USA > New Jersey > Memorial cyclopedia of New Jersey, Volume I > Part 39
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Mr. Yorke was a good and true friend. kindly hearted and sincere, his experience and sympathy making him a safe counsel- or. With personality most delightful. mod-
He began est and unassuming, be was an interesting
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companion, calling upon the experiences of his travels and his generous reading for topics of common appeal. He was a pleas- ing conversationalist and an appreciative listener. When, at the mature age of sev- enty years, he was called to another world, regret was genuine and universal, manifest- ed by all who had ever come within the charm of his presence. He is buried in St. John's Cemetery, at Salem, that spot hal- lowed by the dust of so many of his kith and kin.
CLEMENT, DeWitt Clinton,
Prominent Man of Affairs.
Through intermarriage the families of Yorke, Sinnickson, and Clement touch many of the leading families of West Jersey, a section in which these families have ever been prominent. This branch of the Cle- ment family traces to James Clement, found- er of the American branch of the ancient and honorable Clement family of England, that in some branches traces to royal an- cestors, Kings of England, Scotland, and France. James Clement, the founder in America, was the head of one of the pio- neer families of Haddonfield, New Jersey, locating there in 1670. He died in 1724.
Jacob Clement, son of John, the founder was high sheriff of Gloucester county, New Jersey, 1709-10. His son, Samuel, was a member of the New Jersey Legislature, 1754-61-65. His wife, Rebecca Collins, was a granddaughter of Francis Collins, of Eng- land, judge, member of the governor's coun- cil and of the New Jersey Legislature for many years. From Samuel and Rebecca (Collins) Clement came three generations, headed by a Samuel Clement, to Samuel (4), father of DeWitt Clinton Clement, of Salem, New Jersey, of the seventh Ameri- can generation.
DeWitt Clinton Clement, the son of Samuel and Eliza H. Clement, was born in 1826, died in Salem, January 10, 1883. Af- ter completing his education he was engaged
for a time in mercantile life in Baltimore and Philadelphia, later locating in Salem, New Jersey, where he was for a time a mer- chant. When his father-in-law, Judge Thomas J. Yorke, became active in railroad enterprises, Mr. Clement became closely as- sociated with him as secretary and treas- urer of Salem railroad, an office he most capably filled until his death. In addition to this railroad connections Mr. Clement had other large business interests of a private nature and ranked with the foremost men of his day. He was a forceful, energetic man of affairs, held the unbounded confi- dence of his associates, and left behind him a worthy reputation.
In private life he was highly esteemed and no man in the community was more re- spected than he. He was very popular in Salem, but his modesty and self effacement prevented his friends from bestowing upon him the public honors that they desired to make his, his refusal to allow his name to be presented for political preference con- stant and steadfast. He served one term in Salem council, but his inclinations ran so little toward such activity that he never again relented. He was a Whig in politics until the overthrow of that party, then af- filiated with the Democracy. He was not unmindful of the claims of his city upon his time and services, but in private life fulfilled all of the obligations of good citi- zenship, and was a tower of strength in the party. His talents were most versatile, and there was no branch of the railroad busi- ness with which he was unfamiliar, even to running a locomotive. He was connect- ed with the Salem railroad from 1858 until his death, a period of twenty-five years.
He was most kindly by nature and ever ready to aid his friends. He was known to all in Salem and for all he had a cheery word and genial smile. In St. John's Epis- copal Church he served with zeal as ves- tryman, and his intense public spirit was made manifest in many ways. He loved his library and read extensively, adding to
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personal experience the printed knowledge of masters of many lines of human effort. He fought life's battle valiantly, and cre- ated a record of efficiency, public spirit, and good citizenship that well deserves to be perpetuated and emulated.
Mr. Clement married (second) April 24, 1861, Mary Adelaide Yorke, daughter of Judge Thomas Jones and Margaret John- son (Sinnickson) Yorke. of extended men- tion in this work. Child: Eliza H., mar- ried Charles Heath Bannard, of the Fideli- ty Trust Company, Philadelphia, and has Charles Heath and Margaret Yorke Ban- nard. Mrs. Mary A. Yorke survived her husband, a resident of Salem, her home, No. 114 West Broadway, filled with pre- cious mementoes of her honored ancestry.
DODD, Amzi,
Distinguished Jurist.
Civilization will hail riches, prowess, honors, popularity, but it will bow humbly to sincerity in its fellows. The exponent of known sincerity, of singleness of honest purpose, has its exemplification in all bodies of men; he is found in every association and to him defer its highest honors. Such an exemplar, whose daily life and whose life work have been dominated as their most conspicuous characteristic by sincerity, was Amzi Dodd, who endeared himself to the citizens of New Jersey by his devotion to duty as a public man and by his many kind acts in private life. Hon. Mr. Dodd serv- ed the State of New Jersey as Vice-Chan- cellor on two occasions, for ten years was a special justice of the Court of Errors and Appeals, and in 1882 became the president of the Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Com- pany of Newark.
A native son of New Jersey, Judge Dodd was born in Essex county, March 2. 1823. The emigrant ancestor of the Dodd family in America was Daniel Dodd, an English Puritan who came to America in 1646, and whose son Daniel was one of the founders
of Newark, whither he came as a member of the party from Branford, Connecticut, headed by Rev. Abraham Pierson, in 1666. The younger Dodd gained fame as an able mathematician and he was a surveyor by profession ; in 1692 he served as a member of the Colonial General Assembly. Gen- eral John Dodd, grandfather of Amzi Dodd, was a lifelong resident of Bloomfield, New Jersey, where he did considerable work as a surveyor and where he served as magistrate for many years. His son, the late Dr. Joseph Smith Dodd, father of Amzi Dodd, was graduated in the medical department of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), as a member of the class of 1813, with the degree of Doctor of Medicine. He initiated the ac- tive work of his profession at Bloomfield and for nearly a third of a century devoted his attention to a large and lucrative prac- tice here, where his death occurred Septem- ber 5, 1847. He married Maria, daughter of the Rev. Stephen Grover, who was for fifty years pastor of the Presbyterian church at Caldwell, New Jersey.
From the foregoing it will be seen that Judge Dodd was descended from a dis- tinguished ancestry, many of his forefathers having been extremely well read and learn- ed. He was the second son of his parents and was carefully nurtured in a home of refinement and culture. As a youth he at- tended the Bloomfield Academy, and in 1839. at the age of sixteen years, he was admitted to membership in the sophomore class of the College of New Jersey, in which excellent institution he was graduat- ed in 1841 with the highest honors, being chosen to deliver the Latin salutatory at the commencement in September of that year. He was a classmate of the Rev. Dr. Theodore Cuyler, the eminent Brooklyn di- vine ; Rev. Dr. Duffield, of Princeton Uni- versity : John T. Nixon, United States Dis- trict Judge : Edward W. Scudder, of the New Jersey Supreme Court ; Rev. Dr. Pot- ter. of Ohio; and Professor A. Alexander
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Holge. After completing his collegiate course he began teaching school, being thus engaged in Virginia for the ensuing four years. During all his spare time and in vacations he read law, also doing service for a time in the office of Messrs. Miller & Whelpley, prominent attorneys at Morris- town, New Jersey. He was admitted to the New Jersey bar in January, 1848. and shortly afterward entered into a parmer- ·hip alliance with the Hon. Frederick T. Frelinghuysen, then a practicing lawyer of prominence and later Secretary of State of the United States. In 1850 Judge Dodd was made clerk of the Common Council of Newark and he retained this position for three years, in the meantime carrying on an individual law practice. With the pas- sage of time his legal work grew to such tremendous proportions that he was forced to withdraw from the above office and de- vote his entire attention to the demands of his clients. Although an able and popular public speaker his legal work seemed to be confined mostly to corporation and fiduci- ary affairs. In 1851 he delivered a wonder- ful Fourth of July oration in the First Presbyterian Church at Newark and subse- quently he delivered a literary address at commencement at Princeton, a discourse before the Essex County Bible Society, and in the strenuous period preceding and dur- ing the Civil War he made many strong speeches in favor of abolition.
As a "Free-Soiler" he aided in the found- ing of the Republican party, of whose prin- ciples he was an active exponent. In 1856 he was chosen as the Republican nominee for Congress in the district composed of Essex and Hudson counties. In 1863 he was elected by the Republicans of Essex county to the New Jersey legislature, serv- ing in that capacity for one term. In all his political campaigning he won renown as a strong and forceful public speaker and in view of this fact it was remarkable that he preferred to act as counsellor rather than as advocate in his professional work.
However, he early evinced the highest ca- pacity for original investigation and inter- pretation of the law. His mind was early skilled in logical reasoning, which enabled him to solve a legal complexity as easily as a problem in Euclid. As a lawyer he was not one who relied upon antecedent cases but went down to the fundamental principles and applied them to the case in hand, whether similar questions had been adjudicated adversely or not.
So widespread had Mr. Dodd's fame as a lawyer become that in 1871, when the business of the Court of Chancery of New Jersey became so pressing as to oblige Chan- cellor Zabriskie to ask for the appointment of a. Vice-Chancellor, he was immediately chosen for the position. He received his appointment from Governor Randolph and served as Vice-Chancellor with the utmost efficiency until 1875, when he handed in his resignation. In 1872 he had been nom- inated by Governor Parker and confirmed by the Senate as one of the special justices of the Court of Errors and Appeals, the highest judicial tribunal in the State. His term of office as justice lasted six years, and in 1878 General George B. McClellan, then governor of New Jersey, wrote Judge Dodd the following letter, which is here
STATE OF NEW JERSEY, EXECUTIVE DE- PARTMENT, TRENTON.
January 18, 1878. Hon. Amzi Dodd, Newark.
Dear Sir :- Although your term of office as a member of the Court of Appeals does not ex- pire for several weeks, there are reasons which seem to render it advisable for me to take meas- sures to fill the appointment at an early day. I do not care to make a nomination without first ascertaining the wishes of the party most inter- ested, and I therefore write to say to you that it will afford me peculiar satisfaction to be per- mitted to nominate you as your own successor. Perhaps you will pardon me for saying that I am led to this determination by the estimate in which you are held by all who have been thrown in contact with you.
Very truly and respectfully, your obedient ser- vant,
(Signed)
GEO. B. MCCLELLAN.
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Judge Dodd returned an affirmative reply to the above letter and after Governor Mc- Clellan had made the appointment he sent with the commission the following brief note :
STATE OF NEW JERSEY, EXECUTIVE DE- PARTMENT, TRENTON. February 7. 1878. Hon. Amzi Dodd, Court of Errors and Appeals :
My Dear Sir :- I take great pleasure in for- warding to you the new commission for the office you now hold. This appointment was made sole- ly in consequence of your eminent merit and with- out solicitation from any quarter, and it is very gratifying to me that you have consented to ac- cept it.
Very truly your friend, (Signed) GEO. B. MCCLELLAN.
From 1875 to April, 1887, Judge Doda was a member of the New Jersey Board of Riparian Commissioners, receiving that ap- pointment from Governor Bedle. In 1881 he was again called upon to serve the State as Vice-Chancellor, taking the office at the request of Chancellor Runyon. He re- tained this position for only one year, how- ever, and in 1882 also resigned his seat upon the bench of the Court of Errors and Appeals, being moved to do so in order to assume the duties as president of the Mutu- al Benefit Life Insurance Company of New- ark, of which prominent corporation he had been mathematician for the preceding twen- ty years. That all Judge Dodd's public offices were held by merit and never by political influence is evident when it is here stated that all his appointments were receiv- ed from Democratic administrations, he, himself. being an uncompromising Republi- can. For a period of eleven years, from 1871 to 1882, Judge Dodd was engaged in judicial duties. His opinions as an equity judge are to be found in the New Jersey Reports, volumes 22 to 34 inclusive ; and as a member of the Court of Errors and Ap- peals, his opinions are in volumes 36 to 42 inclusive. "They are regarded by legal men as possessing superior merit and belonging to the best class of judicial productions.
Some of them have become authoritative cases in important questions." One of the most notable cases decided by him was that of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company vs. the National Railway Company, tried in 1873. Judge Dodd's opinions in this no- table case are recorded in volume 7, C. E. Gr. 441. His decision was never appealed and the result of the injunction issued against the defendant prohibiting the con- struction of the proposed road was the pas- sage soon after of the general railroad law of the State. In a historical account of New Jersey legislation the above case is spoken of as follows :
Chancellor Zabriskie was in Europe at the time, and the application for injunction restraining the construction of the new road was made to Amzi Dodd, the Vice-Chancellor, the peer of the Chan- cellor in legal skill and learning. The hearing extended during several months. The Chancery Court rooms, the morning he read his opinion. were crowded to suffocation. The excitement created by the decision was simply enormous Coming on the eve of the decisive battle between the two corporations in the halls of the legisla- ture, then in session, its importance may be im- agined, but its effect can scarcely be described. The Vice-Chancellor was praised and denounced by turns, commended for having stamped on a vicious abuse of the State's highest prerogative, and denounced by the men who had expected to profit by the fraud. His decision helped to give new force to the drift of public sentiment. The people had been impatient of the monopoly that sought to keep every competing line out of the State, and their sympathies had been given to those interested in the new line movement. But the suspicions with which the revelations made during the course of this litigation had covered them, now made them objects of distrust. The only escape from these men on the one side and the legislative monopoly on the other was a bill thit should open the way for the use of the soil to all roads with wise restrictions ; and so an enormous impulse was given to the demand for a free and general railroad enactment.
In addition to his great professional learning Judge Dodd was a skilled matlie- matician. He succeeded the late Joseph l' Bradley, Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, as mathematician for the
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Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company, of which he became president in 1882. As head of this great and powerful insurance company he was enabled to give vent to his splendid executive and business talents and under him the above concern has flourished until now it is one of the largest insurance companies in the east.
In 1852 was solemnized the marriage of Judge Dodd to Jane Frame, daughter of William Frame, formerly of Newark, but after 1860 a resident of Bloomfield. Judge and Mrs. Dodd became the parents of nine children, of whom three sons and three daughters are living, in 1912, namely : Wil- liam S., a lawyer; Edward Whelpley, en- gaged in business; Joseph Smith, a medical practitioner ; Caroline, wife of Leonard Richards, a New York merchant; Julia, wife of H. B. Frissell, D. D., principal of the Hampton (Virginia) Normal and Agri- cultural Institute; Louise, who is unmar- ried, resides with her mother at Bloomfield.
In 1874 the degree of Doctor of Laws was conferred upon Judge Dodd by his alma mater, the College of New Jersey. In 1876 the Supreme Court of the State ap- pointed him one of the managers of the New Jersey Soldiers' Home, of which posi- tion he was incumbent to the time of his death. Judge Dodd was a man of broad human sympathy and innate kindliness of spirit. Charity in its widest and best sense was practiced by him, and liis benevolence inade smooth the rough way of many a weary traveler on life's journey. In his private life he was distinguished by all that marks the true gentleman. His was a noble character, one that subordinated personal ambition to public good and sought rather the benefit of others than the aggrandize- ment of self. Endowed by nature with high intellectual qualities, to which were added the discipline and embellishments of culture, his was a most attractive person- ality. He was held in high esteem by all who knew him and was deeply beloved by his fellow citizens in Bloomfield.
KEASBEY, Anthony Q.,
Accomplished Lawyer.
Anthony Q. Keasbey who was engaged in law practice in Newark for more than forty years, was born in Salem county, and began his practice there in 1847. He was the son of Edward Quinton and Mary Parry (Aertsen) Keasbey, and a descend- ant on his father's side of early settlers in West New Jersey. His mother was a de- scendant of General Caleb Parry, who was killed in the battle of Long Island.
Edward Keasbey, the first of the family who came from England, settled in Salem about 1694. He was a member of the So- ciety of Friends, and took an active part in their affairs. On December II, 1701, he married Elizabeth Smart, widow of Isaac Smart, and daughter of Andrew and Isa- bella Thompson. Edward, his second child, born in 1705, married in 1725, Elizabeth Bradway, daughter of Edward Bradway Jr., and granddaughter of Edward Brad- way, a judge of the first Supreme Court of West Jersey, in March, 16So. Their son, Edward Keasbey, born in 1726, became one of the most prominent men of his day. He served as representative of Salem and Cum- berland counties in the General Assembly from November. 1763, to 1769; was elected deputy from Salem to the Provincial Con- gress which met in October, 1775, in Tren- ton, and he attended its session in 1776 at New Brunswick, which adopted a State Constitution for New Jersey and ratifi- ed its place in the newly formed federa- tion of the colonies. On April 4, 1778, he was appointed chairman of the Council of Safety, and he proved his faithfulness in this capacity until the end of the Revolu- tionary War. He married (first) Prudence, and (second) Sarah, daughters of Edward Quinton, son of Tobias Quinton, one of the settlers in Quinton, Salem county, West New Jersey. His son, Anthony Keasbey, was for many years county clerk at Salem, a member of the General Assembly from
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1798 to 1801, and later a judge of the Court of Common Pleas. His son, Edward Quin- ton Keasbey, born in 1793, after a medical course in Philadelphia practiced in Salem until his death in 1847. In 1840 he was appointed judge of the Court of Common Pleas, and in 1844 was chosen a presidential elector by the Whig party to vote for Henry Clay. All his life he was a resident of Salem. He married Mary Parry Aertsen, a daughter of Gilliam Aertsen, of Chatles- ton, South Carolina, who came from the Dutch West Indies. She was then living with her brothers Robert, John and James Aertsen, in Philadelphia. Of his two sons, one, Anthony Quinton, is the subject of this sketch: the other, Edward Keasbey, born August, 1827, became president of the Raritan Hollow & Porous Brick Com- pany at Perth Amboy. His daughter, Annie Aertsen, is the widow of Wheeler H. Peck- ham, late of New York.
Anthony Quinton Keasbey was brought up in his father's home, and became a11 ambitious student in the Salem Academy, where he was the first youth prepared for college. He entered the sophomore class at Yale, and was graduated in 1843, at the age of nineteen. While he was in college he and Theodore Runyon were among the founders of the Scroll and Keys society in 1842; they were both present at the cele- bration of its fiftieth anniversary in 1892. and delivered addresses. Mr. Keasbey studi- ed law for a while in Salem with Francis Law Macculloch, son of George Parrott Macculloch, of Morristown, and finished his study for the bar in Newark under Cort- landt Parker. After his admission as at- torney in 1846, he returned to Salem, where he practiced law until 1852. attending the circuit also in Cumberland and Cape May. He married, October 18, 1848, Elizabeth. second daughter of Jacob W. Miller, of Morristown, then United States Senator from New Jersey. Three children were born to them in Salem-Edward Quinton, George Macculloch, and Elizabeth Miller.
His wife died there. Mr. Keasbey, after a trip to Europe with his sister Annie, re- moved to Newark. On September 30. 1854. he married Edwina Louisa Miller, eldest daughter of Jacob W. Miller, and by her he had eight children.
Anthony Quinton Keasbey and Cortlandt Parker formed the first law partnership under section 2 of the practice act of March 17, 1855. The firm of Parker & Keasbey continued to exist until March 1, 1876, when both formed partnerships with their sons, under the names of Cortlandt & Wayne Parker, and A. Q. Keasbey & Sons. While beginning his practice in Essex county, Mr. Keasbey kept his clients in West New Jer- sey, and had suits for insurance in con- nection with the burning of the Mount Vernon Hotel. In 1859, when New Jersey had no chancellor, Mr. Keasbey, while spending a summer at Cape May, invoked the jurisdiction of the United States Court for clients from Philadelphia, going with the bill and affidavits to Judge Dickerson, who was fishing on Jamaica Bay, and re- turning with an injunction to Cape May.
Appointed first by President Lincoln in April, 1861, and afterwards by Presidents Johnson, Grant, Hayes and Arthur, Mr. Keasbey served for twenty-five years as United States Attorney for New Jersey. During the Civil War the duties of the office increased very much in number and im- portance, and involved large responsibilities. For many years there were many large cases under the revenue laws, some of them in- volving widespread frauds against the gov- ernment, extending over several States. The discovery of a conspiracy to defraud the government of one million dollars be- queathed by Joseph L. Lewis. a Hoboken miser, to be applied towards the payment of the national debt, was one of his most important and successful cases, resulting in the conviction of the guilty persons and the securing of its legacy. Mr. Keasbey was United States Attorney when Judge Greer held the Circuit Court in New Jersey.
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wat! lie served during the terms of Judges ! ii, Nixon and Green. His was the long- et service of any United States Attorney his time, and the frequent reappointments testified to the faithfulness and ability with which he discharged his duties both as an advocate and as a representative of the government in matters of legal business of great delicacy and importance. Mr. Keas- bey was very effective as an advocate in criminal cases, as well as capable in the management of the business of the office, and, while very zealous for the government, he was eminently fair, and never pressed a prosecution unless he was satisfied that it was his duty to do so. His general practice was large during the whole term of his of- fice as District Attorney. As counsel for the Mutual Life Insurance Company in New Jersey, he examined applications for loans and titles to land from 1868 to 1876. He was counsel also for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company in its contest over the building of a bridge across the Arthur Kill. He was especially remarkable as a trial lawyer, for his skillful handling of a case in court and keen cross-examination of witnesses. He had a large practice in the United States courts, and was one of the best known of the New Jersey lawyers in the Supreme Court of the United States. Patent cases, which attracted him through his interest in new discoveries, as well as his desire to preserve the principles of equity, were brought to him frequently in preference to men whose practice was en- tirely confined to the law of patents.
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