Notes |
- According to Boyd: "Hon Richard Waters, son of Dr. Richard Waters, of revolutionary fame, was born December 19th, 1794, on the old homestead "Spring Garden," and at an early age took on an active interest in politics in the County. In his canvass for the legislative assembly, he found a great many young men who could neither read nor write, and, on investigation, he discovered that the money appropriated by the State for paying the tuition of those parents who were unable to pay for the schooling of their children, was often used by the board of trustees, as they were called, in paying for children whose parents were able to pay, but their political influence was such as enabled them to divert moneys intended for the instruction of the poor, to the payment of the education of their own children.
This led Dr. Waters to make a spirited canvass of the County, and he was elected to the Legislature by an overwhelming majority. One of his first efforts in the legislative assembly was for a change in the old system of school education, and he succeeded in having a bill passed for Public School Education in the State of Maryland, that resulted in the abolishment of the old system and inaugurated a new era in the education of the people. It was the initial movement, which has, by improvement, resulted in the present School System.
He was re-elected for a second term, and filled the position with honor, both to himself and his constituents. He is still living [in 1879], and is about eighty-five years old. He has four sons and one daughter living.
His son Lemuel is an eminent Divine in the Missouri Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. William is the agent of the Adams Express Company, in Cincinnati, Ohio. Somerset is a Physician of a large practice in Carroll County, and has served in the legislature several terms from that County. George still resides in the County, near the old ancestral acres, and has occupied several public offices of trust in the County. Rebecca, the daughter, married Jesse T. Higgins, of this county, formerly a prominent merchant of Poolesville, and now a merchant of Baltimore" (102-03). [3]
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