Events in Baltimore City's History

Welcome to Genealogy Trails!

Biographies of Baltimore City

Kate Bateman
Kate BATEMAN, actor, born in Baltimore, Md., 7th October, 1842. She made her debut in Louisville, Ky., at the age of five years. In 1850 as one of the Bateman Children, she appeared in the principal cities of Great Britain. She retired from the stage in 1856, but reappeared in 1860. In 1862 she made her first pronounced success as Julia in "The Hunchback," in the Winter Garden, New York. For several years she played leading parts in Great Britain as well as in the United States. In 1866 Miss Bateman became the wife of Dr. George Crowe, and took up her permanent residence in England. She has appeared in every city of importance in this country as well as in Great Britain.
("American Women Fifteen Hundred Biographies", Volume 1, Publ. 1897. Transcribed by Marla Snow)

Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte
BONAPARTE, Mme. Elizabeth Patterson, wife of Jerome Bonaparte, king of Westphalia, born in Baltimore, Md , 6th February, 1785, and died there 4th April, 1879. She was the daughter of William Patterson, the son of a farmer in county Donegal, Ireland. Her father came to the United States while he was a boy and settled in Baltimore. He went to Philadelphia, Pa., and was there employed in the counting-house of Samuel Johnson. He developed remarkable financial ability and soon became the owner of a line of clipper ships. During the Revolution he traded to France and brought back cargoes of arms and gunpowder. He acquired a large fortune and was the wealthiest man in Maryland, with the exception of Charles Carroll, of Carrollton. Elizabeth Patterson was a young woman of remarkable beauty of person, of strong powers of intellect, and of great fascination of manners, when, in the autumn of 1803, at a ball in the house of Samuel Chase, in Baltimore, she met Jerome Bonaparte, then in command of a French frigate. As the brother of Napoleon I, he was hospitably received. On their first meeting Captain Bonaparte and Miss Patterson fell in love. Marriage was proposed, but her father, foreseeing the grave difficulties implied in such an alliance with the brother of the First Consul, forbade the lovers to meet. Miss Patterson was sent to Virginia. The lovers corresponded, and Jerome procured a marriage license. The wedding was postponed until 24th December, 1803, when Jerome should have passed his nineteenth birthday. On that date the marriage ceremony was performed by Archbishop Carroll. All the legal formalities had been carefully provided for. The contract was drawn by Alexander Dallas, and the wedding was attended by the mayor of Baltimore, the vice-consul of France and many distinguished persons. Napoleon I obstinately opposed the match from first to last. He notified Jerome that, if he would leave "the young person" in the United States and return to France, his "indiscretion" would be forgiven, and that, if he took her with him to France, she should not be permitted to set foot on French territory. He actually gave orders that neither Jerome nor his wife should be permitted to land at any port controlled by France. In spite of that order, Jerome and his wife sailed in 1805, on one of Mr. Patterson's ships, for Europe. The ship was wrecked between Philadelphia and the Capes. Embarking on another vessel, they sailed for Lisbon. There the wife remained, while Captain Bonaparte went on to Paris, hoping to make peace with his brother. Napoleon I was obstinate and absolutely refused to recognize the marriage. Madame Bonaparte sailed from Lisbon for Amsterdam, but at the mouth of the Texel two French men-of-war met her, and refused to allow her to land. She then sailed for England. So great a throng of persons gathered to see her land at Dover, that Pitt sent a regiment to that port to preserve order. She went at once to Camberwell, where her only child, Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte, was born 7th July, 1805. Her husband continued to send her messages of love and fidelity. Napoleon asked Pope Pius VII to dissolve the marriage, but the pontiff refused to do so. The Imperial Council of State, at Napoleon's order, passed a decree of divorce. In September, 1805, Madame Bonaparte returned to the United States. Her family gave her an ungracious reception. Her father refused to pay the stipulated income, because Napoleon had annulled the union. Jerome soon afterward was married to Princess Frederica, of Wurtemburg. He offered his discarded wife the principality of Smalcand, with an annual income of 40,000. Her reply was: "Westphalia, no doubt, is a considerable kingdom, but not large enough to hold two queens." The reply pleased Napoleon, who directed the French Minister in Washington to intimate his desire to serve her. She replied: "Tell the Emperor I am ambitious; I wish to be made a duchess of France." The Emperor promised to confer that rank upon her, and offered immediately a gross sum of $20,000, with a life annuity of $12,000. That she accepted, "proud to be indebted to the greatest man of modern times." She stipulated that the receipts for payment should be signed by her as "Elizabeth Bonaparte." To that the Emperor acceded, and until his dethronement the annuity was regularly paid. Her husband was angry because she refused aid from him and accepted it from his brother, but she retorted that she "preferred shelter beneath the wing of an eagle to suspension from the pinion of a goose." The submission of Jerome to the commands of his brother was rewarded. He received a high command in the Navy of France and showed himself a competent officer. In 1806 he was made a brigadier-general in the army, and in 1807 was created King of Westphalia. Mme. Bonaparte applied to the Maryland Legislature for a divorce, which was granted without difficulty. Her motive for taking this step is not easily comprehended. The Pope had refused to annul a marriage which had received the open sanction of the Church. The social position of Mme. Bonaparte had never been in the least compromised by her domestic misfortunes. After the fall of Napoleon Madame Bonaparte visited France, where she was honorably received. Only once after the separation did she ever see Jerome. In the gallery of the Pitti Palace, in Florence, they met. She simply said: "It is Jerome." He whispered to his wife : "That lady is my former wife." Madame Bonaparte was well received in Florence and in Rome. Returning to the United States, she made her home in Baltimore. She lived economically and amassed a fortune. Her son, Jerome Bonaparte, was graduated from Harvard College in 1826. He studied law, but never practiced. He was married in early life to Susan Mary Williams, a wealthy lady of Roxbury, Mass. He visited France and was on intimate terms with his father. He was never naturalized, and always called himself a citizen of France, although the French courts never recognized his legitimacy. He died in Baltimore 17th June, 1870. His two sons, Jerome Napoleon and Charles Joseph, survived him. Madame Bonaparte's later years were passed in quiet. Her proud spirit, her ambitious temper and her misfortunes alienated her from her father and her son, and her wit took a biting turn with old age. She put forward the claims of her grandson to the throne of France, but without hope of success. She left an estate valued at $1,500,000.
("American Women Fifteen Hundred Biographies", Volume 1, Publ. 1897. Transcribed by Marla Snow)

Jacob Broome
Broome, Jacob, congressman, was born July 25, 1808, in Baltimore, Md. In 1840 he was deputy auditor of Pennsylvania. In 1855-57 he was a representative from Pennsylvania to the thirty-fourth congress. He died in November, 1864, in Washington, D.C.
[Herringshaw’s National Library of American Biography: Contains Thirty-five Thousand Biographies of the Acknowledged Leaders of Life and Thought of the United States, by William Herringshaw, 1909 – Transcribed by Therman Kellar]

Martha McClellan Brown
BROWN, Mrs. Martha McClellan, born near Baltimore, Md., 16th April, 1838. On her father's side she is descended from the McClellans, Covenanters of Scotland, and on the mother's side from the old Maryland families of Manypenny and Hight. She was married in her twentieth year to Rev. W. K. Brown, of the Pittsburgh Methodist Episcopal Conference In the fall of 1860 Mrs. M. McClellan Brown entered the Pittsburgh Female College, and in 1862 was graduated. In 1866 Mrs. Brown, owing to the unexpected death of the principal of the public schools in the county-seat of Columbiana county, Ohio, where her husband had been appointed pastor, was engaged as associate principal with him. In 1867 she was elected to a place in the executive committee of Ohio Good Templary, and immediately founded the temperance lecture system. In 1868 she took editorial charge of the Republican newspaper of Alliance, Ohio. Julius A. Spencer, of Cleveland, secretary of Ohio Good Templary in 1868, proposed to Mrs. Brown the formation of an independent political party, and she extended her hand to assist him. The question being further discussed, Mrs. Brown's husband required that, before his wife should unite in the movement for a new party, there must be an agreement to place woman on an equal status with man. Mr. Spencer finally agreed that woman should have equal status in the new party, and that a plank asserting this fact should be inserted in the platform, provided they were not expected to discuss that issue before the people. The Prohibition party was organized in Ohio early in the following year, 1869. In 1870 Mr. Brown purchased the political newspaper of which his wife w as editor, and for years that paper was made the vehicle of vigorous warfare against the liquor traffic. In 1872 Mrs. Brown was elected a delegate of Good Templary to Great Britain. Very shortly thereafter she was called to the headship of the order in the State of Ohio. When Mrs. Brown appeared upon the platform in Scotland and England in 1873, audiences of from 5,000 to 10,000 greeted the American temperance woman, and her title of Grand Chief Templar of Ohio was a passport to recognitions of royalty, even so far remote as Milan, Italy. She was elected at the State Grand Lodge of Ohio, held in Columbus in 1873, to succeed herself in the office she held. In her capacity of Chief Templar she issued an order in January, 1874, for a day of fasting and prayer in the three-hundred lodges of Ohio under her jurisdiction, and encouraged that all ministers of religion favorable to the order and the cause of temperance be invited to unite with the Good Templars. Finding that the women who had become active in the out-door work of the crusade were not satisfied to enter the Good Templar lodges, Mrs. Brown, at the suggestion of her husband, prepared a plan for the organization of crusaders in a national society without pass-words or symbols, under which plan open religious temperance meetings and work should be prosecuted, women being the chief instruments of such work. She afterwards was chiefly instrumental in gathering the women in the first national convention in Cleveland, Ohio, where she largely assisted in developing her plan, which was made the basis ot the permanent organization of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union. Just after the founding of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, in August, 1874, Mrs. Brown was elected Right Grand Vice-Templar of the International Order of Good Templars, in Boston, Mass. In 1876 Mrs. Brown objected to the attitude of the majority of the Right Grand Lodge of Good Templars in rejecting lodges of colored people, and so withdrew and united with the English delegates. After ten years of separation the two bodies adjusted their issue by providing for regular lodges of colored people, and were reunited in 1886, at Saratoga, N. Y. In 1877, after repeated personal efforts with leading Republican officials, State and National, had failed to secure any actual, or even fairly promised political, antagonisms of the liquor interests, Mrs. Brown went to New York City and assumed the management of the newly organized National Prohibition Alliance. In October, 1881, Mrs. Brown gathered through personal letters, special circulars and press notices a large national conference of leading Prohibitionists and reformers in the Central Methodist Episcopal Church, New York City. Before that conference she made one of her most impassioned appeals for unity among temperance workers, whereby the National Prohibition Alliance was led to unite formally with the Prohibition Reform party. The success of the New York conference led to a similar conference in Chicago the following year, August, 1882, which was arranged for by Mrs. Brown, and which was more successful than the one held in New York. Many of the old leaders of the Prohibition Reform party were induced to attend' the Chicago conference. At that conference Miss Frances E. Willard and her immediate following of Home Protectionists and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union were brought into the Prohibition party, besides many local organizations of temperance workers. Mrs. Brown thereupon dropped the non-partisan National Prohibition Alliance, believing that it had served its purpose. In the summer of 1882 Dr. and Mrs. Brown were elected to the presidency and vice-presidency of the Cincinnati Wesleyan College. The entire management of the institution has since devolved upon them, Mrs. Brown holding a professorship as well as the vice-presidency of the college. Among others she has received the degrees of Ph. D. and LL. D.
("American Women Fifteen Hundred Biographies" Vol 1 Publ. 1897 Transcribed by Marla Snow)

William Cabell Bruce
(1860- 1946)
Senate Years of Service: 1923-1929
Party: Democrat
BRUCE, William Cabell, a Senator from Maryland; born in Staunton Hill, Charlotte County, Va., March 12, 1860; received an academic education at Norwood High School and College, Nelson County, Va.; attended the University of Virginia at Charlottesville; graduated from the University of Maryland Law School at Baltimore in 1882; admitted to the Maryland bar the same year and commenced practice in Baltimore, Md.; lawyer and writer; received the Pulitzer Prize in 1917 for his biography of Benjamin Franklin; member, State senate 1894-1896, serving as president in 1896; head of the city law department of Baltimore 1903-1908; member, Baltimore Charter Commission 1910; general counsel to the Public Service Commission of Maryland 1910-1922, when he resigned; unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic nomination for United States Senator in 1916; elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1923, to March 3, 1929; unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1928; resumed the practice of law in Baltimore until 1937, when he retired; died in Ruxton, Baltimore County, Md., May 9, 1946; interment in St. Thomas Episcopal Church Cemetery, Garrison, Md.
Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present [Submitted by Anna Newell]

Franklin Buchanan
Admiral Franklin Buchanan by Charles Lee Lewis
Every U. S. schoolboy knows about the fight in Hampton Roads between the Monitor and the Merrimac, and about the naval battle in Mobile Bay, when Farragut said, "Damn the torpedoes! Jouett, full speed! Four bells, Captain Drayton!" But many a schoolboy's parents may have forgotten how one man played a principal role in both duels, was wounded in both. He was Franklin Buchanan, Admiral, Confederate States Navy.
     Franklin Buchanan, probably named after the late great Ben Franklin, was born in Baltimore in 1800. At 15 he entered the U. S. Navy as midshipman, at $19 a month, and, like other midshipmen, found it hard to buy all the proper uniforms on that pay. At 23 he served under Commodore David Porter against the Caribbean pirates. Six years later he went as third lieutenant to the famed frigate Constellation, four years older than himself, which had spouted broadsides against the French, the English, the pirates of Tripoli. In 1835 he married Anne Catherine Lloyd of Baltimore, who bore him eight children all daughters. When the Naval Academy at Annapolis was founded (1845), Buchanan was made Superintendent. A stern disciplinarian, he once unbent so far as to forward the following application from 38 cadets to the Secretary of the Navy: "Sir We the undersigned midshipmen of the Naval School at Annapolis respectfully request permission to wear our beards, with the exception of that portion of it upon the upper lip."
     When the Mexican War broke out (1846), there was no holding Sailor Buchanan: he applied for active service, was accepted, and saw it. "For services rendered in Mexico," he was officially complimented by the Maryland Legislature, presented with 160 acres in Iowa. The Civil War found him in command of Washington Navy Yard. He resigned, later asked to have his resignation reconsidered; was told curtly that his name had been "stricken from the rolls of the Navy." Sailor Buchanan said good-bye to his family, went to Richmond, became captain in the Confederate Navy. In March, 1862, in the reconditioned, ironclad Merrimac (rechristened the Virginia) he sallied out against the Union fleet blockading Norfolk. As they went into action, Sailor Buchanan spoke to his men. Said he: "Those ships must be taken, and you shall not complain that I do not take you close enough. Go to your guns!" Down went the U. S. S. Cumberland; the Congress went up in flames. Sailor Buchanan, wounded in the thigh, was promoted to Admiral. Soon after the Virginia's drawn battle with the Monitor, Norfolk was abandoned, the Virginia scuttled.
     Buchanan's last and best fight was at Mobile Bay, two years later. As the ironclad Tennessee headed for the midst of Farragut's squadron, Buchanan ordered his bow gun "not to fire until the vessels are in actual contact." Surrounded by three monitors and all of Farragut's battleships, "for more than an hour [the Tennessee) withstood the combined pounding of 200 guns." Buchanan's leg was broken. Said he: "Well, Johnston, they have got me again. You'll have to look out for her now; it is your fight." Soon after, the Tennessee ran up the white flag, Buchanan was taken prisoner. Exchanged in '65, he returned to Mobile, helped defend the city until its capture, then gave his parole. When the war was over, he left his family once more, but only for a year, when he went back to Mobile as Secretary and
     State Manager of the Alabama Branch of the Life Association of America. His last years were spent with his family in his mansion at Easton, Maryland, where Death came for him when he and the century were 74 years old.
     The Author.
Author Charles Lee Lewis specializes on naval warfare. His other books: Famous American Naval Officers; Life of Matthew Fontaine Maury, Pathfinder of the Seas; Famous Old-World Sea Fighters. [Time Magazine Monday, December 30, 1929 Submitted by Dena Whitesell]

Minnie S. Davis
DAVIS, Miss Minnie S., author and mental scientist, born in Baltimore, Md., 25th March, 1835. Her parents, Rev. S. A. and Mary Partridge Davis, were natives of Vermont, but moved to Baltimore soon after their marriage. In that city Mr. Davis was one of the earlier Universalist ministers. When about six years of age, Minnie was thrown from a carriage and one of the wheels passed across her back. The shock of that accident was afterwards supposed to be the cause of frequent illness and great delicacy of health. These circumstances kept the child by the mother's side, and the close companionship had a marked influence upon her future life, for the gifted mother became her constant instructor until her death in 1848. When seventeen years of age, Minnie entered the Green Mountain Institute, Woodstock, Vt. When she was eighteen, she had completed a book, "Clinton Forest," which was afterwards well received by the public. Miss Davis spent a year as a teacher. Writing claimed her attention, and soon "Marion Lester," another book, and perhaps her strongest and best was ready for the press, and was published in 1856. Three years later "Clinton Forest" was published and later "Rosalie." She had been a frequent contributor to the "Trumpet," "Christian Freeman" and local papers, and a regular contributor to the "Ladies' Repository." Of the last, Miss Davis was for five years associate editor with Mrs. Sawyer and Mrs. Soule. In 1863 she removed with her father's family to Hartford, Conn. A few months after going into her new home she fell down stairs, and that was the beginning of long years of helplessness, suffering and partial blindness. All known means for her restoration had been tried, but with only partial and temporary success. In 1885, when the wave of "Mental Healing" swept over the land and was accepted by those who were ready for the spiritual truth, Miss Davis was one of the first who recognized the reality of the philosophy. A friend visited her and offered to treat her according to the new method of healing. In four months the days of pain and the darkened room were but memories of the past. She then obtained the best teachers and studied with them the philosophy of healing, and went out in her turn to pass on the work, in which she has had unusual success. Teaching is evidently her forte, her lectures being clear, strong and logical. Miss Davis is interested in all the advanced movements of the day, in temperance, equal rights and everything that tends to the amelioration of the ills of humanity.
(American Women, by Frances Elizabeth Willard, Mary Ashton Rice Livermore, Volume 1, Publ. 1897, Transcribed by Marla Snow.)

Charles W. Hubner
Hubner, Charles W., author and journalist, was born in Baltimore, Md., of German parentage and was educated in Germany, making a specialty of music and the classics. During the Civil war he served in the Confederate army. After the war he became an editorial writer on the Constitution, the Evening Journal and other Atlanta papers. He has been connected with the Carnegie library in Atlanta ever since its establishment. Some of his productions are "Historical Souvenirs of Luther," "Wild Flowers," "The Wonder Stone," "Modern Communism," and "Poems and Essays." His poems are widely read.
(Source: Georgia Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events, Institutions, and Persons, Vol II, by Candler & Evans, Publ. 1906. Transcribed by Kim Mohler)

Ellen J. Dortch
DORTCH, Miss Ellen J., newspaper editor and publisher, was born in Georgia, 25th January, 1868. She is descended from Virginia families on both sides, and her ancestors have figured conspicuously in affairs of state. Her father, James S. Dortch, who died in August, 1891, was for a quarter of a century a prominent lawyer. Miss Dortch received a thorough education, which, with her progressive and enterprising spirit, has enabled her to take high rank as a journalist. She became the owner and editor of the Carnesville, Ga., "Tribune" in 1888, when the establishment consisted of one-hundred-fifty pounds of long primer type, mostly in "pi," a few cases of worn advertising type and a subscription book whose credit column had been conscientiously neglected. Now the old presses and worn type are replaced by new and improved ones, and the circulation of the paper has increased to thousands, and the energetic, spirited woman who has been typo, editor and business manager, who has solicited and canvassed the district for subscribers, because she wasn't able to hire any one to do it for her, has the satisfaction of seeing her efforts crowned with a full measure of success. Beginning the work when only seventeen years old, she has fought the boycotters and Alliance opponents and overcome the southern prejudice against women who use their brain in making their way in the world. After working for two years, she went to Baltimore, Md., where she studied for two years in the Notre Dame school. She resumed her work on the "Tribune" in June, 1890.
(American Women, Frances Elizabeth Willard, Mary Ashton Rice Livermore, Volume 1 Copyright 1897. Transcribed by Marla Snow.)

Gertrude Franklin
FRANKLIN, Miss Gertrude [Virginia H. Beatty], singer and musical educator, born in Baltimore, Md., of a wealthy and aristocratic family. She is a granddaughter of the late James Beatty, the millionaire, of Baltimore, and is also closely related to some of the oldest Maryland families. Miss Franklin early manifested musical gifts of an uncommon order, and while still young her education in music was begun. She soon gave promise of becoming a pianist of the first rank, but her tastes ran rather in a vocal than an instrumental direction, and, at the age of thirteen, prompted by her natural impulses and by the possession of a voice of sweetness and purity, she devoted her attention to singing. After pursuing her studies for a time in this country, she was at length induced by Signor Agramonte, with whom she had been studying, to go to Europe to complete her musical education. She went to London and became a pupil of Shakespeare, and then to Paris for two years, where she became a pupil of Madame Lagrange. She also studied with Professor Barbot, of the Conservatoire. Before leaving Paris, Miss Franklin appeared in a concert in the Salle Erard and achieved a flattering success, which was emphasized by immediate offers of concert engagements, and an offer from the Italian Opera management for a season of opera. Miss Franklin was in haste to reach London, where she made arrangements to study oratorio and English ballad music under Randegger, who was so pleased with her voice and method that he besought her to remain and make a career in England. Eager to return home after her prolonged absence, she declined that, and also an offer from Carl Rosa to join his English Opera Company. After her return to America she took an extended course of study under Madame Rudersdorff for oratorio and the more serious range of classical concert music. Miss Franklin has appeared in New York, Boston and Brooklyn in symphony concerts, and in classical and other concerts in most of the leading cities in America with success. She has also sung with marked favor in London and Paris, where her artistic worth is perhaps still more appreciated than it is in her own country. Miss Franklin is in constant receipt of offers for opera and concert tours in Europe and America, but she objects to the fatigue and excitement of travel and does not appear before the public as often as she otherwise would. Being financially independent, she prefers the quiet of home and occasional appearances in important concerts. Miss Franklin is fully as successful as a teacher, as she has been as a singer.
(American Women, Frances Elizabeth Willard, Mary Ashton Rice Livermore, Volume 1 Copyright 1897. Transcribed by Marla Snow.)

Marie E. Guzman
GUZMAN, Madame Marie Ester, social leader, born in Baltimore, Md. She is the wife of Sefior Don Horacio Guzman, minister from Nicaragua to the United States. Her grandfather, Hon. Samuel Ewing, belonged to the old Maryland family of that name. He was a member of the bar and a life-long resident of Philadelphia, Pa. Her father, Rev. Charles Henry Ewing, was a theologian. He married a Miss Page, of Virginia, and was also a resident of Philadelphia. Although Madame Guzman was born in Baltimore, while her parents were temporarily residing there, her early life was spent in Philadelphia, except the time she spent in Boston, studying the languages and music. The death of her mother occurred in her girlhood, and much responsibility rested on her in presiding over her father's household. While Senor Guzman was in this country, in 1878, attending the Jefferson College in Philadelphia, as a medical student, Miss Ewing met him. Senor Guzman was graduated, and after two years of acquaintance their marriage took place, and Dr. Guzman took his bride to Granada. His father, one of the former presidents of Granada, was an active politican, but Dr. Guzman, always devoted to medical science, built up a large and extensive practice in Granada and became a recognized leader in literature as well as medical science. Madame Guzman is a good musician, sings well, and is devoted to her home. She has studied every phase of life and character in Granada. Dr. Guzman was a delegate to the International Congress, and is one of the directors in the Nicaragua Ship Canal project. Madame Guzman is very found of company and entertains a good deal. She has no children.
(Source: American Women by Frances Elizabeth Willard, Mary Ashton Rice Livermore, Vol. 1, 1897. Transcribed by Marla Snow)

McDONOGH, John, philanthropist: b. Baltimore, Md., Dec. 29, 1779; d. McDonoghville, near New Orleans, La., Oct. 25, 1850. Son of John McDonogh, who was in Braddock's expedition of 1775 and also in the Revolution. After receiving an academic education, he entered commercial life at the age of seventeen in Baltimore. In 1800, already well-to-do, he came to New Orleans. At this time the man, who later passed for a miser and hermit, was much sought in society because of his charm of manner and person. His handsome house in the French quarter (Chartres and Toulouse Streets) was the scene of many brilliant entertainments. He is said to have fallen in love with Donna Micaela, daughter of Don Andres Almonester, founder of the Cathedral, aristocrat and capitalist. Legend has it, however, that it was the daughter of a Baltimore merchant settled in New Orleans who caused the great change in his life. The parents of the girl opposed the match because of difference in religion, and the girl entered the Ursuline Convent. McDonogh retired to his plantation across the river. He grew rapidly richer in the commission and shipping business.
In 1818 he was elected United States senator, but in later years had little to do with his fellow citizens. He was reputed a miser, but was kind to his slaves; built them a church, housed them comfortably and paid them wages in order that they might buy their freedom. He believed that the two races could not live together if the negroes were free, but he was opposed to slavery. He was a member of the American Colonization Society, and made it a condition that his freed slaves should return to Africa. In 1841 he sent eighty self-freed negroes to Liberia, and a second cargo, freed by his will, sailed in 1856. In 1830 he was elected vice-president of the American Colonization Society and left it a generous sum in his will. At his death the people found that his apparent miserliness had been for their benefit.
He left a fortune of about $2,000,000, chiefly in real estate, the greater portion of which was to be divided between the cities of Baltimore and New Orleans for the founding of free schools. The will was in litigation till 1855. The city of Baltimore then obtained an estate of about 800 acres and established a free school of scientific farming. In New Orleans the fund, somewhat depleted by litigation, loss occasioned by the war, and mismanagement, was finally, entrusted to a commission and invested in sound bonds. All the McDonogh schools, the basis of the public school system of New Orleans, have been built with this fund, about $200,000 of which yet remains in bonds.
[Source: THE SOUTH in the Building of the Nation Volume XI; Edited by James Curtis Ballagh, Walter Lynwood Fleming & Southern Historical Publication Society; Publ. 1909; Transcribed and submitted by Andrea Stawski Pack]

Hon. Charles Wells Russell
Hon. Charles W. Russell was a distinguished man in Northwestern Virginia prior to the rebellion. He was a man of unusual brilliancy as well as the possessor of solid parts and great learning. He was distinguished both in law and in politics, and possessed almost unlimited influence among the people of his section of the State. He died just as his sun had reached its noon, and left an untarnished name as a heritage to his devoted family.
Mr. Russell was born at Sistersville, Tyler County, Virginia, July 19, 1818. During his earlier years he received a common school education, and as he was growing into manhood he went to Wheeling and became a student at Linsly Institute, and later finished his general education by graduating from Jefferson College at Cannonsburgh, Pennsylvania. He subsequently studied law in the office of the late Z. Jacob at Wheeling; and after being admitted to the bar practiced his profession in Wheeling, with unusual success, until the breaking out of the war in 1861. He then went South and served two, if not three, terms in the Virginia Legislature. He was also a member of the House of Representatives in both the "Provisional" and the "Permanent" Congress of the Southern Confederacy. In these Legislative and forensic bodies, as well as at the bar, his great powers as an orator and debator were demonstrated. In these particulars but few of the great Virginians of his time were his equal.
At the end of the war he went to Canada, where he remained until the Spring of 1866, when he settled in Baltimore, and resumed the practice of law. He was becoming well established as a leading attorney at that distinguished bar when he died, November 22, 1867, leaving a widow and three sons.
He married Margaret, daughter of the late Henry Moore of Wheeling, and hail three sons, two of whom — Henry Moore Russell — who practiced law in the city of Wheeling, and became one of the leading lawyers of that section, and, as a matter of fact, of the entire State of West Virginia, who died before reaching the age of sixty, in the midst of his usefulness and success. The other son, Charles W. Russell, Jr., who spent many years as an attorney in the Judiciary Department at Washington, and for several years ably filled the office as an Assistant Attorney-General of the United States. He was also several years Minister of the United States at the capitol of Persia, and is at this time a resident of Washington, D. C. Henry M. Russell, Jr., son of the late Henry M. Russell, is now a successful lawyer in the city of Wheeling.
[Bench and bar of West Virginia edited by George Wesley Atkinson, 1919 – Transcribed by AFOFG]