USA > New Jersey > Essex County > Newark > Biographical and genealogical history of the city of Newark and Essex County, New Jersey, V. 1 > Part 14
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uary II, 1898, he was elected clerk of the house of assembly of the one hundred and twenty-second legislature.
On November 24, 1881, Mr. Jones was united in marriage to Miss Lottie Colton, daughter of James D. Colton, and they be- came the parents of the following children : Verra L., Colton D. and Audry L.
In his social relations Mr. Jones is a member of Franklin Lodge No. 10, F. & A. M .; Clinton Lodge, Independent Order of Odd Fellows; Washington Encampment of Odd Fellows; and Irvington Council, Junior Order of American Mechanics. He is an active participant in the workings of all these bodies, in which he has attained a high degree of popularity.
JOHN F. DRYDEN.
John Fairfield Dryden, president of the Prudential Insurance Company of America, was born August 7, 1839, in Temple Mills, near Farmington, Maine. The family of Dryden is one of antiquity, and represents, both in England and Wales, a stock an- cient and honorable. The parents of Mr. Dryden, John Dryden of Massachusetts, and Elizabeth Butterfield Jennings, his wife, who was a native of Maine, were people of culture and standing. In early life their son manifested taste and inclination for study and was by his father given the best of advantages for preparatory education and, later, entered Yale Col- lege. Before the completion of his col- legiate course, however, ill health obliged him to abandon his greatest desire, en- trance to the legal profession, for which he had already given indications of fitness, and he returned to his home under orders from his physicians, that by rest and bodily
exercise he might, if possible, recover the health so greatly impaired by over-applica- tion to study.
Again with his family, Mr. Dryden for a time obeyed his physicians and, leav- ing his books, allowed the tender ministra- tions of his parents to assist in every pos- sible way in his return to health and strength. Soon, however, he began anew to devote himself to reading and study, and particularly to mathematical investiga- tion; in connection with which latter branch he became almost immediately greatly in- terested in the subject of insurance, and, as was his wont with anything that par- ticularly excited his interest, he went into the subject thoroughly. He obtained all the literature that was to be had bearing upon it; "devoured," as he says himself, every book that he could get on the subject. Thus was laid the foundation of his life work. From theory he passed into prac- tice and became a life-insurance operator, with the view of mastering the practical side of the science,-for that is really what life insurance is.
About the time of the close of the war of the Rebellion of 1861-5, a report made by the late Elizur Wright, then insurance commissioner of Massachusetts, was made to the legislature of that state. It embodied a reference to industrial insurance as prac- ticed in England, and remarked that be- cause such a system was operated success- fully in Great Britain was no reason neces- sarily why a similar system should succeed in this country. Mr. Wright was rather in- clined to think it would not, owing to the differences existing between England and America, their peoples, habits, customs, in- stitutions, etc. It required courage in those days to differ with Mr. Wright upon mat-
Engby Williams New York
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ters of this sort. Mr. Dryden had this cour- age. He differed radically from the Mas- sachusetts official on the point in question. As he had done with life insurance general- ly, so he did with this industrial plan, wholly new to America. He secured all the print- ed matter obtainable on the subject; went into the whole history of friendly societies, out of which was finally evolved the indus- trial system, and ended by becoming thor- oughly convinced that a plan could be ar- ranged whereby a system based on the same fundamental principles could be ap- plied and successfully operated in this coun- try. He set himself the task to arrange such a plan. He devoted several years to the work, and fixing upon Newark, New Jersey, then as now a great industrial center, started, in 1873, to put his plan to a practical test. Along with several leading citizens of Newark, whom he had interested in his project, he secured the passage by the New Jersey legislature of an act authorizing him and others to form and operate such a com- pany as his plan called for. A society was formed, called the "Widows' and Orphans' Friendly Society," but during the two years of its existence all that was done by it was in the nature of an experiment and prepara- tion for the real work that was to be done by the permanently organized institution, the Prudential Insurance Company of America. This company was established on October 13, 1875. What followed immedi- ately after this is thus narrated in a work published in Chicago in 1896, and called the Underwriter :
"Its office staff consisted of three per- sons. Its whole outfit was limited in cost to two hundred dollars. The life and soul of the institution was John F.
Dryden. All his working hours were devoted to it, and it was the sub- ject of dreams by night. He saw then the great success of the future, but was alive to the fact that it could only be realized by tireless activity, unflagging industry and the greatest energy. And all he possessed of these qualities he threw into the venture. Eight o'clock in the morning always saw him at his desk. ' Often it was midnight before he ceased work. His plans pros- pered. It was demonstrated that the new system could be successfully operated in this country. The field of operations must be enlarged, however,-must be extended, so that instead of Newark and the adja- cent towns being the boundaries, the whole United States must be embraced.
"But before taking positive steps in this direction, Mr. Dryden went to England to learn there all that was to be learned about the practical workings of industrial insur- ance. In five weeks from the time he left Newark he was back again. He brought with him a great mass of valuable informa- tion, statistical guides, blanks, forms and the like, all of which proved of enormous service to Mr. Dryden and his associates. Besides, it determined them to go ahead and extend their lines. They did so. They raised one hundred thousand dollars and deposited it with the New Jersey State In- surance Department. This authorized them to do business all over the Union. This was in the early part of 1879."
From thence forward the history of the Prudential has been a never-ceasing but ever-increasing record of progress and pros- perity. Its advances have been by leaps and bounds. The Newark acorn planted in 1875, under conditions that made prudence and economy of the closest kind prerequi-
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sites of primary management, and that seemed to all but the little band of pioneers engaged in the work to be full of insur- mountable difficulties and all sorts of dis- couragements, has, from the first, grown with steady growth, and has reached pro- portions that now place it in the front rank of the greatest institutions of the kind in the world.
In summing up the character and extent of Mr. Dryden's life work, it is not enough to give him his share in the creation of the Prudential Insurance Company of America. To him is also to be justly ascribed the honor of being the chief pioneer of the in- dustrial form of insurance in America, a sys- tem which was wholly unknown to the masses of this country in 1875, but which is now operated by eleven companies, large and small, whose combined force of field and office employes number fully thirty thousand persons; whose policy-holders ag- gregate about eight million, whose total amount of insurance in force reaches nearly a billion of dollars, and whose total pay- ments to policy-holders foot up not far from one hundred million dollars. Another highly significant and suggestive fact, re- sultant from the introduction in this coun- try of the industrial system is this: The number of persons insured in America has been increased from about two per cent. of the population in 1875 to about fifteen per cent. in 1897.,
While the establishment and maintenance of this great company's work demands the incessant care and watchfulness of his directing eye and hand, Mr. Dryden has found time and place to give attention to other interests than those of the Prudential alone. His name appears as vice-president of the Fidelity Title and Deposit Company,
and he is an active and useful director in other financial institutions.
The building occupied by the Prudential is one of the finest edifices in the world. The company itself stands in the front rank of the great financial institutions of the world, and of its conditions and benefits to policy-holders, it is said, "they constitute an instrument which is undoubtedly the most comprehensive and liberal policy is- sued."
WILLIAM M. TAYLOR
is prominently connected with the busi- ness, political and social life of Montclair and possesses those qualities of genuine worth which everywhere command respect. Honorable in all trade transactions, thor- oughly reliable in the discharge of public duties and courteous and kindly in social circles, he is one of the popular and valued citizens of the county, and the circle of his friends is ever widening.
Mr. Taylor, who represents one of the old families of Essex county, was born in West Bloomfield, now Montclair, May 3, 1839, being a son of Samuel and Lydia (Osborn) Taylor, also natives of Bloom- field. The ancestors of the Taylor family came from England and took up their resi- dence in New England when that district was the property of Great Britain. The ancestral history, however, is one of long and close connection with Essex county. The grandfather, David Taylor, was born in this county and followed the occupation of farming. He took a very prominent part in church work and aided in building the old Presbyterian church in Bloomfield, which has withstood the storms of more than a century. He served as deacon in
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that church for many years and was one of its most consistent and worthy members. The maternal grandfather of our subject was John H. Osborn, a native of Essex county, descended from a member of the New England colony that settled in this county at a very early period in its develop- ment. He married Miss Rhoda Baldwin, of Bloomfield, New Jersey.
Samuel Taylor, the father of our subject, was a carpenter and builder and erected many of the dwellings in Bloomfield and vicinity. He died in his native city after a useful and honorable career, at the age of eighty-two years.
William M. Taylor was reared in the county of his nativity and attended the public schools in Bloomfield and Mont- clair, pursuing a high-school course. On leaving the schoolroom he began learning the carpenter's trade under the direction of John C. Collins, of Montclair, and on the completion of his term of apprenticeship he worked as a journeyman for two years. He then began contracting and building on his own account and formed a partner- ship with his brother, Warren S. Taylor, under the firm name of Taylor Brothers, dealers in lumber and masons' materials. After a time they established the first plan- ing mill in Montclair, which they continued to operate in connection with their other business for several years, meeting with good success in their undertakings. In the meantime they had also added a coal and wood yard to their other interests and about 1878 disposed of their other enter- prises, continuing only the ownership of the coal and wood yard. In 1886 Mr. Taylor, of this review, embarked in the real-estate business, his office being now lo- cated in the Crawford building, near the
depot of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad. In both departments of his business he is meeting with a fair de- gree of success, by reason of his close at- tention, his enterprise and capable manage- ment.
In his political views Mr. Taylor is an ardent Republican, and he stanchly advo- cates the principles promulgated by that party. In 1894 he was elected assessor of Montclair, and was re-elected in 1896 for a term of three years, so that he is now the incumbent. He is fair, faithful and prompt in the execution of his official duties and has the confidence of people of all parties.
In 1866 Mr. Taylor was united in mar- riage to Miss Adelia Gilbert, of Bloomfield, New Jersey, a daughter of Charles and Elizabeth Gilbert. In 1892 he erected his fine residence on Mountain avenue. It is built in a beautiful style of architecture, supplied with all modern improvements, and has most tasteful and decorative sur- roundings, while the charm of its hospital- ity is enjoyed by many friends.
WILLIAM RAYMOND WEEKS.
Conspicuously identified with the literary and legal interests of Essex county, and one whose powerful mentality and facile pen have placed foremost among the noted citizens of New Jersey, it is with particular propriety that William R. Weeks is accord- ed a place in this compilation, and a resume of his career will no doubt be perused with interest by his many friends as well as the general public.
William Raymond Weeks was born on the 4th of August, 1848, the son of John Randel and Mary Frances (Adriance) Weeks, and received his educational disci-
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pline in the public grammar and high schools of Newark, completing his studies in the Newark Academy, at which he was graduated in 1865. He is now one of the trustees of that institution, is the historian of the Newark Academy alumni and was president at their centennial in 1892. Dur- ing the civil war he was a member of the New Jersey militia and of the Union League. Subsequently he engaged in read- ing law with his father, John Randel Weeks; was admitted to the New Jersey bar as an attorney-at-law in November, 1870, and as a counsellor-at-law in Febru- ary, 1876, and was granted permission to practice before the New York bar in March, 1895, and that of West Virginia in 1897.
In 1883 Mr. Weeks organized a volun- teer fire department at Bloomfield, New Jersey, serving the following year as a mem- ber of the legislative committee of the New Jersey State Firemen's Association, of which he became the first state counsel, in 1884, and held that office for four years, during which time he drafted and remod- eled the state fire laws. Later he compiled and published a compendium of these laws, with a series of forms. He is an expert in real-estate, probate, corporation and min- ing laws; has under his management large and important estates and is an organizer of business and mining corporations. He was one of the counsel employed in defend- ing Joseph A. Blair, of Montclair, New Jer- sey, the paying teller of the Mechanics' National Bank, in Wall street, New York, who was tried and acquitted in 1879, charged with the murder of his coachman, John Armstrong.
Mr. Weeks has been a member of the American Bar Association since 1879, and he is a member of the Association of the
Bar of New York; the Lawyers' Club, the Twilight Club, the Dunlap Society, the American Numismatic and Archaeological Society, of New York; the American His- torical Association, the New Jersey His- torical Society, the New Jersey Sons of the American Revolution, the New Jersey and New York Societies of the Founders and Patriots of America, and the Revolutionary Memorial Society of New Jersey.
For several years Mr. Weeks was the historiographer of the American Numis- matic and Archeological Society, of New York, and published a history of the same. He is the author of a history of the Newark Academy, and has in preparation a Bibli- ography of New Jersey, a History of the Colonial Schools and School Masters of New Jersey, a monograph on the Jerseys in America-their Nomenclature and Car- tography prior to 1700, and a history of the First Endowment of the College of New Jersey, now known as Princeton Univer- sity. At a meeting, held April 21, 1897, of the New Jersey Society of the Order of the Founders and Patriots of America, he read a paper on New Jersey's Influence upon her Surroundings, and is preparing a paper on The Manhattans, showing that the name was not first applied to New York.
The marriage of Mr. Weeks was solem- nized on the 4th of August, 1869, when he was united to Miss Irene Le Massena, who was born March 23, 1851, at Newark, a daughter of Andrew and Margaret Will- iams (Whitlock) Le Massena, and a great- granddaughter of Andre Massena, Prince of Essling, one of Napoleon's marshals. She is also descended from the Williams and Whitlocks of New Brunswick, and the Lees of New York. Mr. and Mrs. Weeks are the parents of two daughters,-Nina
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Margaret, born December 3, 1876, and Renee Hutchinson, born November 29, 1881.
In tracing the paternal genealogy of our subject, we find that the founder of the family in America was George Weekes, who came from Devonshire, England, to Dor- chester, Massachusetts, in 1637, accompa- nied by his wife, Jane, a sister of Roger Clap, who was descended from Osgod Klapa, a Danish nobleman. George Weekes was a surveyor and a selectman of Dorches- ter, where he died in 1650. His ancestors were landed gentry of England, one of them, Sir Robert le Wrey de la Wyke, a Norman knight and a descendant of Charle- magne, being granted large estates in Eng- land by William the Conqueror.
In the Records of Connecticut Men in War of the Revolution, page 18, is found the following:
"Ebenezer Weeks, great-great-grandson of George Weekes, was born in 1741 at Pomfret, Connecticut; in 1764 married Eunice, daughter of Rev. George Griswold, and died in 1813, at Steuben, New York. He responded to Lexington Alarm, in April, 1775, and was a private in Captain Elisha Fox's company, Colonel Samuel H. Parsons' regiment, Connecticut militia, in Revolutionary war."
Rev. William Raymond Weeks, D. D., son of Ebenezer Weeks, was born at Brook- lyn, Connecticut, in 1783, was graduated at the College of New Jersey, Princeton, in 1809, and in 1812 he married Hannah, daughter of John Randel. He learned the trade of a printer before attending college, but was subsequently ordained a minister of the Presbyterian church and occupied the pulpit at Plattsburg, New York, from 181I to 1814, serving as chaplain of the Ameri-
can troops in the war of 1812. From 1815 to 1818 he was head master of Morris Acad- emy, near Litchfield, Connecticut, which was established in 1790 by General James Morris. William R. Weeks was a noted linguist and mathematician, the author of an arithmetic and lessons in Latin and Greek, and of many controversial religious works. He died in Newark, New Jersey, in 1848.
John Randel was a jeweler by occupa- tion, living in New York city, and was a member of a committee organized to fit out privateers. He was taken prisoner by the British, placed on board a privateer and taken to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he was confined on a prison ship.
John Randel Weeks, son of Rev. William R. Weeks, and father of our subject, was born in 1817 at Morris, Connecticut, and married Mary Frances, daughter of Charles Platt Adriance. He learned the printer's trade, which he followed from 1833 to 1838, and then took up the study of law, being ad- mitted to the New Jersey bar in 1845. He was a volunteer fireman in Newark from 1840 to 1847; held the office of clerk of Essex county from 1849 to 1854; was for several years a member of the Newark board of education; was real-estate counsel and director of the Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company; and for many years was a director of the American Fire Insurance Company, of Newark. He had an antipathy to litigation, believing most of it to be useless, and he frequently said that "three-quarters of the cases could be settled, and nine-tenths ought to be." His death occurred in 1879.
Regarding the maternal ancestors of William Raymond Weeks, we learn that the founder of the Adriance family in America
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was Adriaen Reyerse, a son of Reyer El- bertse, of Utrecht, Holland, who came from Amsterdam in 1646, and in 1659 he married Annetje, a daughter of Roelof Martense Schenck. Adriaen Reyerse was a magis- trate in Flatbush, Long Island, in 1677-9, and died there in 1710.
Elbert Adriaense, son of Adriaen Rey- erse, became the father of Rem Adrianse, who married Sarah Brinckerhoff, daughter of Annetje Tunise Bogaert, daughter of Sarah Jorise Rapalje, who had the distinc- tion of being the first white child born in the New Netherlands, that event taking place at Albany, on the 9th of June, 1625.
Theodorus Adriance, son of Isaac Adri- ance and grandson of Rem Adrianse, was born at Hopewell, New York, in 1751, was married in 1772 to Killetie, or Helicke, a daughter of Rudolphus Swartwout, and died in 1817. He enlisted as a private, be- came a corporal and afterward a sergeant, in New York state troops, in the Revolu- tionary war .- Archives of New York, the Revolution, Vol. I., page 312.
Charles Platt Adriance, son of Theodo- rus Adriance, was born at Hopewell, New York, in 1790, and in 1813 he married Sarah, the daughter of Aaron Camp. He was a jeweler in Richmond, Virginia, for many years, but retired from active life in 1831 and removed to Poughkeepsie, New York, where he bought, for his residence, the property afterward known as College Hill, the highest ground in Poughkeepsie, and there he lived about forty years, his death occurring in 1874.
Aaron Camp, of Newark, New Jersey, was a private in the New Jersey militia, in the Revolutionary war. His father, Nathaniel Camp, was captain of an artillery company, organized at Newark, and attached to the
Second Regiment, New Jersey Militia, in the Revolutionary war .- Register of Offi- cers and Men of New Jersey in the Revolu- tionary War, pp. 384-529.
General Washington, as a token of his high esteem for, and confidence in Captain Camp, presented to him, personally, a can- non, since known as "Old Nat," which re- mained for a long time in the Camp family, but is now at Washington's headquarters, in Morristown, New Jersey.
PAUL WILCOX.
The law has ever called into the circle of her followers the brightest minds, the most gifted sons of the nation. The keen intellect is sharpened by its contact with others as brilliant, and gains thereby an added strength and power. The most care- ful analysis, closest reasoning and most logical thought-processes are brought into play, and the lawyer of ability, by reason of his strong intellectuality, rises above the ranks of the many to become a leader in thought and action, his influence extending not only to the professional, but into the political and social circles as well. Promi- nent among those who in that most import- ant branch of jurisprudence, corporation law, have won distinctive preferment in legal circles in New York city, is Paul Wil- cox, whose reputation as a lawyer places him among the ablest representatives of the profession in the country.
He comes of a family that, living in Tennessee, was widely known in the South and that has furnished many representatives in the important walks of life. This family undoubtedly had a common origin with those of the same name in New England. Burke's "Landed Gentry" states that "the
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English branch, settled at county Essex and county Middlesex, bore arms: Argent a lion rampant between three crescents sable; a chief vair. Crest: Out of a mural coro- net, or a demi-lion rampant, sable collared vair." The ancestor of the Tennessee branch of the family came from England in the early part of the last century. John, the great-grandfather of Paul Wilcox, mar- ried the daughter of "Squire Boone," broth- er of the famous Daniel Boone, the pioneer of Kentucky. Dr. George Boone Wilcox, son of John, was a noted physician, who practiced for forty years in Boone county, Missouri. Dr. John Wilcox, his son, and the father of Paul, was one of the most prominent physicians and surgeons of Mis- souri, and afterward took a foremost place in the ranks of his profession in Indiana. Owing to his southern sympathies in the early part of the war, he was driven from his native state and settled in Indiana, where he made many warm friends and ac- quired a large practice. He was consid- ered the best surgical expert in the middle western states. Among his most intimate friends and associates were President Har- rison, Vice-President Hendricks, United States Senator Joseph E. McDonald and other distinguished western men. He mar- ried Margaret H. Griffin, of Culpeper Courthouse, Virginia, a descendant of an old and well known family of that state. Her paternal grandfather was Zachariah Griffin, who served with the Continental army throughout the war of the Revolu- tion.
Paul Wilcox, son of Dr. John and Marga- ret H. (Griffin) Wilcox, was born in Boone county, Missouri, on the 3d of October, 1858, and after acquiring a mastery of the common branches of learning entered De
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