schools of the time.Young L
loyd did, however, feel some inclination to prepare himself fo
r a professional life, and actually began his studies in the cit
y of Philadelphia;but these, being interrupted by a severe atta
ck of illness, were never renewed. It would have been no waste o
f time, money and labor, if he had taken courses of instructio
n in law, medicine and divinity, as preparatory to the avocatio
n to which hereditary custom had destined him; for the learnin
g of eachof these would have been of value to the great plante
r who was required by the circumstances of his position as slav
e holder to perform the functions of jurist, doctor and priest u
pon his domain and among his dependents. While Mr.Lloyd misse
d those refined and delightful pleasures which flow from the cul
tivation of polite letters and the pursuits of science, he was n
ot without compensation in his escape from their enervating infl
uences, for while acquiring the elements of a good sound educati
on in English letters and the principles of such knowledge as ca
n be made applicable to the common practical affairsof life, th
e most masculine forces of his mind and traits of character wer
e free to develop in all their healthy vigor and natural nobilit
y. In short his education, falling in with his inclinations or a
ptitudes and circumstances, made him not the scholar weighed dow
n with "wise saws and modern instances"-dreamy, speculative, hes
itating, timid from very excess of knowledge-but thethoroughl
y equipped man of affairs, courageous, ready, full of resources
,capable of reading life's lessons of wisdom written in its mos
t obscure dialect, of solving life's problems involved to the la
st degree of intricacy, unraveling life's syllogisms in her mos
t entangled "logic of events," and reducing in the crucible an
d alembic of experience tht