History of Baltimore, Maryland, from its founding as a town to the current year, 1729-1898, including its early settlement and development; a description of its historic and interesting localities; political, military, civil, and religious statistcs; biographies of representative citizens, etc., etc, Part 77

Author: Shepherd, Henry Elliott, 1844-1929, ed. 4n
Publication date: 1898
Publisher: [Uniontown? Pa.] S.B. Nelson
Number of Pages: 1344

USA > Maryland > Baltimore County > Baltimore City > History of Baltimore, Maryland, from its founding as a town to the current year, 1729-1898, including its early settlement and development; a description of its historic and interesting localities; political, military, civil, and religious statistcs; biographies of representative citizens, etc., etc > Part 77

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Colored Blind and Deaf Mutes and vice- president of the Improvement of the Poor Association of Baltimore. He is also pres- ident of the St. Andrew's Society of Mary- land. Mr. Morris has resided for the past forty years at 313 N. Paca street and is a member of the Second English Lutheran Church.

EDWARD HENRY FOWLER was born in Nottingham, Prince George's county, Md., May 20, 1834. He is a son of the late Jo- seph H. and Deborah (Griffin) Fowler, na- tives of Maryland, the former of Irish, the latter of English descent. Edward Griffin, maternal grandfather of the immediate sub- ject of this sketch, was a sea captain owning a line of vessels plying between Notting- ham, Md., and Liverpool, England. Dur- ing the War of 1812 two of these vessels were sunk by the British in the Patuxent river within sight of the Griffin homestead, and portions of their hulks are still visible at low water. Joseph H. Fowler died in 1846; his wife survived until February 7, 1890. Edward H. Fowler was educated in the schools of his native county and at an early age apprenticed to learn carpentry and architecture. After the seven years, then the regular term of apprenticeship, he be- gan business as a carpenter and builder, and was so employed until 1863, when he accepted an appointment as clerk in the Record Office of Baltimore, where he served until 1868. Through this clerical work he became especially equipped for the business of conveyancer, which he then entered upon at the suggestion and solicitation of nu- merous legal friends, and in which he has ever since been and is still engaged, and with present office at HI St. Paul street.

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HISTORY OF BALTIMORE, MARYLAND.

Mr. Fowler served as a member of the School Board from the Fifteenth ward dur- ing 1866 and 1867, and as member of the City Council from 1883 to 1890, serving in the latter body as chairman of the Commit- tees on Education, Ways and Means, and Claims. He has been since 1884 chairman of the Southern District Board, the Charity Organization Society of Baltimore City, and is one of its Board of Managers. Mr. Fowler is one of the directors of the Bal- timore and Chesapeake Steamboat Co., and a member of the Board of Directors of the Maryland Penitentiary by appoint- ment of Governor Lowndes. He is a member of the South Baltimore Metho- dist Episcopal Church, where he has been especially active in the Sunday- school since 1858 and its superintendent since 1868. Mr. Fowler has been twice married: October 17, 1854, to Adeline, daughter of the late Joseph Fisher, mer- chant, of Baltimore. Mrs. Fowler died December 22, 1873, leaving three children: Alice D., wife of John J. North, an em- ploye in the postoffice, Baltimore; Mollie C., wife of Robert North, an oyster packer, of Baltimore, and Clara E., wife of Wm. Buckingham, produce merchant, of Phila- delphia. Mr. Fowler's second wife, to whom he was married March II, 1875, was Annie S., daughter of David Ambrose, of New Hampshire. She died September 7, 1891, leaving a son, Rutherford. Mr. Fow- ler resides at 2429 St. Paul street.

DR. JOSEPH PINKNEY TURNER Was born December 18, 1871. He is a son of the late Henry and Mary (Martin) Turner, the for- mer a native of Maryland, and the latter of North Carolina. Doctor Turner com-

pleted his general education at Trinity Col- lege, Durham, N. C., then entering the School of Medicine of Maryland University, from which he was graduated in April, 1896. He is now resident physician of the Uni- versity Free Lying-in Hospital.

DR. ALEXANDER DOUGLASS MCCONA- CHIE was born at Woodstock, Ontario, Canada, August 22, 1864. He is a son of William and Elsie (Dunbar) McConachie, natives of Aberdeen, Scotland, who located in the fifties in the County Oxford, On- tario, where they still reside. Dr. A. D. McConachie attended the public schools and Collegiate Institute of Woodstock and Normal School of Toronto, receiving li- cense as second class A teacher from the latter institution and taking honors in two institutions. He taught school for several years, abandoning that avocation because of impaired health, and engaging in busi- ness as a commercial traveler. In 1886 he entered the Dental and Medical Depart- ments of Maryland University and was graduated from the former in 1888 and from the latter in 1890, taking the class honors and being awarded the gold medal in each. During 1891-2 Doctor McConachie was resident physician at the Presbyterian Eye, Ear and Throat Charity Hospital. In April, 1892, he entered into the exclusive practice of treatment of the eye, ear and throat, with present office and residence at 16 W. Frank- lin street. Since 1892 he has been assistant surgeon at the Presbyterian Eye, Ear and Throat Charity Hospital, and Opthalmic Surgeon of Day View Asylum. He is a member of the American Medical Associa- tion, Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland, Clinical Society of Baltimore,

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HISTORY OF BALTIMORE, MARYLAND.

Medical and Surgical Society of Baltimore, Maryland University Medical Society, Book and Journal Club.

JOSEPH HARRIS, Supreme Treasurer of Iron Hall, was born in Baltimore county, Md., October 23, 1819. He is a son of the late George and Eliza (Funk) Harris, the former a native of Maryland, the latter of Pennsylvania, and descendants respectively of early English and German settlers of the colonies. On the paternal side the family was represented in the patriot army during the Revolutionary War. George Harris spent his early manhood as a farmer in Batlimore county and was latterly engaged in the lime business in Frederick county, where he died as the result of an accident in 1838. His wife survived until 1858. Joseph Harris received such schooling as the common schools of Frederick county afforded and then followed farming for four years. He began to learn the trades of weaving and cabinet-making, but aban- doned both because he foresaw that ma- chine work would speedily supplant hand labor in those industries. He then learned tailoring, came to Baltimore in 1841, en- gaged in journey work for one year and then, with a partner, established a merchant tailoring business at 46 N. Howard street, under the firm name of Dulaney & Harris. This partnership was dissolved in 1860, the same members of the firm continuing at the old location, Mr. Harris establishing branches at 52 N. Howard street, where he remained until 1866. After a year's rest he re-engaged in the same business in partner- ship association under the firm name of Harris & Dorsch, at 15 N. Eutaw street, and was so engaged up to January, 1893,

when he retired from the firm to assume the duties of his present office, to which he was elected in 1892. Mr. Harris was a member of the State Legislature, session of 1865, and has been one of the Commission- ers of Perkins Spring Square since 1872, the date of the beginning of its occupancy by the city. He is a member of the Ma- sonic Fraternity, the I. O. O. F. and Sons of Jonadab, and treasurer of Zeta Conclave, No. 6, Improved Order of Heptasophs. He was married July 27, 1845, to Eliza A., daughter of the late Samuel Hobbs, who was a machinist in the employ of the B. & O. R. R., from its organization up to his decease. One daughter born of this mar- riage, Emma, died at the age of eleven years and six months. Mrs. Harris died October 24, 1891. Mr. Harris resides at 624 George street.

MAJ. ALEXANDER SHAW was born at Long Branch, N. J., in 1836. His father, Rev. John K. Shaw, was a distinguished Methodist minister, who while presiding elder of the New Jersey district, projected the Pennington Seminary, now a prosper- ous and prominent educational institution. Maj. Alexander Shaw came to Maryland at twenty years of age and located in Alle- gany county, where he became interested in coal development. He was successively Superintendent, General Manager, Vice- President and President of the leading coal companies of Allegany county. When the war broke out, Allegany county was one of the first to respond to the call for troops. Alexander Shaw was first captain of Com- pany A, and was afterwards promoted to major of the Potomac Home Guards, offi- cially known as Second Maryland Regular

Josepho Harrio

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HISTORY OF BALTIMORE, MARYLAND.

Volunteer Infantry, which took part in sev- eral engagements, among them the battle of Romney Bridge. Soon after the war, Major Shaw came to Baltimore and established the wholesale coal firm of Shaw Bros., from which he retired in 1893. He is now Presi- dent of the Cumberland and Elk Lick Coal Company, director in the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company, Bank of Baltimore, Eutaw Savings Bank, Mercantile Trust and Deposit Company, Baltimore City Passen- ger Railway Company, and West Virginia Oil Company, and is connected with many educational and charitable institutions in official capacities. He is a Republican and was his party's candidate for Mayor in 1889. He went through this, a warmly-contested political campaign without having a single charge against his record as a citizen or a business man or a political partisan. His wife was Miss Mary Hutson, daughter of a leading farmer of Allegany county. The family's city residence is on Eutaw Place, and the country estate is the old Hutson estate, between Cumberland and Piedmont.

DR. DELANCEY HEATHCOTE BARCLAY was born in Baltimore, June 19, 1854. He is a son of Walter C. and Grace (Douglass) Barclay, the former a native of New York, but an English subject, his father, an officer in the English Navy, being stationed at New York at the time of his birth. His wife, a native of Baltimore, is of Scotch de- scent, the daughter of Richard Henry Douglass, for many years one of the leading wholesale merchants of Baltimore, with large shipping interests. Walter C. Bar- clay was English Vice-Consul at Baltimore for a number of years and up to the break- ing out of the Civil War. Dr. Delancey H.

Barclay attended the public schools of Bal- timore, was graduated from New York Homeopathic Medical College in 1876, and has since been engaged in general practice in Baltimore with present office and resi- dence at 220 W. Monument street. He was for a number of years connected with the Baltimore Homeopathic Dispensary and Hospital. Doctor Barclay married Sophia, daughter of the late James Saulsbury, of Baltimore. Doctor and Mrs. Barclay have two children, Grace and Louis, and are com- municants of the Grace Protestant Episco- pal Church.

WILLIAM A. HOUSE, Vice-President and General Manager of Baltimore Consoli- dated Railway Company, was born in Balti- more, March 26, 1860. He is a son of the late William A. House, for many years a wholesale coal merchant of this city. Wil- liam A. House, Jr., received his initial training in the public schools of Baltimore and completed his education at Loyola Col- lege. In 1879 he became one of the office employes of the People's Passenger Railway Company, and was soon recognized as a valuable attache of the company. He was successively promoted in the various subor- dinate positions of the service until 1884, when, upon the company's reorganization under the name of the People's Railway he was elected Secretary and General Man- ager. Upon the consolidation in 1889 of the People's and Citizens' Railway Com- panies, under the name of the Baltimore Traction Company, Mr. House was elected General Manager of the system. Under his able and vigorous management there were added to the properties of the company the lines of the Pimlico & Pikesville, North Bal-

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HISTORY OF BALTIMORE, MARYLAND.

timore Passenger, Baltimore & Curtis Bay, Walbrook and Gwynn Oak and Old Pow- hatan Railway Companies. Upon the res- ignation of ex-Governor Frank Brown from the presidency of the company, Mr. House was elected July 27, 1896, his suc- cessor, being then thirty-six years of age and the youngest railroad President in the United States. On June 17, 1897, the Bal- timore Traction and City & Suburban Com- panies were consolidated as the Baltimore Consolidated Railway Company and Mr. House was elected to the position he now holds, that of Vice-President and General Manager.

DR. SAMUEL CLAGGETT CHEW was born in Baltimore in 1837. He is a son of Dr. Samuel Chew, a native of Calvert county, Md., (1806), a graduate of Princeton, and the medical department of Maryland University, and for many years of the Fac- ulty of the latter institution. He died in De- cember, 1863.

Samuel C. Chew was graduated from Princeton with the class of '56, and from the medical department of Maryland Univer- sity, class of '58. He is a member of the American Medical Association, and the chairman of Lectures on Necrology, 1874; Baltimore Academy of Medicine and one of its Executive Committee, 1880; Vice-Presi- dent Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland, 1878, and President, 1880; Pro- fessor of Materia Medica and Therapeutics and Clinical Medicine, medical department of Maryland University since 1864, and member of the Academy of Science, 1876.

RUXTON M. RIDGELY, Attorney-at-Law, born in Baltimore county; son of Gustavus

Warfield and Camilla Hammond (McKean) Ridgely, descendants of early English and Scotch-Irish settlers of Maryland. Charles Ridgely, great-grandfather of Ruxton M. Ridgely, was a member of the Legislature for twenty-seven years, and for thirteen years of this period, was Speaker of that body.

Ruxton M. Ridgely was educated in pri- vate schools of Baltimore and Johns Hop- kins University; graduated from the law department of the Maryland University in 1891, and has since been engaged in the practice of his profession with offices in the Fidelity Building, Baltimore.

DR. WILLIAM EDWARD MOSELEY was born at Petersham, Mass., May 22, 1848. He is a son of the late Charles Benjamin and Emeline (Foster) Moseley, natives of Massachusetts and descendants of early English settlers of New England. The founder of the American Moseley family was John Moseley, who settled at Dor- chester, Mass., in 1629. He, with others, gave land for and endowed the first public school building in Massachusetts. His great-grandson, Nathaniel Moseley, mar- ried in 1742, Sarah Capen, great-great- granddaughter of John Alden, of May- flower fame. Jonathan Buckland, great- great-grandfather, and Nathaniel Moseley, great-grandfather of Doctor Moseley, were soldiers in the Revolutionary War. Wil- liam E. Moseley received his initial train- ing in the public schools of Medford, Mass., and completed his general education at An- tioch (O.) College. He studied medicine at Harvard University, being a member of the first voluntary three years' course class of that institution, from which he was grad-

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HISTORY OF BALTIMORE, MARYLAND.

uated in June, 1874. During '72-3 he was assistant at Boston Lunatic Hospital and in charge of Hospital for Male Paupers, Island Rainsford, Boston Harbor. In 1873-4 he was of the house staff of Massachusetts Gen- eral Hospital. In November of 1874 he lo- cated in Baltimore, where he engaged in general practice until 1881, when he be- came attached to the house staff of the Woman's Hospital, New York. Return- ing to Baltimore the following year he re- sumed practice, now devoting most of his time to gynecological and obstetrical work with present office and residence at S. W. Corner Monument and Howard streets. Doctor Moseley was for five years gyne- cologist of Union Protestant Infirmary. He is a member of the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland, ex-President of the Clinical Society of Maryland; ex-President of Gynecological and Obstetrical Society, of Baltimore, a member and one of the Council of the American Gynecological Society, President Harvard Club, of Mary- land, and ex-President of Alumni Asso- ciation, of New York Woman's Hospital. He was married May 22, 1879, to Eliza- beth B., daughter of the late Dr. Wil- liam Riley, of Baltimore. Two children born of this marriage, William E., Jr., and Addis Emmet, are students at Marston's University School. In August, 1897, he was elected to the chair of diseases of women and children in the Baltimore Medi- cal College and was made Gynecologist to the Maryland General Hospital.

JAMES MENZIES VANSANT, Clerk of the Court of Common Pleas of Baltimore, was born in Baltimore, January 5, 1840. He is a son of the late Hon. Joshua and Mary Ann

(Menzies) Vansant, the former a native of Kent county, Md., and of Hollandese ex- traction, the latter a Bostonian by birth and of Scotch ancestry. The American Van- sants are descendants of three brothers Van- sant, Quakers, who left Holland during the closing years of the seventeenth century. Joshua Vansant, great-grandfather of the immediate subject of this sketch, was born in Kent county, Md., in 1736; his son, Joshua, was born in the same county in 1776, and his son, also Joshua, also a native of Kent county, born December 31, 1803. The last named came to Baltimore with his father's family about 1815, became a leading mer- chant and a valued and valuable citizen, was prominently identified with the general in- terests and contributed in a material way and in a variety of directions to the growth and development of Baltimore, and held numerous offices of public trust, but few of emolument. He was one of the electors of the Senate in 1836; a member of the State Legislature in 1845, and a member of Con- gress from 1853 to 1855. In his candidacy for re-election to Congress he was defeated by the Know-Nothings, that being the year of the inception of Baltimore's troublous times of riot. He was Mayor of Baltimore from 1871 to 1875, and Comptroller from 1876 up to the time of his decease, April 7, 1884. He was chairman of the Building Committee of the City Hall, which struc- ture was built and furnished at a cost of sev- eral hundred thousand dollars less than the appropriation for the building alone, which most unique result in the history of public buildings was in no small measure due to the zeal, watchfulness and business capacity of Mr. Vansant. His wife died in 1877. Their son, James M. Vansant, was educated

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HISTORY OF BALTIMORE, MARYLAND.

in the public schools of Baltimore and when seventeen years of age entered the employ of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, with which company he continued to be indenti- fied until 1890, except for two years, 1876 to 1878, during which he was engaged in the retail hat business with his brother, Jo- seph Vansant, under the firm name of Van- sant & Bro. As an employe of the Balti- more & Ohio Mr. Vansant was promoted from time to time, his last position being that of cashier at Washington, D. C. In 1892 he was temporarily engaged in the li- cense department of the Clerk's office of the Court of Common Pleas. Upon the death of James Claypoole, he was appointed writ clerk, which position he held until 1895, when upon the death of James Y. Claypoole, he was made Clerk of Insolvency. This po- sition he held but a short time, when, upon the death of John T. Gray, Clerk of the Court of Common Pleas, Mr. Vansant was on November 16, 1895, appointed by the Su- preme Bench as Mr. Gray's successor, which position he still holds. Mr. Vansant is a stalwart Democrat and has since attain- ing his majority been actively identified with the interests and work of his party. He is a member of the I. O. O. F. and Order of the Golden Chain. He was married October 30, 1877, to Ida, daughter of George W. Hussell for a number of years connected with the Duryea and now with the National Starch Company. Mr. and Mrs. Vansant have three children, Joshua H., Hiram D. and James M. Vansant, Jr., reside at 1413 W. Mulberry street, and are members of St. Luke's Episcopal Church.

EUGENE LEVERING and his twin brother, Joshua Levering, were born in Baltimore,

September 12, 1845. They are sons of the late Eugene Levering, who was also born in Baltimore in 1819. The founder of the American family of Leverings was Wigard Levering, who came to the colonies and settled in Germantown, Pa., in 1685. The family is a large one, no fewer than five hundred persons bearing the name of Lev- ering are interred in the suburbs of Phila- delphia. The descendants of Wigard Lev- ering and those of his brother, Gerhard, who settled in the West, number several thousand. The father of the first Lever- ings to settle in America was a Frenchman and a Huguenot. His Huguenot name was Rosier. He fled from his home to es- cape persecution, and found a refuge in Westphalia, where he married, and where Wigard and Gerhard were born.

The late Eugene Levering founded the firm of Levering & Co., in 1842, with his brother, Frederick A. The business they carried on embraced sugar as well as coffee. They had a large Southern trade when the war broke out, causing them severe losses. They compromised with their creditors at fifty cents on the dollar, but in a few years their prosperity was restored, and they vol- untarily settled up the balance, which ex- ceeded $100,000.

Frederick A. Levering died in 1866, and Eugene took his sons, William T., Joshua and Eugene, into partnership with him, changing the firm name to E. Levering & Co. Gradually other interests were dropped, until the business was confined entirely to the coffee trade, importing and jobbing, as now. Their father died in 1870, but his will required the sons to carry on the work of the firm as usual for five years, leaving everything at the risk of the busi-

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ness. When the estate was settled up, in 1875, its value had become largely aug- mented.

Eugene and Joshua Levering are most intimately associated. There is but twenty minutes difference in their ages, Eugene be- ing the senior.

Eugene was the first of the two to be honored with a nomination by the Prohibi- tion party. That was in 1886. Prior to that he had been a Democrat on national questions, as had also his brother, Joshua. The latter was vice-president of a Cleveland meeting in 1884.

Until 1884, Maryland never ran a regu- lar Prohibition ticket. Then the National Convention named William Daniel for Vice-President as St. John's running mate. The showing made by the party here in that year deeply impressed the Levering broth- ers, Joshua and Eugene, who had always been practical teetotalers and when the Congressional campaign of 1886 arrived, they felt it their duty to give the movement their support. There were divisions in both the Democratic and Republican parties that year, which had a stimulating effect upon the Prohibitionists. Eugene Levering was selected as the Fourth District candidate for Congress. He received 1,692 votes-more than Weatherby, the Republican candidate, whose following amounted to 1,569. Ray- ner, Democrat, received 14,750 votes, and Findlay, Independent, 7,226. The Prohi- bition Presidential ticket in 1884 received but 629 votes in that district. In 1891 Joshua Levering was the Prohibition can- didate for State Comptroller. He received 5,443 votes, running 323 votes ahead of his ticket.

Joshua, in the meantime, had shown

more disposition for politics than Eugene. No step was taken without consultation with him, and he was never too busy to spare some time to the cause. The contri- butions to the campaign funds by both brothers were always on hand when most needed. It was with Joshua Levering's strength as a candidate demonstrated in Maryland that his friends, Higgins and Tucker, started with the Maryland delega- tion to the National Convention at Cincin- nati in 1892, bearing a banner, upon the face of which was a large portrait of Mr. Levering, underneath which was the in- scription: "For Vice-President." But in the convention the report was circulated that he was at the head of a big coffee trust, with the result that Cranfield, of Texas, secured the nomination. In 1896 he was the Prohibition nominee for the Presidency.

He is identified with a great variety of interests. He is the financier of his firm. Few of his business associates have cooler or larger heads than he. He never makes up his mind in a hurry, but when he arrives at a conclusion he will adhere to it.

Since he became president of the Young Men's Christian Association its usefulness has been greatly increased. He is presi- dent of the Board of Trustees of the House of Refuge, and superintendent of the Eutaw Place Baptist Church Sunday-school, and a director of the Maryland Trust Co.

Eugene Levering built Levering Hall and presented it to the Johns Hopkins Uni- versity, and endowed a course of lectures. He established the Workingmen's Resi- dential Club. He is a deacon of Eutaw Place Baptist Church, and is President of the National Bank of Commerce; also Pres-

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ident of the Board of Trade and Director of the Baltimore Trust and Guaranty Co.

Before Joshua and Eugene married it is said they were hardly ever apart for two hours. What one did the other endorsed. The twins look very much alike. Joshua, however, is distinguished by his side-whis- kers. Both are generous, and it is a rare thing that either refuses an appeal for aid for a worthy cause. Their city homes are on Eutaw Place, a few doors from each other.

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Author: Shepherd, Henry Elliott, 1844-1929, ed. 4n Publication date: 1898 Publisher: [Uniontown? Pa.] S.B. Nelson Number of Pages: 1344

Author: Shepherd, Henry Elliott, 1844-1929, ed. 4n
Publication date: 1898
Publisher: [Uniontown? Pa.] S.B. Nelson
Number of Pages: 1344