Anne Baldwin Chase
Wife of Samuel Chase, Signer of the Declaration of Independence
1771 – 1776 A.D.

Anne Baldwin of Annapolis, MD, was the first wife to Samuel Chase to whom she was married in 1762. He was twenty-one years old at the time, and had just completed his legal studies, which had been prosecuted under the direction of John Hammond and John Hall, two prominent attorneys of Annapolis. He established a lucrative practice in that city and early began taking the intelligent and active interest in public affairs that was later to make him so uncompromising a patriot and so valuable a member of the Continental Congress. William Paca was a member of the Continental Congress. William Paca was a fellow student with Samuel Chase in the office of Hamilton & Hall and there began a friendship that was never broken. The two young men became members of the Provincial Legislature the same year and together were sent to the Continental Congress.

The young wife was not permitted to enjoy the honours [sic] that were to come to her husband, for she died during the early days of the Revolution, leaving six children, two sons and four daughters.

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Reference: The Pioneer Mothers of America: A Record of the More Notable Women of the Early Days of the Country, and Particularly of the Colonial and Revolutionary Periods by Harry Clinton Green and Mary Wolcott Green, A.B. Third Volume, Published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons.