USA > New Jersey > Warren County > History of Warren County, New Jersey > Part 21
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The organization and construction of the Warren railroad in 1853, in the face of strong opposition by the Morris & Essex railroad, evinces the great business capacity
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and tact of Mr. Blair as a railroad manager. Books of subscription were opened by the commissioners, the requisite amount of stock subscribed for, directors and officers chosen, the survey of the route adopted, and the president authorized to file it in the office of the secretary of state, full power delegated to the president to construct the road and to make contracts or leases for connecting with other roads, and the right of way through important gaps secured, all within the space of two hours. Mr. Blair was chosen president, and the next day but one found him in Trenton filing the survey about one hour in advance of the agents of the Morris & Essex railroad. The succeeding day saw him on the Delaware securing the passes. One day later the engineers and agents of the Morris & Essex railroad came to the same place on the same errand. The former had already secured all the passes below the Water Gap. The latter struck for those in and above the Gap on the New Jersey side, and paid exorbitant prices for farms, right of way, and two river crossings. Their vigilant competitor, however, cansed the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western railroad to be constructed through the Gap on the Pennsylvania side, and, crossing the river several miles below, cut them off with their high-priced passes and crossings on their hands. A contest in the courts and legislature of New Jersey resulted in sustaining the Warren road. It would be beyond the scope and limits of a work of this kind to pursue in further detail the various railroad and business enterprises of Mr. Blair, who was one of the railroad magnates of America, and the controlling owner in a large number of wealthy corporations. He was president of the Warren, the Sussex, and the Blairstown rail- roads of New Jersey, and a large stockholder in the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western railroad. He was the main stockholder of ten different railroads in Nebraska, Iowa and Wisconsin, comprising about two thousand miles in extent, and was the veritable railroad king of the west. He obtained two million acres of land from the govern- ment for railroads in that section, and became a director of six land and town lot companies in the west. He was a member of the first board of directors of the Union Pacific railroad, and a member of the executive and finance committees, and con- structed the first railroad through the state of Iowa to connect with the Union Pacific at Omaha, employing ten thousand men for eight months. He also purchased the Green Bay railroad to Winona, some two hundred miles long, for two million dollars. He was a director of the Lackawanna Coal & Iron Company; president of the Belvi- dere, New Jersey, National Bank, almost since its organization in 1830, and main stockholder of the First National Bank of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and a director in the Scranton Savings Institution, besides being interested in different directions in silver mining and smaller business ventures.
In all his business transactions, though comprising millions of dollars, no one ever questioned the integrity of Mr. Blair, nor successfully challenged his honesty of motive and purpose. He ever manifested great concern for the interests and rights of others, and was the donor of large gifts to private and public institutions. His personal donations were simply enormous, including the sum of about $70,000 to the College of New Jersey at Princeton, of which he was one of the trustees, and $50,000 to Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania, including the endowment of the chair of the president. The Blair Academy of Blairstown, New Jersey, has cost, including buildings, grounds and endowment, about $500,000, and was donated by Mr. Blair to the presbytery of Newton in trust. The various buildings of modern construction and design, are of the handsomest of their kind in the state; are heated throughout by steam, and supplied with pure spring and artesian well water, and have every modern convenience. Provision is made in the endowment of the institution for the education of the sons and daughters of ministers of the presbytery free of charge for board and tuition. Mr. Blair's other contributions to the cause of education and religion through- out the country have comprised hundreds of thousands of dollars. He ever assisted
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liberally in supporting church institutions of various denominations, and in the eighty towns that he laid out in the west more than one hundred churches have been erected largely through his liberality.
In politics Mr. Blair was a staunch supporter of Republican principles, but found little leisure to indulge in office-holding, or to mingle in the affairs of political life .. His sphere was a higher one, ministering alike to the prosperity of the whole people and to the material and commercial growth of the country. He was the candidate of the Republican party for governor of New Jersey in 1868.
Mr. Blair married, September 20, 1826, Nancy Locke, born November 30, 1804, died October 12, 1888. Her grandfather, Captain Locke, was killed at the battle of Springfield, during the revolution. Children: Emma Elizabeth, referred to below; Marcus Lawrence, born 1830, died 1874, unmarried; DeWitt Clinton, and Aurelia 'Ann, both referred to below.
(IV) Emma Elizabeth, daughter of John Insley and Nancy (Locke) Blair, was born September 24, 1827, and died February 15, 1869. She married, June 13, 1848, Charles Scribner, founder of the distinguished publishing firm of New York City, who was born February 21, 1821, and died August 26, 1871. Children: 1. John Insley Blair (Scribner), died 1879; married Lucy Scidmore. 2. Emma Locke (Scribner), married Walter Cranston Larned. 3. Charles (Scribner) (2), married Louise Flagg. 4. Arthur Hawley (Scribner), married Helen Annan. 5. Herbert (Scribner), died 1864. 6. Ann (Scribner), died 1867. 7. Isabelle (Scribner), married Carter Harrison Fitz Hugh.
(IV) DeWitt Clinton, son of John Insley and Nancy (Locke) Blair, was born September 6, 1833. He married, April 21, 1864, Mary Anna Kimball. Children: I. John I., died July 27, 1866. 2. Clinton Ledyard, married Florence Osborne Jennings. 3. J. Insley.
(IV) Aurelia Ann, daughter of John Insley and Nancy (Locke) Blair, was born September 14, 1838, and died October 7, 1866. She married, October 20, 1864, Clarence Green Mitchell, a lawyer of New York City, who died 1893. Only Child: Clarence Blair ( Mitchell), married Lucy Mildred Matthews.
George Wyckoff Cummins, Ph. D., M .. D., is a representative of a CUMMINS family that can be traced back in European history to the middle ages. The name is taken from the town in which the family origi- nated, called Commines, partly in France and partly in Belgium. Some members of the family went to England with William the Conqueror in 1066 and established the English, Scotch and Irish branches of the family. Four Scottish earls bore the name in the thirteenth century. The most illustrious of the name was Philip de Commines, who was born in 1447 and died in 1511. His memoirs concerning the events of his times have caused him to be called "The Father of Modern History."
The founder of this branch of the family in America was Christeon Cummins, who arrived at Philadelphia in the good ship "Molly," October 17, 1741. By work- ing at his trade of tailor he accumulated enough money in a few years to buy the farm at Asbury, New Jersey, that remained in possession of his descendants until 1878. Jacob Cummins, a brother of his, settled at Delaware, New Jersey. Christeon Cummins and his wife Catherine had ten children, one of whom was noted as the strongest man in these parts. He could on a running jump clear a team of oxen or the cover of a big wagon. He could lift a barrel full of cider and drink from the bunghole and, in a wrestle, could throw any one he met. These abilities were highly appreciated in those days, when impromptu athletic contests formed an important part of the amusements of the period.
Four of the children of Christeon Cummins settled at what is now Vienna, New
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Jersey, so it is little to be wondered at that the place was called Cumminstown until about 1828, when it was changed to Vienna, in honor of the capital of Austria, the country from which Christeon Cummins came in 1741. . At that time Austria extended to the Atlantic Ocean. Christeon's oldest son Philip settled about 1770 on the place where now lives his only surviving grandson, A. J. Cummins, at Vienna. In 1794 he built the stone house which still forms part of a fine residence. Here was born in 1790 his youngest son Jacob, grandfather of our subject. Jacob, in a long life that ended in 1873, amassed the largest fortune in his township.
His son, Simon A. Cummins, was born on the old homestead in 1823, and was not only an enterprising farmer but also an inventor and manufacturer of agricul- tural implements. As an ardent Democrat he held many township and county offices. He was for many years an official member of the Christian Church at Vienna. He married, in 1849, Mary Carhart, daughter of Cornelius, granddaughter of Samuel, and great-granddaughter of Cornelius Carhart, who was captain of the Third Regiment of Hunterdon county in 1778 and third major in 1781, in the Con- tinental army. Major Carhart was the son of Robert and grandson of Thomas Car- hart, who came to America, August 25, 1683, as private secretary to Governor Thomas Dongan. Thomas Carhart married Mary Lord, daughter of Robert Lord and Rebecca Phillips, whose sister Elizabeth married John Alden, the son of Priscilla and John Alden, made famous by Longfellow in the "Courtship of Miles Standish." Rebecca Phillips' father is mentioned by John G. Whittier in his poem of "Mogg Megone."
George Wyckoff Cummins was born March 2, 1865, entered the Centenary Colle- giate Institute at Hackettstown, New Jersey, in 1879, and, graduating in 1881, entered the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale College, at which he received the degree of Ph. B. in 1884. He remained four years as a post graduate student and instructor in physi- ological chemistry and mathematics, receiving the degree of Ph. D. from Yale Univer- sity in 1887. He continued his studies at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York (the medical department of Columbia University) which gave him the degree of M. D. in 1890. On June 14, 1890, he married Annie Blair Titman, daughter of William Blair Titman, of Bridgeville, New Jersey.
Mrs. Cummins is very active in church work. She has been secretary and treas- urer of the County Sunday School Association for seven years. She is a skillful per- former on the piano and pipe-organ, both of which are at her disposal in the stone residence on the Park at Belvidere. For seven years she has given her services as organist in the Methodist Episcopal Church on the Jardine organ that she was largely instrumental in procuring.
In collaboration with Professor R. H. Chittenden, of Yale University, Dr. Cum- mins has done a great deal of original work in physiological chemistry, most of which is published in the Transactions of the Connecticut Academy. He is also the author of "The Annealing of Copper," "A Four Thousand Year Calendar," and many arti- cles on genealogical, historical and scientific subjects.
Dr. Cummins has made two trips abroad, partly educational and partly in the inter- est of some important inventions of his in improved methods of annealing iron and copper wire! His method of annealing copper in an atmosphere of steam is the accepted method throughout the world to-day, and offered the first practical proof that steam can be superheated to a white heat with perfect safety, provided it is done at atmospheric pressure.
In 1891 Dr. Cummins entered upon the practice of medicine at Belvidere, New Jersey, where he has resided ever since. In 1897 he was the active spirit in the forma- tion of the West Jersey Toll Line Company, which has control of the telephone system of Warren county.
In addition to his private practice, he has served as physician to the town of Belvi-
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dere and county of Warren, secretary of the board of health, and medical inspector of Belvidere's public schools. He has been a member of the board of education for eighteen years, and has done much to bring the schools to their present high standard. He is also examiner for several life insurance companies and several lodges. He is a past master of Warren Lodge, No. 13, Free and Accepted Masons, and was the first commander of Belvidere Tent, No. 30, Knights of the Maccabees.
TITMAN William Blair Titman, deceased, was highly respected during his
useful and busy life, and, though he was summoned to the better land nine years ago, his memory is still cherished in the hearts of many friends and associates, who held him dear while he was among them. He was a most worthy representative of a family that has long been numbered among the best people of New Jersey, and whose representatives have owned and improved land generation after generation, thus adding materially to the substantial wealth of the several com- munities of which they formed a part.
In tracing the record of the Titmans it is of interest to note that the family orig- inated in the province of Saxony, and that Lodewick Titman was the founder of the family in America. In 1737 he bought a farm of four hundred acres situated at the very base of the Blue Mountains, six miles from the Water Gap. He was thus one of the very earliest settlers in the county. His name is attached to the call made in 1749 to John Albert Weygand, the second regular pastor of the Lutheran churches in this part of the State. His will was admitted to probate at Newton on November 23, 1772. Some of the property willed at that time to his two sons, George and Baltus, was in the family from 1737 until about 1900.
One son of Lodewick Titman, and the lineal ancestor of our subject, was George, who was born in 1726 and came to America with his father when eleven years of age. George's daughter Mary married Rev. Ludwig Chitara, a converted Swiss Augustinian monk, who preached to the German Reformed congregations at Knowlton and Newton. George Titman died in 1792, and his son George, born in 1750, bought in 1775 of Will- iam Coxe and Mary, his wife, a tract of 266 acres at Bridgeville, and in 1793 added to it 200 acres which was also a part of the Coxe tract and has been the homestead of our subject's family ever since. One of the children of George and Lanah (Albright) Titman was Jacob, who was born April 4, 1781, married Elizabeth Mayberry in 1802, and died February 25, 1864. His son, Jabez Gwinnup Titman, born March 22, 1812, married Mary Ann Blair and was the father of our subject.
J. G. Titman was an able business man and a practical agriculturist. He was very liberal to all enterprises deserving of support, and was a patriotic citizen. His death took place December 14, 1889.
William Blair Titman's mother, Mary Ann Blair, was a member of the most promi- nent family in Northern New Jersey, and was a cousin of the Honorable John I. Blair, long noted as the wealthiest man in the State. Her father was William Blair, one of the founders of the Lutheran church at Greenwich, New Jersey, and son of John Blair, whose father, Samuel Blair, was the founder of the family in America. He came from Scotland about 1730, and married into the family of the elder Dr. William Shippen, of Philadelphia, who owned the iron furnace at Oxford and large tracts of land on Scott's Mountain, and this fact determined the presence of the Blairs in our county.
William Blair Titman attended the public schools of Bridgeville, and later was a student in the Belvidere Academy. From the age of twenty he engaged in farming until he retired to enjoy the fruits of many years of toil. After his retirement in 1890 he resided in a handsome dwelling, which he built at Belvidere, until his death, on July 21, 1902. On the organization of the Washington National Bank he was elected pres- ident of the institution and this position he retained until his decease.
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On November 28, 1865, Mr. Titman married Margaret E. Roseberry. Their only child, Annie Blair, married, on June 14, 1890, Dr. G. Wyckoff Cummins, a physician of Belvidere, New Jersey, and still owns the homestead at Bridgeville originally bought by her great-great-grandfather. Mrs. Cummins took the course in music at the Cen- tenary Collegiate Institute at Hackettstown, New Jersey, and is a skilled performer on the piano and pipe organ. She is a member of the National Association of Organists.
Mrs. Titman is descended through her father, Joseph M. Roseberry, from one of the oldest and most prominent families in this section and through her mother, Sally Ann Depue, from the old Huguenot family who settled in the Minisink and numbers many professional men among its members.
At the time of his death, Mr. Titman was president of the West Jersey Toll Line Company, a director of the Mercer County Insurance Company, a member of the board of trustees of the First Presbyterian Church of Belvidere, a member of the common council of the town, and vice-president of the Warren County Farmers' Picnic Association.
John Ludwig Klein, as his name is spelt on his gravestone in the cemetery CLINE of St. James' Lutheran Church, was a native of Saxony, Germany. In the old records the name occurs variously as Ludwig, Lodewijk and Lewis, in accordance with the German, Dutch or English nationality of the recorder, and he him- self signs his will Lodoway Cline. The date on his tombstone is indecipherable, but he died in Greenwich township, Sussex (now Warren) county, New Jersey, between July JI and August 16, 1796, the dates of the execution and proving of his will. He emi- grated first to Perth Amboy, and in 1740 settled on a farm of about two hundred acres of land about midway between the present towns of Phillipsburg and Stewartsville. He married, December 18, 1752, Catharina Bordelmay, or Borde Imay, who was born in Saxony, January 26, 1734, and died in New Jersey, January 29, 1792. Children : Michael, removed to Indiana; Mary, married Burke; Elizabeth, married William Teal; Catharina, married John Teal; Margaret, married Demond; Lewis, re- ferred to below; Sarah, married Steelsmith; Elizabeth, married Ritter.
(II) Lewis Cline, son of John Ludwig and Catharina (Bordelmay ) Klein, was born about 1766, and died about 1847. He inherited from his father the old two-hundred- acre farm where he was born. He added to the property about two hundred acres more and became a prominent man in the community. He had a liberal education for his time, and he was for many years an elder of the Presbyterian Church at Harmony.
Lewis Cline married, in 1790, Elizabeth, daughter of Jacob Weller, of Frank- lin township, Sussex county, New Jersey, who was born about 1774, and died March 31, 1857. Her grandfather had emigrated about 1740 to America and settled on a farm of about one thousand acres of land near the present town of New Village. She was widely known, not only as a most worthy Christian woman, but for her superior knowl- edge of disease and its remedies and for her remarkable cures of the sick. Children : Jacob, born April 26, 1791, died 1855, a miller and farmer, of Lopatcong township; Anna, born November 19, 1792, married Peter Winter, of Greenwich township; Mary, born October 14, 1794, married Thomas Reese, of Phillipsburg; John and Lewis, both referred to below; Eliza, died aged sixteen years; Christiana, born in June, 1804, mar- ried Archibald Davison, of Belvidere; William, born in 1806, lived and died at Cham- bersburg, Pennsylvania; Michael, born in 1808, lived and died on a farm adjoining that settled by his grandfather, in Greenwich township.
(III) John, son of Lewis and Elizabeth (Weller) Cline, was born in Greenwich township, Sussex (now Warren) county, New Jersey, January 4, 1797, and died at New Village, Warren county, November 30, 1881. His early life was spent on his father's farm, and on another that he rented about the time of his marriage. In 1824 he pur-
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chased two hundred acres of land at New Village, to which he subsequently added about three hundred acres more. He spent the remainder of his life here, and by his enterprise, industry, economy and judicious management not only became the possessor of a large property but also made himself one of the most successful of the representa- tive agriculturists of the county. Soon after his marriage he and his wife became members of the Presbyterian church, and until their deaths were among the staunchest and most liberal supporters of the congregation. They were also for many years mem- bers of the American Bible Society. Until the outbreak of the civil war Mr. Cline was a Democrat, and served one term in the New Jersey legislature in 1851. Afterwards, however, his anti-slavery beliefs led him to join the Republican party. He married, September 9, 1819, Ruth, born July 12, 1802, died November 26, 1899, daughter of the Rev. Garner A. and Ruth (Page) Hunt. Her grandfather, Major-General Augustine Hunt, was an officer in the British army during the revolutionary war, and had later settled in New York state, where he died. Two of his children, Holloway and Garner A., became noted Presbyterian pastors and settled in New Jersey. The Rev. Holloway Hunt died January II, 1858, aged eighty-eight years, near Clinton, Hunterdon county, New Jersey, where he had spent his life as pastor of the "Old Stone Church." The Rev. Garner A. Hunt went first to Cumberland county, New Jersey, where he married. Afterwards he became pastor at Kingwood, Hunterdon county, and at Harmony and Oxford, Warren county. He died at Harmony, February II, 1849, aged eighty-four years. He married Ruth, daughter of Captain David Page, of Cumberland county. Children : Dr. David Page, of Marksboro, Warren county; Rev. Holloway, Presby- terian minister at Metuchen, Middlesex county, New Jersey; Sarah, married Lewis (2), son of Lewis (1) and Elizabeth (Weller) Cline, referred to below; Ruth Page, referred to above. Children of John and Ruth Page (Hunt) Cline: Holloway Hunt, born 1820, died June 14, 1892; Elizabeth, referred to below; Sarah H., referred to below; Caroline, married Andrew Slover, of Blairstown; John W., referred to below; Garner A., born September 8, 1833, died September 27, 1870.
(IV) Elizabeth, daughter of John and Ruth Page (Hunt) Cline, was born in Harmony, Sussex (now Warren) county, New Jersey, February 4, 1823, and is now living at Stewartsville, Warren county. Her parents moved to New Village when she was five years old, and she was educated in a private school in that place. In 1892, after her husband's and father's deaths, she removed with her mother and her brother, Holloway Hunt Cline, to Stewartsville. She had always been interested in church work and joined the Greenwich Presbyterian Church when she was sixteen years old. At present (1910) she is a member of the Stewartsville church. Besides seven large farms, she owns a number of valuable properties in Stewartsville, and is a stockholder in the national banks of Phillipsburg and Easton. She married, September 22, 1865, Martin H., born July II, 1825, died August 8, 1873, son of Peter Tinsman. He was a wealthy farmer of Warren county, a member of St. James' Lutheran Church till his marriage, and afterwards of the Presbyterian Church. He possessed a good deal of musical talent and was an excellent performer on the violin. Children of Peter and Margaret (Cline) Tinsman: Sarah (Tinsman), married George Weller; John (Tins- man) ; William.
ยท (IV) Sarah H., daughter of John and Ruth Page (Hunt) Cline, was born in Warren county, New Jersey, February 24, 1825, and died July 10, 1906. She married, February 18, 1847, John Howell, son of Michael and Naomi (Howell) Boyer, referred to elsewhere.
(IV) John W., son of John and Ruth Page (Hunt) Cline, was born in New Village, Warren county, New Jersey, July 31, 1830. He received his early education in the schools of his birthplace, and has spent his entire life there, engaged in agriculture and stock raising. He is regarded as one of the most representative farmers and honored citizen of Warren county, where he owns seven farms, aggregating over eight
Martin H. Jinsman
Elizabeth Tinsman
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hundred acres of the county's most valuable land. Until 1908 he lived in the old farm house built by his father, but in that year he erected the present fine residence occupied by himself and his son, John B. Cline, who now (1910) manages the place. The dwell- ing has every modern convenience, is on the line of the Easton & Washington electric railroad, and is situated on one of the most beautiful spots in the county. Besides his farms Mr. Cline owns eleven houses in New Village, which he built for and rents to the employees of the Edison Portland Cement Company. He has been a member of the Presbyterian Church from boyhood, and for the last forty years has been an elder. For more than twenty years he was librarian of and teacher in the Sunday school. He is an earnest advocate of temperance, and a Democrat in politics. He has served as township committeeman, as a member of the board of freeholders, and for ten years a: a member of the board of education. He married (first), March 10, 1857, Savilla, born July 19, 1836, died August 6, 1869, daughter of Michael and Naomi (Howell) Boyer. He married (second), January 18, 1872, Ellen H. Thatcher. Children, five by first wife: Frank, born December 31, 1857, died June 10, 1876, when about to enter college to study for the ministry; William, born October 3, 1859, died September 23, 1862; George B., born March 2, 1861, died September 30, 1861; Garner A., born April 20, 1864, married Isabella Peters, children: Elizabeth C., Frank C. and Ruth; Edward, born, born May 24, 1865, died July 13, 1865; John B., born April 6, 1873, married Mercy J., daughter of Frank and Margaret (Lake) Smith, children: Mildred and Holloway.
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