Historical and biographical encyclopaedia of Delaware. V 2, Part 28

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Publication date: 1972
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 776

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436

HISTORY OF DELAWARE.

years been the leading physician of his locality. one of four brothers who came from England to America prior to the Revolution. Only Jonathan settled in Rhode Island, the others He is largely interested in agriculture, owning three farms in the neighborhood of Kenton, all of which he is constantly improving. Two going further west. They were worthy mem- of them are principally devoted to peaches, in bers of the Society of Friends, as are still which he has been very successful. Dr. Good- i many of their descendants. The subject of win has always taken an active interest in the this sketch received a good English educa- affairs of the Democratic party, but would |tion, and at the age of fourteen he was ap- never accept official honors though frequently prenticed to his brother William to learn urged upon him. He was, in early life, a mem- 'the plumbing business, with whom he after- ber of the Lutheran church, but in 1877, he 'wards went into partnership. The business became a member of the Methodist church of being badly crippled by the panic of 1857, Kenton, of which he is a Trustee. He was Mr. Lawton withdrew, and gave his whole married, March 15, 1853, to Miss Jane Agnes, time to the study of electricity as a thera- daughter of Mason and Sarah Bailey of Ken- ton, and has had six children, only three of whom are living ; Clara, married Gamaliel Garrison, of the same county ; Sallie, married to Samuel M. Taylor, of Queen Ann's county, Md., and Eugene, at home with his parents. Flora died in infancy; Willie Bailey, the eldest. son, at the age of eight years ; and again the family have sustained a sore bereavement in the death of a cherished son, John, February 25, 1882, after an illness of about two weeks. Dr. Goodwin is a gentleman of strong build, vigorous constitution, and fine and command- ing appearance. peutive agent, a subject in which he had for some time been interested. His preceptor was Dr. A. Page, a prominent electrician of Boston, Massachusetts. In 1859 Dr. Lawton settled in New York City, where he practiced his specialty. He also delivered many able lectures on the science which were largely the means of bringing electricity into general notice. In 1865 he visited Wilmington, where he finally decided to locate. Soon after, he turned his attention to Homeopathy, and in 1870, after a full course of studies and lectures, graduated M. D. from the Hahnemann Medical College of Philadelphia. He has made many friends and built up a large practice among AWTON, CHARLES HENRY, M. D., of Wilmington, was born in New- port, Rhode Island, February 15, 1832. His father, Job Lawton, a respected citizen of that city, is still living at the great age of eighty-six years. He spent a large portion of his life in the long whal- ing voyages of the Northern Pacific Ocean. In 1823 he married Miss Rebecca Cranston, a descendant of Samuel Cranston, Governor of Rhode Island, who died in 1727, aged sixty- eight years. Samuel was the son of John Cranston, who died in 1680, while also Gov- ernor of Rhode Island. John was the great- grandson of William, the first Lord Cranston, of Scotland, and grandson of James Cran- ston, Clerk-chaplain to King Charles the First. The children of Job and Rebecca Lawton were William, Charles Henry, Re- becca and Elizabeth. Job Lawton was the son of Job and Polly (Rathburn) Lawton. Their children were Polly, Sallie, Hannah, Charles, Abbie, Roger Boon, and Job. Job Lawton, Sr., was the son of Jonathan Lawton, the most intelligent people of the city. He has not lost faith in electricity or discarded its use in special cases, but he is a devout believer in the principles of Homoeopathy, as his suc- cess and high standing in the profession fully attest. Dr. Lawton is president of the Dela- ware Homeopathic Medical Society, and a member of the American Institute of Homœo- pathy, to which he has been a delegate. He has contributed several articles to the medical press, which have received the highest praise from the leading men of the profession, and attracted general attention for their ability and philosophy. One of these articles, especially, should be noticed, which has since been pub- lished in pamphlet form. It is entitled "Thera- peutic Force or proofs of medicinal power, be- yond the limits of drug attenuation," being the substance of a paper which he read by ap- pointment before the American Institute of Homeopathy at Milwaukee, Wis. Dr. Law- ton was married in 1851 to Miss Elizabeth West: They have one child Ella Elizabeth Lawton.

Weather 15-EXLEY

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BIOGRAPHICAL, DEPARTMENT.

SBURY, REV. FRANCIS, the first Episcopal Church, which was accepted and the Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal work consummated in Baltimore, Md., during the following Christmas. By the unanimous voice of the Conference he was elected to the episcopacy of the new church, and was duly consecrated thereto, Says the "Minute" of the Conference of 1816, "It would appear that Bishop Asbury had labored in England as a local and traveling preacher about ten years ; in America, upwards of forty-four, nearly thirty- two of which he, as Bishop, held the superin- tendency. When we count the thousands throughout this vastly extensive continent, who, with affectionate veneration, owned him as their spiritual father, we may question if a weightier charge has been committed to any man since the days of the Apostles ; and when the records of his life shall meet the public eye, who, that patiently examines and candidly decides, will be bold enough to say, that, since that time, duties so great and so various have been, by one man, more faithfully performed." It seemed to be one of Bishop Asbury's special pleasures to visit those parts, and fami- lies of Delaware made so dear to him during the dark periods of the war of Independence ; and the delight with which he was greeted everywhere is beyond description. His name is perpetuated in many families, and in Dela- ware, at least, "Francis Asbury" can never die. This greal and good man yielded up his spirit to God at the house of George Arnold on the 31st day of March, 1816. His remains were deposited in the family burying ground until, by order of the General Conference, they were disinterred and transferred to a vault pre- pared for that purpose in the Methodist Epis- copal Church in Eutaw street, Baltimore, Maryland. church ordained in America, and a citi- zen of Delaware, who was naturalized in this State during the period of the revo- lutionary war. The following is from the pen of Dr. Phoebus : A brief summary of the life of this venerable servant of God is only attempted here. He was born near the foot of Hamstead- Bridge, in the parish of Handsworth, about four miles from Birmingham in Staffordshire, England, on the 20th of August, A. D. 1745. His parents were poor, honest, pious people, who greatly desired to train their son in the discipline and admonition of the Lord. He was sent to school in early life, and before he had attained to his seventh year could read the Bible, which ever after became his guide in all things. He remained in school, subjected to the harsh treatment of a churlish master, for a few years, and did not therefore attain to great erudition in early life, but such was his thirst for knowledge, that in early manhood he had mastered both the Greek and Hebrew languages, so as to read the Sacred Scriptures in the original tongue. When in his thirteenth year, he espoused the cause of Christ, and con- necting himself with the Methodists, passed through the subordinate positions of leader, exhorter, and local preacher, until in his twenty-second year he became an itinerant. In the year 1771, he was sent by Mr. Wesley as a missionary to America. On the 27th day of October, he was landed at Philadelphia, and immediately began his labors. Soon he was vested with authority, by Mr. Wesley, to direct the course of the Methodists in this country, a position which he filled with great acceptability until the organization of the M. E. Church. While in the discharge of his duties in Maryland in 1778, he was subjected to such harsh treatment, that he escaped to Delaware, and in the following year took the oath of allegiance to the State, thereby be- coming a citizen. His influence was, there- after, given to the furtherance of the interests of the State, especially her spiritual interests ; and to him more than to any one person be- longs the honor of building up a moral power that has made Delaware's chief citizens men of purity, steadfastness and incorruptibility, in civil and political life. In 1784, in Delaware, he counseled the organization of the Methodist

OUPER, JOHN EDWARDS, fourth son of Dr. James and Hannah (McIn- tire) Couper, was born in New Castle, April 20, 1809. He enjoyed a full share of the training and education so care- fully bestowed on every member of his father's family, and deciding to devote himself to the mercantile profession, he entered the well known house of Mr. Samuel Comly, in Phila- delphia. There he distinguished himself by his ability and assiduous attention to the du- ties of his calling. His employer placed in him the highest confidence, and in 1836 com-

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HISTORY OF DELAWARE.

missioned him to superintend and put in order it is said, . in Europe or America. We the affairs of a branch house in New Orleans. come now to the crowning effort of his life on Having faithfully fulfilled this trust he set out earth. To the publication of a poem, which, on his return, but during the passage from New if criticism be true, must place his name among Orleans to Appalachicola, was seized with hemorrhage of the lungs, and reached home only to die. His decease took place, Novem- ber 21, 1836, at the early age of twenty-seven

the first writers of the age. "EL.FLORA OF THE SUSQUEHANNA," from the press of J. B. Lippincott & Co., of Philadelphia, is the title of the work which has received the highest years. A young man of the highest character praises from the best critics, who have read it. and finest promise, universally beloved and esteemed, his death cast a shadow of deepest gloom over all the large circle of family ac- quaintance and friends.

ARLAN CALEB M. D. was born at Middletown, New Castle county, and State of Delaware, October 13, 1814. He studied medicine three years and graduated in 1836 at the University of Pennsylvania ; practiced the old system ten years in the country ; studied Homoeopathy and moved to Wilmington in 1847. Here, meeting with violent opposition, he was in- duced to publish a pamphlet entitled : "A Lecture on Allopathy and Homoeopathy" which was noticed by the eminent Doctor Hèring. in his periodical in the following complimen- tary terms : "Very ably written ; full of inter- esting remarks and a great many new ideas." At the age of twenty-seven he married Eliza Montgomery, a young widow lady remarkable for her piety and good sense. They had three children ; Elgarda, Elizabeth, and John. The first was married to Dr. J. C. Hutchinson. of Philadelphia. She died at thirty-two, leaving no children. Elizabeth died in her nineteenth year. John studied medicine, graduated at the Hahnemann Medical College, and died with consumption fifteen months afterwards. The children inherited hepatic disease from their grandmother, who died five weeks after the birth of her only child-the subject of this sketch. In 1860 Dr. Harlan published " Ida Randolph of Virginia," a poem in three cantos. In 1853 he purchased a farm near the city and improved it by plowing in green crops. Being convinced of their great utility he published in 1876 a little work entitled "Farming with Green Manures on Plumgrove Farm." The second edition, revised and enlarged, has since been published in a handsome volume, by J. B. Lippencott & Co., of Philadelphia. As a full treatise on green manures, it has no equal,

We have only room for a few words from two able pens. The Rev. Dr. Landis, the great classical scholar, and the distinguished author of the " Cross," says in a letter on receiving a copy : "I could not put it down until I had devoured it all to the very last line. I am greatly pleased with it. The plot, style and execution, all have interested me greatly. Your versification has nothing to fear from a comparison even with Dryden. You have his flow, cadence and rhythm. Your power of de- scription is equal to his own. No man, how- ever gifted, has ever attained to your mastery of the power of poetic expression without a good deal of thought and practice. The charm and melody of your versifica- tion, and your pictured images, are so ad- mirably presented in your descriptions." John C. Harkness, A. M., a graduate of Bow- doin College,and publisher of Harkness' Maga- zine, says : " The poem "Elflora of the Sus- quehanna," by C. Harlan, M. D., is so delight- fully entertaining that whoever begins its pe- rusal will not lay it aside without completion -save from sheer necessity. I have read it a number of times and find it just the thing to entertain an honored guest. It has great strength and stirring energy of diction, refined sentiment, clearness and fidelity of descrip- tion. Its combination of these high and ex- ceedingly rare merits give the poem "Elflora," immortality. Mental power glows in every page. The plot is so skillfully wrought that you all the time want to know what is going to happen next. Such a work is a monument to its author's genius, infinitely more enduring than marble column or granite structure." El- flora was written more than forty years ago and then laid aside. The toils and anxieties of professional life, incident to a very large practice, and the imperative necessity of a close attention to business, caused the doctor to give but little time, or thought to literary. pursuits. He was satisfied with the discharge

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of his duties as a physician. Curiosity, more | an outline. He is now acting chaplain at the than anything else, induced him to look over his early writings. He was astonished to dis- cover that Elflora needed only a careful re- vision to be, not only the best thing he had ever written, but a master-piece of the highest order of composition.

OSS, JAMES JEFFERSON, eldest son of Governor William Ross, of Seaford, was born in 1846 on the Ross estate on which he now resides. For an account of his family see sketch of W. Ross. He attended the schools of Seaford, and in 1863 was under the instruction of Dr. Clemson at Clay- mont. He completed his education at Edin- burg, Scotland, where he spent two years, Returning to the United States in 1865, full of enthusiasm for agriculture, he devoted himself to that pursuit, turning his attention particu- larly to the culture of fruit. He has now 20,000 peach trees and 3,000 apple trees; four thousand pear trees were planted, but many of them have been destroyed by blight. His small fruits also have paid him well. He has 150 acres of blackberries, chiefly the Wilson variety; raspberries, 75 acres ; and strawberries in large quantities. He has two evaporators, with which he has prepared 18,000 pounds, principally of his own surplus fruit. He also raises wheat from 500 to 1,000 bushels yearly, and corn from 2,000 to 4,000 bushels. All his cattle and sheep are thoroughbreds from Ohio, and his stock farm is also a success. His herd of short horns and his Cotswold sheep took the premium at the Dover State Fair. Mr. Ross is a director of the Delaware Rail- road. He is a gentleman of refinement and culture, and affable and pleasant in manners. He was married in April, 1873, to Miss Sallie A., daughter of George Levan, of Lancaster county, Pa., and has one child, Brooks Levan Ross. He is a communicant in the Protestant Episcopal Church, in which he has been a ves- tryman for eight years.

RAMER, REV. GEORGE ROBERTS, founder, and formerly pastor of "The Household of Faith," Wilmington, was born in Baltimore, Md., May 26, 1839. The life of his father, Rev. Samuel · Kramer has been published and is full of in- teresting facts, of which our space forbids even

Navy Yard at Washington, and was a major in the army during the war, where he greatly distinguished himself. He married Rebecca Stuart of Baltimore, and had seven sons and two daughters. Three of the sons entered the ministry of the P. E. Church. One of them, Rev. John. W. Kramer, is rector of the Church of the Holy Faith, and Master of St. John's Guild, New York city ; and another recently deceased, was Rev. William Paul Kramer, rector of Christ's Church, New Orleans, who greatly endeared himself to the people of that city by his self-denying labors during the last visitation of yellow fever ; great respect was shown to his memory. The father of Major Samuel Kramer was Major John Kramer, who before the Amer- ican Revolution, when but seventeen years old, came to this country from Bremen, accom- panied by his brother George, aged nineteen. They both entered the Continental army at Harrisburg, Pa., and served during the entire war. Major John Kramer was one of Gen. Washington's body guard, and was a great favorite with him. After the war he settled in Washington and finally in Baltimore, where Major Samuel Kramer, the youngest of the entire family, was born. Four of the elder brothers of the latter were soldiers in the war of 1812. His uncle George settled in Penn- sylvania at the close of the Revolution, and had several sons, one of whom was a member of Congress for three terms from that State. Major John Kramer married a Miss Paul, a relative of one of the first governors of Dela- ware, and whose family came from England with the first settlers of Kent, Md. The Kramer family has spread all over the states, and the name spelled also Kraemer, Creamer and Cramer, is found in every part of the Union. George R. Kramer lost his mother in his boyhood. He spent four years at Dickin- son Seminary, and was licensed to preach in Baltimore, entering the itinerant ministry of the Patapsco circuit. He was opposed to the division in the church, but after the separation joined the M. E. Church South, and filled sev- eral appointments in the Georgia Conference with great acceptance, particularly at St. James' Church, Augusta. He was afterwards stationed at Staunton, Va., and in 1874 filled a vacancy in the Charlestown Circuit, Md. The follow-

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HISTORY OF DELAWARE.

Church. While settled here as pastor, a change gradually took place in his doctrinal views, it being now his belief that man sleeps after death until the resurrection, and that after the judgment the wicked are de- stroyed in the second death, and not kept alive in endless punishment. He also con- ceived it his duty to preach these doctrines. This occasioned great excitement, and the feeling of regret was very general, he being regarded as one of the most eloquent preachers in the Conference. Many of his people fol- lowed him upon his formal withdrawal from the ministry and membership of the M. E Church, June 20, 1877. A new church or- ganization, with seventy-one members, was formed the following Sabbath, under the title of the Household of Faith. They wor- shipped in the McClary building, where the church increased in membership to over 300. The corner stone of their new church was laid October 20, 1880, and the edifice was dedicated on Sunday, December 3, 1881. The meetings continued to grow in interest and numbers, but several months later Mr. Kramer was induced to accept a call from "The Church of the Blessed Hope," in Brook- lyn. He preached his farewell sermon to the Household of Faith, Sunday evening, July 30, 1882. The house was crowded and much feel- ing manifested. Several of Mr. Kramer's sermons have been published, also " Aletheia," a reply to Ingersoll, and a number of poems and hymns all of which met with great favor, and sold rapidly. In his religious belief he still claims to be in honest sympathy with all evangelical christians, and is a full believer in conversion and the witness of the Spirit. He is eloquent and forcible in his preaching. He was married in 1865, to a daughter of Theophi- lus and Selma Hill, of Atlanta, Ga. They have one child, Mary Rebecca Kramer ; a son died in infancy.

ing spring he was received into the Wilmington ; Chandler was born in 1830, and his lineage is Conference, and placed in charge of the Asbury |easily traced. He carries the old Saxon name of the first emigrant, who, with his wife and eight children, arrived in Philadelphia with Wm: Penn, and were-as most of their descend- ants in Pennsylvania and Delaware and in other States of the Union-members of the So- ciety of Friends. Swithin Chandler's name appears as having been signed to a petition in the year 1740, to Thomas Penn, asking, with others of Chester county, that Willington, now Wilmington, be made a borough. (Ferris' Early Settlements on the Delaware, p. 207.) The subject of our sketch is one of twelve chil- dren, five of whom survive. His academic preparation for professional life was obtained under the direction of Rev. Mr. Gayley, of Wilmington, and in his twentieth year he en- tered, as a student, the office of Dr. Wm. Notson, a well-known physician of Philadel- phia. He matriculated in the Medical De- partment of the University of Pennsylvania, 1851, and graduated M. D., in the class of 1854, and immediately entered on the practice of medicine in Mill Creek hundred, and after two and a half years removed to his present home near Brandywine Springs. He, for twenty-eight years, has had an extensive and laborious practice, yet possessed of a splendid physical organization, looks as though he could easily measure and master, in en- durance, other twenty-eight years of equal labor. Popular, genial, and sympathetic, he is not less loved as a neighhor and a man, than he is sought after as a skillful physician and surgeon. In all that relates to the public advantage of his community and of the State, he has always taken a deep interest, and it is not surprising that we find him, for the last twenty years a School Commissioner and Secretary of the Board. In the wider sphere of public and official service he has also be- come well-known to the people of the State. He served as a member of the State Legisla- ture in 1878-9, and was chosen Speaker of the General Assembly, making a popular and efficient presiding officer. He has always acted with the Democratic party, and through the earnest solicitation of his party is a candi- date for the State Legislature at this writing, October, 1882. Since 1853 he has been a mem- ber of the order of Odd Fellows, and was made a Master Mason in 1870. He has filled

HANDLER, SWITHIN, Physician and Surgeon and ex-Speaker of the Gen. eral Assembly, is the son of Thomas and Sarah (Yarnell) Chandler. Thomas Chandler was a farmer, of Mill Creek hundred, born 1800, died 1872. Sarah Chand- ler was born in 1807, and is yet living. Dr.

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Suithin Chandler

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BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT.

all the chairs of the Blue Lodge, and has " of Caroline county, Md., settled on the Forest served as Deputy Grand Master of the State farm, near Willow Grove, where he also kept His religious affinities are Presbyterian : of a store ; was constable and afterwards Justice that church he has been a member for many of the Peace. He was also a surveyor, and years, and is at present one of the ruling elders filled almost every subordinate office in the of Red Clay Creek Presbyterian Church. county. He was finally appointed by the Dr. Chandler has been twice married, first | Governor an Associate Judge on the bench of to Miss Sarah, daughter of Joseph Lindsay, an elder of Red Clay Creek Church, and after her death to Miss Rebecca A., daughter of Jacob Rubencame, of New Castle county. There was one child of the first marriage who died early. Few gentlemen in the State have more attached friends, and perhaps no physician in the State so large or remunerative a coun- try practice.

OOPER, HON. RICHARD, one of the judges of the Supreme Court of Delaware in the early part of this cen- tury, was born in the year 1755, in Tuckahoe Neck, Caroline county. He was the son of Richard and Ann (Broadaway) Cooper, who had a family of ten children, of whom seven grew to maturity : Mary, Ann, Richard. Nehemiah, Ezekiel, Thomas and Sarah. They were highly respectable people, in comfortable circumstances. The grand- father of the subject of this sketch was John Cooper, the youngest of three brothers, who came to this country from England in the lat- ter part of the seventeenth or the first of the eighteenth century. Their father was a gen- tleman of means in England. The eldest, George Cooper, came only on a visit and soon returned. The second, Richard Cooper, was a clergyman of the established Church, and owned a farm in Mendenhall Forest, where he lived and died a bachelor. The third brother, John Cooper, married Miss Smith, of Tucka- hoe Neck, and settled in that place, where they brought up their five children ; Thomas, George, Deborah, Ann, and Richard. Thomas was sent back to England, at the age of twelve years as the heir to the estate of his uncle George, who died childless. The others with their descendants remained in Delaware. Richard, the youngest, was studious and thoughtful, and while his educational advan- tages were very limited, improved every op- portunity to acquire information. In his early manhood he was a farmer, and on his mar- riage with Sarah, daughter of Aaron Alford, moted, and in January, 1863, became 56

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Historical and biographical encyclopaedia of Delaware. V 2, Part 28

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

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