The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Maryland and District of Columbia Pt. 2, Part 36

Author: National Biographical Publishing Co. 4n
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Baltimore : National Biographical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 802

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USA > Maryland > The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Maryland and District of Columbia Pt. 2 > Part 36

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Legislature. Disliking public life, he declined a renomi- nation, and again retired to the indulgence of his farming and literary tastes. Upon the death of Judge Franklin, in the winter of 1878, notwithstanding his long retirement from the bar, all eyes turned to him as the proper successor to the vacant seat on the bench of the First Circuit. The Governor appointed him, and he now fills the place of As- sociate Judge of the Circuit with marked ability. Ile has been twice married. In 1853 he married Mary Dicker- son, a daughter of l'eter Dickerson, of Worcester County. She left him two children : Hon. William S. Wilson, mem- ber of the House of Delegates of Maryland from Worcester County in 1878, and Miss Ella Wilson. In 1869 he mar- ried Julia A. Knox, daughter of James Knox, of Snow Hill, and four children bless that marriage. In early manhood he united with the Presbyterian Church-the church of his ancestors-and has through life been an earnest defender of its faith. A thorough scholar and discriminating lawyer, he was, while at the bar, a warm and impassioned advo- cate. As a judge he commands universal respect and con- fidence. As a citizen and a friend he has always been pro- verbially true.

9 LAGGETT, JOSEPH EDWARD, M.D., was born in Pleasant Valley, Washington County, Maryland, September 5, 1830. He is the only son of the late Dr. James Hawkins Claggett and Elizabeth Ann Claggett. The former was a native of Montgomery County, Maryland, and in addition to fine personal traits of character was of high professional standing. Dr. J. E. Claggett's mother is the daughter of Edward and Mary Ann Garrott, and granddaughter of Dr. Zachariah Clag- gett, who was an incorporator of the Medico-Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland. She is of a warm and generous nature, and has done much to mould and develop the char- acter of her only son. The Claggetts are of English de- scent, and include among the members of their family Bishop Thomas John Clagett, the founder of St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Baltimore. Dr. Claggett received the rudiments of his education at the private schools in the neighborhood of the place of his nativity. In early life he developed a taste and inclination for the study of medi- cine. After reading in his father's office eighteen months he attended three courses of medical lectures, of eight months each, in the Winchester Medical College, of Vir- ginia. Ile subsequently attended the medical colleges of Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Richmond, Virginia, and Charleston, South Carolina. In 1851 he began the practice of medicine in his father's office, but after four years of laborious professional work in a mountainous country he was attacked with incipient consumption, and was compelled to desist from practice, and seek the warmer 66

and more congenial climate of the Southern. States. Ile returned to his home after an absence of seven months, somewhat improved in health, but yet unable to resume his practice. He then engaged in the drug business at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, in which he remained for six years, from 1855 to 1861. During his residence at Har- per's Ferry the John Brown raid occurred. Dr. Claggett knew John Brown well. When the Confederate Army, under General Joe Johnston, fell back upon Winchester, Dr. Claggett abandoned his home and business, and went to Richmond, where, after passing the Army Medical Exam- ining Board as full surgeon, he joined General Lee's army, and remained in the field until the surrender at Appomat- tox Court-house. He held the position of Chief Surgeon of the Army Hospital, better known as the Receiving and Forwarding Hospital, A. N. Virginia. Ilis experience "in the field restored him to perfect health. At the close of the war he settled in Baltimore, where he resumed the practice of his profession. At the reopening of the Medi- cal Department of the Washington University, in 1866, he was elected Professor of Materia Medica and Therapeutics, which position he held with honor during a period of six ycars, when he was transferred to the chair of Obstetrics, lecturing in that branch for four years. Dr. Claggett is a member of the Medico-Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland. During 1878 he travelled extensively in Europe, visiting the principal medical schools and hospitals. He married, in 1850, Sidney C. Lindsay, daughter of Mr. Lewis Lind- say, of Winchester, Virginia, by whom he has one child, a daughter.

STUMP, FREDERICK, Associate Judge of the Second Judicial Circuit of Maryland, was born in Cecil County, March 17, 1837. Ile was graduated at Princeton College in the class of 1859, and was one of the junior orators of that class. Ile read law with his uncle by marriage, the Ilon. James T. McCul- lough, of Elkton, and was admitted to the bar of Cecil in 1861, became associated in practice with Mr. McCul- lough, and prosecuted his profession assiduously until 1867, when he was elected Associate Judge of the Second Judicial Circuit of Maryland, which position he now holds, and is remarkable for his clearness of perception, legal knowledge, and sound judgment. Judge Stump in- herits the characteristic German fondness (which all his ancestors have manifested), for land and agricultural pur- suits, and stock raising, and devotes his leisure time to looking after his blooded stock and farm on Deer Creek, in Ilarford County. Although the family have been strong partisans, yet they never entered the political arena for personal preferment, and Judge Stump (of the fifth generation who have resided in Cecil County since 1700),

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is the first of the name, in the direct line of descent, who has ever held or been a candidate for any office (Judge Henry Stump, of Baltimore, was an uncle, and the present State Senator from Harford County, Herman Stump, Jr., being a consin). John Stump, the progenitor of the family, was a Prussian, a cousin of the Frederick Von Trench, who figured in the reign of Frederick the Great, and who was imprisoned for aspiring to the hand of the sister of that monarch. He and Mary, his wife, came to America about 1700, and purchased a large tract of land (near what is now Perryville) in Cecil County, whereon they resided until the time of their death. John Stump died in 1747, leaving two sons, John and Henry. The latter moved to Harford (then Baltimore) County shortly after the death of his father. John married Hannah, a daughter of William Husband, a descendant on the female side of Augustine Herman, and continued to reside in Cecil County until 1796, when he sold both his own estate and that of his wife, that had descended to her from Augustine Herman, on Bohemia Manor, and in 1797 re- moved to Harford County. The other brother, Henry, married Rachel Perkins, and had a large family of children, one of whom, named John, married his cousin, Ilannah, daughter of his uncle, John Stump, and removed to Balti- more city, where for many years he was engaged in mercantile business, confining himself principally to the Spanish trade. In ISoo he retired from business, pur- chased the farm near Perryville, in Cecil County, known as. " Perry Point," and resided there until his death in 1828. This valuable estate is now owned and occupied by his son John, who married Mary Alecin, daughter of Colonel George E. Mitchell and his wife Mary, nee Hooper, of Dorchester County, Maryland. Their son Frederick, the subject of this sketch, is one of ten living children. Their names are Mary 11., wife of the late Rev. T. S. C. Smith ; Anna, wife of William Webster ; Catharine W., wife of Dr. James M. Magraw, all of Harford County ; Henrietta, wife of Alexander Mitchell, now of Philadel- phia; Frederick, John, Dr. George M., Henry, Arthur, Elizabeth 11., and Alicia M., of Cecil County. Colonel Mitchell was of the regular army, and served through the war of IS12 with distinction, He received a vote of thanks from Congress, and a sword from the State of Maryland. Having been graduated at the University of Pennsylvania in 1805, after the war he resigned his commission in the army, and thereafter, practiced his pro- fession in Cecil County until his death in 1833, which oc- curred while he was serving his third term in Congress. Ile was the son of Dr. Abraham Mitchell, of Chestnut Level, Pennsylvania, who in 1768 removed to Elkton, Cecil County, and continued to reside there and practice his profession until his death in 1816. During the Revo- Intionary war, he turned his dwelling into a hospital for the sick and wounded American soldiers. He married Mary, daughter of Ephraim Thompson, the son of Richard

Thompson, whose father's name was also Richard, and who was the son of John Thompson. His wife, Judith, was a daughter of Augustine Herman. The Stumps are a large and prominent famity in Cecil, Harford, and Baltimore counties, in Baltimore city, and in the States of Virginia and Texas.

YYDELEN, RICHARD HENRY, Lawyer, was born in Charles County, Maryland, in November, 1830. Ilis father, George Edelen, farmer, of the above county, died in 1855. Richard's mother was Sarah Q., daughter of Raphael Jameson, of Charles County. She died in 1873. She was a most estimable lady, and a devoted Christian ; and her husband was highly esteemed " for his upright character and morality. After five years' at- tendance at a private school, young Edelen was sent to Charlotte Hall, St. Mary's County, where he was placed at an excellent school, under the direction of James Milti- more, a well-known teacher of that county, who prepared him for Georgetown College, District of Columbia, in which institution he became a student, and graduated there- from in 1847. During the first year after his graduation he taught a primary school and began the study of law, for which he had early evinced an inclination, flis law pre- ceptor was General Chapman, an ex-member of Congress, of Charles County. In 1848 he went to Ballston Spa, New York, when he entered the law school. then under the direc- tion of Professor John W. Fowler, where he continued his legal studies for nearly two years. On account of failing eyesight he was compelled to relinquish his studies at the above place sooner than he originally intended. Returning to Charles County he was admitted to the bar, and entered on the practice of his profession, in which he has been very successful. In 1855 Mr. Edelen was elected as State's Attorney for Charles County, over his opponent, Robert S. Reeder, who was the candidate of the American or ". Know-Nothing " party. He was twice re-elected to the position, thus serving therein continuously for twelve years. lle was a member of the State Constitutional Con- vention of 1864, and took an active part in its proceed- ings. He resides on an extensive estate, known as "Chest- nut Hill," near Port Tobacco, which, under his scientific farming and management, is in a high state of cultivation. Though conducting his farm his chief time and attention are devoted to his profession. To a very great extent Mr. Edelen is the architect of his own fortune,and his success in life may be attributed to his persistent industry and un- tiring energy. It is generally conceded that he occupies the foremost rank at the bar of Charles County. His practice is very large and remunerative, Mr. Edelen mar- ried, June, 1858, Miss Mary B., daughter of John Hamil- ton, of Charles County, a wealthy and well-known citizen.

W J. Matters

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JOUCHSTONE, HONORABLE JAMES MONROE, Manufacturer and Legislator, was born October 31, 1846, at Reading, Berks County, Pennsylva- nia. llis father, James Touchstone, was extensively engaged in the iron railing business, and was elected to the Maryland Legislature on the Democratic ticket in 1868 and 1870. Mr. Touchstone received a common-school education in Cecil County, Maryland, and since the death of his father, he and his brother have been carrying on successfully the business established by him, the firm name being J. M. Touchstone & Brother. Mr. Touchstone was elected to the Maryland House of Delegates in the year 1877.

MORRISON, ROBERT DIGHTON, Attorney-at-law, was born December 20, 1830, at Wheeling, Virginia. His father, Joseph Morrison, a native of Ireland, upon coming to the United States, settled in Wheeling, Virginia, where he became a prominent and successful dealer in iron, and soon suc- ceeded, by his sterling qualities of mind and heart, in winning the esteem and respect of his fellow-citizens. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Rev. Richard Tydings, an eminent divine of the Methodist Episcopal Church, well known also as the author of Tydings on Succes- sion, whose family for three or four generations had been natives of Maryland. Joseph Morrison died at the early age of forty-two years, leaving eight children. His son Robert, after attending school in Wheeling, was sent, at thirteen years of age, to the city of Baltimore, and there entered the drug business, as a preparatory step to the study of medicine, his father designing him for a phy- sician. After remaining in Baltimore about four years, he enlisted in the United States Army during the progress of the war with Mexico. But the sudden and unexpected termination of hostilities, a few days after his enlistment, prevented him from being sent to Mexico as he expected. Having enlisted for five years, he was assigned to Com- pany A, Corps of Engineers, at that time commanded by Captain, afterwards General, George B. Mcclellan, and stationed at West Point, at which place he remained on duty for two years and three months, when he succeeded in obtaining his discharge from the service, and imme- diately returned to Baltimore. On his return to that eity, he endeavored to secure employment which would enable him to carry out his original plan of fitting himself for the medical profession, but finally decided to study law. Ile therefore entered the office of James Malcom, Esq., and began his legal studies. Meanwhile he obtained a situa- tion in the Mercantile Library to arrange and classify the books, and afterwards received an appointment as teacher in a public school of Baltimore County. During the last year of his preparatory studies he entered the office of

Benjamim C. Barroll, Esq,, who allowed him a salary of one hundred dollars per anmm. On September 15, 1852, Mr. Morrison was admitted to the bar, and began practice. Meeting at first with the usual success of beginners, his constant and devoted attention to his duties caused him to rise steadily in his profession, and has won for him an enviable reputation as a lawyer. Although taking an in- terest in public affairs, he has but once accepted any office, and that one not calculated to interfere with his profes- sional duties. From 1867 to 1872 he held the position of City Solicitor for Baltimore, and during that period was engaged in the trial of many important causes, notable among which were the " City Hall " and " Bounty " cases. In the latter he delivered an opinion, sustained by the Court of Common Pleas and the Court of Appeals, that saved the city a considerable sum of money. Mr. Morrison has been prominently identified with movements designed to secure political reform, having been one of the principal speakers in the interest of reform during the campaign of 1875-77. At the conclusion of the campaign of 1875, he took a leading part in the contested election cases arising therefrom, and was one of the counsel for the contestants in the cases of S. Teackle Wallis v. Gwinn, and of Henry M. Warfield v. F. H. Latrobe. During the civil war his sympathies were entirely with the South, but he was op- posed to actual secession. Mr. Morrison's genial temper and attractive manner have secured for him the love and esteem of all his friends and acquaintances. His family consists of eleven children, eight of whom are living.

(From Baltimore, Past and Present.)

BALTERS, WILLIAM T., is sprung from a hardy Scotch-Irish ancestry, who settled more than a century ago in Pennsylvania, on the Juniata River ; from its mouth to forty miles above it, that region being then an unbroken wilderness. The deseendants of this stock, by their labor and shrewd enter- prise, steadily pushing their fortunes in other places, have left their kindred, Mitchells, Stewarts, and Thompsons, still in possession of a large part of their primitive domain, It was there that, in 1820, Mr. Walters was born. His father, Henry Walters, was for many years a merchant and banker in that vicinity. His mother's maiden name was Jane Thompson. In 1845 Mr. Walters married Ellen, daughter of Charles A. and Anna D. Ilarper, of Philadel- phia. Mrs. Walters died in London, in 1862, leaving two children, a son who graduated at Georgetown College, and afterwards took a special course of practical science at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a daughter, who was educated at the Convent of the Visita- tion, Georgetown, D. C. As the subject of this sketch grew into boyhood, the mineral interests of Pennsylvania,

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which have since grown so great, began to claim a some- what marked attention, and improved means of intercourse by canal and railway, between the mountain-severed sec- tions of the State, were matters of constant and general discussion. Foreseeing the public need for educated energy in this direction, his parents placed him in the best schools then existing in Philadelphia, where he was educated as a civil and mining engineer. Although even in his early manhood he settled to a different pursuit, yet much of the leading power of his character was strengthened and in- tensified in his youth by the laborious and hazardous field practice of his profession. In severe journeys on horse- back and on foot through the rugged mountain regions of his State, where, for hundreds of miles along the ridges, there was a wilderness without road or bridle-path, long before the eastward-flowing and westward-flowing waters were brought together by human energy and art, and be- fore the locomotive sent its echoes, as it now does hourly, from the summits of the Blue Ridge and the Alleghanies, he grew personally familiar with the whole rough region, which has since yielded to the country such incalculable stores of coal and iron. The physical and mental invigora- tion of this hardy life marks him notably now, while the openness of nature in all her aspects of savagery and ten- derness, powerfully nourished that strong love of the vigor- ous, the grand, the picturesque, and the beautiful, which have distinguished him throughout life. In his early man- hood, indeed, some time before his majority, such was the absolute reliance of his friends on his character for sensc, energy, vigilance, and the power to command men, that he was put in charge of an extensive smelting establishment in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, where, under his man- agement, was made the first iron ever manufactured with mineral coal in the United States. In 1841, at the open- ing of the Tidewater Canal, from Columbia to Havre de Grace, he went (then in his twenty-first year) to Baltimore and established himself in a general commission business, and at once took the lead in the Pennsylvania produce trade. It was in this pursuit that he first impressed the citizens of Baltimore, of twenty five and thirty years ago, with his strong personal character as a merchant and a man. Find- ing his field at that time too narrow for his energies, he, in 1847, in connection with the late Mr. Charles Harvey, es- tablished the now widely-known firm of W. T. Walters & Co. The prominence which his house had before was at once brought to the new concern, who, in their business of foreign and domestic wine and spirit merchants, at once took greatly the lead, which the house has always main- tained in the city, and rose rapidly to be, for character and importance, one of the very first houses in the country. The firm of W. T. Walters & Co. has consisted for several years of Mr. Walters, himself, Mr. Joseph P. McCay, and Mr. John W. McCoy. Mr. Walters was the President of the first steamship line established between Baltimore and Savannah, and a Director, from time to time, in every line established

from Baltimore to the South. At the close of the war, he insisted on the advantage of immediately re-establishing all new Southern lines of steamers, aided them in many ways, and also urged and aided the organization of other lines. He has almost kept aloof from official prominence, in any and every form, even while his clear opinions and his energetic character impressed the policy of official ad- ministrations. It is not as a steadily successful merchant only that Mr. Walters is well known, but as a liberal user of his large means for the general benefit and for the gratification of tastes not ordinarily met with to any notable degree amid the cares and ambitions of an active business life. His early fondness for art, more than thirty years since, when he first established himself in Baltimore, induced him to spend a portion of his first year's profits here in the purchase of the best pictures he could procure, and no year, in all the intervening time, has elapsed without fresh additions to his collection. Closely identified for a long time with the growth of art in America, and for twenty years intimately associated with our best artists, they have always found in him, not a judicious patron only, but an appreciative and generous friend. Residing in Europe from 1861 to 1865, Mr. Walters travelled exten- sively, and gratified his long-cherished wish to study and understand more fully the condition and history of art, which so much interested him. Growing personally familiar with the most prominent Continental artists, he made from their works, then and since, many exquisite' additions to his collection. The French Exposition of 1867, which he visited, the Vienna Exposition of 1873, to which he was accredited as a Commissioner from the United States Government, and, more notably still, the Paris Exposition of 1878, among the art treasures of which he spent a laborious season, enabled him to add to his gallery upwards of forty pictures, all of them of distin- guished character, and many of them of supreme excel- lence. Indeed no single year has passed since he began embellishing his home without a marked improvement in his art possession; until now, by continual pruning and repruning, and by fresh additions of still superior worth, his collection has grown to be, beyond dispute, the very best array of modern pictures in America, and persons thoroughly familiar with art abroad will find it very hard indeed to recall any private collection in Europe of more various scope, or of an equally high average of excellence. The partisan of no especial school, he has brought together the finest works of French, German, Belgium, American, and English artists. These art treasures have won a wide celebrity, especially among the truest critics, and people of maturely cultivated taste. Not kept for ostentation, . they are accessible at all times, freely, to his many friends and to all artists, and on stated days to all persons who wish to see them. Apart from the ownership of this col- lection, Mr. Walters holds a position that must have great influence on the future of art in this country, he having

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been appointed (the only appointee out of Washington city ) by W. W. Corcoran, as one of the permanent Trus- tees of the Art Museum which that gentleman has so nobly endowed, and his co trustees having made Mr. Walters Chairman of the Purchasing Committee. Some little work of Rinehart, since so distinguished as a sculp- tor, having caught the eye of Mr. Walters many years ago, while the artist was as yet even locally unknown, on meeting him, Mr. Walters was at once impressed with his capacity, as also with the earnest sincerity of his charac- ter, and his steadfast determination to devote his life to art alone, and to patiently await the world's recognition of his powers. It was by Mr. Walters's urgent desire and by his and that Rinehart went to Rome, and during all his long residence there, Mr. Walters's purse was open to him without stint or limit. It was through the zealous en- denvor of Mr. Walters and of S. Teackle Wallis that the State of Maryland gave to Rinehart a statue of the late Chief Justice Taney, and appropriated therefor the liberal sum of fifteen thousand dollars. The fruit of this com- mission is the heroic statue now in front of the State- house at Annapolis, where the great Chief Justice, in person, countenance, and manner true to the very life, sits in simple majesty, the impersonation of a calm, wise, and upright judge. A figure in marble by Rinehart, the " Woman of Samaria," in the hall of Mr. Walters's town house, is itself a noble souvenir of art; whilst Mrs. Wal- ters, who in her life was always Rinehart's friend, is lovingly commemorated by him in a bronze monumental figure in Greenmount Cemetery, where the deepest and tenderest inspiration of the artist makes the grave a sanc- tuary where love is reconciled with death. One of the . most striking busts made by Rinehart is that of Mr. Wal- ters. It is marked by great life, likeness, vigor and severity. His portrait by Elliott, is also one of that great artist's very best productions, thoroughly alive and full of character. The flower of Rinehart's works, in his own judgment, is his statue of Clytie, presented by one of his life-long personal friends, Mr. John W. McCoy, a citizen of Baltimore, to the Peabody Institute, on condition of free exhibition perpetually. This supremely lovely figure, in marble, together with casts of all Rinchart's leading works, have recently, through Mr. Walters, been brought together on public exhibition, where thousands of visitors to the " Art Loan Collection," at the Peabody Galleries, have been charmed with a new sense of the artist's power, and have realized in Rinchart's works of themselves, a sincere and noble school of art. Rinchart having died at Rome in 1874, his bodily remains were removed from their Roman sepulchre, brought to Baltimore, and placed for a time in Mr. Walters's family vault in Greenmount, preparatory to their interment in that cemetery as their final resting-place. The sculptor having left an estate of about fifty thousand dollars, which he had thoughtfully dedicated by will to art uses in Baltimore, he made

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The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Maryland and District of Columbia Pt. 2, Part 36

Author: National Biographical Publishing Co. 4n Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Baltimore : National Biographical Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 802

Author: National Biographical Publishing Co. 4n
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Baltimore : National Biographical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 802