USA > Washington DC > The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Maryland and District of Columbia Pt. 1 > Part 14
USA > Maryland > The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Maryland and District of Columbia Pt. 1 > Part 14
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Yours truly J. C. Ran Kin
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ministry the membership of his church has increased to six hundred, the debt of sixty five thousand dollars has been reduced to twenty dlace thousand dollars, in organ worth twelve thousand dollars has been purchased, und the congregation is now (1878) one of the largest and most active in the city. Di. Rankin's church has been attended by such men as Vice-President Wilson, Speaker Blaine, Senator Buckingham, Washburn, Dawes, Pomeroy, Win- dom, Representatives Poland, Smith, Frye, Monroe, and indeed by a large part of the New England representa- tives in Congress. On public days Dr. Rankin sometimes preaches on public topics. Two of his sermons, one on " The Bible, the Security of American Institutions," and the other, " The Divinity of the Ballot," have been largely distributed over the country. For many years he was a special contributor to the Independent, the Congregationalist, and the Advance. Ile has also published literary articles in Sabbath at Home, and Dr. Deems's Sunday Magazine, and is at present a frequent contributor to several of these periodicals. Ile has printed many sermons, especially on public affairs, several translations from Adolph Monod, and one original treatise, published by the American Tract Society. Ile has just edited a Gospel temperance hymnal, recently published by A. S. Barnes & Co. for the especial use of Francis Murphy, the great temperance advocate, many of the hymns and melodies being original. In 1873 he published in Boston a volume of Scottish poems, enti- tled, " The Auld Scotch Mither and Other Poems in the Dialect of Burns," which were spoken of in the highest terms of praise by George Macdonald, LL.D., of Lon- don, P. Hately Waddell, LL.D., of Glasgow, Dr. Ray Palmer, and other distinguished men, who expressed their surprise that one born two removes from Scotland should have written with such ease in the Scotch dialect, and caught the true spirit-the naivete and pathos-of the Northern muse. Dr. Rankin, indeed, has given much attention to Scotch literature. A poetical tribute to the poct Burns is embraced in the last edition of Bryant's Library of Poetry and Song. This was delivered at a Burns festival in Washington. His style of preaching is simple and direct, with very litle ornament, and this of the briefest and most pertinent . kind. Ilis funeral oration in the Senate chamber on the death of Vice-President Wil- son was pronounced by the Boston Herald as one of the most just and complete discourses of the kind ever deliv- ered, and Senator Sumner's private secretary said the com- parison drawn between the two statesmen was remarkable for its aptness and accuracy. The work of Dr. Rankin's church in the interests of humanity has been very marked.
It stands in the community as in favor of temperance. Its position in favor of human rights has been consistently maintained, and large colored missions have been taught. Dr. Rankin has been hostile to slavery ever since the re- peal of the Missouri Compromise. He was invited to become associate pastor of the Circular Church, Charles-
ton, South Carolina, through Professor Shedd and Dr. Blagden, in 1855-6, but declined because " he wanted to be on the Northern side when the split came." He has always acted consistently with this decision. In Potsdam, St. Albans, Lowell, Charlestown, and Washington, his public utterances have always shown his faith in Republican in- stitutions, the preamble of the Declaration, and the Golden Rule. A Washington paper, The Capital, Conservative and Democratic, thus speaks of his lecture on Burns : " Rev. Dr. Rankin maintained his high reputation as an elegant writer in his sympathetic and appreciative dis- course on the ploughboy poet, Robert Burns. All the phases of Burns's wonderful career, his genius, and ' e'en his failures,' were sketched with grace and with the strong hand of a master. Mr. Rankin is himself a poet, a poet- preacher, with the strongest humanitarian views, and the liveliest interest in the advancement of the whole human race. His lecture on Robert Burns abundantly proved this, had any demonstration been necessary." Of the same lecture Frederick Douglass says : "Dr. Rankin's lecture on Robert Burns was eminently just, keenly dis- criminating, eloquent and masterly, and altogether the best lecture I ever heard upon this, my favorite poet." Dr. Rankin was married, November 28, 1854, to Mary Howell Birge, daughter of Cyrus Birge, Esq., and Adeline Frink, formerly of Middlebury, Vermont. Their eldest son, E. B. Rankin, M.D., graduated in medicine at Columbia Medical College, District of Columbia, and, for one year, had charge of the Children's Hospital there. He is now practicing medicine, homopathically, at Winnetka, Illi- nois. Dr. Rankin's second son, Walter N., died in May, 1877, at the age of nineteen. Ile was a member of Prince- ton College, a generous, noble-hearted and gifted boy, who exhibited rare talent as a musical composer, and was skilled with the pencil. The third child, Mary Farnham, recently graduated with first honors at the Mount Vernon Female Seminary, Washington, D. C., and on November II, 1878, was married to Harvey D. Goulder, a young lawyer of Cleveland, Ohio. The fourth, Andrew Wyman, died an infant, in Lowell, Massachusetts, The fifth and youngest child is Edith Gadcomb, now ten years of age. Dr. Rankin's labors in the pastorate have been unbroken, save by a short annual vacation, usually spent in the woods, on the water, or among the farmers of some quiet region. He has spent several summers with the Friends in Montgomery County. He loves plain country people, and has a native repugnance to all attempts at aristocracy, whether of race, property, or culture. Hle is a ripe scholar, a fine linguist, well versed in French and German litera- ture, and a man of great versatility of gift, and freshness and vigor of thought. Ile is a forcible and energetic speaker, with a clear, strong, sympathetic, ringing voice, which always attracts attention. In personal appearance he is of little more than medium stature, with a muscular, closely knit frame, a large head, full brown and deep-set
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blue eyes, and a general roundness of face. He wears English side whiskers. His hair is thick and jet black, with very few of the " siller greys," that he has described in one of his Scotch poems. He has always been an energetic, industrious, active, practical man. All his literary work has been incidental to his other work, as he is seldom absent from his pulpit, and is a faithful and industrious pastor.
VALVERT, SIR GEORGE, the first Lord Baltimore, was born in 1582, at Kipling, Yorkshire, England. He was the son of Leonard Calvert, a respectable farmer, and his wife, Alice (Croyall) Calvert. In 1593, he was matriculated in Trinity College, Oxford, and in 1597, received the degree of Bachelor of Arts. While at college, he was distinguished for scholastic ac- quirements and literary culture. Upon leaving college, he made an extended tour through Europe ; after which, he married, and became the clerk of Sir Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury. His employment brought him to the notice of King James I, with whom he became a great favorite. In 1603, he was a member of Parliament, for Bossiney, in Cornwall ; and, in 1605, upon the occasion of the visit of the King to Oxford, he was made a Master of Arts. In 1606, he was Prothonotary, in Connaught, Ireland, and was, also, frequently employed abroad on public business, for several years. In 1610, he was made clerk of the Privy Council, and was, in consequence of his familiarity with foreign languages, intrusted with the Italian and Spanish correspondence. In 1613, he was appointed one of the Commissioners to hear grievances, examine and report the condition of affairs in Ireland. In February, 1619, King James appointed him one of the principal Secretarics of State, and the next year granted to him the increased custom on silk, for twenty-one years, and an annual pen- sion of one thousand pounds. Ile was an accomplished courtier, and became the prime favorite of the whimsical and pedantic monarch, having won his heart by timely assistance in the preparation of a tractate against Vorstius, a professor in the University of Leyden. King James be- came so reckless in his expenditures, so lavish in grants of monopolies, so tenacious of kingly prerogative and bold in its abuse, and so frce in dispensing orders for the release of recusants, that the friends of civil liberty and popular rights became alarmed, and laid the foundation for that political party, opposed to absolute power, which exists in England at the present day. At the clection in December, 1620, Sir George Calvert was returned to Parliament, for York. At the very opening of the session, Calvert made himself so conspicuous by his bold advocacy of the claims of the King, that " he was censured for his forwardness." At this period his disposition was restless, aspiring, and am- bitious. For the purpose of increasing his wealth and in- fluence he devoted himself to the speculation of coloniza-
tion, then so rife in England. In 1620, he became in- terested in planting a colony at Ferryland, in Newfound- land, became connected with the Virginia Company, and, on the 5th of July, 1622, applied for membership in the New England Company. On the 30th of March and 7th of April, 1623, he received letters patent for the Province of Avalon, in Newfoundland, and sent thither many col- omsts, provided with building materials and necessaries. Being then a Protestant and a member of the English Church, the spiritual wants of the colony were not over- looked, and the people of Ferryland were provided with pastors, clergymen of the Church of England. In 1624, he represented Oxford in Parliament, but the obloquy brought upon him by his share in the intrigue to marry the Prince, Charles, to the infanta of Spain, a match hateful to the English people, caused him to seek retirement and repose for his wounded spirit at his country-scat, " Thistle- wood." About this time he was created Baron of Balti- more. Archbishop Abbot, a contemporary, speaking of Sec- retary Calvert, wrote, " A course was taken to rid him of all employments. This made him discontented, and, as the saying is, 'desperatio facit monachum,' so he apparently turned Papist, which he now professeth, this being the third time he hath been to blame that way." Lord Balti- more having declared himself, in 1625, a Roman Catholic, manifested the zeal of a convert. Being still a favorite at court and a pet of the imbecile King, he had no fear of molestation on account of his religion. His colony in Newfoundland had not been a profitable investment, and he determined to visit it. He arrived at Ferryland, July 23, 1627, and was accompanied by two Roman Catholic priests. After a brief visit he returned to England. Again, in the summer of 1628, he visited his distressed colony and inducted another priest into the settlement. The people were deprived of their beloved pastor, and the clergy of the Church of England sent home. In October, the people complained that, contrary to law, mass was publicly cele- brated in Newfoundland. Lord Baltimore did not tarry long in his miserable colony, and, on the 19th of August, 1629, wrote to the King, " My house hath been an hospi- tal, all this winter, of 100 persons, fifty sick at a time, my- self being one, and nine or ten of them died." He also said, " I am determined to commit this place to fishermen, that are able to encounter storms and hard weather, and to remove myself with some forty persons to your Majesty's domain, Virginia, where, if your Majesty will please grant me a precinct of land, with such privileges as the King, your father, was pleased to grant me here, I shall endeavor to the utmost to deserve it." Ile landed ht Jamestown in October, 1629. The arrival and well-known purpose of the powerful Roman Catholic nobleman produced great consternation in the Protestant colony of Virginia. The report of the breaking up of the English Church at New- foundland had preceded him. Governor John l'ott and his Council, of whom William Claiborne was one, de-
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mandel to know " what his purpose was, being Governor of another plantation, to abandon that and come thus to Ninguna?" He replied, that he came to plant and dwell. " Very willingly, my lord," they answered, " if your lord ship will do what we have done and what your duty is to de," Lord Haltungse refused to take the oath of suprem- acy. The authorities of Virginia then informed him that they could not, under their paths, permit any one to settle in their colony who would not acknowledge all the pre- rogatives of the King of England, and firmly invited him to leave in the next ship. Leaving " his lady " in Virginia, he explored the Chesapeake Bay, admired the beauty of it . inviting prospects and fertile borders, noted the flour- nhung settlement on Kent Island, and returned to England to rejoin his children and to sue for a grant of land. He em- ployed himself, in leisure hours, drawing up a charter for his proposed province, and died April 15, 1632, leaving a great tepatation for probity, ability, and picty. Ile married Anue, daughter of George Myune. She died August 8, 1022, and was the mother of the following children : Ce- cilius Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore; Leonard Cal- voit, who was Governor of Maryland from 1634 to June 9, 10.47; George Calvert, who settled and died in Virginia ; Franer Calvert, Anna Calvert, Henry Calvert, Anna Cal- vert, who married William Peasley; Dorothy Calvert, Elizabeth Calvert, Grace Calvert, who married Sir Robert Talbot, of Kildare, Ireland; Helen Calvert, and John C'alvert.
VALVERT, CECHAAUS, the second Lord Baltimore, was the eldest son and successor of Sir George 1 --. Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore. On the 20th of June, 1632, he received from Charles I the charter of Maryland, embracing a region of country, described as a " country hitherto uncultivated, in the parts of America, and partly occupied by savages, having no knowledge of the Divine Being." It is remarkable that this grant from a Protestant King, of a Protestant country, should have been made to a Roman Catholic subject, at a time when proscription for religion's sake was the rule of Christen- dom. The charter released the colonists from taxation by the Crown, and conferred upon the Lord Proprietary the power to ordain, make, and enact laws, "with the advice, assent, and approbation of the freemen of the same prov- ince," and guaranteed to the inhabitants thereof "all privi- leges, franchises, and liberties of this our Kingdom of England, freely, quietly, and peaceably to have and pos- sess." The charter, while permitting, in its practical oper- ation, the freedom of all persons professing the Christian religion, amply protected the exclusive rights of the Eng- lish Church, and of those professing its faith. It gave to the Proprietary the right of selecting the clergymen sent to the colony.by the Bishop of London, the diocesan of the
province. This right of advowson and presentation was exercised by the Proprietaries until the Revolution, in 1776. The fourth section of the charter granted this right in the following words: " And, furthermore, the patronages and advow sons of all churches which ( with the increasing worship and religion of Christ), within the said region, islands, islets, and limits aforesaid, hereafter shall happen to be built, together with license and faculty of erecting and founding churches, chapels, and places of worship, in convenient and suitable places, within the premises, and causing the same to be dedicated and consecrated accord- ing to the ecclesiastical laws of our Kingdom of England." To prevent any misapprehension, the twenty-second sec- tion says : " Provided, always, that no interpretation there- of be made, whereby God's holy and true Christian re- ligion, or the allegiance due to us, our heirs and successors, may in any wise suffer, by change, prejudice, or diminu- tion." It will be perceived that, under the charter, Prot- estantismi, the celebration of Divine service, and the prac- tice of " God's holy and true Christian religion," according " to the ecclesiastical laws of the Kingdom of England," was provided for and protected, that was none other than the Church of England. King Charles, however, gra- ciously tolerated the personal religious views of Lord Bal- timore, who, like his father, had abandoned the faith of his ancestors and become an adherent of the Church of Rome, and permitted him without molestation, to afford an asylum to his co-religionists in Maryland-so that Mary- land came to be gratefully called by their historians the land of the sanctuary. For several years Lord Baltimore, who desired to make his colony a profitable investment, and with that view had encouraged the immigration of Protestants, was much embarrassed by the unreasonable claims and demands of the Jesuits for privileges incom- patible with his proprietary prerogatives, the terms of the charter, the laws of England, and the prosperity of the colony. In October, 1642, the Jesuits agreed to the fol- lowing : " Considering the dependence of the Government of Maryland on the state of England, unto which it must, as near as may be, be conformable, no ecclesiastical person whatever, inhabiting or being within the said province, ought to pretend or respect, nor is Lord Baltimore, or any of his officers, although they be Roman Catholics, obliged in conscience to allow said ecclesiastics, in said province, any more or other privileges, exemptions or immunities for their persons, lands or goods, than is allowed by his Majesty or his officers and magistrates, to like persons in England." " And any magistrate may proceed against the person, goods, etc., of such ecclesiastic for the doing of right and justice to another, or for maintaining his proprietary pre- rogatives and jurisdictions, just as against any other per- son residing in said province." " These things to be done, without incurring the censure of bulle Con, or com- mitting a sin for so doing." Lord Baltimore appears, at this exciting period in English history, to have kept him-
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self in a neutral or obscure position, and devoted all his thoughts and energies towards the development, security, and welfare of Maryland. The mixed population of the colony, a majority of whom being Protestants, and there- fore supposed to be friendly to the Parliament, and the un- certain condition of public affairs in England, made his position a difficult one, and demanded his utmost prudence, in order to preserve his charter. In February, 1645, Cap- tain Richard Ingle and William Claiborne headed an in- surrection of the inhabitants and drove Governor Leonard Calvert out of Maryland. Assisted by Sir William Berkeley, with a competent force, Governor Calvert returned to Mary- land in 1646. The colony of Maryland emerged from In- gle's rebellion in a very depressed condition. The General Assembly of 1648, in a letter to Lord Baltimore, said, " Most of your lordship's friends here were despoiled of their whole estate, and sent away as banished persons out of the province. Those few that remain were plundered." Yielding to the necessities of the times, he appointed on the 6th of August, 1648, William Stone, " a zealous Protest- ant, and generally known to have been always zealously affected to the Parliament," to be Governor of Maryland, with the understanding that Stone would bring into the province five hundred colonists. The settlers introduced by Stone were all Protestants of a superior class. The old and distinguished families of Maryland, with few excep- tions, trace their ancestry from the period of Stone's ad- ministration, which was peculiarly favorable for the immi -. gration of men of quality and culture. Lord Baltimore required of Governor Stone a new oath, which contained, for the first time, the following clause, inserted for the spe- cial protection of the minority : " And do further swear that I will not by myself, nor any person, directly or indi- rectly, trouble, molest or discountenance, any person what- soever, in the said province, professing to believe in Jesus Christ, and in particular no Roman Catholick, for, or in re- spect of his or her religion," etc. On the 21st of April, 1649, the members of the General Assembly, in a letter, signed by all the members present, speaking of the last Assembly convened by Governor Calvert, said it, " two or three only excepted, consisted of that rebelled party," who were " professed enemies" of his lordship. About this time, 1648-1649, the non-Conformists, Protestants, and In- dependents were ferreted out of Virginia and sought an asylum in Maryland. Hammond, a friend of Lord Balti- more, wrote, in 1656, that "an Assembly was called throughout the whole country, after their coming over, consisting as well of themselves, as the rest, and because there were some few Papists that first inhabited these them- selves, and others being of different judgments, an act was passed that all professing in Jesus Christ should have equal justice." The act, entitled " An Act Concerning Religion," was passed by a Protestant majority of the Legislature, April 21, 1649, and confirmed by Lord Baltimore, August 26, 1650. It was hoped that this act would give peace to the
colony, but at the next Assembly, in 1650, the four Roman Catholic members, John Medley, of Newtown, George Manners, of St. Michael's, Philip Land, of St. Mary's, and Thomas Mathews, of St. Inigo's, objected to its principles. Mathews went so far as to say that he could not take the oath of toleration, " as he wished to be guided, in matters of conscience, by spiritual counsel." He was censured and expelled, and Cuthbert Fenwick was seated in his place. Governor Stone maintained, with consummate zeal and ability, the rights of his lordship, with varying fortune, until the 22d day of July, 1654, when the Government of Maryland fell into the hands of the Puritan Commissioners, William Fuller, Richard Preston, William Durand, Edward Lloyd, Captain John Smith, Leonard Strong, John Law- son, John Hatch, Richard Wells, and Richard Ewen. On the 24th of March, 1658, the Government of Maryland was surrendered to Lord Baltimore, and Josias Fendall became Governor. Fendall betrayed his trust and, on the 24th of June, 1660, Philip Calvert was appointed Governor. At this period the population of Maryland was twelve thou- sand. In 1661, HIon. Charles Calvert, son of the Proprie- tary, became Governor, and the colony commenced a career of unexampled prosperity. In less than fifteen years its population numbered twenty thousand, of whom, according to Lord Baltimore's statement before the Court of Privy Council, " three-fourths were Presbyterians, Independents, and Quakers." Cecilius Calvert, Lord Baltimore, married Anna, the beautiful daughter of Earl Arundel, who died in 1649, aged thirty-four years. He died 30th of Novem- ber, 1675, and was succeeded by his son, Charles Calvert, the third Lord Baltimore.
ALVERT, CHARLES, the third Lord Baltimore, son of Cecilius Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore, came to Maryland with a commission, as one of the Council of State, bearing date the 7th of November, 1656, became the Governor of the Province in 1661, and filled that position until he succeeded to the title on the 30th of November, 1675. He married Mrs. Jane Sew- all, the widow of IIon. Henry Sewall, of Mattapany, on the Patuxent, in Maryland. On the 15th of May, 1676, he convened the Legislature, and, with its assistance, re- pealed many obnoxious laws, revived and confirmed those necessary for the prosperity of the province, and made many wise enactments. After a thorough and much-needed reformation of the statutory laws, he visited England, leaving Thomas Noteley, Esq., his Deputy Governor, and remained there until 1680. In 1682 an act was passed, entitled " An Act for Advancement of Trade," which established many towns, ports, and places of trade throughout the province. Supplemental acts were enacted in 1684, 1686, and afterwards; but very few of these marts of commerce have left visible relics of their existence or
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I xality. For four years the Proprietary continued his residence in Maryland, and was much respected by the in- habitants. King Charles 11 becoming inimical, he deemed if necessary, in ius, to return to England to protect his schuster, and appointed a council of nine deputies, of whom William Joseph was President, to direct the affairs of the province, under the nominal governorship of his son, Benedict Leonard Calvert, then an infant, Ile found king James Il upon the throne, whose open hostility was les dangerous to him than the discontent and revolution- ary ideas of the people of England. Before the King could consinmate the forfeiture of Baltimore's charter, he was a fugitive from the throne, deposed and driven out of England by his long-suffering and indignant subjects. Upon the accession of the good King William and Mary, Lord Baltimore sent instructions to Maryland for the in- stant proclamation of the change of government. Thesc in- ructions did not reach their destination. The timorous Council of Deputies became dazed with alarm, and knew not what to do in the emergency. In the meanwhile, the colonists, fully sympathizing with the uprising in England, and suspecting hostility to the Protestant religion and treason to the crown, boldly took matters into their own hands, and in April, 1689, formed " An association in aims for the defence of the Protestant religion, and for as- setting the rights of King William and Queen Mary to the Province of Maryland and all the English dominions." ( In the 23d of August, 1689, the Convention of the People of Maryland requested the King to take the government of the province into his own royal hands. The conven- tion administered public affairs until it was dissolved by Sir Lyonel Copley, in 1691, the first royal Governor, who convened the General Assembly on the 10th of May, 1692. The first act of the Legislature was " An Act of Recog- nition" of William and Mary as the King and Queen of England, and the dominions thereunto belonging. The next, Chapter 11, was " An Act for the Service of Al- mighty God, and the Establishment of the Protestant Re- ligion in this Province," which declared " that the Church of England, within this province, shall have and enjoy all her rights, liberties, and franchises," and made it the re. ligion of Maryland, in fulfilment of the provisions of the charter, granted by Charles I to Cecilius Calvert. After the death of Sir Lyonel Copley, Sir Edmond Andros was Governor, in 1693, and was succeeded, in 1693, by Harris Nicholson. It is pleasant to record that the first act of the Legislature convened by him, on the 21st of September, 1694, was " An Act for the Encouragement of Learning and Advancement of the Natives of this Province." This was the beginning of a bright era in the history of Mary- land. During the remainder of Lord Baltimore's life, the following royal officials administered the affairs of the province : Nathaniel Blackiston, Governor, from 1699 to 1703; Thomas Tenels, President, from 1703 to 1704; John Seymour, Governor, from 1704 to 1709; Edward Lloyd,
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