L. Victor Baughman (1845-1906)
MSA SC 3520-1568
Biography:
Born in Frederick, April 11, 1845. Son of J. (John) William Baughman (d. 1872) and Mary Jane (Jamison) Baughman. Attended public and private schools in Frederick; Mount St. Mary's College, Emmitsburg, Maryland, late 1850s; studied law under Enoch Louis Lowe in Brooklyn, New York, 1870-72. Married Helen Abell in 1881; children E. Austin, Helen Abell (m. Conley). Resided at "Poplar Terrace" near Frederick. Died there on November 30, 1906.
L. Victor "Vic" Baughman was a farmer and a horseman who practiced law for a time with former governor Enoch Louis Lowe. During the Civil War he served in Company D, First Regiment of Maryland Confederate Cavalry, attaining the rank of general. From 1857 to 1861 he was an appraiser of the port of Baltimore. After 1872 he was managing editor along with his two brothers of the Frederick Citizen, a democratic paper founded by his father. In 1886 he was nominated for a seat in the U.S. Congress in the Sixth Congressional District but was defeated by incumbent Louis E. McComas. He served two terms as comptroller of the treasury, from 1888 to 1892. A political ally of Senator Arthur Pue Gorman and personal friend of Judge James McSherry, Baughman was a leading figure in the Democratic party in Frederick County and in Maryland, as illustrated by his nickname, "little Napoleon of Western Maryland." He served two terms as president of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company and was president of the Frederick, Northern & Gettysburg Electric Railway Company after 1898. With Gorman he co-directed the Washington branch of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad after 1901. He served on the staff of Governor John Walter Smith from 1900 to 1904. He was chairman of the Maryland Commission to the Louisiana Purchase Exposition at St. Louis as well as chairman of the Frederick County Democratic Committee. He was a member of the Maryland State Democratic Committee and succeeded Gorman as Democratic National Committeeman. He was also a delegate to numerous Democratic national conventions. He was a member of the Metropolitan Club of Washington, the Maryland Club, the Merchants Club of Baltimore, and the Elk Ridge Fox Hunting Club. After Gorman's death in June of 1906, it was said that Baughman would be among the few Democratic party leaders in the state who would then dictate party policy. He declared his intentions to stand for the governorship in the fall 1907 elections, but ill health prevented him from entering the race. Although business and politics often took him away from Frederick, Baughman was said to have been the happiest at home on the large and productive farm called "Poplar Terrace." At his farm, Baughman entertained such notables as James Cardinal Gibbons, archibishop of Baltimore, and national politician William Jennings Bryan who passed through Maryland on his first presidential campaign tour.
As comptroller of the treasury in 1890, Baughman was made aware that a "misappropriation of the State securities" had been made by his colleague, state treasurer Stevenson Archer. Baughman was compelled to report that information to Governor Elihu E. Jackson and the House of Delegates which he submitted on March 26, 1890, fulfilling the original charge made by the authors of Maryland's 1851 constitution for the comptroller to serve as a check on the treasurer. The investigating committee was not fully satisfied with Baughman's performance, however, and condemned him for "failing to investigate the treasurer's conduct in selling West Virginia Central bonds without consultation with the Governor or comptroller. 'It would seem,' [said] the committee, 'to fall within the range of his (the comptroller's) duties to make diligent inquiry into all such transactions, especially in view of the fact that they cannot be consummated without his warrant.'" ("Report of the Archer Committee." The Baltimore Sun, 13 June 1890.) Baughman and several comptrollers before him had failed to witness the treasurer cancel the state bonds and securities bought for the sinking fund as the law required. Although Baughman had not been in office at the time of Archer's first act of misappropriation of state funds and the crime of embezzlement was clearly committed by Archer alone, the investigative committee placed a share of the responsibility on the comptroller and governor, whose "neglect of official duty" had "made further misappropriatons possible." ("Report of the Archer Committee." and "Ex-Treasurer Archer: Report of the Joint Legislative Committee of Investigation." The Baltimore Sun, 13 June 1890.)
In 1891, during Baughman's second term as comptroller, the state of Maryland was reimbursed for the money it had paid to the U.S. treasury as its share of the direct tax that had been levied on the states by the federal government to pay for expenses associated with fighting the Civil War. In his Annual Report of the Comptroller of the Treasury Department for the Fiscal Year Ended September 30, 1891 to the General Assembly of Maryland dated January 5, 1892, Baughman reported that Maryland had paid its quota of $371,299.83 and that after that amount was returned to the state treasury, it should be credited to the Defence Redemption Loan Sinking Fund, a fund created to pay off Civil War loans the state had taken out from state banks. Although he looked forward to the day when state taxes could be reduced, he disagreed with Governor Jackson that they should be done so immediately.
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