USA > Washington DC > Washington DC > The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Maryland and District of Columbia Pt. 2 > Part 66
USA > Maryland > The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Maryland and District of Columbia Pt. 2 > Part 66
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HIYTE, HON. WILLIAM PINKNEY, United States Senator, was born in Baltimore, August 9, 1824. Ilis father was Joseph Whyte, and his grand- father was Dr. John Campbell Whyte, a na- tive of Ireland, who settled in Baltimore in the carly part of the nineteenth century, where he enjoyed great eminence as a physician. His grandfather on the maternal side was the distinguished orator and statesman, William Pinkney. The subject of this sketch received his education through private instruction and at the Balti- more College. After serving eighteen months as clerk in the banking house of George Peabody he entered the Law School of Harvard, and was admitted to the Baltimore
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bar in 1846. He served in the Legislature of Maryland in the session of 1847-8. In 1848 he was Judge Advo- cate of a court-martial at the Naval Academy. In 1851 he was a Democratie candidate for Congress in a Whig district, but was defeated. He was elected Comptroller of the State of Maryland in 1853. In 1857 he was the Demo- cratic nominee for Congress against the Know-Noth- ings, but was defeated in the House of Representatives by a small majority. In 1868 he was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention. On the appointment of Reverdy Johnson as Minister to Great Britain, he was appointed to the United States Senate by the Governor of Maryland to fill the vacancy thus occasioned. He served in the Senate from July 14, 1868, until March 4, 1869. In November, 1871, he was elected Governor of Maryland, and resigned the office to enable the Legislature to elect his successor 'on his having been elected to the United States Senate. He took his sent in the Senate March 4, 1875, his term of service being six years. Mr. Whyte ranks among the most distinguished members of the bar, and has attained great eminence as a political orator and statesman. In 1847 he was married to the youngest daughter of Levi Hollingsworth, an eminent merchant of Baltimore, and at one time a member of the Senate of Maryland.
URPHY, JOHN, Printer, Publisher, and Book- seller, was born in Omagh, County Tyrone, Ire- land, March 12, 1812. His parents came to America when he was ten years old, and settled in New Castle, Delaware, the latter remaining there about four years, attending during a portion of that period the New Castle Academy. After leaving school he entered a store in New Castle County. During the two years of his engagement therein he exhibited such industry, intelligence, and fidelity in the performance of his duties that, at the expiration of the above time, they desired him to remain with them, but as he had determined, even before leaving his native land, to learn the art of printing, their efforts to induce him to continue in their service were un- availing, and at the age of sixteen years he went to Philadelphia and entered as an apprentice the printing business. On attaining his majority he removed to Balti- more, where he worked as a journeyman printer until 1835, when he assumed the superintendence of a job printing establishment, acquiring for it a reputation for the superior excellence of its productions, unsurpassed by any similar concern in the city. In 1837 Mr. Murphy formed a co- partnership with Mr. William Spalding under the style of Murphy & Spalding. They carried on a successful printing business for about cighteen months, when the firm was dissolved, and the business continued by Mr. Murphy on his individual account. In 1840 he combined with it the book and stationery and subsequently the pub.
lishing business, all of which he is now conducting suc- cessfully. He has prosecuted his business forty-two years within a few yards of the locality he now occupies. The special publications of Mr. Murphy are standard Catholic books, embracing many of the leading and most valuable Catholic works published in America. In 1842 he com- menced the publication of the United States Catholic Magazine, a periodical of great merit, cdited by Rev. C. J. White, D.D., and Rev. M. J. Spalding, D.D., subse- quently Archbishop of Baltimore, which he continued to publish for seven years. About 1849 he published in five large octavo volumes the writings of Dr. England, Bishop of Charleston, South Carolina, a publication which was then regarded as a great undertaking. From 1853 to 1859 he published the Metropolitan Magazine, and in the early part of that period a " Translation of the Definition of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception," for which he re- ceived a gold medal directly from his Holiness the Pope, In 1860 he issued in two large volumes the " Maryland Code," which was pronounced by competent judges to be the best specimen of a law book ever published in Maryland. Ile subsequently published several supplements to that work, as also the " New Constitution of Maryland." In 1866 he printed and published the " Proceedings of the Plenary Council of Baltimore." This work was executed in supe. rior style. A copy was sent to Pope Pius IX. Its per- fection of typography and binding elicited from his Holiness a letter with his blessing, and the conferment upon Mr. Murphy of the honorary title of " Printer to the Pope," a mark of distinction which (within our knowl- edge) has never before been conferred upon the resident of any English-speaking country. " Tyler's Life of Chief Justice Taney," and " Mason's Life of General 'Robert E. Lee," were issued by Mr. Murphy in 1872. In 1873 he published a new and complete rubricated edition of " Ritnal Romanum," which was ordered by the Tenth Pro- vincial Council of Baltimore. " St. Vincent's Manual," esteemed at the time of its publication as the most com- plete and popular Catholic prayer-book in the United States, also issued from Mr. Murphy's press. He has pub- lished all the proceedings of the different Catholic councils which have been hell in Baltimore since 1842. For many years he has been printer to the Maryland Historical Society, and his publications of its Transactions have been universally admired for their excellence in every respect. The Society's Centennial Memorial, printed by Mr. Mur- phy, is a masterpiece of typographical and mechanical execution. The school-books published by him are iu use throughout the country. These include # Fredet's Ancient and Modern History," " First Class-book of His- tory," " Lingard's England," etc. The distinguishing features of his publications in the various departments of theology, seience, law, and history, are their superior style and elegance in typography, binding, and general finish. For his Catholic publications he has been the re-
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cipient of several autograph letters from the Holy Sec. He has accomplished much in elevating the standard of law publications, and, in fact, may be regarded as among the first to raise the art of printing and publishing to its present high standard of excellence. One of the most valuable, instructive, and popular Catholic books issued from an American publishing house is that entitled " The Faith of our Fathers," of which Archbishop James Gib- bons is the author. This work was published by Mr. Murphy in 1877, and such is the demand for it that up- wards of fifty thousand copies have been sold. June 17, I852, Mr. Murphy married Miss Margaret E. O'Donoghue, daughter of Timothy O'Donnoghue, of Georgetown, Dis- trict of Columbia. His wife died in 1869, since which he has remained a widower. In manners Mr. Murphy is affable and unostentatious. Ile is ,enterprising, upright, and conscientious ; a useful citizen, a kind employer, an indulgent parent, and a Christian gentleman.
ARY, COLONEL WILSON-MILES, was born in Williams- burg, Virginia, September 2, 1806. His education was received at Hampden Sidney, William and Mary's colleges, and at the University of Virginia. On leaving the University he entered the law school of Judge Tucker at Winchester, and upon passing the bar settled at Charlottesville, Virginia, for the practice of his profession. Here he also edited a Democratic paper. In 1835 he relinquished the law and removed to Baltimore County, Maryland, where he settled upon a fine farm some fifteen miles from the city, and devoted himself to agricul- tural pursuits. Thoroughly versed in the politics of his own country and richly furnished with the precedents of ancient and modern history, a clear and ready writer, a forci- ble and fearless expounder of his principles, Mr. Cary was an invaluable member of the Democratic party, and from his first settlement in the county he inspired its people with the strongest confidence in his political integrity, while at the same time he clicited their just admiration for talents of the highest order. Singularly modest, however, in his estimate of his own powers and backward in enforcing his personal claims, his generosity in supporting the aspirations of more ambitious friends was unbounded, and the frequent demands which they made upon his time and talents never failed of a hearty and able response. In 1846 he was elected to the Maryland Senate, in which he served until 1852. The journals of the Senate show the commanding position he at once acquired in that body, though the Whig party was then in the ascendency. Of the estimation in which he was held by his colleagues, the testimony of one of the most distinguished, the Hon. Samuel Hambleton, of Talbot County, will suffice. He writes: "I knew that most estimable and cultivated gentleman, Colonel Cary, intimately and well. He entered the Maryland Senate a
little later than I did. Though he came in on an inde- pendent movement of that day against the long dominant rule of certain individuals in the Democratic party of Baltimore County, he was sustained by all the leading men of his patty in the movement. From his entrance into the Senate, however, he almost universally acted with the Democratic party ; but his course was firm, gentlemanly, and decided on all questions. His genial and affable manners, his scholarly and belles-lettres attainments, at once endeared him to all the leading men of both parties, who highly appreciated his many noble qualities of head and heart. Indeed all his friends were so warmly attached to hini that he possessed great influence with his fellow- members of the Senate for any movement he wished or desired. That noble preux-chevalier, the late William B. Clarke, of Washington County, was his firm friend and admirer, and their generous souls flowed and commingled in a pure and refined common stream. My own intercourse with him was of the most pleasant character always, and our intimacy continued unbroken during our Senatorial terms and up to the hour of his death. Colonel Cary was well informed on all questions of the past and of the day, and I delighted to talk with him on literary and classic subjects, with which he was thoroughly conversant and always entertaining. As a speaker his style of elocution was graceful and flowing. He expressed himself with conspicuous ease and precision, and with singular mod- esty." Colonel Cary subsequently filled several political offices, but with all his unquestioned ability and the natural desire for its recognition his soul spurned the arts of the mere politician, and he disdained to manipulate the ma- chinery that manufactures the modern great man. Mean- while he had removed to the city of Baltimore, where shortly previous to the late war he joined his wife and daughter in the conduct of a large and fashionable school for young ladies. This was the outgrowth of a private school established in his own household in the county, and since its removal to the city has been long and widely known as the " Southern Home School." Always a con- sistent advocate of State's rights, during the late war Col- onel Cary sympathized warmly with the South, and was fearless in his denunciation of Federal usurpation and mis- rule. His family was consequently under constant espion- age, and suffered no little indignity at the hands of the petty military civilians who tyrannized Baltimore at that time. In all the emergencies of his career, personal and political, Colonel Cary never failed to exhibit a conspicuous coolness and intrepidity of character. In matters of principle he was unhesitating and uncompromising, and did the occasion demand, he shrank not from expressing his views, both as to men and measures, with all the fearlessness and bitter sternness of an ancient Roman. For all the shams of life he always felt the strongest contempt, and as he advanced in years this feeling grew steadily stronger, calling forth it may be more frequently the powers of a withering sar-
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casm, which he possessed in an eminent degree. But while the mantle of prond reserve, which in the decline of life he folded more closely about him, may have hid from the careless world the rich warm nature that was so re- splendent in his prime, in his sonl he was ever gentle and true. Gradually withdrawing altogether from public life he devoted his latter years to the calmer pursuits of literature and philosophy, for which his varied attainments and the inherited proclivities of a cultured ancestry predisposed and eminently fitted him. Colonel Cary was a man of elegant and commanding presence. He died at his residence in Balti- more January 9, 1877, leaving a widow, three sons, and three daughters.
SONTGOMERY, JAMES, M.D., Physician and Surgeon, was born in Harford County, Mary- land, March 8, 17SS. His grandfather, Thomas Montgomery, was a Councilman in Ireland. Coming to America he practiced his profession in the capital of the Maryland Colony, and obtained exten- sive grants of land, which laid the foundation of the wealth and prestige which the family have since enjoyed. Mayor Montgomery, of Baltimore, was one of his de- scendants. The father of Dr. Montgomery, also named Thomas, was an extensive landowner in Harford County, of which he was a native. He was a gentleman of marked physique and character. A lawyer by profession he was also an extensive owner of slaves, and a planter, and served as an officer in the Revolutionary war. Ile married Eliza- beth Vogan, daughter of a family of wealth and position in London, England, where she was born and educated. She came to America in her young womanhood. Dr. Montgomery studied medicine under Dr. Hugh White- ford, an old practitioner in Harford County, and who had been a student of the celebrated Dr. Benjamin Rush, of Philadelphia. He afterwards graduated with distinction at the University of Maryland. When the British threat- ened Baltimore city Dr. Montgomery joined the troop of cavalry which was raised in Baltimore and Harford counties under the general command of Colonel Streett, and served as surgeon in Captain Macatee's company. The late Dr. Thomas E. Bond had been appointed surgeon and Dr. Montgomery assistant surgeon, but the former on account of indisposition, being compelled to return to I larford, the entire duties of surgeon devolved upon young Dr. Montgomery, then about nineteen years of age, who discharged them with a skill, wisdom, and fortitude that gave promise of the fame he afterwards acquired as a phy- sician. At the time of the bombardment of Fort Mellenry he was stationed at Patterson's Hill, and was also a witness of the fight at the Seven Gun Battery. After the war Dr. Montgomery practiced his profession in Harford County for about thirty years, and spent eight or ten years as a planter in the same county. He then gave up his
practice to Dr. Frank Butler, now of Westminster, Maryland, and removed to Baltimore, where he resumed the practice of medicine. From the year 18244 to 1830 he represented Harford County in the House of Delegates, and from 1831 to 1837 in the State Senate. Ile was an earnest advocate of the great railroad improvements which were projected during the years of his membership, and especially favored the granting of the charter to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, being at the time it was granted a member of the Committee of Internal Improve- ments. After his removal to Baltimore he refused all po- litical honors and devoted himself exclusively to his pro- fession. lle was one of the trustces of the Washington University of that city, which he helped to organize and of which he was Vice-President. When a member of the Legislature he was active in securing for the State the Maryland Hospital, which had been a private institution. Dr. Montgomery was a Mason, and assisted in the initiation of Lafayette into the Masonic ranks on the oc- casion of his second visit to America. He was united in marriage April 7, 1831, with Caroline A., daughter of Col- onel William Kennedy, then of Harford County. Prior to the war of 1812 Colonel Kennedy was the great flour mer- chant of Baltimore, but at the time of the embargo on the city he lost heavily, and afterwards retired to Harford County. Dr. Montgomery was a firm friend of the poor, whom he always attended without making any charge for his services. He died April 11, 1878, leaving a son and two daughters. His son is practicing medicine in York County, l'ennsylvania.
JOHNSON, GENERAL BRADLEY TYLER, Lawyer, was born, September 29, 1829, in Frederick City, Mary- land. Ile is the son of Charles Worthington and Eleanor Murdock (Tyler) Johnson, and the grandson of Colonel Bates Johnson of the Revolutionary Army, a brother of Governor Thomas Johnson. He gradu- ated at Princeton College in the class of 1849, and then entered upon the study of law with William J. Ross in Frederick. He finished his legal course at Dane Hall, and was admitted to the bar in 1851. In the same year he was elected State's Attorney for Frederick County. In 1859 he was the Democratic candidate for Comptroller of the State. In 1860 he was a member of the National Democratic Convention which assembled in Charleston and Baltimore, and supported the regular nominee, John C. Breckenridge. In 1860-61 he was Chairman of the Democratic State Central Committee of Maryland. May 8, 1861, he left Frederick in command of sixty men, the first organized volunteer company that went South, and marched armed to Point of Rocks, Virginia. He was mustered into the army of the Confederate States May 21, 1861, as Captain of Company A, First Maryland Regiment. June 17, same ycar, he was commissioned Major, and July
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21 ensuing was made Lieutenant-Colonel of the same regiment. During the first Maryland campaign he com- manded the Second Brigade. June 22, 1863, he was appointed Colonel of the Maryland Line, of which, Feb- mary 4, 1864, he was unanimously elected commander. June 28, 1864, he was commissioned Brigadier General of cavalry in recognition of his services in preventing, with a battalion of sixty men, the advance of Kilpatrick and Dahlgren on Richmond. From the beginning to the end of the war he was in active service, and participated in all the great battles fought in Virginia, Maryland, and Penn- sylvania. After the war General Johnson remained in Virginia, and settled in 1866 in Richmond, where he com- menced the practice of law, devoting himself especially to the laws relating to corporations. In May, 1868, Chief Jus- tice Salmon l'. Chase attended a session of the United States Circuit Court in Richmond, and began to elucidate princi- ples of law to be applied to the late Confederate States. With the approbation and aid of the Chief Justice General John- son reported these decisions, and published them in 1876. In 1872 he was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention which met in Baltimore and nominated Iloracc Greeley for the Presidency. In 1875 he was elected a member of the Virginia Senate. In the session of 1876- 77 he originated the present admirable system for govern- ing and regulating railroads in the State of Virginia, and in 1877-78 was the author of the report of the Finance Committee, which was considered an able and exhaustive treatment of the whole subject of public credit. In arti- cles printed in the daily papers, in pamphlets and public addresses, he has been constant and zealous in enforcing upon his constituents the duty and necessity of paying the State debt, and preserving unsullied the public faith and credit of Virginia. IIe is the author of the article in the American Law Review of July, 1878, suggesting a mode by which States may be compelled to pay their debts. Hle married, June 25, 1851, Jane Claudia, daughter of IIon. Romulus M. and Anna Hayes (Johnson) Saunders, of North Carolina, and granddaughter of Hon. William John- son, of South Carolina, late Associate Justice of the Su- preme Court. He has one son, Bradley Saunders Johnson.
ECK, REV. J. O., D.D., was born in Groton, Ver- mont, September 9, 1836. His father was a stock- farmer, and for several years connected with farm- ing the business of a blacksmith. In his earlier years the subject of this sketch rendered occasional service in the shop and on the farm. Although his religious training had been after the strictest methods of New England Congregationalism, he felt himself irresistably drawn to Methodism, both in its doctrines and polity. After attending the district school and Newburg Academy, a Methodist institution in Vermont, he went in his twenty-
third year to Amherst College, a Congregational seat of learning. The following year he was admitted as a pro- bationer in the New England Conference, in order that he might receive an appointment, and by means of his salary meet the expenses of his college course. In the spring of 1862 he was appointed to the pastoral charge of the Meth- odist Episcopal Church in Chelsea, near Boston. There he remained three years, In June of that year he married Miss Susan R. Robinson, daughter of a leading merchant of Amherst. Ilis successive appointments were Lowell, Worcester, and Springfield, Massachusetts; Chicago, Illi- nois ; and Mount Vernon, Baltimore. In each of these places he completed, not only acceptably, but with an un- usual measure of success, the disciplinary limit of three years. He is at present stationed in Brooklyn, New York. He is an eloquent preacher and a popular lecturer.
THOMAS, JAMES CAREY, M.D., was born in Balti- more, Maryland, July 13, 1833. The family of which he is a descendant is from Wales, and its authentic history is said to commence in the sixth century. Dr. Thomas's parents were Dr. Richard Henry and Martha (Carey) Thomas. The former was a prominent physician of Baltimore, a Professor in the Med- ical School of the University of Maryland, and an eminent minister of the Society of Friends, in which capacity he travelled extensively in Europe and America. The latter was a daughter of James Carey, President of the Bank of Maryland and a distinguished merchant of Baltimorc. The subject of this sketch is in the seventh generation of the family since its first settlement in this country. Ilis primary education was received at the Topping Academy. IIe graduated at Haverford College, near Philadelphia, when nineteen years of age, receiving at his graduation the de- gree of Bachelor of Arts; he subsequently received from the same institution the degree of Master of Arts. At the age of twenty-one he graduated at the University of Medi- cine of Baltimore, Maryland, and began at once the prac- tice of his profession. Owing to his father's illness he entered immediately upon a large practice, first at the old mansion, corner of Sharp and Lombard streets, known as an old Quaker landmark for many years, where his father and maternal grandfather resided before him. The site is now occupied by an extensive iron-front business house. Dr. Thomas is one of the prominent physicians of Balti- more, and has a large practice. In 1877 he was President of the Clinical Society, and has been twice elected Vice- President of the Medico-Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland. IIe is one of the trustees of the Johns Hopkins University of Baltimore, and for several years has been Vice-Presi- dent of the Manual Labor School. He is President of the Young Men's Christian Association, in which he takes great interest, having aided in the organization of the Boys'
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Home, together with giving close attention to other import- ant interests of the Association. Was one of the founders and for many years has been a Director in the Children's Aid Society ; also of the Maryland Industrial School for Girls; and is a minister of the Society of Friends. Has been connected more or less with most of the philanthropie enterprises of the city. Dr. Thomas married, October 31 1855, Mary, daughter of John M. Whitall, of Philadelphia, one of the most extensive manufacturers of glass in the United States. He has eight children, namely, Martha Carey, John M. Whitall, Henry M., Bond Valentine, Mary Grace, Margaret Cheston, Helen W., and Frank S.
RIM, WILLIAM H., M.D., was born in Loudon County, Virginia, January 8, 1845. After receiving a thorough education, including a collegiate course at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, he commenced the study of medicine in the office of Drs. Willard and Bush, Lovettsville, Virginia. At the expiration of three years he matriculated at the University of Maryland, and after a year's residence in the University Hospital graduated in the spring of 1870. Immediately after graduating he com- menced the practice of his profession in Baltimore. At the suggestion of Professor Nathan R. Smith Dr. Crim organized a private class for medical instruction, and the latter was thus instrumental in educating about thirty young gentlemen for the medical profession. November 23, 1871, he married Blanche Rawley, of Baltimore. Dr. Crim's father, John H. Crim, was born in 1814 in Loudon County, Virginia. He married Mary Ann M. Hickman, of that county, by whom he had eight children, four sons and four daughters, seven of whom are now living. Dr. Crim is liberal in his religious views, and independent in his political opinions. He has been for several years a member of the Masonic fraternity. He stands high in his profession, both as surgeon and physician.
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