Archives of Maryland
(Biographical Series)

Rev. Thomas Bayne (b. circa 1785 - d. 1862)
MSA SC 5496-038735
Slave Owner, Talbot County, Maryland

Biography:

Born and raised in St. John's Parish, Prince George's County, Thomas Bayne lived much of his adult life on the Eastern Shore. He was ordained as a Protestant Episcopal minister in 1812. He had married his first wife, Ann Caroline Singleton, in Dorchester County on November 13, 1817. They lived on a Talbot County plantation called East Otwell, in Oxford Neck.1 The plantation likely came through Ann's family, since John Singleton had owned East Otwell till his death in 1819.2 In 1831, the journal of the protestant episcopal convention listed him as living in Easton, Talbot County. In 1835, he resigned his position as rector for St. Peter's Church, Talbot County. Beginning in 1838, he began serving as the Dorchester Parish, traveling "from Talbot County across the Choptank River." Records show him serving as the rector for Trinity Church. He served until 1842,3 the year that he married his second wife, Eliza C. Waggaman (nee Cropper), the widow of Henry Waggaman and the daughter of Dr. John Cropper. He had at least one son, William M. Bayne (b. circa 1831). The 1850 census listed Bayne as farmer with $9,000 in real estate.4

Bayne owned eight slaves in 1820, and ten slaves in 1840. In February 1844, Charles Anderson fled. Bayne believed that Anderson would head towards New Market, Dorchester County, where he was raised, or to Cambridge.5

An 1845 land record included the note that that Bayne's wife Eliza had moved to Cook County, Illinois. That year, they sold fourteen acres "near the Cross Roads in the Town of Cambridge" to Eliza's son by her first marriage, John Cropper Waggaman.6 Bayne was still living in Talbot County in 1859, when he sold an acre of land of his plantation on Oxford Neck. In 1860, the census recorded him owning $16,500 in real estate and $11,800 in personal property. His son, William M. Bayne lived with him, born around 1835.7 He also had a daughter, Anna Maria, and another son, Thomas J. Bayne, about whom little is known. In Rev. Bayne's will, he said that Thomas J. was "now absent and whether alive, I know not." However, he promised that if Thomas J. returned, he would receive a portion of East Otwell.8
 

1.     TALBOT COUNTY REGISTER OF WILLS (Wills) CR 59-1, MSA CM1041-11. Thomas Bayne, April 3, 1860.
1.     Ethan Allen, Clergy in Maryland of the Protestant Episcopal Church Since the Independence of 1783 (Baltimore, MD: James S. Waters, 1860) 29.
1.     U.S. Census Bureau (Census Record, MD) for Revd. Thos. Bayne, 1850, Talbot County, district not state, Page 39, Line 1 [MSA SM61-147, SCM 1501-2].
1.     "$10 Reward." Cambridge Chronicle 1 June 1844.
DORCHESTER COUNTY COURT (Marriage Licenses) MSA C717-2. Rev. Thomas Bayne and Ann Caroline Singleton, November 13, 1817.

2.     Hobart, John Henry. The Archives of the General Convention: The Correspondence of John Henry Hobart. Vol. 6. New York, NY: Privately Printed, 1912.

3.     Allen 29.
2.     Journal of a Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church of Maryland, vols. 43-52 (Baltimore, MD: 1831) iiv.
2.     Journal of the Proceedings of the Bishops, Clergy, and the Laity of the Protestant Episcopal Church... (New York, NY: Swords, Stanford & Co., 1841) 186.
2.     William H.Wroten Jr., "The Protestant Episcopal Church in Dorchester County, 1692-1860." Maryland Historical Magazine 45.2 (1950): 124.

4.     "Marriages Recorded in Talbot County Newspapers 1819-1823, 1841-1843, & 1870." Maryland Historical Magazine 81.3 (1986): 251.
3.     TALBOT COUNTY COURT (Marriage Licenses) MSA CM1012-3. Thomas Bayne and Eliza Waggaman, May 17, 1842.
3.     DORCHESTER COUNTY COURT (Marriage Licenses) MSA C717-2. Henry Waggaman and Eliza Cropper, December 27, 1810.
3.     U.S. Census Bureau (Census Record, MD) for Revd. Thos. Bayne, 1850, Talbot County, district not state, Page 39, Line 1 [MSA SM61-147, SCM 1501-2].

5.     "$10 Reward." Cambridge Chronicle 1 June 1844.

6.     DORCHESTER COUNTY COURT (Land Records) Liber WJ 2, Folio 288, MSA CE 46-70. Thomas Bayne and Eliza C. Bayne to John Cropper Waggaman, October 14, 1845.

7.     TALBOT COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT (Land Records) Liber STH 68, Folio 306, MSA CE 91-5. Thomas Bayne to Tench Tilghman, February 9, 1859.
6.     U.S. Census Bureau (Census Record, MD) for Thomas Bayne, 1860, Talbot County, Trappe District, Page 120, Line 32 [MSA SM61-218, SCM 7226].
6.     U.S. Census Bureau (Census Record, MD) for Thomas Bayne, 1860, Slaves, Talbot County, Easton District, Page 25, Line 36.
6.     TALBOT COUNTY REGISTER OF WILLS (Wills) CR 59-1, MSA CM1041-11. Thomas Bayne, April 3, 1860.

8.     TALBOT COUNTY REGISTER OF WILLS (Wills) CR 59-1, MSA CM1041-11. Thomas Bayne, April 3, 1860.
 

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