James McHenry

JAMES McHENRY was born in Ballymena, County Antrim, Ireland, on 16 November 1753; received a classical education at Dublin University; emigrated to the United States in 1771 followed by his parents a year later; attended Newark Academy in Delaware in 1772; studied medicine in Philadelphia under Dr. Benjamin Rush; joined the patriot cause and volunteered for military service in 1775; was assigned to the military hospital at Cambridge, Massachusetts, as assistant surgeon, 1776; was named surgeon of the 5th Pennsylvania Battalion in August; was captured at Fort Washington in the Long Island campaign in November; was paroled in January 1777 and exchanged in March 1778; was appointed secretary to General Washington in May; was posted to General Lafayette’s staff in 1780; was a member of the Maryland Senate from 1781 to 1786 and appointed a delegate to the Confederation Congress in 1783, serving concurrently; married Margaret Allison Caldwell in 1784; was a Maryland delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1787; was a member of the Maryland commission that welcomed George Washington on his inaugural journey to New York in 1789; served in the Maryland Assembly, 1789–1791; served again in the State Senate, 1791–1795; served as Secretary of War, 27 January 1796–13 May 1800; sustained his predecessor’s attention to coastal fortification and naval construction; defended his administration of the department in a formal paper read in the House of Representatives in 1802 and privately printed in 1803; published a Baltimore directory in 1807; served as president of the first bible society founded in Baltimore, 1813; died in Baltimore on 3 May 1816.


The Artist
Although H. Pollock is identified in an early Army portrait list as Miss H. Pollock, an 1873 letter from the artist to Secretary Belknap discloses a masculine hand even though it fails to reveal the writer’s sex. Baltimore directories of the period 1868–1886 list a Henry Pollock as a resident of that city at the address on the Belknap letter, and give his occupation as artist and photographer and proprietor of a portrait gallery. This would seem to confirm that Henry Pollock is Secretary McHenry’s portraitist. Additional information about him is elusive.

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Portrait, James McHenry
JAMES McHENRY
Washington and J. Adams Administrations
By H. Pollock
Oil on canvas, 29½" x 24½", 1873


page created 1 March 2001


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