Stevenson Archer, Jr. (1828-1898)
MSA SC 3520-1547
Biography:
Stevenson Archer was born on February 28, 1828, at "Medical Hall", near Churchville, Harford County, the youngest of eight children of Judge Stevenson Archer and Pamelia Barney (Hays) Archer. His grandfather, Dr. John Archer, who had established a medical school at his home, "Medical Hall", in the 1780s, was a member of both the Maryland House of Delegates and the U.S. Congress. Judge Stevenson Archer, also a member of the Maryland House and U.S. Congress, served on the Maryland Court of Appeals from 1824 until his death in 1848.
Stevenson Archer graduated from Princeton University in 1846 and studied law in the office of Otho Scott in Belair, Harford County. He was admitted to the bar in 1850 and practiced in Belair. In 1854 he represented Harford County as a Whig in the House of Delegates. The following year, Archer married Blanche Franklin (ca. 1835-1919) of Tennessee. Also called Jane Cage Franklin, she was the daughter of Smith and Elizabeth Cage of Sumner County, Tennessee. The Archer's children included Estelle (Stella), Frances (Fannie), Stevenson, Blanche, and Percy. The family lived at "Hazel Dell" near Belair.
Archer was elected as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives and served from 1867 until 1875 where he was a member of the Naval Committee. He was also a delegate to the Democratic National Conventions of 1868 and 1876. He chaired the Democratic State Central Committee from 1887 to 1889.
In 1886 Archer was elected to his first term as state treasurer. He was said to have "won great favor in the discharge of his duty" and was reelected in 1888 and 1890. Shortly after the beginning of his third term, however, the president of the Merchants' National Bank of Baltimore, Douglas H. Thomas, became suspcious that Treasurer Archer was misusing state securities and notified Comptroller L. Victor Baughman of his fears. Baughman in turn reported to Governor Elihu E. Jackson and the General Assembly that he suspected the treasurer of misappropriating state funds. An investigative committee made up of members of the General Assembly including Senators John P. Poe and John Walter Smith and Delegates Frank T. Shaw, Philip D. Laird and William C. Harden uncovered a shortage of over $132,000 that had been amassed between May 1887 and April 1890. Archer was arrested at his home in Belair on April 10, 1890, and charged with "fraudulently embezzling or appropriating to his own use" monies belonging to the state. The committee met with the governor at Annapolis on April 15 in order to remove Archer from office and to appoint Edwin H. Brown of Queen Anne's County his successor. All of Archer's personal property was transfered to the men who had given the $200,000 bond required for him to take office. At his trial in the Criminal Court of Baltimore City, Archer pleaded guilty to the indictment and offered no defense or explanation of his actions. A letter from Archer to the court stated simply, "No part of the State's money or securities was ever used by me in gambling, stock speculation, or for political purposes; nor have I at this time one dollar of it left." Archer's friends speculated that the money was used to fund state Democratic campaigns, but the investigative committee found that that had not been the case. Instead the committee found that Archer's motivation appeared to have been personal. The committee reported on June 13, 1890 that at the time of Archer's first election as state treasurer in 1886, he had been deeply in debt to the tune of over $100,000 and that the state's money had been used to meet pressing personal financial obligations. As Archer's arrest appeared imminent in early April 1890, Senator Arthur Pue Gorman remarked that the treasurer's salary was too small. "The office only pays $2,500 a year--a miserable pittance--while the bond required amounts to $200,000. There are but few men in Maryland who would be acceptable [as Archer's replacement] that would take the place. The salary is too small." ("The Salary is too Small." The Evening Capital, 9 April 1890.)
Archer was sentenced to five years in the Maryland Penitentiary and served until May 1894 when Governor Frank Brown pardoned him upon recommendation of the General Assembly and a "very large number of prominent citizens." Archer's health had failed drastically in the four years since his arrest, and upon his release he was admitted to Baltimore City Hospital where he remained until his death.
On August 2, 1898, at 5:30 p.m., Stevenson Archer succumbed to a combination of "blood trouble" and "mental worry." His body was returned to Belair where his funeral was held at Emmanual Protestant Episcopal Church. Burial was in the family plot in the Presbyterian Church Cemetery in Churchville.
Karen Dunaway, Research Archivist at the Maryland State Archives, and by the Legislative History Project of the Maryland State Archives, Biographical Profiles of the Treasurers of the Eastern Shore 1775-1843, Treasurers of the Western Shore 1775-1852, State Treasurers 1852-1984, 1984.
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