William Paca: MD Signer of the Declaration of Independence

William Paca was born on October 31, 1740, in Hartford County, Maryland, to John and Elizabeth (Smith) Paca. He was the second of seven children and the second son. His family ancestry can be traced back to England, though there might be some Italian roots. Great-grandfather Robert Paca came to America before 1660 as an indentured servant to John Hall. John Hall passed away, and Robert Paca married his widow and acquired Hall’s estate through this marriage. He was not a wealthy man from this marriage. Grandfather Aquila Paca was the one who began acquiring property in Maryland and became wealthy. He married Martha Philips, the daughter of a wealthy planter who inherited one-fourth of her father’s estate. They would become Quakers. Their son, John Paca, the father of William, also married well and became a wealthy and prominent planter in Baltimore, Maryland. He left the Quaker denomination and became an Anglican.

            Not much is known about Paca’s childhood up to the age of twelve, when he went off to school in Philadelphia. We can speculate that, as the son of a relatively wealthy man, he was most likely trained to ride horses and hunt and would have learned about his father’s plantation, like other boys in his social class. Because he was the second son and the entail laws of the 18th century prevented him from inheriting the majority of his father’s estate, his father made sure he received a good education. After finishing his schooling, he trained under Stephen Bordley, Esquire, a lawyer in Annapolis. During this time, he meets Samuel Chase, with whom he would frequently go out drinking and chasing women. Even after his marriage, Paca would not stop going out with Chase and chasing women. Both men would also become friends with Thomas Stone, another young lawyer in Annapolis, at this time. Paca would receive his license to practice law in 1761.

            Around 1760, Paca co-founded the Forensic Club, a group of young men who would meet to debate various topics. Some of the topics they discussed included whether Brutus was justified in killing Caesar and whether Regulas was bound by his oath to return to Carthage. Samuel Chase was also part of the club but was expelled in 1762, although the minutes do not list why. By 1766, Paca had been granted honorary status and was not required to attend meetings regularly.

            In 1763, he completed his studies in law at the Inner Temple in London and received his M.A. from the College of Philadelphia. In this same year, on May 26, he married Ann Mary Chew. Ann was the daughter of Samuel and Henrietta Maria (Lloyd) Chew. Her father had died when she was an infant, and she was raised by her stepfather, Daniel Dulaney, a wealthy and politically connected man in Annapolis. Paca and Ann would have five children, but only one survived to adulthood. Henrietta Marie was born in 1766 and died in infancy, as did another unnamed daughter in 1767. John Philomon was born in 1771 and died in 1840. He married Julianna Tilghman. Ann Mary passed away in 1774, possibly during the birth of their fourth child.

            Four days after his marriage to Ann, Paca purchases two lots totaling about 2 acres of land in Annapolis and builds a home sometime between 1763 and 1765. This home has a four-story main house with two-story flanker buildings connected to it by passageways. The main home had a basement, two main living floors, and an attic. The flanker buildings are one floor and an attic. The home would eventually have a hotel behind it, with the home serving as the main entrance and housing the hotel’s offices. The hotel, which had been quite popular, closed in the 1960s because it lacked air conditioning. The Paca House was almost razed until the Annapolis Historical Society stepped in and persuaded the State of Maryland to buy the property.

            Behind the home today stands a replica of the garden Paca would have installed when he owned the property. He also had a little “summer” house at the back of the property, which he used as a private retreat from the business of the house. The “summer” home has been rebuilt after the hotel and its subsequent parking lots were removed. Upon the removal of the parking lots, a forensic and archeological study was conducted, and they found fossilized plant roots dating back to the time of William Paca. Most of the plants you see on the property today were planted there in the 1770s. In addition, the land where the summer house and pond are now located was the best-preserved area because of all the fill dirt used to level the area when a parking lot stood on that portion of the property. In his gardens, Paca designed a drainage system to divert water from a spring into his features, such as the pond. In addition to the plant findings, they identified the features of his lower gardens, which were originally laid out in a stepped pattern, as seen in the Peale portrait of Paca, painted in 1772. This portrait also provided details as to how the “summer” house looked.

            In 1764, Paca was admitted to the bar of the Provincial Court, and the very next year, he founded the Sons of Liberty with his good friend Samuel Chase. In this organization, the friends were able to rally support against the Stamp Act and elect new people to positions of power in Annapolis. He himself would be elected to the Annapolis Common Council in 1766.

            By 1771, he was a representative in the Lower House of the Maryland Assembly. While his popularity was growing, he tended to work behind the scenes rather than at the forefront. He would become a prolific political writer, producing newspaper articles and letters, and would even write many of Samuel Chase’s speeches. Sometimes, Paca could take the lead, and this occurred when an act regulating tobacco and certain government fees expired in 1774. The Royal Governor was going to extend the act, and Paca tried, without success, to persuade him not to. Paca, along with Chase, staged a protest by hanging the act at the gallows. They waited until it was “dead” and then they placed it in a coffin and buried it under the gallows. To celebrate the burial of this act, a schooner in the port fired several guns. The schooner is believed to have been owned by Paca. The rest of the day was spent celebrating what they, and the people who joined them, had done. Both he and Chase led the effort to oppose the poll tax, which was enacted to fund the clergy. Together, they represent a citizen who refused to pay the tax and won their case. The prosecutor for the case was their friend and future signer Thomas Stone.

            In May of 1774, Paca was elected to the First Continental Congress and took his seat alongside his friend Samuel Chase. He meets John Adams, and they become fast friends. He was re-elected to the Second Continental Congress and stayed until 1778, when he retired. In 1775, he signed the Olive Branch Petition and then, alongside Chase and Carroll, worked very hard to convince the people of Maryland to come out and support independence. He also forbade the Legislature from rescinding the previous instructions, which had prevented the delegates from voting for independence. He votes for independence on July 2and signs the engrossed copy of the Declaration on August 2, 1776. During this time, he was also a member of the Maryland Senate and was concerned about the war’s veterans. He would work hard to provide some type of assistance for them. Like other wealthy signers, he would contribute his own money to the cause.

            During his time in Congress, he would be embroiled in a scandal. He would have two illegitimate daughters between 1775 and 1777. Hester was born on August 26, 1775, to Paca and a mulatto, named Levina Hester in Philadelphia. It does not appear that Hester lives to adulthood. A second illegitimate daughter, named Henrietta Maria, was born in 1777, and her mother was Sarah Joice. She married and moved to Kentucky as an adult. He provided support and an education for both girls, sending them to the best schools. A happy and scandal-free event occurred on February 28, 1777, when he married Ann Harrison. She was 16 years younger than he and the daughter of a wealthy Philadelphia merchant named Henry Harrison. They have two children, but neither survives to adulthood. William was born in 1776 and passed away in 1781. Henry was born in 1778 but died in infancy. Ann would pass away in 1780.

            Upon leaving Congress in 1778, Paca was appointed a Judge of the General Court and held this position until 1780, when he was appointed Judge of the Appeals Court. He sells his Annapolis home after his second wife, Ann, passes away that same year. He had shared the home with two wives, and there were doubtless many sad memories connected to the home.

            From 1782 to 1785, he served as the Governor of Maryland, and important issues for him were children’s education and religious freedom. He worked hard to ensure a quality education was available to the youth of his state. Religion was another issue he addressed during his tenure to ensure that all denominations would have some form of support, especially since many had suffered during the revolution. The legislature took up these important issues and passed some of them.

            During his tenure as governor, he served as Vice President of the Maryland Chapter of the Society of the Cincinnati. He was a member because of his wartime service and support for the military, but he himself had not served in the military. Membership was usually reserved for military officers, so this was a great honor. He would serve as Vice President until 1787.

            During the Maryland Ratification, he supported the Constitution only after proposing amendments, including a Bill of Rights. He was the leader of the Anti-Federalist movement in Maryland, and unlike Chase, this did not hurt him, as he voted to ratify the Constitution. Several of the amendments he supported at the ratifying convention would form the Bill of Rights. After ratification and the election of President Washington, he was appointed a judge of the Federal District Court.

            Paca passed away on October 13, 1799, in Talbot County, Maryland. He is buried in a private graveyard on his former home, Wye Plantation. It was originally built for his son John Philemon and remains a private residence. In 1879, a fire destroyed all his papers and dinars stored here. His descendants owned Wye Plantation for at least 100 years after his death. It appears the family sold it sometime in the 1930’s.[1]

Tidbits

The 1790 census showed there were two males over the age of 16 in his household and that he owned 92 slaves.

John Adams described him as a good deliberator.

Dr. Rush described him as “good tempered, worthy man with a sound understanding which he was too indolent to exercise, and hence his reputation in public life was less than his talents.”

Charles Peale described him this way: “He was a handsome man, more than 6 feet high, of portly appearance, being well educated and accustomed to the best company, he was graceful in his movements and complaisant to everyone; in short, his manners were of the first polish. In the early period, when the people’s eyes first open to their rights… he made the first stand for the independence of the people.”

[1] Quotes in Tidbits are from Barthelmas, Della Gray. The Signers of The Declaration of Independence: A Biographical and Genealogical Reference (Jefferson, NC, London: McFarland, 2003), 205 and the Paca House Flyer