USA > New Jersey > Biographical, genealogical and descriptive history of the first congressional district of New Jersey, Volume I > Part 33
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On the 7th of May, 1896, Dr. Campbell came to Woodbury, where he took charge of the practice of the late Dr. C. G. Abbott till his death. Since that time Dr. Campbell has conducted the practice alone. his success and popularity being of the most pronounced kind. He is a great student, de- voting much of his limited leisure to study of medical science and kindred subjects. He is a member of the West Jersey Medical Society, the Truso Medical Club, the Alumni Association of Hahnemann College and the Ger- mantown Medical Society. He is unmarried and is deservedly popular in the local society of Woodbury and every place in which he has dwelt. In his politics the Doctor is a Republican.
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WILLIAM A. SUMMERILL.
William A. Summerill, who was born April 19, 1862, is one of the repre- sentative young business men of the borough of Penn's Grove, and on ac- count of his position as editor and manager of a local newspaper, The Rec- ord, wields a wide influence in this community. He is intensely patriotic. doing all within his power to promote the welfare of his locality, and by the wisdom and sound good sense which he exercises at all times he has won the good will and genuine regard of those who know him.
One of the oldest and most honored families of Salem county is the one to which Mr. Summerill belongs, and those who have borne the name are often mentioned in the histories of the religious and political parties of the county. The ancestry can be traced for about one hundred and seventy-five years. The grandfather of our subject, Judge William Summerill, was a man of means and influence when in the prime of life, and took a leading part in the building of the Delaware River Railroad, which proved of such great benefit to this section of the state. From 1868 to 1878 he was a lay judge of the county courts. He was born in 1812, and departed this life in 1886, mourned by a large circle of lifelong friends. His wife, Hannah A. Summerill, lived to be eighty-three years of age. She was likewise a repre- sentative of an old colonial family of this county,-the Vannemans. Her father was Daniel Vanneman, a leading farmer and business man of Penn's Neck. To the union of William and Hannah Summerill two sons were born. Josiah and Daniel V., the latter now a successful farmer and the chosen free- holder of Upper Penn's Neck township.
The father of our subject is Josiah Summerill, of Upper Penn's Neck township, Salem county,-a well known citizen who at present is serving as collector of taxes for his township, which position he has held continuously for twenty-five years. He is also a director of the Salem National Banking Company. His wife, whose maiden name was Sally Austin, is the only daughter of William Austin by his first wife, Mary Ann Watson. Her parents were residents of Piles Grove township, where their only son, Samuel, is now making him home.
William A. Summerill was reared in the usual occupation of farmer lads. and after completing a district-school education he entered Pennington's Seminary, where he was graduated at the age of eighteen years. Returning then to the home farm, he remained there until twenty-two years of age. devoting his attention to general agricultural duties. In September, 1884, he and his cousin, Daniel V. Summerill, Jr., formed a business connection. and together conducted the Penn Grove Record and carried on general
William A Summerill
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printing until October, 1887, when the junior partner retired from the firm. William A. Summerill has since continued the business alone, and has made the Record a wide-awake, interesting local journal. It has been changed from a six to an eight-column sheet and various other improvements have been instituted, thus placing the Record on a par with the leading journals of the county. In 1892 the enterprising publisher built a new and modern printing office and equipped it with up-to-date machinery.
The Record was established in November, 1878, by the Rev. J. W. Laughlin, of the New Jersey Methodist Protestant Conference, who sold it in February, 1883, to Joseph D. Whitaker. Mr. Whitaker sold it to the firm of Summerill & Summerill fifteen years ago.
The subject of this review is also a land surveyor, the only one of the borough. For the past ten years he has been appointed by the legislature to be a commissioner of deeds, and in connection with the duties of that office does considerable conveyancing of properties.
The marriage of William A. Summerill and Miss Kate H. Webber, daughter of William Webber, of Course Landing, Salem county, was solem- nized in 1891. Four children, two sons and two daughters, were born of the union, namely: William W., Mary, Frederick and Verna. He lives in a pleasant home on South Broad street, and delights more in a quiet, happy home life with his family than in society. Having a refined literary taste, he has accumulated a choice private library and is most pleased when sur- rounded by his books and papers. Yet he has a pleasing address and is social with all he meets. Mr. Summerill is a member of Emanuel Methodist Episcopal church, is a trustee and a steward, and for several years has taken an active part in Sunday-school work as superintendent and teacher. The Summerill family has been identified with this church since its organization in 1845-the first church in Penn's Grove-and have held positions in the denomination since its establishment in Upper Penn's Neck township in the early part of the century. William A. Summerill represents the fourth con- . secutive generation that has held office in the church.
THE WHITAKER FAMILY.
The following compilation comprises notes on the history of the Whitaker family, past and present :
Every name is an embodiment, more or less successfully, of a fact. It is not always discoverable, yet always existing, the present adoption linking it with a past which still carries its suggestion of the occupation or home. The
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kindred names of Whitacre, Whitacar, Whitaker, Whittaker, etc., are be- lieved to have been the same originally, and written Whitacre (meaning white acre). The name is found in English history as early as the fourteenth cen- tury, and it once identified a locality in England. Of the several coats of arms distinguishing the family in its different branches, one bears the inter- esting motto, "Robur atque Fides." Other names, such as Whither, White- field, Whittier, etc., are supposed to have sprung from the same root.
Among the eminent Whitakers of England are the Rev. William Whit- aker, the Master of St. John's College at Cambridge, an anti-papal writer, who died in 1595; and the Rev. Jeremiah Whitaker, who, in 1643, was elected a member of the assembly of Westminster, and in 1647 filled the office of moderator. He died in London June Ist, 1654. He had a son, Robert, who was a Puritan disputant, preacher and writer. Also Rev. John Whitaker, who published many volumes of local and British history and died in 1808; and the Rev. Edward W. Whitaker, celebrated for his part in establishing "The Refuge for the Destitute" in London. He died in 1818. "The Genealogist" and "The Genealogist's Guide," English publications, give several Whitaker pedigrees. The name is still numerously and honorably in evidence in England.
The first Whitaker in this country is believed to have been the Rev. Alexander Whitaker, called "the apostle," a son of the Rev. William Whita- ker above mentioned. He was born in 1585, at Cambridge, England, came to Virginia in 1611 and was put in charge of the Episcopal church at Hen- rico. This was the second parish established in Virginia. On the glebe of one hundred acres belonging to the church, he built a parsonage called "Rock Hall." Pocahontas was baptized in the Henrico church and married to John Rolf by Mr. Whitaker. Her baptism is the subject of a painting in the rotunda of the capitol at Washington, D. C.
George Whittacre was a passenger on "The William of London," bound from Virginia to London, 13 May, 1654. Others, whose names were of a different spelling, were in Virginia as early as 1656 and 1662, and elsewhere in the seventeenth century, taking up land. On this side of the Atlantic, at the present time, there are several Whitaker families, apparently not related. But, when a name can be proven to be five or six centuries old, it is not diffi- cult to understand how traces of the broken-off branches, even from one par- ent in the long ago, can be lost in new homes, in new places, with the same spirit of adventure. It is true of large families, in less than one hundred years, where the members are widely separated.
We have in this country the old Connecticut family, the "iron" Whitakers of Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, to whom the distinguished Judge Samuel
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Whitaker Pennypacker, of Philadelphia, belongs, those of Maryland, New York, and other states, now in the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh generations on this side of the sea. A conspicuous man was the Rev. Nathaniel Whita- ker, D. D., son of Jonathan Whitaker, who first settled in New England, but afterward removed to New Jersey. Dr. Whitaker went with the Mohecan Indian, the Rev. Sampson Occum, of Long Island, to England and Scot- land, in 1767. They collected fifty thousand dollars-a grand sum for that time-wherewith Dartmouth College was founded, partly for the education of Indians. He was a Presbyterian, a flaming patriot during the Revolution and a voluminous writer. A member of this branch, Ephraim Seward Whitaker, of Ohio, has spent years and quite a large sum of money in collect- ing genealogies of the name, in its many forms, all over this country and England, with the hope that he, or some one, can in the future complete the laudable undertaking and publish the same.
References to the Whitakers and their genealogies are found in a number of American books. The ramifications are, seemingly, endless. Only a limited investigation indicates connections with some of the oldest and most important families in the United States. As a race, noted as patriots, serving wherever found, in all the periods of conflict here.
The ancestor of most, if not all, the Whitakers whose homes have long been in the southern part of New Jersey as also of very many in other parts of the United States, is Richard Whitaker, of the city of London, England. There is a tradition that he first came to this country at the time of the plague. in 1665, or in 1606, after the great fire, and then returned to England. A Richard Whittaker bought 135 acres of land in James Cittie county, Virginia, in 1666, one hundred and fifty-eight acres in Middlesex county, of the same state, in 1667, and a Richard Whitaker was in Warwick county, Virginia, in the seventeenth century, whose descendants are now numerous around En- field, North Carolina. But no one has yet been able to prove that these Richards represent one man and is identical with the Richard who landed in Salem in 1675.
For among those who came with John Fenwick, to West New Jersey, was Richard Whitaker. After a custom of that age, the ship was named from an animal and was called the "Griffin." It is said to have anchored opposite Elsinborough Point, September 23, 1675. Richard Whitaker brought with him a power of attorney from William Hancock, executed July 6, 1675, and. according to the family report, that was the day previous to the departure of the ship. In this paper the name is spelled Whittaker. The power of attor- ney and the black morocco book (now visibly eaten by the tooth of time) are still in the possession of the family and highly prized.
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Richard Whitaker was made one of Fenwick's Council of Proprietors to govern West New Jersey, holding the office from 1676 to 1702, when the colonial government was formed. Salem was his residence until about 1690. January 17, 1679, at Salem, in the old log meeting-house of the Friends on the Nicholson lot (now the cemetery), he married Elizabeth Adkin, daughter of George Provoe, of Monmouth precinct. The will of George Provoe. dated 1688, mentions Elizabeth, the wife of Richard, and Elizabeth, daugh- ter of Richard Whitaker.
In 1690 Richard Whitaker and his wife moved to the South Cohansic pre- cinct and settled on the one thousand acres of land which had been set off to him, near New England Town, now Fairton. He built a substantial brick dwelling which descended from father to son for more than one hundred years, and part of the land remained in the family for a still longer period. The house was taken down about 1866. He and Henry Buck kept a store in the vicinity for general merchandise, supposed to have been the only one east of the Cohansey river. The site of the present thriving city of Bridgeton was then a wilderness. They owned a large sloop, trading with New York and Boston. One of Richard Whitaker's descendants has the store-book. It gives the names of many of the early inhabitants of what is now Cumber- land county. The first entry is dated October 9, 1704, and on the page be- fore is written: "We sailed from Boston September 18th, 1704." Both men were prominent in Fairfield and transacted a large amount of public business. Richard Whitaker's name frequently appears in the court minutes to be seen in the Salem clerk's office, beginning with 1706. After 1709 his name is missing. It has been thought that he died during the next year, aged about sixty-six years, but the date is uncertain. The early records are supposed to have passed into the hands of some branch of the family who may have removed from the state and with whom communication was lost, as there were several children. Two sons were named Richard and Nathan- iel; a daughter married an Alexander (one of a large family of that name in Fairfield in 1704); and a granddaughter, Margaret Whitaker, married John Jessup, in 1734. Richard was a favorite name, according to the records in Trenton. The wills probated and the letters of administration granted have not satisfactorily explained the beginnings of the family here. It is known that Richard, Sr., signed his name Whittaker, Whitaker, and Whitacar. It is probable that in his day every Englishman who wrote his own name spelled it in half a dozen different ways. The late Alfred Vail, of New Jersey, found ยท his family name in various records and documents, on this side of the ocean, written with more than twenty variations. "Whitaker" is now the generally accepted form.
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He and his wife, Elizabeth, were members of the Society of Friends, but the family became interested in the Presbyterian church at New Fairfield, which was organized about the time of his removal to the place. In an entry of the old store-book, under the date of December 22, 1704, he is charged with a catechism. In 1755 the dwelling of the minister, Rev. Daniel Elmer, was burned and, as the records of the Presbyterian church were in it, they perished also. Thus are irretrievably lost many items of family as well as of church history.
Nathaniel Whitaker (or -car), a son of Richard, Sr., was married to Mary Dixon, November 18, 1729. Their children were Ambrose, Lemuel and Lewis. A grandson of the latter, John Whitaker, was one of the framers of the constitution of Illinois in 1818. Nathaniel Whitaker's second wife was Ruth Buck; the marriage September 13, 1738. Their children were Sarah, Hannah, Daniel and Ruth. Hannah married Ephraim Foster and was the mother of ten children, one of whom, Esther, married the Rev. Ethan Osborne, of Fairfield, being his second wife; one child, Robert, also a Presby- terian minister. The Rev. Isaac Foster, pastor of the Pittsgrove Presby- terian church, from 1791 to 1794, belonged to this family.
Ambrose, the son of Nathaniel and Mary (Dixon) Whitaker (or -car), was born December 15, 1730. He married Freelove Stratton January 16, 1755. Their children were Freelove, Mary, Nathaniel, Abigail and Catharine. Freelove married Butler Thompson, and one of her grandsons, named Thomas Sylvers, became noted as an inventor. Mary married Jedediah Ogden, an elder in the Fairfield church. The eldest of her five children, Isaac Ambrose, became a Presbyterian minister, laboring in Ohio and on the verge of Indiana for many years. Nathaniel, the third child of Ambrose and Mary (Dixon) Whitaker, married his cousin Lydia Whitaker (a daughter of Lewis). Two of their grandsons (children of Joel) were missionaries,-Dan- iel Whitaker, in Burmah, and Ethan Osborne Whitaker fell at the front preaching the gospel at Yankton, Dakota. Another grandson, one of the ten children of Reuel and Sarah (Westcott) Whitaker, is the Rev. Epher Whitaker, D. D., of Southold, Long Island, He was the pastor of the Pres- byterian church there for over forty years, his only charge. He has been a writer of much repute, both in prose and verse, and has been noted for his historical researches. His address, in 1880. at the bi-centennial celebration of the old stone church of Fairfield, now called Fairton, which has been pub- lished and extensively circulated, will keep his memory green in the home of his youth and in the ever-widening circles from it. His eightieth birthday was appropriately commemorated March 27, 1900. His son, the Rev. Wil- liam F. Whitaker, D. D., was the first pastor of the St. Cloud Presbyterian
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church at South Orange, New Jersey, and he is now the pastor of the First Presbyterian church of Albany, New York.
The second wife of Ambrose Whitaker was Ruth Harris. They were married December 10, 1766. Their children were David, Hannah and Lewis. Hannah married the Rev. Buckley Carll, one of the pastors of the Pittsgrove Presbyterian church, afterward of Rahway, New Jersey. He is buried in the old Pittsgrove cemetery. He was one of the original members of the West Jersey Presbytery. Ambrose Whitaker married his third wife,- Rachel Leake, a daughter of Recompense Leake, Ist, October 5, 1772. Their children were Recompense, Oliver, Freelove, Isaac and Sarah Leake. Ambrose Whitaker (or -car) died November 5, 1796. Rachel Leake Whita- ker (or -car) died January 30, 1823, in her eightieth year. Both are buried in the same grave in the old Presbyterian cemetery at Daretown (Pittsgrove).
Isaac, the fourth child of Ambrose and Rachel Leake Whitaker, was born January 11, 1780. After a preparatory education in Pittsgrove, he was sent to the Classical Academy at Woodbury, New Jersey, boarding at a private house. This institution dated from 1791 and the Rev. Andrew Hunter, Jr., was the first teacher. It maintained a high rank as a place of learning for a number of years, and perhaps few schools of that period could point to so many who became distinguished in their maturer years. Among the well- known men enrolled as its pupils in their youth were Dr. James Rush, Com- modore Benjamin Cooper, Commodore Stephen Decatur and Captain James Lawrence of the "Chesapeake," whose dying entreaty, "Don't give up the ship," has passed into a proverb. The latter was the especial friend of Isaac Whitaker. To him, James Lawrence told his dreams and his expectation of getting a midshipman's commission. His mind was ever on the life in the great waters and his leisure was devoted to drawing ships. He colored a picture of the ship named the "Light Horse of Philadelphia" and presented it to Isaac Whitaker as a token of his regard, and it is in the possession of one of his daughters, Mrs. Caroline W. Van Meter, of Salem, New Jersey.
March 10, 1814, Isaac Whitaker was married to Ann Fithian, a daughter of Jonathan Fithian, 3d, and Mary Harris. Jonathan Fithian, Ist, was one of the earliest settlers about Fairfield, New Jersey, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, coming from Long Island. The Fithians have been dis- tinguished for their intelligence and for the beauty of some of the women of the family. The earlier years of their married life were spent by Isaac and Ann (Fithian) Whitaker, in Deerfield, New Jersey, chiefly upon the estate inherited by Mrs. Whitaker from her father, who was one of the largest land owners in Cumberland county. Besides looking after the farm of over five hundred acres, Isaac Whitaker was a civil magistrate for a great many years,
CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY. 309
one of the judges of the court of common pleas of Cumberland county and a major of the militia. He was an ardent Whig in politics and an official in a Masonic organization. Reading was one of his greatest pleasures and his well informed mind, gift of humor, genial and courteous manner, made him interesting, socially. His facial resemblance to the Rev. Archibald Alexan- der, D. D., was so striking as to suggest a possible consanguinity. Twelve children came to their home: Isaac, Ann, Mary, Sarah, Caroline, Oliver, Enoch, Charles, Eliza, James, Lydia and Lewis. Eliza died in her infancy, Charles in his youth. The others came to maturity, married and had fami- lies. Five made their homes in the west, where the majority of the descend- ants of Isaac Whitaker and his wife can now be found. Only two of their daughters are living at the present time (1900): Caroline, who married Edward Van Meter, of Salem (see Van Meter Ancestral Notes); and Lydia, who married Jonathan D. Ayres, of Bridgeton, a nephew of Governor Seeley. Of the four children of the latter, two survive, Caroline V. (Mrs. Elmer Mul- ford) and Florence.
In their later years, Isaac Whitaker and his wife moved to Bridgeton, where they both departed this life, the latter, May 23, 1855, in her sixty-third year; the former, February 23, 1857, in his seventy-eighth year. Both are buried in the Presbyterian cemetery at Deerfield, New Jersey.
JOHN H. B. COOPER.
John H. B. Cooper, who is one of the successful agriculturists of Salem county, New Jersey, and a resident of Elmer, was born in Kent county, Dela- ware, December 17, 1853. This Cooper family dates the settlement of its first American ancestors in Delaware away back to an early time, when the Coopers came from England. Our subject's father was born at about the same place he was, as was also his father, whose name was Ezekiel, our sub- ject's father's name being Robert B. Cooper. Ezekiel, an uncle of our sub- ject's father, was among the earliest Methodist preachers in America. Rob- ert B. was by trade a tanner and currier,-a trade not so well known now as it was fifty years ago. He now resides with our subject, aged seventy-six years. He followed his trade many years, and also farming to a considerable extent. He settled in this county in 1874. He, too, belonged to the Meth- odist church, and was for many years a class-leader and local preacher. His wife's maiden name was Mary Hawkins, and she was a daughter of John Hawkins, who was among the first to effect a settlement in Delaware. She passed from the scenes of this life in 1881.
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Our subject, the only one of their three children now living, attended the common schools to some extent and then began farming. In 1889 he pur- chased the seventy-five-acre farm on which he now lives. He operates also a profitable dairy, with a fine herd of Jerseys. Politically, he is a believer in the chief principles of the Democratic party. He was the collector for his township in 1894-5-6. He belongs to the order of Red Men and in religious matters our subject clings to the Methodist faith.
September 9, 1875. Mr. Cooper was married to Mary Miller, the daughter of Joseph Miller, of Elmer. By this marriage the home circle was blessed with six children: Mrs. Ralph Hitchner, residing near Elmer; Mary, Ger- trude, Robert, Chrissie and Joseph, at home. In mingling with the good people of this county, one will seldom find one more-agreeable and truer to his county, to his town and to his family, than Mr. Cooper. It is such men as this, together with their interesting families, that make life worth the liv- ing and the nation worth preserving, at any cost.
SWAIN SHAW REEVES.
A special place of honor should be accorded the patriot who fought and endured untold hardships for his country, as did the subject of this review. He has been a lifelong resident of Cape May county, his birth having oc- curred in Lower township, July 17, 1836. His parents were Joshua H. and Ellen (Woolson) Reeves. His father having died when our subject was a small boy, the latter went to live in the home of the Rev. Moses William- son, of Cold Spring, and subsequently resided with Dr. Virgil Marcey. He was afforded common educational advantages, and early mastered the various details of agriculture, to which occupation he has given his principal atten- tion.
By industry and enterprise Mr. Reeves had accumulated a competence, and had made a fair start in life, being the owner of a good farm when the clouds of the civil war began to gather darkly. When he had become con- vinced that his country was, indeed, in danger, he left his young wife and pleasant home and hastened to offer his services to the Union. Enlisting as a private in Company A, Seventh Regiment of New Jersey Volunteers, on the 23d of August, 1861, he was mustered in, with forty of his friends and neighbors from Lower township, at Trenton, and was assigned for duty in the Army of the Potomac. On the Ist of December, 1862, he was pro- moted to the rank of corporal. He participated in several of the most im- portant campaigns and battles of the war, among them being the siege of
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