Archaeology

Arts

Economy

Education

Historical Overviews

Science, & Technology

Sports & Recreation

Transportation

Wildlife & Natural Resources

Search:

Lloyd Lowndes

Maryland Historical Society

A Western Maryland lawyer with extensive banking and mining interests, Lloyd Lowndes Jr. rode the wave of public dissatisfaction with late nineteenth-century political bossism and corruption to become a member of the U.S. House of Representatives and governor of Maryland.

Although the future governor was born in Clarksburg, Virginia (now West Virginia), in 1845, the Lowndes family had ties to prominent Maryland colonial families. Lowndes graduated from Allegheny College in Meadville, Pa., in 1865 and, after earning a law degree from University of Pennsylvania in 1867, began practicing law in Cumberland, Maryland, where his father had a small business.

Independent Legislator
Becoming well known and respected in business and political circles in Western Maryland, Lowndes was courted by the state Republican Party. In 1872, with the state Democratic Party in disarray, he was elected to represent Maryland’s Sixth Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. At 26, Lowndes was the youngest member of the Forty-Third Congress.

As a congressman, Lowndes exhibited an independent streak when he broke rank with his party and voted against Republican-sponsored civil rights and reconstruction legislation, angering the House Republican leadership. Not having solid backing within the party and facing a popular Democratic opponent, Lowndes was narrowly defeated for reelection in 1874.

First Republican Governor after the Civil War
After returning to Cumberland and resuming his business interests, Lowndes remained active in the state Republican Party, most notably as a representative from Maryland to the 1880 Republican National Convention. By the 1890s, the Maryland Democratic Party again was embroiled in controversy: many Marylanders were suspicious of “eastern control” of the state government, and Lowndes was persuaded to run for governor in 1895.  He ran his campaign as a “moral crusade” to bring “reform and good government.” Victorious, Lowndes became the first Republican governor in Maryland since the Civil War.

Lowndes’ accomplishments were modest. Largely through pressure from the miners of Frostburg, the state Geological Survey Office and the Maryland Normal School No. 2 at Frostburg (now Frostburg State University) were established. While there were some election and political reforms, Lowndes’ term was mainly characterized by strict fiscal conservatism. However, Lowndes (with significant interests in several coal companies) angered many miners in the state by suppressing legislation regulating mine ventilation and inspection of company stores.

Lowndes’ stubborn assertion of his political independence left him unable either to reward or punish his subordinates. The result was scandal and abuse among Republican officials, which enabled a resurgent Democratic Party to defeat the hapless chief executive when he sough reelection in 1899. Lowndes then returned to Cumberland with his wife Elizabeth Tasker Lowndes and their six children, and lived there until his death in 1905.

—--Thomas Robertson

Community College of Baltimore County--Essex