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 56

Author: Sackett, William Edgar, 1848- ed; Scannell, John James, 1884- ed
Publication date: 1917
Publisher: Patterson, N.J. : J.J. Scannell
Number of Pages: 594


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 56


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Mayor Viehmann began his education in the public schools of New Brunswick, later attended the Rutgers Preparatory School and was gradu- ated from that school in 1886 with mathematical honors. Later he studied law in Columbia University, graduated in 1899 and practised the profession in New York City thereafter until 1915. when he retired from the practice to devote his entire time to insurance and banking.


Mayor Viehmann has been a delegate to many state conventions and was Chairman of the Democratic State Convention in 1908. As Mayor of the city of New Brunswick he initiated improvements which started the city on its path of progress. During his administration the city commenced the systematic paving of streets and had the railroad tracks running through the city, elevated.


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GEORGE GODHART VOGEL-Newark. (285 Parker Street. )- Clergyman. Born at West Saugerties. N. Y., on April 25, 1866: son of George M. and Barbara (Heitzler) Vogel : married on June S. 1898, to Salome Allee, daughter of John B. and Elizabeth Allee, of Paterson (died July 30, 1911.)-2nd. at 'Newark, on October 12. 1914. to Lillian Kieran, daughter of Charles Jackson and Nettie Kieran, of Newark.


George G. Vogel is the District Superintendent of the Newark Methodist Episcopal Conference and an Executive Member of the Board of Home Mis- sions and Church Extension of the General Conference.


Dr. Vogel's parents came from Germany. His father belonged to the farmer citizenship, serving in the army there, and after reaching these shores becoming a soldier for the Union in the Civil War. His mother was of the governing class and as a girl enjoyed the educational and social ad- vantages of her position.


Dr. Vogel received his education in Lafayette College, New York Uni- versity and Drew Theological Seminary. From New York University he


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has received the degrees of A. B., A. M. and D. D. Dickinson College, (Carlisle, Pa.) also conferred the degree of Doctor of Divinity.


Dr. Vogel's pastorates have been at Wesley M. E. Church in Paterson, which he served while he was still a student, at the Arlington M. E. Church, at Emory Church on Jersey City Heights and Centenary in Newark. From the beginning of his service to the church his work has been signalized by growth and larger importance of the parishes in his charge. While he served in the pulpit of the Wesley Church in Paterson, land was purchased by the congregation and its first church building was put up. The Arling- ton Church was greatly advanced during a two years pastorate. He spent ten years, between 1900-1910, at Emory Church to which he was appointed by Bishop Vincent. Emory was an unpromising field at the time, the weakest and poorest of all the churches in the Bergen Hill section. But Dr. Vogel's energy in building it up was seconded by a move- ment of the church popula- tion from the lower or older part of Jersey City to the Hill top ; and during his pastorate its membership was increased to 1,000 and a large gothic gray stone church was built at the Belmont Avenne inter- section of Bergen Avenue. More than $90,000 was raised for building purposes. His four years pastorate at Cen- tenary were successful years in the life of the church. Its membership of 1.400 which it reached during his pastorate is high water mark in its his- tory. A new Mission Chapel, Berkeley, erected in the Silber Lake section and a handsome stucco parsonage on Mt. Pros- pect Avenue are other monuments of this aggressive pastorate.


Dr. Vogel was chosen at the Newark Annual Conference of 1914 to be the District Superintendent of the Newark District. The District com- prises fifty-five churches, has nearly 20,000 members and is one of the most important of the Conference Districts in the country. At the annual New- ark Conference of 1916 he was elected a Delegate to the General Conference. where the laws governing world wide Methodism are made. The General Conference was held at Saratoga, and was in session for four weeks. The General Conference elected him a member of the Board of Home Missions and Church Extensions, and at the annual meeting of the Board in Novem- ber, he was elected a member of its Executive Committee. This organiza- tion has the supervision of all Home Missionary work in the United States and possessions.


Dr. Vogel is a member of the Delta Phi College fraternity, the Kappa


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Chi, of Newark, the Masonic order, the Essex Country Club and the Mount Tabor Field Club.


DANIEL S. VOORHEES-Morristown, (32 Maple Avenue )- Lawyer. Born at Somerville, on August 15, 1852; son of Daniel Spader and Mary Louise Compton (Doty) Voorhees; married on January 28th, 1874, to Frances L. White, daughter of W. W. White, of New Brunswick.


Daniel S. Voorhees was for four years State Treasurer of New Jersey and for more than a quarter of a century County Clerk of Morris county and has long been a recognized force in the republican politics of the State. He was reared in Elizabeth of Holland ancestry and, while attending the schools there, sold newspapers at the local railway station as an on-the-side business diversion. He secured employment in a hardware store in Eliza- beth. but at seventeen formed the connection with the County Clerk's office that continued for so long. He began with a clerkship offered to him by County Clerk Richard Spear, and discharged his functions with an accepta- bility that prompted William McCarty, whom the democrats of the county afterwards selected County Clerk, to select him, notwithstanding that he is a republican. for the position of Deputy County Clerk. At the election in 189S the republicans put Mr. Voorhees in nomination for the chief office and he was elected. Successive re-elections made him, including his service as an employee, an incumbent in the County Clerk's office for thirty-seven years.


Meanwhile Mr. Voorhees had served as Town Clerk of Morristown for five years, and the general line of his work in both town and county offices inspired him with an ambition to become a lawyer. He studied successively in the offices of John M. Betts, George Forsythe and Quayle & Vreeland. He was admitted to the Bar in 1906; but he had scarcely opened an office for practice before the republican joint meeting of the two Houses of the Legis- lature at Trenton selected him for the office of State Treasurer. He served until, his term expiring in 1911, at a time when the democrats had acquired control of the joint meeting, he was displaced by Edward I. Edwards, then cashier, now the President of the First National Bank of Jersey City.


State Treasurer Voorhees has been a member of the Republican State Committee since 1903 and had risen to great power in the councils of the party when Woodrow Wilson succeeded to the Governorship of New Jersey.


FOSTER M. VOORHEES-Elizabeth. (286 N. Broad Street.)- Born in Clinton. Hunterdon county, November 5, 1856; son of Na- thaniel W. and Naomi (Lee) Voorhees.


Foster M. Voorhees has served the state as a member of the House of Assembly, of the State Senate and as Governor. While in the House of Assembly he was largely instrumental in fashioning what is known as the Werts High-License law that largely increased the fees for liquor licenses


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and otherwise curbed the traffic. In some of the cities the license fee had been as low as $25 per year ; in Newark and Jersey City, in either of which there were a thousand saloons, it was only $50. The higher license fee brought more than $250,000 a year to each local treasury. Mr. Voorhees had a large hand in the revision of the state's railroad tax system; and later he was the leader of the Republican Senators-elect who were locked out by the hold over democrats of the "Rump Senate" when they demanded admission to the Chamber in 1894.


Governor Voorhees is of Holland ancestry. His father was a member of the New Jersey Bar, admitted in 1854, but never practised. Governor Voorhees having completed his preparatory studies at the age of fifteen, entered Rutgers College. He graduated there, second honor man in his class, with the prizes for Moral Philosophy and in the Greek languages. While studying the law he served as Professor of Languages at Rutgers Grammar School in New Brunswick, acting as first assistant to the rector. He prepared for his profession in the office of Magie & Cross in Elizabeth. While he was Governor he made Magie Chancellor of the state; and Cross at his death was a United States District Court Judge. Admitted to the Bar in June, 1880, he at once opened an office in Elizabeth and began the practice.


Mr. Voorhees had rare qualities as a platform orator and was soon drawn into the politics of the locality and state. As a School Commissioner in Elizabeth he had a hand in the establishment of the High School and Training School there. His first election to the House of Assembly was in 18SS and was followed by his re-election in '89 and '90. In 1893 he was sent to the State Senate and re-elected in 1896. He had been the majority leader on the Assembly floor ; he now became leader in the Senate, and in 1892 was made President of the body.


Senator Voorhees was serving in that capacity when Gov. Griggs re- signed to become the Attorney General of the United States, and the duties of the Governorship devolved upon his shoulders. His official position was anomalous at the time. The office seemed to be without title. He was merely President of the Senate with the duties of Governor thrown in; the complications led the Legislature to create the office of Acting Governor.


The movement had been towards the nomination of Senator Voorhees for Governor to succeed Mr. Griggs ; but the constitutional clause forbidding a Governor to succeed himself presented embarrassments to Senator Voor- hees's campaign. He therefore resigned his seat in the State Senate-which automatically took him out of the Governor's chair and sent Speaker Wat- kins there. Thus the state had three Governors within a year. Mr. Voor- hees was nominated at the fall Convention and elected for the full term of three years. His administration was marked by much interesting and im- portant legislation.


Gov. Voorhees was afterwards for seven years President of a New York Insurance Company, but has lately devoted himself to the practice of his profession in Elizabeth.


WILLIAM H. VREDENBURGH-Freehold .- Jurist. Born at Freehold. August 19th. 1840; son of Peter and Eleanor ( Brincker-


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hoff ) Vredenburgh ; married at New York City, on February 25th, 1868. to Bessie H. Williams, daughter of Esek Hartshorne Williams and Amelia L. Williams.


Children : (oldest ) Peter, who served as Captain in Spanish War, in Phillipines and Cuba ; Amelia L., Bessie L. and William.


William H. Vredenburgh comes of a family that has long been dis- tinguished in the jurisprudence of the State. The old time records show that the family springs from William I. Vredenburg who came from the Hague in the "Gilded Beaver" to the New Netherlands in 1658. Mr. Vreden- burgh's father was for two terms an Associate Justice of the State Supreme Court and regarded as a jurist of unusual soundness, and Mr. Vredenburgh himself sat on the Bench of the Court of Errors and Appeals for twenty years. After graduating from Rutgers College in 1859, Mr. Vredenburgh studied law in the office of Joseph D. Bedle, afterwards a Justice of the State Supreme Court and later still Governor of the State. His admission to the Bar was in 1862 and at the Jannary term of 1865 he he- came a counselor. Except for one year, he has practised his profession at Freehold. The exceptional year was spent at Eatontown where he located in '64 to look after the affairs of his brother. Major Peter Vredenburgh, Jr., who had just fallen, while at the head of his regiment in the Union Army, at the battle of Win- chester, Va.


In the campaign of 1884 the republicans of Monmouth Co. named Mr. Vredenburgh for the State Senate. That was the year in which Leon Abbett made his first canvass for the Governorship, and the campaign was one of the most exciting and bitterly contested in the history of the state. The democratic autocracy at the State House had set its face against Mr. Abbett's election ; and the factional disturbance in the party gave the republicans hope of carrying the state. Mr. Vredenburgh would probably have been elected but for the fact that on the very eve of the poll the democrats made with the Prohibition element in the county a coalition that proved successful.


In 1897 Mr. Vredenburgh was one of the special Commission to revise the railroad taxation laws. When Judge Dayton died in November of that year, leaving a vacancy on the Bench of the State Court of Errors and Ap- peals, Gov. Griggs appointed Mr. Vredenburgh to fill it. The nomination was confirmed in January of 1898 and Judge Vredenburgh sat on the Bench


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of that Court by appointment of succeeding Governors until 1916. Judge Vredenburgh holds the degree of LL. D. from Rutgers College, is President of the Monmouth County Bar Association and a member among others of the Zeta Psi Fraternity and the Holland Society of New York.


JOHN BEAM VREELAND-Morristown, (21 South Street. )- Lawyer. Born in Newark, December 30, 1852; son of George W. and Sarah M. Vreeland ; married on December 18th, 1878, to Ida A. Pietrowoki .- 2nd, on June 2, 1897, to Ida King Smith.


John B. Vreeland is an ex-Judge of the Morris County Courts and from 1904 to 1912 was United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey, He had previously been active in local and state politics.


Judge Vreeland's line came from Holland whence some of his ances- tors settled in New Jersey in the seventeenth century. He can trace his family line back on his mother's side to English settlers here before the Revolutionary days. He was educated in the common schools of Newark and Morristown to which he removed with his parents in 1868. While in Newark he served a newspaper route for a year and attended the Newark Law School. He read in the office of F. G. Burnham and later in the office of Colonel F. A. De Mott, was admitted to the Bar in 1875 and became a counselor in 1879, a Supreme Court Commissioner in June, 1SS2, and by Chancellor McGill's appointment, a special Master in Chancery in 1892.


Judge Vreeland's political career began when he was made Clerk of Morris township and promoted later to be Deputy County Clerk. He was appointed acting Prosecutor by the Courts to fill a vacancy caused by a death and served as City Counsel of Morristown. In 1894 the Morris county republicans put him in nomination for State Senator, and he took his seat at the State House in the following January. While serving there he was one of the commission to revise the laws concerning banks and trust companies.


At the close of his senate term Gov. Voorhees appointed him Law Judge of Morris county. In 1903 President Roosevelt appointed him United States Attorney for New Jersey. He filled out D. O. Watkins's unexpired term and President Roosevelt named him in 1904 for the full term and again in 1907. In 1910 President Taft sent his name to the senate for the fourth time. Since his retirement from the office Judge Vreeland has been prac- ticing law at Morristown.


PETER DUMONT VROOM-Trenton .- Brigadier-General U. S. A. Born at Trenton, April 18, 1842; son of Peter D. and Matilda (Wall) Vroom.


Peter Dumont Vroom, retiring of his own motion as Brigadier-General, U. S. A. in 1903, brought to a close an active Army service that had covered a period of more than forty years. His father was Governor of New Jersey


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from 1833 to 1836; and his mother was connected with the family of Garret D. Wall who was elected Governor in 1829 but declined to serve.


Gen. Vroom graduated from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1862 with the C. E. degree. He was soon afterwards made First Lieuten- ant Adjutant in the New Jersey Infantry. He resigned in September, 1863, and went into the Union service in the Civil War as Major of the 2nd Regi- ment of New Jersey Cavalry. He was brevetted a Colonel in 1865 and honorably mustered out of service in October of that year. In February, 1860, he was appointed from New Jersey Second Lieutenant, 3rd U. S. Cavalry ; made First Lieutenant in July, '66 ; Captain in May, '76; Inspector General with the rank of Major in December, 1SS3; promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in 1895; to that of Colonel in '99, and made Brigadier General in 1903.


General Vroom is a member of the New York, Metropolitan, Washing- ton. Army and Navy, and San Antonio Clubs.


EDMUND WARING WAKELEE-Demarest .- Lawyer. Born in Kingston, N. Y., on November 21st, 1869: son of Nicholas and Eliza C. ( Ingersoll) Wakelee.


Edmund W. Wakelee has been prominent as a lawyer and active in the politics and legislation of the State for many years. He has been State Senator, President of the Senate, Acting Governor and Chairman of the Republican State Committee, and is now Vice President of the Public Ser- vice Corporation of New Jersey.


Senator Wakelee was educated at the Kingston Academy and Universi- ty of the City of New York (class of '91) ; was admitted to the New York Bar in 1891, to the New Jersey Bar as attorney in 1896, and as counselor in 1900. He organized and is the head of the firm of Wakelee, Thornall & Wright, with law offices in New York City and in Englewood and Hacken- sack, and has taken part in many noted trials. While retaining his interest in the law firm, the active work is now turned over to his partners.


Upon the completion of his studies he received an appointment in the Law Department of the New York Custom House, and took up his residence in New York City. In a short time, however, he decided to make his home at Demarest (Bergen Co.), where his father and mother joined him and lived until their death and where he still resides.


He soon interested himself in public affairs, and was elected a member of the New Jersey House of. Assembly in 1889. He was re-elected the next year, when he was Republican Leader on the floor of the House. It was expected that he would again be elected the following year, and be selected Speaker of the House of Assembly, but a vacancy unexpectedly occurred in the office of State Senator for Bergen County, and he was nominated and elected to fill the unexpired term of one year. He was re-elected for the three succeeding terms making an uninterrupted service of twelve years in the Legislature-two in the House of Assembly and ten in the Senate. This record of election six successive times has hardly, if ever, been equalled in this State.


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During his term in the Senate he was Floor Leader, President of the Senate, and on several occasions, Acting Governor. To enumerate the principal events of Senator Wakelee's career at Trenton would necessitate a recital of practically all the important legislative proceedings during the terms of Governors Voorhees, Murphy, Stokes and Fort. He drafted many important laws, and because of his long experience he was and still is con- sulted upon important matters of legis- lation. He led the fight for the pre- servation of the Palisades, securing the enactment of legislation which resulted in the establishment of the Palisades Interstate Park, and was a strong sup- porter of the plan to bridge or tummel the Hudson River. The great number of laws for which he was primarily re- sponsible, or instrumental in having passed, renders it impossible to mention more. Senator Wakelec was carly made a member of the Republican State Com- mittee, served for a long time as its Vice-Chairman, and for several years as Chairman. He is still active in state republican party affairs.


When Mr. Wakelee came to Bergen county its population was less than 50,000 and it had few improvements. He took a keen interest in all phases of its growth and progress and through his efforts the county secured its first state roads. He was active in the organiza- tion of the New Jersey and Hudson River Railway and Ferry Company, which operates street railway lines from Edgewater to Newark, Paterson and Englewood, and of the Riverside and Fort Lee Ferry Company, which operates a ferry from New York City to Edgewater. He was General Counsel for these companies until they were taken over by the Public- Service Corporation of New Jersey. The Palisades Trust & Guaranty Com- pany, of which he is counsel and Trust Officer, was organized by Mr. Wakelee, as were the Rockland Electric Company of Bergen County, and the Registrar and Transfer Company of New Jersey and New York, in which he is still actively interested.


In 1911 Mr. Wakelee was made Attorney for the Public Service Corpo- ration of New Jersey ; in 1914 he was appointed Associate General Solici- tor, and in 1917 was elected Vice President and Director and a member of the Executive Committee of the Corporation and all of its affiliated com- panies.


Senator Wakelee is a member of the New York Athletic, the Railroad and the Republican Chibs of New York, the Union League Club of Hacken- sack, the Knickerbocker Country Club, the Englewood. and Englewood Field Clubs, Hackensack Lodge No. 658 B. P. O. Elks. Junior Order of United American Mechanics, Deita Upsilon and Phi Delta Phi fraternities, Alpine


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Lodge No. 77 F. & A. M., and of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite N. M. J. U. S. A. Valley of Jersey City.


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HARRY MILLS WALCOTT-Rutherford .- Artist and Painter. Born in Torringford. Conn., July 16, 1870; son of Dana Mills and Elizabeth Billings Walcott; married June 1. 1905, to Anabel Havens, of Newark, Ohio.


Mr. Walcott is of English and Dutch descent. An English coat-of-arms traces the lineage of the Billings and Walcott families. His father was a clergyman, descendant of a branch of the noted Walcott family that settled in and around Boston, Mass. His mother was from Providence, R. I.


Mr. Walcott came to Rutherford in his infancy with his father. At as early an age as ten, he won a prize in the public school for the best draw- ing. After graduation from the Rutherford High School, he entered a law office : but his longing to become an artist overcame him and for the recompense that provided means for his art studies, he accepted a position in a wholesale house in New York City. The reward for his labors there was summary discharge for devoting more time to his drawings than to his work. This was the need- ed impetus to a stronger de- termination to abandon all thoughts of a business life and to devote himself wholly to art and he attached himself to the school of the National A- cademy of Design on 23rd Street, New York City. After four years there. he won the Henry O. Havemeyer scholar- ship that carried with it a travel in Europe for the pur- suit of his studies. Before sailing, he had some products of his pencil accepted by a- mong others "Harpers," "Cen- tury," "Scribners" and "Mc- Clure's" magazines. He spent six years from September, 1895, in Paris studying painting in the art schools. making incidental trips through France, England, Belgium, Hol- land. Germany, Italy and Spain to study master pieces. During this time Mr. Walcott was honored at the Paris Salon.


In Paris Mr. Walcott was Chairman of the American Art Association, and formed the acquaintance of the leading artists of France. Returning to America in 1901 he established his studio in New York City. At the Society of American Artists he exhibited a figure composition he had executed in


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Europe and was awarded the Shaw Purchase Fund Prize. The canvas is in Samuel T. Shaw's collection in New York. In 1902 he won the first Hall- garten prize at the National Academy Exposition with a picture now in Miss Ellen Stone's collection and was elected an Associate of the National Academy. In 1904 the Clark prize at the National Academy for the best figure composition came to him in a competition open to all American artists. Another of his works, exhibited and honored at the Carnegie In- stitute, was purchased by Henry C. Frick. The Daniel G. Reid Purchase Fund prize was his next capture. Silver medals were awarded to him at the Pan-American Exposition, the St. Louis International Exposition and the Panama Pacific International Exposition.


The motive of Mr. Walcott's work has always been out-of-door figure composition and he is most widely known for children out-of-door pictures. But he made occasional excursions into portrait painting fields, and his brush has put on canvas the portraits of, among others, the Presidents of the Ohio State University and of Ohio Wesleyan University.


Mr. Walcott's wife, who is scarcely less noted among women artists than her husband among the men, was an art student at the time Mr. Walcott was prosecuting his studies. She also was studying, exhibiting and traveling in Europe when the two met.


Besides exhibiting constantly in the galleries of the leading cities, Mr. Walcott has taught fully five thousand pupils in drawing and painting from life and in composition.




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