USA > Maryland > Baltimore County > Baltimore City > History of Baltimore, Maryland, from its founding as a town to the current year, 1729-1898, including its early settlement and development; a description of its historic and interesting localities; political, military, civil, and religious statistcs; biographies of representative citizens, etc., etc > Part 109
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The gentleman whose name heads this sketch was reared and educated in Mary- land, receiving his preparatory education at Charlotte Hall, St. Mary's county, and St. John's College, Annapolis, Md. He subse- quently graduated from the Law School of
Maryland University in 1886; he then com- menced the practice of his chosen profes- sion and was admitted to the bar of Balti- more, and in 1892 the present firm was formed. He soon acquired an extensive cli- entage and a lucrative practice. He has been identified with numerous notable criminal trials in this State. Mr. Crain be- gan to take an active interest in politics be- fore he reached his majority, and when a mere boy he made several political speeches. He is an out and out Democrat and has oc- cupied a prominent position in the councils of the Democratic party. He was elected a delegate to the National Democratic Con- vention in 1888 and although the youngest delegate in that body, he took a prominent part. The same year he organized in St. Louis the National League of Democratic Clubs. In 1892 he received the appoint- ment of Liquor License Commissioner, and served on that Board during the administra- tion of Governor Brown. April 25, 1896, Mr. Crain was appointed the Democratic Member of the Board of Supervisors of Elections, by Governor Lowndes. In 1898 he resigned and since then has devoted his entire time to the practice of his profession.
Mr. Crain was married April 20, 1898, to Miss Margaret, daughter of Judge William George Bennett, of Weston, W. Va.
MR. TALBOT J. ALBERT was born in the city of Baltimore, Februtry 16, 1847. On. the paternal side he is of German descent. His great-great-grandfather, Laurens Al- bert, was a native of Germany and settled in York county, Pa., in 1752, where he pur- chased a farm.
His son, Andrew Albert, was the father of Jacob Albert, who came to Baltimore in
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1805 engaging in the wholesale hardware business. The firm of Jacob Albert & Co. was widely known throughout the South and West and was reputed to have the larg- est trade in its line of goods of any firm south of New York.
For a number of years Jacob Albert was the only representative of his name in the Baltimore Directory. At the time of his death in 1854, and for a number of years pre- vious, he was president of the Commercial and Farmers' National Bank. His resi- dence, surrounded by its spacious gardens, occupied the site where the Young Men's Christian Association Building now stands.
Jacob Albert associated with him in busi- ness his two sons, Augustus James and Wil- liam Julian. With great good judgment and sagacity, foreseeing a conflict between the Northern and Southern States, they closed the business of the firm a short time before the outbreak of hostilities. The only surviving child of Jacob Albert is a daugh- ter by a second marriage, Mary Schroeder McKim, wife of Dr. Robert V. McKim, of New York City.
Mr. Talbot J. Albert, son of William Ju- lian Albert, was a pupil at the school of the late Rev. Benjamin B. Griswold, and subse- quently entered Harvard University, where he was graduated from the academic depart- ment in 1868. Having a taste for the legal profession he entered the Law School of the same university from which he was gradu- ated and admitted to the Suffolk bar of Bos- ton in 1870. At different times he has re- ceived from his Alma Mater the degrees of A. B., A. M. and LL. B. On his admission to the bar of Boston, Mr. Albert was ten- dered a position in the office of the late Mayor Goston, a prominent attorney of that
city and afterwards Governor of the State of Massachusetts, but preferring to practice in his native city he removed to Baltimore in the same year, when he became associa- ted with the late Archibald Stirling, of the United States District Attorney's Office. As a lawyer, he subsequently became asso- ciated with the Hon. William M. Marine, ex-Collector of the Port.
Among the important cases with which Mr. Albert has been connected as counsel, was the famous case of Denison vs. Deni- son, reported in Vol. 35, p. 361, of the De- cisions of the Court of Appeals of Mary- land. This case established the marriage law of Maryland. He argued it for two days in the Orphans' Court of Baltimore City; and the judgment of that Court being against his client, he took an appeal. Al- though Mr. Albert did not argue the case in the Court of Appeals, he prepared a brief which was closely followed by Judge Al- vey, who delivered the opinion of the Court, unanimously reversing the judges of the lower Court. The decision in this case once for all put the contract of marriage in Mary- land on a sounder basis than in any other State, by requiring it to be solemnized by a religious ceremony, and our tribunals are not disgraced by the fraudulent claims of al- leged widows contending for the wealth of dead men.
While devoting himself to the practice of his profession, Mr. Albert has always taken an active interest in politics. In the Re- publican party he has always been known as a staunch party man, never favoring fu- sion or coalition movements. As a resident of Baltimore county he has frequently been a delegate to the County Conventions, and a member of the Republican State Central
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Committee. He sustained his party in the dark days of prejudice when it cost a man something to be known as a Republican in Maryland. In 1884 he helped to re-or- ganize the Young Men's Republican Club, of Baltimore City, after the demoralizing de- feat of Mr. Blaine, and after an able and scholarly address on the political situation at that time, he was elected president of the Club, which position he held for one year, declining a re-election. Shortly preceding the Harrison Campaign of 1888 he was one of the founders and first presidents of the North Baltimore Republican Club, which is now known as the Commonwealth (a so- cial) Club. In the campaign of 1896 Mr. Albert was president of the Columbian Club, one of the most influential political organizations of the State. On his appoint- ment that year to the Board of Supervisors of Elections of Baltimore county, he was made president of the Board by his col- leagues. This was up to that time the only public office he had ever held and his ap- pointment by Governor Lowndes was with- out his knowledge or solicitation. This po- sition he relinquished to become Presiden- tial elector, and on January II, 1897, at the meeting of the Electoral College at Annap- olis, he had the honor of casting his vote for William McKinley for President and Garrett A. Hobart for Vice-President of the United States.
It is a strange coincidence that thirty-two years before, his father, William J. Albert, was president of the only Republican Elect- oral College of the State which had ever cast its vote, casting it that year for Abra- ham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. Mr. Albert's political tastes and party predilec-
tions it will be seen were inherited. Both of his parents took a most active interest in be- half of their country in the war for the Union, and were as sincere and earnest pa- triots as any throughout the North.
William J. Albert, father of the subject of this review, was the political associate of the late Henry Winter Davis and Judge Hugh L. Bond. It was at the residence of Mr. Albert that Mr. Lincoln was a guest the only time he was known to accept pri- vate hospitality, the occasion being his at- tendance in 1864 at the Fair of the Sanitary Commission of the city of Baltimore. Gen- eral Grant, Chief Justice Chase and other distinguished men were frequent guests at the same hospitable mansion, which was al- ways open to the friends of the Union cause.
Mr. W. J. Albert took a deep interest in the welfare of the newly enfranchised race and was president of the Society for the Moral and Educational Improvement of the Colored Race, which furnished school facili- ties for the late slaves of the State before the public school system was extended to them. Judge Bond facetiously shortened the name of the Society to "Timbuctoo." Mr. Al- bert's services were so highly appreciated by his fellow-citizens that he was elected to represent them in the Forty-third Congress of 1872.
In a sketch of his life contained in the Biographical Encyclopedia of Maryland and District of Columbia, p. 48, we find this reference: "Mr. Albert still looks back with pride to the days when he was a fire- man under the old volunteer system, twenty- five or thirty years ago, and to the efforts he put forth to have that system replaced by a paid department. He was one of the
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first and most influential in proposing and securing that change. So enthusiastic was he on the subject that he had Latta's Steam Fire Engine brought from Cincinnati to Baltimore for trial, almost entirely at his own expense.
While of German descent on his father's side, our subject's maternal ancestors were of Irish extraction. His grandfather, Tal- bot Jones, after whom he is named, was one of the Irish patriots, and his articles against British Rule in Ireland, published during the Rebellion in which Robert Emmet lost his life so incensed the Government that a price was set upon his head. When about to be apprehended, he took passage on an American vessel bound for the States, and his parting words to his only sister were: "Where liberty dwells shall be my home."
During the War of 1812 he took an active part and was captured at the battle of North Point. His identity was known and he would have been tried and executed under charges for his action on the "Old Sod" fif- teen years before, had it not been for his finding in the captain, his captor, a brother Mason through whose influence he was ex- changed.
He was one of Baltimore's most promi- nent merchants in his day and a projector of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, serving on its first Board of Directors.
The mother of our subject, Emily Albert, like her father, was conspicuous for her pa- triotism as well as her charity. She was educated at the Willard Academy, of Troy, N. Y., where she was graduated with hon- ors. Her sentiments were always bitterly opposed to slavery. Early in the war the condition of the Federal soldiers excited her greatest sympathy, and with the assistance
of other philanthropic persons she estab- lished the Home for Sick and Disabled Sol- diers of the Union Army, of which she was sole president for a number of years until the establishment of the Asylums by the Na- tional Government. She was also one of the founders of the Union Orphan Asylum, of Baltimore City, of which she was treas- urer, and her devoted friend, Miss Margaret Purviance, was president. When, by the lapse of time, the last of the soldiers'orphans had attained maturity and had been pro- vided for, the question arose as to what should be done with the valuable property at the northeast corner or Franklin and Schroeder streets. At the suggestion of these ladies the Board of Trustees trans- ferred it to the Nursery and Child's Hos- pital of Baltimore, and this action of the trustees was sanctioned by the Circuit Court of Baltimore City, obtained by Mr. Albert, who acted as counsel for the ladies. A bal- ance in cash remaining in the treasury was appropriated to build the Soldiers' Monu- ment at Loudon Park Cemetery, which was designed under Mrs. Albert's direction with the determination that the brave men who died for their country should have some memorial. At the dedication of this monu- ment Mr. Albert delivered an eloquent and touching address.
Mrs. Albert was a devout Christian and took a deep interest in foreign and domestic missions. She was the first president of the Maryland Branch of the Woman's Aux- iliary to the Board of Foreign Missions, which she helped to organize. She was also a member of the Board of Directors on the Union Protestant Infirmary and was con- nected with other charitable institutions. Her sudden death, which occurred Decem-
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ber 28, 1889, ten years after the death of her husband on March 29, 1879, was lamented by a large circle of acquaintances in the humblest and highest walks of life.
During the campaign of 1896, under the auspices of the Columbian Club, Mr. Talbot T. Albert aided in organizing the Maryland Wage-earners' Excursion to Canton, O. It consisted of twenty-five hundred men and represented the varied industries of Balti- more City. It was probably the largest delegation that ever went so great a dis- tance to congratulate a candidate for the presidency of the United States. The ad- dress of Mr. Albert as chairman of the dele- gation, Major Mckinley highly com- mended.
Mr. Albert has on several occasions been tendered the nomination for Congress by the Republicans of the Fifth District, but owing to untoward circumstances, was un- able to accept. It was therefore the great- est satisfaction to the many friends of Mr. Albert when it became known in the au- tumn of 1897 that he had been tendered the American Consulship to the City and Duchy of Brunswick, Germany, and had signified his acceptance. Taking the oath of office on October 25th, Mr. Albert made immediate preparation for his four years' sojourn abroad, and sailed about the Ist of December of that year. On October 28, 1884, Mr. Albert was married to Miss Olivia Patricia Macgill, daughter of Mr. Oliver Patrick Macgill, former Register of Wills of Baltimore county. Mr. Macgill's great-grandfather,. Rev. James Macgill, in 1742 was first rector of Queen Caroline Parish at Elkridge Landing. Mrs. Albert's mother was Miss Mary Clare Carroll Spence, a lineal descendant of Barrister Car-
roll, of Revolutionary fame, and through her she is connected with the Lowell and Putnam families, of Massachusetts, being first cousin to James Russell Lowell, late Minister to England.
Mr. Albert has been more than twenty years a member of the Maryland Historical Society. He holds membership in the Athenaeum Club, Catonsville Country Club, Bachelors' Cotillion Club and the Harvard Club of Maryland, of which he is second vice-president.
He is a gentleman of refined and literary tastes and is a great reader, taking a deep interest, not only in the literature of the past, but also in the current literature of the day.
MR. ROBERT G. KEENE .- One of the well known practitioners of the Baltimore bar, whose face has been familiar in the va- rious courts of the city for the past thirty years, is Mr. Robert Goldsborough Keene.
He is a native of Baltimore and received his earlier education in private schools and academies. Deciding upon the law as a pro- fession, Mr. Keene entered the office of Mr. George M. Gill, a most eminent counsellor, where he was pursuing his studies at the time of the outbreak of the Civil War.
On the first call for men, Mr. Keene en- listed in the First Virginia Cavalry of the Confederate Army, and later, in Company A, First Maryland Cavalry, serving through the whole course of the war. One of the most exciting engagements in which he participated was a hand to hand encoun- ter with the Michigan Cavalry in the second battle of Bull Run. He was in the battle of Gettysburg, also at Antietam, through the West Virginia Campaign, also in the famous
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charge in Greenland Gap, with Jackson in the valley of Virginia, with the Army of Northern Virginia in all its great cam- paigns. At Luray, after the burning of Chambersburg, Mr. Keene was taken pris- oner and idled away some eight months amid the scenes of Camp Chase, O., when he was exchanged and served until the close of hostilities, which occurred shortly after- wards.
At the end of the war Mr. Keene renewed his studies and was called to the bar in 1867, since which time he has been engaged in the practice of law in Baltimore.
His father, Mr. John H. Keene, a son of Dr. Samuel Young Keene, who took part in the struggle for independence, serving as a surgeon through the entre contest, was a native of Talbot county, Md., as was like- wise his wife, who was a Miss Sallie Law- rence, of the Dorsey family, of that State Doctor Keene married a Miss Sarah Golds- borough, for whose father the subject of this sketch was named.
The Keene family is of English origin and one of distinction in the mother country. Edmund Keene, Lord Bishop of Ely, was an ancestor of the family, as also was Sir Benjamin Keene, English Ambassador to Spain in 1757. Mr. Keene was married in October, 1895, to Mrs. Abbie P. Bresee, daughter of George W. Patterson, of Vir- ginia.
In his political views Mr. Keene is, and always has been, an unswerving Democrat, and while never consenting to accept office, has generally taken an active part in every campaign.
Mr. Keene holds a pew in Christ Church (Episcopal), which he attends. He is a mem- ber of the Maryland Club and Elkridge
Fox Hunting Club. Of the secret organi- zations he affiliated with the Masonic fra- ternity, holding membership in Central Lodge, No. 108. Mr. Keene has interested himself considerably in real estate opera- tions, and was the chief founder of Ocean City on the Atlantic coast. Purchasing a large tract of land from the Tabor heirs, he organized a company, laid out a town near the beach and thus became instru- mental in building up a beautiful summer city by the sea.
JOHN PRENTIS POE .- No attorney is bet- ter or more favorably known than the genial author of the code of Maryland laws. Mr. John P. Poe is thoroughly identified with all the varied interests of the city of Balti- more, having made it his home since his birth, which occurred August 22, 1836. His parents, Nelson and Josephine Emily Poe, were also natives of Maryland, the former during his lifetime a well known member of the bar. John P. Poe was educated at the public schools of Baltimore and at the French and English Academy of Professor Boursand. Later he attended St. Mary's College, and subsequently Princeton Col- lege, from which he graduated in June, 1854, being at that time in his eighteenth year. On his return from college, Mr. Poe se- cured a clerkship in a bank and during this time read law under the supervision of his father. He was appointed librarian of the Law Library, which gave him an excellent opportunity of pursuing his studies. Ap- plying for admission to the bar, his petition was granted in the Superior Court of Bal- timore, August 22, 1857, in the Court of Appeals of Maryland in December of that year, and in the Supreme Court of the
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United States in January, 1858, since which time he has been in active practice in the various State and Federal Courts. From the first, Mr. Poe has taken an active part in all political movements of the State and nation, advocating the principles of true Democracy. In 1871 Mr. Poe was appoint- ed School Commissioner for the Eleventh ward, serving upwards of seventeen years. In 1885 he was appointed president of the Baltimore City Tax Commission, and of the State Tax Commission the following year. Under the administration as Mayor of Hon. William Pinkney White, Mr. Poe served as City Counsellor from 1882 to '84, and later on was elected Attorney General of the State in 1891.
Mr. Poe is well known as an author of recognized authority on legal subjects, his "Pleading and Practice in Courts of Com- mon Law," first published in 1880, having passed through three editions, the last one being issued in 1897, the first one in 1882 to '84. Because of his eminent fitness for the work, Mr. Poe was appointed by the Gen- eral Assembly in 1886 to prepare the Mary- land Code of Public, General and Local Laws, and his codification was adopted in the act of 1888 and re-adopted in 1890. As a whole it is as complete and perfect a code of laws as can be found in any State of the Union. He prepared also the Baltimore City Code of 1885 and also that of 1893.
As early as 1869 Mr. Poe was elected a Regent of the University of Maryland and on the establishment of the School of Law of the University he was appointed pro- fessor, and later became Dean of the Fac- ulty. As a practitioner at the Baltimore bar, Mr. Poe has had a long and successful career, his success dating back to his ad-
mission to practice. As an author his reputation is firmly established and will re- main bright and untarnished long after his being called to the bar above. In political views Mr. Poe has always given his un- swerving support to the standard bearers of Democracy. On the hustings or in the party councils he has been a pillar of the or- ganization, and one whose counsel has been eagerly sought and highly esteemed.
MR. S. JOHNSON POE, a native of Balti- more, was born March 27, 1864. After se- curing his preliminary education in the well known school of Mr. George G. Carey, Mr. Poe matriculated in Princeton University in 1880, graduating in the class of '84. Hav- ing a predilection for the law, Mr. Poe be- gan the study of his profession in the office of his father, Mr. John P. Poe, and after graduating from the Law School of the Uni- versity of Maryland in May, 1887, was ad- mitted to the bar the following month. Shortly after he opened an office in the city. He continued the practice of his profession alone until the Ist of January, 1895, at which time he and his brother became part- ners of their father under the firm name of John Poe & Sons. Mr. Poe holds com- munion with St. Paul's Episcopal Church. He is a member of Lord Baltimore Lodge, No. 275, Knights of Honor, and the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity. Of the social clubs he holds membership in the fol- lowing: The Baltimore Club, the Elkridge Fox Hunting Club, the Catonsville Country Club, and the Bachelors' and Junior Cotil- lion Clubs of Baltimore.
In politics he is an unswerving Democrat. By appointment of the Supreme Court, Mr.
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Poe served in 1896 on the Committee of Examination for admission to the bar.
MR. EDGAR ALLAN POE, youngest mem- ber of the firm of John P. Poe & Sons, was born in Baltimore, September 15, 1871. As a pupil of Mr. George G. Carey's private school, he acquitted himself with credit, and in 1887 entered Princeton University, com- pleting his course and graduating in 1891. Reading law under the tutelage of his father, Mr. Poe attended lectures of the Law School of the University of Maryland, grad- uating in 1893, at which time he was ad- mitted to the bar.
Before settling down to the practice of his profession, Mr. Poe spent upwards of a year in foreign travel, returning in the au- tumn of 1894. The beginning of the follow- ing year, he, with his brother, formed a part- nership with their father under the firm name of John P. Poe & Sons, enjoying an extensive practice in the State and Federal Courts. Mr. Poe is a member of St. Paul's Episcopal Church and is a supporter of the Bachelors' and Junior Cotillion Clubs. In politics he agrees with all the members of his family, being a staunch supporter of Democracy.
MR. JOSEPH B. SETH, Attorney, 100 E. Lexington street, is a worthy representa- tive of one of the old colonial families. His first American ancestor of the direct male line was Jacobus Seth, who came to the Colony of Maryland in 1684, when he was admitted to citizenship by the Act of the Provincial Assembly. Whence he came is not definitely known. He lived in Calvert county, where he married Barbara Beck- with, daughter of Capt. George Beckwith,
whose wife Frances was a daughter of Nicholas Harvey, who settled at Point Pa- tience in Calvert county on the Patuxent river, where he had a large landed estate. He sat in the first Colonial Assembly of Maryland, which was convened at St. Mary's City, January 25, 1637. On Decem- ber 2, 1642, a patent was granted him for a tract of land called St. Joseph's Manor, ly- ing on the south side of Patuxent river op- posite Point Patience and containing 1,000 acres.
On January 3, 1639, a commission was is- sued to said Nicholas Harvey by Leonard Calvert to raise a company of men and in- vade the Mancantequut Indians and inflict punishment by law of war for sundry in- solences and rapines committed upon the English inhabitants.
Jacobus Seth in 1685 moved to Talbot county and purchased Mount's Mill, now known as the Wye Mill. In religious belief he was a Catholic, and his will, made in 1694, bequeathed an amount of tobacco to the five fathers to say masses for the repose of his soul. He asked that if a priest could be secured to officiate at his burial that it should be done. Whether his wish was car- ried out we know not.
Mr. Seth's great-grandfather's brother, Jacob Seth, served as sergeant in the Fifth Maryland Regiment during three years of the Revolutionary War, enlisting August 15, 1777, his discharge bearing date of Au- gust 20, 1780.
Mr. Seth's father, Alexander Hamilton Seth, was for many years a well known and prominent farmer of Talbot county. His death occurred in 1882, at the age of sev- enty; his good wife survived him just three years, attaining the same age. By a strange
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