USA > Maryland > Men of mark in Maryland Johnson's makers of America series biographies of leading men of the state, Volume IV > Part 22
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In 1907 he published The Colonial Families of the United States of America. In 1911 the second volume of this great work was published.
Three years after his graduation at the law school Mr. Mackenzie became office counsel and assistant secretary of the American Bonding Company. In 1896 he resigned that position. But it was the beginning of important financial activities. In 1896 he organized the Citizens Trust Company of Baltimore, with a capital of $2,500.000 and became its secretary and treasurer. One year later he resigned from the Company to establish the banking house of Geo. N. Mar-
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kenzie and Company. In 1904 he organized the C. D. Pruden Com- pany with a capital of $100,000. Of this Company he was the vice- president and treasurer. In 1909 he organized The American Realty and Trust Company. Of this corporation he is the president. In connection with all these varied enterprises, and in spite of the great amount of work they required, Mr. Mackenzie continued the practice of the law. He has always distinguished himself by his enter- prise and untiring industry and his determination to succeed.
Early in life, at the age of twenty-one, Mr. Mackenzie became a convert to the Roman Catholic faith, and during all the years of his manhood he has been a devout member of that church.
He has been twice married and has four children living, and has lost four. The first wife was Lucie Fennille Emory, daughter of Ambrose M. and Mary (Tilyard) Emory, of Baltimore. To this lady Mr. Mackenzie was married on the 15th of April, 1874. Five children were born of this union: George Norbury Mackenzie, the 3d; Mary Gertrude Mackall; Colin Evans Williams, who died in infancy; Anna Vernon; and Catherine Tennille, who also died in infancy.
The oldest of these children, George N., married in 1898 Sara Roberta, daughter of Judge George Y. Maynadier, of Harford County, Maryland.
· · The oldest daughter, Mary G. M. Mackenzie, married in 1903 to Louis William Jenkins, of Prince George's County.
Mrs. Mackenzie died June 27, 1900.
On the 14th of June, 1902, Mr. Mackenzie married Mary Elizabeth Forwood, daughter of William Smithson and Rebecca (Glenn) For- wood, of Belair, Md. Of this marriage there have been three chil- dren, two of them dying in infancy.
EMORY LORENZO COBLENTZ
E MORY LORENZO COBLENTZ, of Frederick, Maryland lawyer, president of the Central National Bank of Frederick and from its organization in 1887 to 1898, assistant treasure and now vice president of the Valley Savings Bank, of Middletown president of the Peoples Fire Insurance Company of Maryland and of the Frederick Railroad Company, and counsel of the Walkersvill Savings Bank of Frederick County, The Economy Silo and Manufac turing Company and of other important corporations, was born neal Middletown, Frederick County, Maryland, on the 5th of November 1869. His father, Edward L. Coblentz, until his retirement from active business a farmer was a man of strict integrity who prided- himself upon making his word his bond. His wife was Mrs. Lucinda F. Bechtol Coblentz.
Emory Lorenzo Coblentz's ancestors came to the United States from Germany. His great-great-grandfather, Harman Coblentz, moved into the Middletown Valley from Lancaster County, Pennsyl- vania, a short time before the Revolutionary war.
The successive members of his family for several generations, while they have not occupied prominent positions in public life, have been a strong sturdy stock, of decided influence in the community in which they have lived.
With the best of health throughout his boyhood Emory Lorenzo Coblentz grew to manhood in the country, until he was sixteen years old living on his father's farm. He was a student of the Middle- town Classical Academy, and he later completed his course of study at the Middletown High School. On March 12, 1886, he took a posi- · tion as clerk in a general store in Middletown, but he continued his studies during that winter. A year later, in February, 1SS7, he was made assistant treasurer of the Valley Savings Bank of Middletown, then just organized; and he continued as the active cashier of this institution until (in 1898) he resigned in order to take up the practice . . of law. His legal studies he had pursued before and after banking
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hours, in addition to his duties as an official of the bank; and while be thus studied law he had the benefit of systematic instruction and guidance under the private tutorship of the late Charles W. Ross of Frederic., especially during the two years-1895-7. He was ad- mitted to practice law at the Frederick Bar on the 14th of January, 1898. His earlier intention had been to make banking his life occu- pation, but with more mature judgment he chose the profession of the law, toward which he found himself half unconsciously drifting by reason of the constant necessity for learning and applying principles of law in the conduct of his business as assistant treasurer of the Sav- ings Bank. Since 1898 he has been actively engaged in the practice and has attained a most enviable position in his chosen profession. He was. secretary and counsel to the Frederick and Middletown Railway Company until December, 1908, when he was elected presi- dent of that Company, which company was absorbed by the Frederick Railroad Company upon which Mr. Coblentz was made its presi- dent. On July 1, 1908, he was elected president of the Central National Bank of Frederick which institution largely through his intrumentality, on August 1, 1909, acquired the business of the First National Bank by consolidation. His welcoming address to the Maryland Bankers Association on the occasion of their recent Annual Convention held in Frederick has been warmly commended in the hearing of the writer hereof. In December, 1907, upon the organi- zation of the Peoples Fire Insurance Company of Frederick County with cash capital $100,000 and surplus of $25,000 Mr. Coblentz was made its first president and still serves them in such capacity. He is counsel for the Economy Silo and Manufacturing Company of Frederick County. He is also counsel for the Corporation of Middletown, for the Valley Savings Bank of Middletown, and for the Walkersville Savings Bank.
He is identified with Christ Reformed Church of Middletown; and he is superintendent of its Sunday School, which numbers over five- hundred members.
On the 27th of September, 1893, he married Miss Amy A. Doub. They had four children, all of whom have survived their mother who died very suddenly February 7, 1904. On May 15, 1906, Mr. Cob- lentz married Miss Mary V. Kefauver, daughter of Richard C. and Laura V. Kefauver of Middletown, Maryland, and one child has been born to them. 4
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By political convictions he is a Democrat and he has never swerved from allegiance to the principles of that party. He is a Mason, a Knight Templar, a member of the Mystic Shrine; and he is also a member of the Elks.
His principal relaxation and enjoyment apart from his profession is music, of which he is extremely fond. He has recently edited a book of music designed especially for the use of Sunday schools, which is having a wide circulation.
By way of advice to his younger fellow citizens who wish to attain success in life he says: "One of the necessary elements of true success is such a knowledge of mankind in every walk of life as will enable you sympathetically to take their point of view whenever you get into contact with them. A college education should help to do this, practical experience and good judgment will also largely help to accomplish this desirable end."
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ADRIAN CEOLFRID McCARDELL
A DRIAN C. McCARDELL, president of the Frederick County National Bank. of Frederick, and one of the representative men of his section, was born in Washington County, Mary- land, on December 29, 1845; son of Wilfred Dubois and Catherine (Humrichouse) McCardell. Wilfred McCardell was a farmer, a man of strong character, a leader in the community, but never an office-seeker, though he did serve his county one term in the House of Delegates. He was descended from Richard McCardell, one of the three brothers McCardell who came from Scotland, Richard settling in Maryland, one brother in Pennsylvania, and another brother in Kentucky, from whom the wife of former President Andrew Johnson was descended, she having been a McCardell of Kentucky.
Young McCardell was a healthy boy, reared on the farm until he was twelve years old. His father died when he was sixteen years old, in 1862, leaving a widow and Adrian as the eldest of seven children but his mother had a most profound impression upon the character of the growing boy, which has been the controlling factor in his con- duct through life. His education was obtained in the public schools of Washington County.
In 1861, General Franklin E. Bell, then captain of commissary, offered Mr. McCardell a clerical position in his department, to report at Manassas, Virginia; but the first Battle of Bull Run intervened and the waiting-orders have since stood. Captain Bell was a second cousin of Mr. McCardell, and he afterwards became the head of the United States army.
Mr. McCardell came to Frederick in 1862, as clerk in a confectionery business. - His own observation taught him that energy, honesty and pluck were winning qualities, and as he was ambitious to go forward, he exercised those qualities to such effect that on November 1, 1869, then being only twenty-four years old, he was able to begin business as a merchant on his own account. The business then established still continues, A. C. McCardell, Manufacturing Wholesale and Retail Confectioner. . From that time to the present he has been a conspicu-
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ous figure in the business, social and religious life of his community. His business ventures have been successful, and he is a man of sub- stantial means, while bis counsel and judgment have been widely drawn upon.
Since 1888, he has been a director of the Mutual Insurance Com- pany, and its president as successor to the late Colonel Charles E. Trail, since May, 1909. Since 1882, be has served as a director of the Frederick Town Savings Institution. He has served as treasurer and director of the Woman's College since 1884; as treasurer and elder of the Evangelical Reform Church since 1898; as superintendent of the Sunday school since 1899; as president of the Frederick County National Bank since 1905; and since 1901, he has been a director and the chairman of finance committee of the Mount Olive Cemetery Company. From 1898 until 1907, he was president of the Business Men's Association.
The Frederick County National Bank, of which he is now the most efficient president, has a remarkable history. This old bank dates back to 1818, when it was organized as a State bank. It withstood all the financial storms of that period; survived the panic of 1837, and in 1841 was burglarized and robbed of one hundred and eighty- one thousand dollars in gold, bonds and notes. About one hundred and sixty thousand dollars of this was recovered, and the old bank continued its career until after the passage of the National Bank law, when it became nationalized. It has passed safely through every financial crisis the country has known, now has a capital of one hun- dred and fifty thousand dollars, with a surplus of fifty thousand dollars and has paid to its stockholders in the last ninety-two years an im- mense sum in dividends.
Another institution in which Mr. McCardell is profoundly inter- ested is the old Evangelical Reform Church, of Frederick, which dates back to 1740, and the history of which is one of the most interesting that can be found in any part of our country. Mr. McCardell is a business man who believes in Christian citizenship, and conducts all of his business affairs on most rigid ethical lines. He acknowledges his indebtedness to a devoted Christian mother and wife, both of whom have throughout life been to him strong towers in a moral and religious way.
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His chief recreation throughout life has been found in his horses, being very fond of riding and driving. Politically he is a lifetime Democrat.
On April 11, 1872, he married Miss Alforetta R. Stonebraker, daughter of Samuel and Rebecca (Knode) Stonebraker. They have seven children: Adrian LeRoy, assistant cashier of the Frederick County National Bank; Edgar S., now running the retail department of the old business; Albert N., of Waters and McCardell, Germantown, Maryland; Wilfred S., now connected with the old house; Ernest N., and the Misses Mary A. and Pauline R. McCardell.
JOHN WATERS
J OHN WATERS inherits many of the sterling characteristics of his English and Scotch ancestors, and has been a thrifty and progressive man of affairs. He was born near Carlisle, Cum- berland County, Pennsylvania, November 22, 1840, a son of Jesse and Elizabeth (Lynch) Waters, the former a native of New Jersey and the latter of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. The paternal grandfather was a farmer of New Jersey and spent his entire life in that State. Jesse Waters settled in Cumberland County, Pennsyl- vania, when a young man, became the owner of a large estate, and upon his removal to Baltimore County, Maryland, in 1843 he con- tinued his agricultural operations, which he pursued successfully for many years. In the city of Baltimore, at the extreme old age of ninety-three years, his life ended. The maternal grandfather of John Waters was a native of Londonderry, Ireland. In early man- hood he came to America, settled in Cumberland County, Pennsyl- vania, and married Mary Webb, of Baltimore, a member of an old family of that city. The mother of John Waters died in 1882, at the age of seventy-six years. She bore her husband five sons and five , daughters, nine of whom reached maturity and two are living at the present time. A son, Jesse, was a soldier in the Confederate army and was killed in battle.
John Waters spent his childhood in the vicinity of Baltimore from the time he was three years of age and received his education in the public schools. When sixteen years of age he left home and began working at the carpenter's trade, and followed this occupation near . his old home for two years. In 1858 he began a three years' appren- ticeship at the trade in Baltimore, after which he spent some time .in traveling in the North and South. In 1865 he engaged in business · for himself as a contractor and builder, and has met with marked success, and all over Baltimore City may be seen monuments to his skill. Among the many important public and private structures erected by Mr. Waters may be mentioned the Maryland Penitentiary, Charles Street Power House, Eutaw Street Power House, East Balti- more .Street Power House, ail of the old Baltimore City Passenger
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Railway, the three large power houses of the United Railways and Electric Company, located on Pratt Street, the large car barns of the United Railways and Electric Company, located on Columbia Ave- nue, St. Mary's Female Orphan Asylum, addition to the Mercy Hos- pital, Drovers and Mechanics Bank, National Howard Bank, College of Physicians and Surgeons, four exchanges for the Maryland Tele- phone Company, department store conducted by Stewart and Com- pany, Graham's Storage Warehouse, Knickerbocker Building, Border State Savings Bank, Second Hospital for the Insane at Springfield, Maryland, St. Joseph's Hospital, addition to Mount Hope Retreat, addition to Spring Grove Insane Asylum, Mercantile Trust and De- posit Company's Building. Mr. Watersrebuilt several structures after the big fire in Baltimore in 1904, including the International Trust Builtling, The Mercantile Trust and Deposit Company's Building, The Baltimore News Building, The Pratt Street Power House, The State Tobacco Warehouse, addition to the banking house of Alexander Brown and Sons, warehouse for Mr. J. LeRoy White, on Baltimore Street, and many other structures. Mr. Waters is now erecting build- ings for the Maryland Hospital for the Negro Insane at Crownsville, Maryland, and office and tower building for the Maryland Casualty Company.
He is a director in the National Howard Bank and the American Bonding Company. In 1893 he bought the old Dumbarton Farm, near his old home, and his estate now consists of about five hundred acres of admirable farming land, which he looks after and manages himself. He has one of the finest country homes in the State and he and his family spend the entire year there. He has given particular attention to breeding of standard racing horses and has some of the finest and fastest horses in the State.
Miss Elizabeth Rawlings, of the city of Baltimore, became his wife, and they have two children: Ida Grace, wife of Edward M. Par- rish; and Mary, widow of Dr. Clarence Busey, late of Baltimore. Mrs. Waters is a daughter of Captain Rawlings, a member of one of the old and prominent families of the State. Mr. Waters is a member of all the Horse Breeders' Associations of the United States, has been President of the Pimlico Driving Club, a member of the Maryland Agri- cultural Society, and has labored in the interest of agricultural affairs. He has been a member of the City Democratic Committee, a delegate to various city and State conventions. He is one of the foremost citizens of Baltimore County and universally esteemed.
ELMER MAURICE BEARD
E LMER M. BEARD, president-treasurer of the Independent Ice Company, of Baltimore, is a comparatively young man who, after making of his business operations a substantial success, not without strenuous struggle, is yet an optimist and has not lost faith in the essential goodness of humanity.
Mr. Beard was born in Baltimore, November 19, 1866; son of George W. and Ann Virginia (Buckingham) Beard. His father was a retired naval officer, a man of fine literary and mechanical tastes and most tenacious temperament.
In both his family lines, Mr. Beard is of English stock, and both families have long been armigerous in Great Britain, the Bucking- hams being a particularly conspicuous family, and a county in Eng- land bearing that name. His people have been identified with our country since 1719, when John Reese, who married Catherine Evans and who is the earliest of his known ancestry in this country, migrated from England to America.
As a boy, Mr. Beard was a strong, healthy youngster; fond of music and books; devoted to his parents, and especially attached to his mother, who exercised a pronounced and most helpful influence over him in every way. He had the benefit of good training in the public schools, with which he was content; for his inclination being toward a commercial life, he did not care to take advantage of the opportunities offered for higher education. He formed, however, a taste for good reading, which has remained with him, and is partial to the works of such writers as Dickens, Shakespeare, Kipling, Tenny- son and Holmes. His entire business life has been spent in one occu- pation. He entered the natural ice business in Baltimore in 18S7, as a clerk. He knew that he had nothing to depend on for preferment but his own exertions. He knew also that his parents, whom he so highly honored, did not always have as much money as would suffice for his ideas of comfort in life. Being himself partial to these neces- sary comforts, and realizing that the only way by which to get them : was through the medium of money, he carly formed the determina-
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tion to make money. Hand in hand with that went the desire to compete on equal terms with his fellowmen, and he regards this as the controlling factor in his business career. He belongs to that type of business man who is perfectly willing to meet a competitor on equal terms-nay more, will insist on such equal terms, and then let the hest man win. He has been now twenty-four years in the ice business, both natural and manufacturing. He has filled practically every position within the scope of that industry. He has been connected with the Church-Lara Company; the Terry-Lara Company; the Kennebec Ice Company; the Consumers Ice Company; the American Ice Company; and when the Independent Ice Company was organized in November, 1898, Mr. Beard was elected president-treasurer, which position he has since held.
Partial to social life, he holds membership in the Baltimore Country Club; the Merchants Club of Baltimore, and the Maryland Society of New York. In national affairs a Republican, in State and municipal affairs he acts independently, standing more for the man and the particular things sought to be done, than for any party allegi- ance. His religious affiliation is with the Episcopal Church. Mr. Beard retains his boyish fondness for outdoor sports, and has given some little attention to athletics in a personal way.
In looking back over the record of the last twenty-four years, he modestly admits that he has accomplished the important things which he has personally undertaken, but is very emphatic to have it understood that he did not do it without a struggle, but on the con- trary such accomplishment came only after the hardest kind of work and .the greatest patience. For the young man starting out in life, Mr. Beard rates as one of the strong needs this quality of assiduity- that lasting patience combined with diligence which keeps one stead- fastly upon whatever venture may be the work of the moment. He believes also that it is a good thing to cultivate the faculty, one might say, of charitableness, that is, of looking for the good in people rather than the evil. In this he cites his own experience, which has been an extensive one, and which has proven to his satisfaction that there is more good than evil in human kind. One can readily understand how the cheerful optimist would have the advantage in the struggle of life.over the gloomy pessimist-and this furnishes somewhat of a key to Mr. Beard's business success.
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In the first year that he engaged in his present business, March 16, 1887, he was married to Pamala Jane Read. Of this marriage there are two children, Elmer Read and Ann Virginia Beard. In a preceding paragraph, mention has been made of Mr. Beard's ances- tral line. In an additional line appear the following names: Joseph Reese, Mary Lee Reese, Sarah Reese, David Maulsby, William M. Reese, Susan Thomas, Elizabeth and John Beard. The Reese name is Welsh. Thomas is either Welsh or English. Beard is English, and Maulsby is a modern form of the old English name of Malby or Maltby. From this it will be seen that Mr. Beard is of Welsh and English stock and, therefore, of pure British blood.
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Sincerely yours. Louis D. Yais
LOUIS THEODORE WEIS
T HE life of Louis T. Weis, of Baltimore, who has risen from the position of an immigrant boy to one of prominence and con- spicuous usefulness in his adopted country, is an epic of hard work. He comes of that strong Teutonic stock which has led in the forefront of civilization for the last thousand years, and which is the dominant strain in those all-conquering nations, the Germans, the British and the Americans. Born in Germany and up to the age of ten attending the elementary schools, his father having pre- ceded them to the United States, the rest of the family, consisting of his mother, a brother and two sisters, came across the ocean to join the father, when Mr. Weis was a little boy of ten. The father died while the family were en route, and upon his arrival in this country the little fellow had to go to work and help sustain the family. He picked up his knowledge of the English language, and his English education, by hard work at night-after having already done a day's work. He learned the printing business with Sherwood and Company and was afterwards employed as assistant foreman of the Baltimore American's composing room. He then became manager of the Chesa- peake Label Company. In the meantime, he had taken an active · interest in political affairs as a Republican, and had become a man of
influence in his community. In 1891, he organized and became inter- ested in the American Label Manufacturing Company. In 1896, Governor Lloyd Lowndes, as some recognition of the position which Mr. Weis had won in the community, and also impressed by his quali- fications, appointed him liquor license commissioner. He served the term and was reappointed in 1898, and resigned in 1899. He had, however, attracted attention in higher quarters-and looking abroad for a suitable man, in 1901, President Roosevelt tendered him the appointment of United States commissioner of immigration. He accepted, served a four years' term, and was reappointed in 1905 by President Roosevelt: He served a second term of four years, and was reappointed in 1909 by President Taft. In 1911, he resigned the position which he had filled with ability for ten years to accept the
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