Cary-McHenry family photograph collection

Members of the Cary-McHenry-Howard Families have played prominent roles in Maryland from Colonial times to the mid-twentieth century. Members of the Cary family are descended from Pocahontas (1595-1617). James McHenry (1753-1816), (for whom Fort McHenry was named), was a physician who studied under Dr. Benjamin Rush, served in the Continental Army, State Senate of Maryland, Constitutional Convention, and was Secretary of War under George Washington and John Adams. James Howard McHenry (1820-1888), grandson of James McHenry, was a prominent Baltimore lawyer educated at Princeton and Harvard Law, grandson of Revolutionary War hero John Eager Howard. His cousin James McHenry Boyd served as a diplomat to the Court of St. James. Col. Miles Wilson Cary (1806-1877) was the great-great nephew of Thomas Jefferson and was proud of the resemblance between the shape of his head and Jefferson’s. Cary served in the army of the Confederate States of America and his sister Hetty (1836-1892) and cousins Jennie and Constance (known as the Cary Invincibles) designed the confederate flag known as the Southern Cross. Jennie Cary put the words of the poem ‘Maryland, my Maryland’ to the German folk song ‘Lauriger Hortius’ creating the state song. Miles Wilson Cary’s wife, Jane Margaret Cary (1809-1893) founded the Southern Home School for girls. James Howard McHenry (b. 1892) served in both WWI and WWII in France, India, and China. Pauline Potter de Rothschild (daughter of Gwendolyn Cary) was great-great granddaughter of Francis Scott Key. She had a flamboyant life after her divorce from Charles Carrol Fulton Leser being romantically linked to a number of prominent people including Paul-Henri Spaak (prime minister of Belgium), movie director John Huston, Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovitch Romanov of Russia (one of the murderers of Rasputin), and Isabelle Kemp, heiress to a New York drug-store and real-estate fortune. She became a fashion icon as director of the custom-fashion division of Hattie Carnegie. In 1954 she married Philippe de Rothschild becoming a Baronne. Members of the Cary-McHenry Family have served this country in the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, the Civil War, World Wars I and II.