Entrance Into Politics
Though being a planter suited Barnes Compton, he decided to enter politics. He ran for the state legislature in 1855 on the last Whig Party ticket, but was defeated by five votes.
In 1859 Compton was elected to the House of Delegates on a Democratic Party ticket. The 1861 session was held at Frederick, Maryland, instead of Annapolis for war-related reasons. Compton never reached the assembly. He learned that a number of legislative members suspected of Confederate sympathies had been arrested by Federal authorities on reaching Frederick.
Compton turned around and escaped across the Potomac into Virginia, where he stayed until his term expired. He returned home and lived without interference. In 1865, he was arrested and briefly imprisoned at the Old Capital in Washington on suspicion of aiding and abetting John Wilkes Booth in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. The information proved false and Compton was released without charge after four days.
Though Compton was elected to the legislature in 1866, the constitutional convention of 1867 forced another election. He was elected president of the senate. He was elected president of the state senate again from 1870 to 1872. That year he was appointed as state treasurer, a position he held until 1885. In 1874 he also served as state tobacco inspector.
As state treasurer, Compton sat on the Board of Public Works with the governor and the comptroller of the treasury. Maryland's Board of Public Works was created by the 1864 Constitution to " all Public Works in which the State may be interested as stockholder or creditor…and recommend such legislation as they shall deem necessary and requisite to promote or protect the interests of the State in the said Public Works." As such, the Board in the 1870s oversaw the purchase and sale of stocks in the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company, the construction of the House of Correction and State Normal School (the late State Penitentiary at Jessup, Anne Arundel County, and present Towson University), the construction of a new State Tobacco Warehouse, and repairs to the State House in Annapolis.
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