USA > Washington DC > The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Maryland and District of Columbia Pt. 1 > Part 52
USA > Maryland > The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Maryland and District of Columbia Pt. 1 > Part 52
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Inindred miles of the American coast, after a tedious voy- age of twelve weeks, a violent storm arose. It became a perfect hurricane, and swept the vessel of its entire rigging, carrying away the masty, bowsprit, and rudder. The body of the ship itself was fast settling down into the sea, when a vessel from New York, bound to Amsterdam, came to their help, and- rescued them. William, now a boy of twelve, who in the meantime had picked up the mere rudiments of an education at the village school, and who was just looking forward to a happy meeting with his parents, saw in this untoward calamity his bright hopes vanish. The ship bore them all to Holland, where they landed among strangers, many of them penniless. The Bremen consul furnished them a little money, and they set out for home, each with his bundle across his shoulder. With no one to guide him, William fell into a wild course of life, and pursued it for some years. The death of a conrade, however, drowned while skating on Sunday dur- ing church service, which they neglected, made a deep impression on him, and led to a thorough reform. At the age of seventeen he left Bremen again, this time as a " redemptioner ;" that is, to be sold for his passage-money on his arrival at Baltimore. Narrowly escaping shipwreck, he landed, and wrote to his mother. She was now a widow in Pennsylvania, an I in very reduced circumstances, but obtaining money, she hastened to find her children, entering the town at midnight. Providentially, a watch- man directed her to a German baker named Muth, in whose employ she found her son. After rejoicing together for a time, they parted, she to return home, William to begin the battle of life in Baltimore, Ile became Mr. Muth's apprentice. Muth had no cause to regret it. Once, indeed, William's open practice of religion provoked his master, who ordered him to leave his place ; but the vir. thous young apprentice had not washed the flour and dough from his hands when Muth wisely recalled him. After finishing his apprenticeship, he worked for a time with another baker, and then set up in business on his own account. Hle rented a bakery and necessary tools at three dollars pes mouth, and a friend went his security for three lamel of flour. Its domestic amangements were simple. He boarded himself and dispensed with a bed. But energy, courage, and uprightness insured his success. He soon had his mother, brothers, and American-born sister, beneath his roof, sharing with him in his prosperity. After acquiring a competence in the baking business, he commenced that of pickling, preserving, and hermetically scaling. The trade, then a novelty, rapidly developed and extended ; and his establishment is now probably the largest in the United States, and its reputation as wide as the country, the cans with his labels being found on the shelves of dealers from Maine to California. Mr. Numsen commenced this business on Pratt Street, in 1847, on a small scale. It increased so rapidly that he soon after purchased a warehouse on Light Street; and, in 1850,
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united with him his son-in-law, john F. Thomas, under the firm name of Numsen & Thomas. Soon afterward they pulled down the old building, and erected the present extensive warehouse. In 1850 they connected the oyster canning business with that already established. In 1853 the firm was enlarged by the addition of Mr. Numsen's sons, John W. and N. G. In 1862 Mr. Thomas withdrew, and Mr. S. John Carroll became a partner, and the firm was known as Numsen, Carroll & Co. Mr. Carroll with- drew in May, 1868, when the firm name was changed to that which it has ever since borne, William Numsen & Sons, William N. Numsen, a third son, having been added. Their packing-house, on Federal Ilill, has a water front on two docks of one hundred and eighty feet, and is three hundred and twenty-five feet deep. The ca- pacity of the house is thirty thousand cans daily. The three-story packing-house on German Street, is used exclusively for pickles and vinegar mannfacture, and is thirty eight fect by one hundred and sixty-five. The firm have also an establishment at Easton, Talbot County, Maryland, for preserving peaches, which grow abundantly in that section. They have also a factory at York, Pennsylvania, for condensing milk and packing small fruits. They employ abont four hundred persons in the fruit and oyster seasons. Their goods find a market all over the world. For several years the firm had a very successful branch house in Chicago, which was destroyed by the great fire, after which they built the first large iron front warehouse in that city. Latterly, however, that en- terprise has been abandoned, the firm preferring to confine their business to this section, where they can personally have an oversight of it. As an evidence of the confidence re- posed in Mr. Numsen by his brother merchants, it may be mentioned that at one period in his financial need, Messrs. E. L. Parker & Co., the extensive tin merchants on south Charles Street, lent Mr. Numsen, unsolicited by him, the sum of sixty thousand dollars at six per cent., and would take no collateral security. The confidence was not mis- placed, for at maturity every dollar was paid. Mr. Num sen is the owner of a valuable and productive farm of five hundred and forty acres in Maryland, much of the vege- table product of which is canned by the firm. He became a member of the German Reformed Evangelical Church, on Conway Street, in 1821, founded by Rev. William Ot- terbein in 1774, with which he continued until 1841, when he assisted in organizing the present German Evangelical Association, of which Rev. J. P. Schnatz is the present pastor, and of which he has been an active member and liberal contributor ever since. He has also contributed largely toward the erection of other churches and to vari- ous benevolent enterprises. He took sixteen thousand dollars of stock in the Carrollton Hotel, and has erected valuable buildings on his private account throughout the city, including a handsome block of six iron front ware- houses opposite his store. He married Miss Mary Schnei.
der, in 1823, daughter of Rev. John Schneider, third pas- tor of the Otterbein Church on Conway Street, who served the church faithfully for seven years. His married life was an unusually happy one. Had his wife lived one year longer they would have celebrated their golden wedding. Then nion was crowned with fourteen children, tive of whom are living. Mr. Numsen made a very pleasant trip to his birthplace in 1870. lle found very few of the friends of his boyhood, and only one near relative. Being invited to attend one of their prayer-meetings, he spoke to the pastor, after service, of the contrast between their meetings and those of his German brethren in America, when, after further interrogation, he was prevailed upon to promise to preach to the congregation on the following Sunday, which he did to an overcrowded house. Mingled feelings of joy and sadness pressed upon him as he thought of his early poverty and oppression, and of the wonderful dealings of God with him during his eventful life. He is a tall, genial, hearty man, nubroken either by early hard- ship or a life of steady application. Hle is still active at his post, respected by his townsmen, and worthy of the general esteem accorded to him.
RICE, WILLIAM M., was born August 16, 1842, in Marshall County, Virginia. llis father, Rev. William T. Price, a local minister in the Metho-
0:0-13 dist Episcopal Church, and an agriculturist, was born in Alleghany County, Maryland. William worked on his father's farm during the spring, summer, and fall seasons, and attended the Moundsville Academy during the winter months, until he was nineteen years of age, lle then removed, with his father, to Parkersburg, Wood County, Virginia, where he continued farming until the fall of 1864, when he went to Cumberland, Maryland, and entered the law office of Hon. Thomas Perry as a student at law. He was admitted to the bar, May 27, iSoo, and at once taken into partnership with his pre- ceptor, continuing that relation until the fall of 1867. Mr. Perry was at that time elected to the bench as Asso- ciate Judge of the Fourth Judicial District of Maryland. Mr. Price then took sole charge of their largely increasing business, and has now an extensive practice. He has been engaged in several of the leading criminal cases of Western Maryland, among which were the Black -McKaig and the Resley-Clary murder trials, having devoted him- self largely to that branch of the law. He is now ( 1878) one of the proprietors and editors of the daily and weekly Alleghanian and Times, a Democratie newspaper, printed and published in Cumberland. He has also been a member of the City Council of Cumberland. Mr. Price married, in 1866, Miss Columbia, daughter of Jesse Koms, Esq., of Cumberland. Mr. Price is a gentleman of fine legal
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ability, scholarly attainments, and unswerving integrity. Ilis eminent talents have secured for him a high position at the bar, and he is often chosen against the most re- nowned of his professional brethren. As counsel, he is sincere and practical ; as an advocate, astute, quick, and powerful ; laying hold of the shong points in a case, he presents them in a succinct, clear, and comprehensive manner. Ile carries through in a masterly style a great majority of the cases he tries, and has secured convictions and acquittals against the most powerful array of counsel. Politically he is a Democrat, and gives to that party his influence and support. He believes that the safety of the country, in a large measure, depends upon the mainte- nance of Democratic principles. Possessed of a self-reliant spirit, he maintains his own position and individuality, very rarely abandoning purposes once formed, and never deserting a good cause because it is weak. His religious views are those of the Methodist Episcopal Church, of which he is a consistent and active member.
FRANKLIN, LITTLETON PURNELL, son of Henry and Mary ( Purnell) Franklin, was born January 18, 1831, at Berlin, Worcester County, Maryland. Ilis father and mother were natives of Maryland, and both of English descent. His father was a farmer, and a man of high standing in the community, having been called upon to fill several public positions, and chosen as one of the electors for the election of United States Sen- ator. Mr. Franklin attended the public schools in his na- tive county until the age of fourteen, when he went to Bridgeport and studied at the boarding-school of the Rev. Henry Jones, preparatory to entering upon a collegiate course. From there he went to Vale College, entering the third term of the freshman class, and graduating with honor at that institution in the year 1849. He then read law with Judge John R. Franklin, recently deceased, of Snow Hill, Worcester County, Maryland, and was admitted to the bar in the year 1852. Being in delicate health in early lite, he never entered upon the practice of his profession, and his time has principally been employed in farming. He has been School Trustee for many years; Director of the Wi- comico and Pocomoke Raihoad; wasa member of the t'on vention of 1867, that framed the present Constitution of Maryland ; was elected member of the Maryland House of Delegates, on the Democratic ticket, in 1871 ; and elected to the Senate in 1877. He was married in his twenty- second year to Miss Sarah E. t'haney, daughter of Thomas and Emily Chaney, of Issaquina County, Louisiana. Ile is a member of the Presbyterian Church, and has for many years filled the position of church trustee, and in every position which he has been called upon to fill, has per- formed his duty with credit to himself and his constituents.
UTUHINS, THOMAS TALBOTT, A.B., A.M., and I.I. B., was born on " My Lady's Manor," Bal- timore County, Maryland, September 29, 1830. After a preparatory course at St. James Academy, above county, he entered, at the age of sixteen years, Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania. In 1850 he received the Degree of Bachelor of Arts, and in 1852 that of Master of Arts, from that institution. After conclud- ing a regular collegiate course at Dickinson College, he entered Cambridge ( Mass.) Law School, where, in about two and a half years, he graduated. Returning home he entered the office of the late William Schley, an eminent member of the Maryland bar, under whom he continued his legal studies for two years (the period required by the Constitution of Maryland), when, on motion of his pre- ceptor, he was admitted to practice in the various courts. In 1854 Mr. Hutchins was elected by the Democratic party as a delegate to the State Assembly of Maryland, from Baltimore County. He was the youngest member of the body during the session of that year, and was selected to serve on some of the most important committees, in- cluding that of the Judiciary. After the adjournment of the Legislature, Mr. Hutchins settled in Baltimore city, in the practice of his profession, which he has been steadily pursuing thence to the present time. Governor Bowie honored him with the appointment of Colonel on his Staff, in which capacity he served during that gentle- man's gubernatorial term. Colonel Hutchins has always taken an active and earnest interest in public matters, and has been an able and eloquent advocate of conservative Democratic principles in various political contests. The Colonel's father was Joshua Hutchins, an extensive farmer, of Baltimore County, who frequently represented that county in the State Legislature, and was one of its most useful and efficient members. His grandfather on the maternal side was Thomas Talbott, a large landholder of Baltimore t'onnty, whose ancestors for five generations have been residents of that county. Colonel Hutchins married, December, 1853, Miss Sarah Brien, daughter of John MePherson Buen, and adopted daughter of the Late Mis. Robert Gilmor. He has two children, Sarah Gil- mor and Robert tilmor Hutchins. Colonel thutchins is au affable gentleman, social in disposition, and a man of varied accomplishments.
ENTON, AARON, was born June 4. 1799, in Fallow. field Township, Washington t'onmy, Pensylva- nia. His parents were John and Sarah ( Preston) Fenton, bom and married in the vicinity of Trentou, بـ New Jersey ; from which place they removed to their farm near Monongahela City, Washington County, Penn- sylvania, several years before the birth of Aaron. He was their third son and the fomth of thirteen children, seven of
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whom were boys. His grandparents emigrated to this country from Wales, and settled on a farm near Trenton, New Jersey, where they raised a family of five children, of whom Aaron's father was the second. At thisteen years of age, and within a few months after the death of his parents, both of whom died within eighteen months, the subject of this sketch, finding that there was scarcely any- thing to be gotten from the family estate, hired himself as a farm-boy to a Mr. Luke Fry, a rich farmer, and after liv- ing with him two years he went to a Mr. Joseph Lloyd, of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. During the first four years after leaving home he received eight dollars per month and board, and thereafter began to better himself. While with Mr. Lloyd he became a wagoner, and in that capacity frequently and regularly visited Pittsburg, Phila- delphia, and Baltimore. From his ninth year up to thir- teen he attended the neighboring country school during the annual three months' session ; and from the latter age up to his nineteenth year paid for his own schooling. During that period the school was for the most part in charge of Robert Orr, who married Mr. Fenton's oldest sister, Rebecca. He was the elder brother of a fellow- schoolmate and life-long friend of Mr. Fenton-Judge William Orr, of Wooster, Ohio, founder of Orrsville, Wayne County, Ohio. In 1819 Mr. Thomas Drakeley, of Woodbury, Connecticut, an extensive dealer in general merchandise, became acquainted with Mr. Fenton, and employed him as a trading wagoner, whose routes of travel extended far and wide over the States of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, and Maryland. Mr. Fenton married, Feb- ruary 4, 1830, Miss Rebecca Bryant, of Washington County, Pennsylvania, by whom he had one child, Norman Drakeley Fenton. This lady died at Washington, Penn- sylvania, September 4, 1841. In 1832 Mr. Fenton became the junior and resident partner of Messrs. Drakeley and Fenton, at Washington, Pennsylvania, and conducted a regular country store, dealing chiefly in drygoods. In Jannary, 1837, Messrs. Drakeley and Fenton went to Bal- timote, with a view of settling there, and after a week's sojoun decided to close up their business at Washington . and open a general merchandise and grocery store in Bal- timore, which they did, February 4, 1837. Mr. Thomas Drakeley continued to reside in the West, and his nephew, Henry W. Drakeley, assisted Mr. Fenton in the conduct of the Baltimore business until the death of his uncle, when he became an equal partner. Their line of business gradually changed to that of wholesale grocery, and during the first year of the civil war became a strictly provision one, and thereafter merged into a general commission pro- vision trade, and as such was continued until September, 1873, at which time Mr. Drakeley died, and Messis, Fenton and Ilinman, the surviving partners, closed up the affairs of the firm. The only public office which Mr. Fenton has held was that of City Councilman for the Fourteenth Ward, during Mayor Chapman's administration. Ile has held various
positions of trust and responsibility in business corpora- tions and benevolent enterprises, He was a Manager of the Union Relief Association ; a Director in the Baltimore Mercantile Exchange, about 18.jo 50 ; a Director of the Western National Bank ; in the Eutaw Savings Bank ; in the Howard Fire Insurance Company ; in the Washington Fire Insurance Company ; in the Mount Vernon Manufac- turing Company ; a Lafe Director of the Maryland State Bible Society ; and President of the Baltimore and Colo- rado Territory National Silver Mining Company of Balti- more City. In 1830, after his marriage, Mr. Fenton and his wife united with the First Presbyterian Church at Washington, Pennsylvania, of which Rev. David Elliott, D.D., was pastor, afterward the distinguished President of the Alleghany Presbyterian Theological Seminary. He is now, and has been from its foundation, a member of West- minster Presbyterian Church in Baltimore, and has al- ways been faithful and prompt in his religious duties. During the civil struggle for national existence, his devo- tion to the Union was bold and fearless, and his contribu- tions to the cause unstinted. Considerations of self-inter- est could not make him suppress his true sentiments. lle is a Republican, and a supporter of President Hayes. Mr. Fenton is a man of strong and enduring friendship, and of warm sympathies for the sorrowing and struggling. Many whom he has aided and encouraged under the burdens of life, love him as a father, and will cherish his memory when he is gone. For nearly forty years, he was associ- ated with one man, doing business in one location, and the firm of Drakeley & Fenton achieved a proud reputation for integrity, solidity, and all that goes to make the high- est mercantile success. It> note was never protested, its credit never shaken. The opening year of their house (1857) was one of great financial disturbance and distress; but, from the beginning, the firm established a credit that in a few years became almost unlimited. 'The commer- cial panics then and since did not affect them. Their prosperity was founded on industry, temperance, frugality, honesty, and truth. While it is as an upright and success- ful merchant that Mr. Fenton appears most prominently, the true foundation of his character is found in his Chris- tian faith. Mr. Fenton's first child, Norman Drakeley Fenton, graduated at Washington College, Pennsylvania, in 1848, and afterward studied law with the Honorable John H. B. Latrobe, of Baltimore, and was admitted to the bar in 1852. Ile went to San Antonio, Texas, with a view of settling there, but died in that place, June 1, 1853. Mr. Fenton was married to his second wife, Rebecca Hled- dington, daughter of Colonel Matthew Clark, June 13, 1843. The issue of this marriage are five children, all of whom live in Baltimore. They are as follows: Mrs. Tempe Preston Boggy; Dr. Glenn Aaron Fenton, .A.M. ; Matthew C. Fenton, of the paper warchouse of Rudolph & Fenton ; J. Norman Fenton, clerk with N. Waterbury, and Jennie B. Fenton.
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WILLIAMS, JonN, eldest son of John and Mary ( Mullin) MeWilliams, was born in Baltimore, Maryland, January 10, 1836. His father was a native of Londonderry, Ireland, and a gardener by vocation. He came to America in 1831, set thing in Baltimore, and was married in that city in 1835. lle died in 1852. His son John attended the public schools of the city till he was twelve years of age, when he entered the counting room of Dallam & Carroll, com- mission merchants, located at Buchanan's wharf, with whom he remained about three years. He then, at the age of fifteen, apprenticed himself to Messrs. Mager and Wash- ington, to learn the trade of iron moulder, and remained with them four years. Ile then worked as a journeyman in another foundry for a period of two years. In 1858, during the presidency of James Buchanan, he became a clerk in the Baltimore City Post-office, under Dr. John Morris, Postmaster, now a distinguished practicing physi- .cian in the same city. This position Mr. Mc Williams re- signed in April, 1861, on the change of the national ad- ministration, and was the first and only officer connected with that department who voluntarily resigned his posi- tion. The next month, followed by a company of about twenty young men of similar sentiments, he started for the South to join the Confederate Army. On May 28, 1861, the company was organized at Harper's Ferry, with A. G. Taliaferro as Captain, and united with the Thirteenth Virginia Infantry, Colonel A. P. Hill, commanding. At the first battle of Manassas, Colonel Hill promoted Mr. Mc Williams to the position of Sergeant Major, from which time to the present he has been familiarly called Major. After serving twelve months, Governor Letcher, of Vir- ginia, appointed him a Lieutenant to form all the Mary- landers in Richmond, not in active service, into a company for guard duty at the various prisons, and in the entrench- ments surrounding the city. In 1863 he was sent by Gen- eral Winder to report to General Whiting at Wilmington, North Carolina. On his arrival he found that he was as- sigued to secret service, and remained tive months, when greatly to his gratification, he was relieved. He then it. turned to Richmond, and was in the employ of the South. ern Express Company for a number of months, when, de- sirous to engage in the more exciting scenes then transpir- ing in the Shenandoah Valley, he proceeded thither a few days prior to the great fight between Sheridan and Early, in which he was taken prisoner, September 19, 1864. .
With others he was taken to Point Lookout, where, the winter being a severe one, he suffered greatly. About the middle of the following March the prisoners were taken to Richmond and paroled. Remaining there two months, he returned home to Baltimore in May, where in spite of his parole, the Provost. Marshal gave him twelve hours in which to leave the city, and he returned to Richmond. In a few days he was sent to North Carolina in the employ of the National Express Company ; was at Weklon a few
months, and afterwards at Raleigh for nearly a year. In 1868 he returned to Baltimore, where he has resided most of the time since. Hle first obtained a position as clerk under Dr. Stewart, in the Health Department, which he resigned after the election of Mayor Kane, and accepted a position under James R. Brewer, Clerk of the Circuit Court, which he still holds. In the fall of 1878 he was elected to, the First Branch of the City Council from the Fifth Ward, on the Democratic ticket. Mr. McWilliams was married March 18, 1875, to Mary F. Burnham. They have one child-Mary. He attends the Catholic Church, and is a member of the society called, " The Army and Navy of the Confederate States."
OODYEAR, WILLIAM E., was born in Baltimore, Maryland, June 9, 1821, where he has continued to reside. His parents were Thomas and Eliza- beth Woodyear, who were married in 1817. At the time of their marriage, and for a short period afterward, his father was Cashier of the Vork Bank, Penn- sylvania. After his withdrawal from the bank he did not immediately engage in active business life, but wasespecial partner in two mercantile houses, one in Baltimore, and the other in the State of Ohio. These proved to be unfor- tunate connections, which led to his financial ruin within two years after his marriage, and were the probable cause of his early death. William's grandfather, Edward Wood- year, was an Englishman, who came with his family to this country from the island of St. Kitts, and settled in Baltimore, where he was largely engaged in mercantile pursuits. He married Mary Fowler, daughter of David Fowler, of North Carolina, whom he met in England, while she was receiving her education in that country. William's mother was the sixth and youngest chill of John and Hannah Vellott, and was born in Yorkshire, England. Her father had a brother, Jeremiah Vellott, who had been several years in Baltimore, and had become one of the most enterprising shipowners and merchants in the country. He was the projector of the first Balti- more clipper ship, a class of vessels so well known for their speed. Jeremiah prevailed on his brother John to bring his family to this country. He came over in one of Jeremiah's ships, arriving in Baltimore in 1794. Having no children of his own, Jeremiah left the greater part of his estate to the children of his brother. John had been a farmer in England, and, on his arrival in Baltimore, he purchased a large tract of land in Harford County, Mary- land, proving himself to be one of the most successful farmers in the State. After several years in that county, he removed to Dulaney's Valley, and, some years later, purchased a farm on the Vork Road, five and a half miles from Baltimore, known as " Auburn," where he died at the age of seventy five years. The mother of the subject
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