Baden-Robertson family manuscript collection

Richard Thompson Baden (1868-1940) was elected president of the National Association of Credit Men in May 1925. He worked at Holland, Baden & Ramsey, a firm which sold automobile and bicycle accessories in Baltimore, Maryland. He was born on May 16, 1868. Baden married Elinor Williams Robertson (1869-1949) on February 13, 1895. They had a daughter, Elinor Robertson Baden, born December 30, 1895, and a son, Richard T. Baden, Jr., who died in infancy. Baden’s wife was the daughter of Benson Bond Robertson and Anne Rebecca Allnutt. The National Association of Credit Men strongly endorsed the policy of economy introduced during the administration of President Coolidge. Sir Esme Howard, a member of the association, served as the British Ambassador to the United States.

The Baden-Robertson clan descended from many distinguished colonial ancestors. Originally, Richard Smith of Croft (or Craft) Hall, England, came to the Province of Maryland from London. He settled in the lower part of Calvert County, near St. Leonard’s, in February 1649. He was the first Attorney-General of Maryland appointed by Lord Baltimore and served for three terms. He was a lieutenant of provincial militia and a member of the House of Burgess from 1660 to 1667. His son was a Captain of the Calvert militia in 1689 and a member of Christ’s Church Vestry from 1692 to 1714. Captain Richard Smith, Jr. married three times. His last wife, Lady Maria Joanna Somerset, was the grandniece of Cecil Calvert, and through her Somerset lineage, a connection can be traced to Charlemagne the Great, King of the Franks. Richard’s daughter, Barbara Smith, married Thomas Holdsworth, a member of the Assembly of Maryland in 1681. Their daughter, Elizabeth Holdsworth, married James Heighe, who served as a Justice in Calvert County.