Richard Henry Alvey

Background

Richard Henry Alvey was born on March 6, 1826 in Mechanicsville, Maryland, United States. He was the eldest son of George and Harriet (Weaklin) Alvey, the family having lived in the county from the time of Lord Baltimore's colonization.

Education

Alvey went to the little school taught by his father.

Career

At the age of eighteen Alvey entered the clerk's office of Charles County, where he was a deputy until 1850. He had been reading law, and was admitted to the bar in 1849.

On quitting the clerk's office, he moved to Hagerstown to practise. In briefless years he was profoundly affected by study of Tucker's addenda to Blackstone, dealing with American law, in which Jeffersonian principles were espoused. He had been in Hagerstown only a year when he ran for the state Senate as a Democrat.

Though Washington County was strongly Whig, the vote was a tie, and a second election went in favor of his opponent, Judge French, by only forty votes. Alvey first came to wide notice when as a Pierce elector in 1852 he spoke throughout the state, the ticket receiving Maryland's vote.

In January 1861, just after Lincoln's election, a meeting was held in Hagerstown to express the opinion of the county on the secession issue. Alvey, then thirty-five years old, was named chairman of the committee on resolutions. He headed a minority report which leaned to the state-rights view. This "Alvey Resolution" attracted much attention, and spoke for the sympathies of certainly half the people of Maryland. It is believed that this incident was responsible for his arrest as soon as Federal troops entered Hagerstown, the charge that he was holding communication with the enemy lacking proof. For a year, until February 1862, he was held prisoner, first at Fort McHenry, Baltimore, next at Fort Lafayette, New York, and last at Fort Warren in Boston Harbor, where were also Severn Teackle Wallis and other Marylanders.

Returning home on parole, he resumed his practise, for a time being associated with Judge J. T. Mason, and later being the partner of Hon. William T. Hamilton. After the war, Alvey labored for the restoration of normal conditions. He particularly forwarded the return of the franchise to those deprived of it through factional differences, and being elected to the legislature in 1867 fathered the law putting the selection of juries immediately under the eye of the court instead of leaving the choice to partisan sheriffs. At first made local to Washington, Carroll, and Frederick Counties, this jury law was soon extended throughout the state.

Alvey was a delegate to the constitutional convention held the same year, being active as chairman of the committee on representation. In 1867 under the new constitution he was elected chief judge of the fourth judicial circuit for the counties of Washington, Allegany, and Garrett, thus becoming a member of the Maryland court of appeals. He was reelected in 1882.

The following year, on the retirement of Judge James L. Bartol, he was commissioned by Governor Hamilton, chief judge of the highest Maryland court, in response to a public demand which the reluctant executive could not dismiss. Alvey's opinions as associate judge appear in volumes XXVIII-LX of the Maryland Reports, and those as chief judge in volumes LX-LXXVII.

In a period in which echoes of the Civil War were vibrant and distrust of government was common, Judge Alvey, in spite of his supposed partisanship, was even-handed and a lesson in reflection. When the District of Columbia court of appeals was organized in 1893, President Cleveland appointed him chief justice. Here, until his retirement from failing health in 1904, he was responsible for laying down the rules of practise of the new tribunal, and he made it answer to expectations.

In 1896 he was appointed by Cleveland to serve on the commission which determined the boundary line between Venezuela and British Guiana, discharging his judicial duties at the same time. He lectured at the National University in Washington on branches of the law, serving also as chancellor of the institution. Never wishing public notice, and rarely accepting social invitations, he spent his last years in the quiet of his family circle. He died at Hagerstown, and was buried in sight of the mountains which always gave him pleasure.

Achievements

• Alvey was a prominent jurist. In his thirty-eight years on the bench he wrote some 3, 000 opinions, which showed his mastery and veneration of the law as a science.

Politics

Alvey was a member of the Democratic party.

Views

Alvey was of the old school, a thorough student of the English Common Law, and one who would have lamented the sympathetic bending of legal theory to meet social exigency.

Personality

Alvey was a large, stout man, clean-shaven, and with a shining bald head, reminding one of a priest. When he came to the bench he was known for his irascible temper, the story being told that once in Hagerstown, while arguing a case, he threw a law book at the head of opposing counsel. But in his judicial office he developed repose, having learned, say those who knew him, from his association with Judge Bartol, who was eminently suave.

All of his opinions as filed are autographic, and written in the neatest chirography, and with the slightest bearing on the pen, as though he wanted to be gentle, and level and calm even with the instrumentalities he involved in the transfer of his thoughts to paper.

Connections

In 1856 Alvey was married to Mary A. Wharton, who died four years later. In 1862 he married Julia Jones Hays, of Washington County, by whom he had nine children.

Spouse :

Julia Jones (Hayes) Alvey

Spouse :

Mary A. (Wharton) Alvey

Daughter :

Julia (Alvey) Worthington

Daughter :

Elizabeth W. Alvey

Daughter :

Virginia Alvey

Daughter :

Margaret (Alvey) Nelson Allen

Father :

George Nicholas Alvey

Sister :

Elizabeth Ann (Alvey) Cross

mother :

Harriet Elizabeth (Weaklin) Alvey

Daughter:

Mary Fales Alvey Allen

Son:

Charles Henry Alvey

Son:

Thomas Frederick Alvey

Son :

Henry Chapline Alvey

Son :

Richard Henry Alvey