Page:Augustine Herrman, beginner of the Virginia tobacco trade, merchant of New Amsterdam and first lord of Bohemia manor in Maryland (1941).djvu/116

 the diary perhaps as well as any shows the extreme neuroticism sometimes attained by these Labadist representatives:

Sluyter and Dankaerts remained in Maryland a few months longer, making Bohemia Manor their headquarters, where they were received with courtesy and respect. As time passed, however, the ardor with which Herrman received his guests began to wane. Their bombastic and oftentimes entirely false statements about his friends and neighbors did not tend to improve their relations. Nor really did their peculiar social and religious views have much in common with an aristocrat of Herrman’s temper. Little by little, too, did he put off the actual sale of the property he had promised them. When the Labadists insisted upon the conveyance, Herrman flatly refused. They left Maryland in 1680 and Herrman thought that he was rid of them for good. But three years later they returned, bringing with them one hundred of their order. In 1684 they instituted a suit against Herrman for the land he had heretofore promised them and were successful.

Ephraim Herrman, as the eldest son, was according to Herr-