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Page 34 January 2018
by James Rada, Jr.
Galt Starts the Effort to Recognize Thomas Johnson
Thomas Johnson was the first
governor of Maryland, serving from
March 21, 1777, to November
12, 1779. “John Adams said that
Governor Thomas Johnson of
Maryland was one out of four
citizens of Maryland and Virginia
without whom there would
have been no revolution,” John
Williamson Palmer wrote in Century
Magazine.
Johnson was one of the forgotten
Founding Fathers, which was
a problem that Sterling Galt of
Emmitsburg set out to correct in
1917.
Sterling Galt purchased the
Emmitsburg Chronicle in 1906. He
was the fourth owner of the twenty-
seven-year-old newspaper. Back in
those days, small newspapers had
The Catoctin Banner Newspaper
few employees.
The owner was
the publisher
and the primary
reporter. Galt was
very active in the
community and
had shown that
he had political
aspirations with
a failed run for
the state senate in
1911.
In January
1917, he met
with a group of
similarly civic-
minded men
in the office
of the school
commissioner in
Frederick. There, Photo of the bust of Thomas Johnson, courtesy of
the group formed
the Thomas
Johnson Memorial Association
and elected Galt its president and
William Delaplaine the secretary.
The group’s mission was to have
a suitable memorial created for
Maryland’s first governor and
Frederick County resident, Thomas
Johnson. The men planned to solicit
donations of no more than a dime to
fund the memorial.
Before the group could build up
any steam, World War I started.
A few fundraising drives were
conducted, but people wanted to
send money to support the troops,
not build a memorial. Then, Galt
died on December 28, 1922, and it
seemed like his organization would
die as well.
Then in 1926, life returned
to the group. It reorganized and
began holding meetings. Not only
did they praise Johnson’s service
as governor, but he had also been
an associate justice on the U.S.
Supreme Court, a member of the
Continental Congress, and the man
who nominated George Washington
as the commander-in-chief of the
Continental Army.
“The people of Frederick County
have long felt that some recognition
of his invaluable services to the State
and to the nation should be given,
www.TheCatoctinBanner.com Published by www.EPlusPromotes.com
1917
and some suitable ‘musts’ until we are afraid to call
memorial erected our lives our own…” Offutt said.
here in Frederick In 2015, the bust of Johnson
to his memorial.” was caught up in the controversy
A bust of surrounding another Frederick
Thomas Johnson County resident and Supreme Court
was sculpted in justice who had a bronze bust in the
clay by Joseph park. Roger Brooke Taney is known
Urner in 1926. for delivering the Dred Scott Supreme
However, since Court decision in 1857, which said
all funds were that slaves could not be American
being publicly citizens. Johnson became part of
raised, it wasn’t the controversy because he was a
until years later slaveowner and that outweighed the
that it could be good he had done for the country.
finally cast in On March 18, 2017, both the
bronze. Scott and Johnson busts were
The bronze removed from in front of the
bust in courthouse. They will be refurbished
Courthouse and placed on display in the Mt.
Park was finally Olivet Cemetery.
unveiled in
Waymarking.com. 1929. It sat on
a granite base
with a plaque that listed many of
Johnson’s accomplishments. The
speakers at the event included
Judge T. Scott Offutt, president of
the Maryland Society, Sons of the
American Revolution, and Charles
Francis Adams, U.S. Secretary of
Navy and the great-grandson of
John Adams.
Galt’s efforts in organizing the
group that eventually made the
memorial a reality were noted in
the speeches.
Some of Offutt’s comments
seem oddly prescient of today and
what eventually happened to the
memorial.
“We stand in a different world
from the one he knew,” Offutt said.
“Manners, morals, methods, and
indeed the whole face of civilization
have changed.”
He then went on to criticize a
society that was letting itself drift
into “paternal socialism” and
losing the freedoms that Johnson’s
generation had won for the country.
“The press does our thinking for
us, the state guards our morals,
boards and commissions of one
kind or another manage our affairs,
and hordes of bureaucratic officials
consume our substance and pester
and bedevil us with ‘don’ts’ and