best I have been able to get, and those most interested will be able to understand it.

Lowder Hearne, eldest child of Ebenezer (who was grandson of the merchant William of 1681), born at the Ebenezer Hearne homestead, ten miles east of Laurel, Del., Apr. 5, 1753, in early life married Lavinia Cannon and settled on a farm about two miles from his birthplace, where he reared a large family of children, whose names and families appear in proper place on the family tree. His wife, Lavinia, was an older sister of Keziah Cannon, who married Clement Hearne, a brother of Lowder.

Of the life and character of Lowder Hearne it need only be said he was a model neighbor and gentleman, loved and respected by all, and as the elder member of the family received the consideration that was due from the family. He was a devoted member of the Episcopal Church, as all his immediate ancestors were, and gave largely of his means to the church. He built a fine residence on his farm of four hundred acres, where he died Nov. 29. 1809, in the fifty-seventh year of his age, and was buried in his own family burying ground near his residence, where a great many of his descendants are also buried, and which is still neatly kept up (1894). The mansion-house is also in a good state of preservation and gives evidence of being a fine building in its day, but has passed into the possession of Isaac N. Hearne, a distant relative.

Mrs. Harriet Cannon, a grand-daughter of Lowder Hearne, gives me the following sketch.

Lowder Hearne was born in Little Creek Hundred, Sussex Co., Del., at the head of what was called Little Creek till about 1886. Ebenezer, the father of Lowder, owned a large body of land, a part of which he took up as vacant land (that is, it had no owner); he was one of tbe early settlers of that section of country w hen deer, bears, and foxes were numerous. He was a farmer all his life and died intestate. The law of Delaware was then that a committee of three men should be appointed to value the land of an intestate, and the oldest male heir had the right of acceptance of his father’s land, and the second son the second right. and so on. Lowder, being the oldest male heir, accepted the farm known by the name of “Bow Back,” just one mile nearer Laurel than where he was born. He and his wife, Lavinia (Cannon)

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