USA > Maryland > Men of mark in Maryland Johnson's makers of America series biographies of leading men of the state, Volume IV > Part 21
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 (link on the Part 1 page).
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
Richard D. Hynson had no difficulties to surmount in obtaining an 'education, as his parents were cultured people of means and saw to it that he had the best of advantages. He attended the Washington College in Chestertown, and was graduated in 1883 in the classics. He took a business course in Bryant and Stratton's Business College in Baltimore; entered the law department of the University of Mary- land, obtaining his degree of Bachelor of Law in 1886. Fond of read- ing, especially history, he was a thoroughly well-informed man out- side of his professional studies. Mr. Hynson developed ability as a lawyer, and promptly took rank as one of the strong men in his pro- fession. His father did not long survive the son's admission to the bar, dying in 1889, three years after Richard D. Hynson entered upon the practice. In February, 1890, he was appointed by Governor Jackson member of the board of directors of the State House of Cor- rection, a position which had previously been filled by the father and which was quite a compliment to a young man of twenty-five.
365
366
RICHARD DUNN HYNSON
He so well discharged the duties of the position that he held it for the remainder of his life, a period of seventeen years, by successive reap- pointment. A Democrat in his politics, Mr. Hynson had one thing in common with his father-neither one of them were ever office seekers, neither one seemed to care for public position. He held membership in the Maryland Bar Association. He attended the Epis- copal Church, with which his family has been identified ever since its settlement in Maryland. He developed strong business capacity, and was one of the business leaders of Kent, serving as vice-president of the First National Bank, and he took a leading part in the securing of new enterprises for the city and in the general material development of the country.
On February 1, 1892, Mr. Hynson was married to Emma A. Gilpin, daughter of Joseph E. Gilpin of Kent County. She survived him, with five children: Caroline Marsh, Helen Eccleston, Eugenia Gilpin, Alice Dunn and Mary Rogers.
Cut off in the prime of life, Mr. Hynson left a fine record of achieve- ment and a character second to that of no man of his section, as to integrity, capacity, and honorable conduct in life.
.
-
. ALEXANDER BROWN
T HE banking house of Alexander Brown and Sons has been a tower of strength in the financial circles of Baltimore for an even one hundred years. The present head of the old firm, General Alexander Brown, is of the fourth generation, the busi- ness having been founded by his great-grandfather, another Alexan- der Brown. Alexander Brown (I) was born in Ballymena, County Antrim, Ireland, November 17, 1764. He belonged to that old Scotch-Irish Presbyterian stock which has made of Ulster, naturally the least desirable section of Ireland, a garden, and which has con- tributed to America one of the most virile and valuable elements in "its population. Alexander Brown grew to manhood; married; and to him were born, before he left Ireland, four sons: William; George; John A., and James. In 1800, a man of thirty-six, he came to America and established himself as a linen merchant, a most natural occupation for a man reared in the center of the linen manufacturing industry of the world. He was successful as a linen merchant; and in 1810 or 1811 founded the banking house of Alexander Brown and Sons, taking his four sons in as partners. He was evidently a very ยท able man, and ably seconded by his sons, for their business grew apace, and out of it grew the great houses of Brown Brothers and Company, Philadelphia; Brown Brothers of New York, and Brown, Shipley Company in London. When Alexander Brown (I) died April 6, 1834, he had lived long enough to see the banking house one of the strong concerns of the Western Continent. The second son, George, born in Ireland, April 17, 1787, succeeded his father as the resident partner and manager of the Baltimore house. He married Isabella McLanahan of Newcastle, Pennsylvania, and of this marriage was born General George Stewart Brown, May 7, 1834. At the age of twenty, George Stewart Brown entered the bank, and in due time succeeded to the management. In 1857 he married Miss Harriet Eaton of New York, member of the famous New England family established in Dedham in 1635, and which has given to our country at least fifteen eminent men, mostly along legal and educational lines.
367
.
368
ALEXANDER BROWN
One, however, General William Eaton, was a most notable soldier Another, William Wallace Eaton, United States Senator (who belong almost to our own generation, for he died as late as 1898), was one of those sturdy New England Democrats who held up the flag of Demo cracy in the face of overwhelming Republican majorities, from the time that Republicanisni first showed its head, up to the day of his death.
Of the marriage of General George Stewart Brown with Miss Har- riet Eaton, the present General Alexander Brown was born in Balti- more, October 25, 1858. George Stewart Brown was a man of much force. Inheriting a full share of the banking ability of the Browns, he was a political leader in the reform movements as far back as 1859, which had to deal with the desperate situation in Baltimore when that city was controlled by what was known as the "Plug-Ugly" element. Again in 1875, and again in 1889, he was prominent in reform move- ments, in the latter year having been chairman of the nominating committee of one hundred. He was a director in many large and important enterprises, among them the House of Refuge; trustee of the Peabody Institute and the Blind Asylum, and prominent in Pres- byterian Church work.
General Alexander Brown, the present head of the old banking house, was educated in Princeton University, and was graduated in 1878, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. He then spent twoyears in Europe and in 1880 entered the bank as an employee, becoming a partner in 1882. His father died or May 19, 1890, and the young man, then but thirty-two years of age, became head of the firm.
While at Princeton, General Brown was quite an athlete, and dur- ing his residence abroad acquired a fondness for fox-hunting, which was entirely suited to his cool, daring, resolute temperament. On his return, he became a member of the Elkridge Club, and for many years was M.F.H. of that club.
General Brown possesses in an eminent degree the quality of reti- cence, so essential to the successful conduct of a great bank, to which is added an unusual quality of foresight combined with enterprise. He was a very young man when he first became head of the great firm of Alexander Brown and Sons. In addition to the resources of that . concern, he had always in case of need the backing of Brown Brothers of New York, and Brown, Shipley Company of London. This gave him the use of enormous capital wherever it could be profitably
369
ALEXANDER BROWN
employed. Some of his moves in those early days were looked at askance by older and conservative business men; but it only took them a few years to learn that moves which to them were apparently venturesome, were bottomed upon the soundest reasoning, and that the new head of the old bank was a leader who could be safely followed.
An example of his methods was seen in his handling of the city rail- way proposition. Messrs. Nelson Perrin, T. Edward Hamilton, and other business leaders were interested in the railways of the city of Baltimore and thought they had a thoroughly good grasp upon the situation. Mr. Brown completely outgeneraled the older men, who thought they were in control; and subsequently effected a consoli- dation of practically all the street railways in the city. It was an immense deal and gave to the people of Baltimore their first real con- ception of the capacity of General Brown.
His father before him had through the terms of many governors of Maryland held the position of paymaster-general of the State; and in 1892, General Brown was appointed inspector-general. This place had not come to him by inheritance, nor yet by virtue of his business standing-it had been honestly earned by his hard service as a member of the famous Fifth Regiment, in which he rose to be a captain.
At an early age in his career, General Brown was married to Miss Bessie Montague, and they have several daughters. He has a splen- did town residence at the corner of Cathedral and Madison Streets; and a beautiful country seat on the Reisterstown Turnpike, known as "Mondawmin." General Brown's marriage brought into the family another distinct strain of blood, and his daughters have in their veins several very strong strains. The Browns represent the Scotch- Irish Presbyterian stock. Through the Eatons, of which family Genera! Brown's mother was a member, comes the English-Puritan blood; and through the Montagues comes a strain of Norman blood. In the peerage of Great Britain at the present time, branches of the Montague family hold the Manchester Dukedom, the Sandwich Earldom, the Swaythling Barony, and the barony known under the title of Montague of Beaulieu.
General Brown at one time took a great interest in aquatics, and had built for him by the Herreshoffs at Bristol, Rhode Island, a steam yacht which he called Ballymena, named for the village in which his
370
ALEXANDER BROWN
great-grandfather was born. He subsequently sold this to a gentle- man of Providence, Rhode Island. He holds membership in the Mary- land, Baltimore, Baltimore Country, Elkridge, Bachelors' Cotillion, Maryland Steeple Chase Association, and Merchants' Clubs; isa direc- tor or officer in a large number of leading corporations, such as the Canton Company, National Mechanics Bank, Merchants and Manu- facturers Association. He is an attendant upon the Brown Memorial (Presbyterian) Church, which was built by his family.
General Brown through life has taken constant pleasure in outdoor sports, ranging from fox-hunting down to coon hunting, and he has a ducking shore on Byrd River, where he has frequently gathered together a choice company of his friends and indulged in the fascinat- ing sport of coon hunting, followed by midnight suppers around big log fires.
One connection of the Brown family has been especially creditable to them. His grandfather was one of the founders of the House of Refuge-and from that fargone day down to the present, the head of the banking house of Alexander Brown and Sons, whether it was George Brown, George Stewart Brown, or Alexander Brown, has been a director.
In American banking circles, no name is better known than that of this old firm. It has withstood the financial storms and panics of a century; it has seen "red dog money," individual notes, shin-plasters, Confederate money, and greenbacks all have their day; it has seen the banking business of the country pass through many mutations, and finally arrive at something approximating a coherent system. Through all these changes, the firm of Alexander Brown and Sons has always "stood pat." It has met every liability; honored every obligation, and with each succeeding generation has grown stronger. The history of this firm is a testimonial not only to the ability of the several generations of this family, but also to the true conservatism and to the rigid integrity which has enabled it to weather every storm, and in its centennial year to stand as a model of American banking institutions.
REVERDY JOHNSON
R EVERDY JOHNSON, one of the greatest of American lawyers, United States Senator, attorney-general of the United States, minister to England, statesman and jurist, was born in Annapolis, May 21, 1796. His father was John Johnson, Senior, chancellor of Maryland, attorney-general of the State, and a lawyer of high standing. John Johnson's father was Robert Johnson, said to have been an officer in Washington's army in the Revolution. Reverdy Johnson's brother, John Johnson, Junior, was also chancellor of Maryland, occupying that high office when it was abolished in 1854. On the maternal side, his mother was a daughter of Reverdy Ghiselin, of French descent, and for a long period commissioner of the Land Office at Annapolis.
Mr. Johnson was graduated from the Old St. John's College at Annapolis, at the age of sixteen, and began reading law under the direction of his father, and later under Judge Stevens.
In 1815, then only nineteen years old, Mr. Johnson was admitted to the bar and began practice in the village of Upper Marlboro, Prince George's County. The young lawyer won instant recognition, for in 1816-17, he served as deputy attorney-general, as the State's attor- neys were then called. In 1817, he located in Baltimore, the bar of which boasted such men as Luther Martin, Robert Goodloe Harper, William Pinkney, Roger B. Taney, and William H. Winder. The young lawyer was able to hold his own with the best of them; and in 1821, then only twenty-five years old, he was elected to the State Senate for a term of five years as a Whig, and was reelected to succeed himself. After serving two years of his second term, he resigned, and for the next seventeen years devoted himself actively to the practice of the law. In these years he had taken his place as a recognized leader of the Whig party and as a man of the first order of ability. In 1845, the Whigs being then in power in Maryland, he was elected a member of the United States Senate, and in the Senate Mr. Johnson . gave evidence of his patriotic wisdom and his liberality of thought by supporting the Democratic administration in the prosecution of
37
-----.
372
REVERDY JOHNSON
the Mexican War, going in that matter counter to his party. In 1848, the Whigs were successful and elected General Taylor to the Presidency. He tendered Mr. Johnson the position of attorney- general, which he accepted, resigning his seat in the Senate to take up the duties of that office. On the death of President Taylor and the accession of Mr. Filmore, he retired from the Cabinet and resumed the practice of his profession. It is said of him that at that time he was engaged in almost every important case in the courts of Maryland and in the Supreme Court. His reputation as a lawyer was nation- wide, and his advice and legal services were in demand from distant States.
In 1854, an English house engaged him to argue a case involving a huge claim against the United States government which was to be tried before the joint English and American commissioners. In this case he was associated professionally with Lord Cairns, then a member of the House of Commons and a leading English lawyer who was subsequently Lord Chancellor of England under the Disraeli administration. While in England in connection with this case, Mr. Johnson was the recipient of most flattering attentions from public men and members of the bar. In 1856, the Whig party being then moribund, Mr. Johnson identified himself with the Democratic party, with which he cooperated for the remainder of his life. Mr. Johnson practiced his profession assiduously, with an every-increasing fame as a lawyer, up to 1860, when the agitation preceding the Civil War began. An avowed Union man, he did not believe in the doctrine of secession and was one of the delegates from Maryland to the Peace Convention which assembled at Washington. On the outbreak of the war, Mr. Johnson espoused the cause of the Union and was sent to the General Assembly of the State as one of the representatives from Baltimore. After the capture of New Orleans, President Lin- coln appointed him a special commissioner to proceed to that city, to revise the decisions of General Butler, the military commandant, in regard to matters involving our relations with foreign governments. Arriving upon the ground and investigating the case, he considered it proper to reverse General Butler's decisions. The good effect of this conclusion was so immediate that he was tendered the thanks of the administration. In the winter of 1862-63, he was elected to the United States Senate, and in March, 1863, took his seat in that body, which he had left fourteen years before to enter the Cabinet. He
-
*
373
REVERDY JOHNSON
voted for the Constitutional Amendment abolishing slavery. Upon the collapse of the Confederacy, Mr. Johnson, a farsighted statesman, took the ground that the wisest thing to do was to issue a proclamation of unconditional amnesty and to immediately re-admit the seceding States without any conditions whatever.
In 1868, Mr. Johnson resigned his seat in the Senate of the United States to accept the place of minister to England, to which he had been appointed by President Andrew Johnson. In England, he nego- tiated the Johnson-Clarendon treaty for the settlement of the Ala- bama claims. This treaty was rejected, not because it was unfavor- able to the United States, but because it was an achievement of the Andrew Johnson administration, to which the majority of the Senate was bitterly hostile. Mr. Johnson's successor as minister to England, succeeded in getting from the British government nothing that Mr. Reverdy Johnson did not get. In England, Mr. Johnson's great ability was fully recognized, and he received more attention than any other American minister in many years. Numerous dinners were given to him, and his speeches were received with general favor. Indeed it is likely that this country and England are still feeling the effects of Mr. Johnson's wise diplomacy. A feeling approaching bitterness had grown up between England and the United States, growing out of the Trent affair, the Confederate cruisers, and the almost open sympathy of the English people for the Confederates in the Civil War. Mr. Johnson was largely instrumental in allaying this feeling and promoting the friendship which since then has bound the two countries together.
After Mr. Johnson's return from England, he lived ten years. In that time he tried but few cases, and those few perhaps more as a diversion than for any other reason. The last case in which he engaged was that of Metcalf vs. The Knickerbocker Life Insurance Company. This was not an interesting or important case, merely an ordinary damage suit for false arrest and imprisonment. The deci- sion was against him in the Baltimore Court, and he took the case to the Court of Appeals. He argued the case there on the 10th of Feb -. ruary, 1876, and that evening he dined with a party at the Govern- ment House as the guest of Governor John Lee Carroll. He could not abide the smell of tobacco smoke. and as the guests around the table began to light their eigars, Mr. Johnson arose and went into the office. The windows of this apartment come down nearly to the floor and
374
REVERDY JOHNSON
open over a deep areaway. A few moments after he left the dining room, a fall was heard, and Mr. Johnson's dead body was found lying beneath the office window. He was almost totally blind, and it is supposed that he stumbled through the open window, thinking that he was about to step through the door on to the porch. He fell some fifteen feet, and his death was apparently instantaneous.
In an address before the Maryland State Bar Association, in 1905. Judge J. Upshur Dennis, of Baltimore, gave some personal recollec- tions of Mr. Johnson. He was a man of medium height, sturdily built, and enjoyed perfect health. His capacity for work and his physical and mental endurance were wonderful. His features were strong, his forehead of great height, fullness and breadth. He was almost blind. The sight of one eye had been destroyed, and that of the other was greatly impaired. He could not walk the streets with- out a guide. He could not recognize the features of any of his acquaint- ances, but he recognized voices in a wonderful manner. The loss of his eye occurred when he was still a young man, and resulted from a most singular accident. There was a horse race at Washington between a horse owned by President Andrew Jackson and one owned by Judge Gabriel Duval, of the Supreme Court of the United States. At the race, two members of Congress, Mr. Stanley of North Caro- lina, and Mr. Wise of Virginia, quarreled and one of them challenged the other to fight a duel. Mr. Johnson was Stanley's second, and these two one Sunday morning were practicing with duelling pistols. ' Mr. Johnson aimed at a hickory sapling, from which the ball re- bounded striking him full in the eye and destroying it.
Mr. Johnson was great as a statesman and a diplomatist, yet his highest fame will always rest, among the people, upon his achieve- ments as a constitutional lawyer. The evidence of this is found in the Reports of the Supreme Court of the United States and in those of the Court of Appeals of Maryland. But Judge Dennis believed that he was at his best as a nisi privs lawyer. He was always good-natured. and at the trial table full of fun. In the skilful cross-examination of . witnesses he was almost without an equal. He relied but little upon authorities, but reasoned out his theories on principles.
.
-
-
GEORGE NORBURY MACKENZIE
G T EORGE NORBURY MACKENZIE, of Baltimore, lawyer, was born in Baltimore on the 4th of May, 1851. His par- ents were George Norbury and Martha Anna (Downing) Mackenzie. The elder Mackenzie was a merchant of Baltimore, a man of liberal education and high ideals. The family came from the Mackenzies of Seaforth, Scotland. The first emigrant of the family from Scotland to this country was Thomas Mackenzie, who settled near Holland's Cliffs, on the beautiful Patuxent River in Calvert County, Maryland. His home in Scotland was the Highland town of Inverness, and he was probably in the rising of 1745.
Among the distinguished ancestors of George Norbury Mackenzie may be mentioned Robert Brooke, a member of Lord Baltimore's Council, and, for a time, by Cromwell's appointment, acting governor of Maryland; Bartholomew Coppock, member of the council of Penn- sylvania, 1688-1690: John Demming, one of the patentees of Con- necticut; Captain John Ilance, of Calvert County, who saw service against the Indians; Edward and Major John Howell, of Southamp- ton, Long Island, Governor's assistants in the colonial government of Connecticut; Francis Hutchins and James Mackall, burgesses of Calvert County; Richard Treat, a patentee in the Royal Charter of Connecticut; Captain Stephen Williams, of Roxbury, Massachusetts, captain of a troop in 1704 and 1705; Sir William Lovelace, of London, and Richard Duke, of Calvert, who came to Maryland in the Ark with Leonard Calvert in 1634.
The childhood and youth of George Norbury Mackenzie werespent in Baltimore where his father was engaged in business. His health was good, but he was more devoted to intellectual than to other pleas- ures, and he devoted his time largely to reading history and the stand- ard works of fiction. His opportunities for obtaining an education were all that could be desired, and he used them to good advan- tage. His father sent him to Pembroke Academy, a private school, and, after finishing his course there at the early age of sixteen years, he engaged, in 1867, in mercantile business. More than twenty years
375
.
376
GEORGE NORBURY MACKENZIE
later he determined to study lawand entered the law school of the University of Maryland, completing the three years course in two years, and graduating with the degree of Bachelor of Laws in 1890. That year he began the practice of his profession and has steadily adhered to it, and with marked success, refusing absolutely to be led away by politics or any of the allurements of public office. He believes in the principles of the Republican party, but he is not a partisan and always esteems the public welfare above party success. He has, however. given much of his time to the study of American history and has taken a deep and abiding interest in the various patriotic and historical societies. Of these societies he is a member of the following: Order of Runnemede, Military Order of French Alliance of United States and France, Society of the Ark and Dove, Society of Colonial Wars, Sons of the American Revolution, Society of War of 1812, American National Red Cross, Maryland Historical Society, Old North-West Genealogical Society, Saint Vincent de Paul Society, Holy Name Society, Society of the Propagation of the Catholic Faith.
In these societies he has held official positions as follows: Regis- trar-general since 1892 of the Society of Colonial Wars, founder and lieutenant-governor of the Society of Colonial Wars in the State of Maryland, grand marshal Colonial Order of the Acorn, historian of Society of Americans of Royal Descent, charter member and ex- registrar of the Maryland Society Sons of the American Revolution, charter member of the Maryland Society War of 1812, recording secre- tary for two years of the Maryland Historical Society, secretary of the Maryland Branch American National Red Cross, assistant his- torian General Military Order of the French Alliance of the United States and France, and Founder of Maryland Commandery of same, honorary vice-president for Maryland of the "Old North-West" Genealogical Society.
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.