USA > New Jersey > New Jersey first citizens : biographies and portraits of the notable living men and women of New Jersey with informing glimpses into the state's history and affairs, 1917-1918, Vol. I > Part 12
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JOHNSTON CORNISH-Washington .- Manufacturer. Born in Washington (N. J.) in 1860; son of Joseph B. Cornish.
Johnston Cornish is President of the Cornish Co., manufacturers of organs and pianos, at Washington, Warren County, and has been recog-
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mized for many years as one of the dominating factors in middle-state Democratic politics. His father before him, had been a leader in the politics of Warren county and served it in the State Senates of 1873, '74 and '75. Mr. Cornish was therefore schooled in public affairs at his home table; and, soon after reaching majority became active in them. He was Mayor of Washington at twenty-seven, and was twice re-elected, the third time without opposition. He has served three separated terms in the State Senate.
He had not attained the age of thirty required by the State Consti- tution as a qualification for a State Senator when he was first elected : but, a birth day following between election day and the time for his taking his seat, he was able to meet the age requirement when the Senate of 1891 organized, and he served till the middle of the year 1893. Just before the expiration of his term, the Democrats of the Fourth District named him as their candidate for Congress, and he served in the 53rd Congress 1893-'95. He retired from politics to attend to business, but was drawn into the swim again in 1899 to serve the county as Senator for another term. He gave way in 1902 to Dr. Barber; but in 1905 he was drafted into the service again, and, nominated, carried twenty of the twenty-eight election districts in the county and served in the State Senate in 1906, '7 and 'S. Senator Cornish had been a member of the Democratic State Com- mittee, a delegate to many State Conventions for the nomination of can- didates for Governor and Delegate to several of the Democratic National Conventions.
Upon leaving school, Mr. Cornish engaged in the piano and organ making business with his father, who had founded it, and was taken into partnership with him. The business was subsequently incorporated as the Cornish Co., and he was made its Secretary and Treasurer. Upon the death of Joseph B. Cornish, Congressman Cornish succeeded to the Presi- dency.
CHARLES TIEBOUT COWENHOVEN - New Brunswick. - Lawyer. Born at New Brunswick, Dec. 1, 1844; son of Nicholas Remsen and Anna (Rapalje) Cowenhoven ; married in 1870 to Ellen A. Towle, daughter of Henry Towle, an Englishman, and Justine de Ciplet de Groot, of Demarara, West Indies. Mrs. Cowenhoven is a great-grand-daughter of Rev. Henry Green, Rec- tor of St. George's Church-Lincolnshire, England.
Children : Charles Tiebout, Jr., counselor-at-law, and a member of the firm Convers & Kirlin, in New York City, who married Emily Kearny Rodgers, of New York; Marie T .; and Nicholas Remsen, attorney-at-law in New Brunswick.
Charles Tiebout Cowenhoven-Lawyer, ex-Judge and ex-Prosecutor of the Pleas-is a descendant of one of the earliest and distinguished Colonial families of America. The founder of the family was Wolfert Gerritsen Van Cowenhoven, who came from Holland in 1630, and founded the colony of New Amersfoot on Long Island. A patent for the lands was granted him
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by Governor Van Twiller. One of the family was Jacob Van Cowenhoven, delegate to the States-General of Holland. A famous descendant in the American line was Egbert Benson, an eminent jurist. Another ancestor, Nicasius de Sille, was one of the Nine Selectmen in the Council of Gover- nor Stuyvesant ; also a "Schepen" and mentioned in the list of "Great Citizens" of New York, in the year 1657. Charles T. Cowenhoven is a great grandson of Catherine Remsen, and grandson of Garetta Tiebout.
His father, who came to New Brunswick from Brooklyn, in 1840, was not engaged in professional or business occupation, but lived a retired life, and was recognized as a gentlemen of the old school. His family consisted of Garetta T., who married David Bishop, of Bishop Place, New Bruns- wick ; Catherine, who married the Rev. Dr. W. J. R. Taylor, a distinguished clergyman of the Reformed Church ; Maria Lefferts, married (second wife) W. J. R. Taylor ; Sarah Lefferts married Oscar Johnson, of Brooklyn, nephew of Bishop Whitehouse, of Illinois ; Cornelia Van Vechten died un- married ; Mary Anna, resides with her brother in New Brunswick ; Nicho- las Remsen, died young ; Charles Tiebout was graduated from Rutgers College in 1862, studied law in the office of Abraham V. Schenck, and was admitted to the New Jersey Bar as an attorney in November, 1865, and as counselor in February, 1869. From 1869 to 1874 he served as President Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Middlesex County, being the youngest man appointed to that bench : he was Posecutor of the Pleas of Middlesex County from 1877 to 1882, and was again President Judge of the Court of Common Pleas from 1885 to 1890.
Judge Cowenhoven has always practiced his profession in New Bruns- wick, and has wide note as a trial lawyer in criminal cases. He is a mem- ber of the Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity.
ALFRED HUTCHINSON COWLES - Sewaren. - Metallurgist. Born in Cleveland, O., Dec. S, 1858, son of Edwin Cowles, (founder, publisher and editor of the Cleveland "Leader," "Evening News," and "Herald") and Elizabeth Caroline ( Hutchinson) Cowles ; mar- ried on October 25, 1906, at Akron, O., to Helen J., daughter of Mortimer Wills, of Akron, O.
Alfred Hutchinson Cowles is a descendant of John Cowles who came to these shores about 1636, settling in Farmington, Conn. The Rev. Thomas Hooker and Peregrine White of the Mayflower were also in the family line.
Mr. Cowles studied chemistry and physics for two years at the Ohio State University ; specialized in science at Cornell University for four years, finishing in 1882; was of the S-oared Freshman crew that out-rowed Harvard in 1878, of the winning 4-oared crew at Lake George in 1880, of the crew at Henley, England, for Steward's Challenge Cup in 1881, and on the Danube the same year ; and captain of the "Varsity" 4-oared crew in 1882.
Interested with his father and brother in a large deposit of copper zinc ore at the head waters of the Pecos River, N. Y., Mr. Cowles designed an electric furnace to volatilize and catch the zinc in the ore. He discovered that this furnace was capable of reducing theretofore irreducible metallic
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oxides. In subsequent snits for patent infringment it was shown that the Cowles brothers were the first to use the electric furnace in the production of aluminum. carborundum, silicon, calcium, carbide, phosphorous. and "various alloys. With a 35 e. h. p. generator that gave the largest amperage current of any generator made up to that time, the Messrs. Cowles made 10% aluminum bronze early in 1885 and sold it at 55 cents per pound.
The litigations that confirmed the prior claims of the Cowles brothers was notable in the jurisprudence of the U. S. Courts for many years. Ac- cording to a letter, over the signature of Gen. Counsel MeMillin. for the Cowles Company, in the Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, the secret of the Cowles' invention was taken out of the factory by em- ployees who went over to the service of a company organ- ized to operate under it.
The Cowles Electric Smelt- ing and Aluminum Co. was organized with a capital stock of $200,000 (increased to $1,000,000) and in 1SS6 a water-power plant was com- pleted at Lockport, N. Y., where the largest generator in the world at the time, de- signed by Charles F. Brush, - of the Brush Electric Co., was installed : and the plant was the pioneer for electric smelting. In England the Cowles Syndicate Co. was organized in 1887 and the British Aluminum Co. de- veloped from it. Announce- ments of the invention were made to the American Asso- ciation for the Advancement of Science and the American Institute of Min- ing Engineers before other Societies. The Franklin Institute awarded to the Cowles brothers the John Scott Legacy medal and the Elliott Cresson medal.
A patent for the process of reducing aluminum from alumina was ap- plied for Dec. 24, 1884. by the Cowles brothers and was issued June 9, 1885. In a specific form of the broad invention they had been anticipated in date of application by Charles S. Bradley who, though he had applied for a patent Feb. 23. 1883. did not take it out till Feb. 1892; but the Cowles Company purchased Bradley's application in 1885, thus controlling the elec- tric process for manufacturing aluminum commercially. Meanwhile, the Pittsburgh Reduction Co., organized in 1SSS by Charles M. Hall and Ro- maine C. Cole, both of whom had been with the Cowles Co., at their factory in Lockport, began the manufacture of aluminum in Pittsburgh and later at Niagara Falls and Massena. N. Y., on a large scale. After the litigation showing that the priority of the invention belonged to the Cowles Com-
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pany, royalties and damages amounting to $1,350,000 were paid by the Aluminum Co., of America, successors to the Pittsburgh Reduction Co. This invention has not only made possible the production of aluminum on a large scale and at a much reduced cost for a great variety of articles, but it has resulted in the great carborundum works at Niagara Falls and in Europe and the graphite business, both developed by E. G. Acheson. The carbordum company, paid the Cowles Company over $300,000 on award of the U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Mr. Cowles is President of the Electric Smelting and Aluminum Com- pany-re-organized by him in 1895 from the Cowles Electric Smelting and Aluminum Company ; for eight years before assuming the Presidency he had been its metallurgist. He is also President of the Pecos Copper Co., and the Weiller Manufacturing Co., a Fellow of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, a founder member of the Mining and Metallurgical Society of America, a member of the U. S. Naval Institute, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Franklin Institute, and one of the founders, and a past vice-president of the American Electro-Chemical Society.
GEORGE THOMAS CRANMER-Trenton .- U. S. Court Official. Born at Barnegat, Dec. 6th, 1848; son of Capt. George Cranmer, (a New Jersey mariner), and Charlotte Collins Cranmer ; married on April 6th, 1893, to Tacy Margaret, daughter of Wilkinson G. and Martha C. Conrad, of Barnegat.
Children : Martha Charlotte, born Dec. 30th, 1895 ; died at Barne- gat, April 1, 1901.
George T. Cranmer, for one year Assemblyman and for nine State Senator from Ocean Co., has been for twenty-four years Clerk of the United States District Court for the New Jersey District. On both sides, he is of English extraction. The Cranmer family, one of the oldest in Eastern New Jersey, claims descent from Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canter- bury who was burned at the stake, by order of Queen Mary, at Smithfield, England, in 1556, for his devotion to Protestantism. The family in New Jersey is descended from William Cranmer, who settled at Southold, Long Island, New York, in 1640, and whose descendants settled in Monmouth County and at Little Egg Harbor in the early part of 1700. A paternal ancestor, Daniel Leeds, compiler of William Bradford's New York Al- manacs and a Quaker writer and controversialist of fame in his day, settled at Little Egg Harbor, Leeds Point, in the latter part of the seventeenth century.
The ancestors in his mother's line came from England and settled in Monmouth (now Ocean) County, in the early part of 1700. Ebenezer Col- lins married Ann Woodmansee. of Good Luck, Monmouth County, Decem- ber 27, 1748. He was a trader engaged in sea-faring pursuits. He sailed
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to South America on a trading expedition and was never afterwards heard from. Mr. Cranmer's mother, a descendant of Ebenezer Collins, was a daughter of Benjamin and Maria Mills Collins, and was born at Barnegat, Monmouth (now Ocean) County, Dec. 12, 1824. She died at Waretown, Ocean County, July 7, 1865.
Mr. Cranmer is a member of the Society of Colonial Wars and of the Society of Sons of the Revolution in the State of New Jersey, in right of descent through his mother's line, from James Edwards, who was a Captain in one of the Associated Companies of Kent County, in the service of the Province of Pennsylvania, and wounded in the leg in the battle at Fort Duquesne, July 9, 1755, in which Braddock fell. He afterwards served in the Revolutionary War in Col. Thomas Proctor's Pennsylvania Artillery Regiment of the Continental Line, which fought at Brandywine, Chadd's Ford, Newtown, Germantown, Bergen Neck and Trenton. A part of this
Regiment still maintains its or- ganization as the United States Second Artillery.
Senator Cranmer was left fatherless at the age of two years, and the responsibility of his training fell to his mother. After availing himself of the educational facilities afforded him in his native village, he en- tered Pennington Seminary at Pennington, in his fourteenth year. At the age of sixteen, and before graduation, he met with an irreparable loss in the death of his mother, and shortly after- wards accepted the position of bookkeeper and cashier in a large mercantile business at Ea- tontown, (Monmouth Co.) where he remained for five years. He was engaged in business in Trenton, from 1871 to 1876 ; then returned to his native village at Barnegat. In 1878 he was the republican candidate for member of House of Assembly for Ocean County, but was defeated by Rufus Blodgett, later United States Senator. In September, 1879, President Hayes appointed him Collector of Customs for the District of Little Egg Harbor, at Tuckerton; he resigned July 1, 1880.
In November, 1882, he was elected for Ocean County, to the House of Assembly. In 1883 he was unanimously nominated for State Senator for Ocean County, and elected over ex-Senator Emson. He was re-elected to the Senate in 1886, and again in 1889. He was Chairman of the Republican Senate caneus and of the Republican joint caucus for four years, then de- elining the honor further. In the session of 1889 he was unanimously nom- inated by the minority republican caucus for President of the Senate. His nine years of service in the Senate ended in 1893. He was an Alternate
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Delegate-at-Large to the National Republican Convention at Chicago in 1SSS, and also to the National Republican Convention at Minneapolis in 1892. His appointment on January 2, 1893, as Clerk of the District Court of the United States for the District of New Jersey was made by U. S. Judge Edward T. Green. He succeeded Linsley Rowe, who had resigned, and he has since held the position under Judges Green, Kirkpatrick, Lan- ning, Cross, Rellstab, Haight and Davis.
Senator Cranmer became a member of Company A, Seventh Regiment N. G. N. J. March 17th, 1873. On August 9th, 1875, he was appointed by Colonel A. W. Angell, Quartermaster of the Regiment, and he held the office under every Colonel until disbandment of the Regiment on May 2, 1899, when he was placed upon the retired list. During the administration of Governor Voorhees, he received from the Governor the twenty-five years continuous military service medal.
The Senator is a member of the Order of the Knights of Pythias, served as Grand Chancellor of the State of New Jersey for the year ending in February, 1895, and, connected with the State Street Methodist Episcopal Church, of Trenton, is a member and Secretary of its Board of Trustees.
EARL STETSON CRAWFORD -- Nutley. - Artist. Born in Philadelphia, Pa., June 6, 1877; son of Franklin Matthew and Florence A. (Depuy) Crawford; married at Princeton, on Jan. 14, 1902 to Brenetta B. Herrman, daughter of Charles D. and Emma F. Herrman of Toledo, O., and New York.
E. Stetson Crawford, grandson of Jolm B. Stetson of Philadelphia, did mural work on the United States Government building at San Fran- cisco, has done other work of the same kind on several important private collections, and has been connected with the School of Applied Design for Women in New York since 1912. He has served as an Art Director in several publications and is a portrait painter. Stained glass windows in a number of churches are of his design.
Mr. Crawford was educated at the School of Industrial Art in Phila- delphia, the Academy of Fine Arts, the Delacluse and Julien Academies and at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux Arts in Paris ; and he subsequently attended art classes in Munich, London, Rome, Florence and Venice.
Mr. Crawford has acted as an instructor of advanced classes in book- cover designs and composition work ; has been a member of the Nutley Shade Tree Commission for five years and was for some time connected with the National Guard of Pennsylvania. He is a Fellow of the Society of American Illustrators, a member, and since 1912 Secretary, of the National Association of Portrait Painters, and a member of the Loyal American Society.
Mr. Crawford is a Republican in politics, an Episcopalian in faith, a member of the Masonic Order and is connected with the T-Square and Salmagundi Clubs.
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Mr. Crawford's studio in New York is at 51 West Tenth street, and he has a summer home at Roque Bluffs, Me.
FRANCIS BACON CROCKER-Ampere .- Electrical Engineer. Born at New York, N. Y., on July 4th, 1861; son of Henry H. and Mary (Eldridge) Crocker.
Francis B. Crocker is one of the founders of the Crocker-Wheeler Co., at Ampere, just outside of Newark, and one of the noted engineers of the United States. He was graduated in 1SS2 from Columbia University with the degree of E. M. and received the degree of Ph. D. in 1884 and the Honorary M. S. degree in 1914. Columbia established in 1889 the first course in electrical engineering in the country; Mr. Crocker was put in charge of the department and for twenty-five years remained as head Pro- fessor of Electrical Engineering.
In 1887 Mr. Crocker was also one of the founders and Vice-President of the C. & C. (Curtis & Crocker) Electric Co. Since the foundation of the Crocker-Wheeler Co., in 1SSS, he has been and still is active in its affairs. The company is one of the greatest industrial establishments in the State, and prominent, the world over, in the manufacture of electrical machinery. It is especially noted for the high quality of its products, and thousands of machines made at the Ampere works are sold all over this country and in many foreign countries.
Mr. Crocker was President of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers in 1897 and '98, and of the New York Electrical Society from 1889 to 1892. He is Foreign Member of the British Institution of Elec- trical Engineeres, a Fellow of the A. A. A. S. and was Permanent Secre- tary, in 1893, of the International Electrical Congress.
He is the author of "Management of Electrical Machinery" (7th edi- tion), 1907; "Electric Lighting," (6th edition), 1904; "Electric Motors," (2nd edition), 1914; and of many articles and papers in the "Electrical World," in "Transactions of the American Institute of Electrical Engi- neers" and other journals.
Mr. Crocker is a member of the University Chib of New York.
SEYMOUR L. CROMWELL-Mendham .- Banker. Born April 24th, 1871, Brooklyn, N. Y., son of Frederic and Esther Husted Cromwell; married November 29th, 1899, to Agnes Whitney, daughter of Mrs. Stephen Suydam Whitney, of Morris Plains.
Children : Frederic, born Sept. 10th, 1900; Seymour L., Jr., born November 20th, 1902; Whitney HIusted, born November 29th, 1904; John, born August 25th, 1915.
Mr. Cromwell was educated at the Brooklyn Latin School, Morse School in New York City, Harvard University, Class of '92, and the University of Berlin. On returning to America he became an officer in the East River
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Gas Company, and afterwards in the Brooklyn Wharf & Warehouse Com- pany. In '98 he served in Troop "A" U. S. Volunteers and participated in the Porto Rican campaign. In 1896 he became connected with the firm of Strong, Sturgis & Co., bankers and brokers, New York City, of which firm he is still a member.
In New Jersey he has been interested in charitable and penal problems. He is Presi- dent of the State Charities Aid and Prison Reform Associa- tion; was at one time Presi- dent of the Conference of Char- ities and Correction ; and has recently been appointed by Gov- ernor Edge as one of the Prison Inquiry Commission, and is al- so serving on a commission that has to do with the food supply of the State in the present crisis.
Mr. Cromwell is a Director in several banks and industrial companies ; a Governor of the New York Stock Exchange ; President of the Essex Fox Hounds, of Peapack; member of the Somerset Hills Country Club and Raritan Valley Country Club ; and, in New York, member of the Union, University, Harvard, Racquet and Tennis Clubs.
JOSEPH EDGAR CROWELL-Paterson, (109 East 21st St.)- Editor. Born in Newark, on May 1, 1844; son of Wallace Laing and Jane Vanderhoven ; married at Trenton, on Jan. 1st, 1865 to Mary M. Reed, daughter of George W. and Susan (Quigley) Reed of Trenton.
Children : Mrs. William R. Cobb; George E .; Mrs. William J. McCollom ; Mrs. W. Lloyd Dorsey.
Joseph E. Crowell received his early education at Claverack College, N. Y., and began his life-long newspaper career under the auspices of Orrin Vanderhoven, his uncle, who was well known during his life time for his journalistic enterprises. Mr. Crowell's family lived in Yonkers in his early boyhood, and he became acquainted with the printing office when he made a visit to Mr. Vanderhoven at his home in Paterson. He so much liked carrying papers, and setting type that he was disinclined to go back to Yonkers. Before the time for the end of his visit came, the floor of St. Aloysius Hall in Paterson gave way while a church fair was in progress there, and in the crash several people were injured. Young Crowell happened to be there, and he rushed with the details to his uncle's
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newspaper office. The story of the catastrophe appeared, and its publica- tion whetted young Crowell's appetite for journalistic adventure the more, and he soon found himself in the newspaper swim.
But his work was interrupted by the outbreak of the Civil War. President Lincom's call for 300,000 volunteers in 1862 aroused his martial enthusiasm, and he enlisted in Co. K., Thirteenth New Jersey Regiment, of which Hugh C. Irish was Captain. The Regiment, assigned to the protection of Pennsylvania against a threatened invasion by the Rebel army, saw much service, and participated in the battles of Antietam, Chancellorsville. Gettysburg and South Mountain and was also at the siege of Savannah and at the siege and capture of Atlanta. MIr. Crowell had one of his fingers shot off in the battle of Chancellorsville; and, coming home on furlough, was promoted to Lieutenant of the Invalid Corps. later known as the Veteran Reserve Corps. This corps was used for the pro- tection of buildings and hospitals in Washington, and Crowell as Lieu- tenant was in charge of the soldiers' guard at the Old Capitol prison. He frequently met President Lincoln, and came in contact with most of the big men of the nation during the war times. After the war he served for two years, with headquarters at Trenton, preparing statistics concern- ing discharged soldiers. Lieutenant Crowell afterwards related his war experiences in a book entitled "The Young Volunteer."
Honorably discharged from the service on March 13, 1866, Mr. Crowell returned to Paterson to resume newspaper work and again became con- nected with the "Guardian," the paper which his uncle had founded years before. Later it passed into the hands of Anson and Carlton M. Herrick, and in 1872 Mr. Crowell became City Editor. Afterwards he purchased a half interest in the "Passaic City Herald ;" but after three years returned to his old chair in the "Guardian" office. In 1889 Mr. Crowell was invited to organize a company to secure possession of the "Morning Call" and turn it into a Republican paper. He experienced no difficulty in raising the necessary capital for the purpose. The new newspaper was a success. Mr. Crowell was made its editor, and served in that capacity for more than thirty years, until failing health a year or so ago necessitated his re- tirement from active service.
Mr. Crowell served on the Commission to erect a monument in honor of the state of New Jersey at Antietam. He is a member of the Pica Club and of the Grand Army.
RICHARD DUDLEY CURRIER-Montelair, (21 Highland Avenne)-Attorney. Born Bridgeport, Com., Aug. 25th, 1877; son of Levi Wheeler and Sarah Elizabeth (Ayer) Currier; mar- ried in New York City, Oct. 20th, 1909, to Adele Ames, daughter of Edward G. and Adele ( Deshons ) Ames of Brooklyn, N. Y. Children : Elizabeth Adele, born Oct. 4th. 1912.
Richard Currier who founded the Currier family in this country came from England to Salisbury, Mass., in 1640. Hannah Dustin, of Haverhill. Mass., who became famous during the Indian Wars of the
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