USA > Maryland > Men of mark in Maryland Johnson's makers of America series biographies of leading men of the state, volume I > Part 7
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In a political way Doctor MeConachie may be classed as a con- servative Democrat. Not a partisan in a political sense, he has put as of first importance the faithful performance of civic duty. If in his best judgment this at times has compelled him to vote against his party he has not hesitated to do so. He has written many monographs on medical subjects of profound interest to the medical profession. His professional standing has been recognized by his having been appointed Surgeon-General of the State of Maryland on Governor Crother's staff.
Religiously, Doctor McConachie adheres to the faith of his fathers and is a Presbyterian. He is affiliated with many fraternal, social and other societies. He has served as Grand Regent of the Royal Arcanum of Maryland, is affiliated with the Masons, holds membership in St. George's Society, in the Baltimore Country Club and the Maryland Country Club. He is a member of numerous medical associations and bodies, and fills a Professorship in the Maryland Medical College. He
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takes pleasure in all forms of sport. He says he has tried nearly all of them, is now motoring, and later hopes to fly. In this connection, and coming from an able physician, it is worthy of special note that he does not believe in athletic systems, but preaches the doctrine of mod- eration in athletics as in everything else.
Doctor MeConachie takes a very just view of what men call suc- cess, and it cannot be put better than in his own words: "Being con- tent and happy in doing my daily duty as it arises, I never feel the sting of failure, but if I have failed (according to the judgment of others), I should say that I have not succeeded in applying assiduously my gospel, which is a gospel of work, and more work, by which we work out our salvation here and hereafter."
Doctor McConachie has staunch and old-fashioned beliefs. He wastes no time on the follies of the higher criticism and the new fads which are taking men's minds away from the serious work. He believes in the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man; temperance in all things; the symmetrical development of the whole man, physically, mentally, morally and spiritually; thoroughness in all we do, and the determination to be the best in the field of chosen labor.
To any one familiar with the history of the Clan Campbell it is not at all surprising to know that Doetor MeConachie's grandfather was a soldier under Wellington at the great battle of Waterloo.
On December 22, 1897, Doctor MeConachie married Miss Mollie . Thomas Drennen, of Elkton, Maryland, who is a descendant of Colonel Stephen Hyland, prominent in the colonial period and the Revolu- tionary struggle, during which he was a gallant soldier.
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GEORGE WASHINGTON McCREARY
G EORGE WASHINGTON McCREARY, librarian, of Balti- more, was born in New York City, New York, on January 14, 1858, the son of James A. McCreary, a manufacturer, and of Hannah (Raynor) McCreary. He traces his ancestry to William Raynor, who came from England in 1678; to Gerard Beekman, who came from Holland in the seventeenth century; and to David Me- Creary, who came from Scotland and Ireland in 1780. When a youth. Mr. McCreary enjoyed especially travel and reading. His boyhood was passed in New York City and in Baltimore. He was educated at the Baltimore City College where he graduated in 1875, and at the Johns Hopkins University, where, in 1879, he was one of the first class to receive the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Personal preference and cir- cumstances led him to begin work in his father's business in 1878. In later years he has taught at times, having been principal of the Anne Arundel Academy at Millersville, from 1888 to 1890, and having been one of the instructors at the Evening Institute of the Baltimore Young Men's Christian Association, from 1895 to 1909. He was city librarian of Baltimore from 1896 to 1898 and did much toward improving the condition of that library. From 1898 to 1900 he was in charge of the City Topographical Survey, and since the latter date he has success- fully filled the position of librarian of the Maryland Historical So- ciety, where his excellent memory, indefatigable perseverance, and very considerable knowledge of local history have made his services to be of great value. On April 15, 1897, Mr. McCreary married Mary I. Jones and has had two children, both of whom are living. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church and of the Sons of the American Revolution.
In 1900 he published a street index of Baltimore City, and in 1903 a reprint of a publication by Hasselbach as the " First Book Printed in Baltimore."
Mr. McCreary rendered excellent service to the state in the James- town Exposition. In the report of the commissioners appears the following comment upon his work :
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" Early in its work the Maryland Commission decided that the exhibits at Jamestown in the Maryland Building should be along historical and educational lines. To that end it secured the services of Mr. Geo. W. McCreary, secretary of the Maryland Historical Society, who was commissioned to collect an exhibit to consist of prints, por- traits, views, documents and letters, either in the original or in photo- graph, that would best illustrate the leading events in Maryland history.
" This task Mr. MeCreary performed with great satisfaction, so that the exhibit in many respects was the most complete that the state has ever made. It attracted wide attention and received much favor- able comment. For Maryland's historical exhibit in the Maryland Building a silver medal was awarded. It was one of the very few medals, of any kind, given for exhibits in a state building."
Mr. McCreary's chief characteristic is his kind and honest way of dealing with all, and those with whom he was associated in his his- torical work all agree as to his painstaking care and faithfulness. He has also prepared an index to genealogical work in Maryland which is soon to be printed. In 1901, as historian of the Ancient and Honor- able Mechanical Company, he published a history of that company. He is also registrar of the Maryland branch of the Sons of the Ameri- can Revolution and holds membership in the fraternal order of Odd Fellows.
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WILLIAM MEADE DAME
W ILLIAM MEADE DAME, D.D., since 1878 rector of the Memorial (Protestant Episcopal) church, of Baltimore, Maryland, was born at Danville, Virginia, on the 17th of December, 1844. Although the last thirty years have identified him so thoroughly with all the best interests of Baltimore that Baltimo- reans claim him as their own and as a Maryland man, he is, by descent, by his student training and by his early pastoral work, a Virginian. His father, the Reverend George Washington Dame, D.D., a prominent clergyman of the Protestant Episcopal Church, was professor of Latin in Hampden-Sidney College, was for several years superintendent of public schools in Pittsylvania county, Virginia, and later was, for the remarkably long period of fifty-six years, rector of Camden parish, Danville, Virginia. He was a man of " dauntless energy, gift for teaching, utter unselfishness and great charity toward all men." He had married Miss Mary Maria Page, daughter of Lucy Nelson and Major Carter Page, of "The Fork," Cumberland county, Virginia. On the paternal side his family ancestors came from Cheshire, Eng- land-John Dame settling in Dover, New Hampshire, in 1633. His family on the maternal side traces its descent from John Page, of Middlesex, England, who came to the Colonies in 1650, establishing his home in Williamsburg, Virginia, and also from Thomas Nelson, " of York," who came from Penrith, Cumberland county, England, in 1700, and settled in Yorktown, Virginia, as the first American an- cestor of the Nelson family, who are among the ancestors of Doctor William Meade Dame. William Nelson (1711-1772), president of the Council of the Colony of Virginia; Thomas Nelson (1738-1789), signer of the Declaration of Independence, governor of Virginia and major-general of the American army ; and Carter Page, a distinguished soldier in the Revolutionary war, may be mentioned among the ances- tors of Doctor Dame in earlier generations.
William Meade Dame, while a young boy, lived on the outskirts of a small town, and was able to enjoy, to the full, fishing, riding and hunting. Even in his boyhood he showed that fondness for the reading
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Very truly yours William meade Dame.
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of history, especially of the early history of his own country, which has in later life been with him a favorite line of study and reading. In answer to the question " whether in early life he had regular tasks which involved manual labor," Doctor Dame writes: "None, save those which partook of the character of 'penal servitude,' when I had been in mischief which called for such corrective treatment." The influence of his mother was marked and strong on his intellectual and spiritual life, as was also his reverent love, his hearty respect for, and his genial companionship with his father. He studied at the Danville Male Academy, and afterward at the Danville (Virginia) Military Academy. Homer, Casar, the history which involved the Revolution- ary and Mexican wars, and the novels of Fenimore Cooper and of Marryat furnished " the idols of his youth." The only serious diffi- culties he had to overcome, to acquire an education, were those incident to his entering the Confederate army when a boy of sixteen, and to the hard work which became necessary for him, as for so many others who had known easier circumstances before the war, in the years which immediately followed 1865.
He became a private volunteer in the Confederate army of Vir- ginia in 1861; and he served in the first company of "Richmond Howitzers " until the surrender at Appomattox on the 9th of April, 1865. Of his decision to be a minister he writes: "In the last two months of the war, in the trenches at Petersburg, came to me the defi- nite purpose-born of the feeling that as God had saved my life and health through the dangers of a long and bloody war, I was bound to hat line of duty for life which would most entirely serve Him." "My wn choice made me a soldier, and after the war a worker; the ex- mple, the training and the prayers of my parents, and the Spirit of fod made me a minister." From 1866 to 1869 he pursued his studies t the Theological Seminary of Virginia. From 1869 to 1870 he was eacon in charge of the Protestant Episcopal church of Haymarket, irginia. From 1870 to 1874 he was rector of John's parish, Loudon, auquier county, Virginia. He served as rector of St. Luke's at Norfolk, irginia, for the next two years, 1874 to 1876. In 1876 he became ctor of Old Christ church at Alexandria, Virginia. After two years that rectorship, he was invited to Baltimore, and became rector of e Memorial church in 1878. For thirty-two years he has been entified, not only with work of his own parish and with the councils d the business of the Protestant Episcopal church, but with all that
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is best in the religious and social life of Baltimore. When, in 1903, the Memorial church celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of his rector- ship, not only the clergy of the Episcopal church in his state, and many visitors from other cities and states, took part in the observance, but the city of Baltimore showed in many ways its warm appreciation of the minister who for a quarter of a century had done such faithful parish work. The twenty-five years showed these statistics: 920 bap- tisms, 573 confirmations, 265 marriages and 645 burials; 10,400 ser- vices and 35,000 parochial visits; with contributions for all objects amounting to $316,191; 10 candidates for holy orders going from this parish to the ministry; and an increase of communicants from 200, in 1818, to 903, in 1903; a Sunday school of 600, with a separate Sunday school building, and such social and religious auxiliaries in the church work as the Girls' Friendly Society, the Woman's Auxiliary, the Junior Auxiliary, a Men's Club, the Church Aid Society, the Junior Brother- hood of St. Andrew, the Brotherhood of St. Andrew, the St. Cecilia Guild, a cooking school, a Benevolent Society, a Chancel Guild, the Daughters of the King, a chorus class, a Church Periodical Club and a large " Mothers Mission " work. These are among the evidences of work done and results accomplished, which were named in the " Balti- more Sun " at the time. Congratulations from former students, from members of the parishes where he had served in earlier years, and from church papers and church periodicals throughout the South were most gratifying to the many friends of Doctor Dame.
In 1893, St. John's College, at Annapolis, Maryland, conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Divinity. He has been claimed for the special service of chaplain by many societies, notably : the Confed- erate Society in Maryland (since 1878) ; the Fifth Regiment of the Maryland National Guard (commissioned in 1890) ; the Sons of the Fevolution and the Daughters of the Revolution in Maryland, since their organization. He has been a member of the standing committee of the Diocese of Maryland for the last twelve years. He was a deputy from Maryland to the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal church in the United States, in 1901, in 1904 and in 1907.
On the 30th of September, 1869, he married Miss Susan Meade Funsten, daughter of Susan Meade and Colonel David Funsten, Colonel of the Eleventh Virginia Infantry, C. S. A., and member of the Con- federate Congress for Virginia. They have had five children, four of whom are living.
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Doctor Dame is a Master Mason, a Royal Arch Mason and a Knight Templar, and he is chaplain of these orders. He is identified politically with the Democratic party, and in answer to the question, " Have you ever changed your political or party allegiance, and if so, do you care to say upon what issues ?" Doctor Dame replies, " Never changed-mind still sound !"
While his favorite indoor amusement is chess, Doctor Dame has always been something of an athlete. He has done a good deal of systematic work in the gymnasium ; he is still a good shot in the field ; he marches and camps with his regiment, the Fifth Maryland ; he rides the wheel vigorously; and he says, " I do the visiting in a large con- gregation of nine hundred communicants-a task worthy of an A-1 athlete, as I declare, who am a judge, having practically tried almost all other forms of athletics !" As a young man, he played baseball and football, and he has also found recreation in hunting and fishing.
A life which has allied itself to the lives of so many others by genial friendship and kindly service, has won for the man who has lived it the right to be listened to with exceptional interest when he offers to young people suggestions which may help them in attaining true suc- cess : " Don't put the blame for your failure on God, or on other people, or on circumstances, but on yourself. Pick your flint and try again, learn wisdom from past mistakes, and you will surely 'get there,' and do the work and fill the place in the world that is really meant for you." "Try to have good parents, of straight Teutonic blood ! Keep your body in temperance, soberness and chastity, and your imagination pure. Reverence womanhood and manhood for what it is, utterly apart from what it has. Honor your parents and obey and respect all who are in rightful authority over you. Keep your tongue from evil-speaking. Do your duty in that state of life to which it has pleased God to ca l you. Do this in the fear of God because it is right, and not because of what you will make by it. Don't fear man or the devil-but always keep a close watch on the last-named."
The esteem in which Doctor Dame is held in the community where he has lived for the last thirty years has given him an influence which is convincing proof of the cumulative value of a good man's influence which comes with prolonged residence in one place.
THOMAS ALMOND ASHBY
T HOMAS ALMOND ASHBY, professor and surgeon, was born near Front Royal, Warren county, Virginia, in the year 1848, on November the 18th. His father, Thomas N. Ashby, was a prominent citizen and landowner. He was clerk of circuit and county courts, secretary of a railroad, and mayor of the town in which he lived. He was a man with marked characteristics of integrity, sim- plicity, sound judgment and executive ability. Doctor Ashby's mother was Elizabeth Almond Ashby. Doctor Ashby's earliest known ancestor in the United States was Captain Thomas Ashby, of England, who lived about the time of Cromwell. He came to America and settled in the eastern part of Virginia. He in turn claimed descent from Richard de Ashby, who was the lord of the manors of South Croxton and Quenby, in Leicestershire, England, in the year 1296. Doctor Ashby is the fifth in line of descent from Colonel John Ashby, who was a friend and companion of General George Washington in the Indian and French wars prior to 1764. Through this same line, Doctor Ashby is related to the late General Turner Ashby, a distinguished Confed- erate officer in the Civil war. Through his paternal grandmother's family he is descended from the Marquis Calmes, a French nobleman, whose family, with other Huguenots, came to Virginia after the revoca- tion of the edict of Nantes. His great-grandfather, Captain Nathaniel Ashby, held a commission during the war of the Revolution in the Third Virginia Regiment, commanded by Colonel Thomas Marshall, the father of Chief Justice John Marshall. Doctor Ashby's youth was spent in th : suburbs of Front Royal, where much of his time after school hours was passed in hunting, fishing, horseback riding and other out- door sports, thereby building up a fine, healthy physique. To the love and high ideals of his mother he feels that his success in life is due. The special line of reading he has followed has been in history, biog- raphy, the classics, the poets and essayists. From a boy he has been a great student in natural history and scientific works. His education was received first in the village schools, and from there he went to Washington and Lee University from 1867 to 1870, taking an elect-
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ive course with special reference to the profession of medicine. He then entered the University of Maryland, where he graduated in medicine in the year 1873. In 1873 he began active life in Balti- more as a practitioner of medicine. He has devoted much attention to abdominal surgery and has had a large and successful experience as an operative gynecologist. The desire to excel in whatever work he undertook inspired him to persistent effort for success, which he has attained. In May, 1877, he became one of the founders of the Maryland Medical Journal, of which he was an editor for four- teen years. He has been professor in three medical colleges: Woman's Medical College, professor of obstetrics from 1882 to 1891; Baltimore Medical College, professor of diseases of women, from 1889 to 1897; University of Maryland, professor of diseases of women from 189: to the present time. In 1903 Doctor Ashby published a text-book on Diseases of Women. He has also produced many important pam- phlets on medical subjects. It was through the suggestion of Doctor Ashby that a medical college was established in Baltimore for women. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity, the University Club, sev- eral medical associations and societies, the Sons of the Revolution, the American Medical Association, and a fellow of the American Gyneco- logical Association. He was president of the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland in 1890-1891, and has presided over other local societies. He is also an honorary member of the Medical Society of the District of Columbia. In politics he is usually a Democrat. Doctor Ashby feels that "Industry, close application, healthy thought, cheer- fulness, courage, perseverance, following one definite purpose and line of work, upright, frank and honorable deportment, temperance, self- control and self-reliance, sincerity of thought and action, if followed, will give best results in life.
In 1877, on the 16th of October, Doctor Ashby married Mary Cunningham, of Kentucky. They have five daughters.
Doctor Ashby is a member of the present legislature of Maryland, and in the recent session (1910) made an excellent record.
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RICHARD MAREEN DUVALL
R ICHARD MAREEN DUVALL, lawyer, of Baltimore, is a native Marylander, whose American ancestry goes back to Mareen Duvall, a Huguenot refugee who came to Maryland about 1655 and settled in Anne Arundel county. Mareen Duvall was born in France between 1630 and 1635, and died in August, 1694, on a tract of some seven hundred acres of land, patented to him by the name of " Middle Plantation," near South river, in said county. He was married three times. IIe combined the occupations of merchant and planter, and accumulated a large estate in lands and personal property, which he disposed of by his will to his widow and twelve children. He was a prominent and public-spirited citizen, as appears from the Maryland Archives. In 1683 he was, with others, appointed by the Lord Proprietary and the Assembly a Commissioner to pur- chase sites and lay out towns and ports of entry in the Province. R. M. Duvall's parents were Richard Isaac Duvall and Rachel Maria (Waring) Duvall. His ancestry on both sides, from the first American progenitors down, has been traced, and it is not amiss here to briefly refer to it. One of the IIuguenot immigrant's sons was Mareen Duvall, the younger (1680-1741), who married Elizabeth Jacob, October 21, 1701, and by her had a son, Samuel I (1707-1775). Samuel Duvall I married, on the 16th of May, 1732, Elizabeth Mulliken, and had a son, Samuel II (1740-1804), who married Mary Higgins, by whom he had a son, Barton. Samuel Duvall II was a Revolutionary soldier in Captain Hatch Dent's company of the Maryland line. Barton Duvall (1776-1831) married Hannah Isaac, November 26, 1811, and had five sons and two daughters; the eldest to survive to majority was Richard Isaac, who was born September 4, 1814, married three times, and died January 23, 1870-Mr. Richard Mareen Duvall being his eldest child, by Rachel, his second wife. One of Mr. Duvall's first ancestors in America was Captain Sampson Waring, who was born about 1617-8 in Shropshire, England, came to Norfolk county, Vir- ginia, in 1643, and in 1616 settled at " The Cliffs," on the Patuxent river, Calvert county, Maryland, where he died about 1668. He mar-
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ried Sarah Leigh (?). He was a lawyer, a member of the Assembly and of the Council, a Captain of the Militia, and with Captain Richard Fuller and others was one of Cromwell's Commissioners for the Prov- ince. Basil Waring, only child of Sampson, was born about 1650, and died in 1688. He was twice married ; first to Miss Hance, and secondly to Sarah Marsham, daughter of Colonel Richard Marsham. Basil Waring II (1683-1733), son of Basil I and his second wife, was a Captain in the Provincial Militia, and married Martha, daughter of Colonel Thomas Greenfield and his wife, Martha Trueman, and had Basil Waring III, who married Elizabeth Belt, and was an active patriot and participant in the early Revolutionary period, in Prince George's county, Maryland. His son, James (1757-1813), married, in 1787, Elizabeth Hillary, a daughter of Henry Hillary and Cassandra Magruder, his wife. Francis (1:92-1837), son of James, married, in 1812, Elizabeth Turner (daughter of Richard Warfield Turner and Eleanor Williams, his wife), and were the parents of Rachel Maria Waring (1828-1865), second wife of Richard Isaac Duvall. The latter was a man of prominence in his section of Maryland. In 1848, he was appointed, by Governor Francis Thomas, Justice of the Peace for Prince George's county, and he was later appointed to the same office in Anne Arundel county, by Governors Pratt and Philip Francis Thomas. He was elected successively County Commissioner, School Commissioner, and Register of Wills for Anne Arundel county. The latter office he held during the Civil war and until 1868. Richard I. Duvall was a man of great energy and perseverence, excelled in argu- ment, and was given to hospitality. He was a man of positive charac- ter and with a high sense of honor, an absolute aversion for all forms of cant, and in his family relations a firm disciplinarian. An ardent Southerner during the Civil war period, he sometimes found himself in conflict with the Federal authorities. Two of his sons served in the Confederate army, one of them-Doctor Philip Barton Duvall-was killed in the battle of Chancellorsville, and the other, Samuel F. Duvall, was wounded in battle more than once, was several times im- prisoned, and was with General Lee when he surrendered at Appo- mattox. Notable among Mr. Duvall's ancestry since 1655 on one side or the other may be mentioned: Colonel Thomas Sprigg, of North- ampton ; Captain Thomas Stockett, Richard Wells, Captains Sampson and Basil Waring, Colonels Richard Marsham and Thomas Green- field, all of whom were of Lord Baltimore's Council and the Provincial
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