USA > Maryland > Men of mark in Maryland biographies of leading men in the state, Volume I > Part 15
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GEORGE BENJAMIN OSWALD
O SWALD, GEORGE BENJAMIN, clerk of court, was born near Smithsburg, Washington county, Maryland, Decem- ber 24, 1842. He is the son of David and Susan (Beard) Oswald. His father was a farmer, and, from 1S60 to 1861, was a tax collector for Washington county. Barnet Oswald, an ancestor, native of Würtemberg, Germany, came to Massachusetts between 1740 and 1750, and lived there for a short time, removing thence to Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
George Benjamin Oswald spent his youth in the country, with the influence of his mother's character for good an important factor in his life. His education was obtained in the subscription and common schools at Smithsburg, under the instruction of the late George Pearson. In 1860, he left school, and became deputy tax collector to his father, and in 1863 he entered the clerk's office under the late Isaac Nesbitt, and served as chief clerk until 1870. He then accepted a clerkship in the Hagerstown Bank, where he was employed until 1873, when he was elected clerk of the Circuit Court for Wash- ington county, and has for five consecutive terms been reëlected to the same office.
The paths he has followed in choosing a life work have been taken through personal preference on his part. Mr. Oswald is presi- dent of the Mechanics Loan and Savings Institution; treasurer of the Mutual Insurance Company; and a director in the following com- panies: the Washington County Water Company; the Rose Hill Cemetery Company; the West End Improvement Company; and the First Hose Company of Hagerstown. He is a member of the Masonic Lodge; the Odd Fellows; the Knights of Pythias; the Red Men, and the Elks. He has been the recording secretary of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows for thirty-six years, and is a Past Master in Masonry. In politics, Mr. Oswald is a Democrat, and in religious faith he affiliates with the Lutheran church.
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HON. JAMES ALFRED PEARCE. -1805-1862-
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JAMES ALFRED PEARCE, SR.
P EARCE, JAMES ALFRED, SR., was born December 14, 1805, at the residence of his maternal grandfather, Doctor Elisha Cullen Dick, in Alexandria, Virginia. He was the son of Gideon Pearce and Julia (Dick) Pearce, his wife, of Kent county, Maryland, and the grandson of James Pearce, who was the son of another Gideon Pearce, who married Beatrice Codd, daughter of Colonel Steger Codd, of Kent county, Maryland. The last named Gideon Pearce was a son of William Pearce who was the presiding judge of Kent county court in 1714 and 1715.
The mother of James Alfred Pearce died when he was very young, and his early education was received in Alexandria under the direction of his grandfather, who was a man of marked ability and distinction, and an intimate friend of General Washington. He entered Princeton College at the age of fourteen and was graduated in 1822 before he had completed his seventeenth year, dividing the first honor of his class with Hugo Menno of Pennsylvania and Edward D. Mansfield of Ohio, both of whom were then men of mature years and were dis- tinguished in after life. Among his classmates were George R. Rich- ardson, attorney general of Maryland, one of the brightest orna- ments of the Maryland bar in his day, and Albert B. Dod of New Jersey, afterwards a brilliant rhetorician and lecturer at Princeton College. After leaving college Mr. Pearce studied law in Baltimore with Judge John Glenn, and was admitted to the bar in 1824. He commenced the practice of his profession in Cambridge, Maryland, where he remained about a year, when he went to Louisiana and engaged in sugar planting on the Red river with his father. He remained there about three years and then removed to Kent county, Maryland, where the remainder of his life was passed. Upon his return to Maryland he resumed the practice of law, at the same time carrying on his farm on which he resided. He was not, however, permitted to devote himself to his profession as he preferred, being early called into public life. In 1831 he was sent to the Legislature of Maryland, and in 1835 was elected a member of the House of Repre-
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sentatives in Congress, and with the exception of a single term, when he was defeated in 1839, by a small majority, by Honorable Philip Frank Thomas, he was reelected from time to time until 1843. In 1843 he was elected to the United States Senate where he served from March 4 of that year until his death on December 20, 1862, being continued through four successive elections. During this long period of public service, the Library of Congress, the Botanical Gardens, the Smithsonian Institute, and the Coast Survey Department were favorite objects of his fostering care and received constant and valu- able attention from him, while he discharged with distinguished ability all the duties of a legislator. He was offered a seat on the bench of the United States District Court for the District of Maryland by President Fillmore, and during the same administration was nomi- nated and confirmed as Secretary of the Interior, both of which posi- tions he declined, preferring to remain in the senate where he believed he could be more useful to his state and to the country. He main- tained a lively interest in the advancement of his town and county. On March 17, 1832, he was elected a member of the board of visitors and governors of Washington College at his home in Chestertown. Up to the time of his death he gave his time and thought freely to the welfare of that venerable institution, and for a number of years filled the position of lecturer upon law to the students. On April 1, 1850, he was elected a member of the vestry of Emmanuel Church, Chester Parish, Chestertown, and served in that capacity until his death.
In politics he was a Whig, but when that party was practically dissolved in Maryland in 1856 he became a supporter of the National Democratic party, and advocated the election of President Buchanan. When the War between the States came on in 1861 he stood for the preservation of the Union, but boldly denounced the arbitrary and unconstitutional treatment of the citizens and state of Maryland by the Federal government.
He married, in 1830, Martha G. Laird, of Cambridge, Mary- land, who died on March 8, 1845, leaving the following named children: Catherine Julia Pearce, Charlotte Augusta Lennox Pearce and James Alfred Pearce. He married again, March 22, 1847, Matilda C. Ringgold, daughter of James Ringgold of Chestertown, who with one daughter, Mary E. Pearce, and his other children, all survived him.
He was a man of culture, and of enlarged and conservative views. He was not a politician in the usual acceptation of the word,
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though he was one of the most successful public men of his period. Honors and office waited upon him. His success was due to his own merit, his unsullied integrity and capacity for public affairs, and to the appreciation by his fellow citizens of his eminent qualities of mind and heart. His death was regarded by men of all parties as a loss to the country. He was considered one of the wisest and safest statesmen in the Senate of the United States; and he had been often named as a possible candidate for the presidency.
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JAMES ALFRED PEARCE
P EARCE, JAMES ALFRED, lawyer and judge, was born at Chestertown, Kent county, Md., April 2, 1S40, the son of James Alfred and Martha J. (Laird) Pearce. His father was an eminent lawyer, a member of the Maryland legislature, twice elected to the Federal house of representatives, and a United States senator for twenty years, during most of which time he was chairman of the Committee of the Library of Congress. Mrs. Pearce died when her son was five years of age. The family is descended from William Pearce, who came from England to the Eastern Shore about 1660, settling in the upper part of Kent county, which was given to Cecil in 1674 and returned to Kent in 1706. He was high sheriff of Cecil county, and his son, who bore the same name, was Presiding Judge of Kent county in 1714.
James Alfred Pearce grew up in his native town. Until he was fourteen years of age, he studied at home and then entered the prepar- atory department of Washington college at Chestertown, continuing in that institution for three years, when he was admitted to the College of New Jersey at Princeton, where he received the bachelor's degree in arts in 1860 and the master's degree in 1863, St. John's college, Annapolis, conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws in 1904.
After graduation, he taught for a time in Washington college and studied law in Chestertown, and with Brown & Brune in Balti- more, choosing the legal profession by his own preference and with his father's approval. He was admitted to the bar in 1864. His early connection with Washington college has continued to the present day. He was secretary of the Board of Trustees for thirty- three years, from 1864 to 1897, and has been president of the Board since 1903.
On November 1, 1866, he was married to Eunice Rasin of St. Louis, Missouri. They have no children.
Next to the influence of home upon his young life Judge Pearce ranks as the most potent forces, association with Reverend Andrew
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J. Sutton, principal of Washington college, one of his early instructors; the early companionship of men of character, and private study.
From 1867 to 1874, he served Kent county as its state's attorney; for ten years he was a member of the board of School Commissioners for the county, and, for the same length of time, he was a commis- sioner of Chestertown. In 1897, he was elected, as the nominee of the Democratic party, chief judge of the Second Judicial Circuit, and as such an associate judge of the State Court of Appeals, for a fifteen years' term, and has filled these offices to the present time. His political creed as a Democrat has always been fixed and positive. He is a member of the Protestant Episcopal church, and has been chancellor of the Diocese of Easton since 1883. His favorite exer- cises are walking and driving.
WILLIAM F. PORTER
P ORTER, WILLIAM F., lawyer, was born at Piedmont, Hamp- shire county, Virginia, now Mineral county, West Virginia, December 26, 1852. He is the son of William E. and Sarah (Paxson) Porter. His father was the general assistant road master of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, a man of great energy and direct- ness of purpose. The family trace their ancestry to James Porter, who came to Cecil county from Ireland in 1720. An ancestor, Major Andrews Porter, fought in the Revolutionary war.
As a boy, young Porter lived in a village, receiving his earliest education at Glen academy. He then went to the University of West Virginia, and later to Washington and Lee university. His parents were desirous that their son should follow the profession of law, and for this reason he entered the University of Maryland, where he graduated in 1873, while a minor. Mr. Porter feels that the influ- ence of home surroundings, and that of contact with men of power have been the most potent factors in his life.
He began active work practicing law in Baltimore, in 1874. He has been president of the Maryland Veneer and Basket Company; treasurer of the Gas Appliance Company, and director and general counsel of the Tolchester Steamboat Company. In 1899, Mr. Porter was made supervisor of elections, which position he held for four years. He has also been chairman of the Executive Committee of the Democratic State Central Committee for Baltimore city, and secretary and treasurer for the Baltimore city Committee. In 1895, on the sixteenth of January, he was married to Mary Eugenia Fitz- simmons.
Mr. Porter is a Democrat in politics, and a member of the Epis- copal church. He says: "In early life, I was fond of running and rowing. Years and increasing weight have taken from me all ability for games, other than golf, which I find both enjoyable and helpful." Mr. Porter suggests this thought to the young man start- ing out in life: "Good principles, methods, and habits, coupled with an energy that never slaekens, will attain success in life, and a suc- cessful life unselfishly lived will approximate true success."
your very truly EBPrettyman.
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ELIJAH BARRETT PRETTYMAN
P RETTYMAN, ELIJAH BARRETT, educator, was born at Williamsport, Lycoming county, Pennsylvania, on Febru- ary 20, 1830, son of Rev. William and Ebza Barrett Pretty-
man. His father was a preacher of the Baltimore Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, a man of notable purity, independence and benevolence. As he moved every two years, under the rules of the church at that time, his children were born in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. When his son was seven years old, he re- turned to Maryland, which state from that time was his home. The family is descended from John Pretiman, who came from England to St. Mary's county and was a member of the Maryland Assembly in 1641-42. The family afterwards removed to Sussex county, Dela- ware. It claims kinship with the English family of that name, (which has been seated at Orwell Hall, Ipswich, England since the thirteenth century) and of which family George Prettyman, tutor of William Pitt and afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, was a member. Mrs. Prettyman's influence was strong for good on every phase of the life of her son.
Elijah B. Prettyman spent a healthy boyhood, fond of play and of study, enjoying fishing and rambling among hills and mountains. He fitted for college at the Light Street Classical School in Baltimore and at the Cumberland Academy and then entered Dickinson College where he was graduated with the degree of A.B., in 1848. He has since received from his alma mater the honorary degrees of A.M., in 1854, and LL.D., in 1894. His training and a "moderate ambition" led him to strive for success in life and circumstances led him to begin work, in September, 1849, as teacher of a public school on West River, in Anne Arundel county. He taught there for two years, and then spent two years at Rockville, as a student of law in the office of Judge Richard J. Bowie, but never entered on the practice of the profession. He planned to go to California to become a lawyer there; but shortly before he expected to start for the West, he learned of the death of his eldest brother, William, who had settled as a merchant in Sacra-
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mento in 1849 and had urged the younger brother to join him, prom- ising to support him until he could take care of himself. With the news of his brother's untimely death, Mr. Prettyman decided to resume teaching. His favorite lines of reading have ever been his- tory, philosophy and pedagogy. In 1852, he became principal of Brookeville Academy in Montgomery county and held that position for eleven years. During this time he married Lydia Forrest Johns- ton on June 6, 1855. They have had six children, all of whom are living. The influence of home has always been the strongest one with him, that of the school scarcely less strong and he feels that he was most fortunate in his early companions. He has been a consistent member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and is a Mason, having served as master of a lodge. He is also a member of the Mary- land Historical Society, the Maryland Academy of Sciences, etc. His favorite recreation is fishing for black bass and trout. He pre- fers the Swedish system of physical culture.
Mr. Prettyman is a Democrat, though on the Know Nothing and other important issues, he has voted for the candidates of other parties. On the Democratic ticket, he was elected clerk of the Mont- gomery County court in 1863, and by successive reelections he was continued in this position for twenty-two years. In 1SS5 he declined a renomination. In 1886, he was chief clerk of the House of Dele- gates, and for the succeeding four years, he was deputy naval officer of the Port of Baltimore. In 1890, he was appointed principal of the State Normal School at Baltimore and state superintendent of Public Instruction. His duties were divided in 1900 and the super- intendency taken from them, but he continues his principalship to the present time. In 1896, the state administration passed into the hands of the Republican party, but this change had no effect upon Mr. Prettyman's position, inasmuch as the State Board of Education recognized the non-partisan character of the position and the fact that Dr. Prettyman was efficiently filling the place. Kind, courteous, considerate, and deeply interested in all good works, Dr. Prettyman has the affection not only of his students but also of all who know him.
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CLAYTON PURNELL
P URNELL, CLAYTON, lawyer, was born at Gennesar, the family home, on Sinepuxent Bay, near Berlin, in Worcester county, Maryland, October 12, 1857. Ten years later, his parents removed to their farm on the shores of the Chesapeake, in Dorchester county, where, with the exception of a year spent in Baltimore, he continued to reside until 1882, when he left the Eastern Shore for Frostburg, in Allegany County, his present home.
His father, William Thomas Purnell, also a lawyer, was seventh in line of descent from Thomas Purnell of Berkley, Northampton- shire, England, the founder of the Maryland branch of the family, who, sailing August 21, 1635, landed in Northampton county, Vir- ginia, where he married Elizabeth Dorman, and shortly afterward became one of the first settlers in that part of the Eastern Shore of Maryland embraced within the present limits of Worcester county, his title papers for the Fairfield Farm, on Assateague Sound, bearing date of November 3, 1677. Here he died in 1695. The parents of William Thomas Purnell, having died during his early childhood, he lived with relatives at Newport Farm, and completed his academic education at the Buckingham Academy at Berlin. He later entered the family of his sister, the wife of Governor Polk of Delaware, who commissioned him as a colonel on his staff. While resident in that State, he became a student of law under the distinguished jurist and statesman, John Middleton Clayton, of Delaware. Shortly after his admission to the bar, in both Delaware and Maryland, he settled in Mississippi, where he spent the whole of his active professional life, except a year or two passed in Brazil, while in the diplomatic service of the United States. Owing to impaired health, in 1855 he returned to the family estate on the Eastern Shore, and served several terms in the Maryland senate and house of delegates, and was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1864. A man of high character and strong intellect, he was faithful to every trust whether in private or public life. Though always modest in the expression of his opin- ions, he was unfaltering in his adherence to his settled convictions.
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Sincere in thought and purpose, his gentle courtesy easily won friends and firmly held them through life. He died December 16, 1873.
While residing in Mississippi, he married Henrietta Spence, the mother of Clayton Purnell. She was the second daughter of Doctor John Selby Spence and Maria Purnell of Worcester county, and a niece of Judge Asa Spence of the Maryland Court of Appeals. Doctor Spence represented the first congressional district of Maryland in the eighteenth, twenty-fourth and twenty-sixth Congresses, and was United States Senator from 1836 until his death in 1843. His family was of Scottish origin, his ancestors having settled in Wor- cester county early in the eighteenth century.
Mrs. Purnell, a lady of broad culture and varied accomplish- ments, took complete charge of her son's early education, and though in later years special subjects were pursued under excellent private instructors, she never ceased to exercise a watchful care over all his studies and pursuits. A near relative, Judge Thomas A. Spence, of the first judicial circuit, a graduate of Yale, ripe in scholarship and eminent as a lawyer, aided him materially in the years immediately following the death of his father, by directing his course of reading leading up to the law. The loss of his father, however, made it the son's first duty to provide for a mother, sister and invalid brother. left without resources. At the age of seventeen, therefore, he began to teach a public school in Dorchester county, thus keeping together and supporting the family while he lived at home and continued his studies at night and during vacations. His mother died November 6, 1893, at the home of her son in Frostburg.
Of his mother, Mr. Purnell writes: "Her character was certainly the controlling influence in my early life and, more than any other. the dominating force in shaping my later career. Her influence to the end of her life was always strong and always for my good."
Always a strong, healthy country boy, loving life in the fields. in the woods and on the water, he ranged at will, having no regular tasks except his lessons, which he was not permitted to neglect, no matter how great the temptation. With a good library at home, his earlier reading took a pretty wide range. It was confined for the most part, however, to works of recognized value in almost every field, until he began to specialize somewhat in preparation for the study of law. He writes: "Until I was fifteen, I just grew, doing
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what interested me most; from that age to eighteen, I was studious in my habits, and for the four succeeding years of my life, I worked seventeen or eighteen hours every day, teaching during the day, and keeping up my studies at night. I attended no school. My mother taught me until I was able to do the usual high school work, and then I continued my studies, sometimes under private instructors, but more often alone, thus acquiring small Latin and less Greek, and a fair fund of general information afterward of service to me."
He began the study of law in the summer of 1878, with S. T. Milbourne, Esquire, of the Cambridge bar, as his preceptor, and was admitted to practice. November 15, 1881; the following year was spent in the office of Daniel M. Henry, Jr., at Cambridge, when he left Dorchester county to accept the vice-principalship of the Beall high school at Frostburg. In 1883, he opened a private school at Frostburg, and conducted this with success until 1SS6, when he was reappointed to the position formerly held in the high school, at the same time opening a law office, where all time at his disposal was given to such legal business as he had in hand. In 1891, he resigned his place at the high school to give his entire time to the practice of his profession.
On June 12, 1SS9, he married Miss May, daughter of Honorable Thomas G. McCulloh, of Frostburg, and they have three children- Henrietta Spence, Dorothy and Clayton Spence.
Mr. Purnell has been the secretary of the Equitable Savings and Loan Society of Frostburg, since its organization in 1S91; he was one of the organizers of the Western Maryland Telephone Company, of which he is a director, has served several times as City Attorney of Frostburg and is connected professionally and otherwise with numer- ous other local enterprises.
He is a Democrat in politics, and while he takes an active interest in political matters, though several times urged to do so, he has always declined to become a candidate for any office.
He was appointed a member of the State Board of Education in 1900, reappointed in 1902, and again for four years in 1904. He has assisted in the movement to improve the public school system of the state through the employment of professionally trained teachers at better salaries, and served as a member of the Commission to revise the school laws of the state during the legislative session of 1904. Actively associated with the establishment of the State normal
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school at Frostburg, he has taken a deep interest in its development. and striven to make it successful in fulfilling its mission in the school system of the county and State.
Mr. Purnell was one of the charter members of Frostburg Lodge No. 470, B. P. O. Elks, its Exalted Ruler for the first year, and has been chosen several times as its representative in the Grand Lodge of the order. He is a member of St. John's Episcopal church, has served as vestryman, and many times as its lay delegate in the Mary- land Diocesan Convention. He was elected president of the Alle- gany County Bar Association in 1893, was one of the persons active in the organization of the Maryland State Bar Association in 1896, whose meetings he has never failed to attend, and was one of the delegates to the American Bar Association at its Denver meeting in 1901. He is also a member of the State and National Educational Associations, having attended as a representative of the State Board the Detroit session of the latter in 1901.
His life has taught him to believe that, "Since others are some- what prone to take one at something like his own estimate of himself, a young man should, as early as possible, learn to know and justly value his capabilities. To inspire the confidence of others, he must first believe in himself and be worthy of his own. Distrust of one's power to do as well as he wishes to do, deters one from trying, when he could have succeeded. A boy should be willing to try and, doing all he can, take the chances. He should select the work he likes best and can do best and give to it his energies. However valuable the counsel of others may be in aiding him, his own deliberate judgment should determine the final choice. If he can learn to do anything, it matters little what, better than others are doing it, his success is assured. Let him depend upon himself and avoid leaning upon others, getting as far as possible from the idea that government owes him anything except a fair chance to take care of himself.
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