USA > New Jersey > Genealogical and memorial history of the state of New Jersey, Volume I > Part 79
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with General Washington, after the battle of Monmouth, I recognized Captain Este lying dis- abled, and found that he was severely wound- ed. Immediately I ordered him carried from the field, and with care and attention his life was saved."
Lewis Mills was a man of great public spirit. He was constantly giving from his means and influence to whatever tended to promote the welfare of his native town. In 1816 he and other public-spirited citizens of Morristown purchased the land now comprising the historic "Morristown Green," or park, and established the trust under which the title to the "Green" is still held to the great benefit of the people of Morristown. In 1825 he was one of the number of patriotic citizens who invited Gen- eral Lafayette to revisit Morristown, and ar- ranged for the reception which was given in luis honor.
Children of Lewis and Sarah ( Este ) Mills : I. Edward, born October 1, 1819; died at Cin- cinnati, Ohio, December 5, 1862; never mar- ried. 2. Mary, born September 1, 1821 ; died October 6, 1888; married William S. Hub- bard, September 3, 1840. 3. Hannah Este, born August II, 1823; died November 18. 1825. 4. Lewis Este, born October 1, 1825 ; died September 27, 1826. 5. Alfred, referred to below. 6. James Richards, born December 21, 1829; died December 19, 1886; married Ella Thornton, July 20, 1852. 7. Howard William, born November 3, 1832 (still living in 1910) ; married, April 22, 1857, Caroline Amelia, daughter of Elias Freeman and Mary Anne Condict. 8. Lewis Este (again ), born Au- gust 13, 1836 ; died at Florence, Italy, April 10, 1878; married, January 7, 1864, Jean Springer, of Cincinnati, Ohio.
(IV) Alfred Mills, son of Lewis and Sarah (Este) Mills, was born in Morristown, New Jersey, July 24, 1827. He is a representative of the old-fashioned lawyer, and of the time when to be a member of the legal profession was accounted one of the highest honors in secular life, and he represents the profession of olden times in more senses than one ; care- ful, dignified, of an established character for honesty and integrity, he has honored his pro- fession by his legal attainments and unsullied character. He was prepared for college at the Morris Academy at Morristown, entered Yale University in 1844, and was graduated from that institution with high honors in 1847. At Yale he was a member of the famous "Skull and Bones" society. Very soon after
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leaving college he entered the office of Edward W. Whelpley, afterwards chief justice of New Jersey. He was licensed as an attorney in 1851, and a counsellor in 1854. In 1856 he entered into partnership with Jacob W. Miller, previously for twelve years United States sen- ator from New Jersey. He was associated with Mr. Miller until the latter's death in 1862. In 1872, with William E. Church, he established the firm of Mills & Church, which continued until Mr. Church, in 1883, became a judge of the United States circuit court for the district of Dakota.
Mr. Mills has all his life been actively en- gaged in the practice of his profession, keep- ing his offices at Morristown. He was never an aspirant for political office, being absorbed in liis professional duties, but has been fre- quently invited by his fellow citizens to become their candidate. In 1874 he was elected mayor of Morristown, and held the office until 1876. in which year he was nominated as the Re- publican candidate for congress in the district wherein he resided. It was understood at the time of nomination that his election was im- possible, but his patriotic principles as the candidate of the party with which he affiliated would not permit him to decline. In 1867 he was appointed prosecutor of the pleas for Morris county, and served with marked ability for one termi. Mr. Mills is a lawyer of un- common ability, well read in his profession, always a student and keeps himself abreast with the modern decisions of the courts. An intimate friend has said of him :
"He has made the study of law his delight. He rejoices in its symmetrical definitions, its logical results, and its abstruse principles. His diction is distinct, precise, and to the point; his arguments convincing; and as he never assumes the task of conducting a cause where any difficult principles are involved without preparation; he never fails in presenting all the arguments necessary to support the cases intrusted to him. His mental percep- tions are acute, and in the trial of a cause before a jury, or in the presentation of it to a court, he is alert to seize every salient point and ready to grapple with every question presented by his op- ponent. One great characteristic of his practice is his entire correctness in all the details of his pro- fession. He rarely, if ever, makes a mistake. He is a good trial lawyer. He is, however, more fitted to act as counsellor, for chamber practice, and arguments before the higher courts. As an ad- viser of clients he is unrivalled, his great knowl- edge of legal principles, his long continued re- search, his industrious study, and his peculiar adaptability of mind and reason to select the rules suitable to the case in point rendering him in- valuable as a counsellor. In the trial of a cause he is bold but not reckless, self-confident but not
opinionated, sagacious, never descending, however, to the arts of the cunning advocate, never deviating from the path of honesty."
For many years his services have been sought in fiduciary positions, such as executor, trus- tee and guardian. He is a public-spirited citi- zen, responding at all times to the demands of the community wherein he has so long resided. He has been a director at different times in two of the Morristown banks and in other cor- porations and institutions.
In 1863 he became a vestryman of St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Morristown. Three years later he was elected junior warden, and has served as a warden of his parish for forty- four years, having been its senior warden since 1873. For several years he was superin- tendent of its Sunday school. From 1864 down to the present time he has as a deputy attend- ed with great regularity the annual conven- tions of his diocese. For about twenty-five vears he served on its standing committee. Because of his familiarity with church law and his willingness to help in the solution of church troubles his advice has been frequently sought from different parts of the diocese and state. He has been for many years closely identified with the work of the church in the country at large. For a number of years he was one of the trustees of the General Theo- logical Seminary. On June 12, 1883, he be- came a member of the board of managers of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Episcopal Church in the United States, and afterwards, upon the reorganization, a member of the board of missions. He still regularly attends its meetings. In 1874 he was first chosen as a deputy to the general convention of the church and since that date has regularly attended each triennial meeting as one of the lay deputies of his diocese repre- senting the diocese of New Jersey in 1874. and after the division of that diocese has, down to the present time, represented the diocese of Newark (at first called the diocese of Northern New Jersey), and at these meet- ings has served on many important committees.
On September 24, 1857, Mr. Mills married Katharine Elmer, daughter of Judge Aaron and Katharine ( Elmer ) Coe, of Westfield, New Jersey. Mrs. Mills was born January 28. 1828, and died May 27, 1886. They had children: Alfred Elmer, referred to below ; Gertrude and Jeannie, died in infancy ; Kath- arine Elmer and Edith Este, and Edward Kirkpatrick. referred to below.
Mrs. Mills numbered among her ancestors
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many of those prominent in revolutionary and early colonial times, including many of the early Dutch settlers in New York.
(V) Alfred Elmer, eldest son of Alfred and Katharine Elmer Mills, was born at Morris- town, New Jersey, July 22, 1858. He re- ceived his preparatory education at prepar- atory schools in Morristown and at Trin- ity School, Tivoli-on-the-Hudson, and entered Princeton University in 1878. He was gradu- ated therefrom with honors, receiving his A. B. degree in 1882, and his A. M. degree in 1885. He then read law with his father at Morris- town, and was admitted to the bar of New Jersey as an attorney in June, 1886, and as a counsellor in June, 1889. In 1892 he be- came counsel for the town of Morristown, and served for a term of two years. In 1898 he was appointed prosecutor of the pleas for Morris county. At the expiration of his term
Mighill and William Cressy, brothers, came iu 1903 he was appointed president judge of . to Salem, Massachusetts, in 1649. Mighill the court of common pleas of Morris county, and in 1908 he was reappointed to the same judicial position for another term of five years, and still presides over the county courts.
Mr. Mills is a member of the Morristown Club, of the Morris County Golf Club, the Princeton Club of New York, the Morristown Field Club, and several other clubs. He is a vestryman of St. Peter's Episcopal Church, and for many years has been the treasurer of its building committee. Since 1896 he has been treasurer of the Washington Association of New Jersey. He is also one of the board of managers of the Morris County Savings Bank.
(V) Edward Kirkpatrick, youngest son of Alfred and Katharine Elmer Mills, was born at Morristown, July 25, 1874. He was pre- pared for college at the Morris Academy, and was graduated from Princeton University with honors in 1896. Subsequently he attended the Law School at Columbia University, and after a three years course received the degree of LL. B. He was admitted as an attorney at law of New Jersey in 1900, and as a counsellor in 1904. Previous to his admission as an at- torney in New Jersey he passed his examina- tions for admission as attorney and counsellor to the bar of the state of New York, but he has confined his practice to New Jersey. For several years he has been counsel for the town of Morristown. In 1909 he was elected as state senator from Morris county. January 21, 1905, he married Laura Emott Slade, daugh- ter of Jarvis Morgan Slade and Laura H. (Emott) Slade. They have children : Edward
Kirkpatrick Mills Jr., born March 19, 1906, and Alfred Slade Mills, born August 12, 1909.
The Cresse family of New Jer- CRESSE sey are among the earliest of the inhabitants of what is now known as Cape May county, and it has been well said that they and the Townsends and their asso- ciates, who formed the first settlers, are the strong unalterable and secure foundation upon which the noble history of that county rests. Although the family came from England, the name itself is French. Like many French names, it is spelled in the early days in many ways, and in this particular case twenty-five have been enumerated. The present spelling of the New Jersey branch of the family is Cresse. The New England branches, however, seem to prefer the spelling Cressey.
Cressy, who was at that time twenty-one years old, settled in Salem and married, in 1658, Mary, daughter of John and Elizabeth Batch- elder, of Royal Side, now Beverly, Massachu- setts, who bore him one child, then removing to Ipswich, Massachusetts; he married (sec- ond ) Mary Quilter, who bore him three other children : Mighill Jr., William and Mary. After his death, in April, 1670, his widow removed to Rowley, Massachusetts. From his children, have descended the Cresseys of Massachusetts and Maine.
In 1659 William Cressy removed to Stam- ford, Connecticut, where he married Ann Hid- den. His numerous descendants spell their name Crissey.
(1) Arthur Cresse is the founder of the New Jersey branch of the family. In 1692 he purchased from the West Jersey Society three hundred and fifty acres of land in Cape May county, New Jersey, and that same year he and John Townsend, the founder of the Town- send family of New Jersey, became the first collectors of the county. This position they held until 1700, when they were succeeded by his brother John Cresse, and Jacob Spicer. The first "ear-mark" in the archives of the Cape May county courts was recorded by Arthur Cresse, July 13, 1692. Both Arthur and his son John were prominent in establish- ing the First Baptist Society of Cape May county.
(II) Of Lewis, a younger son of Arthur Cresse, little is known except that he was a "planter" of the county about 1713.
(III) Lewis (2) divided his time between
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Delaware Bay trade and a farm which he own- ed in the neighborhood now known as Pierces Point on the Delaware bay shore. He died about 1770.
(IV) Daniel, son of Lewis (2) Cresse, was among the signers of the famous document of May 27, 1778, which declared their formal renunciation of allegiance to the king of Eng- land. He had a younger bachelor brother Lewis, who was the most notorious wag and verse-maker that Cape May county has known. Daniel Cresse was a large landowner, the pro- prietor of Denin's Creek Tavern, and a sea captain. Daniel Cresse died August 2, 1829. His wife Rhoda, born October 27, 1763, died September 4, 1812.
(V) Daniel (2), son of Daniel (I) and Rhoda Cresse, was born January 15, 1784, died April 12, 1859. He married, November 6, 1808, Hulda, born March 18, 1785, died March 12, 1826, daughter of Philip and Louisa Hand, of Cape May county. Children : I. Eleanor, born August 8, 1809, died in early woman- hood. 2. Rhoda, October 16, 1810; died Au- gust 21, 1812. 3. Daniel (3d), born October 4, died December 2, 1812. 4. Daniel (4th), October 6, 1813, whose son James became a prominent citizen of Burleigh. 5. Philip Hand, July 7, 1816; died December 18, 1879; was an inventive genius, who secured a number of im- portant patents on agricultural machinery. 6. Rhoda S., June 13, 1818: died April 23, 1840. 7. Lewis, August 23, 1821 ; died June 9, 1822. 8. Lewis, see forward.
(VI) Lewis (3), youngest child of Daniel (2) and Hulda (Hand) Cresse, was born June 4, 1824, at Gravelly Run, where his father lived on one of the largest plantations in that region. He was educated in the private schools of that county, and when a young man, attracted by the discovery of gold, he went to California, where he remained for some time. Returning home, he married, and engaged in the milling business, but later purchased a farm of one hundred acres at Townsend Inlet, now Swain- ton, where he has since resided. In politics he is a Republican, but being a man of domestic tastes, he has always preferred the enjoyment of his fireside to the affairs of public life. He and his wife are noted among the community in which they live, for their strict integrity and their warm friendships. January 2, 1859. Lewis Cresse married Mary Ann, born Febru- ary 29, 1840, daughter of George W. Hoffman, born February 12, 1812, died December 27, 1899, and his wife Mary (Hand ) Hoffman, born October 13, 1809, died May 8, 1880. Her
parents were married December 26, 1836, and she herself, previous to her marriage, was the teacher in the village school of Gravelly Run. Children of Lewis and Mary Ann ( Hoffman) Cresse : 1. Huldah, born April 9, 1861 ; wife of Coleman Leaming Jr. 2. Mary Hoffman, born May 17, 186 -; married Winfield Scott Hand. 3. Lewis Mitchell, referred to below. 4. George Hoffman, born December 21, 1871; graduate of Princeton University, and later of Harvard.
(VII) Lewis Mitchell, third child and eld- est son of Lewis (3) and Mary Ann ( Hoff- man) Cresse, was born at Townsend Inlet, Cape May county, New Jersey, September 12, 1867. For his early education he attended the public schools of his native village, and grad- uated from the high school of Cape May Court House in 1885. He then attended and graduated from the Quaker School at Woods- town, New Jersey, and accepted a position as the principal of the high school at Almonesson, Gloucester county. This he resigned in order to complete a business course in the National Col- lege of Commerce in Philadelphia, from which he graduated in 1888, and became one of its teachers in bookkeeping and accounting. This work he gave up some time afterward in order to become cashier of the Peoples' Bank of Sea Isle City, where he remained for nearly three years, then accepting a position with the Union National Bank of Atlantic City. Three years later, in 1896, Mr. Cresse became executive head of the Ocean City office of the Central Trust Company of Camden, New Jersey, which was established May 13, that year. January 2, 1902, the Central Trust Company sold its busi- ness, which, owing to Mr. Cresse's efforts, enterprise and management, had been highly successful, to the First National Bank of Ocean City, and Mr. Cresse was called to the presi- dency. In 1910 Mr. Cresse was instrumental in organizing the Ocean City Title and Trust Company, and is its president. In addition to discharging the duties of bank president, Mr. Cresse is also the head of the Pleasant Mills Paper Company of Philadelphia. His fine executive ability has been so well recognized that he has had many calls for public office of trust. For a number of years he was one of the most efficient of the members of the Ocean City Board of Education. In 1902 he was elected president of the Ocean City Board of Trade, and at the time of this event received one of the highest encomiums ever published by that conservative periodical, the New York Financial Reviewe.
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Mr. Cresse has always been actively identi- fied with the Republican party, and has served in its local organization and as delegate to its conventions. In 1900 he was a candidate to the state legislature, was elected by the largest majority on his ticket, and was renominated and re-elected to the Jersey assembly in 1901- 02, again receiving the largest number of votes. In 1903 he was elected to the New Jersey sen- ate. In 1907 he was nominated and elected without opposition for the office of mayor of Ocean City, and in 1909 was again nominated without opposition, being the only candidate. During his terms of office he proved himself one of the most capable members of the New Jersey legislature, and he has filled with not- able distinction the chairmanship of the com- mittee on education, and membership in a num- ber of the most important committees of that
body. Mr. Cresse is a Mason, and a member of several other secret orders ; he is at present the commodore of the Ocean City Yacht Club. His success in all that he has undertaken has been marked, and his methods are of interest to the commercial world. He has based his business principles and actions upon strict ad- herence to the rules which govern industry, economy and strict unswerving integrity.
Mr. Cresse married, September 12, 1896, Cecelia, daughter of Alexander and Marion Hislop, of Troy, New York. Mr. and Mrs. Cresse occupy an enviable position in social circles, and enjoy the highest esteem of many friends. He and Mrs. Cresse have traveled both in America and Europe, and during his travels acquired a rich fund of general infor- mation along those lines indicative of high intelligence and deep discernment.
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