USA > Washington DC > Washington DC > The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Maryland and District of Columbia Pt. 2 > Part 74
USA > Maryland > The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Maryland and District of Columbia Pt. 2 > Part 74
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ULLER, REV. RICHARD, D.D., was born in Beau- fort, South Carolina, April 22, 1804. After a. thorough preparatory training under the direction of the late W. T. Brantly, D. D., he entered Har- vard University in his seventeenth year, and gradu- atcd in 1824. During his collegiate career hic was distin- guished for scholarship and the versatility of talent he dis- played. On his return to Beaufort he adopted the law as his profession, and at once entered upon a large and lucra- tive practice. He managed his cases with great skill and success, and soon attained a State reputation. lle con- tinued in the practice of law for six or seven years, when he was converted at a series of religious meetings of a union nature held in the Episcopal and Baptist churches of Beaufort by the Rev. Daniel Baker, a l'resbyterian min- ister, and decided to abandon his legal pursuits and de- vote his life to the Gospel ministry. Ile was baptized on a profession of his faith and became a member of the Baptist Church. He at once entered upon the study of theology, and was ordained in 1832, when he was invited to the pastorship of the Baptist Church in his native village, his congregation consisting of about two hundred white persons and a large proportion of colored people. ITis brilliant attainments and the earnestness and zeal which he exhibited in the discharge of his ministerial duties at- tracted wide attention, and his labors were attended with great success. Ilis sphere of usefulness soon extended beyond his own parish. Leaving his church in charge of an assistant he travelled through the adjoining country and preached to immense congregations of slaves, to whom, as Dr. Brantly has said, he spoke with a simplicity and earnestness which they could readily comprehend, and by which they were readily moved. At this time he visited almost every section of his native State, and fre- quently preached to large congregations in Charleston, Savannah, and other cities, refusing any pecuniary return for his services, his private wealth then being sufficient to enable him to labor without recompense. As his labors were severe and exhausting his health became impaired, in consequence of which he went to Europe, where he re- mained a year, and then returned to his charge. Whilst a pastor in Beaufort he was invited to preach the introduc- tory sermon before the Baptist Triennial Convention, which met tint year in Baltimore. In 1846 he accepted a call to become pastor of a new church in Baltimore, and in Au- gust, 1847, removed to that city and was installed as pas- tor of the' Seventh Baptist Church. In this charge he labored diligently and with great success for nearly twenty- five years, adding largely to the membership of the Bap- tist Church and acquiring wide reputation as a pulpit orator. In the spring of 1871 a handsome marble house . of worship was completed by the church of which Dr. Fuller was pastor, and before his death, the membership had been more than doubled, and the indebtedness of the church fully provided for. In a biographical sketch
published in 1877 the Rev. Dr. W. T. Brantly says : " Dr. Fuller was endowed with intellectual powers so rare and varied that he would have been a man of mark in any pursuit to which he might have devoted them. Ilis success at the bar, had he adhered to his original profes- sion, would scarcely have been less conspicuous than what was achieved in the sacred calling. As a contro- versial writer his discussions with the late Bishop Eng- land, of the Catholic Church, and President Wayland, of the Baptist Church,-names among the most distin- guished in the country for mental power,-prove him to have been a master dialectician. In our deliberative as- semblies, whenever a subject was of sufficient magnitude to arouse his interest, his acute perception, his comprehen- sive grasp of the theme, together with his ready wit and his brilliant powers of repartee, made him truly powerful as an advocate and formidable as an antagonist. But it was as a preacher that he achieved his greatest success; and it is as a powerful herald of the cross that lie will be chiefly remembered. He had gifts for the pulpit rarely combined in the same man. His presence was imperial. Ilis physical frame was large, tall, well-proportioned, and so commanding that when he arose his very look secured attention. Ilis voice was clear, sweet, soft, and at the same time powerful. Added to these physical endowments were the mental characteristics essential to eminence in oratory. Ile was always self-possessed, so that he could readily comunand his resources ; his imagination was rich and bold ; his memory singularly retentive, whilst his taste supplied apt quotations for the illustration or adornment of his theme. His emotional nature was quickly stirred, and the passion with which his utterances, when warmed by the fervor of delivery, were pervadcd, gave him ready access to the hearts of his audience. It was, however, the unaf- fected love to Christ and love to the souls of men, that even a worldly observer must have seen shining out in the address of Dr. Fuller, which were the real secrets of his power."
ULTON, DAVID C., was born, September 19, 1827, in Loudon County, Virginia, near Leesburg. He was the son of David P. and Jane Carr Fulton, both of whom were natives of the county and State in which he was born. He received his early education at the common schools of that county, attending only in the winter ; nine months of the year he assisted his father upon the home farm. At the age of twenty he entered the Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware, Ohio, and made good progress ; but at the middle of his second year, his health being impaired, he left college and taught school for about two years to provide for his pecuniary necessities, but had no fondness for the calling. In 1856 he engaged in the hardware business, which he has followed to the present time with success. Mr. Fulton is a Democrat, and
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firmly believes that with that party rests the hope of the country. He has never held any office, and has never en- gaged in any public enterprise except in aid of some char- itable object, which he is always glad to further to the ex- tent of his means. He has never belonged to any seeret societies of any kind. He is a member of the Methodist Church. Ile married Miss Mary E. Mercer, of Ellicott City, Maryland, February 24, 1853, and has four children : three sons, William F., David M., and Charles L., and a daughter, P. J. Fulton.
B LAIR, HON. MONTGOMERY, was born in Franklin County, Kentucky, May 10, 1813. His father, Francis Preston Blair, a prominent journalist and politician, at the request of General Jackson, established the Washington Globe in 1830. His mother was a daughter of Colonel Nathaniel Gist, a com- panion of Washington on the Duquesne Expedition, and of Sarah Howard, the sister of John Eager Howard. Mr. Blair was educated at West Point, graduating in 1835. Me served in the artillery in Florida in the Seminole War, and resigned his commission in the army May 20, 1836. He then entered upon the practice of law in the city of St. Louis, and soon attained a prominent position at the bar. In 1839 he was appointed United States District Attorney for Missouri, and from 1843 to 1849 was a judge of the St. Louis Court of Common l'leas, both of which positions he filled with distinguished ability. In 1852 he removed to Montgomery, Maryland, where he continued to engage in the practice of his profession. In 1855 he was ap- pointed Solicitor of the United States in the Court of Claims. Previous to the repcal of the Missouri Compro- mise he acted with the Democratic party; afterward he be- came a Republican, and was in consequence removed from his office by President Buchanan in 1858. In 1857 he acted as counsel for the plaintiff in the celebrated Dred Scott case. In 1860 he presided over the Republican Con- vention of Maryland, and in 1861 was appointed by Presi- dent Lincoln l'ostmaster-General, which position he held until 1864. Since that time he has acted with the oppo- nents of the Republican party. In 1877 he was elected to the Maryland House of Delegates from Montgomery County. Ife is a gentleman of dignified presence and pleasing manners, and his conspicuous career as a public officer and politician has made him one of the most noted men in the country.
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BROOKS, NATHAN COVINGTON, was born in West Nottingham, Cecil County, Maryland, August 12, 1809. His father, John Brooks, was the son of Jacob Brooks, an Englishman, who came to America before the Revolution. Ilis mother, Mary Brooks, was the eldest daughter of William Conway, of
the Conways, North Wales. In his twelfth year the sub- ject of this sketch was entered in West Nottingham Acad- emy, then under the care of the Rev. James Magraw, D.D. At the end of three years he had completed the full course of study, both classical and mathematical, and was subse- quently admitted to the degree of Master of Arts at St. John's College, Annapolis, on which ceeasion he delivered a poem entitled De Interitu Rerum. Having completed his studies Mr. Brooks commenecd his career as a teacher, then in his sixteenth year, in Charlestown, Cecil County, where though but a youth he had a school of fifty scholars, many of them older than himself. Seeking a wider field of usefulness after two years he went to Baltimore, and opened an academy which enjoyed a liberal patronage from many of the best citizens. There he devoted his leisure hours to composition, and became a contributor to several periodicals. In 1830 he edited The Amethyst, an annual, strictly Baltimorean, the articles, plates, printing, binding, all being of the city. In this little book appeared the productions of many writers who have since won dis- tinction. In 1831 Mr. Brooks was elected Principal of the Franklin Academy in Reisterstown, Maryland, and in 1834 was called to Brookeville Academy in Montgomery County. Both these institutions were endowed by the State, and were liberally patronized while under his care. While in Brookeville he was elected to the Bel Air Academy, but declined the appointment. Having resigned his position in Brookeville with the view of devoting him- self to literary pursuits, he returned to Baltimore and edited and published the American Museum, a monthly magazine of science, literature, and the arts, which had a fine array of talented contributors, among them Professors Barber, Fisher, Foreman, Hoffman, Pizarro, Pond, Ros- zel, Rafinesque, and Jared Sparks; Rev. Doctors Bacon, Beasley, Burnap, Clinch, McCabe, Morris, West, Thom- son, and Tappan ; Messrs. Poe, Dawes, Gilmore Simms, W. H. Carpenter, Tuckerman, and Candler, Hofland, and *Quillinan, of England ; with Mrs. Buchanan, Dorscy, El- lett, Embury, Gould, Rcese, Stockton, and Sigourney. Ilis career as an educator is mentioned as follows in a work entitled Biographical Sketches of Eminent Americans : " In the year 1839, on the establishment of the Baltimore High School, he was unanimously elected Principal over forty-five applicants, a post for which his experience and his wonderfully varied attainments peculiarly fitted him. The public-school system had been in operation for about nine years, and yet not more than six hundred pupils were to be found in all the schools. During the nine years of Mr. Brooks's connection with the schools, the number of pupils increased from six hundred to more than 'as many thou- sands, and this increase was attributed by the commissioners and the public mainly to the establishment of the High School, and the energetic manner in which it was con- ducted. Placed thus at the head of the public education of the city of Baltimore Mr. Brooks spared no labor, how-
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ever great, and omitted no duty, however trifling, that could in any way contribute to the success of the cause with which he was identified. From his desk at the High School, he made himself felt throughout every school in the city, and infused his own ardent zeal into all with whom he came in contact. New life and energy were in- fused into the system; the indolent were roused into ac- tivity, the active redoubled their exertions, and the extra- ordinary success we have just noticed was the result of their . combined efforts." In the year 1848 Professor Brooks undertook the organization of the Baltimore Fe- male College, and under his management that institution became eminently prosperous. It has sent forth two hun- dred and sixty-four graduates and one hundred and sixty- two teachers, many of whom occupy distinguished posi- tions in the female colleges, academies, and high schools of the land. The Legislature of Maryland chartered the Baltimore Female College in 1849 and granted it a liberal endowment in 1860, which has been increased twice since. Amid the many demands upon his time Professor Brooks still found leisure for literary pursuits, and wrote many ar- ticles for magazines at home and abroad, delivered several collegiate addresses and poems, and bore off several prizes both in prose and poetry, for which many of the best wri- ters in the country contended. Besides these labors he published in 1845 A Complete Ilistory of the Mexican War, an octavo of six hundred pages, which received the highest commendation. It was translated into German, and two editions of it were published in that language. Professor Brooks projected and carried into execution a series of classical books on a new and improved system, which have had a high reputation and extensive sale. They embrace the ÆEneid of Virgil, Ovid's Metamorphoses, Caesar's Commentaries, Viri Illustres Americani, Historia Sacra, First Latin Lessons, First Greek Lessons, and Greek Harmonica Evangelica, all of which gained him great credit, especially his edition of Ovid, which is highly praised in Hart's Manual of American Literature for the richness and variety of its scholarship, and for its abun- cant illustrations, In a review of Dr. Brooks's zEneid of Virgil, Dr. Shelton Mackenzie, the distinguished critic, says : " As an illustrated schoolbook it has never been even approached." Besides the foregoing volumes Pro- fessor Brooks has written Battlefields of the Revolution ; History of the Church ; Scripture Manual, containing re- ligious exercises for morning and evening for schools and families ; Sabbath-School Manual ; Scriptural Anthology, and the Literary Amaranth, a melange of prose and poetry. He has also translated from the Greek the Hymns of Callimachus, and from the Latin Father White's Rela- tion of Maryland. In July, 1859 the authorities of Emory College, Oxford, Georgia, conferred on Professor Brooks the degree of Ll .. D). In 1863, when a successor was to. be appointed to Dr. W. 11. Allen, who had resigned the Presidency of Girard College, the name of Dr. Brooks was
presented to the consideration of the Board of Trustees, and though not elected Dr. Brooks commanded more votes than any except Major R. S. Smith, who, being a Philadelphian and of a very influential famdy, was elected l'resident of the College. Dr. Brooks has been twice mar- ried. May 8, 1828, he married Mary Elizabeth Gobright, a lady of remarkable beauty and sweetness of disposition, with whom he lived in great happiness until her death. Eight children were the fruits of this union: Christopher C. Brooks, Rev. Dr. William 11. Brooks, Dr. Ilorace A. Brooks, Nathan C. Brooks, Jr., deceased, George R. Brooks, Mary Louisa Brooks, Eliza Augusta Brooks, deceased, and Florence Frances Brooks. June 26, 1867, Dr. Brooks mar- ried Christiana Octavia Crump, youngest daughter of the late Dr. William Crump, formerly United States Minister to Chili, and passed with her a few months in Europe. Their children are Maria Ervin Brooks, Octavius Conway Brooks, both deceased, and Edwin Covington Brooks, now in his sixth year.
WALSH, HON. WILLIAM, LL.D., Representative of the Sixth Congressional District of Maryland, was born, May 1, 1828, in Ireland. Ilc came to America in the fourteenth year of his age and located in Virginia. Ile subsequently removed to Maryland, and shortly thereafter entered Mount Saint Mary's College, Emmettsburg, whence he graduated in 1874 with the title of LL.D. After going through a course of legal study, partly at Ballston Spa, New York, he was admitted to the bar in Virginia in 1850. In 1852 he took up his residence in Cumberland, where he entered actively upon the practice of his profession, in which he has been eminently successful, ranking among the most distinguished lawyers of Maryland. In the years 1860 and 1872 Mr. Walsh served as Presidential Elector on the Democratic ticket, and was a member of the State Constitutional Con- vention of 1867. The ability he displayed in these posi- tions as a public orator, and his knowledge of constitutional law, directed the attention of the people of his Congressional district to him as a suitable person to represent them in the popular branch of Congress. He was accordingly elected for the Forty-fourth Congress by the Democratic party, and with such entire acceptability did he acquit himself that he was returned to the Forty-fifth Congress. Mr. Walsh enjoys great popularity in Western Maryland, and his abili- ties as a lawyer and statesman are universally acknowl- edged. In 1853 he married Miss Marian Shane, a lady of rare accomplishments. He was born in the Catholic faith, and his life gives evidence of the firmness of his belief in the teachings of his religion, which takes precedence of all other claims.
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IIANCELLOR, CHARLES WILLIAMS, M.D., of Bal- timore, was born near Fredericksburg, Virginia, February 19, 18341. His parents, Major Sanford and Fammie 1. (Poud) Chancellor, were descended from highly respectable English families, who were among the earliest settlers of Maryland and Virginia. His father was a trusted aide-de-camp of General Madison during the war of 1812, and there are many traditions of his personal valor. Ile lived upon his fine estate in Vir- ginia, and died in the year 1860 at the age of seventy. Dr. Chancellor received his early education at the Fredericks- burg (Virginia) Academy, and subsequently pursued his classical studies at Georgetown College, District of Colum- bia, and the University of Virginia. Having decided to enter the medical profession, he matriculated at the Jeffer- son Medical College, Philadelphia, from which he grad- uated M.D. at the age of twenty. For some time after graduating he availed himself of the lectures and hospitals of the latter city, and subsequently located in Alexandria, Virginia, where he engaged successfully in the practice of his profession. At the breaking out of the civil war he entered the Confederate Army as a Surgeon, and served most of the time as Medical Director of General Picket's celebrated Virginia Division. After the war Dr. Chancel- lor settled in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was soon recognized as one of the leading physicians of that city. He added to his popularity by the conspicuous part he bore in the terrible epidemics of cholcra and yellow fever which devastated that city in 1866 and 1867 respectively. In 1868 he was elected to the chair of Anatomy in the Washington Medical University of Baltimore, and soon after was made Dean of the Faculty. He was afterward transferred to the chair of Surgery, which he filled for two years, and then severed all connection with the school. He was, however, immediately elected Emeritus Professor of Surgery and Dean of the Faculty. In 1871 he was ap- pointed a member of the School Board of Baltimore, which position he held till his election to the First Branch of the City Council in 1873 as a representative from the Twen- tieth Ward. In that body Dr. Chancellor's abilities and comprehensive views soon made him a conspicuous mem- ber of the city government, and he was returned each year to his seat till 1876, when he was elected from the Nine- teenth and Twentieth wards to a seat in the Second Branch, of which he was unanimously elected President. In the same year, upon the reorganization of the State Insane Asylum, he was elected President of the Board of Managers, and has devoted much time and energy to that noble charity with the most satisfactory results. In 1877 he was requested by the Governor to visit the penal and charitable institutions of the State in his official capacity as Secretary of the State Board of Health. His report of their condition was one of the ablest papers ever published in the State. In it he depicted the filthy condition, want" of discipline, and shocking immoralities existing in these
institutions in many of the countics in a manner that startled the whole country. As might have been expected he was assailed by the culpable officials and their political supporters, who were thus exposed; but the report was extensively published in America and Europe, gaining for the doctor a more than national reputation and the praise of all good men for his invaluable services. Early in 1878 he published his Vindication, which consisted chiefly of communications from the principal men of the State, affirming and emphasizing the truth of his report. Dr. Chancellor is well versed in medical literature and the cognate sciences, and has not only contributed many val- uable scientific papers to the various medical journals, but was at one time himself the editor and proprietor of a medical journal. IIe has also contributed many mono- graphs to medical science, which are remarkable for original and independent thought, and show that nature and facts have been his teachers rather than theories. One of the most valuable of this class is Contagious and Epi- demic Diseases, considered with reference to Quarantine and Sanitary Laws, 1878. Dr. Chancellor is now edit- ing the Sanitary Messenger, a paper devoted to the pro- motion of public health. IIe is a member of the American Public Health Association, of the American Medical Asso- ciation, corresponding member of the Boston Gynæecological Society, and of the local medical societies of Baltimore. In May, 1879, he published An Inquiry into the Ilistory and Etiology of the Plague, with Observations on Quarantine. He is now pursuing as a specialty the subject of sanitary engineering, and is at this time engaged in investigating the sanitary condition of the public schools of Baltimore. Dr. Chancellor has been twice married ; first, to Miss Mary Archer, daughter of General A. G. Taliaferro, and again to Martha A., daughter of Colonel William Ormond Butler, of Tennessee.
-3 PEELER, GEORGE BARTON, M.D., son of Joseph and Mary (Grimes) Becler, was born in Wash- ington County, Maryland, near St. James College, August 25, 1853. His father lived on his farm at that place till 1865, when he removed to Ilagers- town and engaged in mercantile business. He died in . 1872. His family came to this country from England late in the eighteenth century. His wife's family were from Virginia, and prominent and highly connected in that State. General Robert E. Lee was her cousin. George B. Beeler partly concluded his studies at St. James College in Wash- ington County, and graduated from the College at Gettys- burg in 1867. At the age of fifteen he commenced his medical studies in the office of his uncle, Dr. John II. Grimes, a distinguished physician of his native county, and attended the Medical Department of the University of Vir- ginia for one year, when he went to Baltimore, where for three years longer he pursued his professional studies,
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graduating M.D. from the University of Maryland in 1876. Since graduating he has been successfully engaged in the practice of his profession in Baltimore. Ile has a special taste for and skill in surgery, and is preparing to make that branch prominent in his practice. He has already per- formed a number of difficult surgical operations. Dr. Beeler is a member of the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland. He has travelled very extensively through- out the United States.
ALDWELL, JOHN JABEZ, M.D., was born at Oak Hill, New Castle County, near Wilmington, Dela- ware, April 28, 1836. Ilis father, John Sipple Caldwell, was in early life an agriculturist, but in later years was actively engaged in real estate trans- actions in New York. He married in 1835 Rebecca, youngest daughter of Richard and Rebecca Baker, of Chester County, Pennsylvania, whose ancestors, members of the Society of Friends, were contemporary settlers with William Penn. They had four sons and eight daughters, all still living, with the exception of the youngest son. John S. Caldwell was a man of remarkably fine physical ap- pearance and superior character. He died, March 14, 1878, at the residence of his son Alexis, in Brooklyn, in the sixty- eighth year of his age. Ile was of French Huguenot an- cestry, the name being originally Colville. John Caldwell, son of Sir David Caldwell, of the North of Ireland, whither the family had fled in time of persecution, came to America in the early part of the eighteenth century, and settled in Delaware. Three brothers, Captain Jonathan, Captain Joseph, and Rev. James Caldwell, the last of Springfield, New Jersey, were famous in the Revolutionary period. The first named, Captain of a Delaware company, which bore his name, was the great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch, whose grandfather, Jabez Caldwell, of Boling- broke, Talbot County, Maryland, served at different periods in the State Assembly and other positions of honor and trust with Edward Lloyd, Charles Goldsborough, and others equally distinguished. Young Caldwell attended the pub- lic schools of Delaware and Pennsylvania, and later the celebrated Quaker boarding-school of John Bullock, at Wilmington. He graduated with the highest honors from the New York Medical College in 1860, having been for three years previously a student in the Bellevue Hospital. Ile was engaged in successful practice in New York when, in 1862, he entered the United States Army as a Surgeon, remaining till the close of the war, when he settled in Brooklyn. In January, 1873, he removed to Baltimore, where he has made a specialty of diseases of the nervous system ; to the nature, phenomena, and treatment of which he has devoted much study and attention, and in which he is acknowledged one of the leading authorities of the coun- try. Dr. Caklwell is one of the first and most constant contributors to the medical journals of the United States,
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