Matthew Tilghman was an American planter and Revolutionary leader from Maryland.
Background
Matthew was the son of Richard and Anna Maria (Lloyd) Tilghman. He was born on February 17, 1718 in Queen Anne County, Md.
His paternal ancestry has been traced to Richard Tilghman, a civilian of Snodland, Kent County, England, in the fifteenth century. His grandfather, Richard Tilghman, a surgeon, arrived in Maryland in 1661 on the Elizabeth and Mary. For transporting to the province twenty persons of British descent he received a grant of one thousand acres of land. He built the Tilghman "Hermitage" in Queen Anne County, continued the practice of his profession, and acquired other lands by purchase. His son Richard, Matthew Tilghman's father, joined two large landholding families by marrying the daughter of Philemon Lloyd and became prominent in public life as a representative of Talbot County in the Maryland Assembly and as a member of the governor's Council.
Matthew Tilghman was the youngest of nine children.
Education
His early education was under the direction of Hugh Jones, and at the age of fifteen he was adopted by his cousin, Matthew Tilghman Ward, who endowed him with the riches of experience and influence acquired from long public service, and a large estate at Ward's Point (now Tilghman's Point) in Talbot County.
Career
Tilghman entered public life in 1741 as captain of a troop of horse organized for protection from Indian incursions on the Eastern Shore. The same year he was appointed an associate justice of the Talbot County court. He was promoted to a justice of the quorum in 1749, continued in that capacity until 1769, and was the presiding justice from 1770 to 1775. He took a seat in the Maryland Assembly in 1751, as a representative of Talbot County, served until 1758, represented Queen Anne County in 1760 and 1761, was returned by Talbot County in 1768, and served until the Revolution. In 1773 and 1774 he was speaker of the Assembly. In recognition of his high standing, the lord proprietor, in July 1768, issued commissions appointing him to a seat in the Council and agent to direct the collection of his territorial revenue. But Tilghman declined.
Although a large landholder, he had at no time been friendly to the proprietary interests, and since the British Parliament had undertaken to tax the colonies he cast his lot with the popular cause against both Parliament and proprietor.
In June 1768 he served on a committee of the Assembly to draft a remonstrance to the king against the Townshend Acts. He signed the non-importation agreement, adopted on June 22, 1769, as a further protest against those Acts. He presided over the Maryland Conventions, 1774-76, which formed the Association of the Freemen of Maryland, adopted a provisional government with a council of safety and committees of observation and correspondence, and chose delegates to the Continental Congress.
He was chairman of the committee of correspondence for Talbot County, was president of the council of safety, and headed every Maryland delegation to the Continental Congress from September 1774 to December 1776. Tilghman was one of the Maryland delegates who first expressed themselves openly in favor of independence and recommended a session of the Maryland Convention with a view to the removal of its restrictions in that particular. He presided over that session and the restrictions were removed, but he was not present in Congress when the Declaration of Independence was passed or when it was signed.
The few remaining years of his public life were devoted chiefly to the organization and operation of a government for the State of Maryland. He was chosen president of the convention that met at Annapolis on Aug. 14, 1776, to draft the first constitution of the state, and served as chairman of the committee elected by that body to prepare "a declaration and charter of rights, and a form of government. "
He was elected in December 1776 to a seat in the state Senate for a term of five years, was reëlected in September 1781, and for a time served as its president. While senator, he voiced his opposition to the confiscation of British property, and, as president of a special council, afforded military protection to property on the Eastern Shore. Immediately following the declaration of peace in 1783, he closed his public career, retired to "Bayside, " his estate in Talbot County, where he resided until his death from a paralytic stroke.
Achievements
Connections
On April 6, 1741, he was married to Anna Lloyd, the daughter of James Lloyd, and to them were born three sons and two daughters. The younger daughter, Anna Maria, became the wife of her cousin, Tench Tilghman, aide-de-camp of General Washington.