USA > Maryland > Men of mark in Maryland Johnson's makers of America series biographies of leading men of the state, volume I > Part 6
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He is fond of outdoor life, and gets recreation in the shape of swimming, canoeing, fishing, hunting and botany. He has a country place near Belair, Harford county, and a hunting lodge in the northern part of the province of Ontario, Canada.
In religion, as in other matters, he would be classed, not as an Independent but as a Liberal. Identified with the Episcopal church, he declares himself ready to affiliate with all earnest Christians, a position for which he will be commended by all good men who have the real interests of religion at heart and want to see the extension of Christianity.
Doctor Kelly has never held public office, and yet so strong has been his interest in all public matters affecting the general welfare, that he is known as a public man ; and to his credit be it said, no public official in the state of Maryland has rendered greater service to his fellows than this hard-working surgeon, who has come like a beneficent providence to thousands of the disabled poor in hospitals and dispen- saries, and restored them to health without money and without price. The value of such a man in the community cannot be measured by any standard or yardstick known to us, except that laid down in the New Testament.
On June 27, 1889, Doctor Kelly married Miss Olga Letitia Bredow. Nine children have been born of this marriage, all of whom
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are living. Not in the nature of compliment, but as a statement of fact, it should be added that Doctor Kelly's reputation as a surgeon is now international, due to the skill with which he has performed deli- cate and difficult operations in gynecology ; and this accounts for the honors that have been showered upon him by foreign scientific and · surgical bodies.
CHRISTOPHER JOHNSTON
D OCTOR CHRISTOPHER JOHNSTON, Professor of Orien- tal History and Archaeology in Johns Hopkins University, belongs to a family which has been identified with and promi- nent in Maryland for nearly one hundred and fifty years. The first Christopher Johnston in Maryland came from Moffatt, Scotland, in 1766, and settled in Baltimore. His grandson, another Christopher Johnston, rose to eminence in the medical profession, and forty years ago stood at the head of the profession in Baltimore. In addition to his practice he also filled the chair of surgery in the University of Maryland, his reputation both as practising physician and teacher extending far beyond the borders of Maryland. He married Miss Sarah L. C. Smith, daughter of Benj. Price Smith, a lawyer of Wash- ington, District of Columbia, and a descendant of Richard Smith who settled in Calvert county in the early days of Maryland and served as Attorney-General of the colony of Maryland from 1657 to 1660. Of this marriage the subject of this sketch was born in Baltimore, on December 8, 1856. In his boyhood he attended the notable school which was conducted by George G. Carey, where many men now promi- nent in the country received their early training. In 1872, though quite youthful, he entered the University of Virginia. Four years' work in that institution gained him the degree of Bachelor of Litera- ture. In 1878, after another two years, he was given the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and finally, in 1879, he won the degree of Master of Arts, one of the most difficult degrees to win in the United States. It requires special diplomas in ten or twelve different subjects. Doctor Johnston started, therefore, with the best possible educational equip- ment. In the meantime, during the last two years of his period of study at the University, he had followed regular courses in medicine, and, after receiving his final degree, he entered the University of Mary- land, from which institution he was graduated as M.D. in 1880. He entered upon the practice of medicine in his native city, and for some years followed his profession assiduously, holding at one time the posi- tion of Chief of the Surgical Clinic in the University of Maryland. and later Chief of the Eye and Ear Clinic.
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Very sincerely yours Christopher Johnston
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Very sincerely yours Christopher Johnston
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CHRISTOPHER JOHNSTON
Doetor Johnston, however, always had a passion for philology and archaeology. In 1888 he took up postgraduate work in the Johns Hop- kins University along these lines, and in 1889 was appointed a fellow of the University. He was reappointed to a fellowship in 1890. In the same year he was appointed instructor of Semitic languages at the University, and in 1894 Johns Hopkins University conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Philology, and he was designated as Associate of Oriental History and Archaeology. In 1899 he became a member of the Faculty, being promoted to the position of Associate Professor of the same subjects, and for the last two years has been Professor in Johns Hopkins University in his chosen lines. In addition to his work in medicine, archaeology, philology, Oriental languages and history, Doctor Johnston has made a special study of Maryland history. He is peculiarly well informed in the genealogy of the old state families, and is conceded to be an authority in this particular branch of history. Ile has written many papers on Assyriological subjects, and these have appeared at various times in the proceedings of the American Oriental Society, the Journal of Philology and Hebraica, and other scientific periodicals.
Doctor Johnston for many years took part in the affairs of the Maryland State Militia. He served for some time as First Lieutenant in Company G of the Fifth Regiment, and was acting ordnance officer in the Regiment at the time of the Spanish-American war. He was married on June 2, 1897, to Miss Madeline Tasker Tilghman, of Balti- more, daughter of the late Captain Richard Lloyd Tilghman, U. S. N., of Gnosses, Talbot county, of which marriage there are three living children. Mrs. Johnston also bore a famous Maryland name which has been identified with the state since colonial days, Colonel Tench Tilghman, during the Revolutionary war, having served for several years as the chief aid-de-camp of General Washington.
Doctor Johnston is descended from that famous border clan of Scotland known as the "hard-riding Johnstons." They were seated in Annandale in Scotland in the section dominated by the Bruces and Douglases. These border clans had not the same elan organization as the highland clans, but had the same loyalty to family. The four hundred years of border warfare between England and Scotland made of these borderers as hardy warriors as the world could show. It easily followed that men of this adventurous type would be well represented in the emigration from Great Britain to the new colonies. In the gen-
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erations which have since passed, the descendants of these borderers have filled the most honorable places in our country, and it is a rare thing to find one of them occupying a subordinate or inferior position. The manly qualities acquired in the long centuries of patriotic warfare have given to their descendants physical and mental force that makes them strong leaders wherever they settle. The Christopher Johnstons of Baltimore have a right to take double pleasure in their ancestry, for, while it has given them much, they also have lived up to their privileges and abundantly improved the talents entrusted to them.
CHARLES CHAILLÉ-LONG
C HARLES CHAILLE-LONG, soldier and explorer, was born at Princess Anne, Somerset county, on July 2, 1842. His father was Littleton Long (called of Chaille to distinguish from other branches of the Long family), and his mother was Anne Mitchell Costen. She was an intellectual and deeply religious woman who died when her son was young. Littleton Long was a planter and merchant, who refused frequent nominations to public office and who was characterized by "probity, firmness, modesty, charitableness and piety without ostentation." The ancestry of Charles Chaillé-Long is traced back to Pierre and Moïse Chaillé, who emigrated from Chaille- vette, France, and settled in Snow Hill, Worcester county, in 1710, and to Solomon Long, who emigrated from England to Somerset county in 1645. In the American Revolution two of Chaillé-Long's ancestors served: Colonel Peter Chaillé, who was a member of the Maryland Convention of 1775, colonel of a regiment of the Eastern Shore militia and who served in the Maryland Convention, which ratified the United States Constitution in 1788, and Major Solomon Long who was lieu- tenant in the Third Independent Company in 1776 and captain in the second regiment of the Maryland line from 1776 to 1778. Chaillé- Long was a delicate child, whose special tastes were the study of his- tory, geography and the classics. His education was interrupted by frequent illnesses and was pursued at private schools in Princess Anne and Philadelphia and at Washington Academy at the former place, from which school he graduated in 1860. Throughout his life he has found the classics and history the most helpful lines of reading, es- pecially Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Herodotus, Cæsar's Commentaries, Sallust's Jugurthine War, Volney's " Meditations sur les revolutions des empires," Guizot's " L'histoire de la civilisation en Europe et en France "; the lives of Napoleon Bonaparte and Mehemet Ali; the works of Malte Brun, and Cortambert.
In 1861, Chaillé-Long enlisted in the State Guards, and in 1862 became a private and then a sergeant in the First Regiment, Eastern Shore Infantry, United States Volunteers. He was promoted to a cap-
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taincy in 1864 in the Eleventh Maryland Veteran Infantry, and after serving as aide de camp to General A. P. Scoeff in 1865, he was mus- tered out of service and honorably discharged with his regiment June 15, 1865. Between that date and 1869, he engaged in literary studies. In the latter year he was appointed by Ismail, the Khedive of Egypt, as lieutenant-colonel in the Egyptian army, on the recommendation of Honorable Montgomery Blair, General Frank P. Blair, and General Fitz-John Porter. His commission was dated March 2, 1870, and shortly thereafter he was designated as chief of staff to the general-in- chief, and became (for a short time) professor of French at the mili- tary school in Cairo. In 1871 and 1822, he was chief of staff of the First Division of Infantry at Alexandria, and in 1873 he was chief of the first. second and third sections of the general staff with headquarters at Cairo. Napoleon's campaigns in Egypt and the subsequent efforts of the viceroys of Egypt to restore Egyptian civilization and wrest Egypt from the Turkish power, the inauguration of the Suez Canal and the possibility of effecting Egyptian autonomy under " an enlight- ened and progressive prince," were the influences which led Chaillé- Long to Egypt. In that country he was much influenced by his per- sonal contact and friendship with Mariette Bey, the distinguished Egyptologist, who proffered him a place as his first assistant in the Museum at Boulak.
In 1874 Chaillé-Long was made chief of staff to General Charles Gordon, and held that position for three years, while Gordon was gov- ernor-general of the Equatorial Provinces of Egypt, with headquarters at Gondokoro. Gordon sent Chaillé-Long, on April 24, 1874, on a mission to M'Tesa, King of Uganda. Reaching the capital of that mon- arch safely, Chaillé-Long executed with him a treaty, on July 19, 1874, by which the authority of Egypt was established over Central Africa. The treaty was communicated to the Egyptian government, which made it the basis of a diplomatie note to the powers of Europe, formally announcing the annexation of the entire Nile basin. Before signing the treaty, Chaille-Long made a reconnoissance upon the Vietoria Nyanza, and, on the day after the signature, escorted by 500 warriors, he marched towards the Nile. He left Urondogani in bark boats, on August 5, accompanied by two soldiers and five servants, the rest of the escort being sent on by land. On August 11, he entered a body of water which he called Lake Ibrahim, and that expedition closed the gap left by previous travellers in the Nile's course and discovered the
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source of the Nile river. On the 17th, he was attacked and wounded at M'Rooli, in which attack he and his two soldiers killed 82 of the 400 assailants. For this exploit he was promoted to colonelcy on November 16 and was decorated with the insignia of the Commander of the Order of Nedjedieh. In January, 1875, he made an expedition, which re- sulted in the conquest of the Niam-Niam country, and, in March, he repelled an attack of the Yanbaris. In October of the same year, he made an expedition resulting in the occupation of the east coast of Africa, Cape Guardafui to Kismayu at the equator, and later, in De- cember, made a reconnoissance of the Juba river. Under protests of Great Britain, he was forced to evacuate Kismayu on January 5, 1876, and on August 31, 1877, he retired from the army by reason of disease contracted in the service. In his African wanderings Chaille-Long dis- covered a specimen of the Akka or pigmy race.
Returning to the United States, he was appointed chief clerk of the police courts in New York City, on November 11, 1877, which post he held for four years. During this time he studied law at Columbia University, from which institution he received the degree of LL.B. in 1880. He was admitted to the practice of law in the New York courts, but returned to Egypt in 1881. Beginning to practice before the In- ternational Court of Appeals in Alexandria, on January 11, 1882, Chaillé-Long was soon to distinguish himself in the rebellion of Arabi Pasha. The United States consulate was abandoned by the consul after the massacre of June 11, and on the 15th Chaille-Long was appointed acting consul, which position he held until September 15, protecting refugees of all nationalities and placing them on board the United States naval vessels in the port. He was the last to quit his post before the bombardment and the first to reenter the city after the bombard- ment at day dawn, July 13. The British refused to debark troops, or make any effort to save the city from destruction, but Admiral Nichol- son, commanding the American squadron, at the request of Chaillé- Long, placed at his disposal 160 marines and sailors, with whom he occupied the United States consulate, the only one left standing, saved many lives and much property, and prevented the entire destruction of the city. Chaillé-Long for nearly two days kept the consulate as a centre of refuge for men of all nationalities, and was decorated by the Khedive for his services with the Cross of the Commander of Osmanieh and offered the rank of Brigadier-General in the Egyptian army. Chaillé-Long's next post was that of Commissioner for the State of
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New York to Paris, by Governor Grover Cleveland, to which position he was appointed on May 2, 1883. In 1887, Cleveland, then President of the United States, named him Secretary of Legation and Consul- General to Corea In that capacity he acted for two years, during which he visited the Island of Quelpart in 1888, and then resigned in April, 1839. Returning to the United States, Chaillé-Long acted as secretary of the Universal Postal Congress at Washington, District of Columbia, from May 1 to June 15, 1897. On August 18, 1897, he was made secretary to the United States Special Commissioners to the Paris Exposition of 1900, and from October, 1897, to September, 1898. he was chargé d'affaires at the exposition, at which he was also repre- sentative of an American harvesting machine company from June, 1899, to November 10, 1900. He also served as a member of the com- mission which collected notes in the French Archives for the work published by the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, and entitled " Les Combattants français dans la guerre pour l'independence Americaine." Colonel Long returned to Maryland in 1902, and has since resided in Baltimore, engaged in the preparation of his memoirs. He has voted with the Democratic party and is a member of the Protestant Episco- pal church. In 1875, he was chosen a corresponding member of the Institut Egyptien and has since that date been made a member of many learned societies, especially those of history and geography, in Europe, America and Africa. He is a chevalier of the Legion d'Honneur, which distinction was conferred by the French government, and received a resolution of thanks for his services in Africa from the legislature of Maryland, on March 3, 1904. At that time, a gold medal was also voted him by the state and presented on October 21. The medal bears the inscription, "To Colonel C. Chaillé-Long in tes- timony of his services to science and his valiant conduct in Central Africa and Egypt," and, on the reverse, with the coat of arms of Mary- land, the legend which Colbert used as his motto, " Pro rege saepe pro patria semper." He is a member of the society of the Sons of the American Revolution in Maryland and in France, and has served as registrar of the latter branch of the society. His writings have been : " Central Africa : Naked Truths of Naked People," 1876 (also issued in French) ; " The Three Prophets: Gordon, Mahdi, Arabi," 1886; " Les Sources du Nil," 1891; "L'Egypte et Ses Provinces Perdues," 1892; " La Corée ou la Terre du Calme Matinal," 1894, and nu-
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merous articles in encyclopædias, reviews, and other periodicals. Colonel Long's favorite exercise is equitation. He declares " that per- severance, energy and fidelity to purpose have enabled him to achieve every object in life he set out to accomplish, exception being made of objects which failed, because of the death of those with whom he was an associate. He failed to achieve a fortune, but this was never an object. The lesson to be drawn therefrom is that we should never be so entirely absorbed in science as to ignore entirely the amassing of suffi- cient means to provide in old age the means for a modest independence. No trust or confidence should be placed, either in the promises of a prince, or the gratitude of government. Gordon said to Colonel Chaillé-Long, when the latter turned over to the credit of the Egyptian government, ivory valued at $120,000, the gift of the Sultans of the Niam-Niam country: "The ivory is your personal property, you should have kept it, you may want the money some day." The words were true, and he has often repented of his thoughtless generosity. His advice to youth is to "maintain an attitude of modest mildness and humility in contradistinction to the blustering bravado and rodo- montade swagger, which seem to characterize the youth of the present." He married, on July 16, 1890, Marie Amelia Hammond.
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ALEXANDER DOUGLAS McCONACHIE
T HE intelligent student of history finds in its records stories more romantic and of more fascinating interest than have ever been written by the master novelists of the world. One of these stories of most thrilling interest and of great historical value is the record of the Highland Clans of Scotland. Amongst these clans the Campbells have always held first place from the present back to the time when we have to rely on tradition and legend.
The great Clan Campbell was divided into four main branches. all having a common ancestry. These four branches were the Camp- bells of Argyll (or Inverary), the Campbells of Breadalbane, the Campbells of Cawdor and the Campbells of Loudoun. Included in these four branches of the Clan Campbell there were fourteen different septs or families bearing different names. The Clan Campbell may therefore be likened to a brigade in which each of the four great divi- sions represents a regiment, and the small sept represents the com- pany. From the time when Sir Neil Campbell, of Loch Awe, followed Wallace in his heroic struggle for Scotch liberty, down to the present, the Clan Campbell has been famous in history, in song and in story. The magnitude of this clan may be best understood when it is known that as far back as 1745 it could bring into the field 5000 able-bodied fighting men.
One of the septs of the Clan Campbell was the MeConachie family. and it is from this family that Doctor Alexander McConachie, of Balti- more, is descended. According to the family tradition, Neil Campbell. chief of the clan, married a sister of Robert Bruce, the great Scottish king and liberator. Sir Neil's son, Dunean, head of the Campbells of Inverary, was the father of Dougal, so-called from his mother's family. Duncan, the son of Dougal, received, according to the Celtic custom, the patronymnie MeDowell vie Conachie, which was shortened into MeConachie or Maconachie. This name came to be applied to suc- ceeding chieftains of that branch of the family, while the cadets bore the original name of Campbell. This was the origin of the MeConachie family.
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Among later members of the family was Alexander MeConachie, Lord Advocate of Scotland, who succeeded to the title of Lord Meadow- bank. Then there was Allan MeConachie, a judge of great ability and attainments. This Allan McConachie was second in command of the Earl of Argyll's army in the struggle between the Covenanters and the Royalists, and was an ancestor in the direct line of our subject.
Doctor MeConachie's father was William McConachie, in early life a contractor, and later a gentleman farmer, who married Elsie Shand, and migrated from Scotland to America in 1857, coming over in a sailing vessel which took one month to make the voyage. William MeConachie was a man of sterling integrity and pronounced acquisi- tiveness, which would have made him a great business man in the present era.
A. D. MeConachie was born in Woodstock, county of Oxford, Ontario, Canada. Though not a robust boy, living in the country, he says himself that he did everything a country boy must do, such as doing chores, hunting and fishing when opportunity offered, and going to school at proper seasons. At twelve years of age he left the country to attend school in the town of Woodstock. He had already learned much of nature and had been trained in orderly conduet and methodi- cal ways. His mother was a Presbyterian of the old Seoteh type. She saw to it that the lad had his Scriptural reading every night, so that by the time he had reached the age of twelve he had almost memorized the New Testament. Looking back now he can fully appreciate the tremendous service which his good mother rendered him in foreing upon him this training. From the Woodstock Collegiate Institute he went to Toronto Normal School, from which he was graduated in course with a teacher's certificate. Having decided to enter the medi- cal profession he began the study of dentistry and medicine at the University of Maryland, from which institution he was graduated in 1888, in dentistry, as gold medalist, and in medicine, in 1890, as gold medalist. He took a postgraduate course in the Academic Department in the Biological Laboratory, followed by postgraduate courses at Johns Hopkins Hospital and Presbyterian Eve and Ear Hospital in Baltimore. Still later, in 1894, he visited Europe and pursued his medieal studies in London, Paris, Vienna, Berlin and Edinburgh.
Sinee beginning the practice of his profession the Doctor has made a specialty of eye and ear diseases and has won eminence in his profession. With the thoroughness inherited from his Scotch ancestry
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he did not economize on the time necessary to equip himself thoroughly and it thus easily happened that his reputation grew from the start. He had still another distinct advantage in previous training: As a youth of seventeen he had been a teacher. Then there followed an interval of business activity as representative of a large manufacturing plant. As no experience is ever lost, these antecedent ventures had served as an additional qualification toward achieving success. In looking back over the influences which have been most powerful in his life and most useful, Doctor McConachie rates first in importance the home influence, a godly mother and a father who never shirked a duty; next in order of importance he rates his school training; and lastly, private study and that contact with other men which may be classed as the university of experience. He frankly admits that he has never set up any particular standard or goal to work to; that he has made it a habit to do his best in his daily work; and from his standpoint this is about as good a standard as one ean have.
A lover of books, outside of his medical reading, he rates first in importance and value and helpfulness the Bible; following after this, all books in which great minds have expressed mighty thoughts and told of mighty deeds. An extensive reader, he has scanned the Essays, Biography, Plutarch, the Orators and the Philosophers; last but not least in helpfulness to himself personally has been Spencer's Synthetic Philosophy.
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