USA > New Jersey > Genealogical and memorial history of the state of New Jersey, Volume IV > Part 19
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"Up to this time he had been prominently identified with the political movements of the state, exerting for some time a controlling in- fluence in shaping and directing the policy of the old Whig party." After 1850 the railroad largely absorbed his time and energies, and with such success that the prosperity of the road was credited mainly to him, both in its internal management and in its protection from what might have been ruinous competition with the Camden & Amboy Railroad Company. His knowledge and experience as a lawyer enabled him often to act the part of senior counsel for the railroad. In the elections of 1859 he took the stump in advocacy of the election of Governor Olden. He was a popu- lar and able public speaker, a man of fine ad- dress, courteous in his demeanor. For a quar- ter of a century he was prominently identified with every leading state enterprise. He was especially active in those of a benevolent na- ture, and was a man of deeply earnest chris- tian character. He was at first connected with the First Presbyterian Church of Newark, but united in the organization of the South Park Church, of which he was a trustee and the
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superintendent of the Sabbath school, which he had organized prior to the founding of the church in Chesbrook street station of the New Jersey railroad."
John P. Jackson married Elizabeth Hunting- ton Wolcott, daughter of Hon. Frederick Wol- cott, of Litchfield, Connecticut, son of Oliver Wolcott, governor of Connecticut and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and grand- son of Mayor General Roger Wolcott, also a colonial governor of Connecticut. Her mother, Betzy Huntington, belonged to the celebrated Huntington family of Norwich, Connecticut, and was daughter of Lieut .- Col. Joshua Hunt- ington, and granddaughter of Gen. Jabez Hunt- ington, of the revolutionary war. Their chil- dren were: I. Laura Wolcott, married (first) Matthew Trotter, of Albany ; children : Henry Wolcott, and Elizabeth Wolcott, who died in childhood ; married (second) Charles Henry Parker, of Boston; children: i. Gertrude; ii. Harriet Wolcott ; iii. Samuel Dunn ; iv. Charles Henry Jr .; she died December 28, 1900. 2. Mary Elizabeth, married T. Charlton Henry, of Philadelphia ; children: Rev. Alexander, D. D .; Charles Wolcott; James Bayard ; John Jackson and Elizabeth Wolcott. 3. Julia Hunt- ington, resided in Newark ; died April 8, 1905. 4. Frederick Wolcott, referred to below. 5. Joseph Cooke, referred to below. 6. John Peter Jr., referred to below. 7. Hannah Wol- cott, resided in Newark, died August 24, 1904. 8. Huntington Wolcott, referred to below. 9. Charles Henry, died in infancy. 10. Henry Griswold, died in infancy. II. Schuyler Brinckerhoff, referred to below.
(V) William, third son and youngest child of Peter and Hester Van der Linde ( Brincker- hoff) Jackson, was born at Acquackanonck, December 15, 1817, and died at Belleville, New Jersey, in May, 1902. He was engaged in mercantile pursuits in Newark, and for a time was connected with the New Jersey Railroad and Transportation Company. He was a di- rector of the Fireman's Insurance Company. He spent many years in Europe in travel and educating his children. He married (first) Helen, daughter of Rodney Wilbur; (second) Elizabeth Brinckerhoff McNulty, of Norwich, who died in 1902. By his first wife he had children : 1. Mary Louise, died in infancy. 2. Helen Wilbur, married William Gifford, of Newark, died in Portland, Oregon, in 1881. 3. William Brinckerhoff, a resident of Florida ; children : Helen and William. By his second wife he had children: 4. Edward Woolsey. born October 13, 1861 : educated at Geneva
and Heidelberg; returning to America, lived in Belleville, New Jersey. He was elected to the New Jersey assembly in 1890 and 1891 ; was one of the original members of the Essex county park commission in 1893 ; was elected surrogate of Essex county in 1894, serving till 1899 ; an original member of the Essex Troop ; member of the Essex Club, of the New Jersey Historical Society, etc. He married, October 15, 1902, Francis Lockwood Casebolt, daugh- ter of George T. and Mary F. (Lockwood) Casebolt. Their only child, Woolsey Marvin, was born February 7, 1910. He resides in Newark. 5. Percy, born May 21, 1863; edu- cated in Geneva and Heidelberg; graduated from Yale University in 1885, and from Co- lumbia Law School in 1887. He resided with his parents in Belleville till their death, prac- ticing law in New York, but taking an active part in local New Jersey politics, and at one time was Democratic congressional candidate for his district. He was an original mem- ber of the Essex Troop, and is a member of the University Club, Lawyers' Club, etc. He has resided in New York, since 1903. He married, November 4, 1910, Alice Seymour Day, daughter of John Calvin Day.
(VI) Frederick Wolcott, fourth child and eldest son of John P. and Elizabeth Hunting- ton ( Wolcott) Jackson, was born in Newark, August 24, 1833, and died there June 14, 1904. He attended the schools of Miss Tunis and Messrs. Baldwin, Shepherd and Hedges. After a few years in the mercantile house of Wolcott & Slade, in New York City, of which his uncle, Frederick H. Wolcott, was senior partner, he spent parts of the college years of 1852-53 at Yale College, pursuing an elective course. In 1892 Yale University conferred upon him the Master of Arts degree, and the class of 1852 elected him an honorary member. Upon leaving college he entered the store of Morwood & Co., in New York City, from which he was pro- moted to a position in the allied house of Mor- wood Bros. in Liverpool. In 1855, the firm of Morwood Bros. having failed, after six months spent in European travel, he returned home and was appointed secretary of the New Jersey Railroad and Transportation Company. Profiting by association with his father, and by his own ability and fidelity, he quickly master- ed the details of railroad management, and upon the death of his father, December 10, 1861, he was chosen by the directors to succeed him as general superintendent, a position of peculiar importance during the civil war, owing to the transportation of troops. In 1867, when
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the United Railroads of New Jersey was organ- ized, he became general superintendent of the combined lines, continuing in the same position when the lease to the Pennsylvania Railroad was made. In 1899, at his own suggestion, the position of resident manager was created for him, which he held until his retirement in 1903, at the age of seventy. He was widely known as an efficient railway executive throughout the entire country. In all matters relating to New Jersey and to New York harbor, his counsel was especially valued and usually followed by the management of the Pennsylvania Railroad, while his fairness, geniality and tact made many friends for the road both among the traveling public and municipalities through which it passed. Prior to the lease to the Pennsylvania Railroad, he represented the old New Jersey Railroad, and later the United Companies, in all their important conferences with other roads. Contemporaneously with his Pennsylvania Railroad service, Mr. Jack- son was successively director, vice-president and president of the United Railroads, and was a director or the president of most of their sub- sidiary lines in New Jersey. For more than fifty years he was a faithful member of the South Park Presbyterian Church, having re- moved from the First Presbyterian Church upon the organization of the new church in 1853. For many years he was a teacher in and treasurer of the Sabbath school, and for thirty-two years an elder. For over thirty years he served as treasurer of the German Theological School at Bloomfield. He was also a trustee of Princeton Theological Seminary, a manager of the American Bible Society, and a manager and for some time president of the Essex County Bible Society. He gave faith- fully of his time and counsel to all these organ- izations. In his personal life he was without obtruding, an earnest devoted christian, faith- ful to the prayer meeting, regular in the main- tenance of family worship, and of spotless purity and integrity of life, which gave abund- ant witness to the reality and depth of his con- victions. The example of his life was most prized by those who came nearest to him.
Mr. Jackson took a patriotic interest in his state, and was for a number of years a trustee of the New Jersey Historical Society, and in- fluential in the retention of its valuable col- lections in Newark. In 1884 he was elected an honorary member of the New Jersey Soci- ety of the Cincinnati, and on July 4, 1888, he was admitted as a hereditary member as repre- sentative of his great-grandfather, Lieutenant-
Colonel Joshua Huntington. In 1899 he was elected treasurer general of the General Soci- ety. A lifelong Republican, he never took an especially active part in politics or sought political preferment, but he was acquainted with most of the men prominent in Washing- ton from the beginning of the civil war. In 1896 he was appointed a member of the board of visitors to the United States Naval Acad- emy by President Cleveland. He was ap- pointed a delegate to the Pan Presbyterian Council in 1884, 1892 and 1896, attending the meeting held in Belfast in 1884 and in Glasgow in 1896. In 1859 he became a director of the Newark City National Bank, and continued with the National Newark Banking Company, with which it was merged, in the same capacity. He was a member of the Union League Club of New York almost from its organization, and in later years was a member of the Cham- ber of Commerce of New York.
He married, October 12, 1859, Nannie J. Nye, born August 5, 1835, died March IO, 1905, younger daughter of Captain Ezra (q. v. below) and Nancy Fessenden Nye. Their children are: Philip Nye, John Brinckerhoff, William Fessenden, Frederick Wolcott Jr., and Charles Huntington, all referred to below ; Elizabeth Wolcott, born January 23, 1872, re- sides at the family homestead in Newark ; Nina Fessenden and Oliver Wolcott, both referred to below ; and Martha Nye, born November 7, 1878, married Lewis Stewart, of Trenton, Oc- tober 12, 1907, and has one daughter, Fran- cesca, born December 17, 1908.
Captain Ezra Nye, mentioned above, was born in Sandwich, Massachusetts, November 3, 1798, and died at Clinton Place, Newark, April 17, 1866. He was descended from Ben- jamin Nye and Nathaniel Fish, who came from England in 1635 on the ship "Abigail" to Linn, now Saugus, Massachusetts. He went to sea at eleven years of age on a small coast- ing vessel owned and commanded by Captain Levi Gifford, of Sandwich. He rose rapidly, and before he was twenty-one commanded his own vessel, the "Amethyst." At twenty- five he commanded a packet ship and was well- known as an able navigator. He came into especial prominence when in the clipper ship "Independence" he sailed from Southampton to New York in fourteen days and less than two hours, the shortest passage across the Atlantic that had ever been made in a sailing vessel. Later he commanded the "Henry Clay," and then took command of the S. S. "Pacific," of the Collins Line, the first Amer-
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ican line of steamers between New York and Liverpool. In this vessel he crossed the At- lantic in less than ten days. In 1853 he was honored by Queen Victoria for the rescue, in a severe storm, of the crew of the British barque "Jesse Stephens," on December 4, 1852. He retired from the sea in 1855, but continued actively interested in mercantile and marine institutions, and during the civil war gave his services to the government as an examiner of men and vessels for the United States navy. In 1859 he made a trip to the Pacific for the purpose of establishing an ocean tug line through the Straits of Magellan, but the dila- toriness of Chili and the coming on of the civil war interfered. He was interested in grain business in Brooklyn, where he owned a grain elevator and stores. He was a member of the Union League Club and the Chamber of Com- merce of New York. In 1840 Captain Nye bought a farm in Clinton township, now within the limits of Newark, and made this his resi- dence during the remainder of his life. In 1826 he married Nancy Freeman Fessenden, of Sandwich, Massachusetts. Their children were: William Fessenden, born 1827, died 1863; Martha Fessenden, born 1829, died 1899, married Joseph Hurburt Patten, a lawyer of Newport; Joseph, died in infancy ; Nannie J., married Frederick Wolcott Jackson, of Newark.
(VII) Joseph Cooke, fifth child and second son of John P. and Elizabeth ( Wolcott) Jack- son, was born at Newark, August 5, 1835, and resides now in New York City. He was edu- cated at a private military school and at Phil- lips Academy, Andover, graduated from Yale College in 1857, and studied in New York Uni- versity Law School in 1858, teaching for a year at the Newark Academy. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1860. He served from the beginning to the end of the civil war, from private to lieutenant-colonel of volun- teers ; he was brevetted colonel for gallant and meritorious conduct at the battle of Fredericks- burg, and in 1865 was brevetted brigadier- general for faithful and meritorious conduct during the war. He was appointed by Gov. McClellan, commissioner of United States naval credits, and succeeded in having 1900 naval enlistments credited to the quota of troops from New Jersey, saving the state nearly a million dollars. He entered upon the practice of law in New York City, and in 1870 was made assistant district attorney for the southern district. He was a member of the South Park Presbyterian Church from its
organization till he went to live in New York, and superintendent for a time of the mis- sion Sabbath school. He married Katherine Perkins Day, daughter of --- Day, of Hart- ford, Connecticut. Children : 1. Joseph Cooke Jr., graduated Yale, 1887; married Mabel Goodsell, of East Orange ; one son, Hamilton. 2 John Day, graduated Yale University 1890; was engaged in journalism in Washington, and then became proprietor and managing edi- tor of the New Haven Register; he married Rose Marie Herrick, of Indiana, in 1909. 3. Katherine Seymour, married Percy Goodsell, in 1909. 4. Elizabeth Huntington Wolcott, married Martin, in 1909.
(VIII) John Peter, sixth child and third son of John and Elizabeth Huntington ( Wol- cott) Jackson, was born in Newark, Febru- ary 6, 1837, and died there December 17, 1880. After a preliminary education at the school of Nathan Hedges, he entered Princeton College as a sophomore in 1853, graduating with first honors in 1856. In 1857 he entered the Cam- bridge Law School, and on graduation won a prize for a treatise on "Abandonment by the Law of Insurance." In 1859 he delivered the Master's Oration at Princeton. On his return to Newark he began the practice of law, and was until a year before his death the partner of Senator J. Henry Stone. He was a member of the New Jersey assembly during 1862 and 1863, in the latter year receiving the compli- mentary nomination of the Republican mem- bers for speaker. He was city counsel for Newark from 1866 to 1870. In 1878 he was before the convention of the Republicans as a candidate for congress, but not receiving the nomination, threw himself earnestly into the campaign, working for the success of the nomi- nee of this party. At the time of his death he was a member of the special commission ap- pointed by Governor McClellan to frame a general tax law. He had also recently been elected a member of the Newark Republican Association. He was a trustee of the New- ark Academy, secretary of the New Jersey Colonization Society, an active member of the Historical Society, and connected with other organizations. The prominence of his posi- tion at the bar of New Jersey is amply attested by the proceedings of the Essex county bar immediately following his death, recording the words of appreciation and affection of many of its members. One of the members who had spent three years as a student in his office said, "I cannot recall a single instance in which my high appreciation of Mr. Jackson's character
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morally and in every other respect jas in one degree blemished. On the contrary, his life in that office, amid the perplexities and annoy- ances that will come to a busy practitioner, was to me a guide and incentive, and a clue how to successfully, as far as in me lay, guide the life I had to lead." He applied to Mr. Jackson, Sir Philip Sidney's definition of a gentleman, "one who hath high thoughts in a heart of courtesy." A college classmate, on the occasion of the, twenty-fifth anniversary: "As he was our first honor man in a large class, it goes without saying that his mind was one of unusual powers. To be sure, it was not without labor that he maintained his pre- eminence, but it was not without real ability, too." "Though he never gave to frolic the time that was due to study, no man was ever more ready for mirth than he. He easily won friends, and never lost one. He was a 'good fellow' among us, as well as our leading scholar, and we all loved him and we all re- spected him." "His character had always been free from any vice, and his moral tone had been pure and high from his childhood." In his senior year he made a christian profession, and was from then till his death a member of the South Park Presbyterian Church, and for many years a teacher in the Sabbath school.
John Peter Jackson married, October 20, 1868, Clara Gregory, of Jersey City. Children : I. Elsie Gregory, married, in 1903, Deming Jarvis, of California. 2. Laura Wolcott, mar- ried, in 1909, Hon. Mr. Edgren, Swedish secre- tary of legation at Washington ; one child, born 1910. 3. Eliot Gregory, born 1872; studied in Princeton ; in business in San Francisco. 4. John Peter (3d), graduated at Naval Acad- emy at Annapolis ; saw service in the Spanish- American war; still in the navy. 5. Hunting- ton Wolcott, graduated from Princeton Uni- versity ; has been in banking and other business in New York, Washington and Baltimore ; married, in 1909, a daughter of Admiral Con- verse, and lives near Baltimore ; has one daugh- ter, born 1910.
. (IX) Huntington Wolcott, eighth child and fourth son of John P. and Elizabeth ( Wolcott ) Jackson, was born in Newark, January 28, 1841, and died there January 3, 1901. He graduated from Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, entering Princeton College in 1859. He was suspended from College with others in his junior year for refusing to take down the American flag from the tower of Nassau Hall, which he and other students had put there. However, he was granted his de-
gree in 1863, while he was serving in the army. He entered the army as lieutenant September 6, 1862 ; was present at the battle of Antietam, September 16-17, and received especial men- tion for gallantry and good conduct. Shortly after he was promoted to first lieutenant, and was assigned as aide-de-camp to General John Newton, commanding the Third Division, Sixth Corps, Army of the Potomac, with whom he remained till the close of the war. To his bravery on numerous occasions the records of the war department bear witness. He was brevetted successively captain, major and lieutenant-colonel. He was badly wound- ed at the battle of Kenesaw Mountain, but re- joined the staff of Newton in time to take part in Sherman's operations which led to the cap- ture of Atlanta. In the fall of 1864 he entered Harvard Law School, leaving in 1865; after a year of travel abroad, he began in 1867 the practice of law in Chicago. In 1868 he form- ed a partnership with David B. Lyman, which continued until 1895. His partner says of him: "He took a deep interest in public af- fairs, but never became a politician. He accept- ed once the office of town supervisor in order to fight corruption which had become a dis- grace to that part of the city where he lived." 'His ability and integrity gave him position as a lawyer and standing with the bench. It brought him a large clientage and that success which he deserved." "He was a loyal member of the Presbyterian Church." "His religious views never led him into narrowness." By
the will of his friend John Crerar he became together with Norman Williams, an executor and trustee of the Crerar estate and the sec- ond president of Crerar Library. He was a member of the Loyal Legion, and of various of the clubs and organizations of Chicago.
(X) Schuyler Brinckerhoff, eleventh child and seventh son of John Peter and Elizabeth Huntington (Wolcott) Jackson, was born in Newark, New Jersey, June 16, 1849, and is now living in that city. He was educated at the Newark Academy, from which he gradu- ated in 1865; at the Phillips Exeter Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, graduating in 1866; at Yale University, graduating in 1871; and at Columbia University Law School, graduating in 1872. He was admitted to the New Jersey bar as attorney and solicitor in chancery at the November term, 1874, and as counsellor in 1878. Since then he has been appointed mas- ter and examiner in chancery, special master in chancery, and New Jersey supreme court commissioner. He has always practiced in
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New Jersey. From 1879 to 1880 he was one of the aldermen of the city of Newark, in 1878 a member of the New Jersey legislature, and in 1879 speaker of the house of assembly. He is a member of the Yale Alumni Association, the Essex Club, the Fortnightly Club, and the Historical Society of New Jersey. He is a member and an elder of the South Park Pres- byterian Church in Newark, and a director in the Fidelity Trust Company of Newark, New Jersey. February 27, 1889, he married, at San Francisco, California, Angela, daughter of Andrew B. and Kate K. Forbes, whose children were: Stanley, Cleveland, Florence, Katharine (now deceased) and Angela. Mr. Forbes was a prominent capitalist and business man of San Francisco, at one time represent- ing the Pacific Mail steamship line, and after- wards the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York.
(XI) Philip Nye, eldest child of Frederick Wolcott and Nannie Jane (Nye) Jackson, was born September 1, 1860, in Newark, New Jer- sey, where he is now living. He was educated at the Newark Academy, from which he grad- uated in 1877; at Princeton University, from which he graduated in 1881; and at the Col- umbia University Law School. July 18, 1882, he became assistant secretary of the Newark Electric Light and Power Company, which position he held until 1896, when he was ad- vanced through the position of treasurer to that of vice-president. The corporation was then merged into the People's Light and Power Company, of which he became president, and when in 1900 the change to the United Electric Company of New Jersey was effected, he be- came one of the vice-presidents of the last named corporation, which position he held until 1903, when he resigned. Mr. Jackson is a Republican, but has never been especially active in politics. He is one of the trustees of the New Jersey Historical Society, a mem- ber of the Washington Association, of the Cliosophic Society of Princeton, of the Colo- nial Club, of the New York Chamber of Com- merce, of the University Club of New York, of the Union League Club of New York, of the Society of the Cincinnati, of the Garfield Club of Newark, of the Somerset County Country Club, one of the managers of the American Bible Society, a trustee of the Ger- man Theological School, and a trustee of the Third Presbyterian Church of Newark. He is also a director in the Fireman's Insurance Company, and of the United Railroad Com- pany. November 5, 1884, Philip Nye Jack-
son married, in Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Margaret, youngest child of Edwin A. and Camilla ( Ihrie) Atlee, whose children were: Albert; Lily, married Lind- ley Haines, of Philadelphia ; Edwin Ihrie, mar- ried Emily Potter ; and Margaret, born March 20, 1863, married Philip Nye Jackson. Chil- dren of Philip Nye and Margaret (Atlee) Jackson: I. Nannie Nye, born August II, 1885; married Washington Lewis, son of Ed- win Augustus and Emily Contee (Lewis) Ste- vens (see Stevens). 2. Edith Atlee, born October 6, 1886; married Thatcher Magoun Adams Jr. ; one child, Thatcher Magoun (3d), born February 24, 1907, died March 3, 1907. 3 Frederick Wolcott, born February 20, 1888. 4. Margaret Atlee, November 11, 1890. 5. Philip Nye Jr., May 15, 1898. 6. Schuyler Brinckerhoff, August 18, 1900.
(XII) John Brinckerhoff, second child of Frederick Wolcott and Nannie (Nye) Jack- son, was born in Newark, August 19, 1862, and is at present United States minister to Cuba, and resides in Havana. He was edu- cated at the Newark Academy, graduating in 1879, and at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, from 1879 to 1883. During the next two years he was attached to the European Squadron, during the first year occupying the position of junior aide to Ad- miral Baldwin, the commander-in-chief, and was offered the position by Admiral English the following year. Returning to Annapolis for his final examinations, he was commission- ed ensign July 1, 1885. After a course at the Torpedo Station at Newport, Rhode Island, he was stationed at the Naval Ordnance Proving Grounds at Annapolis. He resigned from the navy June 30, 1886, and went to New York, where he entered the office of Robinson, Bright, Biddle & Ward, and at the same time attended lectures at the Law School of New York Uni- versity, making a specialty of admiralty law. He was admitted to the New York bar, Feb- ruary 14, 1889. After a period spent in Euro- pean travel with his wife he was appointed second secretary of the legation at Berlin by President Harrison, December 30, 1890. In 1894, on the urgent recommendation of Am- bassador Runyon, he was appointed by Presi- dent Cleveland, first secretary of embassy, and after Ambassador Runyon's death he was for several months acting ambassador, and was at various times charge d'affaires. He continued to hold the first secretaryship during the entire term of office of President Mckinley. In 1903 President Roosevelt appointed him minister to
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