Maryland Council of Defense
government · founded 1917
Maryland's wartime civilian mobilisation body. Shortly after the Armistice it authorised an engraved State Testimonial, signed by Governor Emerson C. Harrington and by its chairman Francis F. Waters and dated Annapolis, 1 May 1919, to be presented to the family of every Maryland man who died in the service. Those for Worcester County were distributed by county chairman M. T. Hargis in the summer of 1919, against an honor roll compiled by the Historical Division and still open to additions.
In the record (2)
1919
Maryland sends an engraved testimonial to the family of every county man who died in the war; Worcester's honor roll runs to twenty-two names.
The Messenger of 12 July 1919, "TESTIMONIALS FOR OUR DEAD": the Maryland Council of Defense had a State Testimonial engraved and signed by Governor Emerson C. Harrington and Chairman Francis F. Waters, to be presented to the family of every Maryland man who died in the service. Those for Worcester County were in the hands of M. T. Hargis, county chairman, for distribution. The wording: "in recognition of the service of [name] who gave his life for his country in the great War for the rights of mankind, presents to you this Testimonial that it shares with you 'the cherished memory of the loved and lost and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice on the altar of freedom.'" The roll printed with it names twenty-two Worcester County dead, each with a next of kin — among them John Fred Colbourne of St. Martins, Elisha C. Hudson of Bishopville, Francis E. Hudson of Bishop, George Henry Lewis of Berlin, Kevin Stansbury Fooks of Berlin and Harry W. Mitchell of Whaleyville. No man is listed from Ocean City itself.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1941 · 1941-04-28
The machinery that reached Ocean City in December was built in Annapolis in the spring: Chapter 567 of 1941 created a new Maryland Council of Defense and repealed the one left over from the last war.
1941 was a Maryland General Assembly year — Session 326, 1 January to 31 March 1941, a single regular session with no special session, checked in the Archives of Maryland session table rather than assumed from the biennial rule. Chapter 567 of the Acts of 1941 (Senate Bill 465), printed at pages 978-981 of Archives of Maryland volume 582, added a new sub-title and eight new sections to Article 41 of the Annotated Code: 'The Maryland Council of Defense, hereinafter designated as the "Council", is hereby created', with twenty-six named original members including Governor Herbert R. O'Conor and Attorney General William C. Walsh, and with power in the Governor to name its chairman, fill every vacancy 'however occurring', and enlarge it to forty. Its funding purposes run from 'mobilizing, equipping, compensating, transporting, supplying and maintaining' the National Guard to anything else 'deemed necessary and proper... for the defense of the State, the safety of its people, and the protection of property'. The act expressly repealed Chapter 24 of the Extraordinary Session of 1917 — the First World War body of the same name. Eight months later that chain of authority ran down through a Worcester County Council of Civilian Defense to a Thursday-evening meeting in the Ocean City municipal building.
Maryland Council of Defense (1941)Worcester County Council of Defense
Source · checked 2026-08-11