24. Isaac Nevett Steele (8) was born on Apr 25 1809 in Cambridge, Maryland. He died on Apr 11 1891 in Baltimore, Maryland. Isaac Nevett Steele was one of the most distinguished lawyers in the history of the Maryland bar. He was educated privately, being tutored by the Rev. Nathaniel Wheaton, and also attended the Cambridge Public Academy and St. John's College in Annapolis. He attended Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, where he was a member of the class of 1828, although he did not receive his A. B. degree until 1833. He studied law under Alexander C. Magruder and David Hoffman in Baltimore and was admitted to the bar in 1830 at the age of twenty-one.
According to the National Cyclopedia of American Biography (which has a handsome engraving of him in early middle age in Volume 29), "He rose rapidly to prominence, becoming not only a leader of the Maryland bar but also one of the foremost lawyers in America." In 1839 he was named Deputy Attorney General for Baltimore County, a position he held for ten years. In 1843 he was the prosecuting attorney in the sensational murder trial of Adam Horn and secured a conviction after a trial lasting seven days (a very long trial by the standards of the day).
His health failed him in 1845 and he took a leave of absence in order to travel in Europe and England, remaining abroad for eighteen months. Returning to this country, he resumed his duties as Deputy Attorney General, but his health failed again in 1849, shortly after his marriage. President Zachary Taylor appointed him Charge d'Affaires to Venezuela, where it was hoped the equable climate of Caracas would be good for him. In Caracas he arranged for the settlement of long-outstanding claims by United States citizens that had been considered hopeless. He also nearly lost his life when robbers broke into the United States Legation hoping to find money left there for safe-keeping.
Returning to Baltimore in 1853 he resumed the practice of law, mostly in private practice, but he also served as Baltimore City Attorney from 1872 to 1874. The National Cyclopedia says that "During his long professional career there were few cases before the Maryland courts, involving great principles or large interests, in which he was not prominent as counsel and his name appeared more frequently in the pages of Maryland reports than any other lawyer of his time."
One of his most famous cases was the trial of Mrs. Elizabeth G. Wharton for the murder of Brevet Major General William Scott Ketchum in 1871, a trial that aroused intense public interest. As the defendant's counsel, he persuaded the jury to acquit her of the charges.
He was a founding member of the Maryland Bar Association and Bar Association of Baltimore. He served as president of the latter in 1880-1881. He was also a member of the Maryland Historical Society and the Maryland Club in Baltimore. In 1872 he was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from St. John's College. Active in politics, he served as the Chairman of the Whig State Central Committee in the 1840's and was a Democrat in later years. In 1880, he served as a Presidential Elector, casting his vote for Winfield Scott Hancock, who lost to James A. Garfield.
The National Cyclopedia concluded its biography of him by saying, "He was known as the greatest 'lawyer's lawyer' in Maryland and was said by some of his eulogists to have had the greatest legal mind of his day. He possessed to a rare degree the power to state facts in a lucid and orderly manner and in delivery or argument or public address fascinated all who heard him by the dignity and beauty of his diction." There is another fine engraving of him, this one in old age, in Scharf's History of Baltimore City and County, He was married to Rosa Landonia Nelson on Jan 22 1849 in Washington, D.C..
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