In memory of Michael BaughmanAuthor of the memorial page is Cemetery Manager

Michael Baughman was born

in York, Pennsylvania, and moved to the Westminster area in the 1830s where he met

his future wife Mahala Brown. Their marriage produced six children.

In 1855 Michael bought a home on the corner of Bishops Alley and East Main Street

for $550. It was there he established a blacksmith shop at the rear of his house. He

must have been successful because the 1860 census lists his worth as $4,500. In 1866

he entered into a partnership with young Frank Kendig Herr, one of his former

apprentices, to establish a carriage and wagon shop elsewhere in town. Baughman was

often paid for blacksmithing he did for the Carroll County Alms House. He also had a

contract with the Bennett Pottery Company of Baltimore to locate feldspar deposits

for pottery making.

Baughman taught Sunday School at the Methodist Protestant Church on East Main

Street, and was politically active in the American Party – the “Know-Nothing Party.”

In 1858 he served as an Orphans‟ Court judge, then ran unsuccessfully for sheriff in 1859. Elected

Westminster’s mayor in May 1861, he served three successive one-year terms until May 1864. Michael was a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the local Masonic Lodge. At the time of his death in 1876, he was serving as a County Commissioner. On 28 June 1863, elements of the First Delaware Cavalry arrived at Westminster to guard the town against part of the Confederate Army known to be in the area. At 7:00 a.m. the following morning, five

members of the Delaware unit were at Baughman’s shop having their horses reshod when they were captured by advance scouts from J.E.B. Stuart’s Confederate cavalry corps. This action alerted the Delaware troops and led later that day to the Battle of Westminster, also known as “Corbit’s Charge.” The engagement has been commemorated locally for a number of years.