pointment. The finances of the country were in a deplorable state, and, altogether the winter of I 778 was the gloomiest since the first gun was fired at Lexington. Benjamin Rumsey, the first Chief Judge of the Maryland Court 'of Appeals was, prior to his appointment, a prominent and active member of the body known as the "Council of Safety," which was composed of citizens of the colony who had organized in view of the approaching revolution, which every body felt was in the air. It finally devolved on this committee to inform the British governor that " in the judgment of the Con vention of the people of this colony," the public quiet and safety required impera tively that he should leave the province, and that he was at liberty to depart at once with all of his effects." The future Judge bore a leading part in the execution of this some what delicate mission. He was at a later period foremost in the councils of the Con tinental Congress, and well represented the determination and zeal of his State in the cause of liberty. Judge Rumsey was es pecially remarkable for his knowledge of the intricacies and complications of realestate law, with which the early courts had to deal extensively. Judge Solomon Wright was born on his father's estate, " Blakeford," near Queenstown, Queen Anne County, Maryland, in 1 72 1, and lived to be about seventy years of age. In I 777 he was offered a position on the existing " Court of Appeals," but de clined. In 1778, however, he accepted a commission on the bench of the reorganized court which he filled till the time of his death in 179 1. He received his academic educa tion at what is now called Washington College and studied law under the famous Luther Martin. He was a member of the Legislature for several terms during the colonial days, and also of the " Committee of Correspon dence " for Maryland, which made the ar
rangements for united action among the colonies in the exciting times at the begin ning of the American Revolution. His name is to be found among the signers of the "Maryland Declaration of Independence." He was the- real originator of the "Eastern Shore senator idea," which is perpetuated to this day in the law requiring one of the United States senators to come from that portion of the State — a fact, by the way, alluded to by Mr. Bryce, in his late work "The American Commonwealth," as a remarkable instance of the American devotion to the theory of "local self-government." This Judge was the fifth of a direct line of eight generations of his family to occupy a seat on the bench. Judge Wright married Miss Mary Emory, whose mother had been Miss Mary Tidmarsh, prior to her marriage to Solomon Wright, Sr., who was himself a member of the Colonial Legislature for a number of terms. The subject of this paragraph left four sons and one daughter. His son Robert Wright was a member of the House of Delegates and State senator. He served with Captain Kent's company in the expe dition against Lord Dunmore. Subsequently he commanded a company in the Continen tal army, and the " Maryland Line " was under his orders at the battles of Paoli and Brandywine. His son, Gustavus W. T. Wright, married Eliza Clayland, and among their children was the father of Hon. Daniel Giraud Wright, one of the justices, at the present time, of the Supreme Bench of Bal timore city. One of the most honored judges of the Maryland Appellate Bench was Benjamin MACKALL, whose portrait by Peale is repro duced here. He was commissioned judge in December, 1778, and sat for more than a quarter of a century. He also bore a prom inent part in the proceedings by which the colony became practically an independent state without waiting for the National "Declaration" to pass.
