The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Maryland and District of Columbia Pt. 1, Part 21

Author: National Biographical Publishing Co. 4n
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Baltimore : National Biographical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 844

USA > Washington DC > The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Maryland and District of Columbia Pt. 1 > Part 21
USA > Maryland > The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Maryland and District of Columbia Pt. 1 > Part 21

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ASSHOR, THOMAS C., senior member of the firm of T. C. Basshor & Co., Baltimore, engineers and manufacturers of steam heating apparatus and machinery, was born in Lebanon County, Pennsyl vania, on the 13th of July, 1835. His father is still living at the advanced age of seventy-eight, on the farm which his great-grandfather of the same name bought in 1751, and on which farm his son, the subject of our sketch, was born. Mr. Basshor has been, for the past twenty-two years, a resident of Baltimore, and his business career has been one of great activity and uninterrupted suc- cess, a success achieved solely by his own industry, enter- prise and ability. He first entered the establishment of Messrs. Numsen, Thomas & Co., as a bookkeeper, continuing with them five years. He won their fullest confidence and highest esteem, which proved of greatest service to him in his after business life. Ifis credit with this house has always been unlimited, they having ever been ready to indorse him to any extent required. In April, 1861, acting upon the advice of that firm, he purchased the steam heat- ing and machinery business of II. F. Thomas & Co., and with only a capital of $1800 struck out for himself on the uncertain sea of mercantile life. It was in the same month that the United States soldiers were attacked by the mob in the streets of Baltimore. Mr. Basshor has always been a strong Republican and Union man. Ifis whole heart and soul were with his country's cause, and, had not his hands been fettered by this purchase just completed, he would at once have enlisted in the Federal army. As it was, he gave his influence, encouragement and means to the extent of his ability for the preservation of the Union, and for the liberty and equal rights of all. Under his energetic and skilful management the growth and success of his business was rapid. In 1863 he associated with him Mr. Wallace Stebbins, and the partnership still con- tinues. The business was conducted on leased property, at No. 20 Light Street, for over ten years, but enlarged premises were needful, and, in 1872, he purchased lot No. 28 on the same street, which for time out of mind had been occupied by a little old dwelling-house and restau- rant. This he cleared away and erected in its place the mam- moth four-story iron front building which now adorns the place, and his business house and manufacturing establish- ment combined. As an evidence of the prosperity of the house, it may be stated that the average sales each year amount to $400,000, they have sometimes risen as high as $700,000. Mr. Basshor confines himself, in his heating department, exclusively to large business houses and public buildings, but for these his services are called in requisi- tion from all parts of the country-from Maine to Cali- fornia. He has heated most of the prominent public buildings in Baltimore, the Academy of Music, newspaper establishments, of which the American and Sun may be mentioned in particular ; the normal and other schools, and hotels, factories, custom-houses, and asylums, at home

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BIOGRAPHICAL CYCLOPEDIA.

and abroad. But, energetic and effective as Mr. Basshor has proved himself in his business, he has by no means confined himself to that alone. Ile has ever been public- spuited in a large degree, desirous of the general good of society, and has often been called upon to fill responsible positions. Ile was a member of the first building com- mittee of the new City Ilall under the administration of Mayor Jolm Ice Chapman, is a Director of the Traders' National Bank, also a Director in the Fountain Hotel Company, and was for several years Director of the Con- solidated Real Estate and Fire Insurance Companies of Baltimore. In 1860, when taking lessons on the violin -- a few friends were in the habit of meeting with him to sing and play-a practice they found so delightful that it was never discontinued, and out of it grew in time the Haydn Musical Association, of Baltimore, now numbering nearly one hundred members, the most popular association of the kind that has ever existed in the city. They have given four concerts during each of the last fifteen years, by means of which they defray their expenses. Mr. Wil- liam F. Thiede is the musical director; Mr. Basshor, by unanimous consent, has always been President. He also organized, in 1861, the Riverside Association. Of this association, also, he has always been President. In 1858 he joined the Free Masons and was admitted to the Mon- umental Lodge, of Baltimore, in which he still continues. lle has been, since its erection in 1870, one of the trustees of the Brown Memorial Church, one of the most elegant and costly white marble structures of the kind in the city, erected by the widow of the late George S. Brown, a prominent Baltimore banker, to perpetuate the memory of her husband. Ile is a member of the Presbyterian Church. In 1865 he was married to Miss Emily A. Wedge, daughter of Cap- tain W. S. Wedge, and has three children, two daughters, Mary Graham and Florence, and one son, Charles Ilazle- tine.

HEPHIERD, HION. ALEXANDER R., Ex-Governor of the District of Columbia, was born, January 31, 1835, at No. 1202 Maryland Avenue, Washing- ton city. Ilis father, Alexander Shepherd, was a native of Charles County, Maryland, where the Shepherd family had been settled for many years. llis grandfather, Thomas L. Shepherd, died in 1816, and his will was probated at Port Tobacco, Maryland. Alex- ander's mother, whose maiden name was Susan Davidson Robey, was likewise a native of Charles County. The Robeys were among the earliest settlers of that county, and at the present day several families of that name reside near Port Tobacco. The subject of this sketch received his education at the Rittenhouse Academy, of which Charles 11. and Joseph E. Nourse were principals, and at the preparatory school of Columbia College. While at

school he evinced a great aptitude for learning, and so well did he study, that at the early age of eleven years he was litted for the Freshman class of Columbia College. Whatever he undertook to do he tried to do well, whether play or study. Before he had attained his twelfth year, he was compelled to leave college on account of the dishon- esty of executors who administered upon his father's es- tate, and was, therefore, necessitated to support himself. The battle with the world began when he was but twelve years of age. He sought and found employment in differ- ent stores as shopboy and clerk. At fifteen he undertook to learn the carpenter's trade with llenry S. Davis, of Washington. For two years and a half he worked at this trade, and then gave up his apprenticeship to take a clerk- ship offered him by J. W. Thompson, plumber and gas- fitter. In a short time he became business manager of the concern, and so continued until 1860, when he became a partner. In 1866, he became the proprietor of the busi- ness, the other parties retiring. In 1861, he was elected to the City Council of Washington, re-elected in 1862, and made President of that body. In 1863, he ran for Alder- man and was defeated. IIe then retired from connection with city affairs until 1869, when he assisted in the organi- zation of the " Citizens' Reform Association," of which he was made chairman. As chairman of this body he wielded a potent influence. So strong was it that he defeated Sayles J. Brown, regular Republican candidate for Mayor, by five thousand majority. He was prominent in the framing, perfecting, and passing of the bill providing for a territorial form of government for the District of Colum- bia. The bill became a law in 1871, and on the 16th of March, of the same year, he was made a member of the Board of Public Works, continued as a member, Vice- President, and Executive Officer, until September, 1873, when he was appointed Governor of the District of Co- Inmbia by President Grant. This office he held until June, 1874, when the territorial form of government was changed to three commissioners, who were to have the management of the District affairs. He was renominated as one of these Commissioners by President Grant, but the nomination was rejected by the Senate. Governor Shep- herd helped to organize and served three months in the " National Rifles" of the District. He ran the first train into the Capital after the " 19th of April riots" in Balti- more. He has been connected with many public enter- prises; was a Director in the Young Men's Christian As- sociation ; a Director of the National Metropolitan Bank ; President of the National Publishing Company ; a Direc- tor of Oak Ilill Cemetery; Treasurer of the Provident Aid Society; a Director of the District Telegraph Com- pany, of the Washington Monument Association, and the Washington Market Company. Ile was also President of the Washington Club. In fact there was scarcely a public enterprise or association of any kind in the District, with which he was not prominently connected. He has always

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BIOGRAPHICAL CYCLOPEDIA.

been recognized as a man of almost superhuman energy. Under his management, as Vice-President, the Board of Public Works transformed Washington into a magnificent city, and the nation is indebted to Alexander Shepherd for whatever attractiveness there may be in its capital. In the space of three years he did the work of fifty in cleansing, purifying, and renovating a city which had hitherto been a disgrace to the Union. Years of abuse and intrigue were wasted upon him by his enemies. Newspaper men pub- licly opposed to him, sought to destroy his character by casting adrift the most barefaced malignities ; sensational scribblers made him the robber of widows and orphans and the oppressor of the poor, but to-day the name of Alexander R. Shepherd stands out unsullied and untar- nished in bold relief against the vituperations and calumnies of his enemies. The Governor was born and reared in the Presbyterian faith. In politics, he drifted from the Old Line Whig party into Republicanism, in which he is a strong believer. As an evidence of Governor Shepherd's great business capacity and enterprising spirit, it may not be out of place to mention the fact of his having built fifteen hundred houses in ten years. Some of these are magnificent structures. On November 15, 1876, he was forced to sus- pend. ITis creditors unanimously granted an extension of five years, without interest for one year. At the time of his suspension his assets were about half a million in ex- cess of liabilities. Ilis creditors would not allow an assignment, but simply took a,trust on the property, giving Governor Shepherd full power to administer, sell and con- vey, a mark of confidence seldom, if ever, before exhibited among business men. He has succeeded in paying off ninety per cent. of his indebtedness in one year and a half. Governor Shepherd is six feet one and a half inches in height, erect, well-formed, and weighs two hundred and twenty-five pounds. He always dresses elegantly, but plainly, is genial in manner and social in his disposition. On January 30, 1862, he married Miss Mary Grice Young, daughter of Colonel William P. Young, of Nor- folk, Virginia. Ten children were the issue of this marriage, seven of whom are living, three sons and four daughters.

ISQUITH, HENRY, Lawyer, was the second son of Rev. Henry and Ellen Sophia (Hodges) Aisquith, and was born in Anne Arundel County, Mary- land, January 30, 1840. His father, the youngest of twelve sons, was born in the city of Baltimore, in 1799; he was an able and devoted clergyman of the Episcopal Church, and spent most of his life in Anne Arundel County. During the last four years of his life, he was pastor of the Episcopal Church in Chaplico, St. Mary's County. Ile died in that place in 1856. llis

grandfather, William Aisquith, was of Welsh parentage, and a man of some prominence in his day, being for many years the only Coroner in Baltimore. Ile had a nephew, Captain Edward Aisquith, who owned and named Aisqnith Street in the then town of Baltimore. The subject of this sketch attended St. James College in Washington County, Maryland, for three years, when he began the study of law with Messrs. McLane and Williams, of Baltimore. At the end of two years his health failed, and he returned to the family estate, and for three years devoted himself to farm life, after which he resumed his legal studies with Hon. Alexander Randall, in Annapolis, and in 1866, opened an office in that city for the practice of his profession. He carly turned his attention to railroad law, in which he has had great success. He was elected by the directors of the Annapolis and Elk Ridge Railroad, to be the first counsel for that corporation after the creation of the office. Before this election, however, he was engaged in several important cases, one of which, viz., Gantt vs. The An- napolis and Elk Ridge Railroad Company, involving three very important questions never before settled in this State, was argued, and decided in favor of the appellant. In this case, he was associated with Judge Tuck. It attracted wide attention among the profession, and was reported by the press. He also, associated with the late Melton Whit- ney, defended in the United States District Court, three judges of election, who were indicted under the Civil Rights Act, which case occupied eighteen days in trial, there being three hundred and fifty witnesses. When the case had been in progress twelve days, the court adjourned for one month. The practical result of the trial was an acquittal, the jury disagreeing. He defended successfully in the same court, the case of the United States against George W. Murdock, for violation of the same law, which was the first acquittal ever obtained of that nature. In 1875, he was elected State's Attorney for Anne Arundel County, for four years from January 1, 1876. Since his election to that office, he has prosecuted several parties charged with capital offences. Among them may be men- tioned that of Henry Norfolk, for the murder of his wife, which murder was one of the most brutal and atrocious in the criminal history of the State, he having brained her with a hickory club. Mr. Aisquith gained his case on cir- cumstantial evidence alone, in the face of a general opinion that the conviction of the murderer could not be obtained. He was hung at Annapolis, December 21, 1877, having confessed his crime before his execution. Of the seven murder cases tried by Mr. Aisquith since his election, all were convicted except one, and in that case the jury returned a verdict for manslaughter. In politics, Mr. Aisquith is a Democrat ; in religion, he is an Episco- palian. He is devoted to his profession, in which he ranks high, especially in legal matters affecting railroads and other corporations. He is a man of commanding presence, and fine personal appearance.

BIOGRAPHIICAL CYCLOPEDIA.

?DAMS, GEORGE FREDERICK, M.D., of Baltimore, was born in Charles County, Maryland, November 30, 1830. His father, Benjamin Adams, was also a native and extensive farmer of that county. Ile was a gentleman of a retired nature and exalted moral character, and was held in the highest estimation by the entire community in which he resided. Ile partici- pated in the battle of Bladensburg, in the war of 1812. The doctor's grandfather was John Adams, native of Prince George's County, Maryland. Ilis father, Dr. Adams's great-grandfather, was Reverend George Adams, a distinguished, dissenting clergyman of England, who came to this country in the eighteenth century, and settled in Prince George's County, where he had a parish, in the rectorship of which he died, after an eminently successful ministry of many years. Dr. George F. Adams spent his youthful years in the county of his nativity, and at the age of sixteen years, entered Charlotte Ilall Academy, St. Mary's County, Maryland, where he assiduously pursued his studies for three years. At the expiration of that time, he commenced the reading of medicine in the office of the late Dr. J. F. Shaw, a very prominent and highly accom- plished physician of Charlotte Hall. After a studentship of two years in the above office, he went to Baltimore, where he entered, as a private student, the office of the late Professor Samuel Chew, Professor of Therapeutics and Materia Medica in the University of Maryland. Ile ma- triculated at the above college of medicine in the fall of 1851, and graduated therefrom in March of 1853. Upon receiving his diploma as Doctor of Medicine, he returned to Charlotte Hall, where he established himself in the practice of his profession, steadily and successfully pursu- ing the same for the long period of seventeen years, when he removed to Baltimore and located in the twelfth ward of that city, where he has been practicing in one locality for about seven years. Professionally and personally, the doctor is held in the very highest regard. His long ex- perience as a physician, and the excellent instructions he received under so eminent and revered a preceptor as Pro- fessor Samuel Chew, have given him rare attainments, whilst his urbanity of manners and conscientious discharge of professional duty, command for him the confidence and esteem of his patients. The doctor married, in November, 1866, Miss Kate Morton, daughter of the late James Morton, of Charles County, Maryland, and one of the most prominent merchants in Southern Maryland. The doctor's religious tenets are in accord with those of the Episcopalian (Low) Church, he and his ancestors for four generations having been of the same faith. His political principles are of the Democratic Conservative type, he being in op- position to all radicalism, and in favor of such constitu- tional government as excludes all intolerant legislation. Upon this basis, he is continually performing the duties of a good citizen, making his influence felt for the benefit of the community in which he lives.

PPLEGARTH, WILLIAM, was born in Dorchester County, Maryland, June 20, 1808. Ile was the son of Thomas and Sarah Applegarth, of that County, members of old and highly esteemed Maryland families. Ilis father was a landowner and farmer, a man of high respectability, and the head of a large family of children, several of whom became mer- chants in Baltimore. William was reared and lived on the farm intil about twenty years of age, and received such education as the country schools of that day afforded. He early manifested a desire for a seaman's life, and at the age above named, entered on that vocation. For a short time he served on board a vessel owned by his elder brother, George; and soon after became part owner of one which he commanded. He very soon attained a high reputation for reliability and seamanship among the ship- ping merchants of Baltimore, and in a very few years be- came interested in the ownership of sundry vessels. He continued in that line of business until 1850, when he established the shipping and commission house of William Applegarth & Son, in which he continued until his death, March 31, 1873; leaving a well-established business, still prosecuted under the same firma name by his sons, Thomas M. and Nathaniel. He was married December 27, 1835, to Elizabeth A. Mitchell, daughter of Michael and Kitterah Mitchell, of Dorchester County. In early life, he joined the Methodist Episcopal Church, of which he was an honored and useful member until his decease. He was one of the first members of the High Street M. E. Church, and a member of the Board of Trustees. Mr. Applegarth was affable in his manners, true in his friendships, of strict integrity and frankness in all business transactions, and generous in his benevolence. He was deservedly esteemed and beloved by a very extensive acquaintance. In politics, he was an old-line Whig; but after the disruption of that party, took but little active interest in politics until the breaking out of the late civil war. Although of slave- hokling parentage, and himself a slave-owner, he at once took a decided stand for the Union cause, and in various ways rendered efficient service to the Government in its darkest hours. After that time, he remained identified' with the Republican party. The colored people of Balti- more recognized him as their true friend, to whom, in business matters, they were accustomed to go for counsel and advice. In 1866, when the prejudices of the white calkers and ship carpenters were driving the colored calkers and carpenters from the shipyards of Baltimore, he purchased and established for them the first railway owned and managed by colored calkers and carpenters in the State of Maryland, now known as the Chesapeake Marine Railway and Dry Dock Company. At the time of establishing that railway, such was the hostility to the en- terprise that it required the nerve of a hero to resist the opposition with which he had to contend in establishing the colored operatives on a firm business basis. Their

BIOGRAPHICAL CYCLOPEDIA.

success and present standing fully attest the correctness of his judgment in devoting himself to that benevolent enter- prise. During his business life, Mr. Applegarth passed through all the financial panies of this country, from that of 1837 to the time of his death, 1873, unscathed in his reputation, and maintaining his high credit in business circles. Ilis name is cherished by all who knew him.

CONRAD, JOHN SUMMERFIELD, Physician and Sur- geon, was born in Fairfax Court-house, Virginia, February 17, 1839. Ilis father, Nelson Conrad, a merchant, was the son of a farmer in Loudon County, Virginia. Ile removed to Baltimore in 1853, and engaged in the wholesale mercantile trade. Dr. Conrad was educated in the Union and Newton Academies of Baltimore. He had a natural taste for the study of medi- cine, and early resolved to make that his profession. Ilis father failed in business in 1857, and he was therefore obliged to leave school and find some way of self-support. Keeping his chosen profession steadily in view he entered, as the first step towards its attainment, the drug store of Elisha Perkins, M.D., of Baltimore, with whom he en- gaged to remain for three years, with the stipulation that he should be permitted to attend two full courses of lectures in the College of Pharmacy. While here it was a part of his duty to remain in the store until half-past ten o'clock at night. This time he diligently devoted to the study of history, biography, the languages, and the past and present literature of pharmacy. ITis habits won for him the regards and favorable predictions of his associates in business, which his later years have not disappointed. From the College of Pharmacy he graduated second in a class of nine, in the year 1860; after which he engaged in teaching as the assistant of his brother, who was Principal of a flourishing academy in Georgetown, D. C. He taught a few hours each day, devoting the rest of his time to the study of medicine, and in attending the lectures in the Medical School of the Columbia University, at Washington. lle graduated at that University in March, 1862, and im- mediately went South, being commissioned in April of the same year, as an assistant surgeon in the Confederate armny, and was assigned to duty at Camp Winder Hospital, which was then just opening in the suburbs of Richmond. This hospital subsequently grew to be the largest in the Con- federacy, having a capacity for five thousand patients. After serving in the wards as an assistant surgeon for about six months he was ordered to medical headquarters as as- sistant to the chief surgeon, and aided that officer in organizing the hospital. In January, 1864, he was ordered to report to General Longstreet, then in Tennessee, where he was assigned to duty with the Seventh Georgia Regi- ment, General Fields's Division, with which he served in the battles around Richmond and Petersburg. He was trans- ferred by request, in the fall of 1864, to the First Engineer

Corps, commanded by Colonel Talcot, and surrendered with the command at Appomattox Court- house, April 10, 1865. In 1868, he was elected Resident Physician, iu charge of the Baltimore Infirmary, i. e., University Hospi- tal, where he served nutil 1871, and resigned to accept the appointment as Physician in Charge of the Marine Hospital of the Port of Baltimore, He was in charge of this hos- pital during the great epidemic of small-pox and typhus fever in the years 1871-72, when it was crowded with pa- tients suffering from these diseases, the latter of which he contracted, and nearly lost his life. While in charge of this hospital, he was invited to fill the chair of Professor of Materia Medica and Therapeutics, in the Medical Depart- ment of the Washington University at Baltimore, which he accepted, and occupied during two sessions, when he was chosen by the faculty to fill the chair of Surgery, which he also occupied during two courses; after which he re- signed to accept the position of Resident Physician in charge of the Maryland Hospital for the Insane, at Spring Grove. He entered upon his duties there in 1874, under the superintendency of the venerable Dr. Richard S. Stew- art. After his death, the following year, he was elected Superintendent of the hospital, and served until March, 1878. Dr. Conrad is a member of the Medical and Chirur- gical Faculty of Maryland, of the Baltimore Medical As- sociation, the Baltimore Academy of Medicine, the Ameri- can Social Science Association, the American Public Health Association, and of the American Association of Med- ical Superintendents of the Insane. Among his contribu- tions to medical literature, may be noticed a paper on small-pox, published in the Transactions of the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty, for 1874, and a paper entitled, "Insanity in its Financial Relations to the States," which appeared in the same publication for the year 1876. Hle was married, April 19, 1871, to Miss Virginia M. Rind, daughter of S. S. Rind, Esq., of Georgetown, D. C., whose grandfather published, at Williamsburg, in the year 1766, the first newspaper in the Colony of Virginia. It was en- titled The Virginia Gazette, and contained much interesting matter of a public character. Dr. Conrad is much inter- ested in the study of the sciences, especially biology, sociol- ogy, and psychology. In character he is decided and en- ergetic, but is of a studious and retiring disposition. With one exception, each and all of the public and prominent positions held by him, he has been invited to accept with- out application.

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The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Maryland and District of Columbia Pt. 1, Part 21

Author: National Biographical Publishing Co. 4n Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Baltimore : National Biographical Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 844

Author: National Biographical Publishing Co. 4n
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Baltimore : National Biographical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 844