USA > Delaware > Biographical and genealogical history of the state of Delaware, Vol. II > Part 79
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Samuel Townsend, Jr., was brought up on the farm, and attended a subseription school until his eleventh year, and afterwards a pri- vate school for two winters. These were his only opportunities of education. At seven- teen he left home, and found employment on
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the Union canal, on which, in 1>30, he be- came captain of a boat. The following year his brother John joined him in the purchase of the sloop Hannah, of 50 tous burthen, which they sailed from Philadelphia and down the bay, but in December it was run into and ent down by a steamboat. Mr. Town- send was then again a captain on the canal, but the cholera of 1832 interruptel his busi- ness. In 1833 he commenced mining iron ore, in St. George's hundred, which he pur- chased, and sold in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. In 1887 he bought the Brick house property in Blackbird, besides 400 acres of land, much of it in timber, and began cutting and shipping wood and vessel timber to New York. In this business, by his energy and good management, he laid the foundation of his fortune. Hle purchased 700 acres of wood- land in Thoroughfare Neck, and 550 at Shad- ding Point and in partnership with his brother, John, 1300 acres in Mispillion Neck. From these lands they cut and shipped the timber, and were successful until the general business disasters of 1858. They continued until 1860. Mr. Townsend had in 1845 pur- chased with his brother the Williams estate of 400 acres, which they divided, and on which each built a house and resided from that time. Adjoining it he purchased, in 1855, the Davis farm of 280 acres, and, in 1863, a tract of 300 aeres near Canterbury, on which his son Sam- uel now resides. In 1866 he bought 837 1-2 acres near Kingston, Md., which he devoted to peaches and small fruits. He also had large peach orchards on his farms in Delaware, and became, in 1:57, the pioneer peach grower of his vicinity, setting out 10,000 trees that year and the same in the following year. From these farms he shipped in 1869, 43,000 bas- kets, most of them to New York. From the beginning of this interest he was one of the most active and publie spirited of the Dela- ware peach growers.
Mr. Townsend was an independent Demo- erat, always prominent in public affairs and a member of most of the State Conventions from his early manhood. In 1548 he was a delegate to the National Democratic Conven- tion which met in Baltimore and nominated Gen. Cass, of Michigan, for the presidency; also of the National Convention in Baltimore in 1852, when Gen. Pierce was nominated. In
1860, when James A. Bayard and William G. Whitely left the Charleston Convention, Mr. Townsend was one of the delegates sent to take their places in the convention, which had ad- journed to meet in Baltimore, and was seated after a contest. When the war came on he became one of the prominent and uncomprom- ising Union men, of the state, exerting all his mifluence to save the Republic from di-rup- tion. He saw in disunion only perpetual hos- tility and ruin for the whole country, but he opposed bringing the color question into poli- ties or giving the colored race civil or political rights. lle was one of the organizers of "The White Man's Party," in the State, and kept up his political activity till near the close of his life. But he would sulauit to no ring or boss rule; his rugged, original, aggressive spirit always asserted itself, and usually prevailed.
Mr. Townsend's death, which occurred De- cember 5, 1881, was widely regretted. It was said of him that human want and suffering never appealed to his charity in vain.
GEORGE ALFRED TOWNSEND, the active newspaper writer and author, was born on Market street between Front and the Court House Square, Georgetown, Del., January 30, 1841. He was the son of Rev. Stephen and Mary Milbourne Townsend, and a descendant of the earliest peninsula families, which prob- ably came from Virginia to Somerset and Worcester counties, Md., early in the seven- teenth century. One of Sir Walter Raleigh's "Adventurers" for Virginia in 1620, as set down in Captain John Smith's history, was "Leonard Townson," and the shipping lists to Jamestown of about the same date mention John and Richard Townsend as having em- barked.
Rev. Stephen Townsend was born in what is called the Forest, between Princess Anne and Snow Hill, in 1808. He turned from car- pentry to become a Methodist minister, and tilled the pastoral relation in almost every county of the whole peninsula, dying in Phila- delphia. August, 1881. He graduated in med- icine at the age of forty-eight, and carned the degree of Doctor of Philosophy as a student in the Pennsylvania University at the age of seventy. His wife died in 1868, aged sixty-
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six. She was a woman of strong will and great acumen. They are interred at South Laurel Hill cemetery, Philadelphia, in Mr. Townsend's lot, where an inscription com- memorates Dr. Stephen Emory Townsend, their eldest -on, killed in the Nicaraguan war, 1536. The third and youngest child,- - all sons,-Dr. Ralph Milbourne Townsend, mar- ried Ida Hollingsworth, of Wilmington, Del- aware, daughter of the eminent ship-builder, and lies interred in the Hollingsworth vault, Brandywine cemetery.
George Alfred Townsend removed with his itinerating minister father till he was fourteen years old, and attended the academie depart- ments of Washington College, Chestertown, Md., and of Delaware College, Newark. Af- ter 1855 the homestead was in Philadelphia, his mother ceasing to travel, and Mr. Town- send graduated at the Philadelphia High School in February, 1860, and went upon the daily newspaper press next day. At the school he had published and written for news- papers, and he commenced to compose in prose and verse at the age of fourteen. The local coloring of the Delaware penisula affected his work for years, and in 1880 he collected "Tales of the Chesapeake," which contains the Delaware tales of "The Ticking Stone" and "The Big Idiot," the latter a painstaking pie- ture of old New Castle in the time of the Dutch, the former a psychological tale of the White Clay Creek country. In the same book is the long colonial poem "Herman of Bohe- mia Manor." Much earlier than this Mr. Townsend had written "Swedes and Finns," "John Dickinson," "Arnold Naudain," and other Delaware ballads.
In 1869 he delivered the college poem at Delaware College, showing an accurate recol- Jection of the minutest seenes and characters there, though he had been but ten years old when at Newark Academy. In 1880 he vis- ited General Torbert and the venerable Mrs. Richards at Georgetown,-the latter present at his birth,-and recited the Fourth of July ballad "Caesar Rodney's Ride." In 1884 Mr. Townsend wrote the historical novel with the quaint title of "The Entailed Hat, or Patty C'annon's Times," a work of great imagination and historical construction, every locality of which was visited to insure freshness in the picturing; it is the topographical and antiquar-
jan romance of this peninsula, the vivid char- acters being passed through Seaford, Laurel, Georgetown, Lowes, the great Cypress Swamp, Dag-borough, Rehoboth Beach, Dover and Wilmington. The subject of the story is the kidnappers, who stole free people of color out of Delaware as long as slavery had a legal and commercial existence, and it contains sketches of John M. Clayton, Jonathan Hunn and Thomas Garrett.
Literature was the industrious by-play of Mr. Townsend's comprehensive newspaper life in which he was engaged by every journal and publication of means and enterprise in the land. Commencing in the Philadelphai In- quirer, and the Press he was the first to rehabilitate local reporting and edit- ing in the Quaker City. At the break- ing out of the Civil War, he became the youngest as he was also the most cultured of the war correspondents, first for the New York Herald and afterward for the New York World. In the latter paper his battle of Five Forks, closing seenes about Richmond, and letters on President Lincoln's murder, created such a furor that he was called to lecture all over the country; he lectured in many places, lectured at intervals, and delivered public ad- dresses before the Army of the Potomac So- ciety, Dickinson College and many other in- stitutions. For almost twenty years he rein- vested his carnings in foreign and home travel, books and experience, until he settled down in New York, at the age of thirty-nine, master of every department of his craft, from political and physical correspondence to belle lettres. He made several voyages to Europe, reported the war of 1866 between Prussia and Austria, crossed the American continent and British America three times or more, and visited ev- ery state and territory in the Union, and the West Indies. In 1862 he was writing for the Cornhill Magasine, and other publications in London. Nearly every great public event in American recent history pa-sed under his eye. For years his newspaper engagements were mainly in the great West, where his pseudo- hymn of "Gath" was better known than George Alfred Townsend.
In 1861, Mr. Townsend published a sequel to the "Entailed Hat," called "Katty of C'a- toetin, or the Chain-breakers," a story of the John Brown raid and of the Civil War, lo-
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cated in the South Mountain country of Mary- land, where he built his country-house and ulti- mate family-seat, called "Gapland." It stands on the old battle-ground of Crampton's Gap, and consists of large and picturesque stone buildings, at an elevation of one thousand feet above the neighboring Potomac River and val- levs.
Mr. Townsend published several other vol- umes; among them are: "Campaigns of a Non-Combatant," in 1865; "The New World Compared with the Old," 1869, 750 pages; Poems, 1870; "Lost Abroad," a story, 1871; "Washington Outside and Inside," 1873; "Bohemian Days," tales, 1881; "Poetical Ad- dresses," 1883; "President Cromwell," an historical drama, 1885. "Tales at Gapland;" and "Dr. Priestley, or the Federalists," a novel. No journalist in the country discon- nected from proprietary ownership in the journals has been as generally employed, as well rewarded or has occupied so many fields. The qualities of his writings are their inform- ing power, breadth and fertility of treatment, boldness of depiction, temerity in the face of clamor, sympathy for the beaten, and poetical quality. Ilis newspaper was nearly all die- tated to shorthand writers, and he sometimes prepared twelve thousand words of copy for the press in one day.
Mr. Townsend married, in 1865, Miss Rhodes, of Philadelphia, and had two chil- dren.
HENRY LEE TATNALL, was born in Brandywine Village, Del., in the old historic Tatnall mansion, December 31, 1829.
lle was of the fifth generation in direct line of descent from Robert Tatnall, of Leicester- shire, England, who died in his native land in 1715. The widow, with her five children, em- igrated to Pennsylvania in 1725. Edward Tatnall, the youngest of these children, was married in 1735, to Elizabeth Pennock, in Friends' Meeting, at London Grove, Chester county, and afterwards resided in Wilming- ton.
Joseph Tatnall, the grandfather of Henry Lee Tatnall, was the third of five children by this marriage, and the first of the name to en- gage in the milling business on the Brandy- wine at Wilmington, and also the first presi-
dent of the Bank of Delaware. He was mar- ried, in 1765, to Elizabeth Lea. Edward Tat- nall, the sixth of their seven children, was born in 1782, and married, in 1809, to Mar- gery Paxson; Henry Lee Tatnall was the eleventh of twelve children by this marriage.
Being of Quaker parentage, he was edu- cated according to the custom of Friends at Westtown Boarding-School, in Chester coun- 1y, an institution exclusively their own, receiv- ing a plain but thorough and substantial edu- cation, as Friends deemed it not only inexpe- dient but unnecessary to give their children anything beyond that, trusting very properly to the home training and influence for the further culture of mind and morals. After leaving school, he entered the celebrated flour mills of Tatnall & Lea as clerk, but remained only a few months, on account of the dust giv- ing him asthma. It was there he accidently picked up an old violin, belonging to a colored man employed in the mill, and played two or three tunes upon it, without ever having re- ceived any instructions, or being aware him- self that he could do so. He was of a very in- quisitive and investigating turn of mind. His spare moments in early life were not idly spent. It was one of his pastimes to frequent the shipyards, opposite the mills on the Brandywine, where, with his knife, he would sit and chisel model after model. The family still possesses, as a treasured specimen of his handiwork, a perfect model of a ship, correctly rigged and even manned with little wooden sailors.
Leaving the mill, Mr. Tatnall turned his attention to farming, and found great pleasure in agricultural pursuits. In 1851 he married Caroline Gibbons, daughter of Doctor Wil- liam and Rebecca Donaldson Gibbons, and the youngest of fourteen children. In 1856 they removed to Wilmington, residing for a few years on West street, where they pur- chased the old Gibbons mansion, and the square upon which it stood, known as "Vernon Place." At the time the house was built, there were but two others between it and Mar- ket street, and it commanded an uninterrupted view of the Delaware river from New Castle to Edgemoor. Mr. Tatnall was for some years engaged in the lumber business.
Socially, he was most genial, bright and hos- pitable. His individuality was pronounced,
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and his attachments strong and lasting. His good fellowship was ever apparent and the en- thusiasm, frankness and openness of his na- ture, with his entertaining originality in con- versation, made him a welcome guest every- where, and drew around him a large circle of warm friends. He cultivated the musical tal- ent, which had manifested itself in early life, entirely himself, never taking a lesson and became a most proficient performer on the violin, accompanying his children, upon whom he bestowed a liberal musical education. He had them taught to play various instruments, realizing the safeguard he was throwing around them, by making home the most at- tractive place on earth to them.
Mr. Tatnall published many original com- positions, and set to music several campaign songs. Ilis celebrated "Rail Splitter's Polka," composed for the Lincoln campaign, was played by all the bands of the North at that time. Ilis residence at that period was oppo- site the United States Hospital Tilton, and it was always thrown open with its grounds to the sick and wounded soldiers, many a poor home-sick fellow's heart was cheered by his hospitality and the sweet tones from his vio- lin.
When about forty years of age, Mr. Tat- nall had the opportunity of seeing Philadel- phia's noted artist, Hamilton, at work on a marine view in his studio, and was struck with the magical effects produced by his brush. His criticisms of the artist's work were so intelli- gent that his friends encouraged him to try painting himself, which he did. Mr. Tatuall's own story of his first attempt was a strange one. Mr. George Hetzel, the celebrated land- scape artist, of Pittsburg, was in Wilmington, at work in Rudolph's gallery, then newly op- ened. Being there one day when Mr. Hetzel was absent, Mr. Rudolph playfully bantered Mr. Tatnall to compete with him in painting a picture. Mr. Tatnall demurred, saying, he knew nothing about painting, but was per- suaded to try his hand. Two easels, with paints, brushes and canvas, were at hand, and each sitting down in the same sportive spirit in which the contest was projected, the work commenced. Soon after they started, Mr. Rudolph was called away, leaving Mr. Tatnall alone in the gallery. Mr. Tatnall averred he had no distinet recollection of what followed,
until he seemed to awake as from a dream or trance, and found upon his casel a complete painting, a river scene with vessels under sail, and became aware that his friend was stand- ing behind him, admiring his picture, and ac- knowledging himself out of the race. It was soon manifest that he had a decided talent for that branch of the fine arts, and his friends in- duced him to fit up a studio over his counting- house, where the intervals of business were devoted to the study of the principles and practice of marine and landscape painting.
His success was rapid and extraordinary, and in a few years his orders were so numerous that he turned the lumber business over to his sons, and opened a studio in more connnodious quarters, and devoted the remainder of his life to his adopted profession. At the time of the formation of the "Delaware Artists' Associa- tion," he was unanimously elected president. This was a well merited recognition of his tal- ent and services, and an assurance that around his name clustered all that exists of the earlier art aspirations of Wilmington and of Dela- ware, and naturally entitles him to be called the father of art in his native city and State. The title will descend to posterity, adding new laurels to a family name already prominent in Delaware. Heury L. Tatuall was an earnest student of nature, spending the summer and early autumnal months in the woods beside the murmuring brooks, watching all the vary- ing aspects they presented under light and shadow, in sunshine and in storm. Along his beloved Brandywine, on Shellpot Creek, at Kiamensi, and at Mt. Desert, he found beauti- ful landscapes, which were transferred to his canvas with great fidelity of drawing and per- spective and truthfulness of color. When asked one day how he could account for his being able to paint such pictures without ever having taken even a lesson in drawing, he re- plied, "I cannot answer you, except by saying, I do not do it myself-it is an inspiration." "Do you understand mixing colors, and know just what you want ?" "I know nothing about them; my hand goes right to the one the pie- ture calls for." He was ingenions in mechan- ies-his easel, palette, painting-box and other paraphernalia for out-door work were marvel- ous contrivances, affording facilities for work included in but few of the painters' outfits of the present day. He died at the age of fifty-
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-ix years, just as the highest honors of his pro- fesion seemed within his grasp. In addition to all his other attainments, he was a natural born architect, and dranghed several of the fin- et residences in Wilmington for his numerous friends.
ISAAC LEA, LL.D., the distinguished author and naturalist, was born in Wilming- ton, March 4, 1792.
Isaac Lea was of Quaker ancestry. At the age of fifteen he was placed under the care of an older brother in Philadelphia and devoted his leisure to the collection of fossils and min- erals. In 1815 he became a member of the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences and soon after published in the journal of the academy, his first paper, describing the minerals found in the neighborhood of Philadelphia. He married a daughter of Matthew Carey, and from 1821 to 1851 was associated with Mr. Ca- rey in the publishing house. In 1827, Mr. Lea began a series of memoirs on new forms of fresh water and land shells. In 1832 he vis- ited Europe, and the following year published "Contributions to Geology," describing two Imudred and twenty-eight species of tertiary fossils from Alabama. In December, 1855, Mr. Lea was elected president of the Phila- delphia Academy of Natural Sciences. He was also a member of many of the scientific organizations of Europe and America. In 1851, he published "Description of a new genus of the family of Melaniana," and in 1852, "Fossil footmarks in the red sand stones of Pottsville," and "Synopsis of the family of Naiades." Allibone contains a list of fifty-five of Dr. Lea's publications.
JAMES W. THOMSON, M. D., a native of Virginia, was a medical graduate of the University of Virginia.
In 1830 Dr. Thompson opened an office in Wilmington and soon built up a practice, which gradually increased until he rank- ed among the first physicians of that city. He also became interested in agricul- ture, and, with Manuel Eyre, of Philadelphia, purchased a large tract of land about three miles cast of Wilmington. This speculation proved unsuccessful. From various causes,
Dr. Thouson's professional business declined. umtil, in 1868, with broken health and int- paired mind, he removed to Philadelphia. Dr. Thomson became a member of the State Medical Society in 1525, and in 1511 was elected president. He was president of the State Agricultural Society, and took an at- tive part in the agricultural and horticultural exhibition- which were annually held in Wil- mington.
James W. Thomson married the daughter of Colonel Robinson, of New Castle county. Dr. Thomson died in 1882.
ANDREW GRAY, A. M., planter and legislator, was born in Kent county, in Decem- Ter, 1771.
Andrew Gray was a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. He was endow- ed with natural abilities of a high order, and being possessor of a large landed estate, his abundant means enabled him to indulge his literary tastes, and to devote time and thought to the welfare of his country, and to his duties a- a patriot and a citizen.
Mr. Gray was the author of many elaborate treatise on the most profound question of government and political economy, whose consideration taxed the statesmen and scholars in the early days of the Republic. No one was more deeply interested in the growth and prosperity of the country, or maintained, with greater vigor, the necessity of protecting our struggling infant industries against the cheap labor products of the Old World. He was a constant contributor to the public press, and many wohnnes still in manuscript are pre- served as mementoes of his studions habits and high attainments. For many years he repre- sented his county both in the Senate and in the House of Representatives; and was one of the leading members in each body. Andrew Gray was married, February, 1801, to Re- becca Rodgers, of Maryland. He lived to a good old age, closing his noble and worthy life in Wilmington, January 19, 1849.
CHARLES C. STOCKLEY, retired mer- chant, ex-sheriff, governor of Delaware from 1883 to 'S7, was born in Sussex county, No- vember 6, 1819.
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Mr. Stockley's father, Jelm Stockley, was a native of the same county, and was one of it- most popular and influential citizens. Ile hold several public offices, discharging his du- ties faithfully and efficiently. He died in Au- . gust, 1:30, at the age of forty-three years. del Stockley was married to Hannah Roll- Hey Kollock, whose mother was a sister of Daniel, Caleb and John Rodney, prominent and influential citizens of the state. Daniel was elected governor, and Caleb became the acting governor by the death of Governor John Collins, being at the time speaker of the state senate. Mr. Stockley died in An- gust, 1580. Mrs. Stockley died in 1856, in the sixty -- ixth year of her age.
Charles C. Stockley received his education in Sussex, and at a private or select school in Philadelphia. He began business as a clerk in Georgetown, and was afterwards employed in the same capacity in Philadelphia. Re- finning to Sures county, he taught school from 1539 to 1846, occasionally a-sisting as clerk in stores in the vicinity. In 1846 he en- saged in mercantile business for himself, and opened a general store at Millsborough. In 1552 he was appointed county treasurer, which office he held until 1856, when he was elected sheriff of the county: this office he held for the constitutional term. In 1878 he was elected state senator from Sussex county, and during the second term was speaker of that body, discharging his duties promptly and >ati-factorily. Abont 1860, Mr. Stockley be- come interested in the Junction and Break- water railroad, and was an active and efficient member of the board of directors of that com- pany until the road was completed. He was also active in procuring a charter for the Frankford, Breakwater and Worcester Rail- road Companies For several years he was president of the Frankford & Breakwater R. R., but after his nomination for governor, sev- cred his connection with all roads, except the Worcester road, in which he is a stockholder and director.
Mr. Stockley has always been a strong friend and advocate of public schools and ha- promoted their interest throughout the state. He is kind and benevolent, strong in mind, quick in perception, and is generally correct in his conclusions in regard to all business matters, and honest and honorable. All his
transaction-, public and private are honest and honorable. He was nominated for governor by the Democratic party, August 22, 1882, and was successfully elested. The nomination was unsolicited, and the election was carried without any effort on his part. In 1559 Charles C. Stockley was married to Ellen W., daughter of James Anderson, a highly re-peet- adcitizen of Sussex county, who was, for many years, president and afterwards cashier of the Farmers' Bank at Georgetown. Mr. and Mrs. Stockley have but one child, Hannah. Ex- Governor Stockley resides in Georgetown, Del.
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