USA > Maryland > Men of mark in Maryland Johnson's makers of America series biographies of leading men of the state, Volume IV > Part 5
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versity Club, Washington Country Club, Columbia Country Club and Automobile Club of Washington, the Montgomery Country Club of Rockville, Maryland, and the City Club of New York City. He is also a member of the Society of Colonial Wars.
· Mr. Newcomb was asked to designate in the order of their impor- tance those elements of character and conduct that are, according to his observation, most conducive to a successful career. In response, he placed first, honesty; second, industry; third to eighth, inclusive, more industry; and placed natural ability and opportunity, ninth and tenth, respectively. The generous aid and interesting advice of experienced and competent friends is an important element, he declares, but need not be enumerated separately because such bene- fits of friendship always accrue to those who exhibit the essential qualities of character, capacity and industry. He adds that, in his own experience, he finds that in so far as he has succeeded in any- thing, it has been by reason of patient industry and prolonged appli- cation, so that if he were to begin life over he would have no rule of improvement save to work harder, to work longer, to seek better advice and to use it with wiser discrimination.
Merrilla Alcantra Mal
MERVILLE HAMILTON CARTER
D OCTOR M. H. CARTER of Baltimore, originator of the various preparations known under the name of "Resinol" and which now are marketed all over the world, belongs to the famous Carter family of Virginia, being in the line of direct descent from Robert Carter the celebrated character known in the Colonial period as "King" Carter, by reason of his vast landed estates and his strong and dominating character.
Doctor Carter was born in Frederick County, Virginia, August 21, 1857; son of James Pendleton and Mary Sophia (Stier) Carter. Doctor Carter's father was a practicing physician, and he recalls as one of the striking incidents of his life that he was sworn in as a deputy-sheriff at the time of the John Brown troubles at Harper's Ferry, and was present in his official capacity at the hanging of the fanatical old freebooter. Doctor James Pendleton Carter was born in Loudon County, Virginia, July 7, 1830. He was the son of James S. Carter, born in Culpepper County, Virginia, who lived to the great age of ninety one. James S. Carter and Abner Carter were two of the seven sons of Thomas Carter, who was the son of the cele- brated "King" Carter. James S. Carter, the grandfather of Doctor M. H. Carter, served as a soldier in the War of 1812. He married on May 31, 1825, Jemima Leith, daughter of William Leith of Loudon County, Virginia, whose parents came from Scotland. To James S. and Jemima (Leith) Carter were born eight children: Louisa, Susan, Amanda, Fannie, William, Robert C., Dilwin S. and Doctor James P. Carter. Doctor James Pendleton Carter was graduated from the medical department of the University of Maryland March 1, 1852. He located at Bunker Hill, West Virginia, to practice his profession, but soon moved to Middletown, Virginia, and later to Gerardstown, West Virginia. He was married in New Market, Frederick County, Maryland, October 12, 1853, to Mary S. Stier, daughter of Henry and Anne (Burgess) Stier, and granddaughter of Colonel Jack Bur- gess of Maryland.
Doctor Carter attended local schools of the village in which he was reared, and then went through the Virginia Polytechnic Institute. He taught school for two terms, and then entered the College of
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Physicians and Surgeons in Baltimore, from which he was graduated in 1878. He began the practice of his profession near Martinsburg, West Virginia; and after several years of successful practice moved to Baltimore in 1884. He was visiting physician of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum for fifteen years; was a member of the board of school commissioners from 1892 to 1898; and member of the Balti- more City water board from 1900 to 1904. Since 1898 he has been a director of the Drovers and Mechanics National Bank, and is also vice-president of the Manhattan Land Corporation. It will thus be seen that he has given freely of his services to charitable institutions, to the public, and to financial institutions in which he is interested.
While in active practice of medicine, he began the use in certain cases of a treatment out of which has grown the Resinol preparations. In 1896, he brought these preparations to the attention of the medical profession, and the treatment in all cases of skin troubles was so successful that they met with great favor. Resulting from this, the demand became so great that he gave up entirely the active practice of medicine and has since devoted his time to looking after the manufacture of the preparations. The Resinol Chemical Company (the name under which the business is conducted), is now known not only all over our own country, but in many foreign countries. Though sometimes classed as proprietary preparations, their merit is so universally recognized that physicians universally prescribe them in certain cases-and the principal of these preparations, the Resinol Ointment, is so exceedingly valuable that anyone who has ever had it in the house will never be without it afterwards.
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Doctor Carter is something more than merely a successful physician. He may be classed as an inventor who has greatly bene- fited humanity by finding a most valuable remedy for troubles which, while not often fatal, are yet of the most aggravating character. He may be truly classed as a public benefactor, and it is a pleasant thing to know that unlike many other public benefactors, he has had some measure of profit from his labors.
He is affiliated with the various Masonic bodies from Blue Lodge to Shrine.
On May 20, 18SO, Doctor Carter was married to Emma Sheppard Gold, daughter of William H. and Margaret. (Wood) Gold of Win- chester, Virginia. They have two children: Julian G. and H. Leroy Carter.
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Yours Sincerely Robert, E. Wood
ROBERT ELMER WOOD
R OBERT E. WOOD, president of the R. E. Wood Lumber Company, who finds himself at the age of forty-five at the head of one of the largest manufacturing concerns of our country dealing in hardwood lumber, can look back over the com- paratively short period of twenty-five years and see himself a bare- handed young man starting into life without capital and without capitalistic connection. He had then, however, an invisible capital which has since been crystallized into the material and visible. That invisible capital was courage, industry, integrity and knowl- edge of the business, for he had been reared in the lumber business. Mr. Wood comes of good old English stock,-or rather that part of the English stock which we call Anglo-Saxon. His grandfather, James Wood, was born in Yorkshire, England, June 2, 1809. He married Mary, daughter of Joseph Caldwell of Yorkshire, England. They had six children: Robert, Joseph, Richard, James, Ambrose and Sarah. In 1842, James Wood migrated and settled first in Wilmington, Delaware. In the same year, with three partners, Joseph Bardsley, William Aveyard and Thomas Matrom, he went up into Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, where they had secured an option on one thousand acres of timber lands and intended to build water mills and saw out the large timber on the land. They failed in securing title, and returned to Wilmington. But James Wood was evidently a man of persistency, for 1844 found him again in Lycoming County with his eldest son, Robert, and they sawed out the lumber for a dwelling house with an oldtime pit saw, this being the first lumber ever sawed in that section of Pennsylvania. Adhering to his original determination, in 1849 Mr. Wood finally secured title to four hundred acres of timber land in Cogan House Township, of Lycoming County, and set up his saw mill, operating it by water power. Originally an Episcopalian, he later joined the Methodist Church; was a Mason, and a Democrat. He retired from active business in 1870. Robert Wood, eldest son of James, was born in Yorkshire, England, December 3, 1832. He secured a
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common school education and joined his father in his lumber manu- facturing. He came in time to be a heavy operator in lumber, and finally retired from business a few years ago. He is yet living and active, dividing his time between looking after his farm in Pennsylvania and visiting with his sons in Baltimore. Up to 1S64 the old lumber firm was operated as R. and J. Wood. There are one or two rather remarkable features in Robert Wood's career. In 1862, he was elected justice of the peace and has held that office continually by re-election up to the present time, his term expiring January 5, 1912-the only interruption having been when in 1881 he was elected registrar, re- corder and clerk of the orphans' court of Lycoming County and served three years. But for this interruption, his record as justice of the peace would cover an even period of fifty years. In addition to this, he served for fourteen years as secretary of the Lycoming County school board. Evidently Robert Wood can be classed as a good citizen. He is a Democrat-which speaks much for the strength of his convictions in hidebound Pennsylvania. He was one of the original stockholders and directors of the old Flank Road Company, and the mere mention of one of these old plank roads recalls the first efforts at road improvement in America. He is a member of the Methodist Church; the Patrons of Husbandry and Knights of Labor organizations.
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In January, 1857, Robert Wood was married to Hester Dorothy Straub, daughter of Charles Straub. She walked beside him thirty- three years and bore him thirteen children. The living are: Charles H., Mary R., James A., Emily H., Robert E:, Joseph B., George Leidy, Sarah M., Clarence E., and Olive W. The dead are Amelia, Annie M., and William O. Wood.
Robert E. Wood, son of Robert and Hester (Straub) Wood, was born at White Pine, Pennsylvania, July 30, 1865. He was a healthy and strong youngster, very partial to outdoor life and es- pecially fond of spending his time in the forests with the lumbermen. He thus at an early age came into a practical knowledge of the lumber business, and he knows it in every detail from the least to the greatest -his apprenticeship in youth having been a hard one, for on many a bitter winter day, through long back-breaking hours, he had to assist in breaking the ice in the streams in order to float the logs. When one looks at the tremendous plants of today, with their circular and band saws cutting lumber at the rate of one hundred thousand
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feet or more daily, it is hard to realize that only sixty-seven years ago Robert E. Wood's grandfather was a pioneer timber cutter in Cogan House, Pennsylvania, sawing out his logs with a pit saw. Robert E. Wood attended the Williamsport (Pennsylvania) schools and the Williamsport Commercial .College. He then . regularly entered the lumber business as an employee. After working in various lumber concerns, he passed into the service of Klein Brothers; and while working for them made his first independent venture on a little order, the material of which cost him eighty dollars and which he sold for eighty-seven dollars, making a profit of seven dollars. This was in 1888. It looks incredible that the lad then trafficking in a lumber deal to make seven dollars, could twenty-three years later be at the head of the vast industry which he controls. The state- ment can safely be ventured that Mr. Wood has never in his life had a business transaction out of which he has had a keener pleasure than his first business venture in which he made seven dollars. He gradu- ally worked into the business as a lumber manufacturer,-the main seat of his operations being West Virginia, and finally in 1901 moved his headquarters to Baltimore, as a convenient point to look after his interests, which had begun to ramify through several States. In 1903, the R. E. Wood Lumber Company was incorporated, of which he has been president since its establishment. In 1904, the Mon, Vale Lumber Company was organized in order to meet the demands of a rapidly increasing business, and Mr. Wood has been president of that since its organization.
He is a Methodist; a Democrat, and an Odd Fellow; member `of the Baltimore Country Club and the Pimlico Country Club; and while he takes a measure of interest in these political and social organizations, he is first of all a lumber manufacturer.
An illustrated article of thirty-two pages which appeared in The American Lumberman of October 23, 1909, profusely illustrated, and well written as to the literary matter, gives some idea of the vast business conducted by Mr. Wood's companies. In McDowell County, West Virginia, the companies own the poplar on forty thousand acres of land, besides owning five thousand acres in fee simple. In Carter County, Tennessee, the company owns eight thousand acres of timber land on which there is estimated ten million feet of white pine. In Eagle Creek Valley and Bone Valley, the Mont Vale Lumber Company owns twenty-five thousand acres of timber.
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The combined holdings of the two companies aggregate over seventy- eight thousand acres, which it is estimated will cut from five hundred and fifty to six hundred million feet of timber. These timbers consist of poplar, oak, white pine and hemlock, with a smaller per- centage of curly ash, birch, bellwood, etc. Some idea of the character of this timber may be gathered from the fact that a cut of three yellow poplar logs from one tree shows five thousand eight hundred and sixteen feet, log measure. At Fontana, North Carolina, on the Tennessee border, the Mont Vale Lumber Company has put in a large modern plant with a capacity of thirty-five to forty thousand feet per day. In McDowell County, West Virginia, the R. E. Wood Lumber Company is operating a mill with a capacity of thirty-five to. forty thousand feet daily. At Buladeen, in Carter County, Tennessee, the same company has put in another mill with a daily capacity of fifty thousand feet of lumber and twenty thousand lath. At Buladeen, the company has built for its employees a neat little church and a comfortable school house, and the photograph of the small army of sturdy youngsters who attend this school shows that the work of the company in that direction at least has been ap- preciated. It is not possible in a sketch of this character to go into details upon the various phases of this great business, but enough has been told to indicate the magnitude and the character of the work done by a man yet young, in the short space of twenty-three years. This is due partly to the personal qualities in Mr. Wood's makeup already referred to, and partly to his great organizing capacity, which is a distinct talent. He has gathered around him a group of five young men, headed by his younger brother, George Leidy Wood, and these six men, if not lifting mountains, are certainly circum- venting them in getting great values out of a most difficult country. A thorough master of his trade, Mr. Wood is a wise enough executive to know that large things can be done only through intelligent organi- zation and cooperation; and so he utilizes the forces of organization and cooperation from his offices down through every gradation to the men getting out the logs in the woods, so as to get the most effective results. That he has prospered in his undertakings is but the just reward of his labors. The stock broker, the bond dealer, the future gambler may do a so-called business running into the millions, with- out adding one penny to the actual wealth of the country. But when a man goes into the woods and turns the raw material into a com-
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modity in daily use a commodity of highest necessity, and in so doing builds up a great industry, he has added enormously to the general wealth of the country. It should therefore be a measure of satisfac- tion to all to see such men reap as a reward for their enterprise and their labor, a goodly share of material prosperity. Robert E. Wood is one of these developers-a developer of the right sort, not an exploiter; and the measure of prosperity which has come to him has been honestly won and is a source of gratification to those who have been associated or come in contact with him.
MATTHEW CLARK FENTON
M ATTHEW C. FENTON, a prominent figure in the business life of Baltimore, was born in that city on January 29, 1855; son of Aaron and Rebecca Heddington (Clark) Fenton. His father, Aaron Fenton, was born in Pennsylvania in 1799, of a family originally settled in New Jersey, and Aaron Fenton was engaged in the wholesale produce business in Baltimore for more than thirty years. . M. C. Fenton's mother was a native of Baltimore, descended from a Scotch family originally settled in Pennsylvania. Her mother's name was Temperance Glenn.
Fenton is both English and Scotch. Possibly the family origi- nated in England, but in the later centuries it has been equally numer- ous in Scotland. It is one of the armiger families of Great Britain, and among the earlier English poets Elijah Fenton occupies an honor- able place. In our own country and in the last generation Reuben Fenton, governor of New York and United States Senator, was for many years a prominent figure in our public life.
M. C. Fenton was reared in Baltimore, and recalls that even as a boy he had an earnest desire to be a merchant. Hewanted toget into his father's mercantile establishment. His father, however, saw to it that the boy had a good school training. He went to private schools of the city; in 1865-66 was a student of the University of Maryland, then under the presidency of Doctor E. A. Dalrymple, and had as fellow students, Harry Garrett and Robert Garrett (later . president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad), and the MeKims of the famous banking family. In 1867, he attended the Pennsylvania Military Academy.
After leaving school, the adventurous blood which seems to run in the veins of nearly all healthy Americans, carried him to the West. 1872 found him in Peoria, Illinois, where he secured employment in the house of Reynolds and Company, a packing house, the head of which Williams Reynolds, is one of the most prominent Sunday school men in the United States. He drifted about the West for · three years, returning to Baltimore in 1875, and on September 6,
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B.F.si son TheWashington M 2
Very truly yours Matthew Tetene
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1875, opened a wholesale paper house, which he has now operated with a large measure of success for thirty-five years. An active and capable man, his business operations have been enlarged as his capital increased, and he is now interested in various directions, being vice-president of the Security Storage and Trust Company; vice-president of the J. M. Raffel Company, manufacturers of paper boxes, and sole owner of the wholesale paper business.
Mr. Fenton in his political views is an Independent and throws his influence to whichever side be believes for the moment to be most nearly right. It thus happened that in the reform campaign of 1895, . when the Republicans nominated Lioyd Lowndes for governor, he rendered valuable assistance and aided materially in securing the triumph of the Reform Party.
He is a member of the various Masonic bodies, from Blue Lodge to Shrine, a past master in the Order, and has attained Thirty- Second Degree in the Scottish Rite. In religious circles he holds membership in the Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church.
On November 25, 1896, Mr. Fenton was married to Miss Har- ett Thomas, daughter of Honorable Edward J. B. Thomas, a promi- nent lawyer of Philadelphia. They have five sons: Matthew C., Jr., Edward, Glenn, Foster, and Randolph Fenton.
Mrs. Fenton is a granddaughter of General Thomas Foster Peter, .nd a granddaughter in the fourth generation of General Bellinger. She is also a descendant of the famous old Revolutionary patriot, General Nicholas Herkimer, who commanded the Mohawk Valley patriots in the desperate battle of Oriskany, August 6, 1777, and who, after the battle was apparently lost, and he mortally wounded, had himself propped on his saddle, lit his pipe, and by his sten- torian commands to his men restored the confidence of his forces, and held the field in the bloodiest struggle of the Revolution, num- bers considered.
JOHN W. PITTS .
T HE late Doctor John W. Pitts of Berlin was for more than forty years a practicing physician in Worcester County, of which county he was a native, having been born in Berlin on November 5, 1842; son of Doctor Hillary R. and Mary M. Pitts. He came by his medical abilities, it may be said, by inheritance. His grandfather, Doctor John Pitts, was a noted physician of his generation. His father, Doctor H. R. Pitts, was not only a promi- nent citizen and good physician, but found time to serve his county in the General Assembly, and his community as president of the W. & P. Railroad. . He was a man of fine character, very considerabie ability, and most highly regarded.
The Pitts family is of English origin, the name and its derivatives being extremely old. Pitt appears to be the commoner form in Great Britain, and the two different forms of it appear to be used indifferently. Among the great names of the family appear the two great Pitt statesmen, father and son, the elder of whom became Earl of Chatham and struggled so hard to save the American Colonies to the British government. The splendid city of Pittsburg (formerly Fort Duquesne under the French, and which upon its becoming an English possession was named in honor of the first Earl of Chatham), would keep the family name alive in America if every member of it should perish off the face of the earth.
. Doctor J. W. Pitts in his youth was a healthy village boy, whose great partiality was for boats. He passed through the Berlin High School and was a student in the University of Virginia upon the out- break of the War between the States. He at once enlisted in the confederate army as a private in the Fifteenth Virginin Infantry, from which later he was transferred to the First Virginia Cavalry, and served through the war as a private soldier. At the close of the war he entered the medical department of the University of Penn- sylvania; was graduated in 1867, and immediately took up the prac- tice of his profession in his native town. In 1887 and again in 1905. he took post-graduate courses.in the Philadelphia Polyclinic, which
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illustrates his devotion to his profession and his determination to keep up with all the most modern discoveries.
On April 13, 1870, Doctor Pitts was married to Miss Charlotte A. Pitts, daughter of the late William D. Pitts of Berlin. Of this marriage there is one daughter, Mrs. Samuel M. Quillin of Berlin, who with her two children, Benjamin Pitts Quillin and Charlotte Josephine Quillin, comprise all of his direct descendants.
Doctor Pitts was a most highly valued citizen of his community. He was helpful in all ways, as illustrated by the fact that for eighteen years he was superintendent of the Presbyterian Sunday school, and for many years an elder in the church. For twenty years, · he was secretary of the Odd Fellows lodge; for a generation a member of the county and State medical associations, and served as president of the county medical association. He was two years member of the school board; eight years on the Democratic Central Committee, and two years mayor of Berlin. He served as captain of cavalry in the Maryland National Guard, and was vice- president of the C. B. Taylor Banking Company. He was one of those all 'round, useful men who can be counted on to serve every communal interest when needed. Through life he voted the Demo- cratic ticket, and though not an active politician, was staunch in the faith. His greatest recreation through life was in his boyhood pleasure, boating. He was a strong believer in home training as of most in. portance in the shaping of character. A young man thus well grounded and coming in contact with men of upright life is enabled both to see his duty and to be fortified in the discharge of it. He believed that a just measure of success would come to everyone who lives in accordance with the Golden Rule and practices industry and attention to business.
He was the first mayor of Berlin after the town was incorporated; was a very active member of the Odd Fellows, being an official in the Grand Lodge for twenty years and secretary of the local lodge. The beginning of his last illness illustrates his fidelity to duty. Though not well on the Wednesday preceding his death, he went to the local lodge, of which he was secretary, but found himself unable to dis- charge his duties. Pneumonia developed almost immediately, and on the 27th of December, 1910, he passed away, universally lamented by the community in which his entire sixty-eight years of life had been spent, with the exception of the war, and a very brief residence in Chester, Pennsylvania.
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