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 16
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After acquiring a preliminary education at the Princeton Preparatory School at Lawrenceville, as well as private instruction with the Rev. Lewis W. Mudge in Princeton, Mr. Duffield was enrolled at Princeton Uni- versity, graduating from there in 1892, and from the New York Law School in 1894. Under the perceptorship of Frederick W. Stevens and John O. H. Pitney from 1892 to 1895, Mr. Duffield's legal experience was materially enlarged ; and after admittance to the bar he associated with the firm of Depue & Parker, some time later forming a partnership with William B. Kinney, which continued until 1901, when he associated him- self with Edward M. Colie under the name of Colie & Duffield. It was in 1905 and 1906 that he served as Assistant Attorney-General of New Jersey, joining the Prudential Insurance Company on November 15, 1906. Seven years later he was elected to a Prudential Vice Presidency, which office he still holds.
Mr. Duffield has always been a Republican in politics and has taken active part in South Orange village affairs. In 1917 he was elected Presi- dent of the village. He is a member of the New Jersey State Bar Asso- ciation, the American Bar Association, the New Jersey State Chamber of Commerce, the New Jersey Historical Society, the Princeton Club of New York, the Princeton Alumni Association of the Oranges. the Nassau Club of Princeton, the Essex County Country Club, the South Orange Field Club, the Republican Club of New York, and of the Sakounet Golf Club, and is an ex-president of the Lawyers' Club of Essex County.
JAMES BUCHANAN DUKE-Somerville .- Capitalist. Born at Durham. N. C., in 1857 ; son of Washington D. Duke; married 2nd on July 23, 1907 to Nanie Lee (Holt) Inman, of Atlanta, Ga.
James B. Duke is President of the American Tobacco Company, which in large measures controls the tobacco industry throughout the country. Since 1912 he has been Chairman of the Board of Directors of the British- American Tobacco Company which has an equally important relation to the tobacco industry of the world.
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Mr. Duke was educated in the country schools of the farming district near Durham, N. C., in which he was born, and went into the tobacco busi- ness with his father and brothers in Durham. He acquired an interest in the firm of Duke Brothers at eighteen and came to New York in 1SS4. He organized the American Tobacco Company, a combination of large tobacco manufacturing concerns, and was its President from the time of its organization in 1889 until 1912. The Continental Tobacco Company, Inc., had meanwhile taken out a charter, and he was made its President also; and when in 1898 it became known as the Consolidated Tobacco Company, Inc., he succeeded to the Presidency, holding this office until 1901.
In February, 1917, President Duke announced his purpose of equipping a coast patrol boat which several of his employees volunteered to man. The boat was to have a speed of more than twenty knots an hour and be fitted with every device known to modern naval warfare and the total outlay for the expedition was estimated at $1,000,000.
Mr. Duke is a Director of the Imperial Tobacco Company of London, the National Bank of Commerce, N. Y., the Union Bleaching and Finishing Company, N. Y., the Guaranty Trust Company, N. Y., the Morristown Trust Company and the Southern Power Company ; and is a Trustee of the American Surety Company.
WAYNE DUMONT-Paterson, (163 Hamilton Avenue. )-Lawyer. Born at Phillipsburg, son of John Finley and Ann Eliza (Kline) Dumont ; married at Easton, Pa., on October 26th, 1898, to Sallie Insley Hunt, daughter of Edward Insley and Sallie ( Lesh) Hunt.
Children : W. Hunt, born April 6, 1904, died February 17, 1908 ; John Finley, born April 2, 1909; Wayne, born June 25, 1914.
In "The Making of New England" Drake mentions De Monts, Pierre de Gaust from Saintonge, France, an officer of the Kings househokl to whom in 1604 Henry IV granted a Charter for all the region now known as New England and a monopoly of the fur trade. Later Walleran Dumont came from Holland to New Amsterdam with a company of sokliers for Governor Stuyvesant and settled in Esopus (Kingston) N. Y. in 1660. He was a member of the Military Council during the second Esopus War with the Indians and served as Schepen or Magistrate there till 1671.
The family from which Wayne Dumont descends first appeared in this country soon after the massacre of the French Huguenots in Paris on the historical St. Bartholomew's day. After that event the ancestors came to North Carolina, where the family remained seated for at least two or three generations.
Peter Dumont, the earliest ancestor of whom there is accurate knowl- edge, married in North Carolina. His son, John Dumont, also born in North Carolina, came north to New Jersey, apparently soon after the be- ginning of the last century and married Mary Finley. They had three children, of whom John Finley Dumont alone survived. John Finley Du- mont was born in Hunterdon County, November 11, 1824, and died May 8th, 1889. A lawyer by profession. he was Prosecuting Attorney for Hunterdon
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County but otherwise was not active in public affairs. His wife, Anna Eliza Kline, was the daughter of the Rev. David Kline.
Wayne Dumont was fitted for college at Lerch Preparatory School, Easton. Pa .. graduating maxima cum laude. in June. 1SSS; immediately entered Lafayette College, Easton, Pa., where he was graduated maxima cum laude, Ph. B. in course June, 1892, afterwards having had con- ferred upon him the honorary degrees of M. S. and A. M. He immediately entered upon the lectures of the New York Law School, and was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of the State in February, 1896, as at- torney, and as a counselor in February, 1899. Shortly afterwards he re- ceived an appointment as a Spe- cial Master in Chancery and a Supreme Court Commissioner. He was also promptly admitted to practice in the Courts of the States of New York and Penn- sylvania and later to practice in the Supreme Court of the United States.
Mr. Dumont is engaged in active general practice of the law in Paterson, is a Republican in politics, but without political ambition, always having de- clined office. He is a Thirty- second degree Mason. having taken the degrees in both York and Scottish Rite masonry, has life membership in all the Scot- tish Rite bodies ; and is a mem- ber of Paterson Lodge No. 60, Benevolent & Protective Order of Elks.
For a number of years he was connected with the National Guard of New Jersey. Quarter-master General's Department, with the rank of Cap- tain. He was elected a member of the Board of Trustees of Lafayette Col- lege, Easton, Pa., in June, 1910, and is still serving as a Trustee of the In- stitution. Mr. Dumont was one of the founders and is a Director of, and general counsel for the United States Trust Company of Paterson.
Mr. Dumont belongs to the Arcola Country Club, Arcola ; Pomfret Club, Easton, Pa .; Lawyers' Club, New York City; Hamilton Club, Paterson ; Sussex Country Club. Newton ; Walkill Country Club, Franklin ; and Me- gantic Fish and Game Club, Megantic, Quebec.
NELSON YOUNG DUNGAN-Somerville, (32 West Cliff St.) Jurist. Born at Lambertville, on May 3rd, 1867; son of Edmund
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Booz and Martha Matilda (Young) Dungan ; married at Belle Mead, on July 20th, 1899, to Clara May Van Nuys, daughter of Abram J. and Mary Elizabeth Van Nuys, of Belle Mead.
Children : Edmund Van Nuys, born July 5, 1901. died February 20. 1910; Ruth Elizabeth, born August 28th, 1904; Nelson Van Nuys, born March 3, 1911.
Nelson Y. Dungan is a Circuit Court Judge, and Bravet Brigadier General of the National Guard of New Jersey. He began his education at a private school in Lambertville, Hunterdon County, when five years of age; and, removing then to Harlingen, in Somerset County, attended the public schools there during the winter months until 1883, when he passed an examination that qualified him as a teacher.
He taught in the schools for some years ; but meanwhile pre- pared for the practice of the law. He read in the office of James L. Griggs, was admitted as an attorney at the November term of 1890, and as counselor at the November term of 1893. In 1896 he was admitted as an attorney and counselor of the United States Supreme Court. He is also an attorney and coun- selor of the State of New York and of the District of Columbia. In the State Courts he is a Spe- cial Master in Chancery and a Supreme Court Commissioner.
In 1895 Governor Werts named Mr. Dungan to the State Senate for Prosecutor of the Pleas of Somerset County, and. the confirmation coming as a matter of course, he served until 1900. While he was still in that position he associated himself with John F. Reger in the law business under the firm name of Dungan & Reger. That partner- ship lasted until he went on the Bench in the spring of 1911. In 1903 Gov- ernor Murphy appointed him a member of the Board of Managers of the State Village of Epileptics, and he served until November of 1911. It was on Governor Wilson's appointment that he became a Circuit Court Judge and he is still holding that position. His Circuit is Essex, Monmouth and Hunterdon counties.
Judge Dungan's connection with the military life of the state began in 1898 when he enlisted as a private in Co. H. 3rd Regiment, New Jersey Infantry. He served through the various grades of that regiment and the 2nd New Jersey Infantry until March 25. 1907. when he was commissioned Colonel of the 2nd. He retired on March 25, 1911, and in February. 1912, the rank of Brigadier General by Brevet was conferred upon him.
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Judge Dungan is Vice President of the Somerville Dime Savings Bank, and a member of the Old Guard of New York, Sons of the Revolu- tion and of the Bachelor Club of Somerville.
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MICHAEL DUNN-Paterson .- Lawyer. Born at Newton, August 27, 1858; son of James and Bridget (O'Connell) Dunn ; married at Paterson, on September 3, 1890, to Amelia M. Donnelly, daugh- ter of Arthur and Amelia Donnelly, (Mrs. Dunn died June 13. 1913.)
Children : James M., age 24; Arthur, age 22; Amelia M., age 20; Louisa, age 18; Eugene, age 16.
Michael Dun has been identified with the politics of two counties. He was active in the democratic ranks of Sussex and was made Deputy Under-Sheriff of the County in 1881. He is now the Prosecutor of the Pleas of Passaic County.
Meath and his mother in County Caven.
Both of Mr. Dunn's parents were born in Ireland -- his father in County They came to this country and took up their residence in New- ton, Sussex County, where Mr. Dunn was born. Mr. Dunn be- gan his education in the public schools of Newton, and after graduating from the Newton Collegiate Institute, became a student in Princeton college. He graduated from there in the class of 1880; and took up the study of law in the office of Mar- tin Rosenkranz at Newton. He was licensed as an attorney in 1882, and at the end of the usu- al three year period was made Counselor. In November, 1881, he became Under-Sheriff of Sus- sex and served in that office till 1SS4. In the year 1885, he re- moved to Paterson and engaged in the practice of his profession, where he is established with his brother Charles B. Dunn.
Mr. Dunn plunged into the public life of Passaic as energetically as he had in that of Sussex. In May, 1900, the Paterson Board of Aldermen appointed him City Counsel and he served until the opening of the year 1904. He was a warm supporter, in the 1910 campaign, of the election of Woodrow Wilson for Governor; and after Dr. Wilson had taken the chair
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of state, he nominated Mr. Dunn for the office of Prosecutor of the Pleas of Passaic County. Confirmation came in due course. He was reappointed in 1916, and is still holding that position.
Mr. Dunn is a member of the Knights of Columbus and the Hamil- ton Club of Paterson, and of the Princeton Club of New York City.
WELLS PHILLIPS EAGLETON-Newark, (212 Elwood Ave- nue)-Surgeon. Born at Brooklyn, N. Y., on September 18, 1865 ; son of Thomas and Mary Emma Phillips Eagleton ; married at New York, N. Y., on May 24, 1913 to Florence Peshine Riggs, daughter of F. Strafford and Elizabeth M. Peshine, of Newark.
Wells P. Eagleton is a specialist in surgery of the brain, eye and ear. He is of American and English ancestry, and received his education at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute and the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York. He began the practice of medicine in Newark in 1890, and maintains an office at 15 Lombardy Street.
Dr. Eagleton is Medical Director of the Newark Charitable Eye and Ear Infirmary, Attending Opthalmologist and Otologist of the Newark City Hospital, and the Home for Crippled Children, Consulting Surgeon of the German Hospital, Consulting Opthalmologist and Otologist of the Essex County Isolation Hospital, the Essex County Hospital for the Insane and the Morristown Memorial Hospital.
Dr. Eagleton is a member of the New Jersey State Commission for the Blind, Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, a member of the American Otological Society, the New York Otological Society, the Ameri- can Laryngological and Otological Society, the Medical Society of New Jersey, the Academy of Medicine of Northern New Jersey, the New York Academy of Medicine, the Society of Surgeons of New Jersey, the Essex County Pathological & Anatomical Society, and the Practitioners Club.
Dr. Eagleton is also a director of the Federal Trust Company and a member of the Essex Club, of Newark.
CHARLES WARREN EATON-Bloomfield .- Artist. Born in Albany, N. Y., February 22, 1857; son of Daniel Oliver and Mary Bounds Eaton.
Charles W. Eaton, a direct descendant of Francis Eaton of the Pilgrim party that came over in 1620 on the Mayflower, was a pupil at the Na-
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tional Acaemy of Designs and of the Art Students League in New York. He opened a studio in New York in 1886 and has since been following his art work there. He has exhibit- ed in the Royal Academy and the Grosvenor Gallery in Lon- don. One of his works won honorable mention at the Paris Exposition of 1900 and another at the Pan-American Exposition. He received a silver medal at the Charleston Exposition and won the Proctor Prize in 1901. the Inness prize in 1902 and the Shaw prize in 1903 at the Sal- magundi Exhibition. The Phil- adelphia Art Club in 1903 awarded him a gold medal. The National Academy of Design in 1904 awarded the Inness gold medal. At the St. Louis Expo- sition in 1904 and at the Buenos Aires exposition in 1910 he re- ceived silver medals; and the Paris Salon in 1906 awarded him a gold medal.
Mr. Eaton is a member of the American Water Color Society, the New York Water Color Club and of the Salmagundi and Lotos Clubs of New York.
WALTER EVANS EDGE-Atlantic City .- Publishing and Ad- vertising. Born in Philadelphia. Pa., on Nov. 20th, 1873; son of William and Mary Edge: married at Memphis. Tenn., on June 5, 1907. to Lady Lee, danghter of Mrs. Sarah Lee Phillips, of Memphis. Tenn. (Mrs. Edge died July 14th, 1915.)
Children : Walter Evans, Jr., born July 10th, 1915.
Walter E. Edge had scarcely been inaugurated as Governor of New Jersey in 1917 when Congress, proclaiming a state of war between the United States and Germany. plunged this nation into the greatest struggle in the history of the Ages ; and he will go down into State annals as New Jersey's epochal War Governor.
Governor Edge may be said to have inherited a taste for public life. Two great uneles were members of the Pennsylvania Legislature; another was for years Collector of the Port of Philadelphia, and his great grand- father was a Judge of the Courts of Pennsylvania for forty years. His father was a retired railroad man.
The stress of circumstances made it necessary for Edge to forego a college course, and all the schooling he got was that afforded at the public
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schools in Pleasantville, just outside of Atlantic City. He found himself early in life doing the work of a "printers devil" in the offices of the "At- lantic Review," but at sixteen secured a position with the Dorland Adver- tising Agency of Atlantic City. This, at the time, was merely a local busi- ness specializing in hotel advertising. When Mr. Edge came into posses- sion of it, as he did about two years after the proprietor died, he extended its lines throughout the country, with offices in, among other European centers, London. Paris and Berlin. The first shining demonstration of the agency's enterprise was in the world-wide fame its exploits brought to At- lantic City as one of the great resorts on the Atlantic coast. In this work he was assisted by the "Atlantic City Press" which, after he had established it, progressed from a mere hotel medium to the leading news medium of the coast, and by the subsequent establishment, as its evening complement, of the "Atlantic City Union." The work of the advertising agency required so much of his attention that he eventually leased both the papers to young employees who had won his confidence.
Governor Edge had be- gun his political career as Journal Clerk of the State Senate when the war be- tween Spain and the Unit- od States broke out, in 1898 .. He participated in the organization of the Morris Guards, an indepen- dent military company of Atlantic City which mus- tered into service, during the war as Co. F., Fourth New Jersey Volunteer In- fantry, and was commis- sioned as its 2nd Lieuten- ant. Later he was Captain of Co. L. Third Regiment N. G. N. J. : and Gov.'s Murphy and Stokes put him on their personal staffs. He afterwards became Chief of the Ordinance Department, with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, on the staff of Major General C. Edward Murray. There is a Walter E. Edge Garrison of the Army and Navy Union in At- lantic City : and Mr. Edge is also the head of the Boy Scout movement in Atlantic City.
Mr. Edge's rise in the politics of the state was rapid after the war was over. In 1904 he was a Presidential Elector on the Republican ticket and in 1908 a delegate to the Republican National Convention that nominated President Taft. A year later he was elected to the Assembly from Atlantic county, and achieved the rare distinction, in his first year, of being chosen as the Republican leader on the floor. In 1910 he was promoted to the State Senate: and two years later he was made majority leader on the
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floor of that chamber. Re-elected in 1913, he served in 1915 as President of the body: and while in that position was Acting Governor of the state during the five weeks Governor Fielder was in California attending the Panama-Pacific Exposition.
In the Senate he initiated and promoted much of the important con- structive legislation of the later years. His study of conditions in the labor field led him to frame the Workmens Compensation Act, one of the first practical working-laws in the country, and he pushed it to the statute book. He promoted, too, the enactment of the ten-hour law for working- women and secured legislation safe-guarding factory workers against dan- geronsly constructed work shops and occupational diseases. He was also head of the Economy and Efficiency Commission under which the depart- mental administrative system of the state was reconstructed in 1915. The State Budget System Bill, aimed to systematize New Jersey finances and make the Governor the responsible head of the fiscal system, and the Cen- tral Purchasing Bnrean legislation, under which supplies for the state and its institutions are purchased on a wholesale scale and by fixed standards, were also of his initiation. It was he too who thought of legislation abol- ishing the state census which had been costing the commonwealth about $100.000 a year.
With that record behind him, Governor Edge entered the Republican primaries in 1916 as a "business men's" candidate for the nomination for Governor and distanced his rival, Col. Austen Colgate, in the contest by 3,618 votes. In November he overcame Naval Officer Wittpenn, the Demo- cratic candidate, by just short of 70,000 majority. He was inaugurated on January 15, 1917 ; and during the first three months of his administration was successful in carrying out a most ambitious program. Adopting his recommendations the Legislature authorized the construction and main- tenance of a $15.000,000 highway system, to give New Jersey a great chain of hard surfaced roads. In order to have this work properly done, Gover- nor Edge conceived the idea of going over to New York and securing the ser- vices for New Jersey of General George W. Goethals. Agreeing to Gover- nor Edge's plan, the builder of the Panama Canal decided to become the builder of New Jersey's roads. The Governor advanced three projects of major importance-the construction of a bridge over the Delaware at Cam- den. of a tunnel under the Hudson at New York and of a ship canal across the State from the Delaware to the Raritan-and the State's contract with General Goethals provides that he shall supervise these great undertakings. Fulfilment of a platform promise to increase the franchise tax npon public utilities, alteration of New Jersey's doubtful corporation law to make it conform to the Federal Clayton Act, a law providing for the organization of public school buildings into community centers for the promotion of the in- dustries and agriculture and the education of the immigrant and a home rule statute designed to give municipalities of the State the fullest measure of self-government, and almost certain to relieve the annual legislative ses- sions of the necessity of considering scores of municipal enabling bills - these and many others of a similar important nature are some of the ad- ditional accomplishments of the beginning of the Edge Administration.
As the war cloud gathered over the country shortly after the Gover- nor's inauguration, much of his time has been taken np with the plans for
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home defense and co-operation with the government in all matters of mili- tary preparedness and mobilization of the State's food supply and indus- tries. In this task the Governor has been successful in perfecting state- wide machinery. He also initiated the movement calling into conference in Philadelphia, the Executives and Adjutants General of the five middle- Atlantic States, for the purpose of making certain that the military pre- paredness plans of these important States - New York, New Jersey, Peni- sylvania, Delaware and Maryland - would be in concert.
THOMAS ALVA EDISON-West Orange, (Llewellyn Park)- Inventor. Born in Milan, O., on February 11, 1847 ; son of Samuel and Nancy Elliott Edison ; married in 1873 to Mary Stillwell (died in 1SS4)-2nd in 1SS6 to Mina Miller, daughter of Louis Miller, pioneer inventor, and with Bishop Vincent, founder of the ori- ginal Chautauqua.
Children : First marriage : Thomas Alva, William Leslie, Marian Estelle ; second marriage : Charles, Madeline and Theodore.
Thomas A. Edison has contributed over 1000 patents and hundreds of unpatented inventions to the development of the new age that has seen the introduction, among other things, of the duplex and quadruplex tele- graph, the carbon telephone transmitter, the electric light system, the electric railway, the phonograph, motion pictures, alkaline storage bat- tery, and many other inventions.
The ancestral Edisons, come from Holland about 1730, were descend- ants of extensive millers on the Zuyder Zee, who took up patents of land along the Passaic river close to Mr. Edison's present home in the Orange mountains. Their first settlement was in Caldwell, (Essex Co.) notable as the birth place of Grover Cleveland. Mr. Edison's grandfather, a Loyalist during the Revolutionary War, fled to Nova Scotia at the outbreak of hostilities ; and it was there that his father was born in 1804. The attempt to enforce in Canada the Taxation-without-Representation rule that had precipitated the American Revolution, aroused the elder Edison's resent- ments ; and, returning to the United States, he settled in 1842 in Milan, O., where the inventor was born.
From his earliest childhood Edison was given to original inquiry. He never took anything for granted ; he always wanted to know for himself. With his own chemicals and his own appliances he did over again all the experiments the books described. When, at six he saw a goose produce a brood by setting on eggs, he sat on a dozen himself to find out how it all came about. When he learned that seidlitz powder generated gases, he gave a dose to a chum to see if he would go up in the air like a balloon. A fire he built in the barn in pursuit of another inquiry won for him a lashing at the whipping-post in the town square. All the money he could get went for materials and equipments for experimental work; and the most generous of salaries was not enough to keep him above penury. When, even in his later years, the Western Union, on each of two occasions, gave him $100,000 for his inventions, he insisted that the Company, instead
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