Biographical and genealogical history of the state of Delaware, Vol. II, Part 84

Author: Runk, J.M. & Co
Publication date: 1899
Publisher: Chambersburg, Pa.
Number of Pages: 1500

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that court for a writ of prohibition to the U. S. District Court for the District of Dela- ware, to forbid the court from taking further proceedings in a suit instituted by a Delaware pilot for the pilotage fees due under the Delaware law for conducting to the Dela- ware Breakwater a vessel from a foreign port, and bound there for orders, the purpose of the application being to test in the Supreme Court, in preclusion of a decision in the District Court, the validity of the Delaware law.

Mr. Bradford was married in September, 1872, to Eleuthera Paulina, daughter of the late Alexis I. and Joanna DuPont.

('YRUS POLK, eldest son of William and Eliza (Tatman) Polk, was born January 3, 1810. He was educated at the best .schools in Wilmington and Burlington, N. J., and at twenty-two became his fathers' partner in business, in Odessa. After his father retired, about 1840, Mr. Chas. Beaston became his partner in the mercantile and shipping busi- ness, till about 1848, when, on account of fail- ing health Mr. Polk retired. He died June 27, 1859. He had accumulated considerable property, and was a man of great business ability, and moral worth. He married Mary Jane, daughter of Benjamin Flintham of "the Levels."

IION. ALEXANDER B. COOPER was born at Middletown, November 15, 1844; son of Rev. Ignatius T. Cooper, D. D., of Camden. Ile received his classical education at Media, Pa., after which he read law under the pre- ceptorship of Hon. Eli Saulsbury till 1866, when he entered the law department of the University of Pennsylvania, where he re- mained one year. He was admitted to the bar at the May term of the Superior Court at New Castle in 1867. For a year he practiced his profession with success in Wilmington, when he removed to New Castle. Mr. Cooper is devoted to his profession, is a well read lawyer, a strong and foreible speaker, and a man of irreproachable character. He is a man of decided ability, popular and success- ful, and has built up a large and lucrative practice which extends to all the courts of the

state. In polities he is a decided Democrat and an earnest and influential worker for the suc- cess of his party and in the campaign of 1882 he was nominated as a candidate for the State Senate and elected to a seat in that body for the term of four years.

JOSEPH S. COPES, M. D., son of Rev. Joseph and Jenny Wilkins (White) Copes, was born near Lewes, December 9, 1811. Dr. Copes from his childhood reflected honor on the teachings and example of his parents. While in his teens, becoming convinced of the truth and importance of the then new doc- trine of total abstinence, he summoned and addressed a meeting in Middleford, then his home, and successfully founded the first Rec- abite Society, it is believed, in the State. In March, 1833, he was graduated from the Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia. A year before graduating he was honored by the Governor, David Hazzard, with a commis- sion as port physician for quarantine duty in that part of Delaware lying on the waters of the Delaware bay. On leaving college he spent a few months in Pittsburg, Pa., in study and practice, after which he traveled exten- sively through the west, and finally settled with his brother, Dr. James W. Copes, at Tchula, Holmes county, Mississippi. At the age of twenty-six he married and began plant- ing. Hle was one of the founders and main supporters of the first Mississippi State Agri- cultural Society, and was greatly instrumental, by his pen and otherwise, in developing the resources of his adopted state. In 1839 he removed to Jackson, the State capital, where he built up a large practice. He was at this time burdened with the settlement of several estates of which he had been appointed ad- ministrator and guardian, but in the faithful discharge of these duties, he evinced the first order of business ability, and all the succes- sions and trusts were satisfactorily adjust- ed. He also for several months conducted the correspondence of the president's depart- ment of the Mississippi Union Bank during the absence of that officer. While in Jackson he actively aided in establishing Sharon col- lege and in securing for its president one of the teachers of his boyhood, Rev. Dr. Camp-

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bell. Ile was director of Oakland college, for several years. As inspector of the State peni- tentiary he was mainly instrumental in intro- ducing cotton machinery. He was the author of the vaccine law of that State, which enjoyed a remarkable immunity from small-pox ever since.

Dr. Copes became an elder in the Presby- terian church when twenty-seven years old. When he moved to Jackson there were but few scattered Presbyterians in or near it, but with their assistance, his zealous efforts through a period of ten years, resulted in securing a church membership of over one hundred, and a handsome brick edifice in the heart of the city.

In 1849 Dr. Copes removed to New Orleans where he devoted himself to his profession not only as a general practitioner, but in its asso- ciations, hospitals and sanitary enterprises, was a very active worker. From a time pre- ceding the war, however, he gave his atten- tion mainly to Cotton Factorage and under- writing.

While Vice-President of the Mississippi State Medical Society, represented that body, at New York in 1846, delegated to act in es- tablishing the American Medical Association, and aided in founding it. For many years president of the School Board, and administra- tor of the University of Louisiana, he ever sought to enhance the efficiency of the free educational system, and to secure teachers of ability and fitness. He superintended Mis- sion Sunday-schools, building them up from the foreign population and the poor of all races.

As a Commissioner of the N. O. House of Refuge, Dr. Copes effected the employment of the boys in manufacturing, especially of coarse shoes, and caused the founding of a separate institution for girls. Dr. Copes was for many years President of the N. O. Aca- demy of Sciences and an active promoter of all its enterprises. He always had the entire re- spect of his professional associates, and in 1851, on the creation of the Board of Physi- cians and Surgeons, for the government of the Charity Hospital, he became a member, and had charge of some of its crowded wards while cholera and typhoid fever were raging in that ycar and the next. In the epidemies of

yellow fever in New Orleans since 1847 as well as in those of other cities and towns to which he was called when they were suffering from this disease, he was an active and suc- cessful physician. During the war thousands of unacclimated troops within the defences of Galveston and other Gulf stations, liable to or striken with yellow fever, owed their in- telligent treatment, to his care and experience in hospital arrangements and supervision. As a writer or speaker Dr. Copes was always ready and choice in his language, easy in man- ner, and logical in the treatment of his sub- jeet. He contributed articles on surgery, med- ieine, and hospital management, to various publications and societies.

CAPT. WILLIAM ARTHUR WEST was born in Lewes, January 29, 1833, son of Bailey Art and Mary Ann (West) West. Ile attended school in his native town till he was fifteen. Ile then spent several years learning to be a pilot on the Delaware bay, after which he served some time as captain of a steam- ship. Mr. West went to China, in 1858, and commanded the Wanderer, a fast sailing clipper ship, built in Baltimore, and engaged in the opium trade, which, at that time, was carried on by means of the clipper ships. Those so employed carried nothing beside the drug, and were compelled to be heavily armed on account of the pirates then infesting the waters.

('apt. West was employed on this vessel by Augustine Heard & Co., of Boston, and sailed all along the coast of China, from Hong Kong to Pekin. In 1861 he was transferred to the command of the Fire Dart, a steamer belong- ing to the same firm, engaged in general freighting business in Chinese waters. The firm failing in 1868, Capt. West entered the employ of Russel & Company, also of Boston, known as the Shanghai Steam Navi- gation Company, with whom he remained until 1877. This firm had twenty-one steamers, freight and pasesnger vessels, and the captains were transferred from one to another at the will of the company. Captain West commanded part of the time one of the steamers on the Yangtze river, between

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Shanghai and Han Kon, a distance of 100 miles, and sometimes carried 500 passengers, the average number being 300. This life he greatly enjoyed, there being foreigners enough to afford him society.

Returning to America in 1876, Capt. West resided in Philadelphia three years after which he removed to Lewes. He became identified with the Democratic party, but never took ac- tive interest in political affairs. He was made a Mason in 1856. When on a visit to his old home, in 1869, William Arthur West was married to Miss Margaret, daughter of Robert West, of Lewes. She spent three years in China with her husband.

JOIIN COLBY SMITH, was born, in Saratoga County, N. Y., December 16, 1831, son of Abner and Amanda (Hill) Smith. Abner Smith was born, at Cape Cod, Mass., in 1793, and was one of seven children. John C. Smith was educated in the schools of his na- tive county. About 1849, Mr. Smith took a contract to furnish dock sticks for the Champlain Canal. In less than a year he bought a canal boat, which he run for a time and sold. From this time, about 1853, he was engaged as steersman on the Eric Canal. Ilis next engagement was on the Alabama & Tennessee railroad, and also assisted in the erection of the Coosa bridge, one of the larg- est in the Southern States.

In 1854 Mr. Smith returned to the North and assisted in building the Susquehanna and other bridges on the P., W. & B. railroad. Ile was also employed for five years in hy- draulie engineering for that company. Fol- lowing this was a three years' experience in mercantile life at Aberdeen, Md.

Mr. Smith removed to Kent county, Del., in 1862, and was for two years in the lumber business, after which he settled in Willow Grove. At the latter place he purchased a mill, and for some time devoted himself to preparing ship timber. In 1869 he commenced the manufacture of peach crates, and in 1876 of peach baskets. Ile made in cach of the years 1879 and 1880, 60,000 crates and 250,- 000 baskets.

In 1875 Mr. Smith added farming to his other occupations. He served as postmaster

at Willow Grove. While a merchant in Aberdeen, in 1861, he joined a military com- pany organized by Dr. George II. Hayes, of that town, who was, secretly, a rebel. Soon after, his suspicions being aroused that the company was to be turned over to the Confed- eracy, he demanded to know under what flag they were to serve. Receiving only evasive answers, the Union men shouted, "The Union forever !" whereupon one-half of the men rose and walked out. Mr. Smith then took a poll list of those who remained, eighty in number, who at once enrolled themselves under a strong oath to stand by the Union cause, and to do whatever might be needful for mutual protection. The organization was secret, with signs and passwords, and was really the first Union League in the country. They raised the stars and stripes and kept it floating during the war, and during what was called "the dark week," it was the only Union flag flying between Perryville and Washington, with the solitary exception of the one on Fort Mc- Henry. Forty men of that league went into the Union army and did good service for their country.

Mr. Smith was made a Master Mason, Feb. 17, 1871, and is now Master of Felton Lodge, No. 22. IIe was married in January, 1850, to Miss Mary Jane Jackson, of Hartford coun- ty, Md.

EZEKIEL BULLOCK CLEMENTS, de- ceased, was born in 1812, son of Thomas and Mary (Bullock) Clements. He spent several years of his early manhood in teaching. In 1846, when his father retired from active farming, he returned to the home farm, of which he took charge the remainder of his life. In politics he was a Democrat and a strong partisan before the war, but on the breaking out of the Rebellion he took positive grounds for the Union. Mr. Clements was a member and officer of the M. E. Church, and very de- voted to his religious duties. He was a re- markable man in many respects, possessing an usually clear and strong mind, with great conversational powers.

Mr. Clements was first married to Deborah, daughter of James and Rachel (Carter) Frazier. They had three children: I. James; II. Thomas; III. Mary Ann, died in child-

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hood; IV. Rachel Catherine, wife of Henry Clark. Mr. Clements lost his wife in Decem- ber, 1843, and in August, 1845, he married Marian Lockwood, of Willow Grove. Their children are: I. Laura, wife of William Clark, brother of Henry Clark; II. David Marvel; III. Leonard; IV. Emma, wife of Ambrose Gooden; V. Anne Berry; VI. Eze- kiel B. Clements.

The second Mrs. Clements died in 1860, and in January, 1862, Mr. Clements married Anna Maria Clark, of Camden. Ezekiel Bul- lock Clements died, in 1872, and was interred in the family burial ground on the home farm.

HORATIO NELSON WILLITTS was born in Tuckerton, Burlington county, N. J., December 15, 1809, son of Thomas and Mary (Willitts) Willitts, cousins, and members of the Society of Friends.

The Willitts family is of English extrac- tion. Three brothers emigrated to America at an early day. One settled on Long Island, one in Burlington county, N. Y., and the other in Tuckerton, N. Y. Their descendants are numerous and scattered aver the western country. One of the descendans served in the Congress of the U. S.

Five of the children of Thomas and Mary Willitts grew to maturity: I. Horatio Nelson; II. Martha (Mrs. Asa Ridgway); III. Han- nah (Mrs. Dr. Holmon); IV. Louisa (Mrs. HIolmon); V. James R., M. D. Thomas Willitts removed to La Porte, Indiana, in 1839, where he died in 1846, at the age of se- ventv-two. Ilis father, Henry Willitts, also a Friend, was born and died in Burlington county, N. J .; though he was in business much of his life in New York City, where he amassed a handsome fortune. Henry Wil- litts died in 1826, at the age of 96. Horatio N. Willitts was educated in the schools of his native place and in New York. At the age of sixteen he went to Philadelphia, where he served at the trade of bricklaying till he was twenty-one, afterward working one year as journeyman. He then entered into partner- ship with his brother-in-law, Allen A. Plearo, a builder. The firm built many large struc- tures in Philadelphia, among them the Asy- lum for the Blind. They were very success-

ful and Mr. Willitts retired from business in 1840.

Mr. Willitts removed, in 1845, to Middle- town, and soon after erected for himself a dwelling and made many improvements on his farm of 320 acres. He has had at one time 34,000 peach trees in bearing. Mr. Willitts became a Whig, later a Republican, and con- tributed abundantly of his means for the Union cause.

Mr. Willitts joined the P. E. church of Middletown, in which he has served as vestry- man and warden. He was married, April 1, 1846, to Miss Elizabeth Noxon, daughter of Thomas Skee Merritt, of Middletown. They had but one child, Merritt Noxon Willitts.

Merritt Noxon Willitts was married first to Miss Laura Naudain, by whom he had three children: I. Horatio Nelson; II. Merritt Noxon; III. Eugenia. Losing his wife in 1875, he married, in October, 1879, Miss Bridgeway, of Tuckerton, N. J.

HION. CHARLES JAMES HARRING- TON was born March 31, 1835, one of five children born to Moses and Ann Jane (Tharp) Harrington. He attended the winter schools of his district until nineteen years of age, when he went, for one year, to a select school in Mil- ford. At twenty-one he became agent for the Delaware railroad at Farmington. In De- cember, 1857, he engaged in the mercantile business.

Mr. Harrington was one of the incorpora- tors of the First National bank of Milford, and was made a director in 1876. He always took an active part in political affairs, and upon the resignation of Hon. William Sapp, a member of the State Senate from Kent county, he was elected to fill the unexpired term. In 1878 he was nominated and elected by the Demo- cratie party to the same office, and on the as- sembling of the Senate, he was elected speak- er. This position he filled with great accept- anee. He served for a number of times as a delegate to the state conventions of his party, and was a member of the convention which nominated Governor Cochran.

Charles J. Harrington was married, Janu- ary 28, 1869, to Miss Mary E., daughter of Bethuel Watson, of Milford; three children:

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I. Jesse; II. William Walton; III. Charles Ilarrington.

JOHN ALEXANDER WILSON was born at Elk Dale, Chester county, Pa., March 23, 1834, son of Rev. Charles Wilson, who was born December 12, 1803.

Rev. Wilson was by birthright, a member of the Society of Friends, but joined the Methodist Episcopal church in 1831, was or- dained at twenty-eight years of age by Bishop Waugh, and died August 11, 1846. He was the son of Isaac and Sarah (Brown) Wilson.

Joseph Wilson, son of Isaac and Sarah (Brown) Wilson, was a well known minister of the Society of Friends, born 1785, and died in West Grove, June 15, 1835. Rev. Charles Wilson married Jane Carlisle, of Chester county. ller father, William Carlisle, was a revolutionary soldier, who married Mary, a sister of General Taylor, of revolutionary memory, and her brother, Captain John Carlisle, commanded the company known as the Oxford Foresters in the war of 1812. The Carlisles are of the famous Scotch-Irish stock of Pennsylvania. The Wilsons are of English ancestry, settled in Chester county, from the days of Penn, and were Friends.

Of the children born to Rev. Charles and Jane (Carlisle) Wilson, the following are given: I. Isaac II .; II. William C., was grad- uated at Dickinson College, held several chairs in his Alma Mater, and died in 1865; III. Mary (Mrs. Rev. J. Dyson); IV. Joseph E .; V. Sarah (Mrs. Dr. John F. Rose); VI. John A.

John A. Wilson was educated at the New London Academy, Pa. After reaching his majority, he farmed the homestead for about two years. Having a desire to travel he made a tour over the Western States, living on the frontier for two years. Returning home he took charge of the mill and farm at the old homestead, continuing in that business until 1866, when he began the coal business in Philadelphia, with Colonel W. L. Foulk. He subsequently bought out his partner and con- tinued the business until in 1867, when he removed to Wilmington and engaged in the seed, agricultural implement and phosphate business.

John A. Wilson was united in marriage January 21, 1864, to Miss Anna M., daugh- ter of James and Rhoda (Morrison) Conner, of Wilmington.

MAJOR GEORGE CLARK, son of John and Mary (Adams) Clark, was born in Red Lion hundred, September 6, 1767. His father, John Clark, bore a conspicuous part in the war of the Revolution, and died in 1791, of injuries received in the battle of Cooch's Bridge. The grandfather, also named John Clark, son of a seafaring man of English birth, came to Delaware from the New York colony, as early as the year 1732; in 1733 he married Mrs. Mary Hadley, a young widow, and the possessor of a valuable farm in Red Lion hun- dred. This landed estate, the old Hadley homestead, regularly descended in the family for nearly two centuries, and in 1880 was oc- cupied by James H. Clark, the great-great- . grandson of the first John Clark. A survey by Thomas Pierson, in 1704, points out its boundaries with great precision. A large number of deeds, surveys, patents, etc., have been handed down, and with them a Bible of the Oxford edition, printed in 1727, contain- ing a complete record of the Clark family, one of the most wide-spread in the state.

George Clark filled many local offices, and was many years a member of the Legislature, being speaker of the House in 1823. He was, in politics, a Jeffersonian Democrat, and un- der the administration of Madison, was made by the Governor, in 1812, major of the First Battalion of Delaware militia. Major Clark was a man of great energy and industry, and although of large hospitality left a comforta- ble patrimony to his descendants. Hle enjoyed the highest respect and unlimited confidence of all who knew him. From carly life he was an ardent supporter, and later, a member of the Presbyterian church.

Major George Clark was married first, in 1793, to Miss Rebecca Curtis, by whom he had four children. By his second wife, Esther Bryan, to whom he was married in 1805, he had five children. Major George Clark died December 5, 1838, William P. Bronson, Esq., in an obituary notice said: "Few men have lived more respected or more deserving of the esteem of his contemporaries than

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George Clark. His course was one of kind- ness, justice, moral rectitude and christian duty. An exemplary husband, parent, master and neighbor, he regarded good morals, love of order, and reverence for the laws and insti- tutions of the country, as essential to the char- acter of a good citizen, and in no instance did he deviate from the standard he had set up for others. Ile lived and died in the house in which he was born, surrounded by kindred and friends who loved and honored him in life and greatly mourned him in death."

HION. CATESBY FLEET RUST was born near Seaford, November 22, 1819. His father, John Rust, a cousin of Gen. Rust, well known in Baltimore, was a prominent land owner, and was born in Westmoreland county, Va., February 27, 1773, the only son of John and Jane Rust. The elder John had bought land in Delaware, of which his son took pos- session when reaching his majority, and spent his life there.

In 1797 John Rust married Sally Jackson, who died September 17, 1805; their two chil- dren, Mary J. and Peter Newton, are both de- ceased. On December 12, 1809, Mr. Rust married Priscilla, widow of Daniel Laws, and daughter of Capt. John and Sarah Collins, and sister of Gov. Thomas Collins. Her father was an officer of Delaware in the Revolution. She was a lady of refinement and culture, and highly regarded in the P. M. church. John Rust died December 26, 1826, at the age of 54, and Priscilla Rust died October 6, 1847. Besides their two eldest children who died in childhood, they had five: I. John; II. Luther Collins, who became a merchant in Illinois, where he died, February 14, 1873; III. Cates- by F .: IV. David Hazzard, who died in Vir- ginia in March, 1871; V. Sarah Jane, who married Rev. William T. Wright, of Mary- land.

John Rust had two sisters, one of whom married Major George Gresham, from Gooch- land county, Va., an officer in the revolution, and a man of remarkably fine personal appear- ance. His wife was talented and highly cul- tivated, and was much sought in society in Washington and other places. Both the fam- ilies of Rust and Gresham were of very

ancient origin, dating as far back as the Cru- sades, and were among the carly settlers of Virginia. The Rust coat of arms had upon it a large grasshopper, beneath which was a cross and eresent and bars and stripes.

Catesby Fleet Rust attended the schools and academy of Seaford and at Brookville, Md., until nineteen years old. He was then employed as a clerk in Laurel and Seaford. After this he became a merchant, and follow- ed that business for seven years in Laurel. From 1847 was master for three years of a vessel trading between Baltimore and New- foundland. In 1850 he purchased a farm near C'anoon's Ferry to which he gave his attention until 1856, when he removed to Danville, Ill., where he was a merchant for three years. Re- turning on account of his wife's health, he purchased "Happy Home," a farm of 230 acres, on which he has resided since 1861. The family residence was rebuilt in 1861, and again in 1878. Mr. Rust long ranked among the first agriculturists in that part of the state.

In 1869, being urged by the fruit-growers of his section to take charge of their fruit in New York, he became a fruit commission iner- chant in that city each year during the season.

Mr. Rust was brought up an old line Whig, and voted that ticket till 1854, when he joined the Democratic party. He had for many years been active in publie matters, and in 1878 was elected to the State Senate for four years. In 1881 he was elected president of the Senate.

Catesby Fleet Rust was married, October 26, 1840, to Ann Eliza, daughter of Charles J. and Jane Palmer, of Long Island. Mr. and Mrs. Rust had children: I. Charles Palmer, who married Sallie, daughter of William Ross, of Sussex county; II. Luther David, a young man of lovely character and great promise, who died August 21, 1866, in his twenty-third year; III. William Cooper Rust, who married, first, Elvira, daughter of Captain Z. Z. Foun- tain, of Seaford, and in 1875, after her death, Gertrude, daughter of Catherine and Na- thaniel Jacobs, of Sussex.

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Biographical and genealogical history of the state of Delaware, Vol. II, Part 84

Author: Runk, J.M. & Co Publication date: 1899 Publisher: Chambersburg, Pa. Number of Pages: 1500

Author: Runk, J.M. & Co
Publication date: 1899
Publisher: Chambersburg, Pa.
Number of Pages: 1500