Archives of Maryland
(Biographical Series)
Robert Eden (1741-1784)
MSA SC 3520-391
Governor of Maryland, 1769-1776 under Restored Proprietary Government
Biographical Profile:
Born: September 14, 1741 in England1
Father: Robert Eden2
Mother: Mary (Davison) Eden3
Education: received a classical education4
Religious Affiliation: Anglican5
Marriage: April 26, 1765 to Caroline Calvert6
Children: Frederick Morton, William Thomas, Catherine7
Military Service:
Lieutenant fireworker, Royal Regiment of Artillery, England, 1757;
Coldstream Guards, England, 1758;
Promoted to lieutenant and then captain, 1762;
Commander in chief, provincial forces, Maryland, 1768-768
Positions:
Owner and breeder of racehorses
Governor of Maryland, 1768-76 (commissioned in 1768; arrived in Maryland
in 1769);
Surveyor General of Western Shore, 1771-76;
Commissioner, sale of proprietary manors and reserved lands, 17719
Died: September 2, 1784 in Annapolis, Anne Arundel
County10
Buried: Old St. Margaret's churchyard, Anne Arundel
County; reinterred in St. Anne's churchyard, Annapolis11
Notes on sources
Biography:
Born
September 14, 1741, the second son of Sir Robert Eden, Bt. of West
Auckland, Eden grew up at the family estate in Durham, England. At the
age of 16, he joined the Royal Regiment of Artillery, and a year later
the Coldstream Guards with whom he served in Germany in the Seven Years
War, earning him a captainship at 21. His early accomplishments and
family's prominence assisted him in the courtship and marraige of
Caroline Calvert, the favorite sister of the last Lord Baltimore and
proprietor of Maryland, Frederick Calvert.
Eden's time in both
England and America were marked by his reputation for luxurious tastes
and gambling, causing significant debts on both sides of the ocean.
Joshua Sharpe wrote of the young proprietary governor to his brother,
"Capt Eden that married his Lordship's sister had by extravagant living
& gaming run himself into such streights & difficulties that he
could not well continue longer [in England], & that they had no
other means of providing for him but by appointing him Governor of
Maryland."[1] Joshua Johnson reinforced Sharpe's gossip when he wrote
of the fate of Eden's interactions with one mercantile company in a
1773 letter to a friend: "I presume it will not be amiss to caution you
against running too deep with Governor Eden; he owes very large sums
here. They tell me that [his debt to] Perkins, Buchanan & Brown
amounts to £5,000. Take the hint and get out as soon as you can for
fear of the consequences."[2]
Despite the rumors and
reservations of some supporters or proprietary governor, Horatio
Sharpe, on June 5, 1769, Eden, his wife, and two young sons arrived in
the port of Annapolis to fanfare. His initial task, to significantly
remodel and furnish the Eden-Jennings House was one of his most
expensive private endeavours under his governorship. In the position,
Eden's time as governor was marked with a societal and cultural focus,
rather than political. In 1772, he laid the cornerstone of the Maryland
State House.
When tensions broke out between the colonies and
Britain, Eden's position becames tenuous. His wife and children
returned to England in 1772, while he remained in Annapolis. Maryland
was operating under two governments, the proprietary and the
revolutionary, at the same time. Pressure increased to depose Eden, but
Maryland was slow to act. Other states and Congress quickly took
notice, and Charles Lee wrote in outrage, "What poor mortals are these
Maryland Council men! I hope the Congress will write a letter to the
People of that Province at large advising 'em to get rid of their
damn'd Government. Their aim is to continue feudal Lords to a
Tryant."[3]
After the discovery of correspondence with Virginia
royal governor, Lord Dunmore, Robert Eden was finally ordered to
peacefully leave Maryland in June 1776. Eden was originally permitted
to bring some of his belongings with him to England. However, this
order was changed when the ship's captain refused to return some slaves
who had escaped onto the ship in the night. Though not belonging to
Eden, the state ordered him to return the slaves, and when the captain,
who Eden had deferred to as command of the ship refused, Eden's
property was confiscated as punishment by the state. Upon his return to
England, Eden received the title: 1st Baronet of Maryland in honor of
his service.
Even during the war, Eden maintained connections
with several of his old friends - including George Washington. Prior to
the war, a citizen of Annapolis remembered, "General
Washington...always staid with [Eden] when in this city. They resembled
in stature. I had seen them walk arm in arm."[4] Even during the war,
Eden and Washington maintained limited correspondence passed through
Eden's brother, William. Washington, with a note of emotion, wrote to
William Eden, "The [letter] from your Brother gave me particular
satisfaction, as it not only excited a pleasing remembrance of our past
intimacy and friendship, during his residence in this Country, but also
served to show that they had not been impaired by an opposition of
political sentiments."[5]
In August 1783, Eden returned to
Annapolis with his secretary Robert Smith, his creditor John Clapham,
and the 6th Lord Baltimore's illegitimate son, Henry Harford, to seek
compensation for their confiscated property. Despite the events of the
past several years, Harford and Eden attended many public gatherings
while in Marlyand, including, most famously, George Washington's
resignation as commander-in-chief in the State House's Old Senate
Chamber. At a ball thrown by the governor, William Paca, in the
residence that had formerly been Eden's home, James McHenry observed:
Sir
Robert Eden would have persuaded one by being of the party, that he had
lost all remembrance of his having been the owner of the house in which
he danced, and late governor of Maryland -- but the thing could not be,
where every person he met, and every picture and piece of furniture he
saw, served to remind him of the past, or brought up the recollection
of pleasures he could no longer repeat. This state has taken away his
property, and a libertine life his constitution. He finds himself a
dependent on persons he despised, and insignificant on the spot where,
but lately he was every thing. He sees his old parasites and companions
enjoying places under the present government, and devoted to new
interests. He is without a train of followers obedient to his pleasing
will. He perceives, that even the hearts he is said to have subdued by
his entertainments or warmed by his gallantries have altered by time or
submitted to other seducers. If we look for the cause of his return to
this place in his pride -- that would not suffer him to sue for favors,
from men he so lately considered as rebels. If in his interest, he will
be blamed for meanness. If in his poverty, he is certainly to be
pitied. So situated and circumstanced I could neither believe him happy
or at his ease, unless I had supposed, that, with his estate and
constitution he had lost his sensibility.[6]
In her
account of Washington's resignation, Molly Ridout suggested, "Sir
R[obert] Eden seems in bad health. He does not flirt now."[7] The last
proprietary governor died several months later, on September 2, 1784 at
the age of 43, in Maryland. He was unsuccessful in recovering any of
his property.
Upon his death, Eden had been buried near the
alter of the second St. Margaret's Church, which burned down in the
first half of the 19th century. For over a hundred years, his grave
site had been lost to time, until an archaeological expedition
uncovered his bones in 1924. On June 5, 1926, Eden was interred in his
final resting place at St. Anne's in Annapolis in a grave designed by
J. Appleton Wilson and Howard Still.
[1] Ridout Papers, MSA SCM D373 item 184. Joshua Sharpe to Horatio Sharpe, 6 August 1768.
[2] Price, Jacob M., ed., Joshua Johnson's Letterbook, 1771-1774. London Record Society, 1979, p.93.
[3] Charles Lee Papers, Collections of the New York Historical Society for the Year 1872, p.96.
[4] Mrs. Rebecca Key, "A Notice of Some of the First Buildings with Notes of Some of the Early Residents," Maryland Historical Magazine, XIV (1919), p.270.
[5] George Washington to William Eden, 12 June 1778. John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources. University of Virginia Library, vol. 12 p. 52.
[6] James McHenry to Margaret Caldwell, 21 December 1783. Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1774-1789, vol. 21, p.218.
[7]
Mrs. James N. Galloway and Mrs. Frederick G. Richards Collection, 1784,
MSA SC 358-1-2. Letter, Mary Ridout to Mrs. Anne Tasker Ogle, 16
January 1784.
Link to New Dictionary of National Biography
Entry
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