USA > Maryland > Men of mark in Maryland Johnson's makers of America series biographies of leading men of the state, volume I > Part 17
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In April, 1909, he married Nellie Virginia Harrison, whose family came from the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and whose mother was of the Ritter family, which, coming over with the early Dutch settlers, located in Carroll county, Maryland. Of this marriage a son was born on March 23, 1910.
In every line of Mr. Morrison's family, whether coming down from the first Scotch immigrant or from the Englishman, Anthony Morris, or from the Scotch-Irishman, Thomas Kill Patrick, this family has a remarkably strong record for generations of patriotic services. To the credit of George C. Morrison it can be said that he is main- taining in a worthy manner the family traditions.
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EUGENE F. CORDELL
E. F. CORDELL, physician, was born at Charlestown, Jefferson county, West Virginia, June 25, 1843, the son of L. O'Con- nor and Christine (Turner) Cordell. His father, likewise a physician, was a man of refined manners, literary taste, culture and sociability, possessing a handsome form and a graceful carriage. Ile was devoted to music and painting. The family is descended from Reverend John Cordell, a minister of the Church of England, who came to Virginia from Wiltshire, England, in 1743. At the outbreak of the Revolution he became a captain in the Continental army, and was captured in battle in 1722. Among Doctor Cordell's other an- cestors were Colonel Moore Fauntleroy, a cavalier who came to Vir- ginia from England in 1643 and sat in the Provincial House of Bur- gesses ; Colonel Richard Blackburn, who came from Yorkshire, Eng- land, to Virginia, in 1700, and became an officer in the provincial militia ; Doctor Gustavus Brown, who came from Scotland to Maryland in 1708; and Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Blackburn, of the second Virginia regiment of the Continental army, who sat in the Virginia House of Burgesses, the Council, and the Convention of 1776, and, fighting in the Revolutionary army, was wounded and permanently disabled at Germantown. At the time of his disablement he was serv- ing as a volunteer aid on General Washington's staff. Colonel Black- burn maintained a regiment for a whole winter on his country place, without expense to the patriot cause.
Mrs. Christine Cordell, mother of Doctor E. F. Cordell, was a woman of great refinement and genuine piety, whose influence on her son was good in every way.
E. F. Cordell was reared in village and country; he was fond of books and especially helped by the Bible and the classics. He was educated at the Charlestown Academy, the Episcopal High School near Alexandria, Virginia, and the Virginia Military Institute at Lex- ington. His education was interrupted by the Civil war, and on July 9, 1861, he became a drill-master to General Henry A. Wise's
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EUGENE F. CORDELL
command of the Confederate army, serving in that army throughout the war. In 1862 he was promoted to a lieutensney, and in 1864 be- came assistant adjutant-general. He was wounded at the battle of Winchester, September 19, 1864, and was a prisoner of war at Fort Delaware from March 12 to June 19, 1865. After the close of the war his personal preference led him to take up the study of medicine at the University of Maryland, in 1866. Two years later he was graduated therefrom with the degree of Doctor of Medicine, and became elinical reporter and assistant physician in the University Hospital. In 1907 he was honored by his alma mater with the degree of Master of Arts. Hle has practised his profession in Baltimore from 1869 to the present time, and has gained a noteworthy position among the physicians of the state, being finally honored with an election as president of the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland, in 1903. The great influences of his life have been the training received from his mother and at the Episcopal High School and the University, private study, and the companionship of certain physicians, among whom he names Doctor William Osler as " most helpful and inspiring." Doetor Cor- dell writes : " My chief motives in hfe have been to promote the good of my profession and my fellow men. I have labored earnestly for my alma mater. I have striven to transmit an honorable and untarnished name."
On September 17, 1873, he was married to Louisa Southall (Cor- dell), and they have had four children, of whom three are living. He is au independent Demoerat in politics, and a member of the Protes- tant Episcopal church. Formerly music was his favorite form of relaxation, but now he delights most in reading and walking.
In 1882 he became one of the founders of the Woman's Medical College of Baltimore, and until 1903 he held a professorship in that institution. During that period he was also attending physician to the Good Samaritan Hospital connected with the school. Ile was a founder of the Hospital Relief Association (and its president from 1.23 to 1897), of the Home for Incurables and of St. Lukeland Cot- tage Convalescent Hospital. From 1902 to 1904 he was president of the Johns Hopkins Hospital Historical Club, and is now professor of the history of medicine in the University of Maryland and librarian of its faculty of physic. He organized the Alumni Association of the School of Medicine, 1880, and the General Alumni Association of the l'niversity, 1903, and was president of the former, 1890-1891. He was
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EUGENE F. CORDELL
one of the founders of the Maryland Society of the Sons of the Revolu- tion, of the endowment fund of the University of Maryland, of the American Medical College Association, and of the Fund for the Relief of Widows and Orphans of the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland and the liome for the same. Doctor Cordell was a co-editor of the " Maryland Medical Journal " from 1880 to 1882, and he has edited the "'Transactions of the State Medical and Chirurgical Fac- ulty," the " Bulletin of the Woman's Medical College " and the " Uni- versity Hospital Bulletin." He is now editor of " Old Maryland," the University of Maryland monthly. In 1891 he published a valuable " History of the University of Maryland," and in 1903 he issued a most important volume entitled, " The Medical Annals of Maryland." This work of nearly one thousand pages, commemorative of the Cen- tennial Celebration of the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty in 1893, contains the annals of the society, about two thousand five hundred biographical sketches of Maryland physicians, a medical chronology of the state from 1608, and memoirs of a number of distinguished members of the Maryland profession. Over five years were consumed in its preparation, and it is a mine of information upon the subjects of which it treats. In 1907 he edited the " Centennial History of the University of Maryland " in two large octavo volumes.
Doctor Cordell is a member of the American Medical Association. Experience and observation have taught him the value of " concentra- tion of purpose and effort, of wise choice of aims early in life, and of steady pursuit of them. Success does not consist in accumulating a fortune, but in speaking the truth, in doing one's duty, in living a pure, upright, useful and unselfish life. The best condition for man is one of constant employment-work, work, work. There is no better rule of conduct than the Golden Rule."
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ERNEST JUDSON CLARK
T HE life insurance business inour country has within fifty years grown from small proportions to be one of the leading inter- ests of the world. In the process of this growth it has devel- oped a number of men of the first rank, whose talents and energies, if devoted to other pursuits, would have won them eminent and conspicu- ous positions. These men are not as much in the public eye as our statesmen, but, like the great bankers and engineers of the present day, are serving a most useful purpose in a world-wide field and con- tributing largely to the general growth, without looking for great reputations outside of their professional work. One of the younger men in this business, who has already won a most enviable position, is Ernest Judson Clark, of Baltimore, state agent of the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company.
Mr. Clark was born near Newtonsville, Ohio, on June 27, 1872. His parents are Benjamin Franklin and Sara (Roudebush) Clark. His father was a successful farmer who, after a life of industry, has retired from active business to his country estate near Cincinnati. He is a man of strong physique, of large stature, of forceful intellect, deeply interested in the common welfare, but not a politician in the sense of an office-seeker, though he served his community in various local and county offices. Mr. Clark is, by three lines of descent, of English stock, first settled in Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland. His father was a son of Orson Clark, a landowner near Cincinnati. Orson Clark was son of James Clark, a native of Southampton county, Virginia, who migrated to Ohio in March, 1797, becoming the first judge of the Cincinnati courts and a member of the first Ohio state legislature. James Clark was the son of John Clark, of Virginia, said to have been the progenitor of this branch of the Clark family, a native of England who came to Virginia before the Revolutionary war, and with his son James served in the Revolutionary armies. These Virginia Clarks have a history not surpassed by that of any family in our coun- try. It is sufficient here to mention George Rogers Clark, the young Virginian whose marvelous exploits added to our country the territory
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ERNEST JUDSON CLARK
from which was carved the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin. Mr. Clark's paternal grandmother was also of Virginia ancestry, being a daughter of John Corbley, Jr., a Baptist minister, who was a son of John Corbley, another Baptist minister, born in England in 1733, immigrated to Virginia when a young man, and died in the " Redstone district," now Green county, southern Pennsylvania, in 1803. His maternal grandfather was Jos. Roudebush. Jos. Roudebush - was the son of Daniel, the son of Daniel, who migrated from " Ellicott Mills," now Ellicott City, Maryland, to Goshen, Ohio, in 1799 or 1800. Jos. Roudebush was of Holland Dutch descent, but on his maternal side was a lineal descendant of Col. Wm. Ball, of " Millenbeck " planta- tion on the Rappahannock river in Virginia, who was the grandfather of Mary Ball Washington, the mother of General Washington. Col. Wm. Ball, immigrant to the colony of Virginia in 1657, was a descend- ant of William Ball, Lord of the Manor of Backham, Berks, England, who died in 1480. His mother's maternal grandfather was Adam Lever, Jr., who migrated from Northumberland county, Pennsylvania, to Ohio, and whose father, Adam Lever, immigrated to eastern Penn- sylvania from the province of Alsace-Lorraine.
As a boy, Mr. Clark was strong and robust, living the natural life of a country boy, fond of outdoor sports, partial to natural history and animal life. His training on the farm and in the care of stock, under the direction of his father, he can see, in retrospective view, constituted a most beneficial effect on his after life. His mother's influence also was potent, both upon the intellectual and moral side of his nature. He attended the Newtonsville, Ohio, schools, and the National Normal University, of Lebanon, Ohio, from which last-named institution he was graduated in 1890. In his earlier years he was partial to history, mathematics, biography and scientific reading ; and in so far as a busy man can find time for reading, these tastes have still abided with him. His professional career has been altogether along one line.
On completing his university course, he taught school for one year in western Ohio, and in June, 1891, entered the life insurance business, with the firm of R. Simpson & Sons, state agents for the Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company for Ohio. He filled the posi- tions of solicitor, travelling special agent and assistant superintendent of agents for the state in the ensuing three years, and, in June, 1894, resigned his position with that firm to accept the place of superintend- ent of agents for the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company,
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ERNEST JUDSON CLARK
under J. C. Campbell, state agent for Ohio and West Virginia, with headquarters at Columbus, Ohio. His work here was so thoroughly successful and so much appreciated by the company that, on January 1, 1897, being then not quite twenty-five years old, he was transferred to Baltimore as state agent of the company for Maryland and the District of Columbia, with offices in both Baltimore and Washington. He came to Baltimore one of the youngest men who had ever been given such a responsible position, and a stranger. In the thirteen years which have since elapsed, he has built up a large and substantial business for his company, and has built for himself a position of influence and respect, both in professional and business circles, second to that of no man engaged in the same field. In 1900 Mr. Clark was the organizer of the Baltimore Life Underwriters' Association, and was its secretary until 1904, when he became its president. He also served as secretary of the National Association of Life Underwriters from 1904 to 1907, at which time his friends urged him to take the presidency of that great association, which he could not see his way clear to do. Outside of the circle's of his own business, he was one of the organizers of the United Surety Company of Baltimore, which began business on Janu- ary 1, 1906, and since that date has served as its first vice-president and as a director and member of its executive committee.
In taking stock of the influences which have been most potent in his own life, he puts in first place the early home training, followed by contact with his fellows in active life, and, again, by school training, private study and youthful companionships.
Possessed of excellent education, to which he has added much by reudir z. observation and travel, Mr. Clark has not essayed authorship beyond miscellaneous works and publications pertaining to the insur- ance business. His political affiliation has always been with the Re- publican party, but he has never sought or held public office. In his university days fond of athletics, he now finds his chief recreations in horseback riding, hunting and fishing. He is a member of the Baptist church, and for the past twelve years has served as treasurer of the Eutaw Place Baptist church, one of the strong organizations of the city. As a working code for the young man starting in life, he sug- gests the avoidance of alcoholic liquors; hard work when at work, and hard play when at play ; strict truthfulness, rigid honesty, and a high sense of honor in all things. As he sces it, no young man should be afraid to do more than that for which he is being paid; and he earn-
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ERNEST JUDSON CLARK
estly commends to every young man the wisdom of being always al student, not only of his own business, but of all things which bear upon the common welfare.
On November 14, 1900, he married Miss Marie Breson de La Tour, and of this marriage there are three children, one son and two daugh- ters. Mrs. Clark and her sister, Mrs. John Howard Herrick, also of Baltimore, are daughters of Mr. Louis de La Tour, of Lynchburg, Vir- ginia, who was formerly of Paris. They are scions of that famous French family which produced during the Napoleonic period the " First Grenadier of France," Theophile de La Tour d'Auvergne, whose history and romantic interest rival that of the famous Chevalier Bayard. Mrs. Clark is a lineal descendant of the first governor of Nova Scotia, General Charles de La Tour, whose wife's name she bears. General de La Tour was grandfather of the "First Grenadier of France." This was the family name of the Bouillon dukedom, and the great French marshal, Turenne, second son of the Duke de Bouillon, bore the name of Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne.
In his early prime of physical vigor, with his mind ripened by constant contact in a large field of activity, Mr. Clark has already gained a strong position, and is now in the way to rise much higher.
He holds membership in the Baltimore Country Club, the Mer- chants' Club, the Maryland Historical Society, the National Geographi- cal Society, various Masonic bodies, from Blue Lodge to Commandery, the Knights of Pythias, the National Association of Life Underwriters, and sundry charitable and business organizations. In everything with which he is connected he is recognized as a valuable and useful member.
MORRILL NATHANIEL PACKARD
N O MAN in Baltimore is better known to the citizens of that great city than Judge M. N. Packard, now serving as asso- ciate justice of the juvenile court of Baltimore City. Judge Packard was born in West Paris, Oxford county, Maine, on May 28, 1858. His parents were Amos and Lydia Spofford ( Herrick) Packard. Amos Packard was a typical New England farmer, a man of strong character, rigid integrity, devoted to his church, and of necessity indus- trious, as every New England farmer must be. Ile was a lineal de- scendant of Samuel Packard, founder of the American family, who landed in Massachusetts on August 10, 1638, having come from the old country in. the ship " Diligence." He settled at Bridgewater, Massa- chusetts. However little we may know about the old immigrant, we know this, that he was a tremendous success as an ancestor, for in 1790 there were 106 families of Packards in the United States, of which 105 were in New England and one in New York. If not all, certainly the majority, of these families were descended from the immigrant, Samuel Packard.
On the maternal side, Judge Packard is a descendant of Robert Herrick, a lyric poet of England, born in 1591 and died in 1662. Judge Packard grew up on a New England farm, and that means that he knew what real hard work meant. He had a New England love of invention, was specially interested in religion, in law and in oratory. There were many difficulties in the way of his obtaining such an education as he wanted. His early days were laborious. The farm work was succeeded by paper-making and shoe-making. He literally had to earn the money that he needed to secure an education. As he looks back at this period of life he realizes that it was good! discipline in that it taught him to be persistent, to be patient, and to know how really to enjoy the fruits of labor. Along with a good father he was fortunate in having a good mother, whose influence was for good upon every phase of his character, intellectual, moral and spiritual.
At the age of twenty-one he struck out on his own account. He had attended the Norway Liberal Institute at Norway, Maine, and got
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MORRILL NATHANIEL PACKARD
the groundwork of a good education. At twenty-one he was a lecturer ; at twenty-six he was a public speaker in Maryland ; at twenty-eight he found himself in a position to carry out a long-cherished design and entered the Law Department of the University of Maryland. In 1888 he was graduated with the degree of LL.B. He was then thirty years old. From 1885 to 1889 he held the position of reading clerk for the first branch of the Baltimore City Council. By the latter year he had begun to get into practice as a lawyer. His practice developed and he made somewhat of a specialty of electric companies, and was, at one time or another, counsel for nearly all of the earlier electric corpora- tions in Baltimore City. From 1904 to 1908 he served as police magis- trate of Baltimore City, at the same time serving as alternate justice for juvenile causes in the juvenile court. In May, 1908, he was ap pointed associate justice for juvenile causes and is still serving in that capacity.
Everything that has any bearing upon the welfare of the country enlists the active interest of Judge Packard. He has been a constant writer and speaker on political and economical questions. In 1904 he published a pamphlet entitled "Voter and the Vote," which is an analysis of the right of franchise. His reading has taken a wide range, preferential lines being history, political economy and law. He testi- fies that every book read has helped to a wider and more accurate knowledge of affairs, and in turn helped to solve the pending problem. The strongest single influence of his early life, next to his parents, was association with the Reverend Josiah A. Seitz, and he frankly makes acknowledgment of his indebtedness to that good man.
Judge Packard's political affiliations are with the Democratic party, and when a man born in Maine is a Democrat, it means that he is one of the straightest sect.
The Judge frankly states that he has no ambitions that he does not expect yet to accomplish. His only fear is that time is passing more rapidly than he is progressing, and at the end he will be somewhat behind his desired accomplishment. Looking to true success and to sound ideals, he thinks that we should educate our youth in a thorough knowledge of American history and institutions; that we should add to that a knowledge of political economy so clear as to prevent people from being led astray by sophistry, and to that we should add the incul- cation of a patriotic and sacred regard for and discharge of all the duties of citizenship.
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JAMES RICHARD EDMUNDS
AS. R. EDMUNDS, of Baltimore, for many years prominent in the financial and religious life of that city, was born in Balti- more on April 22, 1846, son of Thos. Hughes and Mary Dorset (Crane) Edmunds. Mr. Edmunds' father was a dentist of a lively and humorous temperament and decided intellectual qualities. He died when the son was only ten years old. J
Edmund, or Edmond, is an old Saxon name, and became a sur- name by the addition of the genitival s, which made it mean " son of Edmund." The principal seat of the English family of this name has always been in Yorkshire, England. The American ancestry of Mr. Edmunds' family goes back to Lynn, Massachusetts, to which place the first progenitor came in the first settlement of Massachusetts. From there a branch of the family migrated to Sag Harbor, Long Island, and from there to Cape May, New Jersey, a little prior to the year 1700; for at that time Jonathan Edmunds was the owner of real property in Cape May. Jonathan Edmunds had a son Richard, who was the imme- diate ancestor of the subject of this sketch. Richard Edmunds married Mary Downs (sometimes spelled Downes and Dounes) ; and their son, Downs Edmunds, was commissioned Adjutant in Colonel Hand's regi- ment of militia on April 29, 1:21, and was one of the " Committee of Safety " of Cape May during the Revolution. Downs Edmunds mar- ried Experience Hand, and their son Robert married Thankful Ban- croft. The son of this marriage, another Richard, married Lydia Hughes, daughter of the Honorable Thos. H. Hughes; and their son, Thos. Hughes Edmunds, was the father of our subject. The Thos. H. Hughes above referred to, after serving as Sheriff and member of the General Assembly for several terms, was sent to Congress by the Whigs in 1828, serving in the Twenty-first and Twenty-second Con- gresses, from 1829 to 1832. He built in 1816 the first "Congress Hall " hotel at Cape Island. Humphrey Hughes, the first of the Hughes family at Cape May, came there from Long Island in 1687. He was of Welsh origin, served as a Captain in Colonel Coxe's regi- ment in 1713, was Sheriff of Cape May in 1:11, served as a Justice of
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JAMES RICHARD EDMUNDS
the Peace in 1722, and was a member of the Assembly from 1723 to 133-one of the influential men of his day.
The maternal ancestry of Mr. Edmunds also presents some very interesting features. Going back six generations, Robert Treat, born in England in 1622, son of Riehard and Alice Treat, came to America when a young man, and died in Connecticut on July 10, 1710. In 1666 he was one of the founders of Newark, New Jersey, and its Deputy to the General Assembly for several years. He returned to Connecticut in 1672, and served as Deputy Governor of the colony from 1676 to 1682, and for fifteen years was its Governor-from 1683 to 1698 -- during which time occurred the famous historical incident of the hiding of the charter in the old oak, afterwards known as "The Charter Oak." Governor Treat presided in the Assembly from which Sir Edmond Andros, under orders from King James II, attempted unsuccessfully to take away the charter of the colony. After a short interval, Governor Treat became again Deputy Governor, serving from 1699 to 1708, making altogether thirty years in the offices of Deputy Governor and Governor. He also held military positions as Captain, Major and Colonel during the Indian wars; and at the battle of " Bloody Brook " the historian tells that " he turned the tide of success at a desperate moment, and saved the colonies from being destroyed by a savage foe." Mary Treat, daughter of the redoubtable old Governor, married Azariah Crane, and their descendants lived on the land which had been granted to Robert Treat at the settlement of Newark, and which was Mary's marriage portion. Rufus Crane, great-grandfather of our subject, was born and reared on this land, and served in the patriot armies during the Revolutionary war. In this Crane line. another of Mr. Crane's ancestors was Jasper Crane, who came from England about 1639-possibly a little earlier. He was one of the founders of New Haven, and subscribed its constitution in 1639. served as a Magistrate for several years, and also as a Magistrate in Connecticut colony after New Haven colony was joined to it. IIe assisted in the foundation of Newark, New Jersey, and his name appears first on the list of signers to its fundamental agreement on October 30, 1666. During the early years of the town he figured very largely in its affairs, was first president of the Town Court, and first on the list of Deputies to the General Assembly of New Jersey, a few years after the settlement of Newark.
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