Historical and biographical encyclopaedia of Delaware. V 2, Part 33

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

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HISTORY OF DELAWARE.

mother was the daughter of Dr. John Carey, in his day, a prominent physician of that county, He was the youngest of a large family of children, and lost his father at the age of seven. His mother then moved into the town of Bridgeville, where he was sent to the best schools. He received his academic education in New Jersey, and registered as a student-at- law in Georgetown, in his nineteenth year. After reading for two years he entered Albany University, N. Y., and graduated with the class of 1868. Admitted to the bar in Albany, and also in Georgetown in the fall of that year, he opened an office in the latter place in the beginning of 1869. Here he has since re- mained, and has a rapidly increasing and pay- ing practice. In the time of the war, although too young for service, he enlisted in the Sixth Delaware regiment, which was organized as State Guards, but was ordered to the front during the second invasion of Pennsylvania by Gen. Lee. He accompanied his regiment, and was mustered out with his comrades. Always a pronounced Republican, after his admission to the bar, Mr. Richards was active in politics, and from 1870 to 1876 served as chairman of the Republican Executive Committee of Sus- sex county, and as a member of the State Cen- tral Committee. In 1872 he served as a mem- ber of the Republican National Convention, which met in Philadelphia. In 1876 he de- clined a re-election as chairman of the Re- publican Committee, and has since devoted his time and attention exclusively to his pro- fession. He is an official member of the Meth- odist Episcopal church, with which he united in 1863, and in which he has always been very active and influential. He is President of the Sussex county Bible Society. Mr. Richards was married, in December, 1870, to Miss Mary C., daughter of Dr. John R. Sudler, of Bridge- ville, and has four children : Robert Haven, Sarah Anne, Charles Sudler and Laura Rich- ards. Mr. Richards is a gentleman who com- mands the confidence and respect of the peo- ple of his county and State, not less by his courteous demeanor, than by his recognized abilities. He is an earnest and conscientious promoter of all measures and reforms that have for their object the improvement of society and the happiness and prosperity of the com- munity. His courtesy and earnest devotion to his profession are guarantees of success.

IGGS. SEWELL C., Register of Wills for New Castle county, was born near Summit Bridge, September II, 1823. A history of his antecedents have been given in the sketch of W. Pierson Biggs. Sewell Biggs obtained his education at Pen- nington, N. J. Conference Academy, which he attended for three years. After graduating he adopted the occupation of teaching, which he continued for four years. He then began an agricultural life ; he and his brother Benjamin carried on a large farm of nearly 400 acres, known as the Hukel farm, owned by their father, which was subsequently divided be- tween them. Sewell immediately began to improve his property, and by perseverance has made it one of the finest estates in the county. He has devoted his attention to peaches to some extent and has a fine orchard in bearing. He was largely engaged in the nursery busi. ness and found it very profitable, his sales amounting to many thousand trees annually. This business he has, however, discontinued, and his land is devoted principally to the growth of grain. Mr. Biggs is also the owner of two large farms near Bridgeville, upon which there are extensive orchards of peach trees, amounting at one time to over 20,000 trees. In politics he is a Democrat and has always been deeply interested in the success of his party. In 1854 he was elected to the State Senate for four years, and in 1872 was elected to the House of Representatives. He was made Speaker of that body in the session of 1873, and made one of the most popular the House has ever had. Mr Biggs was appointed Register of Wills for New Castle Co., Oct. 27, 1874, for the term of five years, and was re-ap- pointed in 1879. In these several offices Mr. Biggs has performed his duties with marked ability. By his gentlemanly bearing, courtesy and kindness, he has become exceedingly pop- ular in his party, and throughout the State wherever known ; he has made hosts of friends, and is well fitted to fill any office to which the future may call him. He was reared in the Methodist Church, and attends Bethel Church at Pivot Bridge, and to its support is a liberal contributor. Mr. Biggs was married in May, 1855, to Miss Caroline, daughter of Abram C. Beekman, of New Jersey. By this marriage there have been three children, Abram B., J. Frank, and Sewell C. Biggs, Jr.

S. G. Riggs

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BIOGRAPHICAL. DEPARTMENT.

ASLET, GOVERNOR JOSEPH. The Delaware Legislature furnished the mon : ument upon which is the following inscription by the late Hon. Willard al .

In Memory of JOSEPH HASLET. He was the son of Colonel John Haslet who fell at the battle of Princeton January 3, 1777 ; "a gallant officer, and gallantly seconded by the Delaware troops ;" leaving a widow who in a few days died of grief, and several small children.

Joseph, the subject of this Epitaph, was reared under the guardianship of

William Killen Chief Justice and afterward Chancellor of the State :

After arriving at age he removed from Kent county And established himself a farmer in Cedar Creek Hun- dred, Sussex.

He was elected Governor of the State in 1810, and with credit discharged the functions of his office, the burden and responsibilities of which were greatly enhanced by the war of 1812.

In 1822 he was elected Governor, the second time, the only case of a second election to that office in the State. He died during his second term, June 23, 1823. AN HONORED NAME ! gratefully remembered by the General Assembly of Delaware directing by their resolution of Feb. 21, 1861 the erection of This Monument.

ing clipper ship, built in Baltimore, and en- gaged in the opium trade, which, at that time, was carried on by means of the clipper ships, and those so employed carried nothing beside the drug, but went heavily armed on account of the pirates then infesting the waters, His vessel carried seven guns. He was in the employ of Augustine Heard & Co., of Boston, and sailed all along the coast of China, from Hong Kong to Pekin. In 1861 he was trans- ferred to the command of the Fire Dart, a steamer belonging to the same firm, engaged in general freighting business in Chinese waters. In 1868 the firm failed, and he entered the employ of Russel & Company, also of Boston, known as the Shanghai Steam Navigation Company, with whom he remained until 1877. They had twenty-one steamers, freight and passenger vessels, all large, and the captains were transferred from one to another at the will of the company. Captain West com- manded part of the time one of the steamers on the Yangtze river, between Shanghai and Han Kon, a distance of 100 miles, and some- times carried 500 passengers, the average num- ber being 300. This life he greatly enjoyed, there being foreigners enough to afford him society, and he was prospered. Returning to America in 1876, he resided in Philadelphia three years, after which he removed to Lewes. He has always been identified with the Demo- cratic party, but has never been active in political affairs. He was made a Mason in 1856. When on a visit to his old home, in 1869, he was married to Miss Margaret, daugh- ter of Robert West, of Lewes. She spent three years in China with her husband. Of their three children only one, Margaret Theodora, is now living. Captain West is a large, fine looking man, and highly regarded in the com- munity.

EST, CAPT. WILLIAM ARTHUR, MITH, JOHN COLBY, Manufacturer, Willow Grove, was born, in Saratoga County, N. Y., December 16, 1831. His parents were Abner and Amanda (Hill) Smith. Abner Smith, a farmer and a retired Sea Captain of Lewes, was born in that town, January 29, 1833, being the eldest son of Bailey Art and Mary Ann (West) West. He attended the excellent schools of his native town till he was leading citizen of that county, was born, at fifteen, and until he was twenty-one was an Cape Cod, Mass., in 1793. His father was a apprentice to learn piloting on the Delaware native of the north of Ireland. He had seven bay. He was then for several years Captain' children, two daughters and five sons. John of a steamship. In 1858 he went to China, C. Smith attended the free schools of his na- and commanded the Wanderer, a fast sail-' tive state till he was sixteen. when he under-

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HISTORY OF DELAWARE.

took the care of himself. At eighteen, in part- | nership with another young man, he took a con- tract to furnish dock sticks for the Champlain Canal, and before the end of the year bought a canal boat, which they run for a time and sold. He was then, until twenty-one, engaged as steersman on the Erie Canal He next went to Alabama, and was engaged on the Ala- bama & Tennessee railroad. He also assisted in the erection of the Coosa bridge, the largest in the Southern States. In 1854 he returned to the North and assisted in building the Sus- quehanna and other bridges on the P., W. & B. railroad, and was engaged for five years in hydraulic engineering for that company. He was next, for three years, in mercantile life at Aberdeen, Md. In 1862 he removed to Kent county, Del., and was for two years in the lumber business, after which he settled in Wil- low Grove. At that place he purchased the mill. and for some time devoted himself to preparing ship timber, and in 1869 commenced the manufacture of peach crates, and in 1876 of peach baskets, in both which he is doing a thriving business. He made in each of the years 1879 and 1880, 60,000 crates and 250,000 baskets. He contemplates adding the manu- facture of berry crates and baskets and alsoan establishment for the canning of fruit. He has a forty-horse power engine and all the latest improved machinery, and makes only first- class work. In 1875 he added farming to his other occupations, in which, also, he has been successful. His crops of wheat are noted, and his blooded stock is among the best in the State. In 1879 he received four premiums at the Delaware State fair, on Jersey cattle and Berkshire pigs. He is full of activity and enterprise, and is the life of the community. He is the postmaster at Willow Grove, and is an earnest Republican. While a merchant in Aberdeen, in 1861, he joined a military com- pany organized by Dr. George H. 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. He was married in January, 1850, to Miss Mary Jane Jackson, of Harford county, Md. Only four of their eleven children are now living : Leroy C., Ida A., Hattie A. and Harry H. Smith.

LEMENTS, EZEKIEL BULLOCK; deceased, was a farmer near Willow Grove, and one of the substantial and most exemplary men of Kent county. He was born in 1812, the eldest 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 most positive grounds for the Union. He was a leading member and officer of the M. E. Church, and very devoted to his relig- ious duties. He was a remarkable man in many respects, possessing an unusually clear and strong mind, with great conversational powers. He was an omnivorous reader, familiar with sacred and profane history, and thoroughly conversant with all the current literature of the times. He was first married to Deborah, daughter of James and Rachel (Carter) Frazier. By her he had three chil- dren ; James Thomas a farmer, Mary Ann, died in childhood, and Rachel Catherine, wife of Henry Clark. Mr. Clements lost his wife in Dec. 1843, and in Aug. 1845, he married Marian Lockwood of Wi low Grove. Six of their nine children are living ; Laura, wife of William Clark, brother of Henry Clark, men- tioned above: David Marvel ; Leonard ; Emma,

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BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT.

wife of Ambrose Gooden ; Anne Berry, and | retired from business in 1840. He removed, in Ezekiel B. Clements. The second Mrs. Clem- 1845, to Middletown, and soon after erected ents died in 1860, and in Jan. 1862, he married the dwelling he now occupies, and made many Anna Maria Clark, of Camden, who is still improvements on his farm. It contains 320 living. Mr. Clements died, greatly regretted, acres, but he also owns other property, in all in 1872, and is interred in the family burial | nearly 800 acres. He has had at one time ground on the home farm.

34,000 peach trees in bearing ; has now 25,000. Mr. Willitts was formerly a Whig, an anti- slavery man, and strong for the Union, for the preservation of which he contributed abund-

ILLITTS, HORATIO NELSON, Farmer, near Middletown, was born in Tuckerton, Burlington county, N. | antly of his means. He is now a Republican. J., Dec. 15, 1809. The battle of Tra- He is a member of the P. E. Church of Mid- dletown, in which he is also vestryman and warden. He was married, April 1, 1846, to Miss Elizabeth Noxon, daughter of Thomas Skee Merritt, of Middletown. They have had but one child -- Merritt Noxon Willitts. Mr. M. N. Willitts was married first to Miss Laura Naudain, by whom he had three children- Horatio Nelson, Merritt Noxon and Eugenia. Losing his wife in 1875, he married, in Octo- ber, 1879, Miss Bridgeway, of Tuckerton, N. J. falgar having just been fought, he received his middle name in honor of the hero of that engagement. His parents, Thomas and Mary (Willitts) Willitts, were cousins, and belonged to the Society of Friends. His father was a farmer of Tuckerton, and was born in that place in 1774. Horatio N. was the eldest of the family, which numbered eight children ; four besides himself are still living -- Martha, wife of Asa. Ridgway, La Porte, Indiana ; Hannah, widow of Dr. Hol- mon ; Louisa, who married Mr. Hoimon, a merchant, and James R. Willitts, M. D., a resident of Missouri. Mr. Thomas Wil- litts removed to La Porte, Indiana, in 1839, where he died in 1846, at the age of seventy- two. His 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. He died in 1826, at the age of 96. The family is of English origin. Three brothers came to America, one settling on Long Island, one in Burlington, and one in Tuckerton. Their descendants are widely scattered through the West ; one of them is now in Congress. Mr. Willitts had but few educational advan- tages, as he worked on the farm nine months of the year ; but he had, finally, the privi- lege of five months' schooling in New York, and has been a great reader and close observer. At the age of sixteen he went to Philadel- phia, where he served at the trade of brick- laying till he was twenty-one, and worked one year as journeyman. He then entered into partnership with his brother-in-law, Allen A. Plearo, a builder ; their plan being to buy land on which to build houses for sale. They also built many large structures in Philadel- phia, among them the Asylum for the Blind. They were very successful and Mr. Willitts

ARRINGTON, HON. CHARLES JAMES, Ex-Speaker of the Senate and Merchant of Farmington, was born on a farm in that vicinity March 31, 1835. His father, Moses Harrington, a farmer, is now in his seventy-seventh year, and his mother, Ann Jane (Tharp), Harrington, sis- ter of Governor William Tharp, is in her seventieth year. He is their eldest son and third child, they having had five children. He attended the winter schools of his district until nineteen years of age, when he went, for one year, to a select school in Milford. At twenty- one he became agent of the Delaware rail- road at Farmington, and in Dec. 1857, en- gaged in mercantile business, in which he has since continued. Mr. Harrington was one of the incorporators of the First National bank of Milford, and since 1876 has been a director. He has always taken 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 nom- inated and elected by the Democratic party to the same office, and on the assembling of the Senate, he was elected Speaker. This position he filled with great acceptance. He has a number of times been a delegate to the State conventions of his party, and was a

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HISTORY OF DELAWARE.

member of the convention which nominated London Academy, Pa., and engaged in farming Governor Cochran. He was married, Jan. 28

for two years, at the homestead, after reaching 1869, to Miss Mary E., daughter of Bethuel his majority ; then gratified an ardent desire Watson of Milford, and has three surviving in traveling over the Western States, and liv- children; Jesse, William Walton, and Charles ing on the frontier, and after two years re- Harrington, Junior.

: turned, and took the mill and farm at the old ¡ homestead, continuing in that business until

ILSON, JOHN ALEXANDER, Secd, ! 1866, when he began the coal business in Phila- delphia, with Colonel W. L. Foulk ; he soon bought out his partner and continued the business until in 1867 he removed to the city

Agricultural Implement and Phosphate House, Wilmington, was born at Elk Dale, Chester Co., Pa., March 23, 1834. His father, Rev. Charles Wilson, was a of Wilmington and commenced his present farmer, mill owner and preacher, who was born business. . See industrial department of this Dec. 12, 1803, was, by birthright, a member of | Vol. Mr. Wilson is a gentleman of great the Society of Friends, joined the Methodist energy and thorough business qualifications, and enjoys the confidence and esteem of the community. He is genial as a companion, and eminently trustworthy as a friend. In politics he is a Republican. He was united in mar- riage Jan., 21, 1864, to Miss Anna M., daugh- ter of James and Rhoda (Morrison) Conner, of Wilmington, See sketch of James Conner in this Vol. There has been one child of this marriage, James Conner Wilson, now (1882) in his eighteenth year. Episcopal church, in 1831, was ordained at twenty-eight years of age by Bishop Waugh, and died August 11, 1846. He was the son of Isaac and Sarah (Brown) Wilson. Rev. Charles Wilson's older brother, Joseph, was a well-known minister of the Society of Friends, born 1785, and died in West Grove, June 15, 1835. The father of the subject of this sketch, married Jane Carlisle, of a patriotic family of Chester county. Her father, William Carlisle, was a revolutionary soldier, who married Mary, a sister of General Taylor, of revolu- CLARK, MAJOR GEORGE, son of John and Mary (Adams) Clark, was born in Red Lion hundred, Sept. 6th, 1767. His father, John Clark, bore a conspic- uous part in the war of the Revolu- tion, and died in 1791, of injuries received in the battle of Cooch's Bridge. His 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 hundred. This landed estate, the old Hadley homestead, has regularly de- scended in the family for nearly two cen- turies, and is now, 1880, occupied by Mr. James H. Clark, the great, great-grandson of the first John Clark. A survey by Thomas Pier- son, in 1704, still preserved in the family, 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, containing a complete record of the Clark family, now one of the most wide-spread in the State, in which it has always been influential tionary memory, and her brother, Captain John Carlisle, commanded the company known as the Oxford Foresters in the war of 1812. The Carlisle's 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. The living children of Rev. Charles and Jane Wil- son, now in her eighty-fourth year (1882), are Isaac H., a farmer of Chester county; Mary E. is the wife of Rev. J. Dyson, of the M. E. Church; Joseph S., commercial agent of Indiana; Sarah Jane, wife of Dr. John F. Rose, of Oxford, Pa., and the subject of our sketch, John A. Wilson. The second son of this family, William C., died in 1865, at the age of thirty-seven. He was an honor to his native State, and the writer of this notice saw him rise from his boyhood to manhood, from the preparatory academic form until his gradu- ation with highest honor at Dickinson Col- lege; then saw him for years occupying suc- cessive chairs in several departments as Profes- sor in his Alma Mater, and lost one of his truest and noblest friends when Prof. Wilson died. John A. Wilson was educated at the New | and wealthy. Possessing unusual force of

very Respectfully John Africano

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BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT.

mind and character, the young George Clark made utmost use of his limited school advan- tages, and grew up to take a very prominent part among the men of his times. His popu- larity and influence were very great. He 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 Jef- fersonian Democrat, and under the administra- tion of Madison, was made by the Governor, in 1812, Major of the First Battalion of Dela- ware militia. Major Clark was a man of great energy and industry, and although of large hospitality left a comfortable patrimony to his descendants. He enjoyed the highest respect and unlimited confidence of all who knew him. From early life he was an ardent supporter, and later, a member of the Presbyterian church. He 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. A sketch of his son, John C. Clark, has been given. Major George Clark departed this life, full of years and honors, Dec. 5, 1838. An eloquent obituary notice was written by William P. Bronson, Esq., of Wilmington, from which we make a brief extract. "Few men have lived more respected or more de serving of the esteem of his contemporaries than George Clark. His course was one of kindness, justice, moral rectitude and christian duty. An exemplary husband, parent, mas- ·ter and neighbor, he regarded good morals, love of order, and reverence for the laws and institutions of the country, as essential to the character of a good citizen, and in no instance did he deviate from the standard he had set up for others. He 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."

UST, HON. CATESBY FLEET, Far- mer and Commission Merchant, was born on the old home farm, "Wood- burn," near Seaford, Nov. 22, 1819. His father, John Rust, a cousin of Gen. Rust, well known in Baltimore, was a promi- nent land owner, and was born in Westmore- land county, Va., Feb. 27, 1773, the only son of John and Jane Rust. The elder John had bought land in Delaware, of which his son

took possession on coming of age, and spent his life there. In 1797 he married Sally Jack- son, who died, Sept. 17, 1805 ; their two chil- dren, Mary J. and Peter Newton are both deceased. Dec. 12, 1809, he 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 in the Delaware line in the Revolution. She was a lady of refinement and culture, and highly re- garded in the P. M. Church. Mr. Rust died Dec. 26, 1826, at the age of 54, and his wife Oct. 6, 1847. Besides their two eldest children who died in childhood, they had five ; John, now a large land owner in Westmoreland county, Va .; Luther Collins, who became a merchant in Illinois, where he died, Feb. 14, 1873 ; Catesby F ; David Hazzard, who died in Virginia in March, 1871, and Sarah Jane, who married Rev. William T. Wright, of Maryland. He died, May 8, 1862. The younger John Rust, had two sisters, one of whom married Major George Gresham, from Goochland county, Va., an officer in the revo- lution, and a man of remarably fine personal appearance. His wife was talented and highly cultivated, and was much sought in society in Washington and other places. Both the fam- ilies of Rust and Gresham were of very an- cient origin, dating as far back as the Crusades, and were among the early settlers of Virginia. The Rust coat of arms had upon it a large grasshopper, beneath which was a cross and crescent and bars and stripes. Catesby F. Rust attended the schools and academy of Seaford and that at Brookville, Md., till he was nineteen, and was then a clerk for three years in Laurel and Seaford. After this, he was a merchant for seven years in Laurel, and from 1847 was master for three years of a ves- sel trading between Baltimore and Newfound- land. In 1850, he purchased a farm near Can- non's Ferry to which he gave his attention till 1856, when he removed to Danville, Ill., where he was a merchant for three years. Return- ing on account of his wife's health, he pur- chased "Happy Home," a farm of 230 acres, on which he has resided since 1861. The land was very poor, but principally by stock raising he has brought it up to a high state of cultiva- tion, devoting it mainly to grain and stock, but has about 2000 peach trees, 200 apple trees, some pears, and about four acres in blackber-

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Historical and biographical encyclopaedia of Delaware. V 2, Part 33

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

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