USA > Maryland > Men of mark in Maryland Johnson's makers of America series biographies of leading men of the state, Volume IV > Part 15
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He was educated at the Frederick Academy, and started in business at the age of seventeen, in the counting-room of a wholesale dry goods house in Baltimore. In 1884, he engaged as clerk in the lumber business, and entered it with L. C. Roehle as partner in 1SS9. Since the retirement of his partner, he has continued alone.
The business of the firm has been almost exclusively confined to the shipment of lumber products from the Southern forests, principally yellow pine, and it is prominent in thisline of lumber from Florida to Virginia, and in the eastern and northern markets.
Mr. Dill is well-known in trade circles and commerce in a national and international way, by virtue of having served as an officer in the National Wholesale Lumber Dealers' Association, made up of repre- sentative dealers in thirty of the States and Canada. He was presi- dent of the National bodyin 1905 and 1906. Also president Baltimore Lumber Exchange from 1897 to 1903 and for twenty years succes- sively, he has been continued in the managing committee of the exchange. He is a member of the advisory committee of the Amer- ican Forestry Association.
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Truly yours, Jeris Free.
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LEWIS DILL
He has held many other positions of trust: as president of the Neighborhood Club of the Walbrook suburb, while residing there. Following the destructive fire of 1904 he was named by the mayor on the citizens committee, for purposes of finding ways and means for the re-building of the city. In politics, he is classed as a Democrat, but has never held political or paid office. He served on the executive committee of the non-partisan Municipal League, formed after the great fire to aid in securing the election of desirable men to the city . offices.
The honorable positions Mr. Dill has filled, chosen as he has been, by neighbors and social friends, by the men with whom his business is daily transacted, and by those in the larger field of the nation, as a result of honorable and unremunerated services to others, - is the highest form of tribute to his ability and to his integrity.
He is president of the Dill-Cramer-Truitt Corporation, a lumber and timber company operating in North Carolina; chairman of Board of Lumber Fire Underwriters at. New York and director of National Lumber Fire Insurance Company of Buffalo. He has had a busy business life but like most busy men has taken time to serve as well in trusteeships and in several of the charity and social societies and as member of Board of Trade, Merchants and Manufacturers Association, Chamber of Commerce and of Maryland Country and Merchant Clubs, at Baltimore; and Lumbermen's and Lawyers' Clubs of New York.
The firm has branch offices at New York, and in North Carolina and Virginia, with main office in the Keyser Building, Baltimore.
Mr. Dill married, in 1884, Miss Margaret Paxton Repp, daughter of the late John S. Repp of Carroll County, widely known in Western Maryland, in matters of education, as a founder and trustee of the Western Maryland College, and through his school for young men.
Mrs. Dill is president of the Young Women's Christian Associa- tion and identified with many of the philanthropic and charitable organizations of Baltimore. With her family, she attends the Mount Vernon Place Methodist Church.
Their son, L. Alan Dill, is a graduate of Johns Hopkins (1905) and Maryland University Law School, and is a member of the bar. He is associated in the lumber and shipping business with his father.
WOOLMAN HOPPER GIBSON
C OLONEL W. HOPPER GIBSON of Centreville, one of the best known citizens of the Eastern Shore is of the sixth generation of his family in Maryland. He was born in Cen- treville, August 11, 1853; son of Woolman Jonathan and Anna Maria Gibson. His father was a real estate broker,- a man of strong Jpersonality, sterling integrity, and exceptional business ability, who served for eleven consecutive terms as chief clerk of the Senate of the State of Maryland, and died May, 1900, in his eightieth year. Colonel Gibson's elder brother, Charles Hopper Gibson, who died at the age of fifty-eight, had a most brilliant political career. He was a lawyer; admitted to the bar in 1864; held several minor offices, and then became State's attorney. After serving in that capacity eight years, he was elected to the United States Congress and served six years. He then became United States Senator, and shortly after the expiration of his term in the Senate died. He married the widow of Colonel R. C. Hollyday, many years secretary of the State of Maryland.
Few American families have so complete a record of their genera- tions as this Gibson family. Jacob Gibson came from England something like two hundred and sixty years ago. About the same time (that is in 1649), there came over Colonel Richard Woolman and his wife, Sarah. They had a daughter, Alice, who was married to Jacob Gibson. Of this marriage there were the following children: Richard; Jacob (2nd); Woolman (1st); Rachel; Anne, and Barbara. Woolman (1st) was twice married. His first wife was Sarah Dawson, widow of Lambert Clements, to whom she was married in 1678. His second wife's name was Elizabeth. The children of Woolman (1st) ap- pear to have been Jonathan; Jacob (3rd); Woolman (2nd); John; Bar- tholomew; Margaret; Mary, and Alice. Jonathan, eldest son of Woolman (1st), married, his wife's given name being Alice. She sur- vived. him and took a second husband, Thomas Tibbels, Jr. The children of her marriage with Jonathan Gibson were William; Rich- ard; Anne, and Woolman (3rd). Of Jacob's (3rd) descendants we
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have no record. Woolman (2nd), who was a Burgess of Talbot County in 1778, married Elizabeth Tilton. They had children: Major Jonathan, who was Captain in the Fifth Battalion of Regulars during the Revolution, and died at sea in 1782; Woolman (4th) ; John; Mary, and Jacob (4th). Jacob (4th), (born in 1759, and died in 1818), was twice married. His first wife was Elizabeth Caulk; and his second wife was Rebecca Reynolds. The children of these marriages were: Elizabeth, who married Doctor James Tilton; Frances, second wife of Doctor James Tilton; Anne, who married Joseph Reynolds; Harriet, who married Thomas P. Bennett; Fayette, who married Mary Chow; Edward, who married Jennette Tilton. We go back now to John, son of Woolman (1st). John was twice married. His first wife was a Miss Price, and of this marriage there was only one child, Woolman (4th), who married Frances Reynolds of Calvert County, and died without offspring. John married the second time Elizabeth Porter, sister of the famous Commodore David Porter of the United States navy. Of this marriage there were four children: John, who married Miss Ridout; Anna, who was the wife, first of Doctor John L. Elbert, United States Army; and secondly, of Doctor William Elbert Seth; Mary, who married Major Richard Lloyd Tilghman of Talbot County; and Elizabeth, who was the wife, first of Lieutenant Jon Thomas, Jr., of the Revolutionary armies; and secondly, Doctor Alexander Stewart, surgeon in the Revolutionary armies. She received pensions as the widow of two Revolutionary soldiers. She lived to the great age of eighty-eight, and was buried at Queenstown, Maryland. We come now to the direct line of Colonel W. Hopper Gibson.
This carries us back to Bartholomew, son of Woolman (1st), whomarried Ann Price. To them were born two sons and two daugh- ters. One of the sons, Charles, was twice married. His first wife was Miss Newcome. His second wife was Ann Louisa Thomas, who was his first cousin, being granddaughter of John Gibson, and daugh- ter of Jon Thomas, Jr., the Revolutionary lieutenant. Charles Gibson had children: John; Charles A .; Henry James; Dorrington; Woolman Jonathan; and Elizabeth. John and Dorrington died without issue. Henry James was killed, serving in the United States ariffy during the Mexican War. Elizabeth married Edwin E. Pratt. . Woolman Jonathan was married twice. His first wife was Anna Maria Hopper; daughter of Daniel C. Hopper and niece of Judge
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Philemon B. Hopper; and his second wife was Mary D. Coursey of Philadelphia. His children were Charles Hopper; Samuel Hop- per, who was retired as lieutenant in United States Marine Corps for disability incurred in line of duty; married Florence Adele, daughter of Major General E. S. Keyes, United States Army; Woolman Hopper; Maria Louise, who died unmarried; and Anna Ridout, who became the wife of John R. Emory, Jr.
Colonel Woolman Hopper Gibson is the sixth therefore, in direct descent from Jacob Gibson, the immigrant; and the seventh of the family to bear the given name of Woolman.
Colonel Gibson was educated in the Centreville Academy, and the St. John's College in Annapolis. He began his business career as a young man, more than thirty years ago, by engaging in the in- surance business in Centreville, and is now the head of the oldest and the second largest insurance agency on the Eastern Shore of Mary- land. He has done the day's work well, and has built up a character second to that of no man in his section. In this connection, a para- graph taken from The Centreville Observer gives a very proper estimate of his standing in the community.
"Colonel Gibson is among the representative, popular and influential. citizens of the Eastern Shore of Maryland. He was a member of Governor Warfield's staff, and is vice-president and trus- tee for the poor of Queen Anne's County; a member of the Mary- land Historical Society; a member of the Order of Cincinnati; of the University Club of Baltimore; Senior Warden and vestryman of St. Paul's Protestant Episcopal Church of Centreville, and served as diocesan deputy to the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church at its sessions in San Francisco, Boston, Richmond, and Cincinnati. Colonel Gibson is the president of the Good Will Fire Company, an organization possessing a splendid record for its effective work as fire-fighters, and one in which the community entertains a just pride. From his identity and active interest in the above organizations, it will be seen that Colonel Gibson gives both time and effort to measures having for their object theadvancement of the interests of people along all lines, religious, educational and eco- nomic, and for his labors, which are frequently at the cost of self- * denial, he can truthfully be classed among the enterprising and public- spirited of Maryland's citizens."
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The paragraph quoted tells the story in brief compass. An active supporter of every good interest, an earnest worker for the general welfare, Colonel Gibson has won his standing in the com- munity by service rendered. In addition to the institutions men- tioned in the paragraph, he is also affiliated with the Masons and the Knights of Pythias. His political affiliation through life has been with the Democratic party.
He believes that the young man starting in life should found his career on the rock of rigid integrity, and not let himself be diverted by any combination of circumstances to anything that fails below the highest standard; that he should give faithful and honest work, and be absolutely loyal to every interest with which he may be con- nected, and, most important of all, he should be a faithful Christian.
On April 28, 1909, Colonel Gibson was married to Miss Lucy V. Crabbe, whose mother was a Miss Goldsborough, and whose grandfather came from Scotland and settled in Virginia, as did also her father's family. coming direct from England.
WILLIAM BEAUCHAMP TILGHMAN
T HE late William B. Tilghman, of Salisbury, was born in Nutter's District, about five miles from Salisbury, October 13, in 1839, and died in Walter's Park, Pennsylvania, April 12, 1907. His parents were William Beauchamp and Mary (Nichols) Tilghman. His father was a farmer.
Mr. Tilghman belongs to one of the most noted families of the Eastern Shore of Maryland, a section which has literally been a nursery of strong men. The Tilghman family in Maryland was founded by Richard Tilghman, who came from Canterbury, Kent County, Eng- land, with his wife, Mary, and settled on the Chester River in 1660. He had been a surgeon in the British navy; was a Parlimentarian; and, as the name of one Richard Tilghman appears on the list of petitioners asking that justice be done on King Charles I, it is be- lieved that this was the man. He was in the seventh generation from Richard Tilghman, of Holloway Court, in the Parish of Snodland, Kent County, England, who lived about the year 1400. The list of distinguished Tilghmans is a long one, and whatever else the old immigrant doctor may have been, he certainly was a success as the founder of a family. We find in that long list: Benjamin Chew, a Federal general in the Civil War; James, a great Revolutionary lawyer; Lloyd, a Confederate general killed at Baker's Creek in 1863; Matthew, a Continental Congressman; Colonel Tench Tilghman, military secretary and aide-de-camp of General Washing- ton; a second Tench Tilghman, soldier in the regular army and major- general of Maryland militia; William Tilghman, the great jurist and judge of the United States circuit court. These men comprise but a small number of the great array of Tilghmans, whose reputations have been co-extensive with the boundaries of the State of Maryland. In the annals of Old Kent, many pages are devoted to the history of these Tilghmans, their marriages, and their children. It is sufficient to say that no family in the State has contributed more numerously to the public service, and the members of no other family have shown greater fidelity to all obligations, whether public or private.
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William B. Tilghman exemplified in his life all the virtues of his race. Evidently his father was not a rich man, for his educa- tional attainments in boyhood were of the most slender sort. He worked on the farm during the farming season, and went to school in the winter months. When seventeen years of age, he forsook the farm and entered the office of John D. Williams, a leading merchant of Salisbury. He remained with Mr. Williams five years, and then formed a copartnership with the late Humphrey Humphreys in the mercantile business under the firm name of Hum- phreys and Tilghman. For twenty years this firm continued in mercantile business and built up a very large volume of trade dealing, outside of ordinary merchandise, in lumber and grain, operating a fleet of vessels which plied between Salisbury and Baltimore. In 1884, the firm retired from the mercantile business and engaged in the manufacture of fertilizers, combining with that dealing in lumber and coal, and in this built up a very large trade. He was the founder of the Salisbury Building and Loan Association, one of the most successful institutions on the Eastern Shore, and was for many years its president. He was serving at the time of his death, and had been for years prior to that time, president of the Salisbury National Bank. After a long and successful career in partnership with Gen- eral Humphreys, he founded the William B. Tilghman Company, manufacturers of fertilizers; owners of one of the most extensive plants in that section of the country. Mr. Tilghman carried into that business the same sound principles which he had applied to the mercantile business, with the result that the farmers of the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Delaware came to rely implicit y upon the goods manufactured by his firm. William B. Tilghman was an ambitious man in a way-he was ambitious to excel in everything in which he engaged; but he had not that form of personal ambition which leads one to build up his own fortunes at the expense of his neighbors.
A close student through life, profoundly interested in history and biography, he acquired an immense amount of exact information about his country, its institutions, and its great men. He was a great admirer of Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun-two men whose oratorical excellence has largely overshadowed their sound states- manlike qualities. That he could have excelled in literature had he turned in that direction. is prouen by the fact that he wrote a little
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poem which he dedicated to his children, called "The Old Home- stead," which in beauty of expression and tenderness of sentiment would be hard to excel.
He first married Mary Shipley; and subsequent to her death, Annie Bell. The second wife, who survives him, was a daughter of Doctor John Bell, of Missouri, and grand-niece of the celebrated surgeon, Benjamin Dudley of Kentucky, and granddaughter of Louis Castleman, one of the best known Kentuckians of his day. Of the first marriage there was one child; and of the second, six. The surviving children are: Kate Houston, now the wife of Judge E. Stanley Toadvin; Louise; William B., Junior, now the manager of the business founded by Mr. Tilghman; Mary; Clare, and Anna Bell Tilghman.
A lifetime Democrat, he was never himself an aspirant for public position. An earnest member of the Trinity Methodist Church, he was for many years, and up to the day of his death, president of its official board. His life largely revolved around his family, his church, his business; and his recreations were of the simplest kind, consisting of reading, association with his family, and the work of his church.
Mr. Tilghman amassed a competency ; created a beautiful home; and won the esteem of the community in which he was born, and in which his life was spent. No charitable object, no church call, no philanthrophy within his reach ever appealed to him in- vain. He was a man of large liberality proportioned to his means, and the needy and the distressed always found in him a friend. The Baltimore American of July 10, 1893, classed him as one of the leading men of Maryland, and this was a just tribute to a good citizen; for while not a great political leader, nor a millionaire financier, nor a great scientist, he was a leader in the moral, material and civic life of his community by force of example, seeking nothing for himself, giving always of his best to amend the condition of the people of his native land.
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yours truly L'E. Henderson
JOSEPH EDWARD HENDERSON
I F A STUDENT of history and of the various countries of the world should be asked to name the principal production of Scotland, he would be compelled to answer: "men." A barren little country-beautiful for scenery, but infertile as to soil and naked as to production, it has cut a figure in history out of all proportion to its size or population, and has contributed more to the building up of our present civilization than any other country in the world of twice its population. In every nook and corner of the habitable globe one can find the Scotchman or the descendants of Scotchmen, laborious, far-sighted and useful citizens.
Of this sturdy stock comes Joseph Edward Henderson of Balti- more, a man who, though yet in the early fifties, has for years been recognized as one of the substantial business men of the city. He was born in Baltimore, November 11, 1857; a son of William P. and Mary A. Henderson. His father was a ship and house painter, and passed away when the little lad was but nine years old. His grand- father was a native of Scotland, and the founder of the family in America.
Mr. Henderson attended the city schools, and arriving at a suit- able age was apprenticed to Malster and Donnel, who conducted a machine shop at the foot of Caroline Street. He worked with that firm two and a half years, and then went on a tow boat as a fireman. From fireman, he worked up to. engineer; and having a fair share of Scotch thrift, saved his dollars. With his savings he bought a one- fourth interest in the Spedden Ship Building Company, of which he remained a member for thirteen years, and then formed a copartner- ship with Mr. McIntyre in the same line of business. From the very start of his operations as a business man he made character and stand- ing. While connected with the Spedden Ship Building Company he was vice-president of the company. For the past twelve years he has been president of the Chesapeake Marine Railway Company, and since 1906 a director in the Durling Electric Company.
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Mr. Henderson was married on June 28, 1893, to Miss Sadie R. Hoops. They have one child.
In political matters he votes with the republicans, but takes no active part in politics. His reading through life has been confined chiefly to books on mechanical engineering.
The Henderson family has long been prominent in Great Britain. In the present generation there is one Baronet; two Knights, one of whom is a Vice-Admiral; and a dozen men prominent in the mili- tary, civil and naval service, in addition to which the present Earl of Buckinghamshire, the seventh in order, is a Henderson. Barber, an English genealogist, says the name Henderson is derived from the old Norse word, the root meaning of which was "a rider;" and this would fit the Scotch Hendersons very well, for their principal occu- pation for several centuries was riding across the border on pillaging raids against the English. In our own country, fifteen Hendersons have won eminence in various ways-a large number of them in the Federal Congress. David B. Henderson of Iowa was speaker of the House; James P. Henderson was governor of Texas; John B. Hen- derson was United States Senator from Missouri; Thomas Hender- son was one of the prominent early statesmen of the country, repre- senting New Jersey; William Henderson was one of the gallant · soldiers from North Carolina; Richard Henderson was one of the leaders of the pioneers who opened up Kentucky and Tennessee-and the greatest of them all, comes Peter Henderson, famous horti- culturist, who did more for gardening and country life in America than any other man who has ever lived within its borders.
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WILLIAM HENRY GORMAN
W ILLIAM H. GORMAN, now one of the prominent busi- ness men of Baltimore, is a younger brother of Arthur Pue Gorman, the famous Maryland Democrat, who for twenty-five years held the political fortunes of that State in the hol- low of his hand and was one of the representatives of Maryland in the United States Senate for more than twenty years. A. P. Gorman was one of the ablest men in the matter of political organization that our country has known; and William Henry Gorman is a man of equal ability with his famous brother, though his talent lies entirely in another direction. .
Mr. Gorman was born at Woodstock, Howard County, Maryland, August 29, 1843; son of Peter and Elizabeth Ann (Brown) Gorman. His father combined the occupations of contractor, farmer and mer- chant. He was born in Pennsylvania, though his family had been identified with Maryland for generations. Though he never held any public office, Peter Gorman was a man of wide influence in his day. He was proprietor of several quarries from which came the stone which was used in the erection of the United States Treasury Building at Washington, and also in the Capitol itself. Under Con- gressional appropriation, he constructed the road running to the Congressional Cemetery, which in those days was considered the fin- est road in that section of the country. He built the stone parts of the bridges on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Washington branch; and he was a well recognized figure in business circles.
Mr. Gorman's mother belonged to a prominent family of Mary- land, three of her great-uncles having served as officers in the Revo- lutionary War, and her father, John Riggs Brown, was an officer in .the War of 1812; participated in the battle of North Point, so credit- able to the defenders of Baltimore; contracted pneumonia from expo- sure at that action, and died three days after the battle.
Mr. Gorman was partly reared on the old family homestead known as "Good Fellowship," which has been in the family now for more than one hundred and seventy-five years and was an original grant.
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- by Lord Baltimore, and at the family home near Laurel, Maryland. As a boy, he had a pronounced partiality for the life of the farm. He was educated in the public schools and in "Boromeo College," an old school of Pikesville, which has now passed away. In his young manhood, he took up the life of a farmer on the old homestead. In 1866, his brother, A. P. Gorman, having been appointed internal revenue collector by President Johnson, Mr. Gorman accepted the , position of deputy collector and served two and a half years, until a change in the administration at Washington displaced his brother and himself. In the meantime he retained his farming interest in Howard County.
On January 1, 1871, he moved to Annapolis and became proprietor of the Maryland and City Hotels. He lived there thirteen and a half years, during which he enjoyed a fair measure of prosperity and became a man of wide acquaintance, making many friends. In 1874, he with others, among whom was Mr. Buchanan Henry, a nephew of former President Buchanan-organized the Annapolis Savings Institution. After a precarious existence of a couple of years, the late Judge Revell being president, at a meeting of the directors, by a vote of seven to five, it was deemed best to liquidate the. institution. On the carnest protest of Mr. Gorman, and upon · his agreement to act as president, the vote was reconsidered and re- versed seven to five, in order to continue the bank. In a few years the bank was paying four per cent interest, and, although Mr. Gorman left Annapolis in 1884, he was continued in the presidency for some years. The deposits had grown from $3,500.00 to $60,000.00 during his incumbency, and the bank has continued to prosper until the present day, the deposits now being over a half million dollars. This speaks volumes for the executive abilities of Mr. Gorman and also of his influence. He re-organized and re-financed the Annapolis Water Company (now principally owned by the State of Maryland and City of Annapolis) and was its president several years. Some twenty years ago, he, with other Baltimore interests, organized the Annapolis Gas and Electric Light Company, and he served as its president for some years. In the fall of 1884, Mr. Gorman, having accumulated some means and established his character as a sound business man, decided to move to Baltimore as offering a field for · larger operations. In Baltimore, he has been identified with the coal business; has organized, and is president of the following compa-
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