The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Maryland and District of Columbia Pt. 1, Part 70

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

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PARBACA, WILLIAM, was born, October 31, 1740, at Wye Hall, in Harford County, Maryland. He was the second son of John Paca. He received a liberal education and was graduated Bachelor of Arts, June 8, 1759, it the college at Philadel- phia, during the administration of Rev. William Smith, D.D. Hle adopted the profession of law, studied in the office of Stephen Bordley, in Annapolis, and was admitted to the bar, April 11, 1764. At an early period of his life he served in the Legislature of Maryland, and became noted for his ability and patriotic devotion to the rights of his fellow-citizens. By the Maryland Convention, held in Annapolis from the 22d to the 25th day of June, 1774, he was appointed one of the deputies to attend the Continental Congress, and served by successive appointments until 1778. Ile was appointed by the Convention of Maryland, held in Annapolis from the 8th to the 12th day of Decem-" ber, 1774, one of the Committee of Correspondence of the Province of Maryland, and also was made one of the " Coun- cil of Safety " by the Convention held in Annapolis from July 26 to August 14, 1775. On August 2, 1776, he affixed his signature to the Declaration of Independence. On Au- gust 17, 1776, he was elected one of the committee "to pre- pare a declaration and charter of rights and a form of gov- ernment for Maryland;" and was an active and leading member of the Convention which formed the first Constitu- tion of the State of Maryland. Upon the organization of the government of the State, he was elected to the first Senate of Maryland. On March 9, 1778, he was appointed Chief Judge of the General Court of Maryland, and filled that position until his successor, Robert Hanson Harrison, was appointed, March 10, 1781. Subsequently, he was ap- pointed by the Continental Congress Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals and Admiralty. On November 15, 1782, he was elected the third Governor of the State of Maryland, and succeeded Thomas Sim Lee. In 1784 he was elected Vice-President of the Society of the Cincinnati. During his gubernatorial term, he evinced much interest in the cause of religion and education, and was, in an especial manner, the friend and fostering patron of Washington College at Chestertown. He was a member of the Maryland Con- vention that ratified; April 28, 1788, the Constitution of the United States. On December 22, 1789, he was ap- pointed by President Washington Judge of the United States Court of the District of Maryland, and served in that position until his death in 1799. He married twice. Ifis first wife was Mary Chew, of Anne Arundel County, Maryland, the third daughter of Samuel and Henrietta Maria (Lloyd) Chew, who died, leaving a son, John P. Paca, who married Julianna Tilghman, daughter of Richard and Mary Tilghman, and is now represented by the chil- dren of Joseph and Sarah (Paca) Rasin, of Kent County, Maryland. In 1777 Mr. Paca married his second wife, Anna Harrison, of Philadelphia. She died in 1780, leav- ing a son, who died in infancy.

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ANSON, COLONEL GEORGE ADOLPHUS, Lawyer and Author, was born December 30, 1830, at " Wood- bury," his father's country seat, near the head of Sassafras River, in Kent County, Maryland. 1Ie was educated at the College of St. James, in Wash- ington County, Maryland, during the presidency of Rev. John B. Kerfoot, D.I)., now Bishop of the Diocese of Pitts- burg ; was graduated Bachelor of Arts, July 31, 1851, and delivered the Latin Salutatory Oration for his class. On the first Monday of the ensuing October, he commenced the study of law in the office of William J. Ross, of Frederick, Maryland; completed his preparatory legal studies at Dane ITall, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was admitted, Octo- ber 19, 1853, to practice law, by the Circuit Court for Frederick County, Maryland. In due course he received the degree of Master of Arts from his Alma Mater. He was married, September 23, to Courtney Cordelia Barraud, a lady of rare culture and rare intellectual endowment,, born July. 1, 1836, in Norfolk, Virginia, and the daughter of Dr. Daniel Cary and Mary Lawson (Chandler) Barraud, of Norfolk, Virginia. She, on her father's side a Ilugue- not, was the granddaughter of Dr. Philip Barraud, a dis- tinguished personage of Norfolk, who was the son pf Daniel Barraud, the intimate friend of the Earl of Dunmore, in ante-revolutionary times, and a zealous patriot in 1776. ller father, on his mother's side, was descended from Colonel Thomas Hansford, who, November 13, 1676, died " a martyr to the right of the people to govern them- selves." IIer mother was the granddaughter of Colonel Anthony Lawson of revolutionary fame, who was the great-grandson of Colonel Anthony Lawson, conspicuous in Virginia in the suppression of the Bacon Rebellion in 1676, who was the son of Thomas Lawson, who came, at an early period, to Virginia, with Captain John Smith. After his marriage he continued to reside and practice law in Frederick, Maryland, where his six children were born, viz. : Alexander Barraud Hanson, Barraud Hanson, St. George Courtney Hanson, Mary Susan Hanson, Edward Anderson IIanson, and Catharine Annika Hanson. In 1865 he was elected Vice-President of the Frederick County National Bank. In 1868 he was threatened with loss of sight, and compelled to abstain from reading, writ- ing, and the practice of his profession. He was appointed by Hon. Oden Bowie, by commission, dated September 17, 1869, Aid-de-camp to the Governor of Maryland, with the rank of Colonel. In the hope of securing the permanent restoration of the failing health of his wife, he purchased from his cousins, September 23, 1870, Radcliffe Hall, an estate in Kent County, Maryland, one of the homes of his ancestors, and removed his family there from Florida,

April 13, 1871. Mrs. Courtney Cordelia (Barraud) Han- son departed this life, August 4, 1871, in full communion

with the Protestant Episcopal Church, and is interred in the same vaulted grave with her two youngest children in the Ilanson burial-ground in Chester Cemetery, near

Chestertown, Maryland. Colonel Hanson is the author of several published addresses, lectures, letters, pamphlets, reviews, and of a work of fiction, which was reprinted in England. During his residence at Radcliffe Ilall, July 18, 1871, he was admitted to the bar of Kent County, and in November of the same year moved to Baltimore city, where he completed and published in 1876 his work, Old Kent : The Eastern Shore of Maryland: Notes illus- trative of the most ancient records of Kent County, Mary- land, and of the Parishes of St. Paul's, Shrewsbury, and I. U., and Genealogical Ilistories of old and distinguished Families of Maryland and their connection by marriage, etc. lle was appointed, March 4, 1876, by the United States Cen- tennial Commission, one of the Centennial State Board of Maryland. Ile was a member of the Congress of Authors, assembled in Independence llall, Philadelphia, July. I, 1876, and on that occasion, by invitation of the Committee " on the Restoration of Independence Hall, presented a memoir of Hon. Benjamin Contee, member of Congress in 1787, 1788, 1789, and 1790. In 1877 he again returned to Kent County, and July 27, 1877, assumed the edi- torship of the Chestertown Transcript, a weekly news- paper. On April 23, 1878, he resumed his profession and commenced the practice of law in Chestertown. On May 10, 1878, he disposed of the newspaper, having in a short period greatly increased its usefulness and circulation. . He has been actively connected with several literary so- cieties ; was one of the seven founders of the Irving So- ciety, at the College of St. James, and is at present a member of the Maryland Historical Society, and a corre- sponding member of the Maryland Academy of Sciences. lIe was one of the first advocates of local option in the State of Maryland, and when the act of 1878, chapter 161, was enacted, he boldly denounced the license system as a brutal wrong, pronouncing the revenue accruing from it to be blood-moncy, accursed by God and man, and became prominently identified with the Independent Temperance movement in Kent County. He wrote and reported the .platform . resolutions, unanimously adopted August 6, 1878, by the first regularly organized Temperance county convention ever held in Kent, and was the author of the " Address of the Central Committee to the People of Kent County, Maryland," issued September 17, 1878. On No- vember 5, 1878, the Temperance ticket was carried in Kent County by 590 majority. IIe is the eldest son of Colonel Alexander Baird Hanson, a memoir of whom is contained in this volume. In politics he is a Democrat, an ardent Southerner in all his sympathies, and faithfully attached to the ancient traditions of Maryland. He is an Episcopalian, as all his forefathers were. In Freemasonry, he is Senior Warden of Chester. Lodge, No. 115, at Chestertown; Past High Priest of Enoch Royal Arch Chap- ter, No. 23; Past Grand King of the Grand Royal Arch Chapter of Maryland ; Past Eminent Commander of Jacques De Molay Commandery of Knights Templar, No. 4, and

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of the Thirty-second Degree in the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite. On August 4, 1870, he was constituted the representative of the Most Excellent Grand Royal Arch Chapter of the State of Louisiana, at the Grand East of' the Royal Arch Chapter of Maryland, and still occupies that position. On November 20, 1878, he was appointed by the Grand Lodge of Maryland, Grand Inspector of Kent and Queen Anne's countics.

ERRYMAN, JOHN, of Ilayfields, was born at Hereford Farm, Baltimore County, Maryland, August 9, 1824. Ilis father was Nicholas Rog- ers Merryman; his mother Ann Maria Gott. Ilis grandfather, John Merryman, was born at the same farm, and was a merchant and farmer. In connection with James Calhoun, Hercules Courtenay, Thomas and Jesse Shillingsworth, he took an active part in securing the act of the General Assembly incorporating the city of Bal- timore. He was President of the Second Branch of the first City Council, James Calhoun was Mayor, and Hercu- les Courtenay, President of the First Branch. The families of Merryman and Rogers emigrated from Herefordshire, England, about the middle of the seventeenth century. There were frequent intermarriages in the families. The maiden names of John Merryman's grandmother and great- grandmother were Sally Rogers. The records of the court of Baltimoretown for 1659, show that Nicholas Rogers was clerk of the court, and Charles Merryman Foreman of Grand Inquest. In 1839, having had but lim- ited advantages of education, he entered the hardware store of Richard Norris in Baltimore. In the winter of 1841 he accepted a situation tendered him by his maternal uncle, Samuel N. Gott, in his counting-room at Guayama, Porto Rico, West Indies. He returned home in July, 1842, and was induced to remain and take charge of several farms belonging to his uncle, John Merryman. In 1843 he settled at Hayfields, and the next year married Ann Louisa, daughter of the late Elijah Bosley Gittings. They have ten children living. In the year 1847 he was Third Lieutenant of Baltimore County Troops; and in 1861 was First Lieutenant of Baltimore County Horse Guards. Captain Ridgely having tendered the services of the Ilorse Guards to the Maryland State authorities, April 19, 1861, they were accepted the next day, and mustered at Towson- town, from whence they proceeded to Monument Square, Baltimore, where they received orders to take a position on the right of the infantry, on Fort Avenue, in South Bal- timore, to repel a mob supposed to have in contemplation an attack on Fort Mellenry. There being no signs of a mob, towards moring they returned to Monument Square, and were dismissed to reassemble at Towsontown that day. Lieutenant Merryman was detailed with a small force to establish a post at the Hayfields House, there having been a large number of troops located in the immediate neigh

borhood, owing to the destruction of the railroad bridges between Ashland and Baltimore. Learning that a United States officer had been sent to Ashland to have the troops returned to Pennsylvania, Lieutenant. Merryman rode to Ashland, and was introduced to Major Belger, and offered to reuder him or the troops any service required ; and if necessary would slaughter his cattle to supply them with food. Major Belger distinctly stated his business. Ile soon learned there was an interference on the part of the Pennsylvania authorities, who, notwithstanding the order of the President of the United States, to pass the troops around, determined to push them through Baltimore. It was believed the result of the attempt would have been the destruction of the soldiers, and, perhaps, of Baltimore. Acting upon this information, the Governor of Maryland ordered that the bridges should be destroyed on the North- ern Central Railway, after the troops passed north, to pre- " vent them returning with Sherman's battery, and other re- inforcements, as intended by the Pennsylvania authorities. The Lieutenant received instructions from Captain Ridgely to execute the Governor's order; but he exercised his own discretion, and instead of destroying a number of valuable structures, he burned one bridge, south of Parkton, and a few trestles above that point. This effectually prevented the return of the troops by that route. In reply to the Lieutenant's report, the commanding General issued an order, commending in high terms the manner in which the. Governor's order had been executed. A few weeks after- wards, at three o'clock on the morning of May 25, 1861, Lieutenant Merryman's house was surrounded by United States soldiers, and he was arrested and conveyed to Fort MeHenry. While there he was indicted for treason, the overt act being the burning of the bridge and trestles, which was done in the execution of his sworn duty as an officer of the militia of Maryland. He immediately sent a petition for a habeas corpus to Chief Justice Taney, and he ordered the General in charge to present Mr. Merryman before him, in the United States Court-room, in Baltimore, May 27. The order was disobeyed, and the United States marshal was directed to bring General Cadwalader before the Chief Justice on Tuesday, May 28, for contempt. This order was not executed, for the reason that the President of the United States, instructed the General to resist the marshal. Upon receiving the return of the marshal, the Chief Justice declared his decision in these words : " It is, therefore, very clear, that John Merryman, the petitioner, is improperly held, and is entitled to be immediately dis- charged from imprisonment." The opinion in the case is very long, and fully stistains the decision. Mr. Merryman declares his sympathies with the South in the late contro- .versy, but acknowledges the constant and persevering services of a number of friends, who were Union men, in protecting him from prosecutions. . Although bound over to answer at trial for treason, he was never brought to trial. Having been surrounded by Whig associations, he took no

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prominent part in politics until the Know-Nothing party was organized, in opposition to which he became active in Democratic ranks, and in 1855 was nominated for the House of Delegates ; but the Know-Nothings secured the clection. Two years afterward the same nomination was tendered him, but preferring the position of County Com- missioner, that nomination was made, and he was elected, receiving one hundred and fifteen more votes than the gub- ernatorial candidate received in the county. He was made President of the Board. At the expiration of his term he declined a renomination. In 1870 he was elected Treasurer of the State of Maryland, and in connection with Gover- nor Oden Bowie, succeeded in placing the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal upon a much better footing than they found it. 'The net earnings in the two years of their ad- ministration were four hundred and forty thousand dollars. He was a member of the House of Delegates in 1874. As early as 1849 Mr. Merryman took an active part in the affairs of the Maryland State Agricultural Society, and was its Vice-President for Baltimore County in 1852, and Presi- dent in 1857, which position he held until the beginning of the war. In 1866 he issued a circular to the active mem- bers of the society, inviting them to meet at his office in Baltimore, when it was reorganized under the name of the Maryland State Agricultural and Mechanical Association, of which the late Ross Winans was elected President. In 1877 the Carroll County Agricultural Society invited the State Association to hold an exhibition in connection with it upon their grounds at Westminster. The Presidency of the State Association being vacant, on account of the resig- nation of A. Bowie Davis, Mr. Merryman was elected to fill the vacancy, and conducted the exhibition very suc- cessfully. For many years he has given special attention to Hereford cattle, and sheep for mutton. For the cattle lie received a bronze medal and diploma at the Centennial Exposition in 1876, and is rewarded for his attention to sheep-raising by the highest prices given for the best mut- ton reaching the Baltimore market. Mr. Merryman is also a member of the Executive Committee of the United States Agricultural Society, and Vice-President for Maryland of the National Agricultural Association; he is also one of the Trustees of Maryland Agricultural College. Ile es- tablished the house of John Merryman & Co., deal- ers in fertilizers, in Baltimore in 1865. Mr. Merryman's ancestors and their descendants have always been church people. His grandfather, John Merryman: represented St. Paul's Church in a convention held in Annapolis in 1773. He has himself been Register, Treasurer, and Vestryman of Sherwood Church and Parish in Baltimore County, since 1845, and its only delegate to diocesan conventions for thirty years. Mr. Merryman's children are : Nannie G., Bettie, N. Bosley, a merchant of . Marietta, Georgia, where he married Willie McClosky, John, D. Buchanan, E. Gittings, William D .; Louisa G., James McKenney, and Laura F. and Roger B. T., who died in infancy.

FROOME, COLONEL JOHN CHARLES, Attorney-at-Law, was born at Elkton, Cecil County, Maryland, June 8, 1800. lle was the son of Doctor Jolm and Elizabeth Black Groome. Doctor John Groome was a distinguished and popular physician at Elkton, and repeatedly represented Cecil County in the State Legisla- ture. Ile was the son of Charles Groome, of Kent County, Maryland. who was a prominent man in old Kent, and Register of Chester Parish from 1766 until his death in 1791. Charles Groome was the son of Samuel Groome, a distinguished citizen, and a churchwarden of St. Paul's Parish as early as 1726. Jolin C. Groome, the subject of this sketch, after being prepared for college, en- tered Princeton at an early age, and graduated with the highest honors of his class. He read law with the IIon- orable E. F. Chambers and Levin Gale, Esq., and after- ward graduated at the Litchfield Law School. He com- menced the practice of law at Elkton in 1825. He soon took high rank as a lawyer, and thereafter, until his death, had a most extensive and lucrative practice. He enjoyed and justly deserved the reputation of an honest and conscientious lawyer, which secured him great influ- ence in his profession. Ile was emineutly a peacemaker, and sought to adjust claims and disputes without recourse to the courts. Few men have had so many law students. Among the number were the Honorable Alexander Evans, Honorable Hiram Mccullough, Honorable John A. J. Creswell, Honorable J. Jewett, and Honorable James B. Groome, all of whom have served in Congress. Indeed, so numerous were his law students, that he was called the father of the Cecil bar. In politics, Colonel Groome was an old-line Whig, but he was never a politician in the usual sense of that word. In 1833 the Senate of Mary- land, which then filled its own vacancies, selected Colonel Groome, without consulting him and before he was aware of the intention of that body, to fill a vacancy that had occurred. He yielded to the importunities of his friends and served the three remaining years of the Senatorial term, but could not be induced to accept a re-election. For twenty years afterward his professional duties, the management of his large landed estate, and his disinclina- tion to public life, prevented his acceptance of office. Ile, however, filled many important business positions, and his wise counsels always carried weight with those with whom he was associated. In 1856 Colonel Groome, with many other old-line Whigs, supported James Buchanan for the Presidency. In 1857 the Democratic press throughout the State of Maryland advocated his nomination for Gov- ernor. The Democratic State convention made no nomina- tion, but recommended all opponents of " Know-Nothing- ism " to support Colonel Groome as an independent candi- date. He thus ran in opposition to Thomas IHolliday Hicks, the nominee of the American party, and received a majority of the votes cast in the State outside of the city of Baltimore. In personal appearance Colonel Groome had decided

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advantages. Ile possessed a handsome person, a fine open countenance, and a most pleasing address. He was a man of generous impulses, great natural tact, and of a genial vivacious disposition, polished and refined in manuers, and of a remarkably social nature, together with an unusual share of wit and humor, which made him very popular and caused him to be regarded as a "society favorite." On December 6, 1836, he married Elizabeth Riddle Black, a lady of rare personal attractions, culture, and refinement. She was the daughter of Judge James Rice Black, of New Castle, Delaware, who for many years was a distinguished Judge of the Superior Court of that State, and highly esteemed for his ability as a lawyer, as well as for the fidelity with which he discharged his judicial duties. He was the son of James Black and his third wife, and James Black was the son of James and Jeannette Wallace Black. Colonel John Charles Groome died November 30, 1866, leaving a widow and four children. His son, James B., married, February 29, 1876, Alice L., daughter of Colonel Horace Leeds Edmondson and his second wife, Mrs. Maria Dawson, of Easton, Talbot County, Maryland. They have one child. Maria Stokes Groome, daughter of Colonel J. C. Groome, married April 27, 1864, Honorable William M. Knight, only son of William Knight and his first wife, Rebecca D. Ringgold, daughter of Samuel Ringgold, of Pleasant Hill, near Chestertown. Their children are Wil- liam, John C. Groome, Elizabeth Black, Ethel, James Groome, and Maria Stokes. Elizabeth Black Groome, daughter of Colonel J. C. Groome, married June 13, 1866, IIonorable Albert Constable, son of Judge Albert and IIannah Archer Constable. Their children are Alice, Arline, Albert, John C. Groome, Henry Lyttleton, Claire, and Reginald. Jane S. Groome, daughter of Colonel J. S. Groome, married January 31, 1872, Dr. John Janvier Black, son of Dr. Charles II. Black, and grandson of Dr. Samnel 11. Black, of New Castle, Delaware. Their children are Elizabeth M. and Armytage. John C. Groome, a son of great promise of Colonel J. C. Groome, died in 1860, in the twenty-first year of his age.

MITCHENER, WILLIAM ALLEN, Lawyer, second son of Charles H. and Martha ( Elliott) Mitche- ner, was born in New Philadelphia, Ohio, May 10, 1846. Commodore Jesse D. Elliott, of the United States Navy, during the war of 1812-15, was an uncle of Mrs. Mitchener. Her father, Captain Wilson Elliott, was in the regular army in the same war, and another brother of her father was a captain in the regular service, but on account of some dissatisfaction he left the United States service and joined the British Army, in which he was an officer, and in one of the battles was directly engaged against his own brother, Captain Wilson

Elliott. Hon. John Pyn, now a member of the British Parliament, is a near relative of Mrs. Mitchener's family. Charles II. Mitchener, the father of the subject of this sketch, was a lawyer of high standing in New Philadel. phia, and a member of the last Constitutional Convention of Ohio. He was twice defeated for Congress by Hon. John A. Bingham, late minister to China. He died in April, 1878, at the age of sixty-one. His widow still re- sides in Ohio. Their son, William A. Mitchener, attended the best schools in New Philadelphia till he was fourteen years of age, when he entered a printing office, where he remained three years, learning the business of compositor. When he was seventeen years of age he purchased The Guernsey Jeffersonian, which in company with his brother he conducted successfully for three years. He then went to Washington, D. C., where he started The Campaign Digest, a Democratic campaign paper, which continued for three months and had a circulation of 10,000 copies. While thus engaged he commenced and eagerly pursued, at night, by himself, the study of law, and attended lectures at the National Law University, from which institution he graduated in 1872. He immediately opened an office in Washington. for the practice of his profession, which he continued for two years. At the end of this time he re- moved to Baltimore, and was at once made President of. the National Bonded Collection Bureau, which represents the collection interest of over nineteen hundred business houses of Baltimore. This position Mr. Mitchener still continues. to hold, and the business prospers greatly under his able management. In 1874 he was united in marriage with Frances Devereaux Northrop, of New Haven, Con- necticut. They have one child, Maud Mitchener. In politics Mr. Mitchener is a Democrat ; in religious belief and preference he inclines to the Presbyterian Church. In September, 1878, he commenced the issue of a weekly journal entitled The Maryland Law Record.

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The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Maryland and District of Columbia Pt. 1, Part 70

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