Wm. A. McKellipVeteran

Few Carroll County natives had

careers as interesting and far-reaching as William McKellip. Although born and raised

in Taneytown, by the time of his death he had become President Theodore Roosevelt’s

Consul to Magdeburg, Germany. In the years between he fought in the Civil War,

owned a successful law practice in Westminster, was the friend of Presidents Lincoln,

Grant, McKinley, and Teddy Roosevelt, and traveled widely.

In 1862 when the Union Army needed soldiers, McKellip assisted in organizing

companies of the Sixth Regiment Infantry, Maryland Volunteers. He was directly

responsible for recruitment of Company A. Realizing the regiment’s newly recruited

men were poorly supplied with weapons, he and Maryland Governor Hicks went

straight to Washington to meet with Lincoln in the hopes of obtaining better arms.

Following a short interview with the president, they walked away with a note written

on the back of Lincoln’s personal card saying, “Secretary of War: Please give bearer,

Major McKellip, of the 6th Maryland Regiment, the best arms possible, and oblige. A.

Lincoln.”

An exploding magazine rendered McKellip unfit for further military service in 1863, so he returned to Carroll County where he and John E. Smith ran a very successful law practice. Later he became the senior partner in the law firm of McKellip and Clabaugh. He ran for a number of political offices as a Republican but usually lost due to a Democratic majority in the county. President Ulysses S. Grant appointed him as a United States Commissioner to the Vienna Exposition in 1873. While on that mission he traveled around much of Europe with the erudite James W. Reese, a local minister, as his traveling companion. McKellip and his second wife, Sarah, went abroad on several more occasions, and she was in Magdeburg with him when he died.

McKillip’s 1904 funeral was the most elaborate in Westminster’s history up to that

time because he had left a significant mark on his community and elsewhere. His body

was returned from Germany to Baltimore where it was met by many notables. A band

from the ship accompanied his flag-draped casket to the train that brought him back to

Westminster. At Centenary Methodist Episcopal Church speakers recalled his

patriotism. Hundreds of people stood outside the church and lined the streets as his

funeral procession moved to this cemetery. There were more than thirty honorary

pallbearers representing his military career and membership in the Grand Army of the

Republic as well as organizations in the city and county. His relatively modest

headstone belies his many significant accomplishments.

Born in Taneytown on December 25, 1835, Lieutenant Colonel William McKellip was an influential figure in Westminster during and after the Civil War. McKellip, a lawyer by profession, enlisted in the Union Army on August 12, 1862 as a Captain in Company A, Sixth Maryland Infantry. As an influential citizen, Captain McKellip was responsible for encouraging many other men from Westminster and the surrounding area to enlist in Company A as well. McKellip was promoted to the rank of Major on September 2, 1862, and promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel on March 27, 1863, the rank that he held when he left the army in 1863 due to injuries sustained in the explosion of a powder magazine. Following his military service, Lieutenant Colonel McKellip returned to his successful Westminster law practice, eventually becoming the Clerk of the Court for Carroll County. He married Anna L. Smith McKellip on February12, 1866, and they had one daughter, Julia. Anna died on May 1, 1880, and McKellip married Sarah Conkling Burroughs McKellip, a relative of the very powerful Senator Roscoe Conkling of New York, on January 7, 1885. During much of the final decades of the century, the McKellips travelled about Europe on federal government business including McKellip being appointed U.S. Consul to Magdeburg, Germany by President Theodore Roosevelt. It was in Magdeburg that Lieutenant Colonel McKellip died suddenly on April 4, 1904. His body was returned to the United States with great fanfare, and he was given an elaborate funeral at Centenary Methodist Episcopal Church in Westminster with participation of the local Burns Post No. 13, Grand Army of the Republic, for which he had previously served as Commander.