Historical and biographical encyclopaedia of Delaware. V 2, Part 15

Author:
Publication date: 1972
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 776

USA > Delaware > Historical and biographical encyclopaedia of Delaware. V 2 > Part 15

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

ILSON, DAVID, for many years a prominent merchant and business man of Odessa, was born in Sussex county, about 1735. He was a Friend, and and was of Scotch ancestry. In his young manhood, and soon after his first mar- marriage, he came to Cantwell's Bridge, where, between the years 1768 and 1772, he built the large brick dwelling house, which stands next to the Corbit House, and is still in good preservation. His first wife and the children he had by her died not long after his coming to Odessa, and in 1769 he married Mary, daughter of Daniel and Mary (Brinton) Corbit. They had two children; Rachel, afterward the wife of Samuel Thomas, for many years a successful merchant and promi- nent man of Cantwell's Bridge, and David Wilson, Jr. See sketch of David, Jr. Mr. Wilson was the founder of the grain and pro- duce shipping business of Odessa, in which he was largely and successfully engaged for over fifty years. He owned a number of vessels,

364

HISTORY OF DELAWARE.

and did much to build up the town. He was | there are the following children still living, one of the leading citizens of New Castle viz : George C., William H., Sallie, now Mrs. John Wiley, of Sussex county ; Mary, Caro- line, Belle, Lizzie, Ella and Alexander Jacobs. county, a man of high character and greatly loved and respected. He was very quiet, but possessed great force of character, enterprise and ability. He was a very affectionate hus- band and an indulgent father. He died in 1820. His wife died about 1805.

ACOBS, WILLIAM ALEXANDER, Farmer of North West Fork hundred, was born in that hundred, Feb. 15, 1821. His father was Thomas Jacobs, a farmer of the same hundred. His mother was Eliza Jacobs. The subject of this sketch is the second son of his parents and was reared upon the farm of his father. He attended the schools of his vicinity, principally in winter, until he was nineteen years of age. He re- mained upon the farm with his father until he gained his majority, when he began the pur- suit of agriculture upon his own account, upon a farm known as "Danville," which he in- herited from his father, and where he has re- sided ever since. This estate contains 268 acres, and when Mr. Jacobs came into posses- sion of it he found it pretty nearly worn out, owing to the fact of its having been rented out for eighteen years. He could only raise nine bushels of corn and five bushels of wheat to the acre. He has, however, improved it until now he can raise thirty-five bushels of corn to the acre and treble the former quantity of wheat. In 1860 he planted an orchard of 200 peach trees, and in 1870 increased the quantity to 1000 trees. They paid very well for a num- ber of years, but have not been so great à suc- cess recently, and in the year 1880, he did not have a basket of peaches upon the farm. He has also an orchard of pears and apples, but

ISHER, GEORGE M., Fruit and Grain Commission Merchant, Wyoming, was born in Baltimore, Md., February 23, 1845. His father was William Fisher, a farmer of Queen Anne's county, Md., who was related to the Fisher family of Dela- ware, all of whom are descended from three brothers who are supposed to have come to America with William Penn. His mother was Sarah R., daughter of George Smith, of Queen Anne County, Md. She died in 1869, aged 55 years. William Fisher, the father, died at the age of 70 years in 1879. The subject of this sketch was the eldest of a family of eleven children, of whom but four are now living. He attended school in the winter until he was twelve years of age, and at fourteen engaged as clerk in the town of Centreville. He continued to follow this occupation at various places until he became clerk for J. T. Jakes, of Wyo- ming, with whom he remained until 1867, when he went to Eastman's Business College, at Poughkeepsie, N. Y., from which institution he graduated and returned to Delaware. He then engaged as traveling salesman for W. & H. R. Riegel, of Philadelphia. He continued with them until 1868, at which time he returned to Wyoming, and began the mercantile busi- ness with Mr. J. T. Jakes, under the firm name of Jakes & Co. This partnership continued for some ten years, when Mr. Fisher retired and entered upon his present business. He began in 1878 to buy and sell fruit and grain on commission, occupying the large buildings of the Railroad Company. He has made this business a success by his honorable dealing and close attention. Mr. Fisher is a man of character and fine business qualities, and enjoys the confidence of his patrons and the citizens of his vicinity. He is a member of the Re- publican party and is interested in its success. He was united in marriage to Miss Maggie, daughter of William P. Lindale, of Wyoming,

the pears have not been very successful. He has devoted his farm to grain growing almost entirely and has made it a success. In politics he is a Democrat and has voted with that party for a number of years. He has served as In- spector of Elections for his district many times. He joined the order of Grangers in 1877, and is at present chaplain of "Sunny- side " Grange, No. 7, at Bridgeville, Del. He was united in marriage, November, 1848, to January 11, 1870. One child has been born to Miss Elizabeth, daughter of Peter and Sallie them ; William L. Fisher, now in his ninth Cannon, of Sussex county. Of this marriage year.

----

Thomas B. Brutton

هىھی

365

BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT.

RADFORD, REV. THOMAS BUDD, [ period of one hundred years, being the first

late of Dover, was born in Philadelphia,

October 22, 1816. His father, Thomas

Bradford, a distinguished lawyer of

Philadelphia, was born in that city, Sep-

tember II, 1781, graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1798, studied law in the

city of his birth, and was there admitted to

the bar in 1802. In May, 1805, he married

Elizabeth Loockerman, daughter of Vincent

Loockerman, and sister of the late Nicholas Loockerman, of Dover. They had five chil-

Rush, Colonel William, and Thomas Budd dren ; Vincent L, Elizabeth L., Benjamin

Bradford. The American founder of the family,

William Bradford, a young printer of London,

married Elizabeth Soules, sister of George

country, in 1682. Sometime after he went to Fox, and came with William Penn to this

New York, where he returned to the faith of

his boyhood, and united with Trinity (Episco-

pal) church. He was President of its first

Board of Trustees, and went to England and

purchased the chime of bells. He had two

sons, William and Andrew ; the former born in 1683, and the latter in 1686. They learned

the printing business in New York, to which

place the family removed in 1693 or '94, and

published the first newspaper in that city. In established there the first printing press, and

1719, Andrew returned to Philadelphia, and

established The American Mercury.

The

third William Bradford, son of the second William, was born in New York in 1719, came to Philadelphia in 1738, and assisted his uncle

Andrew on his paper. He married, in 1743, Rachel, daughter of Hon. Thomas Budd, gov-

ernor of New Jersey. Their son Thomas,born

May 8, 1745, graduated at Princeton College in 1763. In 1768 he went into partnership with his father in the publication of The Pennsylvania Journal: Both father and son were officers under Washington in the Revo-

of fifty-eight, a severe wound from which he lutionary war, the father receiving, at the age

suffered the remaining twelve years of his life. After the war the son resumed the publication

of his paper, the name of which he changed,

in the year 1800 to The True American, and continued its publication till 1819, at

paper published in America, and having one day the precedence of the first Boston paper. Thomas Bradford, died May 8, 1838, at the age of ninety-four years. His wife was Mary Fisher, of Philadelphia. They had three sons and three daughters. The third son and fourth child was Thomas Bradford, the father of Rev. Thomas B. Bradford. The subject of our sketch was the third Thomas in the line of descent. He received his primary education in Philadelphia, and graduated in September,

1833, at Williams College, Massachuetts, Mark Hopkins, then being President. He was only eighteen years of age when he became Profes-

sor of Ancient Languages in the Baptist Col- lege at Haddington, Philadelphia county, Pa., and at the same time he pursued his theologi- cal studies with Rev. Theodore L. Cuyler, then of Philadelphia, now of Brooklyn, N. Y.

In 1833. when twenty years of age, he received the degree of Master of Arts from Williams College. On the completion of his studies he was called to the charge of a Presby- terian church in Michigan. About the year 1840 he returned to Philadelphia and became pastor of the Presbyterian church at German-

town, where he remained till the spring of 1850, when his health being somewhat im-

paired, and his uncle, Nicholas Loockerman, son of Vincent Loockerman, of Dover, having deceased, he resigned his charge and removed to that place to look after his interests in the

Loockerman estate. After this he had no pas-

toral charge, but devoted himself to the care

previously been bounded on the north by of his large property. The town of Dover had

Loockerman street, and contained only six hundred inhabitants. Mr. Bradford at once sold off building lots and put up a large num- ber of handsome houses ; and this, called Bradford's city, is now the best part of Dover, containing many of the finest residences and public buildings. All his lands near Dover he greatly improved. He married, in 1835, when only nineteen years of age, Miss Henrietta, daughter of John Singer, Esq. She died in Dover in the spring of 1851. In Sept., 1857, he married Miss Lucinda H., daughter of Dr.

Robert R. Porter, of Wilmington, and grand-

which time he had been an editor and publisher daughter of Hon. Willard Hall, late Judge of the U. S. Circuit Court, of Delaware. By this for fifty-one years, and this paper had been published by the family continuously for a |marriage he had five children : Thomas Budd

366

HISTORY OF DELAWARE.

Bradford, who graduated from Princeton Col- [ York City, purchased a tract of land immedi- lege in the class of 1881 ; Lucinda Hall, Wil- liam, Robert R. Porter and Willard Hall Brad- ford. Mr. Bradford's health had for a long time declined. He died, March 25, 1871, in the fifty-fifth year of his age. He was a man of fine presence and of pure and upright char- acter.

ILLIAMS, FREDERIC AUGUSTUS, Attorney-at-Law, Dover, was born in Feeding-Hills, Mass., Nov. 17, 1846, being the second son of Rev. Dillan Williams and Mary Chapman Truman, his wife. His father, a Congregational clergy- man, was born in Colchester, Conn., February 16, 1805. He graduated at Yale College in 1836, and at the Theological Seminary in 1839. He was pastor of Congregational churches in New England until 1857, when he was called to a Presbyterian church in Boon- ville, New York, and in 1859, to a church of the same denomination in Cleveland, N. Y., where he died, Nov. 23, 1879. He was the son of Frederick William Williams, a farmer near Colchester, Conn., who served in the Revolu- tionary war, being present in engagements at Johnstown, N. Y., and Bennington, Vt. The first American ancestor of this family was Robert Williams, of Norwich, England who, to escape persecution by the established church in England, came to this country from Holland in 1638, and was admitted a free- man of the town of Roxbury, Mass., in the same year. William Williams, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, was one of his descendants. He was the direct ancestor of the subject of this sketch in the seventh generation, tracing his descent successively through Robert, Isaac, Isaac, Ebenezer, Jona- than, Frederick William, and Dillan. Frederick A. Williams received his education in the pub- lic schools till the age of fourteen, after which he spent two years under the private instruc- tion of his father, in the classics, higher mathematics, and the sciences. He then spent two years in learning the cabinet- making business, after which he entered a large mercantile house in Cleveland, in which he was successively clerk and bookkeeper. In February, 1868, he removed to Dover to en- gage in fruit-growing ; and, in company with his brother, Henry Truman Williams, of New

ately adjoining that town. In 1871 Mr. Wil- liams was elected Principal of the Dover Pub- lic Schools, then comprising four of the six districts into which the town was divided. In 1875 the six districts were consolidated by Act of the Legislature, and the schools, thus united, continued in charge of Mr. Williams, under whose care they emerged from a low condition to one of prosperity and great popu- larity. In 1878 he resigned the charge of the schools to continue the study of law, which he had begun in 1876, under the direction of Hon. N. B. Smithers, and in 1879 was admitted to the bar of Kent county. He at once settled in Dover, where he was very successful in the practice of his profession. In 1879 he was elected a member of the Public School Board in Dover, of which he was afterwards made Secretary. He joined the Presbyterian Church of which his father was pastor in 1865, and was a member of the church of that denomination in Dover. He was also superintendent of the Sabbath School connected with that church. In the summer of 1882 Mr. Williams removed to Colorado where he is now engaged in his profession.

ICHOLSON, HON. JOHN A., of Dover, Lawyer and ex-member of Con- gress, was born in Laurel, November 17, 1827. His father, Jacob Cannon Nicholson, was born in Delaware, in

1804. He married Susan Fauntleroy Quarles, a native of Virginia. Her maternal uncle, George Smith, was Governor of that state, and with about seventy others, perished in the burning of the Richmond Theater, on the night of December 26, 1811. The first Ameri- can ancestor of the family was Huffington Nicholson, who came to Delaware from Eng- Jand about the year 1720. His son Jonathan was the grandfather of the subject of this sketch. The latter passed his childhood in Virginia, in the counties of Amherst, and Nelson, and in 1843 entered Dickinson College. In February 1847, he came to Dover and com- menced the study of law, in the office of Hon. Martin W. Bates. He was admitted to the bar in October, 1850, and from that time has continued to practice in Dover. In the same year he was appointed Superintendent of schools for the county of Kent, by Governor

---

John & Clark

367

' BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT.

Ross, having from very early life been active of New York, with a view to his settlement in in promoting the educational interests of the life ; but finally returned and bought, in 1827, State. In 1864 Mr. Nicholson was noninated a large landed estate adjoining the place of his by the Democratic party, and elected to rep- resent the State in the Thirty-ninth Congress ; and was re-elected to the Fortieth Congress, his term expiring March 4, 1869. During his first term he served on the Committee on Elections, and during the second term on the Committee on Appropriations. Mr. Nicholson was married, August 2, 1848, to Miss Angelica K, daughter of John and Mary (Stout) Reed, of Dover, granddaughter of Jacob Stout, and great-granddaughter of Chancellor Killen. They have one son, John Reed Nicholson, who graduated from Yale College in 1870, and was admitted to the New York bar in 1873. He practiced in that city till 1876, when he returned to Dover. Mr. Nicholson is a leading member of the Masonic Fraternity, and has for many years been a member and office- bearer in the Presbyterian Church. Like a large proportion of his highly cultivated class, he is modest and retiring in manner, leaving to men of lesser abilities the forwardness and self-assertion more needful in their case. He is a man of most studious habits, a great reader of general literature, and his broad and generous culture is recognized and enjoyed by the first men of Dover. This pleasure is en- hanced by the perfect gentle manliness and refinement of his manners, and few men in his locality are, in a quiet way, more deservedly popular.

LARK, JOHN CURTIS, son of Major Geo. Clark, by his first marriage, was born in Red Lion hundred, New Castle county, March 6, 1799. He received the greater part of his early education at the " country pay school," but attended, for one term, the old Academy in Wilmington, then under the direction of the famous classi- cal teacher, Joseph Downing. His habits in youth were very simple and exemplary. From his childhood he exhibited great maturity of thought and character. In partnership with his father-in-law, Major Philip Reybold, in 1824, he contracted to excavate and build the eastern portion of the Chesapeake and Dela- ware Canal. On the completion of this impor- tant work he visited the city of Washington, and afterwards certain sections in the State

birth, upon which he afterwards lived to the close of life. On the establishment of a State Bank in Delaware City, in 1849, he was made one of its directors, and held this position as long as he lived. He was early made a trus- tee of Delaware College, at Newark, and was ever a warm friend and generous supporter of education. As trustee of the Poor for many years, he interested himself in any and every improvement in the treatment and condition of this unfortunate class. Holding many local offices, he was ever earnest and active in pru- dently promoting that which elevated the community about him. He was, in early life a Jefferson Democrat, but became a Whig on Jackson's elevation to the Presidency, and re- mained a faithful adherent and generous con- tributor to that organization to the time of its dissolution in 1854. In 1860 he went to Chi- cago as a Lincoln man, taking so conspicuous a part in his nomination that he was made a Vice President of the convention, and was ap- pointed one of the delegates to wait on the nominee at Springfield, and announce his can- didacy. During the war President Lincoln had no warmer or more unselfish supporter than John C. Clark. He had great influence with the President, which he used earnestly and judiciously for the advancement of the Union cause. In the course of his long life, he accumulated a handsome property. All his business transactions were entered upon and carried forward with unswerving integrity. His was a rare christian character ; before he was twenty years of age he was chosen ruling elder in the St. George's Presbyterian church, and held that office for over fifty years ; and for very many years sustained a prayer meeting in his own immediate neighborhood. He was married July 18, 1826, to Elizabeth, daughter of Philip and Betsey Reybold, byiwhom there were twelve children, seven of whom outlived the father. Mr. Clark was a man of splendid personal appearance, tall and well-formed, with every indication of finest health. He died of heart disease, July 29, 1869, in the sev- enty-first year of his age. Few men have lived in the State who adorned the relations of life, whether public, official, or domestic, with such singular purity, earnestness and

-----

368

HISTORY OF DELAWARE.

fidelity, or went to the grave more generally respected than he, of whom we have given this unvarnished record.

MITH, MAJOR S. RODMAN, U. S. Commissioner and Clerk of U. S. Dis- trict and Circuit Court of Delaware, Lawyer and Soldier, was born April 20, 1841, in Wilmington. His father was Albert W. Smith, whose ancestors belonging to the Society of Friends, emigrated to this country during the early part of the eighteenth century. His mother, before marriage, was a Miss Wollaston, who came of an old Delaware Quaker family. His education was obtained at the best Friends' schools in Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. After com- pleting his scholastic education, he accepted an assistant's position in the Wilmington Sav- ing Fund Society, of which his father was Sec- retary and Treasurer. In 1860 he began the study of law with Hon. E. G. Bradford, but his legal studies were abandoned, July, 1862, at which time he commenced to recruit men for the Fourth Delaware Infantry. He was commissioned First Lieutenant and afterwards promoted to the Captaincy of Company C. For gallant and meritorius services at the en- gagement at Rowanty Creek, Va., February 6, 1865, he was promoted to the rank of Brevet Major U. S. Volunteers. In this engagement he had command of the Regiment, being the senior Captain present after the wounding o Captains Kent and McClary. Major Smith served with his regiment until the close of the war, and shared in the actions of " Bethesda Church," "Cold Harbor," "Petersburg," "Pee- ble's Farm," "Jerusalem Plank Road," "Row- anty Creek," "Dabney's Mills," "Appomattox C. H.," and several others, besides assisting in the destruction of the Weldon railroad in North Carolina. In the final struggle at Ap- pomattox, he commanded the Third, Fourth and Eighth Delaware regiments, and proved to be a skilled and efficient officer. At the close of the war he resumed his legal studies and was admitted to practice in 1867. After residing in Wilmington for a year he removed to Carroll county, Md., where he contined to reside until 1869, when he returned to Wil- mington to fill the position of Secretary and Treasurer of the Farmers' Mutual Insurance Company of Delaware, which appointment he

had previously accepted. He severed his con- nection with this institution in 1873, and entered upon the duties of his present position, which office he has filled with credit for the past nine years. In politics he is a Republi- can, and an ardent supporter of those princi- ples for which he contended upon the field. Major Smith was united in marriage, in 1867, to Miss Ware, daughter of Charles Ware, of Virginia.

URTIS, SOLOMON MINOT, Paper Manufacturer of Newark, was born at Newton Lower Falls, near Boston, Mass. His parents were Solomon and Hannah Curtis. S. Minot was the youngest of nine brothers, all paper makers, who were all reared in, and became members of, the Protes- tant Episcopal Church. He was early educa- ted at private schools, and then at Newton Academy, which he attended for three years, then under the direction of Seth Davis. He, in his seventeenth year, went into the Paper Mill of his brother to learn the business. In his twen- tieth year his excellent mother died, and when twenty-five he married Miss Adaline H. Hurd. He came to Newark in 1848 with his brother George B. Curtis, and they purchased the old "Meteer Paper Mill," adjoining the town. This they refitted and refurnished throughout, and began the manufacture of paper under the the title of "Nonantum Mills." In 1851 Geo. B. sold his interest to their brother Frederick A. Curtis and the firm became "Curtis & Bro. which has grown to its present large proportions and established a national rep- utation for its goods. This firm and mill have had large prosperity ; in 1848, com- mencing with an old disused factory, with antiquated and worn out machinery, and with limited capital, and now its annual product is nearly or quite $70,000, and with one of the best equipped manufactories in the United States. Its management and success reflect the highest credit on the Messrs. Curtis ; and the community in which they live have been largely benefited by their enterprise. S. Minot Curtis has been one of the foremost and most prominent laymen of his church in the State for many years, and has been a member and Secretary of the Diocesan Conventions of the Protestant Episcopal Church for the past twenty four years, and a delegate to the Gen-

E- . .. .. .. >

Pilet PP Porter

---

369

BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT.

eral Conventions of this Church in the United | courtesy, that awakened in them a correspond- States, for nine Sessions. In 1881 he visited |ing sentiment and manner. His uniform kind- Europe and was accompanied with the kindest wishes of friends, who felt and expressed a! touching interest upon his safe return in im- proved health, and with unabated love for his country. Mr. Curtis served as a member of the State Legislature, 1861-2, greatly to the satisfaction of his constituents: September 16, 1882, he was nominated for State Senator from New Castle county by the Republican Party, with which he has affiliated since its organization. Before this, he and his eight brothers were Whigs, voting that ticket until the party ceased to exist. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Curtis, are Edward, Sarah, and Walter. ness made him especially beloved by the younger members of the profession. To the meetings of the Medical Society of Delaware, his presence always added great interest, while his large experience and fresh stores of thought and knowledge never failed to make the occasion most profitable. Of this society he was a member, and for a time President, and repeatedly was its representative in the Ameri- can Medical Association. He was one of the earliest and most influential members of the Delaware Historical Society, into the labors of which he entered with all the enthusiasm of his nature, and by much expenditure of time and effort, as well as by liberal contributions of money, was largely instrumental in raising the necessary funds to carry out its objects, and in placing it upon a permanent basis. He was a man of extensive reading, cultivated tastes and an ardent love of knowledge. In the treasures of his own choice library he often found a solace when wearied with the arduous labors of his profession. He possessed a warm, genial temperament, and when in health greatly enjoyed social intercourse ; in society con- tributing largely to the general pleasure. He was, however, debarred by ill health from this enjoyment for some time before he died. He was a man of enterprise and public spirit, and was for several years a member of the City Council, in which, as chairman of the Finance Committee, he discharged his labor- ious and responsible duties with diligence and fidelity. He was for several years a director of the Bank of Delaware. He found time, notwithstanding the pressure of professional duties, to engage extensively in real estate operations in the eastern part of the city, pur- chasing land which he sometimes improved, but generally sold on improvement contracts, requiring little or no cash payments and giv- ing long credits. Many men in Wilmington now own their own homes by reason of his liberality in these arrangements. His family were strong Presbyterians and he was for many years a devoted member of the Hanover Street Church. His piety was deep and sincere, and he brought to the sick room christian sym- pathy and counsel and support as well as medical aid. He married in 1841, Lucinda,

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

Historical and biographical encyclopaedia of Delaware. V 2, Part 15

Author: Publication date: 1972 Publisher: Number of Pages: 776

Author:
Publication date: 1972
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 776