Memorial cyclopedia of New Jersey, Volume I, Part 9

Author: Ogden, Mary Depue
Publication date: 1921
Publisher: Newark, N.J. : Memorial History Company
Number of Pages: 980


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He married Susanna, daughter of Gov-


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ernor Livingston, of New Jersey, and was the father of two children, a son and a daughter. The son, who bore the same name as himself, was the promulgator of the fanciful theory that the earth was hol- low, with openings at the poles, whereby the inhabitants of the interior could enter ; and he even petitioned Congress to fit out an expedition to explore those mysterious regions. His effort brought it the sobriquet of "Symmes' Hole," and it was long a fa- vorite subject for newspaper humorists. Judge Symmes' daughter married General, afterwards President Harrison, who subse- quently made North Bend his residence af- ter the death of his father-in-law.


Judge Symmes died February 26th, 1814, at Cincinnati, and was buried at North Bend, where twenty-seven years later the remains of President Harrison were also laid. The inscription of Judge Symmes' tomb states, among other facts, that "he made the first settlement between the Miami rivers."


WHITE, Anthony Walton,


Revolutionary Soldier.


Colonel Anthony Walton White was born near New Brunswick, New Jersey, July 7, 1750, fourth child and only son of Anthony White and Elizabeth Morris, daughter of Governor Lewis Morris, and received the names of his father and of his relative and godfather, William Walton, of New York. He was descended from Anthony White, a royalist who left England shortly after the execution of Charles I., settling in Ber- muda. Anthony's son, also named An- thony, served with the army in Ireland until the battle of the Boyne. The latter's eldest son, Leonard White, was an officer in the British navy, and Leonard's eldest son, An- thony White, lived in New York in 1715. The son of the latter and father of the sub- ject of this sketch, a man of large estate and high position, was a lieutenant-colonel


in the British army during the French and Indian war in 1755.


As early as 1761, Anthony Walton White, although only eleven years of age, was, owing to paternal influence, in posses- sion of several official sinecures. He con- tinued a nominal holder of these offices, pursuing his studies in the meantime under his father, whom he in turn assisted in the care of his estate, until the outbreak of the Revolution. In October, 1775, he was ap- pointed an aide to General Washington, and in the following February was commis- sioned by Congress lieutenant-colonel of the Third Battalion of New Jersey troops, and as such commanded the outposts of the army under Washington, continuing in the service of the Army of the North until 1780. He was appointed lieutenant-colonel in February, 1777, and colonel in 1780. In July of the latter year, Colonel White fitted out, on his own credit, two regiments, with which he joined General Gates, and early in the following spring was with the army under Lafayette and was engaged in skir- mishing with the celebrated General Tarle- ton until the capture of Cornwallis at York- town. Between 1781 and 1783 he was with his command in the Carolinas and in Georgia, where he worked in combination with General Wayne. Unfortunately for himself, he became security for the debts of officers and men of his command, and was obliged to pay them out of his own fortune, thereby ruining his estate.


In the spring of 1783, Colonel White mar- ried Margaret Ellis, a young lady possessing great beauty and wealth, who resided in Charleston, South Carolina. He resided in New York from 1783 to 1793, but after that in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and in 1794 was appointed by President Wash- ington general of cavalry in the expedition under General Henry Lee to suppress the whiskey insurrection in Western Pennsyl- vania. The last years of General White's life were full of misfortune and unhappi-


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ness. The fortune of his wife was wrecked through the improvidence of a friend to whose care it had been intrusted, and his own efforts to obtain relief from Congress on account of his expenditures for men in the service of the government proved un- availing. He died at New Brunswick, New Jersey, February 10, 1803.


ELMER, Ebenezer,


Physician, Public Official.


Ebenezer Elmer, father of Lucius Q. C. Elmer, was born in Cedarville, New Jersey, in 1752. He studied medicine, was admit- ted to practice, and at the outbreak of the Revolutionary War joined the army as an ensign. In 1777 he received the appoint- ment of surgeon to the Second New Jersey Regiment. For a time he practiced medi- cine in Bridgeton, New Jersey, but in 1789 entered public life as a member of the House of Representatives of New Jersey, in which position he continued until 1795, a portion of the time being speaker of the Assembly. He was elected to represent his district in the Seventh, Eighth and Ninth Congresses, serving from 1801 until 1807. In 1808 he was appointed Collector of Cus- toms in Bridgeton. He was vice-president of the State Council from 1807 to 1815, at the same time filling the office of vice-presi- dent of Burlington College, which he held altogether twenty years. He commanded a brigade of New Jersey militia during the war of 1812, and was stationed on the east bank of the Delaware. He was president of the New Jersey branch of the Society of the Cincinnati at the time of his death. He died in Bridgeton, New Jersey, October 18, 1843.


His son, Lucius Quintius Cincinnatus Elmer, was born in Bridgeton, New Jersey, February 3, 1793. He attended the public schools there, and afterwards at Woodbury, Bordentown and Philadelphia. During the war of 1812 he was a lieutenant of artillery, and reached the rank of bri-


gade-major. In 1815 he studied law, was admitted to the bar of New Jersey, and practiced in Bridgeton, where he was ap- pointed Prosecuting Attorney for the State, a position which he held for a number of years. In 1820 he was elected a member of the Assembly, and in 1823 was speaker. In 1824 he was Prosecutor of the Pleas for Cumberland county, and United States at- torney for the State. In 1842 he was elected to Congress ; in 1852 was Attorney General, and was a justice of the State Su- preme Court in 1852 and 1859. He was president of the New Jersey Society of the Cincinnati. He wrote "A Digest of the Laws of New Jersey," "Genealogical and Biographical Account of the Elmer Fam- ily" (Bridgeton, New Jersey, 1860) ; "His- tory of Cumberland county" (1869) ; "His tory of the Constitution and Government of New Jersey, with Biographical Sketches of the Governors from 1776 to 1845" (1872) ; "Eulogium on Garrett D. Wall, delivered before the Bench and Bar of New Jersey" (1872). He died in Bridgeton, New Jer- sey, March II, 1883.


CROES, John,


Patriot, Soldier, Clergyman.


John Croes, first Protestant Episcopal Bishop of New Jersey, and the sixteenth in succession in the American episcopate, was born in Elizabethtown, New Jersey, June I. 1762, son of Jacob and Charlotte C. Croes, who came to America from Holland about 1750.


John Croes served in the patriot army from 1778 to 1781, first in Colonel Philip Van Cortlandt's regiment, and afterward as orderly sergeant of Captain Nathaniel Carup's company and still later as adjutant of Colonel Ely's regiment of "year men." After the war he taught school, meanwhile studying for the ministry, and on February 28, 1790, he was ordained deacon by Bishop White of Pennsylvania, and made rector of Trinity Church at Swedesborough, Penn-


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John broes


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CYCLOPEDIA OF NEW JERSEY


. sylvania. On March 4, 1792, he was ordain- of the founders of that town, and in which ed priest by Bishop White. In May, 1801, Stevens held various local offices. His son he was called to Christ Church at New Brunswick, New Jersey, and he removed to that place. He there established and con- ducted a school for boys under the auspices of the trustees of Queen's College, and his success caused it to grow into the historic Rutgers College. Of his capabilities as a teacher, a contemporary said, "he possesses the gift of government in a high degree, and conducts a school in such a manner as to acquire the esteem and affection of the boys, without undue rigor or extreme sever- ity." In 1815 he was elected Bishop of Connecticut, but his Diocese persuaded him to decline, and later the same year elec- ted him Bishop of New Jersey. His labors in the episcopate were eminently success- ful, and he was highly regarded for his lucidity and accuracy as a pulpiteer and writer. Columbia College conferred upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Di- vinity. He died at New Brunswick, New Jersey, July 30, 1832. John became an importer and in the course of his business made several voyages. He subsequently became a member of the Con- tinental Congress, and president of the New Jersey convention which ratified the Con- stitution of the United States. His son, John Stevens, who was destined to become one of the most famous men of his day, a pioneer on steam navigation, and father of modern ironclad war vessels, was born in Perth Amboy, in 1749, and died in Hobo- ken, March 6, 1838. He graduated from King's (now Columbia) College, 1768, and shortly afterwards was admitted to the bar. He practiced, however, very little, and his life was chiefly devoted to engineering ex- periments. During the Revolutionary War he held several public offices. He and his uncle Richard were both of them deputies from Hunterdon county to the last of the Royal Provincial Congresses, 1775; and the was treasurer of New Jersey, 1776-79. At the close of the war for Independence he He married, in 1785, Martha Crane, daughter of Elisha and Hannah Mix Crane. married and settled down, living in winter at No. 7 Broadway, New York City, and in summer on the island of Hoboken, which STEVENS, John, Distinguished Engineer. had been confiscated by the State of New Jersey from William Bayard, the Royalist. In 1811, Stevens obtained the lease of the New York and Hoboken ferry, and at once entered upon a distinguished career. He at once built his steam ferry-boat, the "Juli- ana," which carried one hundred passen- gers and was the first steam ferry-boat in the world. It made sixteen trips, but not being as economical as the old horseboats, was then taken off. In June, 1817, John Stevens sold his interest in the ferry to the Swartwouts, who assigned it in 1819 to His immigrant ancestor, John Stevens, came from London, to New York when he was about seventeen years old, under in- clenture to Barne Cosens, of New York. He worked at his trade as a gunmaker until 1714, when he removed to Perth Amboy, his father-in-law, John Campbell, being one Philip Horne, at which time the New York landing was changed from Vesey to Bar- clay street. In 1821 the Stevens family re- purchased the ferry, paying the City of New York $1,800 annual rent for landing privileges. John Stevens then re-establish- ed the steam ferry-boats, the first being the


· None of the old colonial families of New Jersey has a more distinguished record than the Stevens family of Hoboken, and the other.descendants of John Stevens of. New York City, Perth Amboy and Hunterdon county, New Jersey. In no other family identified with the Colony and State for the last two centuries, has there appeared a larger number of strong, vigorous and in- fluential personalities.


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"Hoboken," which made regular trips "every hour by the St. Paul's clock." In this boat the ladies' cabin was below deck, carpeted and warmed by open fireplaces. In July, 1836, the old Spring street landing, which had been in use since 1774, was changed to the present Christopher street slip.


In 1787 the legislature of New York granted John Fitch the exclusive right to navigate the waters of that state with steam propelled vessels. This same year, while driving along the banks of the Delaware, John Stevens saw Fitch's steamboat pass up the river against the tide. His interest was excited, and he followed the boat to the landing, where he examined carefully the engines and the mechanism of the push- ing paddles; and "from that hour he be- came a thoroughly excited and unwearied experimenter in the application of steam 10 locomotion." In 1790 he petitioned Con- gress to protect the rights of American ilt- ventors, with the result that the committee to whom his petition was referred, reported the bill which, as the law of April 10, 1790. forms the foundation of the American pa- tent system. Under this law, in 1792, John Stevens took out patents for propelling ves- sels by steam pumps, modified from the or- iginal steam pumps of Savary. Continuing his experiments, John Stevens now asso- ciated with himself the elder Brunel con- structor of the Thames tunnel, Chancellor Robert R. Livingston, his brother-in-law, and Nicholas J. Roosevelt, and in 1798, when the legislature of New York offered exclusive privileges to the owner of a boat that would comply with given conditions and attain a speed of three miles an hour, John Stevens launched the first steamboat that navigated the Hudson. This boat was completed in 1801, but failed to fulfill the speed conditions imposed, and the appoint- ment of Robert R. Livingston as minister plenipotentiary to France the same year, in- terrupted the joint experiments, and re- sulted from Livingston's subsequent asso-


ciation with Robert Fulton, whom he met in Paris, in the latter winning the monopoly with the "Clermont."


Meanwhile Stevens persevered, and in 1804 miade the first practical application of steam to the screw propeller. His boiler. which was multitubular, he had patented in the United States the year before, and the year after in England. The engine and boiler are in the museum of the Smith- sonian Institution. Shortly after their fath- er's deatlı his sons placed this engine and boiler in a boat which was tested before a committee of the American Institute of New York, and the speed it attained was about nine miles an hour. To the day of his death, John Stevens always upheld the efficacy of his screw and its great advan- tages for ocean navigation. For over thirty years, however, he stood alone ; but in 1837 experiments were begun both in England and the United States, in the former coull- try by the introduction of the Archimedian screw of a single thread, and in America by the trial of a multi-threaded screw on the surface of a cylinder. Both of these were soon replaced by the short four-bladed screw of Stevens. Three years after launching his first steamboat, John Stevens, together with his son, Robert Livingston Stevens, perfected the invention so as to meet the requirements of the New York legislature, but he did this not with his screw propeller but with his paddle wheel steamboat, the "Phoenix;" and being a few days later than Fulton in launching his boat, he was shut out of New York waters by the monopoly of Fulton and Livingston. as a consequence, he conceived the bold de- sign of conveying his boat to the Delaware river by sea. so in June, 1808, his son, Rob- ert L. Stevens, took the "Phoenix" from New York to Philadelphia, thus reaping the honor of having commanded, and with his father of having invented and built, the first boat to navigate the ocean by steam power. For the next six years the "Phoenix" plied the waters of the Delaware and proved that


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the steam navigation of that river was a commercial success.


In 1813, John Stevens designed an iron- clad steam vessel with a "saucer shaped" hull which was to be plated with iron and to carry a heavy battery. This vessel was designed to be secured to a swivel which was to be held in position by an anchor in the channel of the stream to be defended. Screw propellers driven by steam engines were to be placed beneath the vessel, safe from injury by shot, and connected with the machinery, which was arranged to cause the vessel to be rapidly revolved about the swivel in its center. Each gun was to be fired as it was brought into line, and was to be reloaded before it came around again. This was an early embodiment of the Monitor principle, and was the first iron-clad ever designed.


In February, 1812, five years before the commencement of work on the Erie canal, John Stevens addressed a memoir to the New York State Commission appointed to devise water communication between the seaboard and the lakes, urging, instead of a canal, the construction of a railroad. This memoir, together with the adverse report of the commissioners-De Witt Clinton, Gouverneur Morris and Chancellor Robert R. Livingston-was published. When the memoir was written, railroads for carrying coal had been in use in England for up- wards of two hundred years, but there was not a steam locomotive or passenger car in the world. His proposal was to build a passenger and freight railroad from Albany to Lake Erie, having a double track, with wooden stringers capped with wrought plate rails resting on piles, the motive pow- er to be steam locomotives, and putting the probable future speed at twenty to thirty miles an hour, possibly from forty to fifty. This indentical plan was successfully car- ried out between fifteen and twenty years later in the construction of the South Caro- lina railroad, commenced in 1829, which when completed in 1832 was the longest


railway in the world, the first long railway in the United States, and a convincing proof of the accuracy of John Stevens's es- timates. In spite of the commission's ad- verse report on his memoir, John Stevens was anxious to put his recommendations into practice. He obtained a charter, Feb- ruary, 1815, from New Jersey, "to build a railroad from the River Delaware, near Trenton, to the River Raritan, near New Brunswick." This was the earliest railroad charter granted in America, but no tan- gible result followed it, because the scheme was regarded as wild and visionary. John Stevens's interest did not flag, however, for in 1823, through his exertions, acts were passed by the legislature of Pennsylvania for the incorporation of "The President, Directors and Company of the Pennsyl- vania Railroad Company," who were to "make, erect and establish a railroad on the route laid out ( from Philadelphia to Co- lumbia, Lancaster county), to be con- structed on the plan and under the superin- tendence and direction of the said John Stevens." Among the incorporators were Stephen Girard and Horace Binney, broth- er-in-law of John Stevens. October 23, 1824, John Stevens obtained a patent for his method of constructing a railroad ; and in 1826, when seventy-six years old, he con- structed at his own expense a locomotive with a multitubular boiler, which he oper- ated for several years on his estate at Ho- boken, on a circular track having a guage of five feet and a diameter of two liundred and twenty feet, and carrying half a dozen or more persons at a rate of over twelve miles an hour. A model of this locomotive, together with the original multitubular boil- er which formed a part of it, is preserved in the United States National Museum. It is the first locomotive in America driven by steam upon a track, of which there is a re- liable record.


Colonel John Stevens was an excellent classical scholar, a close student of natural philosophy fond of metaphysical specula-


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tions ; and he left behind him several philo- sophical treatises which have never been published. He was an enthusiastic botan- ist and amateur gardener. When he died, at the age of eighty-nine, he had seen the first steam engine erected on the western continent, at Belleville, New Jersey


During his lifetime Watt perfected the stationary low pressure condensing steam engine. Within his memory the Duke of Bridgewater inaugurated the canal system of Great Britain; Trevithick developed the high pressure steam engine into a commer- cial success and successfully applied it to the locomotive; Nelson won the battle of Trafalgar ; Fulton introduced steam naviga- tion on the Hudson; steamboats began to ply on the Mississippi and the lakes; Cap- tain Rogers made the first experimental steam voyage across the Atlantic with the "Savannah ;" steam was introduced into all the principal navies of the world; George and Robert Stephenson made their fame as locomotive constructors; and the railway systems at home and abroad were organ- ized. Seven years before his death, the lo- comotive was put upon the Camden & Am- boy railroad, connecting New York and Philadelphia, and on the first links of the Pennsylvania railroad, in advocating the construction of both of which he had taken an active part twenty years before. On the day of his death, the "Great Western" lay in the Thames receiving her finishing touches preparatory to making the initial voyage of the pioneer transatlantic steam- ship line between England and New York. He was the copatriot of Washington dur- ing the New Jersey campaigns, the corre- spondent of Barlow and Franklin. Chan- cellor Livingston, after whom his second son was named, married his only sister, and although he was Fulton's rival in introduc- ing the steamboat into America, they had been warm friends for several years before the latter's death in 1815.


October 17, 1782, Colonel John Stevens married Rachel, eldest daughter of Colonel


John Cox, of "Bloomsbury," New Jersey, near Trenton, by his wife Esther, daughter of Francis Bowes, of Philadelphia, and Rachel, youngest daughter and child of Jean Le Chevalier, of the Huguenot colony in New York City, and his wife, Maria de la Plaine.


GREEN, Rev. Ashbel,


Divine, Educator, Author.


Rev. Ashbel Green, D. D., LL. D., presi- dent of Nassau Hall from 1812 to 1822, and one of the originators of the Theologi- cal Seminary at Princeton, was born in Hanover, Morris county, New Jersey, July 6, 1762. He was the son of the Rev. Jacob Green, D.D.


While a youth he served in the local militia at the battle of Springfield. He graduated from the College of New Jersey in 1783, and for the succeeding two years was tutor at Princeton. In 1785 he was ordained a minister of the gospel by the Presbytery of New Brunswick, and during the same year was chosen Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at Princeton, holding the chair until 1787. In April of the last mentioned year he became colleague-pastor of the Second Presby- terian Church in Philadelphia, and suc- ceeded to the pastorate on the death of Rev. Dr. Sproat, in 1793. He was a member of the body which adopted the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church of America, in 1788, and was also a delegate to the Gen- eral Assembly in 1791. From 1792 to 1800 he was, with Bishop White, one of the chaplains of Congress. In 1809 he had a primary agency in forming the Philadelphia Bible Society. He was chosen a trustee of Nassau Hall in 1790, and held that office until 1812, when he resigned in order to ac- cept the presidency of the college. This important trust remained in his charge un- til 1822, when he resigned and returned to Philadelphia to reside. For twelve years thereafter he edited the monthly "Christian


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Joseph 8. Hornblower


CYCLOPEDIA OF NEW JERSEY


Advocate." Recognizing the necessity for the establishment of a theological seminary in connection with the college at Princeton, he became one of its originators, was the first president of its board of directors, and a director until his death. He was also a trustee of the Jefferson Medical College, of Philadelphia.


Although he did not give much attention to authorship, many of his discourses, lec- tures, addresses, etc., were of such a char- acter as to create a great demand for their publication. Among these may be specially mentioned a "Discourse Delivered in the College of New Jersey, with a History of the College," published in Boston, in 1822; a "History of Presbyterian Missions," and "Lectures on the Shorter Catechism," two volumes. He was a logical, bold and power- ful preacher. As a man, he was possessed of great moral courage, and was character- ized by wonderful perseverance and indus- try. He was an able college president, and, while a strict disciplinarian, commanded the marked regard of students. For more than half a century he occupied a conspicuous position in the community, and was one of the leading men of the Presbyterian church.


His wife was Elizabeth, daughter of Robert Stockton, of Princeton, to whom he was married on November 3, 1785. He died in Philadelphia, May 19, 1848.


HORNBLOWER, Joseph C., Distinguished Jurist.


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Hon. Joseph C. Hornblower, LL.D., law- yer and Chief-Justice of New Jersey, was born May 6, 1777, at Belleville, Essex county, in that State. and was the youngest son of the Hon. Josiah Hornblower. His father was an Englishman, and a civil en- gineer by profession, who came to America in 1753. He was a member of the Legis- lature and a delegate to the Continental Congress ; he died in 1809, aged eighty years.


Joseph C. Hornblower, although unable


to obtain a collegiate education, received valuable instruction in the classical academy at Orange, and to which he applied himself closely, his father also freely imparted his large mathematical learning. His health from childhood was feeble, and when only sixteen years of age he had a paralytic at- tack, from which he was a considerable time recovering. He subsequently went to New York City, where he entered the employ of one of his brothers-in-law, who was en- gaged in mercantile business, and remained with him some time. Having resolved upon a professional life, he returned to New Jer- sey, and entered the office of David B. Ogden, of Newark, who at that time was becoming a prominent advocate, and was subsequently one of the ornaments of the profession in New York City. He studied with him for the prescribed term of five years, and was licensed as an attorney in February, 1803, becoming a counsellor in 1806, and ten years later receiving the high- est dignity, that of sergeant-at-law. Be- fore his admission to practice he was asso- ciated with his preceptor as a partner; his business soon became large and remunera- tive, and he early took rank with the first lawyers of the State.




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