Edward Coote Pinkney - Biography

Biography

Pinkney was born on October 1, 1808, in London, where his father William Pinkney was U.S. ambassador and his mother was the sister of Commodore John Rodgers. Pinkney lived in London until he was eight and later attended St. Mary's College of Maryland.

In the fall of 1815, 14-year-old Pinkney joined the United States Navy as a midshipman until 1824, during which time he traveled to Italy, northern Africa, the West Indies, and both coasts of South America. His defiance of what he called arbitrary authority got him in trouble occasionally. In 1824, two years after the death of his father, he left the Navy, married, and was admitted to the bar in Maryland. Though he was well respected in his abilities as a lawyer, he had few clients and the business failed. His wife, Georgiana McCausland, would become a supportive and inspirational figure to him.

After serving without a salary as the Professor of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres at the University of Maryland, Pinkney traveled to Mexico with the intention of joining the navy there. Disheartened after not being able to join, he returned to Baltimore. There, he became editor of a new semiweekly newspaper the Marylander—a publication originally founded to support the re-election of John Quincy Adams. Its first issue was published December 3, 1827. His editorial association nearly brought him into a duel with the editor of Philadelphia-based Mercury, a publication which supported Andrew Jackson. Afflicted with depression, Pinkney died on April 11, 1828, at the age of 25. He was originally buried in Baltimore's Unitarian Cemetery but, in May 1872, his body was moved to Green Mount Cemetery.