USA > Maryland > Men of mark in Maryland Johnson's makers of America series biographies of leading men of the state, Volume IV > Part 23
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LOUIS THEODORE WEIS
position of president and general manager of the American Label Manufacturing Company, of which he had been the organizer years before.
It does not need any argument to establish the qualities of the man who, coming from a foreign country at the age of ten, and having immediately to go to work, so educated himself, and developed such character as to be able for ten years to fill with honor and credit one of the most important public positions in the country.
Mr. Weis is a Mason, a member of the German-American Lin- coln Club, the Merchants and Manufacturers Association, the Ger- mania Maennerchor and the Arion Singing Society. His religious affiliation is with the Lutheran Church. He married Miss Margaret Weippert, and to them have been born six children, of whom five are living.
Mr. Weis has made a splendid success of life, and his views- both as to individual and public matters-are therefore worthy of .consideration. When asked to make some suggestions to young people striving to make a success of life, he answered in these words: "Be honest, choose your vocation, learn it well, work hard and con- scientiously for your employer, abstain from vices of all kinds, live within your means, save as much of your salary as you can and invest your savings judiciously."
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Shriver
Alfred Jenkins
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ALFRED JENKINS SHRIVER
S INCE David Shriver came from Pennsylvania to Maryland, in 1760,and settled at Little Pipe Creek in Carroll County, which estate has ever since remained in possession of the family, the fa ily of that name has been prominent in Maryland, and has given to the State many excellent citizens. David Shriver (1735-1826) the original Maryland settler was an active partisan during the Revo- lution, and was elected a member of the Convention which adopted and established the Declaration of Rights and the Constitution of the State. He served in the General Assembly as a delegate from his county for more than thirty consecutive years and afterwards in the Senate. By his will he liberated at his death his fifty slaves. The name is of German origin, originally Schreiber, and the Maryland family is immediately descended from Lorenz and Margarete Schrei- ber-both of whom died in 1684, and were natives of Alsenborn, Elec- torate Palatine, .Oberamt Lautern, Germany. That this family is of noble lineage is shown by the fact that in the year 1206, Duke Hermann assembled at his Castle of Wartburg, six of the most re- nowned poets of Germany, whose names are known-four of these were knights of ancient lineage, and the first-named among them was Heinrich Schreiber. This is the stock from which the Maryland Schrivers come-the present form being merely the Americanization of the name.
. A prominent member of this family of the present day is Alfred Jenkins Shriver, lawyer, of Baltimore. He was born in that city on June 5, 1867, son of Albert and Annie (Jenkins) Shriver. Mr. Shriver's father was a merchant. His mother was a daughter of Alfred Jenkins, a leading citizen of Baltimore in his generation-a man of highest character and most kindly qualities. From 1845 to 1875 Alfred Jenkins was the most distinguished and also the wealth- iest member of the Jenkins family and occupied to it the same posi- tion that Michael Jenkins does today. This Jenkins family, of Welsh origin, was founded by an immigrant from Wales about 1670. Mr. - Shriver's mother, born on May 21, 1841, died on September 28, 1906;
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ALFRED JENKINS SHRIVER
she was a notable woman of the highest and finest Christian character. and at her funeral Cardinal Gibbons delivered an address, testifying to the value of her exemplary life -- one paragraph especially calls for reproduction, he said: "Annie Jenkins Shriver was an exemplary Christian. Her life was an inspiration to me. It quickened my faith. It has strengthened my zeal, and has set before me in most alluring characters the beauty and attraction of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. She has left a precious treasure of happy memories. She has left a treasure of good works and a beautiful example."
In this same funeral address the Cardinal referring to the father of Mrs. Shriver, and the grandfather of the subject of this memoir, said:
"Alfred Jenkins was among the most opulent and conspicuous citizens of Baltimore. He was a member of the trustees of this Cathedral. He was a man of the most genial and happy disposition and sunny character. He was the soul of hospitality. Many of the . bishops who came to Baltimore on various occasions sat at this festive « board of his. The clergy of the Cathedral frequented his house, among them the venerable Archbishop Spalding, who was bound to Alfred Jenkins by the closest ties of friendship-a friendship which continued until death separated them; in the year 1875, that Alfred Jenkins died, I felt it my sacred duty as the Bishop of Richmond to hasten from the Missions to Baltimore and take part in his obsequies."
With the advantage of such an ancestry, Alfred J. Shriver had every advantage in the way of home training and scholastic oppor- tunity that could be given to any boy. Naturally a studious boy, of rather delicate constitution, he entered Loyola College in 1882 and continued there till 1888. He always there was first in all his classes and received from Loyola all its highest honors, including five gold medals. He then entered Johns Hopkins University, and obtained from that great school his degree of A.B. in 1891. His popularity there was attested by having been elected president of his class. In his senior year he stood first in scholarship in the largest class ever graduated from Johns Hopkins. His attainments may be gauged by the fact that he won the inter-collegiate thesis prize over twenty-five hundred competitors in 1887. He took the post graduate course at Johns Hopkins University as "University Scholar" in 1891 and 1892, and at the same time prosecuted his studies in the law department of the University of Maryland, and was graduated as a lawyer in 1893,
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ALFRED JENKINS SHRIVER
standing second in his class and also second in the thesis contest, since which time he has steadily followed his profession as a practicing attorney. In 1894, Loyola College conferred upon him the honor- ary degree of A.M.
Mr. Shriver's law practice has been, to a considerable extent, concerned with estates and will contests. A scholarly man, he has been the author of several legal works which have attracted the favor- able attention of the profession-these are: Res Gestae as a Rule of Evidence; Law of Wills of Personal Property in Maryland prior to Au ust 1, 1884; Status of First Preferred Stock of the Baltimore and Ohio : Railroad.
Mr. Shriver is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa College Frater- nity; he was for more than ten years secretary of the General Alumni Association of the Johns Hopkins University. Now in the prime of early middle life, he has achieved an honorable position in his chosen profession, and the standing of a good citizen of his community. He is a member of several social clubs having been one of the founders and first officers of the Johns Hopkins Club. He has taken a promi- nent part in the social life of the city. He resides at the University Club. His name is among the 320 from Maryland mentioned in Who's Who in America.
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CHARLES AUGUSTUS BUSTEED
A MONG the representative men of the Eastern Shore, who for many long years has been a leader in the ancient town of Centreville, is Charles A. Busteed, who might properly be classed as a merchant, though he has been engaged in a variety of things, and is possibly more largely a farmer than anything else. He comes of a distinguished lineage. The family was founded in Mary- land by Warner Rafield Busteed, who came from Ireland and settled in Baltimore about 1794. This Warner R. Busteed was the second son of an Irish lord, probably Cusack, that peerage now extinct, being then in the zenith of its power. His mother was Margaret, daughter of Lord Robert Earnest, who in a spirit of adventure, ran away from home and came to America as a stowaway, while yet a boy. This was about the time of the troubles in Ireland which culminated in what is known as the "Emmet Rebellion." Young Busteed was reared by the Leverings, of Baltimore, a notable family of that city; and in 1804, married Sarah Bell. Four children were born to them: Robert; Warner R. (II); Margaret, and Mary. Warner R. Busteed (II) married Catherine M. Barwick, and of this marriage Charles A. Busteed was born at Old Brick Mill, near Denton, Caroline County, on October 31, 1854.
The Busteed family is peculiar in Great Britain from the fact that there seems to have been but one family of the name; for while many families can be found scattered through different sections and having a different origin, though the same name, this is not true of the Busteed family. It seems to have been very closely allied to the Cusacks, a famous Irish family, which dates from the fargone battle of Clontarf, in the thirteenth century, and which has been famous in Ireland from that time to the present, holding a number of titles.
Mr. Busteed developed no special tastes in his boyhood. He was spare of build; was strong, active and healthy, living on the farm until he was nine years of age, when his parents took him to Phila- delphia, where he remained until he was fifteen. During these years, he attended the country schools and the public schools of Philadel- phia, going through the grammar school, and at the age of fourteen
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. entered a wholesale drug house, where he remained for a year. He then went back to the farm and worked for two years, attending school in the meantime, and at seventeen became an apprentice in the old Observer office, at Centreville, then conducted by his brother, W. W. Busteed, where he learned the printer's trade. The spirit of adventure moved him, even as it had done his grandfather; and so he went West, to Minnesota, but only remained a short time, when he returned to Centreville to accept an interest offered him by his brother in The Obserrer. He remained a member of the firm of W. W. :Busteed and Brother, until 1885, when his brother sold out, when he became senior member of the firm of Busteed, Roberts and Brother, and was editor-in-chief until August 1889, when he sold out to William J. Price, Jr. During these years be had been making some money and much character.
"Retiring from the newspaper business, he established a brokerage firm consisting of himself, his brother, W. W., and William J. Price, Senior. This connection lasted until 1894. He then became a member of the firm of Busteed, Price and Carter. Mr. Carter sold out in 1897, when the firm became Busteed, Price and Catlin, exten- sive dealers in hardware and farın implements.
In the meantime, on November 3, 1881, Mr. Busteed was married to Miss Mollie G. Wilkinson, daughter of Captain John Wilkinson, and they have one son, John Wilkinson Busteed, now a young man. Mr. Busteed's father-in-law, Captain Wilkinson, died in the middle * eighties, and he was elected a director in the Queen Anne National Bank to succeed him. He held this position continuously up to four 'years ago, when he was made vice-president of the bank, which posi- tion he held until July, 1910, when he severed his connection with the 'institution.
Years ago he became interested in farming lands, and invested a goodly share of his profits in that direction, until he is now one of the large land-owners of the county, his holdings aggregating many hundreds of acres of the best farm lands in that section.
He has never cared for political honors. Active in the work of the Methodist Episcopal Church, of which he is a trustee and steward, he has been a strenuous upholder of religion and civic righteousness. Possessed of much public spirit, he has taken a hand in everything that would contribute to the welfare and the entertainment of his people; and so is president of the board of managers of the Centreville Opera Company.
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CHARLES AUGUSTUS BUSTEED
He loves bowling, baseball and tennis. He is an active fraternal- ist, holding membership in the Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias, and Royal Arcanum. Though not an aspirant for political honors, he is a strenuous supporter of the Democratic party. He has served for several years as a representative to the Maryland Grand Lodge of Odd Fellows, being at the present time District Deputy Grand Master, and is enjoying the same honors in the Royal Arcanum. He is also a Past Chancellor in the Knights of Pythias. It will be seen from the record that he is an active member in everything in which he is inter- ested.
His early education was limited to the public schools; but like all men who have long training in newspaper offices, he became a wide reader, his preferred lines being historical, biographical and financial, and he is now one of the best informed men of his section in nearly all directions.
For many years past he has been a community leader, not be- cause of any self-seeking on his part, but because of his natural ability, fortified by his excellent attainments coupled with an earnest desire to be of service to the community-and he has long been recognized as not only one of the most honorable business men of his section, but one of its most valuable citizens.
The Busteed coat of arms is thus given by Burke, the English authority: Lozengy ar. and gu. a chev. az. Crest-An eagle rising ppr. The explanation of which is that on a shield divided in lozenge shaped figures, alternately silver and red, appears a blue chevron- the crest being an eagle in the act of rising.
If, as seems more than probable, Mr. Busteed is descended from the Irish family, which held the title of Cusack for several centuries- the title becoming extinct in the last century-it is of interest to note the description of the coat of arms of that family, taken from an old Book of Crests issued by Thomas Wall in 1530, in the paragraph headed "Crest of Irish Nobles," under No. 89, he makes the following stato- ment: "Cusacke of Irelond beryth to his crest a maremayden silver holdyng her tayle in her right hande standyng in serekelet gold mantelyd asur doubled gold; which translated into modern English means that the Irish lordship of Cusack had, as its coat of arms, a silver mermaid standing in a golden circle, holding her tail in her right hand, with blue and gold manteling, or ornamentation. around the circle.
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HENRY BENJAMIN MEIGS
T HE family name of Meigs goes back to the Anglo-Saxon period in England and is said to be derived from the Anglo- Saxon word maeg, meaning "strength." The record of the Meigs family in America shows that they have lived up to the orig- ina' meaning of the word-they are strong men. In Great Britain there are quite a number of names derived from the original Anglo- Saxon; Madge, Maggs, Meggs, Meigh, and the Scotch form Meik all these in addition to the form Meigs. The Meigs family in America was founded by Vincent Meggs, who with his sons, John, Vincent and Mark, came from England about 1634; settled in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1640; and finally located at Guilford, Con- necticut, in 1650. John, one of the sons of the immigrant, took part in the protection and escape of the regicides, Whalley and Goffe, who had made their escape from England to Connecticut, and were being-followed up by the British government. This was about 1660. From these early immigrants have come a number of the distinguished patriots of our country. The first to become prominent was Captain Janna Meigs of Guilford, Connecticut, who served in the Indian wars and was Deputy Governor of the Colony of Connecticut. Then in the line appears Colonel Return Jonathan Meigs (born in 1740), one of the first to take up arms in the Revolutionary struggle, who had a brilliant career as a soldier, rising to the rank of colonel. He was one of the founders of Marietta, Ohio, the first permanent white settlement in that State. In 1801, he was appointed Indian Agent for the Cherokee Indians in Georgia, and spent the remainder of his life in that State, discharging that duty. His son, Return Jonathan Meigs (II), born 1764, was a lawyer; a judge; a soldier; Governor of Ohio, and nine years Postmaster-General of the United States. The next great figure in the Meigs' line was Josiah Meigs, born 1757. was admitted to the bar; was a newspaper editor, and after a varied experience became an educator. He was professor of mathematics and natural philosophy in Yale College, 1794 to 1801, and first presi- dent of Franklin College (now known as the University of Georgia),
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from 1801 to 1811. He opened the college exercises under an oak tree. When he left Georgia in 1811, he became Commissioner of the General Land Office at Washington, which position he held until his death in 1822. Return Jonathan Meigs (III), grandson of Colonel Return Jonathan Meigs of the Revolution, was born in Ken- tucky in 1801; was a lawyer; agent for the Cherokee and Creek In- dians for seven years, 1834 to 1841; appointed United States District Attorney in Tennessee in 1841; and in 1863 was appointed clerk of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia by President Lincoln. He was a law author of note. Coming down the line, we find Mont- gomery Cunningham Meigs, born in Augusta, Georgia, 1816; grand- .son of Josiah Meigs. He became an army officer; served for many . years in the regular army; rose to the rank of major-general during
the War between the States, and was one of the distinguished sol- diers of that period. Next appears William Montgomery Meigs, born in Philadelphia in 1852. He is a lawyer and author, having been a regular contributor to periodicals, and the author of The Life of Josiah Meigs, and The Life of Charles J. Ingersoll, and also a work entitled The Growth of the Constitution. It will be seen from this brief record that the Meigs family of Connecticut has given to the country a number of strong men whose services have been about equally divided between the North and the South-which is as it should be.
Among the present-day members of the family, Henry Benjamin Meigs, a prominent insurance man of Baltimore, has taken high rank in the business world of his adopted city. He was born in Highgate, Franklin County, Vermont, on November 23, 1844; son of Captain Luther and Phoebe (Stockwell) Meigs. His father was a farmer who served as a Selectman of his town; as a Commissioner of his county, and as member of the Vermont legislature. For forty years a servant of the town or county in some office of trust. He was a quiet man of determined character, rather austere in manner, but strictly just. Henry B. Meigs was reared under the hard, but wholesome conditions which obtained in the Green Mountain State in his youth; was a robust youngster; given plenty of hard work on the farm; was partial to sports, and had pronounced military tastes. In retrospect, he sees that the conditions under which he was reared have contributed much of value to him in later life. His mother , passed away when he was a small boy, and his character was largely
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HENRY BENJAMIN MEIGS
molded by the strong-minded father. While working on the farm as a boy, he attended the local schools in the winter months for a few years, and thus obtained all of the education he ever had in the schools but all his life he has been and now is an industrious student of the best literature, industrial development, practical business methods and achievements. He acquired a taste for history, biography and travel, and these tastes have remained with him. He is the author of Meigs' Genealogy, a history of the Meigs family in America, which may be found in the principal libraries of the country.
Upon the outbreak of the War between the States he became a soldier in Company K of the Thirteenth Vermont Regiment; served in that company until 1863, and then in the Vermont Frontier Cavalry, in which he served until the end of the war.
In 1866 and '67 when in Colorado he was elected Captain of a troop of cavalry raised for the suppression of an Indian insur- rection in Colorado and Wyoming.
₱, Especial mention of Captain Henry B. Meigs is made in the "History of the 13th Vermont Regiment" as deserving a medal of honor for heroic conduct at the Battle of Gettysburg.
Captain Henry B. Meigs is, perhaps, the only man in the United States who is the sixth in regular descent who has borne arms in America; that is, in the Colonies or under the Stars and Stripes.
Inheriting a fair share of the pioneer spirit and adventurous disposition which has characterized this family, after his discharge from the army, Captain Meigs went to the Far West and engaged in rarching, mining and merchandising. He was a member of the city council of Julesburg, Colorado, from 1867-69, and those who recall conditions along the line of the Union Pacific Railroad in those early days of construction will understand that his position as a town officer in Julesburg was not a sinecure. After some years in the West, Captain Meigs returned East and located in Malone, New York, becoming general agent of the Connecticut General Life Insurance Company at Malone, which position he held from 1876 to 1888. While serving in that capacity, he also held the office of Receiver of Revenue at Malone, 1880-81. In 1SSS he accepted the appointment of manager of the Southeastern Department of the Aetna Life Insur- ance Company of Hartford, Connecticut, at Baltimore, and this position he has held from that time to the present. His administra-
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tion of this office has been most successful and he is among the recog- nized strong business men of the city.
He frankly admits that his life has been shaped by circum- stances and that the strongest influences urging him forward to do things was pride in an honorable ancestry and a distinguished family name. Naturally he bas profited by contact with successful men, and quite naturally also he has felt during his career that he has lost something from the lack of a broader education in his earlier youth.
Captain Meigs has been twice married. His first wife was Alvira Stanley, to whom he was married on October 18, 1872. On February 17, 1909, he married secondly Nellie Merrifield.
He possesses a full measure of that patriotic spirit which animated his ancestors. He is a member of the Founders and Patriots of Amer- ica; of the Society of Colonial Wars; of the Sons of the American Revolution; of the Sons of War of 1812; of the National Genealogical Society; of the Grand Army of the Republic; of the Society of the First Army Corps; of the Thirteenth Vermont Regimental Associa- tion, and of the Masonic fraternity. The bent of his mind can easily be gathered from the record of the societies to which he belongs. He has been Counselor-General to the General Society of Founders and Patriots; genealogist of Pennsylvania Branch of the same; Counselor of Sons of War of 1812, and Counselor to the Genealogical Society.
The Meigs' family have always been too truly independent to be restrained within a rigid party collar; hence it is not surprising to find that Captain Meigs in politics is an Independent, with a certain measure of bias toward the Republican party. He is a member of the Baptist Church, and a director of the Florence Crittenden Mis- sion, one of the finest reformatory charities in our country. He finds recreation in travel and in driving.
For the young man starting out to make a career, he has nothing to recommend beyond a clean personal life; clean associations; per- sonal sobriety; active industry, and a patriotic devotion to one's people and country.
Captain Henry B. Meigs belongs to a family which for nine generations without a break has contributed its full share of valuable citizens to our country. They have been pioneers and builders- lawyers, soldiers, statesmen, patriots. To his credit be it said that, coming from such a strong ancestry, he is by no means the least of . his clan.
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Captain Meigs has recently erected in his native town a handsome white bronze monument in honor of the soldiers of all the wars who went from the town of Highgate. For five generations preceding him, his ancestors were soldiers, his father Captain Luther Meigs was a soldier of the War of 1812-14, his grandfather and great-grand- father soldiers of the Revolution, and the two generations preceding in Indian and Colonial wars.
NORMAN BRUCE SCOTT, JR.
T HE Scottish clan of Scott has an authentic history which goes back to the year 1130. The family name is older than that, but that was the first date in which the records make mention of the family. Uchtredas, son of Scoti, was the father of Richard, ancestor of the Scotts of Buccleuch; and Michael, ancestor of the Scotts of Balweary. From that time down to the present, the clan of Scott has been much in evidence in Great Britain. They have held titles in that country for time out of mind, among which may be mentioned Barons, Earls and Dukes of Buccleuch; Earls of Tarvis; "Earls of 'Dalkeith; Barons of Dunninald, and numerous lesser titles. The present head of the Scottish family is William Henry Walter Montague-Douglas-Scott, sixth Duke of Buccleuch, and eighth Duke of Queensberry. Of this ancient clan comes Norman Bruce Scott, Jr., of Hagerstown, one of the leading lawyers of Western Maryland. Mr. Scott was born in Hagerstown on April 26, 1856; son of Dr. Norman Bruce and Catherine (McPherson) Scott; so that on both sides of the family, he is of Scotch origin. His father was a physician. His maternal grandfather was John B. McPherson of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. His immediate family in America was founded by his grandfather, John Scott, who came from Belfast, Ire- land, settled in Carroll County, Maryland, and married Elizabeth Bruce, daughter of Norman Bruce of Scotland; so that there flows in his veins the blood of three great Scottish clans: Bruce, Scott and McPherson. The Scotts and McPhersons are pure Scottish; while the Bruces, originally of Norman stock, have been so long identified with Scotland that one is apt to forget their Norman origin. The McPhersons, like the Scotts, have an authentic record which goes back to the first half of the twelfth century.
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