USA > New Jersey > Scannell's New Jersey first citizens : biographies and portraits of the notable living men and women of New Jersey with informing glimpses into the state's history and affairs, 1917-1918, Vol I > Part 1
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Gc 974.9 Sca6 v.1 1917/18 1349202
MI. L.
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
J L
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02247 7308
3.05.66
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SCANNELL'S
NEW JERSEY'S FIRST CITIZENS
Biographies and Portraits of the Notable Living Men and Women of New Jersey with informing glimpses into the State's
History and Affairs
Henry Sigortam B-YOCK CONEALO
AND
(Vol. I.)
JAN 2 4 1941
Editor-in-Chief, William E. Sackett
Revised and Reissued Biennially
(Next issue January, 1919)
J. J. SCANNELL - Editor and Publisher - Paterson, N. J.
CA
SOC
2 # 5
1917-1918
.
Copyright, 1917,
J. J. Scannell, Paterson, N. J.
1343202
Goodspeed 4.00 1-21-66 No. 5678- ArmE
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"New Jersey's First Citizens" will be revised and reissued biennially in January. The next edition will be for the years 1919-1920 (Vol. II) and will be published in January, 1919.
1
"History is the essence of innumerable biographies."
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A FOREWORD BY THE PUBLISHER.
These pages present an authoritative list of The Firsts, in their several lines of activity, among the ranking people of New Jersey. It is the first attempt ever made to give the State this something she has long needed. Enterprising sons have provided other states that approach New Jersey in dignity, wealth and importance, with their separate rolls of honor; it is high time New Jersey were provided with hers. The State owes it to her- self to pause to rear her Hall of Fame to those among her people who, in the sum of their endeavors, are contributing so much to her aggrandize- ment ; those who are carrying her standards so far aloft are equally en- titled to the recognition. NEW JERSEY'S FIRST CITIZENS comes to fill the void in the literature of the state.
A work of this kind must needs explore all the fields of decent effort, be cosmopolitan in its reach and endlessly variegated in its topics. It must be something quite unlike a social register, nor stop to take account of names that are never found outside of check books. Social distinc- tion and riches have come to some as the perquisite of their greatness in the loftier paths of endeavor; but society and wealth are not the glory of the citizenship here depicted. Neither by itself could command a line of recognition in these pages. Achievement alone has been the test of eligibili- ty for admission here. NEW JERSEY'S FIRST CITIZENS is dedicated to the gifted men and women who have forged their way to the front in do- ing things that make for honor, welfare and progress-who have helped to make of New Jersey what she is and of her citizenship what it is-the leaders, in their several specialties, among the useful people of the common- wealth.
And I am surprised to know how many of these make their homes among us. This work was undertaken, of course, with a knowledge of the State that enabled me to sense the splendor of its citizenship; but I did not realize how splendid it is till I was deep in the details of this enter- prise. The pages of a work three times the size of this would scarcely make possible the tribute that is due to all who have earned it. The space limitations that confine me to so few where there are so many, is a matter of sincere regret. A system of condensation in the future periodical issues
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viii Foreword
of the work-for it is planned to renew this book to date at intervals of about two years-will doubtless make room hereafter for the homage the world pays to the usefulness of the omitted.
Sketches of some of the greatest in the world who lustre the State with their residence will be found between these covers. But one is not to look here for only the names familiar in the common places. The prepara- tion of this book has brought to my mind with new force that it is not al- ways the man with name most often seen in print who counts for most in the economy of life. The real forces are not always the showy ones ; they are often the hidden ones. The modest worker in the Committee room, more than the idol of the galleries, gives shape and color to the legislation of state. and nation. Prize fighter Sullivan, stepping into the presence of a multitude, would be acclaimed by thousands of throats; Woodrow Wilson, appearing before them before he became President of the United States, would have required an introduction by the Chairman. But the vitalizing and fruitful and elevating force in the community is the University Presi- dent whom so few would recognize. Some of power speak only in their deeds-their work alone is their eulogy ; and the pages of NEW JERSEY'S FIRST CITIZENS is the revelation of an efficient citizenship in New Jersey that, if it has not always cared to mount to the housetops, yet goes on, in its own unpretentious way, helping to leaven the community to proud and ever prouder heights.
The labor of assembling this royal throng in the empire of thought and action and progress has been one of equal delicacy and difficulty. The ac- quaintance, wide and varied and sympathetic, it presupposes with the best citizenship of the state must needs be reinforced by the views of thousands of citizens of known position and discretion whose information and advice, and corroboration or correction, I have invoked to help me read aright the names written by the Hand of Achievement on the scroll of New Jersey's Foremosts. I owe large obligations to these discerning men and women whom I have so advantageously consulted. for their illuminating and guid- ing assistance.
With the roll thus revealed to me, I found new embarrassments, ap- parently insuperable at the start, that, happily, grew less serious as my work progressed and as those whom I was bound to interest came to a fuller realization of the matter. One of the most obstructive of the handicaps was the very proper prejudice all hold against the biographical publications, de- voted to every Mr. Nobody willing to pay his bit for cheap glory, that swarm the library shelves. One suffers a distinct loss of rank and prestige in allowing himself to be mentioned in these prints that only belittle the big and cannot possibly magnify the small; and the Quality, whose names
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Foreword
are often sought only to give a false halo to mediocrity, scent danger as often as a new biographical venture comes to their notice.
Everyone in the distinguished throng noticed in these pages will recall the missionary work I had to do with each to overcome the fear that this work might be of that class. That I found the idea prevalent everywhere among them made it extremely difficult to arouse them to a full sense of the exclusiveness and prestige of the company I proposed to group them with. In some of those who should have been included, I have not yet been able to quicken the realizing and appreciating sense; and I have been un- happily obliged to omit notice of them because of their failure to go to the trouble of aiding me with material for it.
That may-and probably does-account in large measure, too, for the differences in the sizes of the sketches and for the absence of some por- traits that should have been presented. For the rest, some great lives, de- voted to thought and study and research, are so uneventful as to demand little space. Modesty that prompts occasional others to hide their light under bushel baskets may account for the slimness of other notices. But the same freedom of space and portrait has been extended to all alike. That is manifest in the only feature for which I could prescribe the space -there is no distinction in the portraiture; the faces in the work are all of the same size and style. President Wilson has no advantage there over anyone else. I have played no favorites.
Those who took the trouble to see in this publication one to which merit was made the only price of admission, have felt it their duty to re- . spond with needed material. Realizing the public need of a work standard- izing the citizenship of the state and sharing the public spirit that has prompted me to provide it, they are all cheerfully extending to me the co- operation needed to bring it to success and have aided to make their sketches as full as they will be found. So it is that I am enabled to make the people of New Jersey the better acquainted with the 484 Foremosts among them whom all should know-and be honored, too. in the knowing. During the year I have been engaged in its production, death has taken the sixteen others who would have rounded out the list to the originally planned 500 limit. They had all interested themselves in what was to be said about them here. There were some of great eminence among them, and I suffered a sense of genuine sorrow when I was called upon to file their records away, unused.
Indeed, I have hailed the careful attention which many of the greatest have given to the details of their several notices-the scrupulousness with which they have scrutinized and mended the preliminary proofs I submitted to them, eliminating what they thought inconsequential and adding notes
x Foreword
of larger import-often, indeed, hastening to wire or phone to advise me of their latest distinction, so that their records here might be brought to date -as an exceptionally flattering expression of their sense of the dignity and authority and importance of this work. That every portrait presented here has been prepared from an original photograph is as gratefully symptomatic of the wideness and universality of this splendid and discriminating sense of appreciation. The few who have given less careful attention to the mat- ter (some probably because they feared that after all this was to be of the same old scorned-even feared-kind) doubtless find now, in the smaller notice they have forced me to give to them, occasion to regret their reluc- tance to be more helpful.
These sketches are more, too, than mere biographies. History is but the essence of innumerable biographies. The state is a composite picture of its citizenship. The story of New Jersey's rise to her pre-eminence among the commonwealths of the land is written in the life records of these sons and daughters of hers. They abound with information as to her past and present. Informing glimpses of her history, of her great sons gone before, her public, charitable, educational and ecclesiastical institutions and end- less miscellaneous information about her people and her localities, livening many of the sketches, make of the book a State Encyclopedia of exceptional interest and value. So many interesting tid-bits of information are scat- tered through its pages that I have had prepared-and, in the closing pages of the volume, present-a ready-reference Topical Index that of itself re- veals a versatility in our citizenship no commonwealth in this great country of ours can surpass.
I shall not pretend that my work, after all, is faultless. I may have erred sometimes in weighing up man against man and record against record. But I have combed all the fields of endeavor in the commonwealth in a conscientious effort to find The Firsts and only The Firsts in each. If there are shortcomings, I still find consolation in the conviction that I am giving to the state of New Jersey the most splendid Roll of Honor her citizenship affords and that no one of the five hundred bidden to the feast will regret having been made part of the company to which I have invited them.
In the preparation of the work I have departed very conspicuously from other beaten tracks. It's style, typographical and mechanical, is unique-less so, of course, than its general scheme, but still sufficiently so to probably become the model of all future publications of the character. So that there can be no opportunity for criticism on the point of precedence in the arrangement of the sketches, I am presenting them in alphabetical rotation ; but I have not found it necessary to follow the stereotyped rule of printing the names hind-end foremost. They are as easily found either
xi
Foreword
way, and it has seemed to me becoming to give them in the book just as they are written by those who have carried them to the distinction that wins place for them here. The caption, too, is an innovation that segre- gates all the personal and family details that otherwise could, only awk- wardly, be woven into the body of the sketch. Above all, the rigid exclu- sion from the text of adjectives of laudation will command universal atten- tion and approval. Words of praise give place in the record to deeds of praise, and, so, make the presentations all the more forceful, impressive and attractive.
J. J. Scannell.
CONTENTS.
Biographies
1
Topical Index 554
Geographical Index
559
ERNEST R. ACKERMAN - Plainfield. - Manufacturer. Born in New York City, June 17, 1863; son of J. Hervey Ackerman and Ellen (Morgan ) Ackerman ; married at Cumberland, Mary- land, on February 11, 1892, to Mora L., daughter of William E. Weber.
Ernest R. Ackerman was for six years the Senator from Union Coun- tv. The passage of the first Civil Service law enacted in New Jersey was largely due to his efforts ; it is known as the Ackerman Civil Service Law. He has also been a delegate to two of the Republican National Conven- tions ; and, as one of the Presidential Electors in 1896, helped to cast the vote of New Jersey for William McKinley of Ohio for President of the
United States, and Garret A. Ho- bart of New Jersey for Vice- President.
Though Senator Ackerman has made twenty trips abroad and been twice around the world, he has been, as a resident of Plain- field for the greater portion of his life, deep in the life of his home community, prominent in church movements and a factor in the other directions that make for its substantial welfare. He is also an ardent Philatelist, hav- ing won many medals in foreign countries for his stamp collec- tions.
Senator Ackerman's ancestors were active in the Revolutionary War. Phillip Markely, his great- great-grandfather was appointed in 1777 a Commissioner to collect supplies for the American Army ; and John Markely his great-grandfather served in the Pennsylvania Militia in 1781. His father, J. Hervey Acker- man, was President of the Common Council of the City of Plainfield and at one time City Judge.
Mr. Ackerman was educated in the Plainfield Public schools, graduat- ing from the High School with the class of 1889. His father's interest in public affairs pointed his eyes also in that direction ; and at twenty-eight he became a member of the Plainfield Common Council serving for the years 1891 and 1892. In 1905 he was elected to the State Senate and re- elected in 1908. With Senators Hutchinson of Mercer and Price of Sus- sex, he constituted a special committee to investigate the subject of capital punishment. The committee made a study of conditions abroad and in this country, and rendered an illuminating report. In the session of 1910 he served as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Judiciary and on that of Finance. In 1911 he was elected President of the Senate; and during Governor Wilson's absence in the West he served as Acting Governor of
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Adams
New Jersey. At the present time he is a member of the New Jersey State Board of Education, appointed to succeed Joseph S. Frelinghuysen upon the latter's election to the United States Senate in 1916.
Mr. Ackerman was Secretary of the New Jersey Electors in 1897. He was a delegate to the Republican National Convention held in Chicago in June, 1908, and to that of 1916. In the National Convention of 1908 he was New Jersey's representative on the committee to notify James S. Sherman of his nomination for Vice-President of the United States. He has been Chairman of the Republican City Executive Committee of Plainfield and a delegate to several Republican City and County Conventions.
Senator Ackerman is President of the Lawrence Portland Cement Company, a director of the Plainfield Trust Company and of the Central Railroad Company of New Jersey, a Vice-President of the New Jersey State Chamber of Commerce, a Trustee of Rutgers College, a member of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America, a director of the Young Men's Christian Association and a member of the Boys Scout Coun- cil. He is also an Associate of the American Society of Civil Engineers and member of the Engineers Club of New York. He belongs to the Union League Club and the India House of New York City, and is a member of the Chamber of Commerce of New York, the Merchants Association of New York (serving on the Committees on Commercial Law and City Traffic), and the Mayors Defence Committee of the City of New York. He is also one of the Honorary Trustees of the Junior Division of the Military Train- ing Association of New Jersey, and a member of the Committee on Evan- gelism of the Federated Council of the Churches of Christ in America.
EDWARD DEAN ADAMS-Rumson .- Engineer-Financier. Born in Boston, Mass., April 9, 1846 ; son of Adoniram Judson and Har- riet Lincoln (Norton) Adams ; married October, 1872, to Frances Amelia Gutterson, of Boston.
Children : Ruth ; Ernest Kempton (deceased 1904) leaving Pier- pont and Kempton.
Edward Dean Adams, one of the Captains of Industry recognized in Wall Street as a force in the financial railroad and industrial world, is also deeply interested in the art and scientific life of New York City. He is the Chairman of the Finance Committee, a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Chairman of the Kahn Foundation for the Foreign Travel of American Teachers; and has been decorated (1909) with the Royal Order of the Crown of Prussia. In his business relations he reor- ganized the Northern Pacific Railroad (1893). the West Shore Railroad (1886), and had a large hand in the rehabilitation of the Central Railroad of New Jersey (1887). He also was in charge of the reorganization of the American Cotton Oil Company in 1890, and was Chairman of its Board of Directors until 1896. From 1893 until the outbreak of the World War in 1914, he was the American Representative of the Deutsche Bank of Berlin.
Mr. Adams attended the Chauney Hall School in Boston, and entered Norwich University at Northfield, Vermont. in 1861. receiving the B. S.
Adams
degree in 1864, M. S. 1897, LL. D. 1906, and M. A. 1908. He served from 1904 to 1916 as a trustee of the University. While engaged as a book- keeper by T. J. Lee & Hill, stock brokers of Boston, he took a course with the Class of 1869 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From 1870 to 1878 he was a partner in the Boston banking firm of Richardson, Hill & Company. In 1878 he became a partner in the New York banking firm of Winslow, Lanier & Company, and continued in that relation until 1893, when he became American Representative of the Deutsche Bank.
Mr. Adams now is a director of the American Cotton Oil Company, Brevard Tannin Company, Central & South American Telegraph Com- pany, Clinchfield Coal Corporation, Hammond Typewriter Company, Inter- type Corporation, Mohawk Hydro-Electric Company, New Jersey General Security Company, New York and Long Branch Railroad Company, Niagara Development Company, Niagara Falls Power Company, Niagara Junction Railway Company, and Western Maryland Railway Company.
He is Senior Warden and Trustee of the Endowment Fund of St. George's Episcopal Church, Rumson, and a Trustee of the Monmouth Coun- ty Historical Association. He is President of the Rumson Country Club, Rumson Improvement Company, and Rumson Park, and a member of numerous clubs and societies, particularly for the cultivation of social life and the promotion of science, art and culture.
Mr. Adam's country home at Rumson Hills is known as "Rohallion". His New York City home is at 455 Madison Avenue ; his business office, at 71 Broadway, New York City.
FREDERIC ADAMS-Orange, (473 Main St. ) -- Jurist. Born at Amherst, New Hampshire, on October 9th, 1840 ; son of Frederic Augustus and Mary Jane (Means) Adams ; married on October 27th, 1870, at Putnam, Ohio, to Ella, daughter of John S. and Martha (Messer) King; second marriage at Norfolk, Virginia, July 20th, 1904, to Ella King, daughter of Morris K. King and Julia (Goddard) King.
Children : Constance, born in East Orange, April 27th, 1873, wife of Cecil B. De Mille, of Hollywood, California ; John King Adams, born in East Orange, January 23rd, 1878, physician, of Orange; Ellis Adams, born in East Orange, March 4th, 1880, real estate broker in New York City, residing in West Orange, married on December 4th. 1905, to Margaret, daughter of Henry A. Potter of East Orange: Rebecca Appleton Adams, born at East Orange, October 21st, 1881. Librarian ; Frederic Atherton Adams, born at East Orange, December 11th, 1889, bond broker with International Trust Company of Denver, Colorado, married at Colo- rado Springs, Colorado, September 16th, 1915, to Miriam Storrs Wash- burn ; Nancy Adams, child of second marriage, born at Orange, December 17, 1905.
Frederic Adams has sat in the Essex County Circuit Court for four- teen years; and his wide experience on the Bench gives the stamp of
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Adams
authority to his decisions. His father finished his education in 1833 at Dartmouth College, made famous among the seminaries of learning, in the career of its greatest Alumnus, Daniel Webster, and was a Congre- gational clergyman and teacher. Judge Adams' parents lived in Amherst, N. H., for only three months after his birth; and he spent the first seven years of his life in Byfield, Mass., where his father was principal of Dum- mer Academy. In 1847 the fam- ily came to New Jersey and settled in Orange. Judge Adams spent two years at Phillips Acad- emy, Andover, Mass. Two years subsequently, in 1858, he was ad- mitted to Yale College and grad- uated from there with the A. B. degree in 1862. He has also Yale degrees of A. M. and LL. D.
Having decided to devote him- self to the practice of the law, Mr. Adams took a course at the Harvard Law school, and then applied for admission to the New York Bar. His home-state had larger attractions for him however; and, admitted to the New Jersey Bar as an attorney in 1868 and as a counsel- lor in 1873, he devoted himself to the practice of his profession chiefly in New Jersey. He built up a large chancery practice and was frequently called upon to act as Special and Advisory Master. His only public posi- tion during these times, was as Clerk of the Township of East Orange and later as Town Counsel.
In the early winter of 1897 Governor Griggs transferred Judge Barca- low from the Bench of the Court of Errors and Appeals to the chair of the Presiding Judge of the Passaic County Courts, and tendered the vacant seat on the Court of Errors Bench to Mr. Adams. The Senate confirmed the nomination, and Judge Adams sat as a member of that Court till Governor Murphy in 1903 named him as a Circuit Court Judge. At the expiration of his term in 1910 Governor Fort re-appointed him for the term of seven years, expiring in 1917, re-appointed 1917 by Gov. Edge for another term of seven years. His Circuit is in Essex County. In politics Judge Adams is a republican.
T. ALBEUS ADAMS - Montclair, (24 Prospect Terrace. )- Merchant and Financier. Born in Troupsburg, Steuben County, N. Y., on September 5, 1865 ; son of Thomas Quincy and Catharine
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Adams
Morton Adams: married in New York City in 1896, to Kath- leen V. Wallace, danghter of John F. and Catherine Wallace.
Children : Gladys Marie Adams, Grace Virginia Adams, T. Albens Adams, Jr., John Quincy Adams.
T. Albeus Adams has recently been conspicuons in the revival of the movement for the construction of the vehicular tunnels under the Hudson River for the purpose of connecting the New York and New Jersey high- way systems. He has for several years devoted much attention to the development of the New York Harbor and also to wholesale market terminals. He has been active in New Jersey as a mem- ber and trustee of the New Jer- sey State Chamber of Commerce. Active and influential in politics. he is Chairman of the Essex County Democratic Committee and was selected as a candidate for Presidential Elector in 1916.
Mr. Adams' father was an ex- tensive farmer and breeder of fine horses. Mr. Adams was trained in public and private schools in New York State. Be- fore beginning his business car- eer he taught school and then studied law. He entered the em- ploy of one of the large Chica- go packing companies and was appointed General Manager for New York and vicinity, a position which he held for about ten years. Mr. Adams, with three of his friends, formed the New York Credit Men's Association. This Association, largely through his personal efforts. was incorporated as the National Credit Men's Association.
In 1898, associated with his brother, Robert A. Adams, he incorporated Adams Bros. Co., and opened, in the principal cities in the Eastern States. wholesale distributing depots for dressed beef, provisions and poultry. This enterprise proved very profitable and in 1905 was purchased by Swift & Armour. During this period Mr. Adams bought a controlling in- terest in a New York City bank, and, under his administration as president. its deposits were increased fourfold. He sold his banking interest in 1906.
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