USA > New Jersey > Memorial cyclopedia of New Jersey, Volume I > Part 44
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The Theodore Frelinghuysen Seward Scholarship has been founded in Mr. Sew- ar's honor by his wife and friends in Al- fred University, Alfred, New York.
VARICK, Richard,
Lawyer, Soldier, A Founder of Jersey City.
This distinguished and versatile citizen was a native of New Jersey, bearing the proud distincton of being one of the found- ers, with two others, of the city for which the State is sponsor, namely, Jersey City. Richard Varick was born in Hackensack,
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New Jersey, March 25, 1753, and came of an excellent family. He chose the law as his vocation, but the exercise of his talents was by no means confined to his practice of his profession. He was possessed of an original turn of mind, which was combined with great executive ability, giving him prominent place in all new movements, and the ability to push these to a successful com- pletion.
He was licensed to the practice of law, October 22, 1774, and was actively engaged in this line at the outbreak of hostilities be- tween the colonies and the mother country. He immediately abandoned personal inter- ests and enlisted as a captain in McDoug- all's regiment. He was later appointed mili- tary secretary to General Schuyler, who then commanded the Northern Army, and subsequently was appointed deputy muster- master-general with the rank of lieutenant- colonel. He remained with that army until after the capture of Burgoyne in October, 1777, when he acted as inspector-general at West Point until after the discovery of Arnold's meditated treason. He then be- came a member of Washington's military family, and acted as recording secretary until near the close of the war. After the evacuation of the city by the British, No- vember 25, 1783, he was appointed recorder of the city of New York, which office he held until 1789. when he took the position of Attorney-General of the State, and at a later date that of mayor of New York City, which office he held until 1801. He had been appointed in 1786, in conjunction with Samuel Jones, reviser of the State laws, and the result of their combined labors was the volume which bears their names, issued in 1789. He subsequently presided for some time as speaker of the House of Assembly. He was president of the Society of the Cincinnati for nearly thirty years.
He was one of the founders of the Ameri- can Bible Society, and on the resignation of John Jay, who succeeded Elias Boudinot, was selected to fill its presidency. For many
years he was a member of a Christian church, and was dignified in his manners and fixed in his principles, political and re- ligious. In person he was said to be tall, over six feet in height, and of imposing presence. His father was Richard Varick, owner of large tracts of land in Bergen county, now a part of Hudson county, and among his descendants was Theodore Var- ick, an eminent physician of Jersey City, famous both here and abroad in his special line, that of surgery.
Richard Varick died July 30, 1831, in Jersey City, and is interred in the graveyard annexed to the church at Hackensack, where there is a stately granite monument, in the rear of the building, bearing this inscrip- tion: "In memory of Colonel Richard Varick, formerly Mayor of the City of New York, and at the time of his decease, Presi- dent of the American Bible Society."
WHITE, John Moore,
Lawyer, Jurist, Legislator.
The Hon. John Moore White was born in 1770 at Bridgeton, Cumberland county, New Jersey. He was the youngest son of an English merchant who had originally settled in Philadelphia, and who had mar- ried the daughter of Alexander Moore, who had settled in Bridgeton about 1730, and had been engaged there in business for many years and had acquired a competence. She was of Irish descent, and a remarkably handsome woman. She died while her youngest son was but an infant, leaving also two other sons. The widower returned to England; but when the Revolutionary War broke out he took the patriot side, returned to America, obtained a commission in the army, was an aide to General Sullivan, and was killed in the battle of Germantown, Pennsylvania. Alexander Moore, their grandfather, became the guardian of the three boys and educated them. He died in 1786, and bequeathed to them a large portion of his landed property, including a
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large tract on the east side of the Cohansey SCUDDER, Rev. John, river, upon which the city of Bridgeton is built.
John Moore White studied law with Jo- seph Bloomfield, and received his license as an attorney in 1791, as a counsellor in 1799, and as a sergeant-at-law in 1812. He set- tled in Bridgeton, where he entered upon the practice of his profession, and where he continued to reside until 1808, when he removed to Woodbury, and lived there until the close of his life. He was very success- ful as an advocate. He was well versed in the common law as applied to matters where real estate was concerned; and, as he had made himself fully acquainted with the sur- veys located under the Proprietors, he was generally charged with cases where bound- ary lines were involved. He was also during his professional life at the bar the Prosecut- tor of the Pleas of the State for several years in the counties of Cumberland and Salem. During the early part of his resi- dence in Woodbury he was elected a mem- ber of the Assembly, to represent Gloucester county, and was several times re-elected. He was appointed Attorney-General of the State in 1833, and served in that position during his five years' term, and would have retained the position had it been possible for him to have done so. But when the joint meeting of the Legislature was held in 1838. another person was elected as his successor, while he was nominated and elected a judge of the Supreme Court of the State. He served his term of seven years on the bench, and at its close retired to private life.
He had married. about the time of his admission to the bar, Miss Zuntzinger ; they had only one child, a daughter. who died when about sixteen years old. Judge White's years were protracted beyond four score and ten. He died in 1862, in the ninety-second year of his age.
Prominent Missionary.
The Rev. John Scudder, was born at Freehold, New Jersey, September 13, 1793. He was graduated from Princeton in 1811. took his degree of M. D. at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, in 1815, and four years later gave up a grow- ing practice to devote himself to the en- lightenment of the heathen.
He was licensed by the Dutch Reformed Classis of New York, and sailed June 8. 1819, under the auspices of the A.B.C.F. M., reached Ceylon in February, 1820. and was ordained there May 15, 1821, by a Congregationalist, a Methodist and a Bap- tist. He founded a hospital and a college at Jaffnapatam, and ministered both to the physical and to the spiritual needs of the natives. In 1836 he and Miron Winslow removed to Madras, where they printed tracts and translations of the Scriptures in Tamil. In 1842-46 he was at home, earn- estly presenting the claims of the foreign field to the churches. His residence in his later years was at Chintodrepettah, near Madras; there he established the Arcot mission, which was taken under the care of the American Board in 1852, and of the Dutch Reformed Church in 1853. In this he labored with great zeal, except in 1849. when he had charge of the Madura mis- sion. He wrote much for the "Missionary Herald," and published "Letters from the East" (1833), and sundry tracts. After preaching in most of the cities of southeast- ern India, his health gave way, and to re- gain it he made a voyage to the Cape of Good Hope. Three of his sons attained eminence as missionaries in India. He died of apoplexy at Wynberg, South Africa, January 13, 1855. (A new edition of his memoir. by J. B. Waterbury, appeared in 1870).
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BALDWIN, Matthias W.,
Founder of Baldwin Locomotive Works.
Matthias W. Baldwin was born in Eliz- abethtown, New Jersey, December 10, 1795. His father, William Baldwin, was a carriage maker by trade, and at his death left his family a comfortable property, which by the mismanagement of the exe- cutors was nearly all lost. His widow was thus left to her own exertions for the main- tenance of herself and family. To the necessity for economy and self-reliance thus imposed, young Baldwin probably owed the first development of his inventive genius. From early childhood he exhibited a remarkable fondness for mechanical con- trivances. His toys were taken apart and examined, while he would produce others far superior in mechanism and finish. When sixteen years old he was apprenticed to Woolworth Brothers, jewelry manufact- urers, of Frankford, Pennsylvania, and while serving his time he commanded the respect and esteem of both his associates and employers. Having mastered all the details of the business, thus becoming a fin- ished workman, and having attained his majority, he found employment in the es- tablishment of Fletcher & Gardiner, Phila- delphia, who were extensive manufacturers of jewelry. He soon became the most use- ful man in the shop, his work being deli- cate in finish and his designs characterized by great originality and beauty.
In 1819 Mr. Baldwin commenced bus- iness on his own account; but in conse- quence of financial difficulties, and the trade becoming depressed, he soon aban- doned it. His attention was then drawn to the invention of machinery ; and one of his first efforts in this direction was a ma- chine whereby the process of gold-plating was greatly simplified. He next turned his attention to the manufacture of bookbind- er's tools, to supersede those which had been, up to that time, of foreign produc- tion. He associated himself for this pur-
pose with David Mason, a competent ma- chinist, and the enterprise was a success. Indeed, so admirable were the quality and finish of the tools, especially as they were of an improved make, that the book trade was soon rendered independent of foreign manufactures. He next invented the cyl- inder for printing of calicoes, which had always been previously done by hand press- es; and he revolutionized the entire busi- ness. The manufacture of these printing rollers increased so greatly that additional accommodations were necessary. Here again he effected an improvement, first using horse power as a substitute for the hand machinery and foot lathes, which in its turn gave way to steam power. The engine purchased for this purpose not meet- ing his wishes, he built one himself, from original drawings of his own. This little engine of six horse power, occupying a space of six feet square, was long in use, driving the whole machinery of the boiler shop in the locomotive works on Broad street, Philadelphia. His mechanical gen- ius found immediate recognition, and he received many orders for the manu- facture of stationary engines, and they became his most important article of manufacture. When the first locomotive engine in America, imported by the Camden & Amboy Railroad Company, in 1830, arrived, he examined it carefully and re- solved to construct one after his own ideas ; and after urgent requests from Franklin Peale, the proprietor of the Philadelphia Museum, built a miniature engine for exhi- bition. His only guide in this work con- sisted of a few imperfect sketches of the one he had examined, aided by descriptions of those in use on the Liverpool & Man- chester Railway. He successfully accom- plished the task, and on the 25th of April, 1831. the miniature locomotive was running over a track in the museum rooms. a por- tion of this track being laid on the floors of the transepts, and the balance passing over trestle work in the naves of the build-
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ing. Two small cars, holding four persons, were attached to it, and the novelty attract- ed immense crowds. The experiment re- sulting well, he received an order to con- struct a road locomotive for the German- town Railroad. He had great difficulty in procuring the necessary tools and help. The inventor and the mechanic worked himself on the greater part of the entire engine. It was accomplished, finally, and on its trial trip, November 23, 1832, prov- ed a success. Some imperfections existed, but these being remedied, it was accepted by the company, and was in use for twenty years thereafter. The smokestack was originally constructed of the same diameter from its junction with the fire box to the top, where it was bent at a right angle and carried back, with its opening to the rear of the train. This engine weighed five tons, and was sold for $3500. Two years elaps- ed before he ventured upon building an- other, as he had seemingly unsurmountable difficulties to encounter; there were so many improvements to be made, and the lack of skilled labor, and above all of necessary tools and machinery, was so great, that he almost abandoned the work. In 1834 he constructed an engine for the South Carolina Railroad, and also one for the Pennsylvania State Line, running from Philadelphia to Columbia. The latter weighed 17,000 pounds, and drew at one time nineteen loaded cars. This was such an unprecedented performance that the State Legislature at once ordered several additional ones, and two more were com- pleted and delivered the same year ; and he also constructed one for the Philadelphia and Trenton Railroad. In 1835 he built fourteen ; in 1836, forty. Then came the terrible panic of 1837, which ruined so many houses throughout the land; he also became embarrassed, but calling his credi- tors together, he asked and obtained an ex- tension, and subsequently paid every dol- lar, principal and interest. His success was
now assured, and his works became the largest in the United States, perhaps in the world. Engines were shipped to every quarter of the globe, even to England, where they had been invented-and the name of Baldwin grew as familiar as a household word. He was one of the found- ers of the Franklin Institute. He was an exemplary Christian, and of a charitable and benevolent disposition. He died Sep- tember 7, 1866.
GARDNER, Charles Kitchell,
Soldier and Author.
Charles Kitchell Gardner was born in Morris county, New Jersey, November I, 1789. He entered the United States army in 1808 as an ensign, was promoted to a captaincy in July, 1812, in command of a company of the 3d Artillery ; served on the staff of General Armstrong ; was promoted assistant adjutant-general, March 18, 1813; major of the 25th Infantry, June 26, 1813; adjutant-general, April 12, 1814. He re- ceived the brevet rank of lieutenant-colonel for distinguished services, on February 5, 1815; was major of the 3d Infantry, and adjutant-general of the Division of the North. He participated in the battles of Chrystler's Field, Chippewa, and Niagara, and in the siege and defense of New York. He resigned March 17, 1818.
During 1822-23 he edited the "New York Patriot." He was First Assistant Post- master-General during President Jackson's administration, receiving his appointment September 11, 1829. He was Auditor of the Treasury for the Postoffice Department during President Van Buren's term, 1836- 41 ; was then employed as a commissioner to investigate and settle matters pertaining to the Indian tribes in the southern States, and was postmaster of the city of Wash- ington under President Polk, 1844-49, and surveyor-general of Oregon 1849-53; he held an office in the Treasury Department
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தி.அந்த அரிந்த கத் ஸி ஸ்ரீ வாங்க கற்பதுந்தார்சு
السحبى
CYCLOPEDIA OF NEW JERSEY
until 1869. He was the father of the Con- federate General Franklin Gardner, who surrendered Port Hudson, July 9. 1863.
General Gardner spent four years in the preparation of an eminently useful work entitled "A Dictionary of all Officers who have been commissioned, or have been ap- pointed and served in the Army of the Unit- ed States, 1789-1853," and published in 1853; he also published a "Compendium of Infantry Tactics" (1819), and "Permanent Designation of Companies and Company Books by the First Letters of the Alphabet." General Gardner died in Washington, D. C., November 1, 1869.
GREGORY, Dudley S.,
Leader in Public Affairs.
Hon. Dudley S. Gregory, first mayor of Jersey City, was born in Reading, Fairfield county, Connecticut, February 5, 1800. His ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War, and about 1808 his family removed to Al- bany, New York. Five years later, about 1813 he was appointed clerk in the comp- troller's office, filling the position nearly fourteen years, and declining the deputy- comptrollership. Mr. Gregory held several important commands during that period in the New York militia, and was one of the guard of honor that received the Marquis de Lafayette on his second visit to this country.
Mr. Gregory removed to Jersey City in 1834, and soon became conspicuous in pub- lic life. He represented Bergen, as Hud- son county was then called, three succes- sive terms in the board of selectmen of Jersey City, and became the first mayor under the charter, being elected three times and feeling compelled to decline positively when nominated for a fourth term. In 1846 he was elected to Congress from the Fifth District-comprising Bergen, Essex, Passaic and Hudson counties-by a major- ity of 2,560. receiving 1,142 votes out of the 1,671 polled in his own county. He peremptorily declined a renomination.
Mr. Gregory was largely identified with many of the manufactories and public in- stitutions of Jersey City. He organized the Provident Institution for Savings, the first savings bank in New Jersey, as also the first bank of discount established in Jer- sey City, namely, the Hudson County Bank ; and he was likewise one of the commission- ers who introduced water into the city. In fact there was scarcely an enterprise or in- dustry calculated to increase the wealth and prosperity of the community in which he inade his home, in which he was not pron- inent ; and he was equally well noted for his acts of public and private benevolence. Af- ter an active and successful life, his demise took place in Jersey City on December 8, 1874.
YARD, Joseph Ashton,
Veteran of Two Wars.
Joseph Ashton Yard was born in Tren- ton, New Jersey, on the 23d of March, 1802, in a frame house that formerly stood on the west side of Greene street, nearly opposite Academy street. He was descend- ed in the fourth generation from William Yard, of the county of Devon, England, who came to America previous to 1700, and was among the first settlers on the tract occupied by the original city of Tren- ton. His father, Captain Benjamin Yard. was a carpenter, not yet "out of his time" in 1789, when he built the triumphal arch under which Washington passed at his re- ception in Trenton, when on his way to his inauguration as first President of the United States. His mother was Priscilla Keen, daughter of John Keen, of Holmes- burg, Pennsylvania, whose ancestors and the ancestors of their connections, the Holmeses and Ashtons of that section, were descendants of the early Baptist emigrants from New England during the persecution of that sect by the New England Puritans.
At sixteen years of age, Joseph Ashton Yard was about to learn his father's trade when he was thrown from a horse
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and sustained injuries which for a time in- capacitated him from that business, when he commenced the study of medicine under Dr. James T. Clark, and attended the lec- tures of Dr. McClellan, of Philadelphia. About this time his brother Jacob, who was engaged in the manufacture of brushes in Trenton, while on a visit to New Orleans died suddenly of yellow fever. He was then reluctantly obliged to give up the idea of being a physician, and with his brother Charles assumed the management of Jacob's business for his father, and subsequently, after his marriage, purchased it. He soon built up a large and lucrative trade for that period, at one time having as many as forty workmen in his employ, and finding a mar- ket for his goods throughout New Jersey, and in Pennsylvania along the valley of the Delaware from Easton to Philadelphia. In 1832 the cholera first appeared in Trenton. Of this period Hon. Franklin S. Mills writes, in. a letter to the "Trenton True American :"
"Captain Yard was a genuine humanitarian, and never passed a sufferer without affording relief. The fearful agonies of the victims of cholera awakened the sympathies of his large heart. With- out any appointment, and without compensation, himself, his workmen, his horses and wagons were all given to the work of alleviating the suf- fering and burying the dead. Dr. Joseph C. Well- ing and Captain Yard spent the most of their time at the hospital and among the sick and dy- ing, and while his companion, Dr. Welling, was administering medicines. Captain Yard and his men were employed in bringing into the hospital those who were suddenly seized with the disease and removing those who had already died. Kind- ness and sympathy for the suffering were shining qualities in the character of Captain Yard, and in self-sacrificing devotion to the objects of charity, and especially to the sick and those who had been stricken down by sudden misfortune, he had few equals."
He continued to prosper in business, and maintained himself and his family with credit until about the year 1835. when a money crisis caused the failure of his con- signee in New York, where lie had built up
a large trade. This and the war between France and Russia, which interfered with the export of bristles, then principally brought from Russia, obliged him to wind up his business. He sold his tools and machinery, his dwelling and other property, and paid his creditors, and, as he expressed it, he "hadn't a doller left." At this time he had a large family to support.
In the winter of 1835-36 he was appoint- ed keeper of the New Jersey State Prison, then in the old building now known as the State Arsenal. The new prison was in course of construction. He was also ap- pointed to superintend the completion of the new prison, and for the first time em- ployed convicts upon that work, making a great saving in cost of construction. In 1839 he removed the prisoners to the new building, and carried on the work until it was completely finished according to the original plans. In the management of the prison he was entirely successful, returning a surplus of from $6,000 to $10,000 an- nually over the running expenses. In the winter of 1839-40, the Whig party having a majority in the Legislature, he was re- moved, but the Democrats having a ma- jority in the election in the fall of 1843. lie was reappointed in 1844, and held the office one year, when, the Whigs again suc- ceeding, he was again removed.
Upon his first removal, in 1840. he was appointed to take the census of Burling- ton county, which he successfully acconi- plished in three months, the time allotted, traveling the whole county on horseback, and visiting in person every family in the county, with the exception of the city of Burlington. This same year he established an auction and commission business in Tren- ton, in which he was successful, and was enabled to maintain his family respectably and to give his children such educational advantages as the city then afforded.
In politics he was always a Democrat. casting his first vote for President for An- drew Jackson at the election of 1824. He
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took active part in what is known as "The Tyler Campaign." The Whig party, under the leadership of Henry Clay, quarreled with Tyler for his veto of the bill to re- charter the United States Bank. The Dem- ocrats sustained Tyler's policy, and to lend aid to this movement Mr. Yard purchased "The Emporium and True American." and conducted it from 1843 to 1846, but, having no practical knowledge of the business, it did not prove remunerative. The object for which he purchased it, however. having been accomplished, he retired from its man- agement and it passed into other hands. He was an earnest and popular speaker, and on several occasions "stumped" the entire State in the interest of the Democratic party.
Upon the accession of Mr. Polk to the presidency, Mr. Yard was appointed an in- spector in the New York Custom House, which position he filled until the breaking out of the war with Mexico, when he sought and obtained a commission as captain in the Tenth United States Infantry. He raised the first company for that regiment, and marched from the city of Trenton within thirty days after receiving his commission with the full complement of one hundred men. In those days this was considered a remarkable success, volunteers not being found as readily as they were in subsequent years. On the way to New York, public receptions were tendered to his company at the principal towns in New Jersey through which they passed. He joined General Tay- lor on the Rio Grande in the spring of 1847, where he remained until the spring of 1848, when, after suffering several months from disease incident to that climate, he returned home as the only hope of surviv- ing. After several months of illness he re- covered. His regiment followed in the fall. when after their discharge from service the non-commissioned officers and privates of the regiment came to Trenton and pre- sented Captain Yard with a gold-mounted sword, bearing an appropriate inscription. The presentation took place at the Mercer
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