Men of mark in Maryland biographies of leading men in the state, Volume I, Part 8

Author: Steiner, Bernard Christian, 1867-1926. 1n; Meekins, Lynn Roby, 1862-; Carroll, David Henry, 1840-; Boggs, Thomas G
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Baltimore, Washington [etc.] B.F. Johnson, Inc.
Number of Pages: 670


USA > Maryland > Men of mark in Maryland biographies of leading men in the state, Volume I > Part 8


Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).


Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21


Mr. Fuchs studied with Professor Boeck until 1860. In the meantime the desire to be an engineer had become fixed in his mind, and so fully had he mastered the art of drawing that he was placed in charge of the mechanical drawing department at the Cooper Ins- titute. Soon after the completion of the Coast Survey work, in 1861. the Civil War broke out, and Mr. Fuchs took a position as draftsman


133


CARL GUSTAV OTTO FUCHS


in the Naval Bureau Office, which had been established in New York for the construction of monitors. For three years he attended to his work during the day and pursued his studies at night. In con- nection with the Naval Bureau Office, his work lay in making designs for ships and their machinery. In 1864, on account of meritorious work accomplished by him, he was promoted to the position of head draftsman, and at the close of the war he was appointed to the position of assistant professor of drawing at the Naval Academy at Annapolis.


After two years at this institution he became dissatisfied, feel- ing that he was out of touch with the engineering profession, which at that time was progressing very rapidly, and he resigned the posi- tion to accept a call from the City Point Works in South Boston, as head draftsman and designer for steamships and general machinery. After being there a year or two, the South Boston School of Art was established, and he was placed in charge of the mechanical and archi- tectural classes. A few years later he was appointed principal of the mechanical branch of the Boston City Evening Drawing Schools, and shortly afterward was asked to take charge of all the technical branches at the Massachusetts State Normal Art School in Boston.


This school was then under the directorship of Professor Walter Smith, of London, who had been called to Boston to introduce draw- ing as a regular branch of study in the public schools of this country. In 1881 Professor Smith returned to England, when Mr. Fuchs was chosen his successor as director of the Normal Art School. He was called to the Maryland Institute School of Art and Design as its director in 1883 and continued in that position to the time of his death. Through his tireless energy, perseverance and conscientious effort, he made a name for himself as one of the most efficient direc- tors and teachers of art in the country. The destruction of the insti- tute's building and collections by the fire of February 7, 1904, did not daunt him, and that catastrophe is now seen to have been but the beginning of a new period of greater prosperity for the institute.


Professor Fuchs was president of the Art Department of the National Educational Association, and held the same office in the local and national associations of German Technologists. He was Master of the Fidelity Lodge of Masons, Baltimore, and a member of the Society for the History of the Germans in Maryland, of the Ger- man Society of Baltimore and of the Germania Club of the same city. Professor Fuchs published in 1902 a "Handbook on Perspective,"


-


134


CARL GUSTAV OTTO FUCHS


and in 1903, a "Handbook on Mechanical Drawing." He has also published, in leaflet form, a poem entitled "The Stages of Life from Childhood to Age." On July 7, 1867, he was married to Ann Sophia Tuck, of Annapolis. He died without issue on March 13, 1906.


JACOB J. FUNK


F UNK, JACOB J., banker, was born April 12, 1848, at Sylvan Grove Farm, Washington county, Maryland. He is the son of Jacob and Christianna (Good) Funk. His father was a farmer, a county commissioner, a school commissioner and promi- nent member of the German Baptist church. He was of German descent, a man of strong convictions and prompt in all engagements. His mother was of Scotch descent.


The son's youth was spent on the farm. From an early age he took an active interest in farm duties, and at the age of nineteen assumed full management of the estate. He was little inclined to study. In lines of reading he found most interest in "Ancient and modern history, with current literature, and especially, the 'New York Tribune.'" Mr. Funk attended the public schools a few months in the winter and later went to the State normal school at Millers- ville, Pennsylvania. His father died in 1875, and being unable to buy the farm on which he lived, he removed to Hagerstown, Mary- land, in the spring of 1876, and obtained employment in the insurance office of H. A. McComas and Company, which position gave him an insight into the rules of commerce and business. He attributes his success in life to his early home surroundings, "his carefully selected companions and an exceptional wife whose forethought and judgment were faultless." In 1881 he was given a clerkship in the office of the Hagerstown Steam Engine and Machine Company, and by dint of great perseverance was made manager of the local agencies. He was step by step promoted to the posts of assistant superintendent, and, finally, treasurer and general manager in the company. The latter position he held unti! 1897. In 1889 he helped to organize the Sec- ond National Bank of Hagerstown, of which he has been president since 1893. He is identified with the Republican party. In religious faith he affiliates with the Presbyterian church. He has always been fond of horses, and from boyhood has found his chief relaxation in riding and driving.


136


JACOB J. FUNK


Mr. Funk says: "The foundations of my limited success were the frugal habits and early teachings acquired in a country home. My parents were plain, substantial, progressive people, of strong charac- ter with liberal views, and temperate in all things. I have always adhered to their early teachings and owe whatever of success I have attained to the lessons of strict integrity, self reliance and perse- verence, patiently taught me by their precept and example. These qualities, in my judgment, will keep you free from harm and make you at least a respectable, law-abiding citizen."


He has been twice married. His first wife was Clara R. Zellar, to whom he was married December 10, 1873. She died in 18SS, leaving one child, Bertha Funk, who died at the age of twenty-six. On December 24, 1903, Mr. Funk was married to Frances M. Healey.


GEORG WILHELM GAIL, SR.


G AIL, GEORG WILHELM, SR., the founder of the firm of G. W. Gail and Ax, tobacco manufacturers of Baltimore, Maryland, was born in Giessen, Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany, on the 8th of July, 1828. His father, Georg Philip Gail, who married Miss Susanna Busch, was the foremost tobacco manufacturer of that town.


Georg Wilhelm Gail passed his early life in the small German town of Giessen. The influence of his mother was always especially strong upon his life, in the stimulus to effort, which she gave him and in the memory of her character. He was the first of his family to come to America. In 1847, at the age of nineteen, he left Germany for the United States and settled in Baltimore. For over half a cen- tury he was prominently connected with the business interests of that city. Before leaving Europe he had begun his business career as clerk in Amsterdam. His father, however, had determined to send him to America and had him educated accordingly. In 1850, within three years of his arrival, he founded the business which steadily grew and developed under the name of G. W. Gail and Ax. From this year until 1891, he was head of the firm, which then sold its bus- iness to the American Tobacco Company.


On the 12th of September, 1S54, Mr. Gail married Miss Mary Sophia Felgner, of Baltimore. They had five children, all of whom are living. Some years after the death of his first wife he married Miss Emma Landmann who, with one son, George Philip Gail, sur- vives him.


Mr. Gail throughout his life was a member of the Lutheran Church. He was also a member of the Germania Club of Baltimore, of the German Society of Maryland, of the Maryland Club, of the Baltimore Country Club, of the Maryland Country Club, of the Ger- man Historical Society, and of several other social and patriotic organizations.


On the 5th of October, 1905, while returning from a visit to Germany, Mr. Gail died at sea. He was buried in Greenmount ceme- tery, Baltimore.


A sketch of the life of George William Gail, Jr., the only son, by his first wife, is also given in this volume.


GEORGE WILLIAM GAIL, JR.


G AIL, GEORGE WILLIAM, JR., was born in Baltimore, on the 14th of October, 1864. His father, a sketch of whose life is to be found in this volume, was Georg Wilhelm Gail, who married Miss Mary Sophia Felgner.


The years of his early life were passed partly in the country and partly in the city of Baltimore. He attended both public and pri- vate schools, but as his health was not good it was decided that he should not attempt to take a college or university course. At the age of twenty, he took a position as clerk in a tobacco jobbing house, influenced to this choice by the fact that his father was already prom- inently identified with the manufacture of tobacco. In 18SS he became a member of the firm of G. W. Gail and Ax, of which his father was the founder. In 1891 the firm sold its business to the American Tobacco Company, and for the next nine years Mr. Gail held a posi- tion as manager for this company, resigning in 1900. On the 5th of October, 1903, he became president of the Board of Fire Commis- sioners and of the Board of Public Safety, as well as a member of the Electrical Commission of Baltimore. The fire department of the city always had for him, even in his earliest boyhood, an especial interest amounting almost to fascination, and it seemed to his friends a natural result of this early interest, that he was appointed to this office. He held this position during the great fire of February 7th and 8th, 1904; serving for four years, until the 7th of October, 1907. On the 5th of December, 1SSS, Mr. Gail married Miss Helen Christiana Bauch, of Richmond, Virginia. They have four children.


Mr. Gail is a Democrat. He is a member of the Germania Club of Baltimore, of the German Society of Baltimore, of the Maryland Country Club, of the Baltimore Country Club and of the Merchants Club.


His home is "Rose Hill," Pimlico Road, Baltimore.


she's


Yours truly


W'


EDWARD STANLEY GARY


G ARY, EDWARD STANLEY, of Baltimore, Maryland, presi- dent of the Merchants and Manufacturers Association of Baltimore, a member of the Emergency Committee after the great fire of 1904, and a member of the Maryland State Board of Education, was born in Alberton, Howard county, Maryland on the 26th of July, 1862. Hisfather, Honorable James A. Gary, Postmaster- General in President McKinley's Cabinet, was a cotton manufacturer. His family was of mingled English and Scotch-Irish descent and his ancestors for several generations have been, for the most part, residents of Maryland.


His boyhood was passed in part in the country, and part in the city of Baltimore. The influence of his mother, Mrs. Lavinia W. Gary, has been very strong throughout his life. He says: "I owe to my mother more than to all else such success as I have won in life. The example, and the strong living for a purpose, of my mother, was the source of my first strong impulse to strive for the prizes of life."


He attended the Friends Elementary School and the Friends High School of Baltimore; but without attempting to take a college course, he accepted a position in the cotton factory of his father at Alberton, in 1878, when he was but sixteen years old. His speedily acquired familiarity with every department of the business and his steadily increasing efficiency led to his election on February 3, 1896, as vice-president and general manager of the Gary Manufacturing Company. His election, in January, 1904, as president of the Mer- chants and Manufacturers Association of Baltimore is evidence of the esteem felt for him by his fellow citizens, who are the leading mer- chants and manufacturers of the city. After the terrible fire which wiped out so large a part of the business district of Baltimore, Mr. Gary was one of the prominent men who originated the emergency committee; and as chairman of one of its sub-committees, he did excellent work throughout those trying months in which Baltimore was winning the admiration of the world by the way in which the city, recovering from the effects of the fire, rebuilt entire districts, and reerected business houses and apartments.


146


EDWARD STANLEY GARY


Mr. Gary has always felt a strong interest in the schools of the state; and he effectively advocated compulsory primary education. It was especially his interest in this phase of educational work, which led to his appointment in 1901 as a member of the State Board of Education.


In his church relations Mr. Gary is identified with the Protestant Episcopal Church. He is a vestryman of St. Timothy's Protestant Episcopal Church of Baltimore and also of the Emmanuel Church.


On the 30th of September, 1885, Mr. Gary married Miss Mary Ragan Macgill, daughter of Dr. Charles G. W. Macgill, of Catonsville, Maryland. They have had four children, all of whom are living in 1907.


In politics Mr. Gary is an Independent Republican. His favor- ite form of amusement "is big game hunting and travel in out-of-the- way places." Mr. Gary is a member of the Maryland Club, of the University Club of Baltimore, of the Bachelors' Cotillon Club, of the Junior Cotillon Club, and of the Municipal Art Association, all of Baltimore.


To the younger citizens of the state he offers these suggestions for the attainment of true success in life: "Embrace the Christian religion, and live up to its standards since these are the highest ideals known to man. Have one fixed purpose in life and make all others subservient to it. Associate with men who are making a success of life, and who have the respect of the community."


..


faithfully y ours.


James Card. Gibbons .


150


JAMES CARDINAL GIBBONS


ing, August 16, 1868. Bishop Gibbons took charge of his vicariate November 1, 1868. The entire state with an area of 52,250 square miles had at the time three Roman Catholic churches ministered to by two priests; and the total Roman Catholic population scattered from the mountains in the West to the seaboard in the East was less than one thousand. Bishop Gibbons first opened a school which he personally conducted. He built six churches and instructed and ordained a number of priests. In order to prepare for a more thor- ough education of the people and especially to supply the growing want for teachers and priests, he induced the Benedictine order to establish a community in the vicariate; and the movement resulted in the erection of Mary Help Abbey at Belmont, Gaston county. He also built a school-house for whites and one for negroes at Wilming- ton; and placed the schools in charge of the Sisters of Mercy. The Sisters subsequently erected the Sacred Heart Convent at Belmont. Bishop Gibbons made the personal acquaintance of every adult Roman Catholic in the state, meeting them at their homes in all parts of the state and exercising a pastoral care over every household, neglecting none. Four years of this unceasing labor began to bear fruit, and on July 30, 1872, he was translated to the diocese of Rich- mond, Virginia, as successor to the Right Reverend John McGill who had died January 14, 1872. He was installed as bishop of Richmond by Archbishop Bayley, October 20, 1872. In Richmond he erected five churches, St. Peter's academy, which he placed in charge of the Xaverian Brothers, and St. Sophia's Home for Old People, which was cared for by the Little Sisters of the Poor. He also erected parochial schools in Petersburg and Portsmouth, Virginia; and St. Joseph Female Orphan Asylum in Richmond becoming over- crowded, he enlarged the building. In recognition of this work Archbishop Bayley, feeling the approaching end of his labors on earth to be near at hand, asked Leo IX. to make Bishop Gibbons his coadjutor with right of succession; and on May 20, 1877, he was nominated and on July 29, 1877, he was made titular bishop of `Jinopolis, with right of succession to the primatial See of Baltimore. By virtue of this nomination and the death of Archbishop Bayley, October 3, 1877, Bishop Gibbons became Archbishop of Baltimore at the age of forty-three years. He was in this way elevated from the bishopric of Richmond to the highest ecclesiastical dignity in the Roman Catholic church in the United States.


151


JAMES CARDINAL GIBBONS


He visited Rome in 1883 at the head of the delegation of Amer- ican prelates sent to represent the affairs of the church in the United States at the Vatican, and to outline the work to come before the third Plenary Council to meet at Baltimore in 1SS4. Pope Leo XIII. showed Archbishop Gibbons many favors; and among them appointed him to preside over the third Plenary Council.


When the third Plenary Council met, in 1884, the progress and development of the Roman Catholic church in the United States made necessary the enactment of new decrees, which as pre- siding officer he helped forward, and these acts and decrees were ap- proved by the ecclesiastical authorities. In acknowledgment of the approval of the action and course of Archbishop Gibbons, Leo XIII. created him cardinal, June 7, 1886, and he selected the twenty-fifth anniversary of his ordination as priest, June 30, 1886, as the date on which he would be invested with the insignia of the rank of cardinal. The occasion was one of impressive religious solemnity and an embassy from Leo XIII. brought the following message: "Present to Cardinal Gibbons our affectionate paternal benediction. We remember him with the most cordial esteem and believe we could not confer the hat upon a more worthy prelate." The Pope was repre- sented in the person of Archbishop Kenrick of St. Louis who bestowed the insignia of his office upon the newly-made cardinal; and he received the apostolic benediction at the hands of the Pope at the Vatican in Rome the next year and he was admitted to membership in the College of Cardinals, being the twenty-fifth in succession. While in Rome he interpreted to the Pope the democratic spirit of American catholicity in respect to the labor organizations in the United States and the actual relations existing between the employers and the employed. He was installed as pastor of his titular church, May 25, 1887, and was assigned to the Church of Santa Maria in Trastevere, a church of great antiquity on the Tiber. He laid the corner stone of the Catholic University of America in Washington, District of Columbia, May 24, 18SS; dedicated the Divinity Building November 13; 1889, and was the chancellor of the institution from its foundation. He was given an assistant in the person of Bishop Curtis formerly of Wilmington, Delaware, in 1896, at his own request and by reason of advancing age. In 1903 he went to Rome to take part in the election of a successor to Leo XIII., deceased. His simple and unostentatious kindliness which endeared him to the


.


152


JAMES CARDINAL GIBBONS


people of North Carolina, Virginia and the Archdiocese of Baltimore, did not depart, when high ecclesiastical honors came to him; he was the same friend and counsellor of the poor and the rich alike; and all who knew him, within and without the communion of the church of which he was primate in America, continued to respect and love him as a faithful friend and a wise adviser. His influence broadened the American branch of the Roman Catholic church and made known to the hierarchy of the old world the meaning of American freedom. He is the author of "Faith of our Fathers" (1876); "Our Christian Heritage" (1889); "The Ambassador of Christ" (1896).


-


BASIL LANNEAU GILDERSLEEVE


G ILDERSLEEVE, BASIL LANNEAU, professor of Greek at the Johns Hopkins University, was born at Charleston, South Carolina, on October 23, 1831. His parents were the Reverend Benjamin and Emma Louisa (Lanneau) Gildersleeve. Until he was nearly thirteen years of age, his father was his sole instruc- tor and gave him a thorough foundation in Latin and Greek. He was fitted for college by William E. Bailey, a severe drill master, and entered the College of Charleston; but in 1845 while he was a fresh- man, his father removed to Virginia, and the son left college. For a year, he acted as clerk and bookkeeper for his father. In December, 1846, he entered as a student Jefferson College, Pennsylvania, remain- ing but a few months. Entering the College of New Jersey at Prince- ton, as a sophomore, he was graduated with the degree of A.B. in 1849, fourth in a class of seventy-nine members. He received from Princeton the degree of A.M. in 1852. After graduation, he taught for a year at Dr. Manpin's school in Richmond, Virginia. The wish to profit by the best possible training in classical philology, led him to visit Europe, and he studied at Berlin, Göttingen and Bonn, receiving the degree of Ph.D. from the University of Göttingen in 1853. Returning to the United States he continued his classical studies, gave lessons, made translations, wrote review articles, and in 1856 he was made professor of Greek at the University of Virginia. He held that chair for twenty years. From 1861 to 1866 he was also professor of Latin at the university.


On September 18, 1866, he married Miss Elizabth Fisher Colston. They have two children, a son and a daughter.


During the Civil War, Professor Gildersleeve served in the Con- federate Army, and was severely wounded in 1864. In 1892, an article in the " Atlantic Monthly" from his pen, entitled the "Creed of the Old South," describes his own attitude of mind at this time, and expresses the thought and feeling of hundreds of ex-Confederates. In a paper entitled "Formative Influences," which he wrote for the "Forum," in 1891, Professor Gildersleeve spoke of himself as "a Southerner and


154


BASIL LANNEAU GILDERSLEEVE


thoroughly identified with the South. I have shared the fortunes of the land, in which my lot was cast, and, in my time, have shared its prejudices and its defiant attitude. A clearer vision and a more tolerant spirit have come with wider experience and mellower years, but I do not regret the influence of the earlier isolation. It prepared me for slow and scant recognition, which might have been slow and scant in any case; and it taught me to seek my solace in my work, and to do that work without regard to the praise of men." He con- tinues, in autobiographic vein: " An imaginative, prime-sautier boy, proud, shy, self-conscious, cursed with a poetic temperament and unblessed by poetic power, I was made to recognize the duty of work by the unyielding pressure of the creed in which I was brought up." "I have, through all my long carcer, as student and teacher, laid out my work and my time with great exactness, and have always considered punctuality in the fulfilment of every species of engage- ment, an indispensable virtue. This, too is a result of the instruction of my father. If one day it shall be said of me that I was not sloth- ful in business, fervent in spirit, let nature be credited with the fervor; the diligence is due to the early domination of a creed which itself is dominated by the 'stern daughter of the voice of God.'"


In 1867, Professor Gildersleeve issued the well-known Latin grammar which bears his name. This was followed by a series of other text-books on the Latin language; embracing a primer, a reader, a school grammar, a book of Latin composition, etc. In 1875, he published an annotated edition of Persius.


A year later, in 1876, Professor Gildersleeve came to Baltimore, at the organization of the Johns Hopkins University, to take the pro- fessorship of Greek in the new university-a chair which he has filled with distinction and which he still holds. At Baltimore, he finished his edition of Justin Martyr, published in 1877, and prepared his edition of the "Odes of Pindar," published in 1885, and a volume of "Essays and Studies," which appeared in 1890. His work on the syntax of classical Greek was issued in 1900; and in its preparation he was assisted by Professor C. W. E. Miller.


.


In 1SSO, Professor Gildersleeve founded the " American Journal of Philology," which he continues to edit. His influence on American scholarship has been very great, not only from his published works but also through the number of graduate students who have come under his instruction during the past thirty years at Johns Hopkins


155


BASIL LANNEAU GILDERSLEEVE


University, have gone out to teach in colleges and universities in all parts of the United States.


Honors have been heaped on him. William and Mary College gave him the degree of LL.D., in 1869, and the same degree was con- ferred on him by Harvard University in 1896, by Yale University in 1901, and by the University of Chicago in the same year. The University of the South honored him with the degree of D.C.L. in 1884, and Princeton with that of L.H.D. in 1899.


In his church relations he is a Presbyterian. Professor Gilder- sleeve was one of the founders of the University Club of Baltimore, of which he was president from its organization in 1881 until 1904. He is an honorary member of the Cambridge (England) Philological Society; of the Philological Syllogos of Constantinople; of the Arch- aeological Society of Athens; and of the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies.




Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.