Purveyors of Baltimore History: William B. Marye (1886-1979)

WILLIAM B. MARYE

AN AMIABLE BALTIMOREAN

And Pioneer Environmentalist

(1886-1979)

by John McGrain

source: The Evening Sun, Baltimore, Maryland, 13 Nov 1950, Mon • Page 20 https://www.newspapers.com/clip/26697408/glr_13_nov_1950_mhs_maritime_museum/

William B. Marye was 84 years old when I first met him at his residence in the Preston Apartments in October 1969. I had gone down to talk about revising the "Literary Map of Baltimore," a chart that the Baltimore County Historical Society had paid for printing, and, which, thanks to me, contained a number of disgraceful errors and misspellings of the names of those the map sought to honor. Mr. Marye had known some of the people who pursued literature in Baltimore, and he suggested a number of additional names for the map. He had not been a close friend of Mencken, and in fact thought that Jesse Lee Bennett of the Baltimore Sun was as good a writer, in his own style. Baltimore had produced an extraordinary number of "poetasters," thought Mr. Marye; it was almost an aberration of the climate, as he put it. He had suffered a number of literary affairs in his time, and at some of them he said it was difficult not to laugh at the sincere readings of drivel. He was once lucky enough to hide his mirth behind a lady with an enormous flowered hat. Literary ladies had given him the notion that there were no intelligent women in Baltimore, in spite of all the colleges and businesses so full of them in the 20th century.

The Maryes were Virginians who happened to have a French name. The Battle of Fredericksburg took place, in part, on the lawn of the Marye clan's mansion, Brompton. Marye's Mill on the banks of the Rappahannock next to the railroad bridge appeared in all the Civil War artists' sketches and photographs of the town. After the war, some of the Marye brothers came to Baltimore and at one time owned the Pearl Hominy Mill. That mill was the ruination of the family, said WBM one time. Located on a Pratt Street pier, the mill burned and was never rebuilt. WMB's father, Nelson Marye, had to take up a clerical job in the city, although they were by no means ruined. "I have never enjoyed the Battle Hymn of the Republic," he once said, "because it was my people who were being trampled out with the vintage."

For the remainder of his life, WBM and I had a great many conversations by telephone and a number of visits to his apartment and encounters at the Maryland Historical Society. We didn't talk much about literature. WBM, as we will call him for short, liked to recall rural life in the Upper Falls area of Baltimore County. He was interested in old families, old land grants, hiking, fishing, Indian artifacts, and all forms of local history. He was interested in the ownership of mills and furnaces, but was not much concerned about their technology, which is now becoming more respectable to pursue under the heading of Industrial Archaeology. Even the mill technology of 1795 was more advanced than WBM's sphere of interest. A lot of Marye data went into the History of Agriculture in Baltimore County and into various booklets written by Matilda C. Lacey and by the history group at Perry Hall that published Villages in the 1990s.

In his youth, WBM had explored all the mill sites and all the trout streams in several counties, and he had almost total recall of all the facts he had gathered. His published articles were and continue to be the basis for almost everything written today about colonial history in Baltimore and Harford Counties. It as almost impossible to find any record he had not consulted and wrung dry. Even in his eighties, he was finding new items, still revising some of his earlier findings instead of merely defending them as writ.

WBM had never retired, because he had never exactly worked; he was never regularly employed, except as consultant archaeologist or genealogist, and he was the corresponding secretary of the Maryland Historical Society, which, if salaried at all would have been minimal. He lived somewhat modestly on money at interest. He used to say that he was not properly trained to do anything in particular--in spite of a degree from Johns Hopkins and further study of geology. WBM was a survival of a period when people of even modest means never did any type of manual work; the family had household servants, gardeners, a coachman, and farm managers. He once said that he always had to remind himself that in the 1970s, the person raking leaves in front of a Guilford house was probably the owner rather than the garden man. The landed gentry of the 1890s used to dress formally all day, even during the summer on the farm.

WBM's perpetual retirement was one of the most productive careers of any of Baltimore's "idle rich," as his vast accumulation of notebooks and published materials will attest. The extensive footnotes in his articles about the "Indian Roads" certainly meet the criteria of Germanic thoroughness aimed for in the earliest days at Johns Hopkins. The style of these articles is elegant in the 19th century manner, not without touches of irony and well disguised wit. During his time at Hopkins, some of the founding professors were still on hand--notably Gildersleve, although WBM had Kirby Flower Smith for classics and William Bennett Matthews for geology.

The Marye articles are a public monument and will endure. The man himself is a more fleeting image. In his ninth decade, WBM was quite talkative, almost exhausting to listen to at times. He was probably desperately lonely with all his immediate family long gone, and no descendants to watch over him. He had a horror of ending his days in a "home," and was luckily spared that degradation, dying of sheer old age in 1979. The constant recitation of stories and incidents about his parents helped keep them alive--I almost feel I know them myself.

WBM was essentially a gentleman. He rigorously observed the code of never giving offense, always suffering fools gladly, not writing abusive comments, trying not to insist on his own way, not exploding the reputations of fellow historians, especially the well meaning patriots who strayed into error and quoted old fantasies. WBM had served in the Navy during the first World War; his ship was sail-powered, and foul weather prevented it from reaching even Bermuda. He was a life long member of the Maryland Naval Militia and probably would have turned out, even in his eighties to fight another Battle of North Point. His patriotism was not indiscriminate, and in 1969 he was appalled by the U. S. conduct of the war in Viet Nam. This was the first adult that I respected who had turned against the war; it forced me to think, and, of course, thought could only lead to disgust with the entire incompetent and disastrous operation.

Mr. Marye was quite a tall man, heavy set even in his youth, slow and deliberate in his motion, somewhat stooped. Some of the amiable Baltimoreans were stooped, as if looking down on their visitor with amused interest. He was partially bald but benign in countenance. Like most elder statesmen of the Maryland Historical Society, he tried not to wear his spectacles unless he wanted to read something. He was one of the last of the "great walkers" about Baltimore, a town noted for persons who liked to stroll its length and breadth for sheer pleasure of ticking off the blocks or squares of row houses, passing the wharves, warehouses, and foundries. He liked to visit some of the underground storm sewers that were once natural streams, now trapped in pipes beneath the paving. There was a grating where one could see the natural flow of Jenkins Run, and WBM used to observe the waxing and waning of the volume after rains and during droughts. He had occasionally seen highly paid civil engineers sinking foundations where he knew they would shortly strike the water of some stream he had known about from deed research. No use to tell people like that, he felt; they wouldn't believe him. He at length admitted that a cab driver was likely to consider their passenger a mad man if the destination was the outflow of some storm sewer.

WBM had also walked extensively in the Orkney Islands--a bleak and elemental terrain he preferred to the architectural marvels of the Cathedral towns his parents went to see. Even in his last years, WBM liked to walk. He walked almost daily from his apartment at Preston Street and Guilford Avenue to the Maryland Historical Society. On the Tuesday in May, 1970, when hippies and unwashed ruffians terrorized the visitors to the Flower Mart in Mount Vernon Place, WBM wended his way through the throng on his usual route unaware of the subhuman disturbance. He was a familiar sight, shuffling along, sometimes wearing an ancient Panama hat in summer, fully bundled up in winter. Before I met him, I accidentally photographed him on his daily transit of Monument Street. If a satirical novel was going to be written about inside Baltimore, its acidic author would certainly utilize WBM, but anyone who actually knew him or any other true Baltimorean of his age and era could never treat so splendid a human type with levity.

WBM had in his memory the makings of his own "unprintable social history of Baltimore." Most of his social memoirs concerned prominent people who became tipsy or visited the sort of houses where Eubie Blake had played the piano. He had a stock of stories about people who were mean to the servants, or achieved marvels in stinginess and penury. He was well aware that some Baltimore socialites flaunted imaginary genealogies that connected them to various "lords and ladies." He knew who was not related to the Duke of Norfolk. He also had a stock of earthy stories, including numerous instances of plantation owners who forced their attentions on their slave women--one such lord of the manor was beset by his own dogs when he returned from the slave quarter in his night shirt--to the amazement of a house full of overnight guests who were brought to the windows by the barking. WBM also had a story of a hostess--whose family had launched clipper ships--in row house Baltimore--in one of the extra large row houses--the McK__'s were having a dinner party. No sooner was the first course served than the OEA workers arrived to pump out the servants' privy in the back yard; the dinner continued with all the windows closed, hot weather or not.

WBM was almost older than college football, but he liked canoeing and swimming. He had canoed in northern Ontario where the campers could hear wolves yelping. He had canoed most of the tidal rivers around Baltimore and Harford Counties. Some trips were veritable expeditions with a hired boatman for Marye and a few archaeologists. His early swimming took him to most of the deep holes in the same region--and of course boys of the 1890s didn't use swimming suits, which annoyed some people; once the owner of the Dieter Mill on Little Gunpowder Falls on the Harford County bank shouted out the window for the bathers to go away. WBM had also fished for trout in most of the rocky streams, many of which in 2004 are lifeless conduits of runoff.

Just about age 70, WBM turned to poetry and wrote A Farewell to Life, a gloomy assessment of how the inhabitants of this continent had all but ruined the land and water. It was written in a 19th century blank verse style, and it sold very few copies. Mr. _____ of the Sun told him that perhaps only 5 percent of the population could understand it. The author did receive a complimentary letter from John Masefield, Poet Laureate of England, and Josephine Jacobson of Baltimore apparently liked it. James Bready of the Sun literary page interviewed WBM about the time the book came out and noted that almost no copies were sold. Bready's column was however a tribute to WBM's archaeology explorations and gave him perhaps the only recognition he had ever received in his chosen city.

The last large plat drawn by WBM was for Matilda C. Lacey's 1970 booklet Perry Hall: An Invitation to Memory. This plat showed the boundaries of numerous colonial land surveys south of the Great Gunpowder Falls and east of U.S. 1-- all worked out from the verbal list of angles and distances copied from the old Patent Records. Colonial Land Surveys were chaotic, the boundaries rarely running east to west, rarely conforming to shore lines or hills or water courses either. The plat was covered with tiny lettering with useful historical data, but WBM was no longer steady enough to get his lines of text straight or the boundary lines sharp. The data is all there however, and some years later, I drew the lines again and had the text retyped on an electric typewriter.

WBM genuinely liked black people although his attitude might be called patronizing today. His grandparents owned slaves, and his parents had African American servants. One of his Virginia stories was about his grandfather's trying to beat one of the slaves; the ancestor picked up a stick from the ground , but it turned out to be rotten and broke apart and bumped the plantation owner on the nose--at that point both master and subject broke out laughing. Willie Marye's mother used to read to the black children of the domestics at Upper Falls, and WBM kept up with old employees, and even accepted an invitation to Christmas dinner. In those times, servants were called by their first names, but the coachman was called by his last name in the English style, "to confer dignity" on him, WBM stated. Mr. Marye had told another Baltimorean that Enoch Pratt had not really lived on a grand scale, because, like the Maryes, that businessman had only a coachman, but no footman, which would have marked total class. In fact, WBM, deep in the age of the automobile, was almost apologetic about never having enjoyed the services of a footman.

Many of the things that WBM wrote were used by the local papers, but he never got paid for his efforts and hidden expenses. Some of his genealogy work involved weeks of effort in libraries and his home study, yet his patrons often paid him less than he could have earned as a bean-picker. He always made his contribution to good causes out of a sense of civic responsibility, and as we stated before, he was ready to turn out for the last ditch defense of the city if another foreign invasion came to be.

[Subject to Revision, December 17,2004.]

Editor’s note:

The William B. Marye Award was created by the Archaeological Society of Maryland, Inc, in 1983 to honor individuals who have made outstanding contributions to Maryland archeology. Award winners receive a plaque at the Society's Annual Meeting in October, and their achievements are published in the Society's newsletter, ASM Ink. More than one award or no award may be given each year. Nominations should detail specific accomplishments of the nominee and should be submitted to the William B. Marye Award Committee either in a letter or on the nomination form published each year in ASM Ink. Neither Maryland residency nor membership in ASM is a prerequisite for receiving the award. Click here for a nomination form. For other information, please contact Maureen Kavanagh. (http://marylandarcheology.org/marye.html)

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Obituaries for Laurel: From Janitor to Lawyer, David D. Dickson (1854-1908)

Obituaries for Laurel: From Janitor to Lawyer

DAVID D. DICKSON

(1854-1908)

By

Eva Slezak

Monday, January 4, 1886 witnessed the dedication ceremonies of the Enoch Pratt Free Library of Baltimore City. This notable event marked the beginning of a philosophy of service and education that was to leave an impact throughout the country in the years to come. On one hand, it was a departure from the usual concept yet, on the other, it followed the tradition of philanthropy that had been characteristic of Baltimore’s citizens of achievement and wealth. Enoch Pratt had stipulated that “The Library shall be for all, rich and poor, without distinction of race, or color, who when properly accredited, can take out the books if they will handle them carefully and return them.”[1]

Among the invited guests at the ceremonies were “several of Baltimore’s prominent colored citizens.”[2] One of the individuals noted was a Mr. D. Dickson who held the responsible position of janitor of the building. [3] The Library payroll for February 1885 only notes his salary of $30 per month. So who was this man, credited with such responsibility and apparently not unknown to the citizens of Baltimore’s black and white communities?

Originally from Norfolk Virginia, where he was born March 6, 1854, his family moved to Baltimore when he was quite young, probably in the late 1860’s. He entered the public schools and mastered all of the studies then available at the colored grammar school, which at that time was the highest school for black youth. A city ordinance of 1867 granted authorization for the establishment of public schools for black children, [4] but not until1883 were high school grades for blacks an actuality.[5] Dickson continued his studies on his own, probably aided in part by his cousin, Samuel Servent, who though a few years younger, was a private teacher. Described as coming from a “family possessing some degree of latent ability,”[6] it is no wonder that Dickson exhibited such an intense interest in and desire for knowledge and became active in literary, business and political circles.

David and his cousin shared the same address in 1878. By 1880, they had moved to 32 Tyson Street. Also in that same household was Samuel’s sister Ruth and their mother, Rachel, both laundresses. [7] By 1881, Dickson was using a middle initial, the third D, and had his own business, a confectionery store. The next decade was to be an intensely active and significant one for him. Two major desires evolved and came to fruition. One was to practice law and the other was to enter into political life in order “to consider the educational, industrial and political advancement and interest of our race.” [8]

One example of his early civic involvements was the 1880 Equal Rights Convention held in Baltimore on February 10. At that time, blacks comprised 16% of the city’s population, surpassed only by New Orleans and Washington, D.C. Statewide; the black population was almost 22.5% of Maryland residents. Five delegates, representing each ward were to assemble and to plan strategy in the interest of greater recognition of the politics of the state. After settling differences regarding contesting delegations, the convention elected permanent officers, appointed committees and adjourned with instructions to organize for active work within their wards.

Another example was an 1881 petition to the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore on behalf of the Colored Aged Men and Women’s Home on Lee Street between Howard and Sharp Streets. Dependent on the charity of the public, the Home, which at that time housed twenty- three inmates, was in need. Among the fifty one signed petitioners asking for $1,000 was D.D.Dickson.[9]

By the mid-1800’s, Dickson had helped to form several literary societies, worked as Baltimore’s correspondent to the New York Freeman and also wrote for the Maryland Director. He was one of the three elected vice presidents at the Maryland Literary Convention held in Baltimore the 16th of October 1885. Participation in societies such as the Monumental Literary Club plus his journalistic experiences no doubt honed his skills as an orator and a writer.

Dickson’s interest in law never waned. In 1885, together with several other Baltimoreans, he attempted to persuade Richard T. Greener, holder of a law degree, to open a law school in Baltimore.[10] A month earlier, in March, a historic ruling had paved the way for blacks aspiring to the legal profession. The Supreme Bench of Baltimore agreed in the case of Charles S. Wilson that an applicant to the Bar, “is not to be debarred by reason of his color.” [11] Although Wilson failed to qualify, Everett J. Waring, a graduate of Howard University and a member of the Bar of the District of Columbia, did qualify on October 10. 1885 and thus became the first black attorney to practice in Baltimore. In June, Dickson had resigned his position with the Maryland Director in order to devote more time to the study of law. Before he realized that particular dream, three other fateful events took place.

In 1884, he had married a young lady several years his junior. Her name was Georgianna and she was born in Alabama.[12] November of that same year, he was working in the Enoch Pratt Free Library under the direction of Dr. Lewis H. Steiner. The Board of Trustees who did the hiring were: Enoch Pratt, George William Brown, Nathaniel H. Morison, Henry Janes, Charles J. Bonaparte, George B. Cole, Edward Stabler, Jr., James A. Gary and John W. McCoy. As janitor, Dickson’s living rooms were in the rear of the building on Mulberry Street. His tenure at the Library allowed easy access to resources for his self-education, especially in his pursuit of law studies. One of Dickson’s colleagues was the second black employee hired – William A. Williams (sometimes spelled Willyams). Williams, noted for his linguistic abilities, [13] had obtained a Ph.D. at Rome from De Propaganda Fide and tutored Dickson in the French language. As more and more demands were made on Dickson’s time and talents, he resigned from his post at Pratt Library and by 1886 had once again opened a confectionery store, this time at 402 Druid Hill Avenue. His business efforts, expert penmanship and skill in calligraphy (noted in city directories as card writing) were lauded by his contempora- ries.[14]

It was the third event that brought David D. Dickson to the national political scene. On May 17, 1888, the Maryland Republican Convention met in Easton, Maryland. Among the prominent participants was James A. Gary. Four delegates-at-large to the national convention were to be chosen. A Baltimore dentist, Dr. W. A. Montell, in an eloquent speech, nominated Dickson. He was seconded by S.Q. Sanks, a black man from Baltimore, who vigorously praised Dickson by saying that he “represented the advance- ment and progress of the colored race.”[15] The Baltimore Morning Herald described Dickson as a “recognized leader of his race, who has for the last 15 years taken an active part in politics and is considered one of the most intelligent colored men in the city.”[16]

Dickson believed in his party’s victory and minced no words when he denounced fraud at the polls. [17] In anticipation of a Republican victory, he prepared his papers to apply for appointment as minister resident and consul general to Haiti. The salary was $5,000 a year. [18] Benjamin Harrison, the Republican presidential candidate, won the 1888 election. He had lost the popular vote, but he carried the Electoral College vote. And so in spring of 1889 office seekers were literally on his doorsteps at the White House. Dickson was no exception, seeking “national recognition for the 50,000 colored voters of Maryland.”[19] Testimonials for Dickson crossed geographical, political and racial lines. He was described as a man of ability, a “gentleman of much worth and influence in Baltimore City, intelligent, industrious, a loyal Republican and possessing high character.”[20] One of the more intriguing letters was from the Chairman of the Republican Campaign Committee, William T. Henderson. Beneath his testimonial was neatly penned the following: “I concur in speaking well of this applicant and although of different politics, I recommend him on his own standing, as a man” signed by Wm. Pinkney Whyte. Whyte was a former Governor of Maryland, a former mayor of Baltimore and in time also served as an Attorney General for the State of Maryland. The list of testimonials, a veritable Who’s Who, included: Enoch Pratt, James A. Gary, Rev. Charles W. Mossell (at one time missionary to Haiti), William A. Willyams, Joseph S. Davis (one of the early black attorneys in Maryland), John Sherman (U.S. Senator from Ohio), William D. Burchinal (Surveyor of Customs). In this quest, Dickson was unsuccessful. The appointment went to Frederick Douglass.

In 1890 Dickson took the Civil Service examination and passed at the head of his class. He was hired as weigher for the customs house, a position he was to hold through 1894. In July of 1891, Dickson once again applied for the ministry to Haiti. Again his request was denied. Less than a year later, Dickson did realize one of his goals. On May 31, 1892, by then an instructor and weigher in the Custom House in Baltimore, he was admitted to the Bar by the Supreme Bench of Baltimore.[21] It had not been an easy road for him or for any of the others in a highly selective legal fraternity. In June of 1899, hopes were raised as the first two black students, Harry S. Cummings and Charles W. Johnson, graduated from the University of Maryland’s Law School. By the summer of 1890, two other black students, W. Ashbie Hawkins and John L. Dozier, were told to leave because white students of the law, medical and dental departments protested their presence.[22] This setback did not deter Dickson and finally after years of private study and persistence, he became one of the first ten practicing black attorneys in the city of Baltimore. In 1895 he opened his office at 213 North Calvert Street, subsequently relocating to 231 Courtland Street.

Political fever struck again when in May 1901, he tried to gain a seat on the City Council. Running as an Independent Republican, he made a poor showing, garnering only 200 votes versus the winner’s (Hiram Watty) 1330 and the runner-up’s 1124.[23] Several years later in 1906, he was among thirty Baltimore businessmen and citizens signing a petition of support for the Baltimore Terminal Company which was to furnish interurban and suburban service between Baltimore, Annapolis and Washington.[24] He continued his public spirited participation and remained an influential and motivating force in the black community.

During the noon recess of Court on Monday, February 24, 1908, Dickson strolled up Calvert Street and met a cousin whom he had not seen for some time. Still not fully recovered from an attack of the grip, he felt chilly as well as hungry and stepped into Munder’s Restaurant at 311 North Calvert Street to get lunch. As he was eating, he fell to the ground – dead at age 54.[25] Survived by his wife, the funeral took place from his residence at 536 West Lanvale Street. John H. Owens & Sons of 1222 Division Street provided the funeral arrangements for his burial in Laurel Cemetery on Bel Air (Belair) Road.

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NOTES

[1] William T. Snyder, Jr., “The Enoch Pratt Free Library,” Baltimore Magazine, January 1943.

[2] “The Pratt Library,” The New York Freeman, January 16, 1886.

[3] Baltimore City Directory, 1886.

[4]Board of School Commissioners of Baltimore City, Annual Report, 1867, p.70.

[5]Board of School Commissioners of Baltimore City, Annual Report, 1883, p.67.

[6]”One of ‘the Freeman’s Workers,” The New York Freeman, September 10, 1887.

[7]United States. Federal Census, 1880. Baltimore City, Ward 11, 3rd Precinct.

[8] Baltimore Morning Herald, February 26, 1889.

[9] “Petition for an Appropriation for the Colored Aged Men & Women’s Home, “ Baltimore City Records, Archives, 1881 document 273.

[10] “Baltimore Notes: Will Prof. Greener Open a Law Office in Baltimore?” The New York Freeman, April 11, 1885.

[11] James F. Schneider, A Commemoration of the Centennial of the Bar Association of Baltimore City, 1880-1980. “Supreme Bench In the Matter of the Petition of Chas S. Wilson for Admission to Practice Law.” Opinion of Court. Filed March 19, 1885.

[12] United States Federal Census, 1900, Baltimore City.

[13] Leroy Graham, Baltimore the Nineteenth Century Black Capital (Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1982), p. 210.

[14] “One of ‘The Freeman’s’ Workers,” The New York Freeman, September 10, 1887.

[15] “Both King and Dixon.” Baltimore Morning Herald, May 18, 1888.

[16] Ibid.

[17] “Many Things at Stake,” Baltimore American, October 25, 1887.

[18] “For Blaine or Sherman?” Baltimore Herald, May 18, 1888.

[19] “Letters of Applications and Recommendations during the Administration of Benjamin Harrison.” National Archives, RG 59, Microfilm 968.

[20] Ibid.

[21] “Meeting of the Supreme Bench,” Daily Record, June 1, 1892.

[22] “Colored Students Ruled Out,” New York Times, September 15, 1890.

[23] “Baltimore Sun Almanac,” Baltimore Sun, 1902, p. 130.

[24] Baltimore City Records. Archives, 1906.

[25] There is a discrepancy in Dickson’s age. The death certificate and newspapers list his age as 44 years. The 1900 Federal Census lists his age as 42, thus his birth year would be 1858. The Federal Census for 1880 lists his age as 24; hence 1856 would be his birth year.

REFERENCES

Baltimore Afro-American

Baltimore City Directories, 1865-1910

Baltimore Morning Herald

Baltimore Sun

Board of School Commissioners of Baltimore City, Annual Reports

Enoch Pratt Free Library, Archives

National Archives, Record Group (RG) 59 Letters of Applications and Recommendations during the

Administration of Benjamin Harrison. Microfilm 968.

New York Freeman

Rubinstein, Stanley and Judith Farley. “Enoch Pratt Free Library and Black Patrons: Equality in Library

Services, 1882 – 1915,” Journal of Library History, v. 15, Fall 1980, p. 445-453.

United States Federal Census, Maryland, 1880, 1990.

Justice Under Stress: Baltimore and the Federal Courts during the Civil War, 1861-1866

The Lincoln Pardon of Benjamin Brown, the case of John Merryman, and Federal Justice in the Midst of A Civil War


During the Civil War the Maryland Circuit Court consisted of two judges, Roger B. Taney who, as Chief Justice of the United States was serving as a trial judge on Circuit, and William F. Giles. There are contemporary photographs of both and the Masonic Hall in Baltimore that served as the Federal Court House.

 


February through May of 1861 was time of massive confusion and turmoil for the Nation.   In  many ways it was if a Katrina like hurricane had swept across the land leaving the existing structure of the Federal government in chaos, unable to function, not knowing what to do. By February 11, 1861, a Monday, there were two presidents claiming jurisdiction over all or parts of the Nation, both of whom set out on journeys that day to their respective capitals.  Abraham Lincoln, according to one historian seemed confused and rambled on in speeches at each of his stops along the way.  At one point in Cincinnati he told the crowd: "I hope that while these free institutions shall continue to be in the enjoyment of millions of free people of the United Staes , we will see repeated every four years what we now witness."  Did that mean he expected chaos every four years?  Joshua Wolf Shenk in LINCOLN's MELANCHOLY (Houghton Mifflin, 2005), argues that President Lincoln was suffering from acute genetically derived depression and that challenged his Presidency and fueled his Greatness.

In February and March of 1861, he had not reached his stride.  Indeed, convinced of a plot on his life,  he allowed himself to be secretly passed through Baltimore on his way to Washington, possibly in disguise, leaving a bewildered Mayor George William Brown to greet Mrs. Lincoln and the children who apparently were not considered to be in danger.

Arriving safe in Washington, Lincoln found himself confronted with hostility all around.  Desparate to build the defenses of Washington against a presumed attack by Confederate forces from Virginia, he called for support from loyal state militias and to facilitate keeping them out of harm's way on their journey to Washington,  suspended habeas corpus along the railroad routes in order to facilitate the capture and incarceration of any terrorists along the route who might be planning to disrupt the troop movements.

On April 19, 1861, the same day that in 1776 the first shots of the American Revolution were heard around the world, the first blood of the Civil War was shed on Baltimore streets as the mob attacked the Massachusetts troops trying to make their way across the harbor and to awaiting B&O trains that would continue them on their journey to the defense of Washington.  In those days there were no through trains through Baltimore because the haulers and carters  were a strong lobby in the city and wanted the business of moving goods and people among the three train stations in town.

Mayor George William Brown and Governor Hicks pleaded with President Lincoln not to send troops through the City, and in the midst of the violence of April 19, ordered the railroad bridges on the approach to the city to be obstructed.  For his efforts to prevent violence, he, much of the State Legislature and the City Council were thrown into jail without benefit of Habeas Corpus.  Brown would remain in Prison at Fort Warren in Boston Harbor until his term as Mayor ran out, never having a hearing or appearing before a Federal Judge.  After the war he would become the chief judge of the Baltimore Supreme Bench. The Administration's efforts to prosecute the war by throwing presumed dissidents and traitors into jail without benefit of the courts hit a major snag with the burning of the Baltimore Bridges.   As Judge Blake has pointed out in her essay on the Merryman case, drawing upon the original documents still in the possession of the Maryland District Court, when Federal Troops arrested John Merryman at 2 a.m. on May 25th and threw him into prison at Fort McHenry, the Federal Bench in the person of Chief Justice Taney acted decisively.   Much has been written about Ex Parte Merryman and more should be, in my opinion, especially in light of the Supreme Court's Guantanamo Bay opinions in which the Justices  ignored it altogether.

The English had an official observer at Taney's Court for the Merryman hearing.  He was the British Consul in Baltimore and recorded the proceedings in a letter that until not long ago lay undiscovered among the Consular papers of the British National Archives:

159

British Consulate for the State of Maryland

Baltimore, May 27, 1861

no. 24

My Lord,

I have just time to say that Chief Justice Taney issued a writ of Habeas Corpus this morning, directed to Genl. Cadwallader, calling on him to produce Mr. Merryman. The general replied that he had communicated with the President, who answered that he suspended the action of Habeas Corpus. The Chief Justice, remarking that he was bound to carry out the Constitution, & Laws, of the United States, has issued an attachment against General Cadwallader for contempt of the writ.


I have the honor to be
My Lord
Your Most obedient, humble, servant
Frederic Bernal
   

Right Honble
Ld John Russell MP

161
 

British Consulate for the State of Maryland
Baltimore, May 20th, 1861

no. 25

My Lord,

The continuation of my despatch , no. 24 of the 27th  instant, I have the honor to inform you, that I assisted the day before yesterday ceremony. I saw Chief Justice Taney- the head of the Supreme Court of the United States- a venerable old man of over 80 years of age- but still in full possession of all his intellect- a lawyer unsurpassed in all the world- whose boast it is that no decision given by him has ever been reversed- calmly, but boldly, in a crowded court, enunciate that great bulwark of Anglo Saxon liberty, the doctrine of Habeas Corpus. As your Lordship is is aware from my previous bespatch, an attachment was issued against General Cadwallader for contempt of a writ of Habeas Corpus issued
by the Chief Justice. The proceedings opened on the 28th by a return from the Marshall of the Court, stating he had been refused admittance into Ft. McHenry to serve the attachment. The Chief Justice then delivered his decision. "That the President cannot,  under the Laws,and Constitution of the United States, suspend the privilege of the writ of Habeas Corpus. That it is unconstitutional for the military authority to arrest anyone,
not subject to the articles of War, except in aid of the Judiciary Tower, & that even then the prisoner must be delivered over, immediately, to the Civil Authorities. That as it would be worse than -sele-s to summon a Posse Comitatus,(though such was the Law, ) and attempt to arrest Genl. Cadwallader in face of a superior force, he held the Marshall's Marshall's statement to be sufficient that he should reduce his decision to writing, & file it in the Clerk's Office, that all who wished might read it, and should call on the President to (using the very words of the Oath he had himself administered to him on his inauguration,) enforce the Laws, the Constitution, as he had sworn to do". I was introducted to the Chief Justice at the conclusion of the proceedings, & could not forbear telling him (privately,) how it had gratified me to hear him asserting principles so dear to all Englishmen. He made a very feeling reply, that he had been brought up to study, & revere, the English Common Law and that pained as he was to be so obliged, at such a moment, he would not shrink from asserting its glorious principles, which were likewise those of the Constitution of the United States. At any other time such a trampling on the Constitution on the part of the President would would have raised a tempest of  indignation throughout the land, but so demoralized is public sentiment, and so blinded by political passion are the masses, that he northern papers have either passed by this momentous question with a contemptuous silence, or have noticed it merely to load Chief Justice Taney, at other times an object to them of pride, and admiration, with every epithet of abuse, down to counselling (vide the New York Tribune) the President to arrest him. It was not so in other days- In 1807, at the time of Burr's Conspiracy, a Bill to enable the President to suspend the action of Habeas Corpus was introduced into the House of Representatives, and rejected, on the first reading, by a vote of 113, to 19-

...

 

President Lincoln was troubled by Taney's opinion.  He may have even agreed to an arrest warrant for the Chief Justice, confirming Bernal's rumor, but the authority for that statement, the Federal Marshall for Washington, D. C., Lincoln's bodyguard Ward Hill Lamon, who persuaded him to hide on his way through Baltimore to the inauguration, has not been corroberated.  But President Lincoln did what Taney told him he had to do:  seek Congress's permission for the suspension of Habeas Corpus, which Congress eventually granted.  On July 4, 1861 at a special session, the President sent a message to Congress defending himself with regard to the executive order suspending Habeas Corpus, arguing that under the Constitution he had the right to do so, but left it to Congress to decide whether legislative approval was necessary, which is what Taney told him he needed to do in the first place.

In the draft of his address to Congress Lincoln confronted the Chief Justice directly, but wiser heads prevailed in crafting the final version that took out all the "I's" and anything that might be interpreted as self-doubt on Lincoln's part.



This is what Lincoln actually wrote in his first draft, much of which was moderated and excised by the time it got to Congress.

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Soon after the first call for militia, I felt it my duty to authorize the Commanding General, in proper cases, according to his discretion, to suspend the previlege of the writ of habeas corpus -- or, in other words, to arrest, and detain, without resort to the ordinary processes and forms of law, such individuals as he might deem dangerous to the public safety. At my verbal request, as well as by the Generals own inclination, this authority has been and propriety of what has been done under it, are questioned; and I have been reminded from a high quarter11 that one who is sworn to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed" should not himself be one to violate them-- So I think. Of course I gave some consideration to the questions of power, and propriety, before I acted in this matter--
 

The whole of the laws which 

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I was sworn to see take care that they should be faithfully executed, were being resisted, and failing of execution to be executed, in nearly one third of the states. Must I have allowed them to finally fail of execution, even had it been perfectly clear that by the use of the means necessary to their execution, some provision of one single law, made in such extreme tenderness of the citizens liberty, that more rogues than honest men practically more of the guilty than the innocent, find shelter under it, should, to a very limited extent, be violated?12 some single law, made in such extreme tenderness of the citizens liberty, that practically, it relieves more of the guilty, than the innocent, should, to a very limited extent, be violated? To state the question more directly, are all the laws, but one, to go unexecuted, and the government itself go to pieces, lest that one law be violated? Even in such a case I should consider my official oath broken if I should allow the government to be overthrown, when I might think the disregarding the single law would tend to preserve it-- But, in this case I was not, in my own judgment, driven

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to this ground-- In my opinion I violated no law-- The provision of the Constitution that "The previlege of the writ of habeas corpus, shall not be suspended unless when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it" is equivalent to a provision -- is a provision -- that such previlege may be suspended when, in cases of rebellion, or invasion, the public safety does require it. I decided that we have a case of rebellion,
and that the public safety does require the qualified suspension of the previlege of the writ of habeas corpus, which I authorized to be made. Now it is insisted that Congress, and not the executive, is vested with this power-- But the Constitution itself, is silent as to which, or who, is to exercise the power; and as the provision plainly was made for a dangerous emergency, I can not bring myself to believe that the

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the framers of that instrument intended that in every case the danger should run it's course until Congress could be called together, the very assembling of which might be prevented, and in as was in-13 of which might be prevented, as was intended in this case, by the rebellion--
   

I enter upon no more extended argument; as an opinion, at some length, will be presented by the Attorney General-- Whether there shall be any legislation upon the subject, and if any, what, I submit entirely to the better judgment of Congress--

Clearly the opinion of the Chief Justice in ex parte merryman hit its mark and in the end Merryman was turned over to Civil Authorities and set free on bail with the promise he would not leave the State.  Two indictments for Treason were presented by Grand Juries, but Taney and Giles continued the cases on the docket until the war was over (Taney died in 1864 on the day that the Maryland Constitutional Convention abolished slavery), and was never tried.  He rose to be Treasurer of Maryland and his Hayfields farm became nationally known for his successful experiments in cattle breeding.

That is not to say that the suspension of Habeas Corpus did not continue to affect affect a considerable number of people.  Mark E. Neely's Pulitzer prize winning "The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties" documents the over 15,000 individuals incarcerated over the course of the war, unable to avail themselves of the great writ.  What Taney's opinion did do, apart from succeeding in getting Merryman transferred to Civil Authority and paving the way to his day in court, was to unleash a torrent of pamphlets and works on executive powers and habeas corpus that reaches down to the present day.  Few read Horace Binney and Anna Ella Carroll today, but their arguments and those of the other side are no less pertinent to today's tension among the President, Congress, and the Courts over the application of the Great Writ.


The stress that the Civil War placed upon the Federal Bench, let alone the State Courts, during the Civil War was intense and unremitting.  The Federal Court in Baltimore remained open throughout the war and persistently decided cases that went against the grain of policies promulgated by the Lincoln administration, especially in regard to State's and individual rights.  For example, in an officially unreported opinion not to be found in Westlaw or Lexis, Judge Giles, Justice Taney's partner on the Federal bench in Baltimore, forced the U. S. Treasury department to recind a tax on the movement of goods within the state of Maryland, even though they were probably intended to be contraband. Routine business of the Court as it affected the President directly continued as well and is illustrative of administrative burden the work of the courts placed upon the President of the United States.

Take for example, the need for a Presidential Pardon of Benajmin Brown. A few years ago, at the instigation of Judge Gauvey and at the invitation of Judge Motz, I was asked to offer some suggestions on how the Federal Courts in Baltimore  might develop an exhibit and interpretation center at the courthouse that would help the public better understand their rich and varied history. In the course of conversation, Judge Motz mentioned that while most of the historical records of his court had been transferred to the National Archives, a few treasures remained which the court was loath to give up because of their historical significance and the part they might play in an historical exhibit. This of course peaked my curiosity and he agreed that the Court Clerk, Felicia Cannon, could show me one treasure in particular, the Lincoln Pardon.

With the assistance of the Court Administrator, we found the pardon well cared for in a secure storage area.  Time had not treated the pardon well, however, and it was in need of conservation. I offered to have the document repaired at cost by our Document Preservation department and to investigate its history. To my delight I found that Judge James Schneider had written an unpublished essay on the pardon already, to which I added some new sources and the results of further research in order to provide a window into how the Federal system of justice actually worked in the midst of the Civil War with regard to life of one civilian prisoner, Benjamin Brown.



Thursday, June 18, 1863 was a routine day for President Abraham Lincoln in the midst of a far from ordinary war.  General Grant was before Vicksburg, having just relieved Major General John A. McClernand from command for being insubordinate, self-seeking, and incompetent.   General Lee was well on his march northward and in two weeks would be engaged in battle at Gettysburg where his reputation as a general would also suffer, although not to the degree of McClernand's.


In Washington, the President rose about 6 a.m. to begin a work day that would last well into the evening.  Between 6 and 7 a.m. he was at his desk in the White House reading correspondence and dispatches, occasionally sipping a cup of coffee sent by his wife.  Journalist Noah Brooks recalls how methodical President Lincoln was in his habits:  "he was scrupulously exact in all the details of his office, and his care for written documents was sometimes carried to an extreme;  he appeared to have the Chinese reverence for written paper."  Later scholars would discover just how scrupulous he was about the business of government.  Six letters he wrote that day have survived, ranging from mitigating a sentence of a garrulous physician, who in treating a family close to the confederate lines happened to say too much about Federal troop movements, to declining with thanks the offer of assistance from  an over zealous General of Canadian volunteers who by encoded telegram had written to offer his men in defense of Washington.   In addition to the general correspondence, sometime in the course of the day, the President's secretaries, John Nicholay and John Hay, presented him with a stack of military and civil pardons to sign.  How many we are not yet certain, but an article in the Washington Post a few years ago announced the discovery of 1,120 Abraham Lincoln signatures on military pardons alone over the four years of the war. 

Among the pending requests that day was also one for a civilian, Benjamin Brown.  Just how much the President may have known about the circumstances surrounding the request for a Pardon for Benjamin Brown is not known, although his attention to detail was such that it is likely he read the accompanying papers delivered to the Executive Mansion from the Attorney General's office by the Pardon Clerk. They included a letter signed by Brown and recommendations for approval by the U.S. District Attorney for Maryland and the U.S. District Judge for Maryland, William F. Giles, who presided over Brown's trial.  Brown had served his three year sentence for manslaughter, but could not pay the fines imposed and was thus effectively imprisoned for life.

As C. Dodd McFarland, his attorney, explained in the appeal to the President,  "the practice of the courts heretofore in similar cases has been to make application for the remission of the fine and costs which application is usually granted by the President."

In a letter to the President, Brown explained his view of the circumstances surrounding his conviction.   He told the President that he had been a cabin boy  on board the Barque George & Henry,

and one day whilst the Captain of the Barque was absent ...was playing with a gun in the cabin of the ... Barque, and whilst so playing with the ...  gun, the gun went off and killed  ... Thomas [George] Crozier.  At the trial of the case your petitioner admmitted the killing, but pleaded that it was purely accidentall.  Your Petitioner states that he has suffered, and satisfied, the judgement as far as it is in [his] power, that the terms of his imprisonment expires on the 23rd day of April 1863, and he further states that he is a poor colloured boy, and, is unable to pay said fine & cost, ...

The President heeded Brown's plea, and  signed the pardon, releasing him from having to pay the $666 in costs that had accumulated over the three years that he was confined to the Baltimore City jail. Two days later, on June 20, 1863, Benjamin Brown was free at last.


But who was this Benjamin Brown, what can we learn about the circumstances of the crime he committed, and how did he come to owe so much in the course of serving a three year sentence for manslaughter?


There is little that can be found about the personal life of Benjamin Brown.  Judge Schneider identified him in the 1860 census, the first year he was in the City Jail, which describes him as a black male, seaman, aged 19, born in Maryland. He was free, not a slave, and on the 14th of January, 1859 signed up with a fellow seaman, George Crozier, to serve aboard the Barque George & Henry on a voyage to Peru for a cargo of hides and nitrate of soda.  As the steward, or cabin boy as he refers to himself, Brown would not have earned more than the $8 a month owed George Crozier, which makes Brown's lost wages while imprisoned not more than $298, less than half of what he owed the Federal Government at the end of his prison term.

To unravel the mystery of what appears to be a rather excessive tab of fines and court costs, we need to return to the scene of the crime, to trace the story that emerges from a review of the surviving evidence, including the consequences of Federal sentencing practices one hundred and forty years ago.  To do so we rely heavily on  the newspapers of the day,  the consular reports from the port town of Arica, then in Peru, but now in Chile, and the Baltimore City jail records, for the court records themselves encompass only docket entries, brief minutes, and the final judgment.


About 9 a.m on the bright sunny morning of October 21, 1859 the Barque George & Henry was moored in the harbor of Arica, Peru, about ready with its cargo to depart for Baltimore.  Captain Travers was ashore.  Three of the ships company were in a boat at the stern.  While Henry Willis, the Ship's Carpenter, replaced a piece of moulding, Benjamin Fales and George Crozier were holding the boat steady, possibly standing at about eye level with the window of the Captain's cabin when a shot was fired from within.   The bullet, an ounce slug, pierced Crozier skull over his left eye.  He would die on deck a few minutes later. When  Benjamin Brown appeared on deck he saw Crozier's body and cried out "My God, I did not go to do it; they'll hang me, and I hope they will."

Brown was then taken before the American Consul in Arica, John Lansing, who took depositions, now lost, inventoried the deceased estate, and consigned the prisoner to Captain Travers who gave a $1,000 bond that he would deliver up Brown to arraignment in Baltimore on the ship's return.   Poor Crozier had been worth a total of $73.60, all in wages due, out of which advances from wages, his ship's jacket, the cost of a knife, postage for the letter home, and two pounds of tobacco were deducted, leaving  a balance due the deceased of $43.85.  The consul cabled his report to the State Department which arrived two months before the George & Henry and returned to business.


The George & Henry arrived in Baltimore on January 26, 1860, after a voyage of three months in which she encountered heavy northerly gales rounding cape horn, with a full cargo consigned to Fitzgerald, Booth and Company of 56 South Gay Street, and the prisoner contrite, but intact.  The U. S. District Attorney reported to the Solicitor of the Treasury Department that he had examined Brown concluding that "the evidence seems to establish no higher offence than that of a killing by gross & most culpable carelessness. After very careful examination of the witnesses before the U. S. Commissioner & also in person I was unable to detect the slightest evidence of malice in the prisoner  The Prisoner is evidently a very bad youth: in addition to the punishment which I hope to be able to have inflicted upon him for this offence-- the punishment appropriate to manslaughter, the crime of which I think he will be convicted.--I think there is evidence enough to convict him also of larceny." The larceny charge, based upon the Captain's assertion that Brown stole wine on the voyage, was never brought, and while the Government tried to prove murder in the first degree, the final verdict was manslaughter three months later when the case finally came to trial.  Because there are no transcripts of the trial, what the witnesses said after waiting three months in jail with the prisoner to  be heard, is not readily discernible, although the two quite different accounts in the Baltimore American and the Sun together, provide a substantive outline of the facts.  Unfortunately the depositions taken at the time by the Consul in Arica have been lost, but the court determined at the trial that they did not vary in substance from the testimony already presented and did not permit the defense to read them. At the close of the trial the court costs amounted to $40.75, including $20 each for the prosecution and defense lawyers.  How then did the bill mount to $666 over the next three years, the equivalent of approximately 7 years of wages for the average seaman?  The answer probably lies among the records of the Baltimore City Jail, among which only a very few accounting records survive.  In 1860 there were no Federal Prisons (a situation soon to be remedied by the Civil War) and Federal prisoners had to be housed in state or local facilities.  The docket record of Brown's confinement suggests that the Federal government had to pay for his care and did so on a quarterly basis of about $30, or $10 a month, two dollars a month more than he might have earned as a seaman. But even that exhorbitant rate does not account for the full bill, unless, of course, he was responsible for all charges with interest.


What happened to Benjamin Brown after his release is not known. That fall recruitment  into the United States Colored Troops would begin in earnest.  Perhaps he became a soldier, although with his background he would have been more likely to have gone into the Navy. We probably will never know, but at least for one brief moment, as one of many papers passing over the desk of Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Brown had his moment of recognition and release from a system of justice that tried him fairly but might have trapped him unmercifully in a bureaucratic wrangle over who should pay for his confinement.


Note:
I would be remiss in writing this blog essay if I did not acknowledge my indebtedness to Judge  Fred Motz, Judge Susan Gauvey, and Felicia Cannon, who introduced me to the Lincoln Pardon and the original documents relating to Ex Parte Merryman still in the possession of the Court, to Judge Jim Schneider whose pioneering work on the history of the Maryland District Court and its judges, and his own notes on the history of the Lincoln Pardon which he shared with me, were indispensable to my own journey in search of the saga of Benjamin Brown, and to Judge Catherine Blake, whose sparkling essay on the Merryman case, I have drawn upon here.