USA > Washington DC > The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Maryland and District of Columbia Pt. 1 > Part 57
USA > Maryland > The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Maryland and District of Columbia Pt. 1 > Part 57
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80
1
252
BIOGRAPHICAL CYCLOPEDIA.
to Richmond, Virginia, where he assisted in organizing a company for the Southern service, which was afterwards knownas Company 11, First Maryland Regiment, its officers being Captain William Munay, Lieutenant George Thom as, Lieutenant Frank Xavier Ward, and Lientenant Richard Gilmor. Upon the organization of that regiment Lieutenant Ward was apppointed its Adjutant, and served in that capac- ity until its disbandment in August of 1862 ; having served with the same, under Colonel Arnold Elzey, at the battles of Martinsburg, Bull Run, and during the famous Stone- wall campaign in the Virginia Valley, as also the seven days' fight before Richmond. Subsequently Lieutenant Ward was appointed aide de camp on the staff of Major- General Elrey, and was afterwards assigned to the Stone- wall Brigade, then under the command of General James A. Walker, the present Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia. At the time of the capitulation of the Confederate forces Lieutenant Ward was attached to the staff of Major-Gene- ral Cadmus Wilcox, then commanding a division in Lieu- tenant-General A. P. Ilill's corps in the Army of Northern Virginia. After the war Mr. Ward returned to Baltimore and resumed the study of law in the office of Messrs. Brown & Brune, and when the constitutional disabilities were removed which had been imposed upon him on ac- count of his having served in the Southern army, he was admitted to the Baltimore bar. As a lawyer Mr. Ward has been eminently successful. lle is an earnest, cogent, and eloquent speaker. He has been counsel for the Board of Registration of Voters from its establishment. From the earliest period of his professional career Mr. Ward has taken an active part in public and political matters. As a member of the national Democratic party he has been one of the ablest defenders of its principles on the hustings in all the leading campaigns, national, State, and municipal. Not- withstanding he has been, for so many years, a warm and consistent advocate of his party, he has never been the re- cipient therefrom of any office of profit, though his name has been very prominently mentioned in connection with the State's Attorneyship. Mr. Ward is the son of Mr. Wil. liam Ward, a highly respectable and wealthy merchant of Baltimore. In 1874 he married Miss Topham Evans, daughter of Matthew Topbam Evans, a well-known law- yer and litteratur. She is the last lineal descendant of Governor Johnson, the first Governor of Maryland after the colonies had achieved their independence. He was an intimate friend of George Washington, and nominated him as Commander-in-chief of the army. Mr. M. T. Evans's father was the late Hugh W. Evans, who was many years President of the National Union Bank of Baltimore. Mr. Ward is a gentleman of pleasant and affable manners, and commands the respect and esteem of his professional brethren and the community generally. As a gallant sol- dier and officer of the cause in whose service so many of Maryland's sons lost their lives, as a lawyer, scholar, and upright citizen, he occupies a high position.
COMAS, ALEXANDER, was born near Bel Air, Harford County, Maryland, February 27, 1821. His father, Preston MeComas, and grandfather, Alexander Metomas, were native. of the same county. The family were among the list set. tlers of the county. His father was elected High Sheriff of Harford County in 1833, and served for three years, to the entire satisfaction of the citizens. He married Hannah E. Gough, eldest daughter of Harry Gough, a native of England, who came to this country and settled at South Hampton, a well known mansion near Bel Air. Her brother, Harry D. Gough, represented Harford County in the Mary- land Legislature for a number of years. He was also Clerk of the county about seven years. Harry Gough MeComas, who was killed in the battle of North Point, and with Daniel Wells had the credit of killing General Ross, the British commander, was first cousin to Hannah E. Gough. The parents of Alexander were married October 10, 1809. They had eight children, of whom the subject of this sketch was the fifth, he being the second son. His educational advantages, like those of most of the country boys of that day, were limited to the elementary English branches ; and, as was the enstom then, only availed of in the winter-the remainder of the year being given to work on the farm, or whatever else was needed. At thirteen years of age his father required him to make a selection of his future busi- ness. Hle promptly decided to be a gunmaker. His father brought him to Baltimore and placed him with C. C. C. O'Brien, a leading gunmaker, with whom he remained about six years, until Mr. O'Brien's death. He then worked about three years in the same business with another gentleman. At the end of that time he found himself finan- cially no better off than at the beginning; he therefore concluded to begin business on his own account, and rented a small portion of the warehouse No. 51 South Calvert Street, July 25, 1843, and opened a gunmaking establish- ment on a very limited scale. His business career has been one of great prosperity, and is the result of the honorable business policy through which he has maintained and steadily strengthened his reputation. He commenced busi- ness at his present stand with a capital of twenty-one dol- lars. His house is now, and has long been the most notable in that line of business in Baltimore. Both as an importer and manufacturer he has maintained the highest standard in all lines of goods, and has made his house famous as a depot for the best guns and sportsmen's goods known in the world. The rifles and shotguns manufactured by Mr. MeComas have been in use for thirty five years, and are widely and favorably known all over this country and Europe, and the MeComas heavy guns made expressly for buffalo, bear, deer, geese, and duck, are not excelled any- where in the world. At the Maryland Institute, Mr. Me- Comas took the first premium and the first diploma for guns, a silver medal for gun-locks, a silver medal for villes and pistols, and a gold medal for double barrelled gun. His
-
-
1
.
C
253
BIOGRAPHICAL CYCLOPEDIA.
goods were also awarded a silver medal by the Metropoli- tan Mechanics' Institute. Mr. MeComas has travelled ex- tensively in the United States and Canada. Politically, he has been a Whig ; during the civil war, a decided Union man. His mother died in 1831, when he was but ten years old, and, although nearly fifty years have passed since that event, her dying admonitions stand out before him as if written in letters of living light. Ile believes if mothers would bestow more attention on their sons in training them in the right way, to be just and honorable, there would be better and truer men in the land. He was married by the Rev. Henry Slicer, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, November 24, 1844, to Miss Mary A. Hahn, second daugh- ter of the late William Hahn. By this union he has three children living, Que son and two daughters. His son Harry 11. is associated with him in his business.
MITCHELL, REV. JAMES ARCHIBALD, was born March 22, 1839, in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was the son of the Rev. R. 11. B. Mitchell, for many years a clergyman of the Diocese of Maryland, who, with the exception of eight years, spent the whole of his ministerial life in Maryland. He died in Elkton, in May, 1869, being at that time Rector of Trinity Church of that place. He was a very humble and unpretending man, but a man of fine talents. Ile endeared himself to those to whom he minis- tered by a faithful discharge of duty. Ilis, mother was Miss Susan, daughter of Archibald Binney, once a resident of St. Mary's County, Maryland, but who afterwards re- moved to Philadelphia, where he died. The subject of this sketch, after a preliminary preparation, went to Char- lotte Hall, St. Mary's County, in his fourteenth year, which institution was then under the direction of President Brown. He continued there for three years, when he was sent to St. James College, Washington County, Maryland, at that time under the direction of the Rev. Dr. Kerfoot, now the Bishop of the Diocese of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. He graduated from that institution with credit, in July, 1861, when he entered upon the study of theology under the Rev. Dr. Levin, at that time Rector at Chaptico. Ute was in Virginia during part of the civil war, pursuing his divinity studies under the direction of the Rev. Dr. Spar- row, who was then Professor in the Theological Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church of Virginia, which had been removed, at the breaking out of the war, from Alexandria to Staunton, Virginia. He went South with a half-formed purpose to enter the Confederate Army, but finding that he could proceed with his studies, he de- vided to avail himself of the opportunity to prepare him- self for his life work. He was ordained Deacon, in 1864, by Bishop Johns, in Grace Church, Richmond, and ap.
pointed by him to Cornwall Parish, Charlotte County, Virginia, to the rectorship of which he was elected six months thereafter. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1866 by Bishop Johns, in St. James Church, Richmond. While rector of that parish he served as Chaplain of the Church llome and Infirmary of Baltimore, the inducement being increased opportunities for study and service in the cause of the Church. He left Charlotte County, Virginia, in the autumn of 1867, and returning to Maryland, settled as Rector of Whitemount Parish, Talbot County. In 1873 he was elected Rector of St. Paul's Parish, Centreville, Queen Anne's County, where he still resides. Mr. Mit- chell married, January 10, 1871, Miss Mary, daughter of Samuel Kennard, of Talbot County, Maryland. She died four years after their marriage, leaving a memory fragrant with Christian virtues. An infant daughter, named Mary Kennard, is the fruit of this marriage.
B POONE, WILLIAM MARSHALL., was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, March 30, 1836. His father, Wil- liam Boone, was born in Washington, District of Columbia, but went to Pennsylvania with his parents at an early age. IIe was a lawyer by profession, and a man of distinction and ability. lle was commissioner to Nicaragua, and afterward judge of the Supreme Court of New Mexico. Ile died in January, 1860. Mr. Boone was educated at Villa Nova College, Philadelphia, an institution under the charge of the Augustinian Order of the Roman Catholic Church. At an early age he showed a predilection for a professional life, and became fond of reading and liter- ary pursuits. Upon leaving college, in order to get a knowl- edge of business, he became for two years clerk in a large commercial house in Philadelphia. His father having ac- cepted an appointment as commissioner to Nicaragua, tendered him by President Fillmore in 1851, Mr. Boone sailed with him for that place. In less than a year, ill health compelled him to return with his father to the United States. Having studied law and then been admitted to the bar at Philadelphia, he practiced his profession in that city for one year. In 1854 he removed West and set- tled in the town of Fairfield, Jefferson County, lowa, where he engaged in a successful law practice. In about a year, however, he was again called npou to accompany his father, this time to the Territory of New Mexico, where the latter had been appointed one of the justices of the Supreme Court by President Buchanan. They remained there fifteen months, when the health of his father failing, they returned in September, 1860. After the death of, his father in 1860, Mr. Boone settled in St. Paul, Minnesota, where, with his brother, he engaged successfully in the practice of his profession. In September, ISot, he again returned to Philadelphia. Upon the breaking out of the civil war he entered the Federal Army as a Second Lien-
3.3
254
BIOGRAPHICAL, CYCLOPEDIA.
tenant of infantry. In July, 1862, he was appointed Cap- tain and Assistant Adjutant-General, a position he continued to hold until the close of the war. He was twice lareseted; once as Major, for long and meritoaiour service, and again as Lieutenant Colonel, for gallant conduct at the battle of Gettysbing. During the war he was stationed in the East, principally on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Virginia. Afterward he was stationed at Harper's Ferry, West Vir- ginia. Ile was attached to Siegel's command, and later to Ilunter's, at the celebrated raid up the Valley of Virginia. lle participated in all the battles of Hunter's campaign ; the occupation of Staunton and Lexington ; the tearing mp of the railroad at Staunton; the retreat through' the Kanawha Valley and return to Harper's Ferry. After re- maining at the latter place six months, he was ordered to Baltimore, where he was stationed at the time of the assassination of President Lincoln, and assisted in the en- deavors to prevent the escape of Booth. At the close of the war Mr. Boone settled in Baltimore, and became one of its most prominent and respected citizens. He was often called upon to fill positions of trust and responsibil- ity. Ile was President of the Mount Vernon Company, organized for the manufacture of cotton sail duck, etc. ; a Director of the National Bank of Baltimore; Director of the Maryland White Lead Company, and of the Laurel Mill; a Manager of the Baltimore General Dispensary, llouse of Reformation, and Institution for Colored Child- ren; a Trustee of the Roman Catholic Cathedral, and of St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys; Vice Pres- ident of the Society for the Protection of Children from Cruelty and Immorality; and a Protector of the Catholic Orphan Asylum. Mr. Boone was always .a faithful and devoted adherent to the tenets and practices of the Roman Catholic Church, as were also his father and paternal grandfather. In his political views he formerly voted with the Democratic party, then became a war Democrat, and finally a Republican. Ile married, January 31, 1866, Sarah P., daughter of the late William Kennedy, a prominent and influential citizen of Baltimore. Mr. Kennedy was identified with many public enterprises, and was a man of solid worth and probity of character. Ile was one of the founders and a president of the Mount Vernon Mills. Mr. Boone died very suddenly at his resi- dence, 26 Mulberry Street, Baltimore, January 23, 1879. He had six children, four daughters and two sons.
HOLDSBOROUGH, GOVERNOR CHARLES, was born july 15, 1765, at Horn's Point, Dorchester County, Maryland. He was the ellest son of Charles and Anna Maria (Tilghman) Goldsborongh. He was a member of the Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, Twelfth, Thirteenth and Fourteenth Congresses of the United States,
serving from December 2, 1805, to March 3, 1817. In 1818 he succeeded Honorable Charles Ridgely, as Governor of Maryland, and served until the appointment of Samuel Spigg in 1819. He died, December 13, 18;g. He man . tied, Just, September 2, 1793, Elizabeth Gold borough, daughter of Robert and Mary Emerson ( Trippe) Golds- borough. The fruits of this union were Elizabeth Green- bury Goldsborough, who married Honorable John Leeds Kerr, and Anna Maria Sarah Goklsborough, who married William Henry Fitzhugh. On May 22, 1804, Governor Goldsborough married Sarah Verbury Goldsborough, daughter of Charles and Williamina (Smith) Goldsborough. Their children were Honorable William Tilghman Golds- borough, who married Mary Eleanor Lloyd, daughter of Governor Edward Lloyd; Williamina Elizabeth Cadwala- der Goldsborough, who married William Laird; Mary Tilghman Goldsborough, who married William Golds- borough; Caroline Goldsborough, who married Philip Pen- dleton Dandridge ; Richard Tilghman Goldsborough, who married Mary Henry, and Charles Fitzhugh Goldsborough, who married Charlotte Henry.
MANN, HARRY E., the only son of Ernest and Sophia W. ( Eisenbrant) Mann, was born in Bal- timore, August 2, 1851. Ilis father was from an old and substantial family in Pennsylvania, and has resided in Baltimore since his early youth. Mrs. Mann is the daughter of Christian 11. Eisenbrant, who came to Baltimore from the city of Goettingen, in Hanover, to avoid being pressed into the military service of the first Napoleon. Harry E. Mann was sent to the pri- vate school of Reverend Henry Scheib in his native city, and received his classical education at Georgetown Col- lege, District of Columbia. On leaving college he com- menced the study of law in the office of Brown & Brune, of Baltimore, and attended three courses of lectures in the law school of the University of Maryland. He received his degree with the first class graduated from that institution in June, 1871. In September, 1872, he was admitted to the bar, and was soon actively engaged in the practice of his profes- sion. In 1870 he was tendered a Professorship by the faculty of Loyola College, which he accepted, and filled the position for several years, resigning when his legal duties required his whole attention. In connection with his general practice he has made a special study of patent law, and has been connected with the trial of some im- portant and interesting causes. He is a member of the Democratic party, and in the fall of 1877 was prominently spoken of as an available candidate to represent his dis- trict in the Legislature. He joined the Fifth Maryland Regiment as a private during the labor troubles in 1877, soon afterwards was promoted, and at the present time
1
255
BIOGRAPHICAL CYCLOPEDIA.
holds a commission in one of the leading companies of that command. Mr. Mann is genial and courteous, and one of the most popular young lawyers of Baltimore. Ile is fond of reading, and devotes his spare time to the study of English and German literature.
COLDSBOROUGH, HON. ROBERT HENRY, United States Senator from Maryland, was born at Myrtle Grove, Talbot County, the estate of his father, January 4, 1779. His parents were Robert and Mary Emerson (Trippe) Goldsborough, He was the fourth in descent from Nicholas Goldsborough, from Dorsetshire, England, who settled in Kent Island in 1670. lle graduated at St. John's College in 1796. Ilis early manhood he devoted to agriculture, and was a farmer through life. His marriage with Henrietta Maria, daughter of Colonel Robert Lloyd Nicols, of Talbot, took place in the year ISoo. In 1804 he was elected to a seat in the House of Delegates. In 1812 he was appointed by Gov- ernor Winder to the Senate of the United States, to suc- ceed General Philip Reed, who had died before the ex- piration of his term, and he was chosen in the same year by the Legislature for the full term of six years, from March 4, 1813. After his retirement from the Senate, Mr. Goldsborough held no public position until 1825, when he was elected to the House of Delegates. In 1835 the lon. Ezekiel F. Chambers, United States Senator from the Eastern Shore, having resigned his seat to take a place upon the bench, Mr. Goldsborough was appointed to fill the unexpired term, and held that position at the time of his death, October 5, 1836. He was an eloquent speaker, and an easy and popular writer, Education and religion found in him an earnest promoter. He was long a com. municant of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and a ves- tryman of St. Michael's Parish. His politeness was pro. verbial ; he was called the Chesterfield of Maryland, while his amiability and good humor made him the delight of every social circle. His domestic relations were most happy. Ile left a large family of children.
ING, JOHN C., was born, August 27, 1825, in Bal- timore County, Maryland, where he spent his youth, and attended various private schools, until the age of nineteen years, when he entered the Sophomore Class of the University of Vermont (Burlington). Ile graduated at that institution when twenty-two years of age, returned to Baltimore and com- menced the study of law under the direction of the late Ilon. Reverdy Johnson, which he pursued for about two
years. At the expiration of that time, he entered the Law Department of Harvard University, graduating therefrom in about eighteen months. Hle again returned to Baltimore and read law for a brief period in the office of the late Hon. John Glenn, when he was admitted to the Baltimore bu (1853). He has practiced in all the courts of Balti- more and throughout the State of Maryland. In 1861 he was elected Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, which position he held until 1867, when a change of the Consti- tution of the State of Maryland went into effect, which va- cated the existing offices and necessitated new elections. Judge King, at the expiration of his judicial term, resumed the practice of his profession, which he has continuously and successfully prosecuted up to the present time (1879). Judge King's father was John King, an extensive farmer of Baltimore County, and his grandfather was Abraham King, who was also a prosperous farmer of that county. The father served as a soldier in the defence of Baltimore in 1814, and the grandfather was a brave soldier of the Revolutionary war. The progenitors of the Kings were from Pennsylvania, and were of American birth for as many generations as we can trace them. The mother of Judge King was Miss Henrietta Day, daughter of Edward Day, a large landed proprietor of Baltimore County. The judge has never married. No one who has occupied the bench in Baltimore enjoys a higher reputation for integ- rity and impartiality in his decisions than Judge John King. Clear in his judgments, and actuated by a spirit of justice, his opinions have always commanded the warm approval of his professional brethren, and given general satisfaction to litigants whose cases came under the jurisdiction of his court.
OLDSBOROUGH, HON. CHARLES F., son of Hon. Charles and Sarah ( Terbury) Goldsborough, was born at Shoal Creek, near Cambridge, Dorchester County, December 26, 1830. His father was a member of Congress during the war of 1812, and was Governor of Maryland in ISIS. During his boyhood Charles F. Goldsborough was under the charge of the latte Rev. Enoch Bayly, who was a private tutor in the family of his parents. In April, iq6, he entered St. John's College, Annapolis, in the middle of the Sophomore year, and remained until October, 184, when he began the study of law in Cambridge, in the office of his brother- in-law, Hon. Daniel M. Henry, who is now ( 1879) mem- ber of Congress from the First District. Ile was ad- mitted to the bar at the April term of 1852, by his Honor Judge Ara Spruce, at that time Judge of the Circuit, and has ever since practiced his profession in his native county. On June 22, 1852, Mr. Goldsborough was married to Charlotte A. P., youngest daughter of the late John Comp. bell Henry, of Hambrooks, Dorchester County? Her
256
BIOGRAPHICAL CYCLOPEDIA.
grandfather, John Henry, was a member of the Conti- nental Congress, and was one of the first United States Senators from Maryland. Ile was chosen, together with Charles Carroll of Carrollton, in the year 1789, to repre- sent the State in that body. He was also at a subsequent time Governor of Maryland. In 1855, while absent in Virginia, Mr. Goldsborough was nominated by the Whig party of Dorchester County as a candidate for State's Attorney, to which office he was elected, and served for four years. At the expiration of his official term, he de- clined a renomination, and was chosen by the same party, in the fall of 1859, to represent the county in the State Senate. He was Senator in Frederick and at Annapolis, during the troublous times of 1861 and 1862, and took an active part in the legislation of those days. During the session of 1862 he was Chairman of the Committee on Federal Relations, and was also a member of the Com- mittee on Judicial Proceedings, Education, and Printing, besides other committees. In 1860 he was an elector for the State at large on the Bell and Everett ticket. Mr. Goldsborough was a Whig in politics until the final disso- lution of that party. When the civil war broke out he did all in his power to preserve Maryland to the Union, but he was conservative in his views, and in 1864 united with the Democratic party, of which he is still a member. Since the expiration of his Senatorial term, though repeatedly solicited, he has invariably declined to be again a candi- date for office, his time being more than occupied by the demands of his profession. As a lawyer, Mr. Golds- borough is distinguished for the tact with which he ex- amines and cross-examines a witness, for his power before a jury, and for his thorough knowledge of criminal juris- prudence. In arguing a case his manner is, earnest, his style forcible and often impassioned. Ile stands among the first in his profession on the Eastern Shore. Socially he is exceedingly agreeable, and makes many strong friends. He is especially happy in the art of putting others at their ease, in bringing out their finest qualities, and making them appear to the best advantage. In pri- vate and in public he is everywhere admired and esteemed.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.