Glenn H. Worthington, MSA SC 3520-14603

Archives of Maryland
(Biographical Series)

Glenn H. Worthington (1858-1934)
MSA SC 3520-14603

Biography:

Born Glenn Howard Worthington, April 22, 1858, in Urbana, Maryland. Son of John T. and Mary R. (Simmons) Worthington. Attended Frederick County public schools; Frederick Academy; University of Maryland School of Law, 1887. Admitted to Frederick bar, January 4, 1888; Maryland bar, April 19, 1895. Episcopalian. Married Julia Alvey, daughter of Richard H. Alvey, April 30, 1890, in Hagerstown, Maryland; six children: Mary Ruth, Richard Alvey, Julia Hayes, Dorothy W., John Clark, and unknown son. Died August 7, 1934, in Frederick, Maryland. Buried, Mt. Olivet Cemetery, in Frederick, Maryland.

Farmer, teacher, and judge. Prior to studying law, Glenn H. Worthington spent time in Chicago, working in both the wholesale and insurance businesses. He returned to Maryland and read the law in the office of Milton G. Urner. He later moved to Baltimore and supported himself as a teacher while taking classes at the University of Maryland School of Law. He graduated in May 1887, and returned to Frederick, where he was admitted to the bar on January 4, 1888. Around this same time he was appointed school examiner for Frederick County. He also served as secretary and treasurer of the school board. During his tenure, he aided in the establishment of elementary schools and high schools, and the standardization of curriculums.

He resigned from the School Board on August 31, 1892, and established a private law practice. In 1899, Worthington was elected State's Attorney for Frederick County, a position he held for four years. After leaving office, Worthington remained politically active. He was appointed to the State Board of Education, and undertook an investigation into training schools. He is believed to have authored the 1904 Poe Amendment, which upon enactment would have instituted grandfather clauses and limited suffrage in the state. Maryland voters rejected the Amendment when it appeared on the ballot the following year.

Governor Edwin Warfield appointed Glenn H. Worthington Chief Judge of the Sixth Judicial Circuit in November 1907, to complete the term of James McSherry. Worthington returned to private practice in the fall of 1909. In 1912, he was elected to a fifteen year term as an associate judge on the bench of the Frederick County Circuit Court. Having nearly reached the mandatory retirement age of 70, Worthington retired in 1927 rather than run for a second term.

Worthington remained active during his retirement, researching and writing a history of the Battle of the Monocacy entitled Fighting for Time. In it, he argued that the battle prevented the Confederates from capturing the City of Washington, and that the delay caused by the battle allowed the President and his cabinet to flee the city. Judge Worthington witnessed portions of the battle as a young child on his family's farm, and was actively involved in the effort to have the battlefield preserved as a National Park.

At the time of his death, Judge Worthington was a member of numerous fraternal organizations, as well as a vestryman at All Saints' Church in Frederick. He was also a past president of the Frederick County Bar Association.

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