Michael Taney (b. 1750 - d. 1820)
MSA SC 5496-050789
War of 1812 Claimant, Calvert County, Maryland
Biography:
Michael Taney was born in 1750 to Michael and Jane (Doyne) Taney in Calvert County, Maryland. He was commonly called Miles by his close family and friends. He attended the college of English Jesuits at St. Omer's and later at Bruge, France. Taney married Monica Brooke (1752-1814) on June 25, 1771, at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in St. Mary's County. They had the following children: Michael, Roger Brooke (1777-1864), Augustus (1787-1823), Octavius C. (?-1832), Dorothy, Sophia Y., and Alice.
Taney was involved in Calvert County society, working as a coroner from 1777-1785. He served as the first Lieutenant of the Calvert County Militia from 1776-1778, as a member of the Lower House, Calvert County, from 1781-82, 1784-88, and 1797-98, and as Lieutenant-Colonel, 31st Maryland Regiment, from 1812-1815. As a member of the House of Delegates, Taney moved to abolish property qualifications for voting or holding office in 1797. His sons Michael, Roger, and Octavius all later served in public offices.
Michael Taney owned approximately twenty-seven slaves in Calvert County, employing an overseer named William Brinkley. In 1814, British officers under the command of Captain Joseph Nourse forcibly removed twenty-one of Taney's slaves from his property, lying on the Patuxent River. The slaves were taken to Captain Nourse's ship, the Severn. Taney believed that his slaves were carried down to the Tangier Islands. At the time Michael Taney relocated his family, furniture, and stock a safe distance away from the family home.
On July 1, 1819, Taney killed his neighbor John Magruder in a duel. He fled to Virginia, and on July 15, 1819, he conveyed all of his property to his sons, Roger and Octavius C. They, in turn, were to pay him $1,000 a year from the profits of the estate. Michael Taney died circa March 1820, in Loudon County, Virginia, from injuries sustained in a fall from a horse. Two of Taney's slaves returned his body to Maryland for burial in the family cemetery in Calvert County, Maryland.
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