USA > Maryland > Men of mark in Maryland Johnson's makers of America series biographies of leading men of the state, volume I > Part 4
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Just a little past the fiftieth milestone, John E. Greiner has, by fidelity to every duty, combined with natural capacity, won a position high up in the front rank of his profession. In view of this fact, the simple rules which ne lays down for the guidance of young Americans are worthy of profound study.
JOSHUA LEVERING
J OSHUA LEVERING, merchant, of Baltimore, now one of the best known men of the nation, comes of a family the history of which is of most absorbing interest and justifies some account of it in these pages.
The general impression is that the family was originally German, which, like many general impressions, is an error. The authentic records of this family go back to Rosier Levering. IIe was born in France about the year 1600. and was a Inguenot in his religion. In one of the persecutions of the Huguenots he fled either to Holland or Germany and married Elizabeth Van de Walle, of Wesel, Westphalia. The number of their children is not fully known, but it is certain that they had two sons, Wygard and Gerhard, for these two came to Amer- ica. The sons of Rosier Levering were, therefore, half French and half German, and Huguenot in religion.
Wygard, in whom we are more particularly interested because he was the progenitor of the subject of our sketch, was born about 1648, at Gamen, Westphalia. In 1671 he married Magdaline Boker, and when they migrated to America they had four children. They first settled at Germantown, and in 1692 he bought five hundred acres of land from the widow of Francis Fincher at Roxborough, three miles west, for the munificent sum of sixty pounds sterling, or three hun- dred dollars. This land is now one of the wards of the city of Phila- delphia. This couple had twelve children, and Wygard Levering was a man of consequence in his section. Among his children born in Mulheim was William, who was born on May 4, 1677, and was, there- fore, eight years old when his father came to America.
W lliam had five children, and lived to be seventy years old. William II, son of the above William, was born in Roxborough, in August, 1705, and married Hannah Clements, widow of Robert Clem- ents, on May 2, 1:32. HIer maiden name was Harden. This William II was a very successful man in his day, a large land owner, and built the first hotel in Roxborough, known as the Leverington Hotel. On this was an inscription which read " Built by William and Hannah
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Levering, 1731. Rebuilt by Nathan and Sarah Levering, 1784." William appears to have been a very active man, as he carried on the hotel, farming and blacksmithing, all at the same time. He was the founder of the first school established in Roxborough, donating the ground for the building in 1748, and a school has been maintained on that ground almost continuously up to the present date. William and Hannah had nine children, amongst whom was Enoch, born in Rox- borough, February 21, 1742.
Enoch conducted a tannery successfully in his native town, but between 1173 and 1775 moved to Baltimore. On April 10, 1165, he married Hannah Richter, and conducted successfully a grocery busi- hess. His brother Aaron, who was a Revolutionary soldier of distinct- ion, being promoted for gallantry at Brandywine, followed him to Baltimore in 1780. These two brothers founded the Baltimore Lever- ing family and were successful merchants.
Nathan, another brother of Enoch, gave the ground on which the Roxborough Baptist church is built, which cost five hundred and eighty pounds sterling, and was dedicated on October 20, 1790. He was a charter member of that church and previous to its erection the con- gregation met at his house. He was the father-in-law of Horatio Gates Jones, son of Reverend Doctor Davis Jones, a Revolutionary Chaplain, who wrote a book of much interest concerning the genealogy of the Levering family.
Enoch and Hannah Levering had nine children. Among these was Peter, born in Roxborough on February 4, 1766. Peter was a small boy when his parents moved to Baltimore. On May 22, 1798, he married Hannah Wilson, daughter of William Wilson, of the firm of William Wilson & Sons, one of the largest shipping houses of Balti- more. Peter Levering first did business under the firm name of Levering & Nelms, and later under the firm style of Peter Levering & Sons. He built a large sugar refinery in Baltimore and was a member of the First Baptist church.
Peter and Hannah Levering had fourteen children, of whom Eugene Levering, born Ap il 24, 1819, was twelfth in order and was the four hundred and fifty-fifth descendant of Wygard Levering.
Eugene Levering and his brother, Frederick A., established a business in Baltimore in 1842. In 1847 they moved to Commerce street and carried on that business under the firm name of Levering & Co. In 1861 the Civil war destroying their southern business and cutting
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off their collections, they made a compromise, paying fifty cents on the dollar, but before the close of the war they paid off the remaining fifty cents with interest, an example of commercial honor which might be commended to the business men of the present. In 1856 Frederick A. died, and Eugene took into the business his three sons, William, Eugene and Joshua, and changed the firm name to E. Levering & Co. He was a member of the Seventh Baptist church, though in later life he was transferred to the Eutaw Place Baptist church. For many years he was treasurer of the Maryland Baptist Union Association and a very prominent man in the work of his church.
On October 4, 1842, Eugene Levering married Ann Walker, a descendant of Henry Sater, who came from England to America about 1709, and through whose liberality and efforts the first Baptist church in Maryland was organized at Saters, Baltimore county, in 1742. Eugene and Ann Levering had twelve children. Among these was our subject, Joshua, who with his twin brother, Eugene, was born in Balti- more City on September 12, 1845. Joshua Levering is, therefore, eighth in lineal descent from the old Huguenot who exiled himself from his country for the sake of his religion, and whose descendants down to the present day have been noted for devotion to the cause of that religion which was so dear to their ancestor.
Another notable feature of these Leverings has been the patri- archal size of their families, and it is not surprising, therefore, to find them so numerous at the present day. Out in Indiana, at La Fayette, we find the family established, of which Mortimer, born in 1849, is the head. Mortimer is a son of William, who was born in 1826, who was son of Abraham, born in 1787, who was son of John, born in 1750, who was son of Abraham, born in 1717, who was son of Jacob, born in 1693, who was son of Wygard, born in 1648, who was son of Rosier. Thus the Indiana man is also in the eighth generation from the old Huguenot. This line of the family also had a Revolutionary soldier in John, who was a Major in the Continental armies, and whose brother Jacob rendered notable service to the patriot cause by constantly risk- ing his life as a spy.
It is well for our American people to stop occasionally and con- sider their ancestors. We are very prone to boast of our great accom- plishments and to plume ourselves on our achievements, and also very prone to forget how much we owe to the fathers and mothers from whom we inherit the qualities that enable us to achieve things. Joshua
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Levering can easily stand upen his own merits, and yet it remains true that he is all the better man because he comes from a long line of God- fearing men and women.
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Mr. Levering was reared in the city of Baltimore and had good educational advantages up to the age of fifteen, when, owing to the outbreak of the Civil war, he left school to enter upon business life as a clerk. His business life has been along mercantile lines and in that direction he has had a substantial measure of success. He was one of the organizers of the International Trust Company, and for several years was chairman of its Executive Committee. He is a director of the National Bank of Baltimore and of the Provident Savings Bank. In partnership with his twin brother. Eugene Levering, he carried on for many years a most successful coffee business. Though his business success has been all that could be desired, Mr. Levering is known over the country not as merchant but as a public-spirited citizen of the highest type, who has given of his time, his labor and his money freely to the propagation of sound principles of citizenship and the further- ance of the cause of religion. He is a constituent member of the Eutaw Place Baptist church, organized in April, 1871, and served as superintendent of its Sunday School from 1881 to 1903. Since 1883 he has been vice-president of the Foreign Mission Board of the South- ern Baptist Convention, which has its headquarters at Richmond, Vir- gina. For the past fifteen years he has been vice-president of the American Baptist Publication Society in Philadelphia. Since 1894 he has been president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, which has the distinction of being the largest theological school in the United States. Since 1898 he has been presi- dent of the Maryland Baptist Union Association. He has given more than fifteen years of service to the Young Men's Christian Association as president of the Baltimore branch. For many years past he has been a member of the International Committee of the Y. M. C. A. He is now president of the Southern Baptist General Convention for the third term, the highest honor which can be paid to a member of that great religious organization.
So profound is his interest in religious work that in 1903 and 1904 he made, with his family, a tour of the world, the special purpose of which was to look into the mission work of the Southern Baptist Convention and the International Committee of the Y. M. C. A. in Japan and China, in which latter country two of his daughters are
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missionaries. In 1906-7 he took a second missionary tour of the world as a committeeman of the Laymen's Missionary Movement. He has given much service as a member of the boards of many charitable asso- ciations in Baltimore, especially the House of Refuge for boys, of which he resigned from the presidency after thirty years' service. His sense of civic duty is quite as strong as his religious impulse, and this sense of civic duty forced him because of the moral aspects of citizenship into the Prohibition party, where his natural force soon carried him to a position of leadership. In 1891 he was the nomince of that party for State Comptroller; in 1895 he was its nominee for Governor, and in 1896 he was nominated by the Prohibition National Convention for the Presidency of the United States, being the second native of Mary- land ever nominated for that high office.
His favorite relaxations are walking. driving and spending the summers at his country home near Lake Station on the Northern Central Railroad (Baltimore county).
His preferred lines of reading are works of biography and history.
Mr. Levering has been three times married: In November, 1872, to Miss Martha W. Keyser, daughter of the late Charles M. Keyser, of Baltimore. She died in May, 1888, leaving seven children, of whom four daughters and two sons are now living. In March, 1892, Mr. Levering married Miss Margaret S. Keyser, a sister of his first wife. She died in August, 1895. In April, 1901, he married Miss Helen C. Woods, daughter of the late Hiram Woods of Baltimore.
Joshua Levering's life is an inspiration to the young man. Never neglectful of business, he has never allowed business to absorb all his energies or interest, but has given all the time necessary to discharge the duties of citizenship and the duties of religion. What more need be said ?
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yours truly anormal umbull
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LAWRENCE TURNBULL
T HERE is but one Turnbull family, and that is of Scotch origin. The bulls' heads on the Turnbull shield were conspicuous in every conflict that took place in Scotland from the days of Bruce down to the time when shields were no longer used. In connec- tion with its coat armor the family has had two mottoes -- the first, "Courage," and the second, " Fortune favors the brave." This well illustrates the character of the early generations. In later generations, while the courage has survived, there has been less need of the martial spirit, but they have shown this adventurous spirit in other directions. On of the most picturesque stories in American history is that of the Doctor Turnbull who, educated as a physician, and for some time a practitioner, was a man of far-seeing judgment. About 1:69, after prospecting the East Coast of Florida, he decided that it afforded a field for industrial exploitation. He interested some of his friends, and laid out a plan that would have been creditable to the captains of industry of our present day. He went to the island of Minorca, in the Mediterranean, and brought over a large colony of Minorcans. Many thousands of pounds sterling were expended in irrigation ditches, building of extensive sugar houses, and generally in the way of getting ready for large planting operations, the growing of fruit and the making of sugar. His plans were well conceived, and would undoubt- edly have been successful but for the period of war which came on and continued for the greater part of the ensuing twenty years. These troubles wrecked the promising enterprise. Every visitor to the East Coast now notices the ruins. The short-sighted man thought that Doctor Turnbull had been guilty of folly; but more than a hundred years later, Flagler, the Standard Oil millionaire, took hold of this same East Coast section, and has made it one of the beauty spots of America. Not only that, it is being shown that Doctor Turnbull's judgment as to its productive capacity was eminently sound. Other members of the family have made honorable reputation in our country. Doctor Law- rence Turnbull, born in Lancashire, Scotland, in 1821, died in Phila- delphia in 1900, was one of the eminent physicians, medical specialists
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and lecturers of his time. He was the author of a half dozen medical works which passed through many editions. Robert James Turnbull, son of the Doctor Turnbull who undertook the Florida venture, was born in New Smyrna, Florida, in 1775, and died in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1833. He was very prominent in the nullification troubles of that period in South Carolina. Colonel Wm. Turnbull, born in Philadelphia in 1800, died in 1857, was an engineer officer in the U. S. Army, in which he had an excellent record for more than thirty years, serving through the Mexican war, and was the engineer in charge of the building of the New York Custom House and the Cape Fear river improvements.
Lawrence Turnbull, of Baltimore, the subject of this sketch, worthily represents in this generation the Turnbull family. He was born in Baltimore county, on April 23, 1843. His parents were Henry C. and Anna Graeme (Smith) Turnbull. Henry C. Turnbull was for much of the time during his life an invalid and unable to give close attention to business. He took a deep interest in church work, and served as president of the Baltimore County Bible Society. Among the notable ancestors of Lawrence Turnbull can be mentioned his great-grandfather, the Reverend Mr. Nisbet, a Scotch Presbyterian clergyman, who, when Dickinson College, at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, was founded in 1783, was induced to come from Scotland and take the presidency. He was an able preacher and a man of marked abilities in an educational way. The College was then under Presbyterian auspices, and prospered in his hands. After his time it fell into diffi- culties, passed from under Presbyterian control, was acquired by the Methodists, and is now enjoying very considerable prosperity. Doctor Nisbet may be justly credited as being the founder of this school.
Lawrence Turnbull was reared in the country, had good health as a boy, and the best of educational advantages. He went first to Govanstown Academy, and from there to a famous private school in Baltimore, known as Newell & Rippard's, where he was fitted for college. After a term in the Polytechnic College at Philadelphia, he entered Princeton University in the class of 1863, and holds from that institution the degrees of A.B. and A.M. He then read law in the University of Maryland and in the office of S. Teackle Wallis, and, being admitted to the bar, entered upon practice in Baltimore. He shows a strong hereditary trait in one respect. It seems to be a fea- ture of this family that, whatever the vocation may be, there is always
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an avocation out of which each member gets very great pleasure. Mr. Turnbull's avocation was publishing and literature. He bought from the late Doctor Moses D. Hoge the " Eclectic Magazine," and changed the name to the " New Eclectic." He then bought "The Land We Love " from General D. H. Hill, of Charlotte, North Carolina. During the years in which he was connected with publishing interests, he came in close touch with many of the literary men and women of the coun- try, and his home has always been a centre of literary influence. His magazines were the medium through which many of our prominent writers had the first opportunity of showing their genius. Among the notable men and women who were associated with him in those years of literary effort as contributors to his magazines, were Doctor R. L. Dabney, Professor Basil L. Gildersleeve, J. S. Holt; Lawrence John- son, of Mississippi; Doctor Herbert J. Sass, of Charleston, South Carolina, who wrote under the nom de plume of Barton Gray; Miss Mollie E. Moore, of Texas; C. H. Hill, of Washington; Sidney Lanier, the great Georgia poet; Mrs. Margaret Preston, General Jubal A. Early; Professor T. R. Price, of Virginia and New York; Edwin Spencer, Richard Malcolm Johnson; Henry Timrod, the South Caro- lina poet ; General Beauregard, and others.
On January 23, 1871, Mr. Turnbull married Miss Francese H. Litchfield, of an old New England family. Of this marriage five children have been born, four of whom are living. One of Mr. Turn- bull's sons, Edwin Litchfield Turnbull, is a composer of national repu- tation, and a sketch of him appears elsewhere in this work.
Sidney Lanier, the great Georgia poet, whose fame grows brighter as the years go by, was a warm personal friend of Mr. Turnbull, and when he died in Baltimore was buried in Mr. Turnbull's section in the beautiful Greenmount Cemetery.
Mr. Turnbull is a man of altruistic spirit. With a fine courtesy of manner, extensive information and modest spirit, he has a host of friends who appreciate his personal worth and his strong desire to better the condition of his fellowmen. He has written many articles for the newspapers and magazines, is a member of the University Club of Baltimore, and was a member of the Whig Society of Princeton. He is a communicant of the Presbyterian church. He is an excellent example of the model citizen, who, seeking not personal preferment, is ready to contribute of the best that is in him to the common welfare.
Mrs. Turnbull is entitled to special mention. Her parents were
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Edwin C. and Grace (Hubbard) Litchfield. She had the very best educational advantages in our own country and abroad. She comes of an old New England family which goes back to Lawrence Litchfield in the first half of the seventeenth century, who was the founder of the family in New England, and for whom the town of Litchfield was named, and dates back many centuries in England, where it gave name to the city of Litchfield, in Staffordshire. Mrs. Turnbull is the author of several noteworthy romances, The Golden Book of Venice, The Catholic Man, and Val Maria. She was one of the founders, and for seven years president, of the Woman's Literary Club of Baltimore, and with her husband founded in 1890 the Percy Turnbull Memorial Lectureship of Poetry in Johns Hopkins University in memory of a deceased son.
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CLINTON LEVERING RIGGS
G ENERAL CLINTON L. RIGGS, of Baltimore, though not yet forty-five years old, has reached the position where he is one of the best and most favorably known citizens of the state of Maryland. He was born in New York City on September 13, 1866, son of Lawrason and Mary Turpin ( Bright) Riggs.
Riggs is an old English name, found in Scotland under the form of Rig. In England we find Rigg, Nigge, Rigges, Riggs and Rygges. Coats of arms have been granted under all these forms. The more modern of these spellings appears to be Riggs.
The father of General C. L. Riggs was a merchant and manufac- turer in St. Louis, Missouri, who retired from active business in his later years. He was a man of strong character, independent in thought and action and of sterling integrity. This branch of the family is said to date back in America to Francis Riggs, who came from Hampshire, England, in 1663, and took up land in Calvert county, Maryland. John Riggs, son or grandson of Francis, born in 1687, and great-great-grand- father of our subject, settled at " Riggs Hills," near Laurel, Maryland, in 1723. General Riggs' mother was a daughter of the Honorable Jesse D. Bright, a native of New York, born in 1812, who settled in Indiana, held many positions of trust and served seventeen years in the United States Senate, from 1845 to 1862, became interested after the Civil war in a coal company and moved to Baltimore in 1874, where he died in 1875. The Riggs family have contributed three members to the Federal Congress.
Young Riggs was a healthy boy, fond of athletics and with a special love for birds and bird life. His winters were spent in Balti- more, and his summers at Narragansett Pier, Rhode Island. General Riggs attended Grady's Private School in Baltimore; St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire; and Princeton University, from which latter institution he was graduated in 1887 as a civil engineer ; subse- quently, in 1889, he attended lectures at Johns Hopkins University. . He went to Iowa for a time and practiced as an engineer. IIe then went on a cattle ranch, after which, returning to Baltimore, he became apprenticed to the Robert Poole & Son Company, and learned the trade
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of a machinist. On February 9, 1891, he became connected with the Detrick & Harvey Machine Company, of which he became vice-presi- dent on October 12, 1891, and, after eleven years in that position, re- tired on December 31, 1902.
Looking back over the past he sees that his choice of a business was largely influenced by a natural fondness for machinery, though the advice of friends was a contributing factor. His most active interest outside of business, and to which he has given much of his time, is the state militia. He became connected with the famous Fifth Maryland Regiment as second lieutenant of Company "E," on April 29, 1890. February 23, 1891, he was elected captain of Company " F," same regi- ment, and on November 12, 1895, became major. May 14, 1898, on the outbreak of the Spanish-American war, he was mustered into the service of the United States Volunteers, and mustered out with his regiment on October 22, 1898. His ability as an officer had gained such recognition that the papers of that day had no hesitation in de- claring him qualified for any position in the military service. He was appointed adjutant-general of the state of Maryland, with the rank of major-general, January 29, 1904, and served out the full term of four years with credit.
He is a member of the Baltimore Club, the Bachelors' Cotillon Club, the Municipal Art Society, and various other organizations, being chairman of the house committee of the Baltimore Athletic Club. Thoughi a lifetime Democrat in his political convictions, he voted against Bryan on the silver issue in 1896. His reercations take the form of lawn tennis, football and laerosse, and he is much interested in all forms of athletics. His reading has been along miscellaneous lines. He has no special faney for any particular form of literature, and has no special fads unless it may be the military, which, with him, long since ceased to be a hobby and became the serious work of a good eiti- zen who recognizes the importance of maintaining a proper military establishment.
On October 23, 1894, General Riggs married Miss Mary Kennedy Cromwell, daughter of Richard Cromwell, of Baltimore, Maryland. Of this marriage five children have been born, of whom three are now living. Yet a young and vigorous man, with a long and distinguished record behind him, General Riggs is now in a position to be eminently useful to his state, and his past record is the strongest possible guar- antee that every civic obligation will be lived up to.
DOUGLAS HUNTLY GORDON
D OUGLAS HUNTLY GORDON, of Baltimore, vice-president of the Baltimore Trust Company, was born in Baltimore, in 1866. His parents were Douglas Hamilton and Anne Eliza ( Pleasants) Gordon.
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