USA > Washington DC > Washington DC > The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Maryland and District of Columbia Pt. 2 > Part 6
USA > Maryland > The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Maryland and District of Columbia Pt. 2 > Part 6
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GLY, CHARLES WRIGHT, Principal of the State Insti- tution for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb, at Frederick City, Maryland, was born in Madison, Connecticut, March 14, 1839. Ilis father, Elias S. Ely, is a prominent citizen of that State; he has served in the Legislature, and held many offices of public trust. He is a descendant of Richard Ely, who came from Plymouth, England, in 1660, and settled on the Con- nectient River at Lyme, Connecticut, and whose descen- dants may now be found all over the United States. The mother of the subject of this sketch was Hester Wright. Mr. Charles Wright Ely graduated at Yale College in 1862. Ile then served one year as an officer in the United States military service, and in 1863 entered upon the work of deaf-mute instruction in the State Institution for the Deaf and Dumb at Columbus, Ohio. 1Ic there remained until 1870, when he was chosen to the position he now occupies. He was married to Mary Darling, an accom- plished lady of Ohio, October 24, 1867. He is an elder in the Presbyterian Church of Frederick City, and a Direc- tor in the Bible Society, and in all movements looking to the social and moral elevation of the people is an active co-worker, and commands the esteem of the community in which he lives.
B ARNEY, Jusqus, was born in Baltimore, July 6, 1759. Ile manifested an inclination for a sea- faring life at an early age, and when but sixteen years old commanded a merchant vessel. At the commencement of the Revolutionary war he offered his services to his country, and became master's mate of the sloop llornet, of ten guns, continuing to act as such until his appointment as Lieutenant in the navy, June, 1776. On July 6, 1776, Lieutenant Barney sailed from Philadelphia in the sloop Sachem, commanded by Cap- tain Robinson, and very soon fell in with and captured a letter-of-marque brig, well armed. Ile took his prize into the port of Philadelphia, where he was transferred to the Andrea Doria, and again sct sail for sea. The Race- horse, of twelve guns, which was fitted out expressly, with a picked crew, to intercept and take the Andrea Doria, was captured by him. January, 1777, he was taken prisoner and carried into Charleston, South Carolina, where he was released on parole, and in eight months exchanged. December, 1777, he was appointed to the " Virginia " frigate, and remained on her until her capture, April 1, 1777, by the British squadron, in the Chesapeake. After a period of imprisonment he was exchanged and returned to Baltimore. After remaining there for awhile he was ordered to the United States Ship Saratoga, of sixteen guns, and sailed from Philadelphia on a cruise. The Saratoga captured several prizes, among them an English ship of thirty-two guns, and ninety men. She was boarded by Lieutenant Barney, with fifty men, under the smoke of a broadside. Whilst steering for the Delaware with his prize he was captured and landed at Plymouth, England, and confined in Mill Prison. Ile made his escape and after remaining some time at large in England, he took passage in a packet for Ostend, and finally reached Phila- delphia, March 21, 1782. Lieutenant Barney's next sea service was as commander of the " lyder Ali," which sailed from Philadelphia, April 8, 1782, and captured the British ship "General Monk," mounting twenty nine- pounders, with a crew of one hundred and thirty-six men, after an engagement of only twenty-six minutes. Captain Barney was selected, October, 1782, to carry out to Dr. Franklin the instructions of his government before the British Commissioners should arrive at Paris. Ile passed the British force at the mouth of the Delaware, and ar- rived in seventeen days at L'Orient. He returned to Phila- delphia, March 12, 1783, bearing the news of peace. In the war of 1812 we again find Commodore Barney signal- izing himself as a naval commander. April, 1814, he was offered the command of the flotilla fitted put at Balti- more to protect the Chesapeake Bay. The British had determined to attack Baltimore and Washington, and with the view to be within reach of either place on the occasion of an attempt upon it, Commodore Barney moved the flotilla up the Patuxent River, forty miles from Washington. The British landed at Benedict, August 21.
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On receiving intelligence of their approach, Commodore Barney landed, with upwards of four hundred men, leav- ing one hundred men to blow up the flotilla, if likely to fall into the hands of the enemy. August 24, they marched to Bladensburg, and, pressing ou, found the American forces drawn up and covering the road some distance. Shortly after they became engaged with the British. The disastrous results of the engagement are well known. Commodore Barney was wounded, taken prisoner, but paroled on the ground. October 8, 1814, he was ex- changed, and soon after assumed command of the flotilla, but the restoration of peace rendered his services no longer necessary to his country. His wife was the daughter of Gunning Bedford, of Philadelphia, to whom he was mar- ried March 16, 1780. He died December 1, 1818.
ALIANT, JOHN, was the son of Monsieur Jean Vaillant, of an old and numerous French Hugue- not family, who during the reign of Louis XIV fled with many others to London to escape the cruel persecutions under that monarch. About the sev- enth or eighth decade of the seventeenth century, John Valiant, when a boy, emigrated to the American colonies, coming over in the same ship with Robert Ungle, who was afterwards Speaker of the Maryland House of Burgesses. His name was entered on the passenger list as John Vali- ant, Gent , cabin-boy. It was not an infrequent practice in those days for gentlemen to ship their sons abroad in this manner, and probably in this way he secured for himself a free passage. The ship landed her passengers at Oxford, Talbot County, Maryland. Soon after attaining his twenty- first birthday, he obtained by patent certain lands extend- ing from Tread Avon River to the head waters of Irish Creek. His residence was on that river, opposite the town of Oxford. Some of the bricks used in the con- struction of an old house still standing on the same site, are said to have been purchased by him from England nearly two hundred years ago. Ile was in 1680 Clerk of the Eastern Shore Court at Easton, his being the third ap- pointment to that office. Ilis remains rest in the old family burying-ground, on the farm at Ferry Neck. A tall cedar marks the spot, which is surrounded by the graves of his descendants to the seventh generation.
UALLIANT, RIGBY, Merchant and Farmer, was of the fifth generation from John Valliant, a sketch of whom immediately precedes this, and was born at Ferry Neck, Maryland, April 6, 1799. He married Nancy F., born in 1806, near Bucktown, in Dorchester County, the daughter of Edward Stephens,
grandson of Colonel John Stephens, who emigrated from England to the colonies in the latter part of the seven- teenth century, and settled in the above county. Ile pro- cured by patent a very large number of tracts of land in Dorchester, Somerset and Worcester counties, and as ap- pears from the records of the Land Office at Annapolis, was at the time of his death the largest landowner in the State. Rigby Valliant was engaged in business from the year 1826 to 1830, in the little village of Sharptown, and in the latter year removed to Baltimore, where he became the junior member of the firm of J. and R. Valliant, whole- sale grocer merchants on Light Street wharf. In 1834 this copartnership was dissolved, and in November of that year he commenced the mercantile business in the town of St Michael's, Talbot County, in which he continued till the close of 1850, when he retired to his farm at Ferry Neek, and his son James became his successor. Ile was for nearly thirty years a class-leader and steward in the Metho- dist Episcopal Church, to which he was devotedly at- tached, and of whose dogmas he was an uncompromising supporter. He was a man rigidly conscientious in all his dealings ; religion was the chief, and seemed almost the . only thought of his life, so anxious was he to secure his own salvation, his children's, and that of all whom he could reach. Ile possessed a good library, and his read- ing was extensive, but confined mostly to religious and theological works. Ever on the alert for opportunities of doing good, he found in this, as in all things, a most effi- cient co-worker in his wife, a woman of the rarest excel- lence, and highest Christian character. Her usefulness and influence in the Church and the world, were perhaps superior to his. She sought out the poor and the afflicted, and ministered to their physical and spiritual wants. Dur- ing the winter of 1842, there was great suffering in St. Michael's from the hard times, and while her husband found means of employment for some, she did her utmost in finding others. She made large pots of beef and vege- table soups, which her children were daily required to dis- tribute among the starving poor of the vicinity. She was greatly respected by every one who knew her, but by the poor she was beloved, and her death was to them an occa- sion of heartfelt sorrow. Nine months subsequent to this event, March 28, 1858, Rigby Valliant followed his wife, and they lie side by side in the old burial ground of his ancestors.
ALLIANT, JAMES, son of Rigby and Nancy F. (Stephens) Valliant, was born in the village of Sharptown, Somerset, now Wicomico County, November 28, 1827. Full accounts of his family have been given in other sketches in this volume. Hle was taken from school in October, 1841, and placed behind his father's counter, and on the ist of January, 1851,
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succeeded him in the business It was, however, extremely. distasteful to him, notwithstanding he met with good suc- cess, and in 1858 he sought quiet and retirement on the farm on which his family still reside, near the town of St. Michael's. Here he spent his winters in the cultivation of his literary taste, and his life was one of perfect content. ment, till it was broken in upon, November 14, 1860, by the death of his wife of consumption. The war followed, and while his own sympathies were wholly on the side of the National Government, four of his brothers entered the Confederate Army. These circumstances had upon him a most depressing effect, from which he was only roused by a sense of the exigencies of the country. He had been educated a Whig, and in 1860, as a Union man had voted for Bell and Everett. Feeling that inactivity at such a time was a crime, he renewed the active interest he had formerly taken in politics, and devoted his energies to the building up of a loyal sentiment in his county and neighborhood. In 1863 it was proposed by the late IIenry Winter Davis and others to attempt the immediate abolition of slavery in the State of Maryland. Mr. Valliant had been educated to pro-slavery principles, not so much by his parents as by his surroundings, yet he had always regarded the institution as an evil and as an incubus on the prosperity of the slave States. Receiving the Bible as the great authority and rule of right, he now determined to examine with great care the Levitical law, and especially all that Christ and his apostles had said on this subject, which having done, he found that the Scriptures were in utter condemnation of slavery, from beginning to end. This decided him in becoming an open, avowed, and active abolitionist. Hle devoted himself to speaking and writing on the subject, and to the building up of an anti-slavery sentiment. The sinfulness of slavery he made paramount ; that it was a positive injury to the body politic, and that its instant abolition would be an irrepara- ble blow to the rebellion, were to him but secondary con- siderations. Because of his activity and earnestness in this regard he was elected one of the representatives of Talbot County to the Constitutional Convention which met in An- napolis, April 27, 1864. He opened the debate in the dis- cussion of the article in the Declaration of Rights, abolish- ing slavery in Maryland, and when the new Constitution was submitted to the people for their ratification or rejec- tion, he took a very active interest in the canvass. In November of the same year he was elected to the General Assembly and served two sessions in the House of Dele- gates. On May 1, 1869, he received an appointment to the Baltimore Custom-house, where he has since been em- ployed, holding various positions in the different depart- ments. He is now Chief Clerk of the Appraiser's office, Mr. Valliant is still a Republican, and adheres with firm tenacity to all the cardinal principles of that party. lle is in favor of a redeemable currency, the maintenance of the ' National faith, the payment of the Government bonds, and of all the late amendments to the Constitution, but believes
that no man should be allowed to vote who cannot do so intelligently. He is earnestly opposed to capital punish- ment. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, but his religious views have become much simplified and have undergone some important modifications, The two great commandments of Jesus he now regards as the sum and substance of all religion.
OODS, HIRAM, was born January 29, 1826, at Saco, York County, Maine. He received an academical education in his native town and in the adjacent cities of Portland and North Yar- mouth. During his youth he was surrounded by the influences of a Christian home, which had much to do with shaping his subsequent religious life. In December, 1842, he went to Baltimore and entered as clerk the im- porting and commission house of Kirkland, Chase & Co., ou Smith's wharf, where he remained six years. In 1849 he became a partner in the wholesale grocery and commission house of A. B. Patterson & Co , which firm subsequently became Woods, Bridges & Co. In 1852 Mr. Woods and Mr.' Charles M. Dougherty purchased the sugar refinery near Lombard Street bridge, to which they gave the name of the Baltimore Steam Sugar Re- linery. In 1853 Mr. Woods dissolved his connection with the firm of Woods, Bridges & Co., and gave his whole attention to the sugar refinery business, under the firm of Dougherty & Woods. Jolm Egerton, of New Or- leans, and John L. Wecks, of Mobile, became interested in the refinery, and the firm name was changed to Egerton, Dougherty, Woods & Co. Other changes followed until, finally, the firm was dissolved in July, 1877. Owing to the general depression in business, and to over-pro- duction and consequent ruinous competition during the years 1875 to 1877 inclusive, culminating in the special troubles to Baltimore by the labor strikes of July, 1877, the firm was compelled to suspend operations. Mr. Woods nobly came to the front with hils private fortune, amount- ing to about two hundred thousand dollars, and secured a full release for himself and partners from all responsibility. Mr. Woods has recently organized an enterprise for the manufacture of grape sugar and syrup, with incidental products from corn, under the name of the Baltimore Steam Sugar Refinery. He is the Treasurer and a Direc- tor in the company. He has been identified with the Bap- tist Church in Baltimore since 1847, in which year he was baptized by Rev. Richard Fuller, D.D., and has been an active worker in the Church and Sunday-school ever since. Hle is one of the deacons of the Eutaw Place Baptist Church, and has been Superintendent of its Sunday-school since its organization. Besides giving the lot on which that church stands he contributed very largely towards its
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erection, as he has toward nearly every Baptist church in Baltimore, and throughout the State. He has been for many years a member of the Board of Trade, Director in several Marine, Fire, and Life Insurance Companies, and was at one time Director in the National Mechanics' Bank of Baltimore. Ile has always declined political preferment, as he did the nomination for Mayor on the Reform ticket. He is a manager in various religious and benevolent associations, such as the Maryland State Bible Society, Manual Labor School, Industrial School for Girls, Sunday Association, etc. lle has been prominently identified with the Maryland Baptist Union Association, as its President and otherwise, and was elected Vice-Presi- dent of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1876. Mr. Woods's father was lliram Woods. He was a native of Halifax, Massachusetts, and was of English descent. He was an officer in the United States Revenue Service, and went to Baltimore about the year 1852, became an elder in the Franklin Street Presbyterian Church, and died in March, 1862, aged sixty two years. The mother of Mr. Hiram Woods, Jr., was a native of Saco, Maine. Her maiden name was Eliza Chase, a descendant of Aquila Chase, one of four brothers who at an early period settled in Newbury, Maine. llis paternal grandmother was Jane Churchill, a descendant of Miles Standish, of " May Flower " celebrity. llis father's family consists of Eliza- beth J., who married A. Fuller Crane; Hiram, the subject of this sketch ; Julia A., the widow of Mr. Warren Nich- ols ; D. C., of the firm of D. C. Woods & Company ; A. P. and Charles F. Woods, transacting business under the firm of A. P. Woods & Brother. These, with their mother, are all living in Baltimore. Hiram Woods married, June 29, 1852, Miss Helen A., daughter of Daniel Chase, of Baltimore. They have had twelve children, eight of whom are living, namely, Hiram, Jr., Helen Chase, Frank C., Allan C., Elizabeth F., Kate Il., Lucy C., and Ethel. Those deceased were named Edward Payson, Daniel Chase, Herbert, and Bessie M.
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SENNIS, STEPHEN PURNELL., M.D., of Salisbury, Wicomico County, Maryland, was born October 13, 1827, near Pittsville in the same county. His parents were John and Margaret (Fooks) Dennis. lIe was early deprived of his mother's loving care and guidance, her death having occurred when he was eight years of age. Ile was brought up on his father's 'farm, in the labor and management of which his early life was spent. The only educational advantages he had during these years were such as a country school, open . but a few months in the year, afforded. Not until he was of age did he spend an entire year in study. Then for three years he was engaged in teaching and studying pre
paratory to entering upon the regular study of medicine, his chosen and cherished profession. The life of, a country physician furnishes but few incidents of interest to persons outside of the sphere in which he moves, but the leading facts in the life of such a person and his prominent traits of character are worthy of record and remembrance. Dr. Dennis graduated as a Doctor of Medicine in 1856, from the Pennsylvania Medical College. IIe at once com- menced the practice of medicine in his native place among his early friends and companions. It is said, that a prophet is not without honor, save in his own country. This did not hold good regarding Dr. Dennis, for his standing and reputation were such that he was induced to seek a wider field, already occupied by physicians of skill and repute. In 1861 he removed to the town of Salis- bury, where he has remained until the present time. De- sirous of keeping abreast with the rapidly advancing prog- ress of medical science, Dr. Dennis spent the winter of 1865-6 in the city of New York, in attendance upon a course of lectures at the Bellevue llospital Medical Col- lege. Soon after his return from New York his health began to give way, and he became associated in the prac- tice of medicine with Dr. F. Marion Slemons, of Salisbury, a gentleman of kindred spirit, wise, skilful, and learned. For four years this partnership continued with entire har- mony, and in 1870, owing to the impaired health of Dr. Dennis, it was with mutual reluctance dissolved. After a protracted illness, when almost all hope of restoration to health had been given up, he so far recovered as to be able to spend the winter attending lectures at the Univer- sity of Pennsylvania. On his return to Salisbury he was able to resume the practice of his profession. Ile devoted himself principally to surgical and kindred cases, his favorite branches. From that time he confined himself mainly to town and office practice, except when sum- moned to perform special operations and for consultation. Again, with the true spirit of a seeker after knowledge, Dr. Dennis spent the time from October, 1872, until May, 1873, in New York, giving special attention to operative surgery, gynecology, physical diagnosis, and diseases of the eye and ear, under such distinguished professors as Drs. Mott, Flint, Thomas, Sims, Emmett, Peaslee, and others. Again returning to his home in Salisbury, he has continued until the present time, entirely devoted to his work. There are few members of his profession who have a wider or more deserved reputation for skill, kindness, and every trait that goes to make up the character of a good physician and surgeon than has Dr. Dennis. Ile lias successfully performed several critical and delicate operations in lithotomy, in ligation of the common carotid artery, many difficult amputations, etc. But it is not as a professional man ouly that Dr. Dennis is valued and esteemed. lle is a genial, pleasant, and agreeable gen- tleman, a generous, benevolent, and sincere friend, and a consistent Christian. He is a member of the Presbyterian
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Church of Salisbury. The only time when Dr. Dennis turned from the pursuit of his profession was in 1859, when he accepted a nomination for the Legislature of his native State from the Democratic party, of which he has always been a firm but independent adherent. He also served in the memorable session which met in Frederick City in the spring of 1861. He holds the honorary post of Surgeon to the Maryland Editorial Association, and is a Royal Arch Mason.
ENDERSON, DR. JAMES MOAT, was born in 1774 in Chestertown, Kent County, Maryland. Ile was the son of Dr. James Moat Anderson, an eminent physician of Kent County, and the grand- son of Dr. James Anderson, a native of Scotland, and a celebrated physician, who practiced medicine in Chestertown about the middle of the last century. He received a liberal classical education at Washington Col- lege, Kent County, Maryland, and pursued the study of medicine under the celebrated Dr. Rush, Professor of the Practice of Medicine in the University of Pennsylvania. He rose to great distinction in his profession, and at the time of his death was considered one of the ablest physi- cians on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. He died at his residence on Cannon Street, in Chestertown, May 31, 1830.
UVALL, MARIUS, M.D., Medical Director of the United States Navy, was born in Annapolis, Mary- land, June, 1818. IIe was the son of Lewis and Sarah (Harwood) Duvall, and the youngest of eleven children. His parents were residents of that locality from their birth. The male side of his father's family were French ; the female English. On his mother's side his ancestry were English and Irish. As indicated above, his mother's maiden name was Harwood. The Harwood family were originally from Wales. Doctor Duvall's grand- father married a Miss Callahan, descended from emigrants from the North of Ireland. Their families were all in good circumstances, and the peers, socially and intellectually, of any in their communities. Doctor Duvall's father rep- resented the city of Annapolis in the State Legislature for ten or twelve years consecutively, and was for some years a member of the Council, when that body formed a part of the Executive Department of the State. A maternal uncle, Nicholas Harwood, who was also a doctor, imme- diately after his graduation in medicine joined the United States Navy. He was on board the frigate Philadelphia, as an Assistant Surgeon, when that vessel ran upon the
rocks off Tripoli. The recapture by Decatur and his com- rades, and her destruction by their setting her on fire under the guns of the harbor, was one of the most brilliant naval achievements on record. Marius Duvall, at the age of eight years, was placed in a private school under the charge of two ladies. Two years later he was sent to St. Jolin's College at Annapolis, and entered the grammar school department. In due time he passed to the regular collegiate course. While pursuing this course pecuniary reverses had over- taken his father, whose death occurred about this time, increasing the embarrassment of his large family. Marius would have been forced to leave college but for the efforts of friends of his family, who prevailed upon the trustees to permit his continuance with his classes as a charity student. It was his original intention after graduation at the end of the fourth year to study law, but such were the family em- barrassinents he left college at the end of the third year and began the study of medicine. Ile entered the office of Dr. Edward Sparks, a gentleman from Ireland, who practiced medicine in Annapolis, and was Professor of Ancient Lan- guages in the college. Dr. Sparks gave Marius the use of his office without compensation of any kind. He added to this advice, instruction and encouragement, and towards the end of his pupilage as a student of medicine he negotiated with Professor Granville Sharp Pattison, of the University of New York, that Duvall might be matriculated in that school, and enjoy the benefits of its instruction upon a simple promissory note, to be paid when he should be able to do so. In the year before this, he had secured, by the act of a considerate friend, the position of resident student in the Infirmary of Baltimore, an appendage to the School of Medicine of the University of Maryland. This was his opportunity for observations into practical medicine, and the proximity of the Infirmary to the buildings where the lectures were delivered afforded him a good opportunity for the study of anatomy. It was in the rooms devoted to this study that he had the good fortune to make the ac- quaintance of Professor William Baker, who occupied the chair of Anatomy. The Professor, learning from a friend that Duvall was striving to prepare himself for the naval service, sought an introduction to him, and at once offered him the use of his private rooms, to enable him the better to prosecute his studies in practical anatomy. Mr. Duvall had been in attendance upon the lectures at New York only a month, when he learned that a Medical Board of Exam- iners of the Navy was in session in Philadelphia. Ile at once addressed Mr. Upshur, Secretary of the Navy, asking permission to appear before the Board. It was promptly granted. Ilis examination was made in December, 1841, which was satisfactory to the Board, when he left the lec- ture rooms in New York and returned home. Ile was in- formed that he would be detailed for duty at sea before the period for the delivering of diplomas would arrive. This deprived him at the time of receiving his degree of Doctor of Medicine. Ile was commissioned as Assistant
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