Michael Wallace
MSA SC 3520-1314
Biography:
Michael Wallace was born on June 20, 1749 in Cecil County.[1] His father, also named Michael Wallace, was a successful farmer who owned a considerable amount of land and slaves. Michael Sr. and his wife, Sarah, had seven other children named Rachel, Catherine, Mary, John, David, Sarah, and Elisabeth.[2]
By 1774, Wallace had become a well-known doctor in Annapolis. In April of that year, he was involved in an exciting incident regarding a British ship called Chance. The ship carried indentured servants who were reportedly stricken with disease. The Maryland government, upon hearing this, immediately quarantined the ship a mile from shore and forbade any of her passengers from coming ashore. On April 14, Wallace was chosen to examine the ship and her passengers. He reported that the indentured servants were “none of them dangerously Ill, the most of them much recovered and recruiting daily,” and believed that upon “removing on Shore soon recover.”[3]
Two years later, on January 14, 1776, Wallace joined Colonel William Smallwood’s battalion of Maryland troops as the surgeon’s mate.[4] The job of the surgeon’s mate was to assist the surgeon however necessary in their dual roles as surgeons and doctors. In July of 1776, after months of training in Annapolis, the First Maryland Regiment was sent to join the Continental Army in New York in preparation for a major British attack. On August 27, 1776, this attack, later known as the Battle of Brooklyn, arrived.
The battle was a disaster for the Continental Army. It was quickly outflanked in the course of the battle and soldiers were forced to retreat by swimming through Gowanus Creek under relentless enemy fire. The entire Continental Army and George Washington himself faced imminent destruction as a result. They were spared, however, by the bravery of a group of soldiers who came to be known as the Maryland 400. In the midst of the frantic retreat, the Maryland 400 launched a daring counterattack and held off the British long enough for Washington and his army to escape annihilation. Two hundred and fifty-six Maryland soldiers were either killed or captured in the process.
As the Continental Army’s retreat from New York continued through the fall of 1776, the role of medical officers like Wallace became increasingly important. The number of sick and wounded men was staggering and ever-increasing. Conflict between regimental surgeons and the Hospital Department, however, inhibited their care.
Tensions between these two factions were mostly due to an alarming lack of supplies. Regimental surgeons believed they were entitled to demand anything from the general hospital’s supply. The Hospital Department disagreed, however, and limited the amount of medical supplies they gave to regimental units.[5] When regimental and general hospital surgeons arrived at White Plains, regimental surgeons were again disappointed by the stores brought by the general surgeons. Many regimental surgeons even failed to show up at White Plains.[6] It is not known for certain whether or not Wallace was present to tend to his regiment. Colonel Smallwood himself was involved in the conflict between general and regimental medical units. He removed his men from the general hospital and insisted that his men would receive better care “in a comfortable house in the country, and supplied with only common rations.”[7]
In September 1776, Wallace was promoted to surgeon.[8] Wallace most likely witnessed the American victories at Trenton and Princeton in the winter of 1776-1777 shortly after. In the summer of 1777, however, Wallace and his assistants were most likely overwhelmed with wounded men from the bloody battles of Brandywine and Germantown in the fateful Philadelphia Campaign.
The strain between regimental and general surgeons that plagued the early days of the army continued throughout the war. On January 9, 1778, multiple surgeons from the Maryland Line resigned. They cited the “injustice & Insult that has been offered to [their] profession,” the “general contempt that Regimental Surgeons & Assistants are held in,” and “the little Benefit we can be of to [soldiers] from our being furnished with nothing necessary to relieve their Wants & distresses” as their reasons for leaving.[9] Wallace, however, did not resign alongside his fellow surgeons. He remained with the First Regiment throughout 1778 and into early 1779, even suffering a few periods of illness himself.[10]
On August 18, 1780, Wallace married Eleanor Lee Contee, the daughter of Colonel Thomas Contee and Sarah Fendall Contee, who were very prominent in Maryland society.[11] Just a year later, the couple had their first child, Sarah Fendall Wallace, born on August 24, 1781.[12] Another daughter, Eleanor Lee Wallace, was born soon after on December 9, 1782.[13] Wallace’s third daughter, Catherine Lloyd Wallace, was born on September 5, 1784. Catherine died just three weeks later, however, on September 29.[14]
In 1785, Wallace was appointed as a Justice, the head of the county court, in Cecil County.[15] Wallace’s appointment reveals that he was held in high regard in his community. He filled this position for the remainder of his life.
On December 8, 1785, the Wallace family had another daughter, also named Catherine Lloyd Wallace.[16] Wallace spent the following year, 1786, acquiring land. He bought multiple tracts of land from his brothers, Thomas and David. These tracts, called Lydia’s Jointure, Lydia’s Choice, Mount Pleasant, Contention, Edmiston’s Plantation, and Laurel Banks, had been in the Wallace family for generations.[17] While his brothers Thomas and David Wallace had inherited these lands from their father, Michael’s place as one of the younger sons of the family forced him to buy them. These purchases amounted to 1,164 acres.[18]
Wallace deepened his involvement in the public sphere in 1786 with an election to the House of Delegates from Cecil County.[19] In December of 1786, while the House of Delegates was in session, tragedy struck the Wallace family. Their daughters Catherine Lloyd and Sarah Fendall died within three days of each other on December 20 and December 23.[20] Wallace excused himself from session to return home to his family during this time.[21]
Wallace was honored with another appointment to a public office in 1787, this time as a Justice in Cecil County’s Orphan’s Court. He filled this role until at least 1792.[22] This public success, however, was marred by personal strife. In July 1787, Wallace’s wife, Eleanor Lee gave birth to a son who died extremely young.[23] She died shortly thereafter on July 26, 1787 at her father’s house after a short illness. She was remembered “with peculiar pleasure, that in the several capacities of wife, mother, daughter, sister, and friend, none will be dishonoured by treading in her steps, nor disgraced by imitating her manners- which were mild and endearing.”[24]
Wallace passed away at midnight on September 29, 1794 after a “short and violent” illness. His death was “felt, not only by his family connections, but by his neighbors and the community; to whom, as he was endeared by his social qualities, so he was eminently useful as a physician and as a magistrate.”[25]
Wallace was survived by his daughter, Eleanor Lee, the only child to reach adulthood. On October 30, 1804, she married Joseph Kent, who was the governor of Maryland from 1826 to 1829. Eleanor Lee died at the very beginning of her husband’s term on August 14, 1826.[26]
Jillian Curran, Explore America Research Intern, 2019
Notes:
[2] Will of Michael Wallace, 1773, Cecil County Register of Wills, Wills, Liber BB 2, p. 371 [MSA C646-2, 1/11/14/10].
[3] Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, October 1773 to April 1774, Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 64, p. 438-439; Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 64, preface 29.
[5] Mary C. Gillett, The Army Medical Department, 1775-1818. (Washington D.C.: Center of Military History, 1981), 31.
[6] Gillett, 72.
[7] Gillett, 31.
[8] Pay Abstract, First Maryland Regiment, September 1776, Maryland State Papers, Revolutionary Papers, box 6, no. 5, MdHR 19970-6-5 [MSA S997-6-6, 1/7/3/11].
[9] Compiled Service Records of Soldiers Who Served in the American Army During the Revolutionary War, NARA M881, p. 1-7, from Fold3.com.
[10] Compiled Service Records.
[11] Papenfuse, et al., 856-857.
[12] Papenfuse, et al., 856-857.
[13] Effie Gwynn Bowie, Across the Years in Prince George’s County. (Genealogical Publishing Company, 1975), 230.
[14] Papenfuse, et al., 856-857.
[15] Papenfuse, et al., 856-857.
[16] Papenfuse, et al., 856-857.
[17] Cecil County Court, Land Records, Agreement, Eleanor and Michael Wallace, 1786, vol. 16, p. 17 [MSA CE 133-18]; Cecil County Court, Land Records, Deed, Michael Wallace from Thomas Wallace and Wife, 1786, vol. 16, p. 91 [MSA CE 133-18].
[18] Papenfuse, et al., 856-857.
[19] Papenfuse, et al., 856-857.
[20] Papenfuse, et al., 856-857.
[21] Votes and Proceedings of the House of Delegates, 1786, Early State Records Online, p. 617.
[23] Papenfuse, et al., 856-857.
[24] “Nottingham, Patuxent, 21 July 1787,” Maryland Gazette (Annapolis, MD), 2 August 1787.
[25] Baltimore Daily Intelligencer (Baltimore, MD), September 1794.
[26] Heinrich Ewald Buchholz, Governors of Maryland From the Revolution to the Year 1908. (Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins Company, 1908), 103.
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