USA > Maryland > Genealogical and memorial encyclopedia of the state of Maryland, a record of the achievements of her people in the making of a commonwealth and the founding of a nation, Volume II > Part 1
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29
NYPL RESEARCH LIBRARIES
3 3433 08230899 4
.
HGZ
senger
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from Microsoft Corporation
http://www.archive.org/details/genealogicalmemo02spen
GENEALOGICAL AND MEMORIAL
ENCYCLOPEDIA
OF THE
STATE OF MARYLAND
A Record of the Achievements of Her People in the Making of a Commonwealth and the Founding of a Nation
Under the Editorial Supervision of , RICHARD HENRY SPENCER, LL.B.
Corresponding Secretary of The Maryland Historical Society; Author of "Carlyle Family"; "Thomas Family of Talbot County, Maryland, and Allied Families," etc., etc.
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY, INC.
1919
TO NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY 2029432 AMOR LENOX AND 11. JIN FOUNDATIONS R 1925 L
GENEALOGICAL AND MEMORIAL
·
JOHNS HOPKINS
JOHNS HOPKINS, founder of the Johns Hopkins Uni- versity, was born in Anne Arundel county, Maryland, May 19, 1794. His given name, Johns, came from the old Mary- land family of that name, of which he was a descendant. He was of Quaker ancestry on both sides. His father, Samuel Hopkins, was a farmer. His mother, Hannah (Janney) Hop- kins, of the Virginia Janney family, was a woman of superior intellect and will, and a guiding spirit of the Baltimore yearly meeting of Friends.
Johns Hopkins spent his youth on the farm, attending school in winter. At the age of seventeen he went to Balti- more with his uncle, Gerard T. Hopkins, to learn the grocery business. He developed ability, and when nineteen, the uncle left the young man in charge of the business. The British army was then in the neighborhood, but the young man in- creased the business, notwithstanding the excitement and de- rangement caused by the war. At the age of twenty-four he had saved eight hundred dollars, and went into business for himself, with his uncle's indorsement, renting a small store and forming a partnership with Benjamin P. Moore, under the firm name of Hopkins and Moore. The firm was dis- solved in 1822, and he associated with himself two of his younger brothers, under the name of Hopkins and Brothers. After remaining in this business for twenty-five years, and having extended it into Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and adjoining States, Mr. Hopkins retired in 1847, leaving it in the hands of his brothers and two of their clerks.
Mr. Hopkins continued to manifest great interest in the commercial life of the city of Baltimore. After the resigna- tion of James Swan, he was elected president of the Merchants' Bank of Baltimore, and filled this position until his death. HD .- 22
338
GENEALOGICAL AND MEMORIAL
Here he had many opportunities to favor young business men ; he aided those who showed the qualities of diligence, good sense and integrity, and the liberality with which he thus lent his credit to firms and individuals entitled him to general gratitude. He was a stockholder in the First National, the Mechanics', Central, National Union, Citizens' and the Farmers' and Planters' banks. He was a director of the Mer- chants' Mutual Marine Insurance Company, and a large stock- holder in the George's Creek Coal Company and the Mer- chants' and Miners' Transportation Company. He was a large stockholder in the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, be- came a director in 1847, in 1855 was made chairman of the finance committee, and was instrumental in sustaining the credit of the company and in insuring the completion and suc- cess of the road. When the road was embarrassed prior to 1857, because of internal dissensions and the financial crisis, and was unable to provide for the heavy obligations arising from extensions, Mr. Hopkins voluntarily endorsed the notes of the company, thus risking his private fortune in the enter- prise. Again, during the panic in the fall of 1873, he fur- nished the company with nearly a million dollars in cash, enabling it to pay its interest. By these and similar actions, by his means, personal efforts and credit, he was instrumental in averting from Baltimore the financial disasters that swept other cities in the panic of 1873. He was also interested in supplying the wants of the growing commercial activity of Baltimore, and erected expensive buildings in suitable locali- ties for warehouses and offices, among them being the Rialto, and was director of the Baltimore Warehouse Company.
The great philanthropic work for which his name was held in honor was based upon an incorporation formed at his instance, on August 24, 1867, under a general statute, "For the Promotion of Education in the State of Maryland." These
339
GENEALOGICAL AND MEMORIAL
trustees organized, and it appeared on the death of the founder that, after providing for his near kin, he had bequeathed the bulk of his fortune to the two institutions which bear his name, The Johns Hopkins University and the Johns Hopkins Hospital. Each received an endowment of three and one-half million dollars. The university received his country estate at Clifton, consisting of three hundred and fifty acres of land, fifteen thousand shares of the common stock of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, with a par value of $1,500,000, and other property valued at $750,000. The property assigned to the hospital consisted of about one-half real estate and one-fourth each of the bonds and stocks and bank stock; the income of the two institutions was to be kept distinct. Mr. Hopkins made provision for students from Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina, in recognition of the fact that these three States had contributed most materially to his financial suc- cess in life. Few conditions were attached to the administra- tion of the university. He wisely selected a board of trustees who were liberal minded, with broad foresight and good busi- ness capacity. The trustees on February 6, 1874, proceeded to the organization of the work entrusted to them, prepared an outline of the proposed institution, and elected the trustees who had been selected by the founder. They were fortunate in their choice of a president, Daniel C. Gilman, then presi- dent of the University of California. He was chosen Decem- ber 30, 1874; the work of organization was continued, and the first students admitted in October, 1876. There had been no attempt in the management of the university to evolve an institution of first grade with a single effort. The university as it is to-day is the product of time and brains. The college and university work is sharply differentiated. At this time little attention was given in this country to post-graduate work, and original research was rare. This was now made the lead-
340
GENEALOGICAL AND MEMORIAL
ing feature of the Johns Hopkins University, and a three years' graduate course was established, leading to the degree of Ph.D. An undergraduate or collegiate course was added leading to the A.B. degree. The Johns Hopkins Hospital was opened in 1889, and in 1893, in connection with it, a medical school, which has achieved great reputation. Both the hospital and the medical school are conducted under the auspices of the university. Women are admitted to the med- ical classes on the same conditions as men, Mary Garrett, of Baltimore, having raised a special fund to enable the trustees to do this. There are fifteen buildings in the hospital group, which occupies a hill of thirty acres on Broadway, in East Baltimore, not far from the manufacturing center of the city. The hospital is said to be the finest in its appointments and arrangements in the world. Although the hospital and the university are distinct corporations under separate boards of trustees, several members are common to both boards. These boards have always worked in entire harmony with each other. The working relations of the hospital to the medical depart- ment of the university are so clearly set forth in the letter of Johns Hopkins, are so thoroughly established in practice, and are so definitely and unanimously agreed upon by the two boards, that there can be no possibility that they will ever be disturbed. The university and the hospital being thus closely linked together through the medical school, which in a sense belongs to each, there naturally follows a sharing of the expense of maintenance of the school, those departments of medical science which are not directly concerned with the work of the hospital, such as anatomy, physiological chemis- try and pharmacology, being sustained by the university from the special revenues of the school, while those departments which are indispensable for the conduct of the hospital, such as pathology, medicine, surgery, gynæcology and obstetrics, are
341
GENEALOGICAL AND MEMORIAL
sustained in part from the endowment of the hospital, which thus, in addition to the facilities for clinic instruction afforded, is a direct contributor to the support of the medical school. In order to maintain the highest degree of efficiency, the professors in the Johns Hopkins Medical School are expected to devote their energies to the work of teaching, of investiga- tion and of hospital practice, and not to have professional engagements outside the hospital otherwise than in a consult- ing capacity. The patients in the hospital and the students in the school are entitled to the first consideration and to the best service in time, energy and thought on the part of the members of the medical staff.
Mr. Hopkins also provided by will for a convalescent hospital in a country neighborhood within eash reach of the city, and a home in Baltimore county for colored children having but one parent, and in exceptional cases for such other children as might need assistance.
There are few points of interest and none of romance in the life of Johns Hopkins. His property was acquired by slow and sagacious methods. He led a prosaic and monoto- nous life, the life of the business man, moving in the same routine day after day. He bought a large library and many oil paintings, but he did not live in costly fashion ; he never mar- ried, and had no immediate family. The significance of his life lies in the fact that he labored to accumulate a fortune with a direct and definite object in view-to do good to his fellowmen. He died in Baltimore, December 24, 1873.
REVERDY JOHNSON
R EVERDY JOHNSON was born at Annapolis, Maryland, May 21, 1796, and was the son of John Johnson, a leading lawyer and eminent jurist, who filled the offices of Attorney- General, Judge of the Court of Appeals, and Chancellor of Maryland. His mother's maiden name was Ghiselin, and her father Reverdy Ghiselin, was the commissioner of the land office of Maryland. Miss Ghiselin was a noted beauty, as well as a woman of rare intellectual powers.
Reverdy Johnson entered school at the early age of six years-the primary department of St. John's College-and graduated at the close of his collegiate course in 1812, at the age of sixteen. He began the study of law with his father, and was for a time a student under Judge Stephen. He was admitted to the bar in 1815, and began the practice of law in Prince George county next year. It is promising to all young law practitioners to know that when this afterward great, com- petent and self-possessed lawyer delivered his first speech before a jury, he was so embarrassed that he made an utter failure. The Attorney-General of the State appointed him one of his deputies for Prince George county, an office equiva- lent to that of the present State's attorneyship. Though so young, he performed these duties in a most creditable manner.
In 1817 Mr. Johnson removed to Baltimore and began to practice for himself, unaided by the fees of a public office. Here he met with success, and his talents attracted the atten- tion of the public along the line of its general welfare, and he was elected to the State Senate in 1821, under the old system of a senatorial electoral college. He at once distin- guished himself by his brave, intelligent and comprehensive discussion of public matter-characteristics that marked his public and professional career throughout life. He knew
343
GENEALOGICAL AND MEMORIAL
Federal issues as well as he understood the narrower limita- tions of State politics. His professional career had brought Mr. Johnson in contact with Robert Goodloe Harper, William Pinkney, Luther Martin, Roger B. Taney and others, "who had already made the bar of Maryland famous." It was during this period that Mr. Johnson was elected State Re- porter to the Court of Appeals, and in conjunction with Thomas Harris published seven volumes of reports, embrac- ing the cases from 1800 to 1827.
Mr. Johnson was re-elected to the Maryland Senate in 1826, served two years, and then resigned to devote himself to his profession, in which he speedily reached "a rank and reputation unsurpassed at the American bar." He was fre- quently before the Supreme Court in important cases, and his professional abilities were often in demand in distant parts of the United States and even in England and France. In 1845 he was elected as a Whig to the United States Senate and served until 1849. Already Reverdy Johnson had made his mark as a most independent character, disregarding at all times the partisan interest of the organization to which he belonged, when the superior demands of his country called for patriotic action. In 1833 he met with a serious and pain- ful accident. Henry A. Wise, of Virginia, had challenged John Stanley, a member from North Carolina, to fight a duel, and Mr. Johnson was one of Mr. Wise's seconds. While practicing for the affray, a ball struck a tree, rebounded, and struck Mr. Johnson in the left eye, destroying its sight.
Mr. Johnson, as a member of the United States Senate, at once reached a high standing, and particularly on account of his courage against the general sentiment of the Whig party, to which he belonged, in supporting the Mexican War. On the accession of General Taylor to the presidency, Mr. Johnson was made Attorney-General, under date of March
344
GENEALOGICAL AND MEMORIAL
7, 1849, and he was continued by President Fillmore until July 20, 1850. In 1854 Mr. Johnson was employed by English claimants to argue a case in London before an Anglo-Ameri- can commission. During his residency of several months in England he was received wtih great courtesy by the barristers and judges, and left a fame that had not been forgotten when he returned fourteen years afterward as the representative of the United States at the Court of St. James. Mr. Johnson was opposed to the proscriptive principles of the Know-Noth- ing party, and that led him into the ranks of the Democrats, and he became a supporter of Buchanan for the presidency. Four years later he favored the election of Stephen A. Douglas.
At the outbreak of the Civil War, Mr. Johnson was a member of the Peace Congress of 1861, which endeavored to avert the horrors of internecine strife. When that failed he took a decided stand for the war, in support of the Federal Government. In 1862, then being a member of the Maryland Legislature from Baltimore county, he was re-elected to the United States Senate, where he supported the conduct of the war, and at its conclusion favored an immediate readmission of the Southern States to the Union. During the war he participated in all the great debates of the Senate, and always opposed harsh and retaliatory measures toward the South. Sometimes his position led him to vote with the Democrats and sometimes with the Republicans. He voted in 1864 for the constitutional amendment to abolish slavery.
While he opposed the military reconstruction of the South, yet, when the President vetoed the first reconstruction bill he voted for it on its return to the Senate, because he was convinced that the Southern people could secure no better terms. During his senatorship he was made the umpire, by the Government, of question that had grown out of the Civil War at New Orleans. In 1868 he was appointed by Presi-
345
GENEALOGICAL AND MEMORIAL
dent Johnson to be Minister to England, and was confirmed by the Senate. He resigned his seat as Senator and repaired to England, where he received honors and attentions that had never been accorded to any American minister before. Among the quest' as arising at that time was the settlement of the Alabama claims of the United States against England. This received masterly management at the hands of Mr. Johnson, and he negotiated the Johnson-Clarendon treaty, which was defeated as a purely party measure by the Senate. This treaty obtained for our Government all it ever secured in this matter, and it settled its Alabama claims on the basis laid down in the treaty made in Mr. Johnson's mission.
In 1869 General Grant became president and recalled Mr. Johnson. He was now seventy-three years old, but he returned to his law practice with a vigor of body and energy of mind worthy of a youth. In 1872 Mr. Johnson supported Horace Greeley for president. His practice now was large and important, and his reputation as a great constitutional lawyer unrivaled. His arguments are deemed to be among the best expositions of our organic law, and "it may be said that he will live in American history as one of the foremost expounders of the Constitution."
He was a ready and accommodating public speaker. On many an important public occasion his voice was heard for the public weal, and he appeared in all the harrassing cares of his profession or onerous duties of public life, always to have time to serve his fellow-citizens as the orator in their public gatherings. May 2, 1844, when the Whig party rati- fied the nomination of Henry Clay for president in the mon- strous meeting in Baltimore on that date, Reverdy Johnson was one of the speakers. On Saturday, May 23, 1846, at the outbreak of the Mexican War, an immense "war meeting" was held in Monument Square. Sam Houston, Senator from
346
GENEALOGICAL AND MEMORIAL
Texas, was introduced, after Mr. Johnson had delivered a patriotic and eloquent address in favor of the war with Mexico. An immense meeting was held in Monument Square on May 3, 1848, to give expression to public sentiment in approval of the recent revolution in France, and Reverdy Johnson was one of the speakers. January 10, 1861, he was orator at a meeting held at the Maryland Institute, favorable to the perpetuation of the Union of the States. In 1869, July 12th, the eleventh festival of the Northwestern Saenger- bund commenced in Baltimore. On the 14th there was a grand picnic at the Schuetzen Park, at which Reverdy John- son made an address. On many an occasion the superior abili- ties of this eminent lawyer and distinguished statesman were at the command of his fellow-citizens, who gave honor to the prophet, even in his own country.
Mr. Johnson died February 10, 1876. He was in Ann- apolis to appear as counsel in an important case in the Court of Appeals. Governor Carroll invited him to dinner at the executive mansion. Here he was the central figure, and charmed all present by the brilliancy of his conversation and his delightful fund of wit, humor and anecdote. His spirits never left him. During the evening he left the company. He was found shortly afterward in the area of the Governor's mansion, between the upper end of the garden and the house, where he had fallen a distance of four or five feet. He was then unconscious, with a wound on his head. He never re- turned to consciousness, and died in a few hours, some attribut- ing his death to apoplexy.
ARTHUR PUE GORMAN
ARTHUR PUE GORMAN was born in Woodstock,
Howard county, Maryland, March 11, 1839. He went to the public schools of his county until the age of thirteen, when he became a page in the United States Senate, through the influence of Senator Stephen A. Douglas, he was made postmaster of the Senate, and served until September, 1866, when he was appointed a revenue collector in Maryland, hold- ing the office until March, 1869, when General Grant became President, when he was removed. He was chosen director of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company in June of the same year, and later was made president.
He was elected a member of the Maryland House of Delegates as a Democrat in 1870 and 1871, and was a member and speaker in 1872. He was elected a State Senator from Howard county in 1875 and 1879, and United States Senator in 1880, and was twice re-elected. At the age of fifty-two Senator Gorman was recognized as one of the most conspicu- ous political leaders in this country, alike as a wise manager and broad statesman. In several great national conflicts he proved his exceptional capacity for leadership. Although handicapped by limited book schooling, by wide and studious reading and practical experience from youth with the national methods of legislation, by observant intercourse and associa- tion with the ablest men of the nation in the Senate and House, and through a long and varied personal service in the highest State and National councils, he was enabled to secure a knowl- edge of public affairs that so disciplined his native gifts for government administration as to make him one of the most sagacious and practical statesmen of his time. His power and skill in the vast and difficult chess game of politics were extraordinary, and were remarkably shown in crucial con-
348
GENEALOGICAL AND MEMORIAL
tests. The election of Grover Cleveland as a Democratic President after his party's defeat for a quarter of a century, and the failure of the election bill, that Republican partisan measure, in the Fifty-first Congress, through Mr. Gorman's cool and able agency, were two crowning examples of his signal capacity as a manager. He clearly proved his title to rank as the most astute and consummate party administrator of his party in the nation. To a thorough equipoise of temper and command of his faculties under any pressure, he added an unfailing readiness of resource and wisdom of plan equal to any call. Courage, self-reliance, honesty and clean ways marked his management, inspired respect and won triumphs. In the famous Pittsburgh riots, when he was president of the canal company, a place of immense party responsibility and patronage, his sagacity enabled him to settle the difficulty. He was a speaker of clearness and force, with a voice of peculiar distinctness and metallic resonance. A master of parliamen- tary law and constitutional principle, and exhaustive student of the subjects of legislation, a calm, sententious and powerful debater, both fearless and judicious, using gentleness and aggressiveness as the occasion demanded, avoiding errors either of impulse or unpreparedness, Senator Gorman impressed himself strikingly upon National matters. His name was almost universally and spontaneously in the public mind for years, and was voiced in the press of the land for the presidency.
Senator Gorman died in the middle of his third Sena- torial term, in Washington City, June 4, 1906, and his remains were interred at Laurel, Maryland.
SEVERN TEACKLE WALLIS
SEVERN TEACKLE WALLIS was born in Baltimore, September 8, 1916, and was the second son of Philip and Elizabeth Custis Teackle Wallis. His mother was the daugh- ter of Severn Teackle, of Talbot county, Maryland. Philip Wallis, the father of Severn Teackle, was the only child of Samuel Wallis, of Kent county, who settled there in the eighteenth century.
Severn Teackle Wallis received a collegiate education at St. Mary's College, which, in 1841, conferred upon him the degree of LL.D. He graduated in 1832 with the degree of A.B., at the age of sixteen, and obtained his M.A. degree two years later. He commenced his legal studies with William Wirt and finished them with John Glenn, in 1837. Mr. Wallis was graduated in the law at nineteen, and permitted to prac- tise it, though he could not formally enter the bar until he reached his majority.
His knowledge of Spanish obtained for him, in 1843, membership in the Royal Academy of History of Madrid. In 1846 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of North- ern Antiquaries of Copenhagen. In 1847 he made a trip to Spain and published "Glimpses of Spain; or, Notes of an Unfinished Tour." In 1849 he paid a second visit to Spain, holding a commission from the Secretary of the Interior "to report upon the titles of public lands in Florida as affected by Spanish grants during the pendency of negotiations with this country in 1819." He wrote on his return: "Spain : Her Institutions, Politics and Public Men." He made visits to Europe in 1856 and 1884.
The friend and cotemporary of Reverdy Johnson and John Nelson, he had early reached the very forefront of the profession of his State and Nation. He was frequently before
350
GENEALOGICAL AND MEMORIAL
the Court of Appeals of Maryland and the Supreme Court of the United States. His powers of description, his biting wit and profound learning, coupled with his undaunted cour- age, invested even the most unimportant questions of law that he argued with the most entertaining and agreeable attire of forensic and oratorial drapery.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.