USA > Maryland > Men of mark in Maryland Johnson's makers of America series biographies of leading men of the state, Volume IV > Part 13
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Mr. Cushwa was married April 13, 1858, to Mary Ann Kriegh, daughter of William Kriegh. Eight children were born of the marriage: Margaret Eva, now the widow of Emmett Cullen; Sarah Catharine, married N. Bruce Martin, a lawyer of Franklin County, Pennsylvania and editor of The Waynesboro Herald; Mary Louise now deceased, was the wife of Charles A. Mullen; Victor Monroe, David Kreigh and Charles Franklin (deceased) have been members of the firm founded by their father; Ellen Stake, the fifth child,
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now deceased, was Mrs. John M. Dugan, her husband being the superintendent of Bradstreet's Agency, Washington, D. C .; Jane Francis, the youngest child, is now the wife of Doctor James Leiter, of Hagerstown. Mrs. Cushwa died February 24, 1899, at the age of sixty-five. On February 2, 1904, Mr. Cushwa was married again. The second wife was Miss Catherine E. Moore, daughter of Thomas E. Moore, chief clerk in the Register of Wills office, Hagers- town, Maryland.
Mr. Cushwa's literary attainments, when one considers his limited educational opportunities, are remarkable. He is exceedingly well read, notwithstanding the demands of a most active business life; has contributed many articles to newspapers and other periodi- cals, and writes with great clearness and force. He has the happy faculty of telling clearly and tersely what he wants to, and then stopping. His active business career covering a period of fifty-seven years, has been a part of the most remarkable development in the history of the world. He has been a very active factor in the building- up of his section; a most useful citizen in every relation of life-and now enjoying a well earned rest, he has the unbounded esteem of the people whom he has known and served for more than sixty years.
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JOSEPH FRANCIS MORGAN
A MONG the leading citizens of the old mother county of St. Mary's, was Joseph Francis Morgan, lawyer, of Leonard- town, who was born near Morganza, St. Mary's County, on March 8, 1844; son of Joseph and Catherine (Abell) Morgan.
This branch of the Morgan family goes back to the foundation of Maryland, being among the first settlers of St. Mary's County in 1634. The old records of Maryland bring into sight John Morgan, senior, who received a legacy under the will of Thomas Dykes of Kent, probated January 19, 1660. Prior to that in St. Mary's County appears under the will of John Cornish, probated Octo- . ber 21, 1652, the name of Philip Morgan as residuary legatee; and yet'prior to that crops up Henry Morgan under the will of Frances Coxe, who appointed Captain Robert Vaughan as executor of her estate in trust for an unnamed child, with the provision that in the event of his inability to care for said child, Henry Morgan should be executor instead. From that time on down through the generations, the Morgans were constantly in evidence, and we find where an estate in Calvert County was known as early as 1675 under the name of Morgan's Fresh, or Clift.
Morgan is one of our most ancient names. It antedates the vast majority of English names, being of Welsh origin, and the Welsh and Cornishmen being now the oldest racial stock left in the southern half of Great Britain. The name became prominent in America at an early date by the exploits of the Welshman, Sir Henry Morgan in harrying the Spaniards of the Spanish Main, and though classed as the greatest of the buccaneers, was really fighting what he considered a holy war in killing the Spaniards and taking their prop- erty. Yet later in our Revolutionary struggle Daniel Morgan won imperishable fame for the name, and later in our War between the States General John Morgan of Confederate fame maintained the prestige of the name.
In early boyhood Joseph F. Morgan enjoyed excellent health, but while at college he received an injury which permanently lamed
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him and seriously affected his health in early manhood and in fact for the balance of his life. His boyhood was passed in the village of Leonardtown, which at that time was the centre of society and wealth of Southern Maryland. Like most healthy boys he was fond of athletics. After an attendance at the old school of Forest Hall in St. Mary's County, he went to Georgetown University and the injury there received prevented his graduation. He decided then upon the profession of the law and began active life as deputy register of wills in his native county. From this he was admitted to the bar and practiced his profession until the time of his death, in 1906. From 1876 to 1884 he served as clerk of the county commissioners. He was justice of the peace for forty years.
On December 8, 1881, Mr. Morgan was married to Miss Ellen Leigh Edelen. Seven children were born to them, of whom four are now living, Miss Catherine Morgan, Miss Ann Morgan, Joseph V. Morgan, an attorney, and Albert Edelen Morgan, all of Washington, D. C. The eldest son, Joe V. Morgan, was born February 14, 1888; received a collegiate education in the Holy Cross College, at Worcester, Massachusetts; entered the law department of George- town University in 1906; was graduated in 1909, with the degree LL.B., and in 1910 was given the degree of LL.M., and began the practice of his profession in Washington as a member of the law firm of Bacon and Morgan. The younger son, Albert Edelen Morgan, born January 23, 1891, is now engaged in real estate business in Washington.
Some of the best lawyers now practicing at the St. Mary's bar received their legal training in Mr. Morgan's office. As a guide to a young man entering upon the serious affairs of life he suggested this thought. "Accept a calling and bend your whole energy to that and nothing else" and to a lawyer this "Use dispatch, promptness and energy" and sounded a note of regret when he said "I sometimes lacked these things."
He had a decided taste for reading, and for a great many years before his death would sit up until two and three o'clock every morn- ing with one of his favorite authors. Although one of the leading lawyers of the bar of his native county, he rather preferred literature and for a good many years contributed to the local press, adding greatly to the legendary lore of St. Mary's. Among some of his papers were a group of little sonnets in a book which he called his
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Hours of Laziness. In this book were also found an essay on "The Mask of Comus," his favorite poem, also a theoretical discourse on music, one of his favorite pastimes. In his earlier manhood he gave a good deal of his time to music, but in after years he confined him- self to merely singing in the choir.
He was one of the lawyers of the old school, scholarly and gentle- manly. He was modest and unassuming, caring little for honor or display. Faithful to his clients, he was kind and charitable, a good man and a good citizen and ever ready to contribute his share in civic betterment.
He died at his home in Leonardtown, on the fifteenth day of July, 1906.
The glory of old St. Mary's is to some extent in the past, but it has a wealth of historic traditions not equaled by any other county in Maryland. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that in a certain number of her sons of the present there is a devotion to the old home - land that cannot be matched in newer lands, and that capable men are willing to work out their lives there for rewards that to the pushing citizen of the newer sections look meagre, but they have a reward utterly unknown to the men of the boom towns and railroad cities. It is literally true that we need the conservatism which marks the people of St. Mary's, more urgently today than ever before in our national life.
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·JAMES H. GAMBRILL, JR.
A MONG the business leaders of the present day in the city of Frederick, is James H. Gambrill, Jr., who now in the prime of life is at the head of some of the largest enterprises of that city. He belongs to a family which has been identified with Maryland for several generations. According to the family tradition, it is of English and Scotch-Irish extraction, and the Maryland progenitor was an Episcopal clergyman. It is an uncommon name, hard to locate in Great Britain, and known in the earlier history of our country only in two States, Maryland and South Carolina. John Gambrell of South Carolina was a soldier under General Francis Marion in the Revolutionary War, and his great-grandson is today one of the lead- ing Baptist clergymen of the country. Outside of the South Carolina family, the Gambrills a hundred years ago were unknown to our . country except in Maryland.
James H. Gambrill, Jr., was born in Baltimore on March 9, 1866. His parents were James H. and Antoinette Frances (Staley) Gambrill. They were the parents of five sons and four daughters; and James H., Junior, was the third son. His father is a native of Howard County, Maryland where he lived up to 1849, when he located in Frederick County. He engaged actively in the milling and grain business in Frederick County, and with the exception of a year spent in Baltimore, about 1866, he has been a resident of Frederick, city and county, for sixty years. During his active career, he was widely known as one of the representative men of the county; was highly regarded wher- ever known, and is now living in honorable retirement from active cares. Politically, he has been a lifetime Democrat, and is a mem- ber of the Protestant Episcopal Church.
On the maternal side, there comes in another line, the Staleys. Mr. Gambrill's grandfather, Cornelius Staley, born near Frederick, October 22, 1SOS, and died in March 1SS3, one of the best known men of his generation, was of German descent-being the grandson of one of the German immigrants who settled in Frederick County about 1740. If the family tradition is correct, then Mr. Gambrill
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has in his veins English, Scotch, Irish and German blood. This make- him a typical American.
Mr. Gambrill was reared in his home county, and educated in its public schools and in the Frederick City College. At the age of sixteen he entered his father's milling business to learn the trade. He remained there six years, when he moved to Alabama in -1SSS and spent the ensuing five years in mercantile pursuits in that State. In 1893, he returned to Frederick, and since that time has been identi- fied with the milling and grain business.
' A man of unusually clear judgment, he early saw the wisdom of developing the agricultural resources of his section; and being a practical man, he did not confine himself to a knowledge of the fact that agriculture was the mainstay of his section, but proceeded to put that knowledge into use by helping to build it up. And so, in 1898, he became one of the organizers and incorporators of the Truck- er's Association in Frederick County-an association organized for the purpose of cooperating for the better marketing of their products. He served as financial and sales agent of the association for five years, and conducted its affairs most successfully, until the demands upon his time from other interests compelled him to resign. In 1902, he became one of the organizers and incorporators of the Frederick County Farmer's Exchange, a corporation composed of one hundred and eighty farmers of the county-the purpose of which was to con- duct a general grain, flour, feed, fertilizer and implement business. Of this association, Mr. Gambrill was made treasurer and manager. He put into the work the same executive capacity, industry, energy and sound judgment which had characterized his previous efforts, with the result that the company did a large and most successful business. There was projected several years after the establishment of this association, a new flour mill by Mr. D. W. Dietrich; and in 1907, Mr. Dietrich completed what is known as the Mountain City Mills, which has a capacity of one thousand barrels per day, and which is the second largest flour mill in the State of Maryland. About that time the stockholders of the Farmers' Exchange decided to sell their hold- ings in that enterprise, and this resulted in Messrs. Dietrich and Gam- brill buying in all the outstanding stoek, paying book value for the same and combining that enterprise with the Mountain City Mills- Mr. Gambrill remaining as the active manager of both the mills and
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the Farmers' Exchange. In the three years which have since elapsed, both enterprises have prospered largely in his hands.
He is a man of uncommon business capacity in many ways. He knows the milling and grain business in every detail. Combined with the practical side of it, he has the mercantile instinct which would have made of him a great merchant; and combined with these other qualities, he has a great measure of executive ability. Believ- ing in honesty, not as a policy, but as a principle, Mr. Gambrill's business has always been conducted along lines of the most rigid integrity, with the result that he commands the respect of business and financial circles in his section of the country as thoroughly as any man of the day-and this itself is a large asset.
In various other ways Mr. Gambrill has evidenced his progressive- ness and faith in the future of his home town. In 1909, in conjunction with Mr. R. Rush Lewis, he organized the G. and L. Baking Com- pany, and erected and equipped a most complete plant for the busi- ness, which, under his efficient and energetic control, has had con- tinuous growth. He was one of the organizers and incorporators of the Post Publishing Company, which has erected a fine building and .. will carry on the publication of The Daily Post therein. He is treas- urer of the same. . In the current year he took prominent part in re- organizing the Linganore Copper Company, of Frederick County, for the purpose of developing the New London and Dolly Hyde copper mines, which are believed to be of great value.
In so far as he can possibly spare the time, he contributes freely to those things of a public nature. He is now serving as president of the Frederick Business Men's Association, in which he has been actively interested for some years. An illustration of his position in the community may be gathered from the fact that the citizens of Frederick are now agitating for a new charter; and on July 15, 1910, a largely attended meeting of the citizens was held for the purpose of taking the initial steps towards securing this new charter. The meeting nominated a committee to organize a committee of seven citizens who should draft the new charter, and left to the committee the privilege of naming six of these-but the meeting itself named Mr. Gambrill as one.
He has served the city actively and efficiently for three years as an alderman; and when compelled to refuse reelection in June of the
JAMES H. GAMBRILL, JR.
current year, he showed his public spirit by refusing to accept t !.~ salary due him for his three years' service.
Mr. Gambrill has through life acted with the Democratic party in a political way.
On October 31, 1890, Mr. Gambrill was married to Miss Su-an May Winebrener, eldest daughter of Colonel D. C. Winebrener, a leading citizen of that section. After a most happy married life of eleven years, she passed away on December 2, 1902, and he has since remained unmarried. Of this marriage, there are two living children : James H. Gambrill (III), now nineteen years old; a graduate of the Staunton Military Academy at Staunton, Virginia, in the class of 1910, and now engaged in his father's business. There is a little daughter, Susan May, now eight years old.
In a religious way, Mr. Gambrill walks in the footsteps of the old Episcopal clergyman who founded the family in Maryland, and is a communicant of All Saints Protestant Episcopal Church of Frederick.
JAMES WALTER THOMAS
N O MAN in Cumberland is more highly valued as a citizen than James Walter Thomas, a strong lawyer, scholarly historian, profound student, and public-spirited citizen.
Mr. Thomas is a native of the old mother county of Maryland, St. Mary's, born at Deep Falls on the paternal homestead on July 12, 1855, son of James Richard and Jeannette Eleanor (Briscoe) Thomas. His mother was a daughter of Doctor Walter Hanson Stone Briscoe, a lineal descendant of Governor William Stone, one of the earliest of the Colonial governors. In Mr. Thomas's ancestral lines appear the figures of the progenitor of the family in Maryland, James Thomas, who came from Wales in 1651; Leonard Calvert, first governor of Maryland, who founded the colony in 1634; William Stone, above referred to; Robert Brooke, governor in 1660; Colonel John Courts, and John Hanson. All of these came directly to Maryland, from England, and settled either in Charles or St. Mary's Counties. Coming down the line appears Major William Thomas, of the Continental line in Maryland, who was the great-grand- father, and Governor James Thomas, governor of Maryland in 1832-35, who was the grandfather of our subject. Certainly Mr. Thomas lacks nothing in the way of a splendid ancestry. His grandfather, Governor James Thomas, presided over the affairs of Maryland at the beginning of that era of great development which has made of the United States such a wonderful country, and during his administration the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, and the Susquehanna Railroad, now known as the · Northern Central, were started upon their great careers of public usefulness. Mr. Thomas's father, James Richard Thomas, was a planter of the old régime, a man of benevolent disposition, uniform courtesy, and a gifted conversationalist-all of which qualities, by the way, are thoroughly developed in the son.
Mr. Thomas's first schooling was obtained in local schools near his home, and he then entered the famous old Charlotte Hall Academy, through which has passed for several generations nearly every promi-
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nent native of Southern Maryland. He was graduated from Char- lotte Hall in 1873, and took up the work of teaching in St. Mary's and Howard Counties. While teaching he read law under Judge William M. Merrick, of Howard County, and was admitted to the bar in 1878. Soon after his admission to the bar, he located in Cum- berland, where he has since resided.
. His professional career has been sufficiently successful to satisfy a man of even great ambition. He is recognized as one of the strong- est lawyers at the bar, a student who thoroughly understands the principles of the law, a strong thinker, able to put in the most concise and lucid fashion his conclusions before judge, jury or a general audience; and is much in demand as a platform speaker. A member of the Allegany County Bar Association, in 1900 his legal brethren elected him to the presidency of that association.
Possessed of an unusually large measure of public spirit, he has given much of his time to outside interests; and only his unwearied industry, combined with his ability to dispatch business has enabled him to do these things. For fifteen years he served as president of the Western Maryland Hospital; for six years as president of the board of school commissioners; as a director of the Commercial Savings Bank; as president of the Tri-State Sanitary Milk Company, an industry of large proportions and of great value to the community. In addition to this he has at times been connected with other business enterprises, and has given freely of his time to church work, as an active member of the Emmanuel Episcopal church.
In 1884 Mr. Thomas was married to Miss Susan Maxwell Smith, daughter of Doctor James McLean Smith, of Cumberland. They have one of the most delightful homes in the city.
Mr. Thomas has a profound love for history and historical study. In early life he studied Burke, to get the benefit of his strong and coherent thought, and Barrow, because of the splendor of his diction. His own mind is so clear, however, and his own reading has been so wide, that his own diction is faultless enough without relying upon any one else. As a result of his historical studies, he published a work under the style of Chronicles of Colonial Maryland. The book was well received, and was a decided contribution to the historical literature of the state. The Baltimore Sun, always con- servative in utterance, said of this work: "Chronicles of Colonial Maryland is the title of a new book of decided historical value and
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interest. The book is written in an attractive style, and is altogether a production which reflects great credit upon Mr. Thomas's great industry and scholarly ability." A special feature of interest in this work is the report of his investigations as to the site of the first capital of Maryland.
Mr. Thomas has gathered together in his handsome home a fine collection of works of art and historical interest, and among these is a picture painted by Mayer which depicts the first two hundred years of Maryland history by portraiture of men most prominent during that period-1634-1834. Upon this also appears the coats of arms of all the counties of the State within that period. It is the only complete portraiture of its kind extant, and is now a work of priceless value.
Mr. Thomas's home is a center of culture in Cumberland. His wife, a most charming hostess, is an able coadjutor in the social field, and their home is a delightful resort for the best people of the city. Personally James W. Thomas is a Christian gentleman, courteous, kind ånd modest. Possessed of sound judgment, he is a leader, and though so gifted in his ability to speak and write, he is essentially a man of action. To his city and his state he is intensely loyal, and no labor has been too arduous that would contribute to the moral or material betterment of his native State and the city of his adoption.
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WILLIAM JARBOE GROVE
W ILLIAM J. GROVE, of Lime Kiln, Frederick County, Maryland, one of the most prominent business men of Western Maryland, president of the M. J. Grove Lime Company, and of the Grove Lime and Coal Company, of Washington, D. C., is a native of the county in which his active life has been spent, born in 1854; son of Manasses J. and Susannah (Jarboe) Grove.
In the maternal line, Mr. Grove is descended from the old Eng- lish family of Jarboe, identified with Maryland since 1650, when they first settled in St. Mary's County. In the old records of that period, between 1653 and 1685, one comes upon the names of John, Peter and Henry. John appears to have been the founder of the family. He had three sons, John, Peter and Henry. Mary was his wife, and he also had a daughter, Mary ..
Colonel John Jarboe's will was probated March 9, 1674. On the paternal side, Mr. Grove is of Holland-Dutch blood, a progenitor of the family on this side having settled in Maryland, in 1772, and his great-grandfather, Jacob, having served as a major in the Revolution- ary War. There appears in his ancestral line also as a great-great- grandfather, Jacob Biser. A descendant of this Jacob Biser, George Cost Biser, raised a regiment to go to the Mexican War, and of that company Mr. Groves' father was a member. As there were fifty thousand volunteers ahead of them, the government decided to accept only one hundred men from Frederick County, and so a majority of the company were disappointed in their expectation of service. Manasses J. Grove was a remarkable man, born in 1824. Possessed of strong literary tastes, as a boy of nineteen he was sidetracked from his original business and became a school teacher. He was a most successful school teacher, both because of his attainments and because of natural adaptability. In 1849, his brother, Martin F. being seized with the California gold fever, and his father refusing to finance the enterprise, M. J. Grove drew upon his savings to help his brother out in his venture. At the end of three years, his brother returned and turned over to M. J. Grove one-third of his profits,
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which amounted to thirty-six hundred and forty dollars-a very handsome return for the small advance made to the brother. In California the brother had become closely identified with G. K. Fitch, also a miner, who later became the millionaire proprietor of The San Francisco Chronicle and other leading Western publications, Martin F. Grove assisting him in his first venture, and later selling out to Fitch. After his visit back home, he returned to the West. but contracted consumption and died in 1866. One of the most pleasant experiences of M. J. Grove's life was the courtesies shown him in 1887, when he visited California, by G. K. Fitch, who bore in loving remembrance the memory of his old partner, Martin F. Grove.
The capital derived from the California venture was invested by Manasses J. Grove in a mercantile business, and in 1852, he married Susan Jarboe, who was his constant helpmate during their married life of thirty-seven years. M. J. Grove carried into his mercantile business the same intelligence which he had displayed as a school teacher, and in 1859, became interested in the lime business. It is well known that the limestone of the Frederick County section pro- duces the best lime in the world, and Mr. Grove was one of the men who foresaw its possibilities and invested wisely. In 1860, he moved to Lime Kiln and established his plant. It was an utterly insignificant village, with an average of one passenger a week on the railroad train. In thirty years there has grown up around the great plant which Mr. Grove built up, a prosperous village, and ten thousand rail- road passengers annually get on and off the train at the little town.
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