1666 as one of the Commissioners of Peace when Somerset County was
formed. He became a wealthy landowner and served in the General
Assembly, a member of Lord Baltimore's Privy Council, a colonel in the
militia and a Deputy Governor under the proprietary. But we are not
concerned with his titles and his honors. The striking characteristic of
William Stevens was his attitude toward the people among whom he
lived, for in the best sense of these terms he was both liberal and tolerant.
He was a strict Church of England man, but he was friendly with the
Quakers and encouraged the evangelism that was carried on by the
several nonconformist sects of his area. It was a result of his appeal to the
Presbytery of Laggan, in the north of Ireland, to send a "Godly minister"
to Somerset County, that Presbyterianism was implanted in the lower
Eastern Shore. And when, during the upsurge of Protestantism that led
to the designation of his church as the established church of the colony,
the Roman Catholic proprietor was attacked by sectarian interests.
William Stevens signed a document in defense of Lord Baltimore.

This zeal for freedom, religious and civil, was the outstanding trait
of the men and women who settled "the Eastern Shore below the
Choptank. " It was this zeal for freedom that bore fruit a century later
in such immortal documents as the Bill of Rights in our federal Con-
stitution and the Declaration of Rights in the first Constitution of Mary-
land as one of the states of the new Union.

To these noble forebearers of ours we and our progeny are eternally in-
debted. It is most fitting on this occasion that we turn our minds and our
hearts to them in gratitude. The tradition they established has been
nurtured through the years by institutions such as the one whose anni-
versary we are celebrating today—this Christ Church built nearly a cen-
tury before our Republic was created.

In the shadows of this church lie the earthly remains of many dis-
tinguished men who have graced the history of Maryland, among them
five Governors. A sixth Governor was a member of the church who is
buried in another cemetery here in Cambridge. Buried in the churchyard
are John Henry, the seventh Governor; Charles Goldsborough, of that
illustrious Eastern Shore family; Henry Lloyd, of another distinguished
Eastern Shore family; Phillips Lee Goldsborough, who, like, myself,
was Comptroller of the Treasury before he became Governor,
and Emerson C. Harrington, our World War I Governor whom we
remember with affection and esteem, and who likewise served his State
as Comptroller before he became Governor. A communicant, but buried
in Cambridge cemetery, was Thomas Hicks, who served as Governor
during that turbulent period at the beginning of the Civil War.

361