William Paca

Maryland Historical Society

William Paca, lawyer and politician, was one of Maryland's four signers of the Declaration of Independence and a three-term governor of the state (1782-1785).

Paca was born on October 31, 1740, at the family plantation on the Bush River in Baltimore County, Maryland. Paca was the third child and second son of planter John Paca (c.1712-1785) and his wife Elizabeth Smith (?-c.1766). In addition to his older brother Aquila, Paca had five sisters.

In 1752 William and Aquila were enrolled in the Philadelphia Academy and Charity School. Paca continued his education at the College of Philadelphia, receiving a B.A. degree in May 1759. Three years later he collected an M.A. degree, available upon request to graduates in good standing without requirement of further study. In the late spring or early summer of 1759 Paca settled in Annapolis to study law with Stephen Bordley, one of the colony's most prominent lawyers.

Paca began his legal career in 1761, eventually qualifying to practice in several county courts as well as the more prestigious provincial courts. In addition to a successful law practice, he solidified his position among the Maryland gentry by his marriage on May 26, 1763, to Mary Chew, daughter of Samuel Chew (ca.1704-1737) and Henrietta Maria Lloyd (?-1765). The Pacas had three children before Mary's death in Jan 1774. Of the three children, only John Philemon (1771-1840) survived to adulthood.

William Paca

Maryland Historical Society

During the 1760s Paca took an active role in Maryland's political life. With fellow attorney Samuel Chase, he led local protests in 1765 against the Stamp Act and organized the Anne Arundel County chapter of the Sons of Liberty. In May 1766 Annapolitans elected Paca as a councilman and the following year chose him as one of their representatives in the House of Delegates. He remained a representative for Annapolis through the final provincial assembly of 1774.

As Maryland moved toward independence, Paca represented Annapolis in the extra-legal conventions that governed the province beginning in 1774, and was chosen as one of Maryland's delegates to the first Continental Congress. Paca was one of two Maryland delegates who both voted for and signed the Declaration of Independence.

While in Philadelphia as a delegate, on February 28, 1777, Paca married Anne Harrison (1757-1780), daughter of merchant and former mayor Henry Harrison (ca.1713-1766) and his wife, Mary Aspden. The couple had one child before Anne's death in February 1780; their son Henry died in 1781. In the interval between the death of Mary Paca and his marriage to Anne Harrison, Paca fathered two children, by two different women, of whom Henrietta Maria (c.1777-1850), daughter of Sarah Joice of Annapolis, survived him.

Paca served as a judge of the Court of Appeals for Admiralty and Prize Cases from 1780 until his election as the third governor of Maryland in November 1782. Paca served three one-year terms (the statutory limit) and was in office when Congress met in Annapolis in 1783-1784, where it ratified the Treaty of Paris on January 15, 1784. Following the expiration of his third term, Paca-elected to both Senate and House of Delegates-chose to sit in the House as the body more responsive to the public interest.

Paca refused election to the Constitutional Convention in 1787 but did represent Harford County (a recently-created county that included his birthplace) as an anti-Federalist in the Ratification Convention held in April 1788. He proposed amendments to the Constitution designed to ensure personal freedoms and limitations on federal powers similar to safeguards included in Maryland's constitution. Although Federalist control of the convention frustrated his efforts, a number of Paca's ideas were later incorporated into the Bill of Rights. Despite Paca's opposition to the new government, in December 1789 George Washington appointed him a judge for the federal district court of Maryland, recognizing that without men like Paca, the Revolution would have failed and there would have been no American government.

William Paca built an elegant Georgian mansion with a two-acre pleasure garden in Annapolis immediately after his marriage to Mary Chew. He sold that house (which still stands and is known as the Paca House) in 1780 and made his primary residence on Wye Island on Maryland's Eastern Shore, where he built a house even more grand, Wye Hall, in the 1790s. Paca died at Wye Hall on October 13, 1799, and was most likely buried on the grounds, although the location of his grave is unknown.

Stiverson, Gregory A. and Phebe R. Jacobsen. William Paca: A Biography. Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1976.

White, Frank F., Jr. The Governors of Maryland, 1777-1970. Publication No. 15. Annapolis: The Hall of Records Commission, 1970.

Papenfuse, Edward C. et al., eds. A Biographical Dictionary of the Maryland Legislature, 1635-1789. Vol. 1. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979.