Robert Goodloe Harper family papers

Roll I: 1747 - 1807

Roll I of the Robert Goodloe Harper Family Papers begins with a series of manuscripts belonging to the Carroll family. The papers of Richard Croxall (162 frames), employed by the Carrolls at the Baltimore Iron Works on Gwynns Falls, off the Patapsco River in Baltimore County, concern the years 1747 to 1749. The forge was well established, having been founded in 1731 by Benjamin Tasker, Daniel Dulany, Dr. Charles Carroll of Annapolis, Charles Carroll of Annapolis, and his cousin Daniel Carroll, all wealthy planters, the first two provincial office holders. See Johnson, Keach, "The Genesis of the Baltimore Iron Works," Journal of Southern History, XIX (No. 2, 1953), p. 157-179.

Letters to Croxall (Richard Croxall, son of the immigrant Richard Croxall and of Johanna Carroll of Ireland, died in 1785, and is described as a landowner advanced in years. See Dielman File, Maryland Historical Society. His will was probated in 1785, see Wills, Hall of Records, Annapolis, Maryland) are concerned mainly with the production and sale of bar iron although some deal with labor problems, particularly the problem of runaway enslaved people. Croxall's major correspondents are the partners Dr. Charles Carroll of Annapolis, Benjamin Tasker, and Charles Carroll, Esq.

Material on the Carrolls and the Baltimore Iron Works can be found in Dr. Charles Carroll of Annapolis Letterbooks, MS 208 and 208.1, Maryland Historical Society. Charles Carroll, Esq., may be Charles Carroll of Annapolis (of Anne Arundel County), father of the signer, although the signature does not appear similar to later documents signed by him and appears on documents as early as 1713.

There follow a number of scattered Carroll letters: The last letter to Charles Carroll of Carrollton from his mother, Elizabeth Brooke Carroll, in 1760; letters in 1786 from Carroll to his cousin Daniel Carroll of Duddington on the fitness of Richard Caton to marry Carroll's daughter Mary, and some scattered deeds concerning the Stevenson, Ruxton, and Moody families. The bulk of the collection after 1784, however, directly concerns Robert Goodloe Harper.

Robert Goodloe Harper's papers begin in 1784 in a series of letters written to Harper from various members of his family while he was attending the College of New Jersey at Princeton. They include letters from his sisters Frances and Letitia, his brother-in-law Robert Hyde (husband of Elizabeth Harper), and his parents Jesse and Diana Goodloe Harper. Included are letters from friends and classmates, including Alexander Cummings McWhorter, and John Henry of Albany, New York. Family letters to Harper when he moved to Charleston to practice law include those of his sisters Diana, Mary, and Cathy. Letitia remained the family spokesman, particularly after the deaths of Jesse Harper and Diana Goodlow Harper in 1788. John Henry continued a sporadic correspondence, discussing New York and national politics, and law. In 1788 Harper moved to the Ninety-Six District, South Carolina, and entered politics, but his political activities are not apparent from the letters of Diana and Letitia Harper. Harper retained some ties in Charleston, as letters between 1790 and 1799 are addressed to him there, but correspondence is confined to letters from his sisters and brother-in-law. About 1797 he was involved as counsel in a suit over property confiscated in the American Revolution, and the manuscript draft of his argument survives.

Harper moved to Baltimore in 1800, and sought the hand of Catharine Carroll. Her father, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, wrote his son-in-law, Richard Caton for information on Harper. Harper's papers for the year include extensive correspondence between mid-October and December, 1800, concerning a published slur by John Francis Mercer (1759-1821). Mercer had published a letter in the Baltimore Federal Gazette charging that the federal assessment on his Stafford County, Virginia, lands was exorbitant. The issue became a political one, and under the nom de plume of Civis, Harper defended the assessment. There ensued a newspaper duel which nearly led to a real duel. John Eager Howard acted as a second for Harper, as apparently did John Ross Key. The duel, however, seems to have been avoided, leaving as its memoir the series of letters between Harper and Mercer. (Harper numbered this series, but for consistency with the rest of the collection, the order here used is by date rather than document.)

In May, 1801, Robert Harper married Catharine Carroll with the consent of her father. His autobiographical sketch, dated January 10, 1801 and described elsewhere in this pamphlet, was undoubtedly influential to this consent. Once married, Harper became an advisor to the wealthy elder Carroll. The bulk of the correspondence between 1801 and 1807 is with his father-in-law. Matters discussed included family health, local gossip, financial matters, the numerous law suits engaged in by Carroll, and Carroll's acid comments on the state of national politics during the Jefferson administration. Harper had ample opportunity to observe the new administration because legal affairs often took him to Washington. These trips were painful to his wife, as her letters amply illustrate. Harper's family correspondence of this period also includes some letters of family matters from Richard Caton.

Harper supervised the education of a son of Robert and Elizabeth Harper Hyde at the College of New Jersey. Letters from Samuel S. Smith informed Harper of his nephew's progress, and of his expulsion in 1807 for insulting a tutor and being a troublemaker at the college.

No letters from national political figures have survived for the period 1801-1807. Indeed there are only rare glimpses of Harper's law practice, mainly in letters from Virgil Maxcy, who read law under him. In 1805 a letter on strictly legal matter introduces the reader to a long correspondence with Robert Walsh, Jr., of Philadelphia, most of which is in the latter reels. The only hint of a larger correspondence between Harper and Harrison Gray Otis is the draft of a lengthy letter on law and politics in 1806.



Roll II: 1808 - 1815

There is no break in subject matter in Robert Goodloe Harper’s letters between 1807 (Roll I) and 1808-1809. Family matters, letters from his wife, father in law, and brother in law Richard Caton predominate. Virgil Maxcy’s legal letters continue, as does the correspondence with Samuel S. Smith over on the conduct of Harper’s nephew at the College of New Jersey. That matter was evidently concluded to the satisfaction of all concerned, as Elizabeth Hyde wrote one of her rare letters to her brother in 1810 expressing gratitude for his interest in her children.

Family letters are by no means the only correspondence at the end of the decade. Count Julius de Menon introduced himself to Harper, and began a correspondence which continued when de Menon returned to his native France. Harper’s earlier Francophobia apparently did not prevent later friendships with French citizens, or the education of his children in France. His political sympathies with England are obvious in the letters from English diplomat George Henry Rose. The Rose letters from 1808 to 1813 reveal a friendship begun when Rose was in Washington in 1807 on a diplomatic mission, and continued after Rose’s return to England. The deepening crisis between England and America was of concern to both men.

The international situation is mirrored in Harper’s correspondence from 1810 to 1815. Harper’s Federalist leadership in Congress before his move to Maryland precluded any sympathy with the Madison administration and the growing hawkishness of the Republicans. The affair of the Federal Republican, which would end in 1812 in riot and murder, is foreshadowed in 1810 by letters from Robert Walsh Jr., Philadelphia lawyer, and in those from Alexander Contee Hanson, editor of the Federal Republican, and as such an object of Republican antipathy in Baltimore. Letters from Maxcy, and from Harper’s law student, Christopher

Hughes Jr., also reflect this tension. After the Federal Republican riot in July, 1812, Harper was chosen to represent Hanson and the defenders of the paper against charges of murder. The indictment is included in Harper’s papers, as well as considerable correspondence on the trial between Hanson, Harper, Maxcy, John Hanson Thomas, and Benjamin Stoddert.

With the War of 1812, Harper’s political activities increased. He was absent on legal and political business in Washington more often, and letters from Charles Carroll of Carrollton and Richard Caton reflect concern for the political situation. Harper was a noted orator, and several speeches of this period appear in draft. He had been involved in the French Spoliation Claims, (his draft of a speech on this matter dates from around 1811), and so was interested enough to copy Virginian Charles Fenton Mercer’s speech on the repeal of the French Decrees. In a draft of remarks on the manner in which war with Britain should be conducted, he suggested alternative methods which Britain might use in conducting the war, possible consequences, and appropriate actions on the part of the United States.

Although Harper followed the Hartford Convention with interest, and discussed it in a long letter to William Sullivan, he did not share its extreme Federalist viewpoint. Instead, he commanded troops at the Battle of North Point in 1814, and was a major general in the Maryland militia.

Domestic rather than foreign political affairs were of more importance to Harper after 1814, when the Bank of the United States became his central interest. In letters to D. A. Smith and Senator Richard Stockton of New Jersey in late 1814 and early 1815 he expressed his opinions on the Bank and its forthcoming re chartering, perhaps a foreshadowing of his own re-entrance into national politics in 1816. Certainly the controversy over a purloined letter to George Bear which appeared in the Baltimore Patriot in late 1815 indicated that Harper was still a man of considerable political importance.

Family matters were never neglected; the financial affairs of the Carrolls and the Catons took precedence even in wartime. By the second decade of the nineteenth century Harper’s own children were of school age, and their education assumed an increasing portion of the correspondence. At first they were tutored in Baltimore by Mrs. Elizabeth Bailey Seton (Mother Seton, founder of the Sisters of Charity), then were sent to Mount Saint Mary’s in Emmitsburg, Maryland. Charles and Mary Diana wrote letters home beginning in 1813.



Roll III: 1816 - 1820 March

In January, 1816, Robert Goodloe Harper was elected to the United States Senate from Maryland. His surviving correspondence for the year, however, does not reflect his political activities to any great extent. The most important letters were the continuing correspondence with Robert Walsh, Jr., of Philadelphia, Harper's publisher and friend. Together they had published in 1813 a series of letters from Harper on the Russian victories over Napoleon in 1812. Their letters in the period 1816 through 1820 reflect great interest in the politics of the Era of Good Feelings.

Most of Harper's correspondence in this roll is of a personal nature, either from other attorneys like Jonathan Meredith and his old friend Virgil Maxcy, or from members of his own family. There are many letters from Charles Carroll of Carrollton and Harper's two oldest children, Mary Diana and Charles Carroll, in school at Emmitsburg. Also included are letters from Richard and Mary Carroll Caton, and from their daughters, Mary Caton Patterson (married to Robert Patterson, the son of a prominent Baltimore merchant, and brother of Elizabeth (Betsy) Patterson, wife of Jerome Bonaparte), Emily Caton McTavish, Louisa Caton and her Irish husband, Sir Fenton Hervey, and Elizabeth Caton. Louisa and Elizabeth spent a great deal of time in Europe, and they provided their aunt and uncle Harper with contacts for their European excursion in 1817-1818.

Harper sent his eldest son, Charles, to Paris to be further educated in 1817. Frequent exchanges between Harper and his son's tutor, O'Maley, supplemented by letters of Charles himself, give a good view of the type of schooling sought by Americans abroad. Harper was able to see the fruits of the enterprise when he himself visited Paris. There he renewed his old friendship with Count Julius de Menon, and made several new acquaintences in de Menon's circle. Only letters from Charlotte de perrigy La Pelletier [sic] and P. Doulevy survive, but from references the Harpers must have been entertained frequently and extensively. They were joined on occasion by Elizabeth Caton, in Europe to visit her sister Louisa.

Soon after returning to Maryland in the summer of 1818, Harper revived his political correspondence with Robert Walsh, Jr. Both men were concerned with the Presidential election of 1820, and the Missouri question. Harper even spoke to the Maryland Senate on the explosive Missouri issue. Nevertheless, the great majority of the material from 1816 to early 1820 deals with the Harper family and their immediate relatives.



Roll IV: 1820 April - 1834

Harper had resigned his United States Senate seat in 1816, and had run unsuccessfully for the Vice-Presidency. In 1820 he was still interested in that office. Long letters from Virgil Maxcy, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, and Robert Walsh, Jr., reflect intense interest in the political situation and Harper's role in the election.

Charles Carroll Harper, in his last year of study with O'Maley, frequently wrote descriptions of his life in Paris. In 1821 Charles went to Harvard, and for the next three years his comments on the college and Boston were sent home to his parents. Harper's eldest daughter, Mary Diana, had died in 1818. The only other Harper child in school was Elizabeth Hyde Harper. Her letters from 1820 until her death in 1823 followed closely her activities at school in Emmitsburg.

The correspondence with Count Julius de Menon, begun in 1808, continued through 1821. During the last five years of Harper's life, his correspondence--except that with Walsh--was increasingly concerned with family matters. One of Harper's main concerns became the family of his sister-in-law, Mary Carroll Caton. Two of her daughters, Emily and Louisa, were living abroad, the latter a widow in 1819. Elizabeth and Mary Caton Patterson were at home, and were especially close to the Harpers, particularly after the death of Mary's husband in 1822.

In 1823 Harper's correspondence with his sisters, Elizabeth Harper Hyde and Mary Goodloe Harper Speed was reopened. They had seldom been in communication after Harper's move to Baltimore in 1800, even though Mary was married to Baltimore physician Joseph Speed (1773-1847). In addition there are some unrelated items: a series of letters from Herman Allen to John Pendleton Kennedy, Baltimore attorney, politician and author, on the appointment of an unidentified Mr. Walsh to the United States mission to Chile, and the extant portions of a letterbook of Charles Carroll of Carrollton from 1814 to 1821.

In 1824 Harper announced his candidacy for a Congressional seat, and a draft of one of his speeches survives. He expounded his present views on Jackson's candidacy and defended his past Federalist career in a series of letters published in the National Gazette, edited by Robert Walsh, Jr. and William Fry. Harper was probably intending to return to politics when he died suddenly in January, 1825.

Family correspondence for the last year of Harper's life centers on Charles Carroll of Carrollton's financial matters, particularly his will, and the education of the youngest Harper children; Emily Louisa and Robert Goodloe, Jr. There is a particularly interesting file of letters from J. Dubois of Mount Saint Mary's, Emmitsburg, concerning the progress of the various Harper children sent there from 1813 to 1824.

Family papers continue after Robert Goodloe Harper's death. Charles Carroll Harper, the eldest son, was now head of the family, but he looked increasingly to his grandfather for advice, particularly in the settlement of his father's estate. Charles had attempted to follow his father into politics in 1825, but being unsuccessful, he put his talent in French to good use as secretary of the American legation in Paris. In 1827 he married Charlotte Chiffelle, and a series of letters between husband and wife exist for 1834.

The youngest son, Robert Goodloe, Jr., followed the family tradition of study in France, again with O'Maley. From 1830 to 1834 Robert wrote his mother, sister Emily, his brother, and first cousin, Charles Carroll of Doughoregan, on life in Paris. Sadly, he died in 1834 on his way home from Europe.



Roll V: 1835 - 1910

Robert Goodloe Harper's widow, Catharine Carroll, and his daughter, Emily Louisa, went to Paris in the summer of 1835, and remained in France until August 1836. Charles Carroll Harper, at home at the family estate Oakland, in Baltimore County, kept his mother and sister constantly informed on events at home. He himself returned to Europe shortly after his family came home, and died in Rome in June, 1837.

Emily Louisa, youngest of the Harper girls, remained unmarried, and died at Virginia Beach in 1892 at the age of eighty. She evidently led a lively social life in the mid-1840s, summering fashionably in Newport, Rhode Island, and exchanging news of home with Baltimore attorney and prominent Catholic layman, William George Read (1800-1846) and his family, distantly related by marriage. After 1846, however, there are no more letters from members of the immediate family.

William Clapham Pennington, son of an old and prominent Baltimore family, married Emily Louisa Harper, daughter of Charles Carroll and Charlotte Harper, in 1853. Pennington brought an interest in genealogy into the family, the fruits of which can be found in a fine genealogical collection at the Maryland Historical Society. His father, Josias Pennington (1797-1874), was a prominent Baltimore lawyer and an unusually cultivated gentleman. See the obituary in the Baltimore Sun, May 23, 1874.

One of Josias Pennington's closest friends was the accomplished author, attorney and politician, John Pendleton Kennedy (1795-1870). For information on John Pendleton Kennedy, see Charles H. Bohner, John Pendleton Kennedy: Gentleman From Baltimore (Baltimore, 1961.) Kennedy had served in the Maryland and national legislatures, and in 1852 was appointed Secretary of the Navy by President Filmore. In that position he promoted exploration of the Arctic and Pacific. His philanthropic activities in Baltimore were legion. Correspondence between the two begins in 1822 and continues through 1869. Many of the letters are from Kennedy during his three European tours, the last, in 1865, when he represented the United States at the Exposition of Industry in Paris. Kennedy and Pennington also had a common interest in the Peabody Institute of Baltimore, of which Kennedy was President of the Board of Trustees.

At the end of Roll V are some few items impossible to date: a letter to Charles Carroll Harper from a Granville, North Carolina, neighbor of his father, and some school work completed by unidentified Harper children.