The Maryland State Houses

During our recent travels, my wife and I revisited Historic St. Mary's City, the first colonial capital of Maryland between 1634 and 1695. We were there for the first time during our honeymoon three decades ago. Since then a lot of work has been done to excavate the archaeological sites and even to rebuild some of the buildings that once stood there. To our delight, our distinguished hosts, Dr. Henry Miller and Ruth Mitchell, treated us as honoured guests and devoted an entire morning to us, guiding us through the most important places that had once served the early English colonists. Nancy and I were most favourably impressed by what is being done to bring Maryland's history alive for a 21st-century public. Indeed, while we were there, we saw a group of school children touring the site. I rather imagine that these constitute a large portion of the visitors.

As a political scientist, I was naturally most interested in the Maryland State House, originally erected in 1676 and reconstructed in 1934. Nancy and I had stood inside this building in 1996 before I knew anything about my own ancestors' possible connection with the place. I say possible connection because in the early decades the colonial assembly, which went by different names depending on developments in the British Isles, met in different buildings, including people's homes. Given that Cornelius Howard served in the assembly between 1671 and 1675, he would have been among the legislators whose meeting places varied with circumstances. But it is possible that the new State House was under construction during his last months in the assembly.

1676 State House

 

1676 Maryland State House, interior

As for Nicholas Gassaway, he almost certainly would have sat in the 1676 State House during his brief term of service. John Hammond would probably have served both here and in the new State House in Annapolis after the capital moved there in 1695. Of course Hammond died in the new capital and was buried, as noted in my previous post, in St. Anne's Parish churchyard. Where Gassaway was buried is apparently unknown, according to this source. But I did visit St. Anne's Cemetery, a few blocks away from the church, and saw several headstones for latter-day Gassaways, likely distant cousins of ours.

Maryland State House, Annapolis

 

Maryland State House, Annapolis

The political structure of Maryland during this era was that of a typical English-style government, as replicated in many of the colonies. As Maryland was a proprietary colony until 1689, the Lords Baltimore were proprietors, counterparts to the monarch in the motherland. During the 1671-1674/75 assemblies, Charles Calvert was governor, with two more Calverts serving in the Upper House, colonial counterpart to the House of Lords. A smaller body than the Lower House, its ten members were largely appointed to their offices. The Lower House, numbering 46 members, was counterpart to the House of Commons, its members elected under a restricted franchise from the 11 counties. Howard was one of these delegates from, as noted earlier, Anne Arundel County, named for the wife of Cecil Calvert, the 2nd Lord Baltimore. Like most such arrangements, political life was characterized by some degree of tension between the proprietors and the assembly—between monarchical and aristocratic principles, if you will.

The Calverts were eventually deprived of the proprietorship after the Glorious Revolution. Restored to them in 1715, Maryland was lost again during the War for Independence, never to be regained. The Barony of Baltimore itself became extinct in 1771, four years before the outbreak of hostilities. By then the feudal notion of proprietorship was being supplanted by a more developed understanding of Maryland as a political community of citizens, something I explore in general terms in my most recent book, Citizenship Without Illusions. This year, of course, marks the 250th anniversary of American independence, with many of our ancestors playing a role on both sides of the ensuing struggle.

More to come on our travels and discoveries.