USA > Maryland > Talbot County > History of Talbot county, Maryland, 1661-1861, Volume I > Part 45
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The death of this distinguished gentleman has thrown a gloom over the community of which he has long been the brilliant ornament. In all the relations of life, he has borne his part in a manner suited to the duties they inspired. As a politician he was ever remarkable for the firmness and perseverance with which he adhered to the cause which he believed sustained the best interests of his country. So long has he been distinguished in the public eye that the short limits allowed to an obituary notice will not afford a full exposition of his labor or his service. It must suffice for the present to say that what ever course his duty to his country indicated, he never faltered zealously to pursue it. Respectful to opponents, faithful to his friends, and uncompro- mising in his principles. To describe how faithfully he discharged all the varied duties of husband, father, friend and master, would be idle eulogy.
In another article in the same paper it was said:
A great man in Israel has fallen. Talbot has lost her pride, and the Eastern Shore one of her proudest boasts. He has died in the prime of life and in the midst of his usefulness. So far as can be learned there is but one sentiment pervading the Community, that of universal sorrow and regret.
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ROBERT HENRY GOLDSBOROUGH
In the Eastern Shore Whig of the same date there are these words of him used by a political adversary :
Mr. Goldsborough has filled a conspicuous station in the councils of his country, and his name will be interwoven with much of the his- tory of the nation, as well as that of his native state. He was a gentle- man of talent, and as a public man he stood consistently to his princi- ples and his party. But it was in the private circle where the good qual- ities he so richly possessed shone the brightest. He was kind, charitable and affectionate. In manners he was bland and conciliatory; and he possessed in an eminent degree many of those attributes of the soul which so permanently dignify and adorn human nature.
At a meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Maryland Agricultural Society for the Eastern Shore held Oct. 27, 1836, a series of resolutions were passed upon the occasion of Mr. Goldsborough's death. At this time he was chairman of the board. One of these resolutions contained these words:
He was possessed in an eminent degree of social qualities which threw a charm around his society and endeared him to a large circle of friends. In him, too, were happily blended the virtues of the patriot, the accomplishments of the scholar and the polished manner of the fin- ished gentleman. The Agricultural associations of which he was so prominent a member have sustained a loss in the death of an individual distinguished for his talents, his public spirit, and his hospitality.
Regarding religion as being something more than a mere sentiment, the indulgence or suppression of which imparts or destroys one of the pleasures of life, regarding it as the basilar principle of private and public morality, he made it the controlling influence of his conduct and conversation. He was a member of the Protestant Episcopal Church which he represented from time to time in the general and diocesan conventions. To the administration of the temporalities of his own immediate parish, St. Michaels, he gave laborious attention for the many years during which he was a vestryman. He was not enough of a devotee to feel and too much of a politician to express any illiberality towards people of other communions, for he lived through a time when religion and politics strangely intermingled, and when in this county the lines of churches and parties were too nearly coincident. He co- operated with pious men of all denominations in all measures which looked to the amelioration of the morals and to the well-being of the community in which he lived. He was at one time a Vice President of the American Colonization Society which was organized at Wash-
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ington when he was in the Senate of the United States in 1817, and its benevolent purpose, which did not seem then so visionary and impract- icable as now, had his hearty support. He was an officer of the Mary- land Bible Society designed to promote one of those benevolent yet illusory schemes of good men, who thought or at least seemedto think a copy of the sacred scriptures placed in the hands or houseof any person in this county was to act as an amulet to ward off a home from moral evil, or certain other charms were said to shield the possessor from physical harm. The exercise of his fine abilities as a ready and forcible speaker were often called into requisition to promote charit- able enterprises, and they were seldom denied, and indeed it may be said that whatever graceful oratory was required to give éclat to any public demonstration, Mr. Goldsborough if within reach was the chosen speaker. In forming an estimate of his mental powers one is constrained to the conclusion that his mind was not of the first order, although the partiality of his political friends regarded it as phenomenal. It was more agile than vigorous, more elegant than capacious, more clear than profound. His information in no department of knowledge except that of politics seems to have been very extensive, but in this as far as relate to parties in our own and in other free countries, it seems to have been comprehensive and accurate. What is more, it was held so well in hand as to be readily available.
HON. JOHN BOZMAN KERR 1809-1878
The announcement has already been made in the Gazette of the death of the Hon. John Bozman Kerr, a native and for many years a citizen of this county, but of late a resident of the city of Washington. It is thought something more than this is due to a gentleman whose abilities and attainments as well as his public services reflected honor upon the place of his birth, and whose virtues, character and conduct are worthy of being remembered and imitated.
Mr. John Bozman Kerr came of a Scotch family which settled in America just antecedent to the Revolution. His grandfather Mr. David Kerr came to this country from the county of Galloway in Scot- land in 1769, and seated himself at Greenbury's Point in Anne Arundel county, Maryland, upon the Severn river. From this place he removed to Talbot in 1790 where he engaged in a successful mercantile business, and where he filled many civil offices with credit to himself and useful-
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ness to his fellow citizens. He married the daughter of Mr. John Boz- man of Belleville, Oxford Neck, and sister of Mr. John Leeds Bozman, the able jurist and learned historian of the earlier years of Maryland. From this union was born Mr. John Leeds Kerr, a lawyer of repute and a statesman of distinction. He served in the Legislature of this State and in both houses of Congress, besides filling other posts of honor and responsibility. He married first a daughter of Mr. Saml. Chamberlaine of Bonfield and sister of the late James L. Chamberlaine, Esq., and secondly the daughter of the Hon. Charles Goldsborough of Shoal creek, Dorchester county. By the first marriage he became the father of the subject of this sketch; by the second of Charles Goldsborough Kerr, Esq., of Baltimore, a gentleman of recognized abilities. There were other children by each marriage. He died in the year 1844 honored and respected wherever known, and now lies buried at Belleville, the seat of the Bozmans.
Mr. John Bozman Kerr was born in the town of Easton, Maryland, on the 5th of March, 1809. His parents who occupied the highest social position in the county, who had participated in the best culture of the time, and were therefore appreciative of the pleasures and advan- tages of a liberal education, gave to their son the most careful training in letters and science that could be obtained. He became one of the pupils of the Easton Academy when that institution was under the care of such able teachers as distinguished its earlier years. At a proper age and stage of advancement in his studies he was matriculated at Harvard College, then as now the first school in the country. He accom- plished a full course and was graduated in the year 1830 with the class that is said to have had as members such men as Emerson, Holmes and Sumner, of whom all the world knows something. After the com- pletion of his collegiate studies he entered the law office of his father in Easton, and there secured such instruction and training in the pro- fession of his adoption as a lawyer of extensive reading and large practice was able, and a parent ambitious of his son's advancement was anxious to impart. At the November term of 1833 he was admitted to the bar of Talbot county court-a court over which such jurists presided as Justices Earle, Hopper and Eccleston, and a bar which was then illus- trated by such counsellors as Thomas I. Bullett, Theodore R. Loocker- man, the two Messrs. Hayward, and not the least by his own honored father, Mr. John Leeds Kerr. He entered immediately upon the prac- tical duties of his profession well equipped for their efficient discharge, for he had that mental discipline which is given by the best schools,
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those stores of learning which are the accumulation of diligent study and that familiarity with details which is acquired by attendance upon the courts and by the performance of the routine duties of the preceptor's office. It may perhaps be said, paradoxical as it may seem, that the very thoroughness of his preparation impaired his performance. In truth the practice of law, that is the application of its principles and pre- cepts to the common affairs of life, never interested him as much as its literature and philosophy-law in its genetic sources, in its historical development and its varied forms as manifested in organized societies or communities. The strifes and collisions of the courts, the arts and devices of the mere attorney, were always exceedingly distasteful to him; and this may account in large measure for that moderate success at the bar with which he was satisfied or at least forced to be content through life. The habit of his mind, founded upon a high integrity of weighing every case that was presented to him in the fair balance of right rather than in the unequal scale of a client's interest, often embar- rassed him in his efforts in the client's cause and resulted in his being consulted only by those who had "their quarrel just," though not by all of these; while those who were in doubt of the righteousness of their case feared the decisions of his judicial fairness and unswerving candor.
While waiting for, or in the intervals of business, Mr. Kerr in- dulged his taste for literature. Memories of his great uncle, Mr. John Leeds Bozman, corroborated his own natural inclinations towards historical and antiquarian research. It is thought he in- dulged the hope of being able to complete the work of that uncle upon the history of Maryland. Irregularly, but perseveringly, for some years he devoted much attention to the annals of the province and State, and particularly to those of this county. The records at Annapolis of the courts of the several counties, of the churches, and of prominent families, underwent a thorough perquisition by him; and from them as well as from other sources both here and abroad he accumulated a vast fund of information, curious and useful, relating to politics and civil affairs, to religion and education, to society and in- dustry from the earliest days of the colony of Maryland. Regarding the history of the province and State as intimately connected with family history, he gave particular attention to Maryland genealogies, those of his own county always having precedence, these being followed by those of the neighboring counties with which they were entwined. His acqui- sitions in this line of historical research caused him to be consulted by almost every one upon this shore or of Eastern Shore origin, who inter-
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ested himself in tracing his descent; and it was rare that any who could claim a respectable ancestry among the early settlers upon this peninsula was disappointed in obtaining such information as he required, or in learning something more than he had known of his progenitors. For genealogy Mr. Kerr seems to have possessed a singular aptitude of mind. His love and memory of minutiæ and detail was extraordinary. Names, dates and incidents in their multiplicity and lack of natural connection seemed never to confuse or embarrass him, but rather de- lighted. Yet in his attempts to give form and expression to his knowledge, the very profusion with which he displayed it, gave to his utterances upon any subject a seeming incoherent irrelevancy, and ambaginous prolixity. It required some mental effort and patience to follow him in his wanderings, but that effort and patience were sure to be well re- warded, for his excursion from the direct path was always full of revela- tions and wonderfully suggestive. However far he might deviate he always came back to the original line of his argument or his narration. It is matter for lasting regret that his accumulation of memoranda respecting this county and indeed the State at large, has not been preserved. It was his habit to note them upon the margins of his own and others' books or upon disconnected sheets. These books have been scattered and the scraps of paper lost or destroyed.1 It is to be hoped, however, that an examination of his papers which is about to be made will reveal the fact that the fruits of his researches have not been so completely lost as his own indifference to their value has led his friends to apprehend. Although fond of exercising his pen, it is not known that beyond some brief contributions to Appleton's Cyclopedia, to newspapers or other periodicals and some historical papers which have never been printed, read before literary societies, Mr. Kerr has ever performed any literary work. It is known that at the date of his death he was engaged upon a memoir of Daniel Carroll of Duddington, a Revolutionary worthy and member of the Continental Congress, and that he had just completed a paper relating to the imperfectly duplex government of Maryland apropos of the abolition of the law requiring one Senator of Maryland in the Congress of the United States, to be chosen from the Eastern Shore.
1 The Librarian of the Md. Hist. Soc. picked up at the shop of a dealer in waste paper, ready to be sent to the paper mill an old volume concerning the Friends, the margins and blank leaves of which were filled with most interesting historical and genealogical notes in the hand writing of Mr. Kerr. This book is now hand- somely rebound, and carefully preserved. The writer of this sketch has another old much abused book similarly annotated.
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Like most lawyers of this county, Mr. Kerr took a part in politics. He may be said to have inherited his opinions, for his father and grand- father were Federalists of a pronounced character. He became as was natural a Federal Republican, National Republican, or Whig, as the opposition to the Democratic party was variously called at different times. He acted with and adopted some of the opinions of the American or so-called Know Nothing party, but he was never in full accord with this organization. When the war of the Rebellion broke out he allied himself with the party of the Union as will hereafter be noticed. In the year 1836 he was nominated by the Whigs of Talbot for a seat in the Lower House of Assembly and was elected. He was again chosen in 1837 for the same position. During the term of his membership he interested himself especially in the cause of free schools. The many attempts to frame an acceptable law for the administration of such schools had hitherto met with imperfect success. The law then in force, commonly known as Spencer's law, had much to commend it but there were defects which were the subject of petitions from Talbot county for their remedy. These petitions Mr. Kerr presented and in compliance with them prepared a bill which was adopted by the Legis- lature. But some of the provisions of this Act of Assembly, in as much as they seemed to discriminate invidiously between the children of the rich and of the poor in the schools, provoked much animadversion and condemnation from his political opponents. Active partisans indus- triously propagated the opinion which this law seemed, but only seemed to justify, that Mr. Kerr was hostile to public education or absolutely free schools: and they revived an almost extinct notion that the Federalists and their lineal descendants, of whom Mr. Kerr was one, were aristocratic in their political sentiments and wished to legalize in some indirect way, as by this law, those distinctions which are in- evitable in every civilized society but which should have no legal counte- nance. That Mr. Kerr was an enemy to public schools was a slander so preposterous as to furnish among those who knew his opinions its own refutation, but it served the purposes of politicians among those who did not know his devotion to the cause of popular education and to the principle of State support of free schools. In truth, the feature in Mr. Kerr's bill which was, or was made, so abnoxious was one designed to accomplish the very purpose which is the aid and labor of the most enlightened friends of education to secure, namely, the improvement of the character of the public free schools. The provi- sion alluded to was that by which any school district in the county
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that desired to have its school to be of a higher order than the common primary school, where only the merest elements of an education were imparted, might be allowed to collect a tuition fee from those people of that district who were able to pay for the support of such improved or higher school. This tax or fee being paid by the property holders only, it was alleged, distinguished the children of the rich from those of the poor. As for the other charge that was aroused against Mr. Kerr by his school law of his possessing aristocracy proclivities, it really had its foundation in his habitual reserve, dignity of bearing and loftiness of character. What his political opponents were fond of at- tributing to an insane desire for distinction and privilege that should have legal or customary acknowledgment was founded upon a repug- nance to the rude, the coarse, the ignorant and the levelling. Of the wisdom of Mr. Kerr's plan for the improvement of schools of the county there may properly have been some doubt, but of his motives for its suggestion there should have been none. But the charges against him, ill founded as they were, sufficed to defeat him in the following year when he was again a candidate for a seat in the General Assembly. Indeed, it may be said that a memory of these charges was a serious embarrassment to him ever after in his aspirations for political prefer- ment, so difficult is it to eradicate false impressions when once they pos- sess the public mind, and when there are those whose interest it is to sow them afresh when they are like to die. Mr. Kerr's school law was abolished at the ensuing session of the Legislature and Spencer's law restored.
No where else better than here could a trait of Mr. Kerr be noticed namely, his patronage, in the best sense of that term, of young men, indeed all men, who manifested a desire for mental improvement. He flattered them with his notice, he aided them with his advice, he encouraged them with his companionship. His large library which he had inherited through his father from his uncle the historian, was always open to their use, and his own acquisitions of whatever kind were freely communicated when required. He regarded it as a duty never to be evaded, the advancement of young men in their pursuit of knowl- edge, and many there are who hold him in grateful memory for his kind words and ready assistance.
In the year 1845 he was appointed Deputy State's Attorney, under Geo. R. Richardson, Esq., the Attorney General of Maryland. The functions of this office he faithfully and acceptably performed from the year 1845 to 1848, when he was succeeded in that office by the Hon. Saml. Hambleton.
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The Whigs of the 6th Congressional District of Maryland, then com- posed of Talbot, Dorchester, Somerset and Worcester counties, in the year 1849 nominated Mr. Kerr for a seat in the lower House of Congress. This was during one of those periodic quakings of our political structure caused by slavery, which preceded the great volcanic eruption that came ten years later. The issue was the extension of slavery into the newly acquired territories upon the Pacific. The 6th District was at this time decidedly Whig, so much so that the opponents of Mr. Kerr made no nomination. They nevertheless were diligent and strenuous in their efforts to entrap him upon this delicate subject with a view to ulterior success. On this it was well known that he entertained very liberal and very unpopular opinions. While conscientiously opposed to the existence and really favorable to the limitation of slavery to the terri- tory where it was recognized, he, like many other men of his party and of the time, regarded its obligation as beyond the province of Congres- sional Legislation, and as being entirely within State control; and as for its extension he thought it should be restricted to that territory which had been set apart by earlier compromises for Southern coloni- zation with its peculiar institutions. Like many others he found his moral convictions at variance with his political duties, and he suffered the unrest consequent thereon. During the canvass he was frequently put to the question as to what would be his course should he be elected to Congress upon the policy of appending the Wilmot proviso, then the great shibboleth, to any act for the admission of new States into the Union. His reply to these queries is still in existence and is curious, at least, as showing his dexterity in giving such answers to very proper questions as should at once content his own friends, elude the stares of his enemies, and satisfy the conscience of an honorable man who dis- dained equivocation even in politics. Mr. Kerr was elected of course, having no opposition. His career in Congress was that of a useful but not a conspicuous member. He sustained those measures for the pacification of the country, then threatened with disruption, which were inaugurated by Mr. Clay and which were successfully carried by his powerful support, called the compromise of 1850. But Mr. Kerr did not serve the full Congressional term, for he resigned his seat in 1851 upon receiving from Mr. Fillmore a foreign appointment.
From the very beginning of his political life it had been his aspiration to enter the diplomatic service of his country for which his tastes and, as he thought, his abilities prepared him. To this end he had also directed his studies so that if opportunity should offer, he might be
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found fitted for the duties of such service. In March 1851 he was appointed charge d'affaires at Bogota, in New Grenada, by President Fillmore. This appointment he respectfully declined but was imme- diately appointed Minister resident to Nicaragua and the Central American States. Thus was realized the "dream of his youth," as he himself said, and though the realization was not perhaps as brilliant as the early vision, it in a measure satisfied the laudable ambition that suggested or inspired the young politician's revery. While in Central America, during one of those recurring political convulsions with which those countires are more affected than by the great convulsions of nature to which they are subject, he was enabled to render most useful service to his own countrymen there resident, to certain foreign citizens, and besides, to many of the people belonging to the revolutionary states. For this service, patriotic and humane, as well as for his diplomatic skill, he was complimented in most flattering terms by the Hon. John M. Clayton, then Secretary of State and, in addition, he received from Congress a very handsome donative in the form of extra compensation.
He returned to the United States in 1853 upon the commencement of Mr. Pierce's administration. He then resumed the practice of his pro- fession in the city of Baltimore and subsequently at Saint Michaels in Talbot county, Maryland. He was the first, and it is believed the only person who has attempted to prosecute the law elsewhere in this coun- ty than at the seat of justice, giving an example of a custom which is followed in other States and might be followed here with advantage.
It was while he was residing in St. Michaels that the war of the Rebellion began. Mr. Kerr followed his patriotic impulses rather than the solicitations of sectional partialities, and allied himself with the upholders and defenders of the integrity of the nation. To him as much as to any other person in that community is to be attributed that intense loyalty which through the whole of the dreadful struggle was manifested by the people of that town and its vicinity. While it was the part of other patriotic orators to appeal in glowing words to the noble sentiments of fidelity to the flag as the symbol of the Union and to love of country, it was his part with the calm astuteness of the lawyer to unravel the sophisms of States-rights, and to expose the absurdity of the asserted constitutionality of peaceable secession, with which some sought to bewilder the minds of the plain citizens of St. Michaels as they had bewildered those claiming to be wiser than these. Another service he rendered to that community during those dark years was the persuading its young men with whom he had much influence,
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