Miner, Rancher, Bank Founder, and Legislator Joseph Ireland [otd 05/15]

J. N. Ireland. H. T. French photo.Joseph N. Ireland, co-founder and namesake of the J. N. Ireland Bank, was born May 15, 1839 in Calvert County, Maryland. That's on Chesapeake Bay about twenty miles southeast of Washington. His father died when Joseph was eight, and at fourteen he went to Baltimore to learn saddle-making.

Many Marylanders had strong southern sympathies when the Civil War broke out. Ireland’s reminiscences give no indications, but it seems he might not have wanted to “take side...