Justice Stephenson Archer

I have written and lectured about Dr. John Archer a number of times. In 1767, he was the first person to receive a medical degree in America, which had not yet become the United States. He taught medicine at his home, Medical Hall in Bel Air, Harford County. He was father to six sons, five of whom became physicians like their father. 

However, one became at attorney/politician. From Wikipedia:

Stevenson Archer (October 11, 1786 – June 26, 1848) was a judge and United States Representative from Maryland, representing the sixth district from 1811 to 1817 and from 1819 to 1821. His son Stevenson Archer and father John Archer were also U.S. Congressmen from Maryland. 

Archer was born at Medical Hall, near Churchville, Harford County, Maryland, on October 11, 1786, to Catherine and John Archer. He attended Nottingham Academy of Maryland, later graduating from Princeton College in 1805. He studied law, was admitted to the bar of Harford County, Maryland, in 1808, and commenced practice the same year. 

From 1809 to 1810, Archer served as a member of the Maryland House of Delegates and was later elected as a Democrat-Republican to the Twelfth United States Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of John Montgomery. He was reelected to the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Congresses and served from October 26, 1811, until March 3, 1817. 

Having reached the Constitutional age of service in the House (25 years of age) less than one month prior to taking his seat, Archer was the youngest member of the Twelfth Congress, which was defined at least in part by the injection of youth into the government. Archer was one of the firmest supporters of the War Hawk agenda in Congress, consistently voting for military preparation and the War of 1812.

In Congress, Archer served as chairman of the Committee on Claims (Thirteenth Congress), and as a member of the Committee on Expenditures in the Department of the Navy (Fourteenth Congress). During the War of 1812, he was paymaster to the Fortieth Maryland Militia, and was appointed on March 5, 1817, by President James Madison as United States judge for the Territory of Mississippi, with powers of Governor, holding court at St. Stephens.

Archer resigned within a year and returned to Maryland to continue his law practice. He was elected to the Sixteenth Congress, serving from March 4, 1819, until March 3, 1821, and, in Congress, served as chairman of the Committee on Expenditures in the Department of the Navy. In 1823, Archer was appointed chief judge of the judicial circuit court of Baltimore and Harford Counties and Baltimore City. In 1844, Archer was appointed by Governor Thomas Pratt as chief justice of the Maryland Court of Appeals and served until his death in June of 1848.

All of this is in light of an auction purchase over the weekend. I was at a country auction in rural Pennsylvania and spotted an old silhouette in a frame. As I moved in to look at it, I was shocked to see it was Stevenson Archer, who was the Chief Justice of the Maryland Court of Appeals.

He was a judge in both Baltimore City, where a portrait of him hangs in the Baltimore City Law Library, and in Harford County. 

The picture is simply framed in what looks like a very early frame with wavy glass.

There were two notes attached to the glass, one saying who Justice Archer was and the other indicating some relationship with the Liriodendron Foundation. Liriodendron was Dr. Howard Kelly's summer home outside of Bel Air, Harford County. 

Like Marcia, I love finding things for the office at old country auctions!