Governor Glendening, Andrew Glendinning, Comptroller Goldstein,
Major Riddick and Jim Culp, President of MITC.
GOVERNOR PRESENTS AWARDS TO MEC DESIGN CONTEST WINNERS AT ARCHIVES PRESS CONFERENCE
On February 25, at a press conference held in the Archives' search room, Governor Parris N. Glendening announced the winners of the MEC homepage design contest and presented them with their awards. Andrew Glendinning, a graduating senior at St. Mary's College, won the first prize of $5,000, which was contributed by the Maryland Information Technology Center. Also helping to present the awards were Comptroller Louis L. Goldstein and Major Riddick, Chief of Staff to Governor Glendening.
Governor Glendening, Andrew Glendinning, Comptroller Goldstein,
Major Riddick and Jim Culp, President of MITC.
Taking second place and winning Pentium computers provided by Twinbrook TV & Computers and CompUSA, both of Rockville, were: Juanson Pitt, a senior at Morgan State University and Ray Wenderlich, a senior at St. Mary's High School in Annapolis. Third place winners were Brian Snively, a sophomore at UMCP and Brad Hamblin and Rich Leland, seniors at Eastern Technical High School in Baltimore. Honorable mentions went to Paul Sutton, a sophomore at Wilde Lake High School in Columbia and Alberto Tabian, a senior at Woodlawn High School in Baltimore County.
The contest to redesign the MEC homepage was announced by Governor Glendening on December 11. Thirty four entries were received and the panel decided to let the public help choose the winner from seven finalists. The new homepage is part of the MEC's move to the Archives where it is being managed by Lynne MacAdam. The MEC computers were moved to the Archives' search room in January and they are available to the public for accessing information about Maryland government and community organizations as well as for exploring the internet.
LOUIS GOLDSTEIN ELECTED NEW CHAIRMAN OF HALL OF RECORDS COMMISSION
At the Hall of Records Commission meeting on March 3, on a motion by Treasurer Dixon, Comptroller Louis L. Goldstein was elected the new Chairman of the Hall of Records Commission, replacing Judge Robert C. Murphy who retired in October. Elected as Vice Chair of the Commission was Chief Judge Robert M. Bell. Comptroller Goldstein noted as he took office that he has served on the Hall of Records Commission since 1959. The Commission also welcomed two new members who have joined since the last meeting: the Honorable Robert M. Bell, Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals and Dr. William Brody, President of The Johns Hopkins University.
Ed outlined for the Commission the activities of the Archives' staff since the last meeting, including the planning for the visit of President Clinton to address the General Assembly, the President of the Senate's First Citizen Award to Julian Lapides; the Speaker's Medallion award to Walter Sondheim; the Thomas Kennedy award to Charles McC. Mathias, and Ed's talk on Presidential visits to Annapolis to 130 guides and docents at Maryland Hall.
Upcoming activities that Ed described to the Commission included his talk on March 7 to a Joint Session of the General Assembly celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Women's Caucus; the April 19th African American genealogy workshop; the Colonial Society Essay Contest; and the publication of Carson Gibb's book on the early settlers of Maryland.
Ed also told the Commission about the transfer of the Maryland Electronic Capital to the Archives and the contest for the redesign of the MEC homepage. He noted that MEC, which is the clearinghouse for all government information to the public, is now being managed by Lynne MacAdam, the Archives' webmaster. The public can use MEC computers in the Archives' search room and one of which is handicapped accessible.
Another important responsibility taken on by the Archives since the last meeting is the management of the Peabody Art Collection which was transferred to the Archives for the Maryland Commission on Artistic Property to hold in trust for the state. New members of the Commission have been appointed by the Governor and it will soon hold its first meeting.
Ed told the Commission that the Archives has gone, in three years, from a fully funded state agency to one which is now only 70 per cent funded. It is a difficult time and the Archives is working hard finding sources for the 30 per cent which no longer comes from the state. Also, the Archives has applied for three important grants from outside sources: to the NEH for Teachers' Insitututes; an Innovation in American Government Grant from the JFK School of Government at Harvard University for our Maryland government web site; and the Ameritech/Library of Congress American Memory Project for the U.S.C.T. project. He also noted that both Johns Hopkins and St. John's College support the Archives by funding interns to do research here. An important part of the long-term strategy is the endowment fund which was set up in 1993.
On the issue of space for the storage of records, Ed reported on the current Archives' facility in Annapolis, which was designed in 1983 to accommodate the archival needs of the state until 2000, and is now full. There is space in Annapolis to expand the building to house electronic records and care for them in a proper environment, but the management and storage of paper records will require the acquisition of a new, adjunct facility.
Dr. Brody offered to host the next meeting at Johns Hopkins.
STAFF NEWS
Welcome to new staff members: Dan Knight, Computer Network Specialist; Barbara Nataro, Special Collections Archivist; Robert Barnes, Reference Archivist; and Deborah Biron, Administrative Officer II.
PRESS RELEASE: AFRICAN AMERICAN GENEALOGY WORKSHOP TO BE HELD AT THE MARYLAND STATE ARCHIVES
Annapolis, MD, February 28, 1997 --- The Maryland State Archives is offering a one-day workshop on researching African American families. The workshop will be an excellent introduction to records at the Archives for the beginning family historian as well as a refresher for more experienced researchers.
The all-day workshop will be held on Saturday, April 19, 1997 from 8:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m. at the Hall of Records Building at 350 Rowe Boulevard in Annapolis. The registration fee is $50 which includes materials and lunch. Subjects to be covered include: getting started, arranging records, freedom papers, records of the U.S. Colored Troops (Civil War), and using computers to gain access to helpful databases. Registration is limited to 30.
Workshop leaders will be: Agnes Kane Callum, editor of the Flowers of the Fields Black Genealogy Journal and a well-known genealogist; Jerry Hynson, author of Freedom Papers of Anne Arundel County; Silvia Cook Martin, Coordinator of the NcNair Scholars at University of Maryland Baltimore Campus; and Roland N. Mills, president of the Baltimore City branch of the Afro American Historical and Genealogical Society.
For information and registration forms, please call Mimi Calver or Pat Melville on (410) 260-6400 or by e-mail at: archives@mdarchives.state.md.us
FIRST CITIZEN AWARD PRESENTED TO FORMER SENATOR JULIAN LAPIDES
[Remarks by Dr. Edward C. Papenfuse on the occasion of the presentation of the First Citizen Award to the Honorable Julian L. Lapides, a former member of the Hall of Records Commission, 8 p.m. in the Old Senate Chamber on Presidents' Day, February 17, 1997]
President Miller, Members of the Senate, ladies and gentlemen
On Being a First Citizen
First Citizen is the name by which Charles Carroll of Carrollton chose to sign several articles published in the Maryland Gazette beginning in February of 1773. Carroll, legally a non-citizen who could neither vote nor hold office because he was a Roman Catholic, wrote in response to an unsigned article by the best known lawyer of the day, Daniel Dulany. Dulany held appointed office under Lord Baltimore and did not believe the General Assembly had the right to question or set the fees he charged for his services to the public. In those days public officials generally were not on salary and had to live off the fees they collected.
Dulany tried to argue that the existing constitution worked well and ought not to be changed. He asserted that all of the important issues of what government was and ought to be had been settled years before in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. In that year the English monarchy was made subject to a Bill of Rights and the advice of Parliament. From that point on, with the singular exception of the Colonies' right to resist Parliamentary taxation without representation, according to Dulany, Maryland had the best government it could ever have. To make his point, he created a conversation between a First Citizen and a Second Citizen. He thought he had been most persuasive, and that he had effectively demolished the arguments weakly advanced by his First Citizen that the Maryland Legislature should have the right to determine what fees public officials could charge for their services. Daniel Dulany soon found he was wrong. A 36 year-old Roman Catholic who could not vote, and could not hold office under the Constitution Dulany so loudly defended, took up the part of First Citizen and wrote a response that put Dulany on the defensive. Encouraged by the first woman to be official Printer To the Colony, Anne Catherine Green, who published his essay as First Citizen in the February 4, 1773 issue of the Maryland Gazette, Carroll launched a crusade to expand the powers of representative government that would continue long after his death at the age of 95 in 1832. Indeed, one of Carroll's last acts as a responsible 'Citizen' was to vote for another man who would dramatically alter the face of American Politics and American Democracy, Andrew Jackson.
In his first foray into the arena of public debate, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, as 'First Citizen' argued that public officials were answerable to the Legislature, and that the Legislature had the right, in fact the responsiblity to be constantly adjusting the constitution to make it work better for the benefit of all. Dulany had met his match. He would try to answer Carroll three more times. He even assumed the fictious name of Antilon to help people know who he was. It was unseemly in those days for opinions expressed in print to be signed by their authors, but Dulany, on the defensive, wanted to remind his readers that he had once eloquently defended them against the hated Stamp Tax. He chose 'Antilon' which combines 'anti' and an old english word for unfair taxes, but to no avail.
What began as a simple exchange of views grew into a series of eight letters in which Charles Carroll not only had the last word, he ultimately won the argument. Carroll strongly defended an independent legislature. He was among the first to advance a new concept of government that soon would sweep through the colonies like wild fire. No longer would the people of America allow themselves to be ruled arbitrarily from abroad. While extolling traditional community rights and liberties, Carroll launched a call for a radical restructuring of government based on the advice and consent of the people. Although not yet fully articulated in the First Citizen letters, Carroll was asking all citizens to think about much needed changes in the structure of government that would allow people like him "freedom of speech and thought," that would prevent office holders from having seats in the Legislature, and that would ensure that taxation could not be imposed by anyone not subject to the laws passed by the Legislature.
To Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the Constitution was not something fixed somewhere in the distant past, consisting of principles not to be altered, changed or improved upon, but was, rather, a set of guidelines to be written down, debated, and tested by time. To Carroll and others like his cousin Charles Carroll the Barrister, Samuel Chase, and William Paca, all future members of the Maryland Senate, making government work for the good of the whole meant a thoughtful reworking of the structure of government by writing it all down, debating the results, and crafting the final product in committees separately and of the whole.
In effect Carroll as First Citizen, saw government much as every citizen should see it today, in constant need of attention and thoughtful reform. Not only did Charles Carroll of Carrollton write as a 'First Citizen,' he, also lived his life as a First Citizen. With the publication of the First Citizen articles he launched a career of public service that would not end until his death at the age of 95.
In addition to helping draft Maryland's first Constitution and signing the Declaration of Independence in 1776, Carroll served as a member of this body from 1777 to 1801 and as its President. He also served as one of the first United States Senators from Maryland and became one of the staunchest advocates of the B & O Railroad which did so much to further the economic development of Maryland. He taught by word and by example. He was willing to put his ideas, his fortune, and his time, on the line in favor of better, more responsive government. It is in that spirit that the Maryland Senate presents the First Citizen Awards to individuals like Carroll, who have taken up the challenge to make government work better for the benefit of all.
Tonight, on behalf of the Senate of Maryland, it is my privilege to present the first Citizen Award to Former Senator Julian L. Lapides.
Jack embodies the spirit of a First Citizen. In his long and distinguished career as a Delegate and as a Senator he was not afraid of forcefully advocating the causes in which he firmly believed.
As former Senator Levitan commented at Jack's retirement, "Jack has been called the the conscience of the Senate. He has been ... the guardian of the ethics of the state." Tight-fisted with public money, Jack was always ready to champion the unpopular against overwhelming odds. He authored a tough financial disclosure law and proved the bane of many lobbyists. His performance as an effective interrogrator of those of us who spend appropriated dollars was known to cause considerable discomfort, especially at budget hearings, but I have no doubt that it also led to more careful accounting practices, and more effective management of the public purse.
Most of you know Jack from his service in the Senate. I know Jack and Linda best, however as quintessential bibliophiles, lovers of the book, who have a keen appreciation of the historical record from which the best of the printed word is drawn. Their collection of children's books is without peer. The President of the American Antiquarian Society no doubt dreams of persuading Jack and Linda that their collection could find no better home than Worcester Massachusetts, although some of us would far prefer to see it remain here in Maryland.
While a member of the Senate, Jack also served on the advisory board of the Archives, the Hall of Records Commission. While he applied his frugal approach to budgets to us as much as to anyone else, he also shared with us his wisdom and his love of history. Thanks to Jack we acquired a lovely collection of Maryland maps from one of his friends, one of which is now proudly reproduced as the impressive mural in our searchroom.
Commitment to ethics, concern for the public purse, an old fashioned progressive belief in the efficacy of government, and the love of books, both for content and the pure joy of ownership, are but a few of the qualities of Jack Lapides that we honor tonight by presenting him with this certificate and boxed volume of the First Citizen/Antilon debates.
ATLASES AS A GENEALOGICAL SOURCE
by Frank Potter and Robert Barnes
A recent discovery of an almost unique source of genealogical information was made in, of all places, an atlas. An Illustrated Atlas of Talbot and Dorchester Counties was published in 1877. It is in the Archives' Map Collection [MSA SC1427-325]. To defray costs, patrons were solicited and their names were placed in the rear of the book. Broken down by county and then by election district, the "List of Patrons" gives names, post office of residence, occupation, place of nativity and date of settlement. Except for a few businesses, the patrons were all individuals.
It is the last two columns that are most striking. Patrons were shown who settled in the county as far back as the turn of the century, and their birth places are listed. Obviously, this information predates modern statistical records. Remember the atlas was published in 1877. In a few cases the place of nativity was a foreign country, such England or Baden-Baden.
The date of settlement is not as remarkable, but it is nevertheless interesting to know when ancestors came to the area, and the information helps to focus the search period geographically.
To determine whether the Illustrated Atlas of Talbot and Dorchester Counties was unique in presenting a list of patrons, other atlases of the period were examined. One of the most prolific of cartographers was G. M. Hopkins, C.E., who published a number of atlases during the 1870s. These included:
An Atlas of Anne Arundel County, Maryland (1878) [MSA SC1427-580.
An Atlas of Baltimore County, Maryland (1877) [MSA SC1427-980].
An Atlas of Howard County, Maryland (1878) [MSA SC1427-285].
An Atlas of Montgomery County, Maryland (1879).
An Atlas of Prince George's County, Maryland (1878) MSA SC1427-324]. Lake, Griffing, and Stevenson of Philadelphia also published atlases of several Maryland counties, including:
An Illustrated Atlas of Carroll County, Maryland (1877) [MSA SC1427-981].
An Illustrated Atlas of Cecil County, Maryland (1877) [MSA SC1427-290].
In all of these atlases, there is a list of patrons showing name, number of acres owned, post office address, occupation, [placeof] nativity, and date of settlement. Was it possible that the date of settlement might actually be the date of birth of the patron? The suggestion was made that if the patron was born in the county, the date of settlement might refer to his or her year of birth. But if the patron was born outside the county, the date might refer to the date of moving into the county.
Using the list of patrons in the 4th, 5th, and 6th districts of Baltimore County in the Hopkins 1877 Atlas of Baltimore County, and the index of heads of families in the 1870 Census of Baltimore City and County, a random search of the census index was made for names of patrons born in Baltimore County. In the overwhelming majority of cases the year of settlement for native-born patrons did correspond to the year of birth. Of course, researchers will have to judge the circumstances of each individual case.
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