Most local history enthusiasts are familiar with the storied rivalry between Caroline County native son Charles Dickinson and future president Andrew Jackson that culminated in a fatal 1806 gun duel. After a dispute about the particulars of a proposed horse race led to alleged insults referencing Jackson’s wife, Dickinson was mortally wounded when the two faced off at Harrison’s Mill near what is now Adairville, Kentucky. The Caroline County Historical Society revisited the feud with a commemorative event the week of the 200th anniversary of its tragic climax.

I have scholarly reviewed numerous academic resources from national publishing companies chronicling this antebellum soap opera saga, not to mention closely examining the guide script and interpretive materials at Jackson’s stately plantation home outside of Nashville. Known as The Hermitage, docents were excited to meet a visitor from Dickinson’s home county when I first toured in 2006; I was also in Tennessee in 2010, when Dickinson was reinterred at Nashville’s historic City Cemetery. His permanent resting place there was dedicated during a memorial service after burial remains were exhumed from the original family plot at what was once Peach Blossom, an in-law’s property which had been overtaken by a suburban west Nashville housing development in the 20th Century.

The ancestral Dickinson farm in Caroline County, Wiltshire Manor, was just south of modern Harmony. A now unmarked monument sits on the side of Maryland Route 16 as a subtle acknowledgment of the area where generations of the family once lived. Daffin House, site of a congenial first meeting between Dickinson and Jackson in the 1790s, still stands outside of Hillsboro but is not open to the public.

The above sequence of events and documented locations, as nationally notable and personally exciting as they are, have literally nothing to do with the more obscure and thus less celebrated story I am about to share. My hope is simply that history buffs will now acknowledge, appreciate, and possibly re-enact the other iconic duel on the local chronological record — so I dutifully submit to monthly column readers the following:

One of the last duels between American “gentlemen” occurred this month in 1877 near Marydel. The participants, in this case, were not chivalrous Southern planters defending their family honor but rather — of all people — New York City socialites.

James Gordon Bennett, Jr., made a name for himself in the business world as publisher of the New York Herald, taking over for his father. Perhaps his greatest individual claim to fame is sending Henry Morton Stanley to Africa to track down missionary explorer David Livingstone, which did occur to much international fanfare in 1871. Coverage of these travels greatly elevated the profile of the family newspaper and made “Doctor Livingstone, I presume?” a memorable phrase in the global lexicon of English speakers.

With that said, Bennett did just as much to tarnish the family name with a nationally-publicized scandal featuring the aforementioned duel.

The debacle began innocently enough. Bennett was set to publicly announce his engagement to a woman named Caroline May at an 1876 New Year’s party. As he was prone to do, however, Bennett had too much to drink and this time outdid himself by apparently relieving himself in the May family’s fireplace [also possibly a piano] within view of the assembled guests. He enjoyed absinthe cocktails in particular, if you are wondering, literally and figuratively, what got into him.
Immediately the wedding plans were called off. That was not enough revenge for Caroline’s brother: Frederick May soon confronted Bennett in public and whipped him without remorse. Bennett subsequently challenged May, quixotically if not anachronistically, to a duel.

New York-area high society frowned upon dueling (consider the loss of Alexander Hamilton at the hands of Aaron Burr in 1804), so arrangements were made that the showdown would occur January 7th, 1877, in the rail-accessible vicinity of Marydel. Of additional note was the vagueness of the location: was it in Maryland? Was it in Delaware? One dispatch reported the town was actually in Virginia, impossibly! These semantics were just as important as the geography if authorities from one state or the other arrived on the scene or wanted to pursue criminal charges; indeed, New York investigators declared on the record that ascertaining the facts of the confrontation would be a hopeless endeavor and almost immediately lost interest in opening a case file.

The duel itself, even at a mere twelve paces, was anti-climactic. Both May and Bennett fired and missed, likely on purpose. In the era “rules” of dueling, gentleman participants typically needed only to show up to maintain or restore their honor. The two men had a drink together and parted ways, though the spectacle was given the yellow journalism “tabloid” treatment in newspapers around the country throughout the next week. Bennett soon left the country for France, likely in an attempt to rebuild his professional reputation but also to find a wife — which he ultimately did but not until decades later at the rather advanced age of 73.

Maybe someday one of our local history organizations, on either side of the state border, will see fit to stage an annual re-enactment replete with an incompatible relationship wedding announcement, a tasteful bladder voiding simulation, a stern public rebuke, errant pistol fire, a round of stiff adult beverages for attendees, and a raffle for a cruise to Paris. Why not? These wry suggestions seem tame compared to the plot twists of 2020.