Page:Augustine Herrman, beginner of the Virginia tobacco trade, merchant of New Amsterdam and first lord of Bohemia manor in Maryland (1941).djvu/99



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, 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,