History of Port Deposit, (Cecil County) Maryland United States of America

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Biographies:

Jacob Tome, philanthropist, was born in Manheim, York county, Pa., Aug. 13, 1810. He was the son of German Lutherans. He received a limited education, engaged in farming, fishing, merchandising and teaching in turn, and in 1833 began dealing in lumber and grain in Port Deposit, Md. He was a member of the state senate and chairman of the finance committee in 1864. He declined the position of secretary of the U.S. treasury offered by President Grant; was a trustee of Dickinson college, and gave to that institution a handsome building for scientific uses in 1884. He was the organizer of the Port Deposit bank in 1850, which became the Cecil National Bank of Port Deposit, and served as its president, 1850-98, when, upon his decease, his widow, Evelyn S. Tome, succeeded him as president. In 1889 he founded the Jacob Tome Institute at Port Deposit for the benefit of poor parents who could not send their children to a higher institution of learning than the public schools. He first expended $250,000 in 1889, and when the school opened in 1894, endowed the institution with a fund of $1,000,000, which by the terms of his will was increased by about $3,000,000, making it one of the richest institutions of the kind in the world. He died at Port Deposit, Md., March 16, 1898.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

John Angel James Creswell, senator, was born in Port Deposit, Md., Nov. 18, 1828. He was graduated at Dickinson college in 1848 with the highest honors of his class and was admitted to the Baltimore bar in 1850. He was a member of the Whig party and on its dissolution he acted with the Democrats and was a delegate to the Democratic national convention of 1856. When the issue arose between the free and slave states he became a pronounced Union man and used his influence in his state to prevent its secession. In November, 1861, he was elected a representative from Cecil county in the Maryland legislature, and in 1862-63 was adjutant-general of the state. He represented Maryland in the 38th U.S. congress, 1863-65, and in an eloquent speech before that body advocated the abolition of slavery. In 1865 the legislature of Maryland elected him a United States senator to fill the unexpired term of Thomas H. Hicks, deceased. In the senate he was appointed to deliver the eulogy upon the life of Henry Winter Davis who had been his colleague in the 38th congress. He was a delegate to the Republican national convention at Baltimore in 1864; in 1866 was a member of the Loyalists' convention at Philadelphia, Pa., in 1867 of the Border States convention at Baltimore, and in 1868 of the Republican national convention at Chicago. He opposed the administration of President Johnson and was one of the first in congress to advocate the impeachment measures. In 1868 he was elected secretary of the U.S. senate but declined the office. Upon the accession of Gen. U. S. Grant to the presidency, March 4, 1869, he appointed Mr. Creswell postmaster-general. On June 22, 1874, the President appointed him counsel for the United States in the court of commissioners sitting on the Alabama claims and thereupon he resigned his portfolio in the cabinet to accept the position and served as counsel until Dec. 21, 1876. When disaster overtook the Freedman's saving and trust company, Mr. Creswell was appointed one of the commissioners to close up the business of the concern. He was president of the Citizens' national bank of Washington, D.C., and vice-president of the National bank of Elkton. Dickinson college gave him the honorary degree of LL.D. in 1871. He died in Elkton, Md., Dec. 23, 1891.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor