History of the Offices
Occupied by Maryland's Comptrollers of the Treasury
Maryland's first comptroller Philip Francis
Thomas began work in February, 1852 from an office located inside the State
House in Annapolis. The comptroller's office remained there until
1859, when a new Record Office (or Land Office) building was constructed.
On April 25, 1858, the General Assembly had passed Chapter 105 of the Laws
of Maryland entitled, "An Act appropriating a sum of money for the rendering
more secure against fire the State House, and the public archives, for
erecting a fire-proof Record office and for enlarging the State Library
Room, and the Hall of the House of Delegates." Section 2 of the act
allotted $20,000 for the "erection within State House Circle, of a fire-proof
Record office and depository of the public archives, in which building
shall be made adequate provision for the Comptroller's Office and for the
Land Office of Maryland."1
The
new Record Office building was located on State House Hill behind the Old
Treasury Building. Construction of the new fire-proof building began
shortly after passage of the 1858 law. Paying warrants from the comptroller
of the treasury show that on January 21, 1859, Gnos Brewer was paid $5.00
for his draft work done in "removing the Comptroller's Office," and
Thomas Sands was paid $3.00 for services and assistance rendered in removal
of the comptroller's office from its old office in the State House to the
new building. On 23 January, Jno J Wright was paid $6.00 in payment
of his bill for six days' work done in removal of the comptroller's office.2
In January 1860, the Committee in Charge of Repairs of the Public Buildings
reported that the fire-proof Record Office had been completed at a cost
of $28,362.32, but also noted that not all of the rooms had been occupied.
The committee reported that the State House rooms designed for the uses
of committees were actually occupied by the comptroller, chancery record
keeper and land officer, and had not been "vacated in consequence of the
non-completion of the Record Office building."3 For several
months in 1861, there were two comptroller's offices in Annapolis:
one in the new Record Office building occupied by Dennis Claude, and the
old office in the State House occupied by A. Lingan Jarrett.4
After the disputed election was resolved in favor of Jarrett, he probably
moved into the Record Office building, where the comptroller's office remained
until completion of the Court of Appeals building in 1903. Until
that time, the Record Office building became known as "the Comptroller's
office," although it housed offices for the Commissioner of the Land Office,
the Board of Directors of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company, and the
Insurance Commissioner as well. 5 An addition was put
on the building in 1874 and in 1876 an architect was hired to alter and
improve the building as well.6
At the turn of the century, the legislature
decided to tear down the old Record Office building and to relocate the
occupants to the new Court of Appeals building. On 5 April 1900,
the General Assembly passed Chapter 326 of the Laws of Maryland entitled
"An Act to provide for the acquisition of a lot of land and the erection
thereon by the State of Maryland of a building, in the City of Annapolis,
in which shall be located the court-room, consultation and other rooms
of the Court of Appeals, the State Library, or portion thereof, the Comptroller's
office, the Tax Commissioner's office, the Treasurer's office, and for
such other purposes as may be deemed proper; and to appropriate a sum of
money therefore, and to provide for the removal of building upon State
House Hill known as the Comptroller's office."7 Construction
of the new Court of Appeals building, which stood on Bladen Street between
College Avenue and State Circle (today the site of the Legislative Services
building), was directed by the Baltimore architectural firm Baldwin &
Pennington and completed by Henry Smith & Sons. The occupants
of the old Record Office building along with the Court of Appeals moved
into the new Court of Appeals Building, better known as the State Building,
on November 10, 1903. Proceedings of the Senate from the 1904 Session
note that the offices of the Comptroller, Treasurer, Tax Commissioner,
the Land Office, and the Commander of the State Fishery Force were all
located on the first floor of the Court of Appeals Building.8
The comptroller's office remained in the
Court of Appeals building until December, 1939, when the comptroller and
the treasurer moved to the newly-constructed State Office Building (later
the James Senate Office Building) that had been built on College Avenue
between Northwest and Bladen streets.9 By the mid-1950s,
offices for the comptroller and his staff occupied the largest space in
the building. In the 1960s, the comptroller's offices had moved to
a new state office building on the corner of Calvert Street and Rowe Boulevard
that was named the Louis L. Goldstein Treasury Building in 1984.10
The current comptroller's Annapolis office is located at 80 Calvert
Street and includes 20 branch offices in Baltimore, the Eastern Shore,
southern and western Maryland.
NOTES
1. GENERAL ASSEMBLY (LAWS)
1858 Laws, Chapter 105, MSA S 966-364
2. COMPTROLLER OF THE TREASURY (Paying
Warrants) MSA S 703-14, Warrants 364, 367, 368
3. House Documents, 1860 Session,
Document G.
4. State of Maryland vs. A. Lingan
Jarrett and Sprigg Harwood. Court of Appeals of Maryland.
17 Md. 309; 1861 Md. LEXIS 42.
5. GENERAL ASSEMBLY (LAWS) 1874 Laws,
Chapter 445, MSA S 966-451
6. COMPTROLLER OF THE TREASURY (Paying
Warrants) MSA S 703-40, Voucher 909
7. GENERAL ASSEMBLY (LAWS)
1900 Laws, Chapter 326, MSA S 966-575
8. Journal of Proceedings of the
Senate, 1904 Session, 54-55
9. Morris Radoff, Buildings of
the State of Maryland at Annapolis (Annapolis: The Hall of Records
Commission, 1954) , 122, 131.
10. "Did You Know...About The Goldstein
Building?" The Ledger, vol 1, no. 3 (March 1984), 2.
______________________________________________________
Prepared by Sasha Lourie and Karen Hare,
January 24-25, 2002
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Copyright February 18, 2002Maryland State Archives