The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Maryland and District of Columbia Pt. 1, Part 7

Author: National Biographical Publishing Co. 4n
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Baltimore : National Biographical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 844

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USA > Maryland > The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Maryland and District of Columbia Pt. 1 > Part 7

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CAMA"GROWN, JOHN SMITH, late City Librarian of Baltimore, Maryland, was born November 7, 1809, near Plymouth, England, and came to this country with his parents when he was ten years of age. They took up their residence at Washington, District of Columbia. Ilis father, William Brown, was a contractor. Ile went West to invest in land, where he died, leaving his family in Washington. The education of John S. was for the most part self-acquired, as he was early forced to make provision for his own and his mother's sup- port. When he was sixteen years old he went to Balti- more and commenced to learn shipbuilding with James

Beacham, on Fell's Point. He assisted in building the Brazilian frigate, Charles Carroll of Carrolton, the brigs James Beacham and Baptist Meseck, also the ice-boat Relief, and a number of vessels. During the term of his apprenticeship he studied very hard, sometimes spending the greater part of the night in the ship-loft, by the light of a candle, working out diagrams and charts for the con- struction of ships. In this way he obtained considerable proficiency in mathematics. His mother remained in Washington, whither, after his hard week's work, he was accustomed to go on foot to see her. In 1831, the term of his apprenticeship having expired, he became foreman for Jolin A. Robb, Esq., the father of the present City Register, near the foot of Washington Street. In the lat- ter part of the year he went to draught for L. B. Culley & Brother. He furnished the designs for the brig General Sumter, Captain Bennet, owned by Benjamin Buck ; also the bark Hortensia, Captain Massacot, and other vessels. In May, 1832, he went into business on his own account. Ile first built the Souvenir, a brig; next, the steamer Merchant. These were followed by the bark Huxall, for New York, the steamship Natchez, in 1836, the steamship Cuba, in 1847, brigs General Scott, for T. Hooper, Ospree, for Conway & Armstrong, Hisbee, for Captain Fish, with a large number of steamers, among them the Harokl, Cam- bridge, and Kent, for Baltimore, and a large number for Southern account. In the course of his business career he developed largely the commercial interest of the south side of the Basin, and left the marks of his progress behind him. When the ruffian element predominated for a short time in Baltimore, and the famous assault on the negro calkers was made under the leadership of Joe Edwards, he alone fearlessly opposed the rabble in defence of the colored men, many of whom had worked for him for twenty-five years. At the peril of his own life, he pre- vented the ruffian leader from entering his office in pur- suit of the defenceles workmen who had sought its shelter. Mr. Brown appealed to Mr. Frederick Pinkney, Assis- tant State's Attorney, for aid, who advised him to " place revolvers at the heads of the ruffians," but this he declined to do. In 1841 he was elected to the first branch of the City Council, from the ward first known as the Eighth, afterward the Twelfth, now the Seventeenth. He was re- turned in 1843, and continued a member thereafter until and including 1852. For the last four years he was l'resi- dent. When he first entered the Council there were only twelve wards in the city ; many of them were represented by some of the best citizens; among the number were Dr. J. Ilanson Thomas, Jacob I. Cohen, Samuel Lucas, and others of high repute. Mr. Brown, believing that the citizens ought to know the proceedings of the Council, in- trodneed a resolution mviting the attendance of represen- tatives of the press. It encountered some opposition, lest it should entail expense to the city; but, provision being made that it should not, the resolution prevailed, and re-

BIOGRAPHIICAL CYCLOPEDIA.

porters have ever since attended the meetings of the City Council. In the absence of Mayor Hollins from the city for a period of six months, Mr. Brown acted ex-officio as Mayor. He drafted the bill, and as a member of the Council was chiefly instrumental in obtaining its passage through that body, for the five million loan to the Balti- more and Ohio Railroad; and while acting Mayor he signed that bill, as well as others of much importance. He was President of the first branch when the ordinance was passed, purchasing the property of the Water Com- pany, and opposed it on account of the large amount called for. As President, he declined to append his sig- nature to it; but, after some delay, caused by his refusal, he signed it as Mayor, in compliance with a resolution of the Council. In 1854 he was appointed Supervising In- spector of Steamboats by President Pierce, and continued until 1861, when he was removed by Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Brown's reports and experience contributed largely to the passage of legislative enactments for protection in steam- boat travelling. When the commission for the deepening of the harbor was organized, in 1851, he was appointed its chairman. He was one of the commissioners who pur- chased the site on which the present City Hall stands. Mr. Brown obtained the right of way for Locust Point Branch of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, approved April 10, 1865, Louis McLane, President. He also secured, by ordi- nance, the purchase of the lot for Cross Street Market, for nine thousand five hundred dollars, and ground sufficient to open Brown Street. His business having been broken up previous to the war, owing to a combination of trades unions, Mr. Brown retired to a farm in Harford County. In 1867 he was elected to the legislature from that county, and served for two terms, being placed on the Ways and Means and other important committees. In October or November, 1874, he was appointed by Mayor Vansant, City Librarian, at a salary of fifteen hundred dollars per annum, and was the first occupant of the new City Hall. He was re-appointed by Mayor Latrobe, and again by Mayor Kane, which he held until his death, which occurred March 21, 1878. He was thoroughly conversant on all city matters, and was of great assistance to members of the City Council, the city law officers and lawyers who desired in- formation on municipal matters. Politically, he was a Democrat, but always independent, according to his convic- tions of right. When nominated for Council by his ward, he never had opposition, both parties voting for him. He was baptized and confirmed in the Episcopal Church, but in his early manhood he united with the Methodist Episcopal Church, and for the promotion of its interests in Baltimore he labored earnestly and contributed largely of his means. lle always, however, cherished a strong love for the church of his ancestry. He was married three times; first, to Sarah Harrison Auld, of Baltimore, November 5, 1832. By this marriage there were three sons and one daughter : Captain William Dawson Brown, of Chesa-

peake Artillery, Confederate States Army, killed at the battle of Gettysburg; the Rev. John W. Brown, D.D., Rector of Trinity Church, Cleveland, Ohio, and the Rev. Philip A. 11. Brown, of Trinity Parish, New York. The daughter, Elizabeth Jane, married the Rev. Daniel How- ard Parish; both deceased. His second marriage was in Richmond, Virginia, to Elizabeth A. Coleman, December 6, 1842. There were four children by this marriage : Robert Coleman, Margaret (both deceased), Charles Morton and Clara Macartney (Mrs. Giebuskie). The third marriage was with Cassie F. Whiteford, of Harford County, Maryland, December 28, 1871. To this mar- riage there was no issue. Mr. Brown's physique was short and rotund. He was persevering, industrious, and straightforward, domestic in his habits, and possessed fine social qualities. His well-known cheerfulness and amia- bility were especially conspicuous in his home-life.

B RESEE, OSCAR F., senior partner of O. F. Bresee & Sons, General Agents of the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York, for the Southern States, was born March 26, 1825, in the District of Montreal, Canada. Ile is the oldest of seven children now living, whose parents, John and Aseneth Bresee, were both of French Iluguenot descent. His mother's maiden name was Barber. He received an academical education in the place of his birth. His sub- sequent education was self-acquired. On the death of his father, in a spirit of conscious self-dependence, Mr. Bresee found his way, in his eighteenth year, from his home in Canada to the city of Hartford, Connecticut, and, as if by accident, chose insurance as his life-work. He com- menced soliciting for a Mutual Fire Insurance Company, which took country risks only, and travelled the State of Rhode Island. He was afterward induced to go to Penn- sylvania, to act as General Agent of the State Mutual Fire Insurance Company at Harrisburg. After two years of successful effort with that company, then in the full tide of a prosperous career, he went to Richmond, Virginia, to assume the entire General Agency of the Insurance Com- pany of the Valley of Virginia, of Winchester. The limited field of its operations-marine as well as fire-was rapidly enlarged under his masterly direction, until the territory embraced in his management extended from New York to New Orleans, and the premiums, all of which passed through his hands, amounted to half a million dollars an- nually. That position of labor and responsibility he held until 1858; and it may be mentioned en passant, that among his sub-agents at that period, many of whom he trained, were hundreds of men who now stand high in in- surance circles all over the country, while among the de- parted, whose memories are fervently cherished, were

BIOGRAPHICAL CYCLOPEDIA.

such men as the late William D. Sherrred, of Philadelphia, and Thomas Jones, the founder of the Insurance Monitor. Mr. Bresee subsequently organized the Insurance Company of the State of Virginia, of which he acted as Secretary and Treasurer. At the same time, and up to the breaking out of the war, he conducted an agency business for twenty- eight Northern companies and five Southern, including in the former such companies as the Atna Fire, and the Mu- tual Life, of New York. A business conducted on a scale of such magnitude naturally bore a rich harvest, and Mr. Bresee accumulated a very handsome fortune. But this was scattered by the ill-fortunes of the four years' civil war, and he had to commence anew upon the restoration of peace. He resumed the General Agency of the Mutual Life, in Richmond, and that of the Security Fire, of New York, which he held until his removal to Baltimore, in 1866. In that city he has devoted his whole time since to the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York. That company was organized in New York, in 1843, and has long since attained, as it still holds, the foremost place among the Life Insurance institutions in the world. The magnitude of its business proves that it enjoys the confi- dence of the people. Its present accumulations (1878) amount to more than eighty-five millions of dollars, with a surplus fund, New York standard, exceeding ten millions, six hundred and sixty-nine thousand, five hundred dollars. The average amount of new insurances granted during the past five years exceeds thirty-seven millions of dollars per annum, and the total sum assured under its ninety-one thousand, five hundred and thirty-three policies is nearly three hundred millions of dollars. There being no stock- holders to control the company, all the profits are divided among the policy-holders. At the time of Mr. Bresee's entrance upon the General Agency of the company in Bal- timore, its business in Maryland was quite limited. From a renewal list of only a few thousand dollars a year, he has, in the comparatively brief period that has intervened, swelled the amount of the premium receipts in his district to very nearly a million dollars annually, and has made his General Agency, in point of new business, one of the most prominent general agencies of the Mutual Life. Mr. Bresee has unlimited faith in the efficiency of ceaseless ac- tivity, with a wonderful degree of natural aptitude for his calling; he, nevertheless, believes that genius in insurance means hard work ; that there is no royal road or short cut to good fortune, and that the way to success must be hewn by incessant labor. He has furnished the most demonstra- tive proof of earnestness by his own example, and has thereby inspired the workers connected with him with the same spirit. In the selection of his co-laborers he has ex- hibited a degree of sagacity to which is traceable one of the most important elements of progress and prosperity. And not only in directing the efforts of his subordinates throughout a large territory, but in the general management of the concerns of his agency, down to the smallest details, .

the same comprehensive administrative vigor is manifestly scen. He is, too, a believer in the moral power of large figures, and, therefore, in the persuasive and unanswerable form of the enormous resources of the company with which he has been so prominently identified. In the course of his insurance business he has been paralleled by very few, if any, agents in the country. Ile can truthfully assert that there was not a policy-holder insured through his agency that ever suffered loss through the failure of a company while the policy was in force. Nor, during his eventful career, has he ever represented a company for which he did not make money. These are incidents of a business record of which any agent might reasonably be proud. Mr. Bresee is now in the prime of a vigorous manhood and bids fair for many years of usefulness. He was the first Treasurer of the Brown Memorial Church, in Baltimore, in which capacity he served for several years; he has, also, been a trustee of that church from its organization to the present time. He has been identified with the Masonic fraternity for more than twenty years. In his youth, Mr. Bresce acquired considerable knowledge of agricultural pursuits on his father's farin, and since then he has cultivated a taste in that direction. He has owned for several years the well- known " Rose Hill Stock Farm," in Orange County, Vir- ginia, having under cultivation about one thousand acres. This property was formerly owned by the Taliaferro family, and occupied by them for several generations past. It is considered one of the finest stock farms in the State, and is worth a fortune in itself. He married Miss Louisa Kleckner, of New Berlin, Pennsylvania, daughter of Joseph Kleckner, a merchant miller of that town. They have six children, as follows : Alfred A., Edward L., May, Win- ston, Oscar F., Jr., and Stuart, the first two named being associated with their father in business, which they worthily represent. They have had the advantage of a good educa- tion and a sound business training. Alfred married Miss Mary E. Passano, daughter of Louis Passano, and Edward married Miss Emma Patterson, daughter of T. N. Patter- son, both highly esteemed families of Baltimore.

KETER, GEORGE, Lawyer and State Senator, son of Major George and Sarah N. Norfleet (Free- land) Peter, was born November 28, 1829, in Montgomery County, Maryland. His father was a native of Georgetown, D. C., and of Scotch descent, and his mother was born in Petersburg, Virginia, being of English ancestry. Major Peter was educated at George- town College, and entered the United States Army in the year 1799; he served until 1809, when he resigned. In the war of 1812, he entered the army again, and served as major of volunteers, He was one of the soldiers detailed to watch the movements of Aaron Burr, and was witness

BIOGRAPHICAL CYCLOPEDIA.

in the celebrated Burr trial. Ile was a representative in Congress from the Sixth District of Maryland from 1816 to 1819, and again from 1825 to 1827; he was elected twice to the State Legislature; and also served as Com- missioner of Public Works for the State of Maryland. George Peter is one of the most prominent and successful lawyers of Montgomery County, and, like his father, has frequently been chosen to fill important public offices. Ilaving received no collegiate education, and depended principally upon his own exertions from an early age, he may properly be termed a self-made man. After receiving a common school education, he commenced the study of law, at the age of eighteen, with John Brewer, Esq., at Rockville, Montgomery County, Maryland, and was ad- mitted to the bar at the age of twenty-one. He at once entered upon the practice of his profession at Rockville, and after a short time, removed West, locating at Saline County, Missouri, where he remained for three years. lle then returned to Rockville, Maryland, and entered into partnership with his preceptor, Mr. Brewer, and has con- tinued in active practice there ever since. Ile was a member of the Convention of 1864, that framed the Con- stitution of Maryland of 1864, and filled the office of .Prosecuting Attorney of Montgomery County for four years, beginning with the year 1867. In 1877 he was the nominee of the Democratic party for State Senator, and elected without opposition. By the advocacy of important measures, he has proved himself one of the most active and efficient members of that body. In 1878, he was the nominee of the Democratic party for representative in Congress for the Sixth Congressional District of Maryland, and was defeated by a small majority. Mr. Peter is a man of great personal popularity, and generally recognized as one of the most influential members of the party with which he is identified. He was married in 1852 to Miss Eliza 1. Gassaway, daughter of John and Eliza Gassaway, of Montgomery County, and has seven children living.

ROOKS, CHAUNCEY, President of the Western Bank of Baltimore, was born in Burlington, Hart- ford County, Connecticut, on the 12th of January, 1794. His father, Chauncey Brooks, an extensive fariner, was also a native of the above place. 'The progenitors of Mr. Brooks were of English origin, and came to America prior to the Revolutionary War, settling in New Haven, Connecticut. About the commencement of the war of 1812, young Brooks, then in the nineteenth year of his age, removed to Baltimore, Maryland, where he embarked in mercantile business in association with the late General Walter Booth, a very wealthy and prominent citizen of Meriden, Connecticut. The partnership con- tinued about eight years, the firm conducting during that

period an extensive and successful jobbing dry goods busi- ness. From then until the present time, Mr. Brooks has established several commercial honses under various firm names, and conducted several kinds of nade, embracing the wholesale dry goods, grain, wholesale boot and shoe, and other commodities. It is estimated that he has fur- nished capital for, and had the leading control in, no less than thirty different mercantile establishments. In 1845, he was elected President of the Western Bank of Balti- more, a position which he has held from that time to the present, about one-third of a century. Ile has been director in the Savings Bank of Baltimore the same length of time. In 1856, he was elected President of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, which position he held until 1869. Ile has contributed very largely to the build- ing up and improvement of Baltimore, having erected numerous extensive and substantial warehouses in the business centres, as also many private structures. In 1820, Mr. Brooks married Miss Marilla 'Phelps, daughter of Lynde Phelps, of Burlington, Connecticut. Her mother was Louisa Gaylord, daughter of Captain Aaron Gaylord, who lost his life in the defence of his home and family, at the celebrated massacre of Wyoming, July 3, 1778. llis daughter, then a child seven years of age, was, on the night of the massacre, taken by her mother, with two other children, from the scenes of the atrocities. The heroie mother, with her precious charge, and such food as she could convey on the horses which she took with her, made her way through a trackless forest, travel- ling some eight hundred miles alone, finally reaching her home in the northern part of the State of New York, after a perilous journey of about eight weeks. During the above period, her two brothers, anxious in regard to hier fate, organized a company to institute a search for her, going to Wyoming and finding it in ashes. A short while after their return to their home in New York State, they were surprised to see her walk into the house, she and her children unscathed. This remarkable lady attained a venerable age, and always took the intensest interest in relating her early adventures to her children and grand- children. Mrs. Chauncey Brooks died in 1861. Chauncey Brooks has had eight sons, four of whom are living, Walter Booth, Thorndyke, John Chauncey and Albert Brooks. Mr. Brooks was an old line Whig. Through the late American civil war he was an unswerving and stanch Union man. Though in the eighty-fifth year of his age, Mr. Brooks enjoys vigorous health, and is in pos- session of the most perfect mental faculties, giving con- stant daily attention to his multifarious and responsible business affairs.

BIOGRAPHICAL CYCLOPEDIA.

RADFORD, AUGUSTUS WILLIAMSON, was born in Bel Air, Harford County, Maryland, January 9, 1806. lle was the son of Samuel Bradford, and his mother's maiden name was Jane Bond, both natives of the same county of Harford, and both descendants of English ancestry, who settled in Maryland before the Revolution. Ile received a good English, but not a classical education, and for some time after leaving school, followed the business of a surveyor, and was afterward elected for several successive years to the House of Delegates of Maryland, and subsequently elected the Sheriff of Ilarford County. His chief con- cern seemed to be that the subject of this sketch and his brother (who were his only children), should receive the best education he could afford to give them. Augustus, the clder of the two, was sent, at a very early age, to one of the old field schools of the day, adjoining the town, and which he continued to attend until the year 1816, when he entered the Harford County Academy, at Bel Air, at that time in the charge of a somewhat celebrated teacher-then well known and doubtless still remembered by most of the youth of that day-the Rev. Reuben H. Davis, He was famous in his generation as a classical teacher, but still more famous as a rigid disciplinarian. Mr. Bradford continued under his tutorage for six years, and until May, 1822, when he entered St. Mary's College, Baltimore, where he gradu- ated in July, 1824, in his eighteenth year; he and Dr. Fer- dinand Chatard, of Baltimore, being now the only surviv- ors of the graduating class of that year. Directly after graduating he returned to Bel Air, and at once entered upon the study of the law there in the office of the late Otho Scott, where he continued until he was admitted to the bar, in 1827. He immediately commenced the practice of law, and remained in Bel Air until 1831, when he removed- somewhat experimentally-to Baltimore city. Ile re- mained there only a year, and upon the breaking out of the cholera, in that city, in 1832, he returned to Bel Air, and resuming his practice in that county, continued there until the winter of 1838-9, when he removed finally to Baltimore. Mr. Bradford attached himself in early life to the Whig party. and earnestly espoused the cause of its great leader, Henry Clay. He was one of the Electoral candidates, elected upon the Clay Electoral ticket, in Mary- land, in the Presidential election of 1844, and the defeat of that great statesman in that election, so disheartened and disgusted him, that like many others of his followers, he took no part in political contests for many years thereafter, and it was not until the Presidential election of 1860, that he ever afterwards addressed a political assemblage in the State, or attended any political meeting of its citizens. In 1835, Mr. Bradford was married to Elizabeth Kell, the youngest daughter of the late Judge Kell, of Baltimore, onc of the Associate Judges of the Sixth Judicial District of Maryland, composed at that time of the counties of Balti. more and Harford. In 1845, Governor Pratt appointed

him the Clerk of Baltimore County Court, at that time having exclusive jurisdiction of all civil suits instituted in the city or county of Baltimore, as well as of all criminal proceedings originated in the county, and his appointment as the clerk of such a court was another reason which made it, in his opinion, his duty, to abstain from all active participation in party politics while he held that office. llow he discharged its duties may be found by a reference to the minutes of the court, and especially to a letter from the judges thereof, addressed to him, and ordered by them to be spread on these minutes, as the last of their official acts, before both these judges and their clerk, went out of office, under the new State Constitution of 1851. Two of the three judges who subscribed that letter had, previously to their appointment, taken an active interest in party politics, and as it happened, both of them had always been in their political principles avowedly opposed to those of their clerk, a circumstance that renders such a testimonial as honorable to them, as it enhances its value to their clerk, as a voucher for its impartiality. Such is the tenor of this letter, that in these times, especially when official misfeas- ance or delinquency is so much more often the rule thau the exception, that extracting it from these judicial minutes, we give it at length, as there recorded :

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The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Maryland and District of Columbia Pt. 1, Part 7

Author: National Biographical Publishing Co. 4n Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Baltimore : National Biographical Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 844

Author: National Biographical Publishing Co. 4n
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Baltimore : National Biographical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 844