USA > New Jersey > New Jersey's first citizens and state guide, Vol. II, 1919-1920 > Part 22
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But Mr. Gaede's progressive and past success induced him to again establish a new business, and after a few years the firm of Gaede Silk Dyeing Company was formed, consisting of himself and his sons, Charles W. and William R. Gaede. The plant was erected on a site in the River- side section of Paterson, and today this firm is considered one of the largest independent dyeing concerns in the country.
Although naturally confined to a great degree by his commercial in- terests. Mr. Gaede, has also found time for civic and fraternal activities. He was President of the North Jersey Automobile Club for four terms (1914. 1915, 1916 and 1917). Relative to his interest in motoring, is the interesting fact that he was the third owner of a steam automobile in Paterson. and was the first agent in that city for French gasoline cars.
Mr. Gaede's club memberships are, the Masonic Bodies, Hamilton Club of Paterson. N. J., North Jersey Country Club, Elks Club, North Jersey Automobile Club, Chamber of Commerce and many other prominent organizations of the city as well as a number of clubs in New York City. He was also one of the first directors of the Citizens Trust Company, and for many years President of the American Building and Loan Association.
His business address is Fourth Avenue and River Street, Paterson, N. J.
EDMUND LE BRETON GARDNER-Ridgewood .- Corporation President. Born at Brookline, Mass., November 7, 1851; son of George A. and Mary C. (Le Breton) Gardner; married at New York City, November 21, 1887, to H. Louise Sprague, daughter of John H. and Henrietta Prall Sprague, of New York.
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Children : Adelaide, born 1888; Prescott, born 1893.
Edmund Le B. Gardner is Governor of the Society for Useful Manufac- tures, which at one time controlled all of the water shed in the North section of New Jersey. He is of English Seoteh and French descent, and graduated from Cornell University in 1875. After graduation he returned to Cornell University as an instructor, and became subsequently an assist- ant professor-leaving Cornell in the Spring of 1880, to become engineer and manager of the Dundee Water Power and Land Company. Interested still later in the woolen manufacturing business, he created the Algonquin Company, at Passaic. In 1895 he was with the New Jersey General Securi- ty Company and the East Jersey Water Company, being made Comptroller of the East Jersey Water Company, and his general interest in the water business has since grown to its present dimensions.
Mr. Gardner, besides being Governor of the S. U. M., is President of the Passaic Water Company, of the Acquacknonk Water Company, East Jersey Water Company, Jersey City Water Supply Company, Kearney Water Company, Massillon Water Company, Lincoln Water & Light Com- pany, Circleville Water Company, Vice President New Jersey General Security Company, Treasurer of the Montclair Water Company, Vice Presi- dent of the Dundee Water Power & Land Company and of the Paterson Savings Institution.
Mr. Gardner is a member of the Sons of the American Revolution, the Society of Colonial Wars of New Jersey, the Society of Founders and Patriots, the Mayflower Society and the Society of Sons of Colonial Gov- ernors. His club memberships are with the Union League, University and Cornell University of New York. the Arcola, the Hamilton of Paterson, the Ridgewood Country Club, the Automobile of America (N. Y.) and the North Jersey Auto Club.
JOHN J. GARDNER-Egg Harbor .- Statesman. (Photograph published in Vol. 1-1917). Born at Atlantic county, on October 17, 1845 ; son of John and Jane Gardner ; married at Philadelphia on February 1st, 1873, to Mittie Scull, daughter of Andrew and Mary Scull.
Children : Six. two living: Josephine Scull and Thomas Kemble Reed.
John J. Gardner has been for forty years one of the large figures in New Jersey politics and in the statesmanship of the country. His service of fifteen years in the New Jersey State Senate made him one of the legis- lative land marks. He was regarded for many years as one of the most powerful men that had ever come to the State House; and his caustic oratory made him an adversary that the strongest of his colleagues was reluctant to meet. His Senate work was all notable; but the most memor- able of its features was the expose, as chairman of a Senate investigating committee, of the historical ballot box frauds in Hudson county. The magnitude of the majority that had been cast in that county for Leon
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Abbett as the Democratic candidate for Governor in the campaign of 1853, aroused suspicions of irregularities in the poll and in the count of the vote there ; and the Senate appointed a committe, with full power to make an inquiry. Senator Gardner was at its head, and the most surprising disclosures resulted.
The testimony, largely uncovered by the efforts of William II. Corbin, the committee's counsel, showed that all the election officers in the county had been engaged in a conspiracy to juggle with the ballot boxes and miscount and mistally the vote so as to produce a fore-ordained majority for the Democratic candidate. In spite of the revelations of systematic and universal frauds, the local grand jury, drawn by a sheriff who was in sympathy with the election officers, hesitated to indict those who had been guilty, and it was only when Dr. Leonard J. Gordon of Jersey City, as grand jury foreman, took the matter into his own hands and rushed bills, that, under pressure had been voted with the idea of reconsidering them, into Justice Knapp's hands, that the guilty poll men were bronght to the bar. As the result of the trials, conducted by Charles H. Winfield as Prosecutor, sixty-four members of the ballot both boards were con- victed and served terms in the state prison.
The splendid work done by Senator Gardner and his Committee, point- ed him out as a more commanding figure than ever in the affairs of the state, and in 1892 the Republicans of the second district gave him the nomi- nation for Congress. He became a member of the Fifty-third Congress that began its sitting in Washington in March of '93, and was re-elected for the nine terms succeeding, closing his service at the National Capitol in March of 1913. In Congress Mr. Gardner did not make frequent display of his forensic power, having early discovered that those who made national reputations by talking, were not the men who wrote legislation. But when occasion seemed to demand it, he spoke, and was widely quoted on the tariff and free silver questions. When the House of Representatives was in a state of great excitement over the Bristow Report on Postal matters, Mr. Gardner, against the advice of friends who took the matter very seri- ously, ridiculed the report and its effect on Congress for ten minutes and little more was ever heard of the, now forgotten, Bristow Report. When it had become a habit for members of the House from certain sections to ain sarcasm at items in the River and Harbor Bill for the improvement of small New Jersey streams, Mr. Gardner spoke for ten minutes in defence of the item for Raccoon Creek, in answer to the attack of a southwestern gentleman. The items were not attacked again while Mr. Gardner was in Congress. When the magazines and press generally, were lauding the Canadian Postal system and criticising ours, in comparison, Mr. Gardner spoke for an hour or more on the Canadian Postal service and that system has not since been held up as a model for this country.
Made Chairman of the House Committee on Labor, he came to be recognized as a national authority on labor problems. In 1898 Speaker Reed appointed him a member of the United States Industrial Commission to inquire into the relations between Capital and Labor, and to find a method for the adjustment of their differences. That commission made its report to Congress in twenty volumes of testimony and recommendations, and its work is regarded as of equal value with that of the Royal Commis-
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sion that had previously gone over the same ground for the British Honse of Parliament.
In Congress Mr. Gardner was always a supporter of the agricultural in- terests and opposed President Taft's Reciprocity Treaty with Canada. He was a member of the Post Office Committee for twenty years and here his greater work was done. He served for three years on the commission to investigate the postal service. Every postal reform of recent years is based on the report of that commission. He wrote the vital parts of the law creating postal savings banks which stands substantially without an amendment and without criticism of its structure. There was difficulty in framing terms for the rental by the government of postal facilities in the great railroad terminals. Mr. Gardner was called upon to write the statute still in force. He also wrote the national eight-hour and the prison labor laws on lines that have been adopted by all subsequent committees. He has secured post office buildings for Atlantic City, Bridgeton, Millville and Burlington and had others in progress. He secured the improvement of Maurice and Mantua Rivers, Tuckerton and Absecon creeks, the Ran- cocas and Absecon Inlet-the latter against great opposition from several sources. He and Senator Briggs, secured the improvement of the Delaware from Trenton to Philadelphia, Mr. Gardner having begun this work and had small appropriations made for it while Trenton was in his district. The investigation of the World's Postal Saving Bank systems led him into the matter of Land Banks-they being in some countries related to each other. He was formulating a Land Bank System when he left Congress. When the "Spanish War" broke out Mr. Gardner sought to exchange his seat in Congress for a commission, but the war did not become strenuous enough to require the service of men not in the military organizations.
Congressman Gardner has spent all his life in the county in which he was born ; and his acquaintance with its people furnishes him with an exhaustness repertoire of home character sketches that he portrays with quite the same skill orally that Mary Wilkins Freeman exhibits in her pen portrait of her neighbors. He was reared as a water man till he was six- teen years of ago; then, in Sept., 1861, he enlisted for three years in the Sixth New Jersey Volunteers and in March, 1865, re-enlisted for one year in the United States Veteran Volunteers. He was an Alderman in Atlantic City in 1867; Mayor there in '68-'69-'70, '73-74 and '76. His first election to the New Jersey State Senate was achieved in 1878, and in 1883 he was President of the body. He was a commanding figure in all the State Con- ventions of the Republican party for more than a quarter century and in 1884 was a Delegate-at-Large to the Republican National Convention at Chicago,
He has been engaged in the real estate business, but has been a farmer nearly all his mature life in connection with his other activities. He now farms more than 500 acres of land. At one time he was an editorial writer for a newspaper and much quoted.
WALTER P. GARDNER-Jersey City, (122 Gifford Ave.)- Jurist and Banker. Born at Jersey City, May 27, 1869; son of
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Edward Charles and Content (Scobey ) Gardner ; married in 1896, to Rebecca Horstman.
Children : Arthur, born 1901.
Walter Pennett Gardner is a descendant from old New England Revo- lutionary stock. He was graduated from the Jersey City High School in 1886 and entered the employ of the First National Bank of New York City, and about the same period be began the study of law with Marshall Van Winkle of Jersey City, having registered in the law office of John Linn. Later, however, he discontinued his studies to begin a course of bank accounting and commercial law. At the end of nine years' service with the bank, he became Cashier of the banking house of Groesbeck and Sterling and upon the death of Mr. Sterling. became a partner in the new firm of Groesbeck & Company, members of the New York Stock Exchange.
In 1911 he was elected a Director of The New Jersey Title Guarantee & Trust Company of Jersey City, and in 1913 he retired from the bond business to become Vice President of that Trust Company. which position he now holds.
In 1913 Governor Woodrow Wilson made him a member of the New Jersey Commission for the Panama-Pacific Exposition and he served on the Executive Committee of that body.
On February 8. 1916. Governor James F. Fielder appointed him to the Court of Errors and Appeals and his term expires in 1922.
As one of the specially appointed Judges he also serves on the Court of Pardons.
Judge Gardner was for some years President of the Hudson County Group of Banks and is now (1919-1920) President of the New Jersey State Bankers Association. He was Chairman of the Liberty Loan Committee for Jersey City.
Judge Gardner is a member of the Carteret Club, the Down Town Club. Rotary, Royal Arcanum and Bergen Lodge, F. and A. M. of Jersey City, the Lotus Club and the Carteret Club of Trenton and the New Jersey Historical Society.
HOWARD R. GARIS-Newark, (12 Myrtle Ave.)-Author and Newspaper man. Born at Binghamton, N. Y., on April 25, 1873 ; son of Simon H. and Ellen A. (Kimball) Garis; married at New- ark, on April 26, 1900, to Lillian C. McNamara, daughter of Roger and Winifred McNamara. of Cleveland. O.
Children : Roger, born Sept. 10, 1901; Cleo, born June 30, 1905.
Howard R. Garis is author of the "Uncle Wiggily" and "Daddy" series and other "Bed Time" stories that have appeared in the "Home Column" of some newspapers. Among his other works are "The King of Unadilla," "The White Crystals," "The Isle of Black Fire," "From Office Boy to Re- porter." He is also a prolific writer of stories for juvenile readers.
Mr. Garis was educated in the private and public schools of Syracuse, the Newark High School and the East Syracuse Academy up to 1890. He
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later went to the Stevens Preparatory School. When he left there, he be- came connected with the "Newark Evening News" as reporter and special writer and is still holding that position.
Mr. Garis is a member of the Roseville Athletic Chib and of the Authors League of America.
CHARLES G. GARRISON-Merchantville .- Jurist. Born in Swedesboro, Gloucester County, August 3. 1849 ; son of Rev. Joseph Fithian Garrison.
Charles G. Garrison has been a Justice of the Supreme Court of the State of New Jersey since 1888. He was named to succeed Joel Parker who, previously to his service, on the bench, had been New Jersey's war Governor and who subsequently served a second term in that office. Jus- tice Garrison is a brother of Lindley M. Garrison, who was Secretary of War under President Wilson; their father was a professor in a Philadel- phia College for many years and a widely known minister of the Protest- ant Episcopal Church. Justice Garrison was educated in Edgehill School, Princeton, at the Episcopal Academy, Philadelphia, and, entering the University of Pennsylvania with a view to the study of medicine, graduated from there in 1872.
He had practiced that profession at Swedesboro but four years when he resolved to become a lawyer, and entered the office of Samuel H. Grey of Camden, who at the time of his death was Attorney General of the State. He was admitted to the Bar in 1878. Six years later he became Judge Advocate General of New Jersey. Governor Green in 1888 nomi- nated him to the State Senate as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and the confirmation came promptly. Governors Werts, Murphy, Fort and Fielder renominated him for successive seven-year terms, in 1895, 1902, 1909, 1916. Since 1882 Justice Garrison has been Chancellor of the Southern Diocese of the Protestant Episcopal Church of New Jersey.
Justice Garrison is a Democrat in politics. His circuit covers Atlantic and Gloucester counties.
ALFRED GASKILL-Princeton .- Forester. Born in Philadel- phia. Pa., November 6, 1861 ; son of Joshua W. and Caroline E. C. (Lippincott ) Gaskill ; married at Peterboro, N. H., on May 19, 1906. to Marion E. Nickerson, daughter of Theodore and Kate M. Nickerson, of West Newton, Mass.
Children : Margaret N., born August 31. 1907.
Alfred Gaskill comes of Quaker parentage, and his education was ac- quired partly in public schools and partly in the Friends Central School of the city of his birth. When he was twenty years of age he came to Cumberland County where, at Millville, he rose to be Superintendent of one of the large glass-blowing establishments. After a service of ten years
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there he continued in the glass manufacturing business in Philadelphia. In 1898 he decided to give up that line of work that he might devote himself to the study and practice of Forrestry. The field at that time was a new one ; he pursued his studies for three years in North Carolina, at Harvard University, at the University of Munich, and in the organized forests of Europe.
In 1901 he entered the United States Forest Service and remained five years. He devoted his attention chiefly to forest fires and to sylvicultural problems. In February, 1907, he was offered the position of Forester to the Forest Park Reservation Commission of New Jersey, and through that position became State Forester. When the state departments were re- organized under the Economy and Efficiency acts of 1915, and the Forest and allied interests were centered in the Department of Conservation and Development, he was chosen by the Governing Board as its executive Di- rector. He holds that position, along with that of State Forester.
Mr. Gaskill is a Democrat in politics and a member of the Society of American Foresters, member of the Association of Eastern Foresters, of the American Forestry Association, (Director), and of the Washington Academy of Sciences.
NELSON B. GASKILL-Trenton .- Lawyer and Soldier. Born near Mount Holly, N. J., Sept. 12th. 1875; son of Joseph H. and Ellie S. (Logan) Gaskill.
Nelson B. Gaskill is descended of Edward Gaskill who came to Boston from England in 1635. Suffering in the persecution of the Friends in Massachusetts, the family moved to Shelter Island, N. Y., and later under the protection of Thomas Sylvester, settled on the Sylvester patent in Monmouth county, N. J. A descendant of Edward Gaskill married Pro- vided Southwick, whose persecution is related in Whittier's ballad of "Cas- sandra Southwick." Shortly before the Revolution the Gaskill and South- wick families moved to Mount Holly, then Bridgetown.
Mr. Gaskill's education was obtained in the Peddie Institute at Hights- town, N. J., which he attended from 1890-1892, and Princeton University at which institution he studied from 1892 till 1896, being graduated there- from with the degree of A. B. He was also a student at the Harvard Law School for two years, from 1897-1899.
In the same year he left Law School, he was admitted to practice as an attorney, and two years later or in 1901, he became a counselor. As a member of the firm of Gaskill and Gaskill, he practiced his profession until the fall of 1904, when a breakdown in health compelled his absence until June, 1906. During this interval Mr. Gaskill worked on a farm in Canada, was employed as a gardener in California and was assistant manager of a banana plantation in Mexico. In that country he also did considerable travelling.
In September 1906, feeling the call of his profession, and renewed in health, he again took up practice at law in Camden. After a brief lapse of time he was appointed Assistant Attorney-General of New Jersey and
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filled that office until March, 1914. At that date he again opened an office for private law practice, this time at Trenton, N. J., and continued until 1918, when lic closed his business to enter the United States Army. He was commissioned as a Major, on May 9th, 1918, and was assigned to duty as Recorder of the War Department Board of Appraisers. Within a very short time he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, and was assigned to duty as a member of that board which is a part of tlie Purchase, Storage and Traffic Division of the General Staff, Washington, D. C. and at the time of this writing he is still in the Service. The func- tion of the Board is to determine on behalf of the President, just compen- sation for all property requisitioned for use of the army ,or ordered com- pulsorily to be produced.
Prior to his service in the World's War, however, Colonel Gaskill had a long and profitable military experience. On June 29th, 1896, he enlisted as a private in Company F., Seventh Regiment National Guard of New Jersey and 4 years later was promoted to second lieutenant, receiving his commission on June 27th, 1900. Two years afterward he became a Captain and company commander. That was on Feb. 10th, 1902. About two years later, however, he temporarily suspended his connections with the militia, and resigned on April 11, 1904.
His taste for military affairs, however, led him to accept on May 22. 1906, a commission as first lieutenant and battalion adjutant of the Third Infantry. and he held this rank until June 8, 1911. On July 9, 1908, he was assigned as an aide upon the staff of Governor John Franklin Fort. On June 8, 1911, he became Major and Judge Advocate and again on Feb. 6th, 1912, was given further promotion by being made a liteutenant colonel and adjutant-general. This rank hc filled until Dec. 30th, 1913, by a re-organization of the service, he became Major and Adjutant-General. From Aug. 9th, 1916, until Dee. 5th, 1916, he served by detail as acting the Adjutant General. During the period including June 25th, 1917, to Aug. 1Stlı. 1917. he was battalion commander and instructor at the New Jersey Summer Military Camp, Princeton, N. J.
During the term of office as Assistant Attorney-General Col. Gaskill was frequently called upon for the preparation of legislative acts, includ- ing the revision of the Department of Labor Laws relating to fire pro- tection, the Corrupt Praetice Aet, the first Civil Service Bill, the Bank Stock Tax, and others of similar character. As a counsel for the Em- plovers Liability Commission he drafted the Workmen's Compensation Act and as counsel for the Economy and Efficiency Commission, prepared the aet concentrating the State's purehasing power. Again as legal adviser for the Commission to investigate abuses in the State Prison, he drafted the act for the re-organization of the Penal, Charitable and Reformatory in- stitutions of the state.
Under the instruction of Gov. Wilson (now President of the United States), and acting as Assistant Attorney-General he investigated and presented to the elisor chosen Grand Jury, charges of fraud in elections, and of municipal graft in Atlantic County and he also co-operated with Attorney-General Edmund Wilson in the subsequent trials.
In 1914 Col. Gaskill was appointed a member of the Conservation and Development Commission of New Jersey and served for one term as
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President of that Board. This appointment was resigned when Col. Gas- kill gave up his personal business to enter the army.
In 1915 he was assigned by Chancellor Walker to prosecute disbar- ment proceedings against a number of solicitors who were charged with malpractice and fraud upon clients. Later he was also called upon by the Chancellor to defend, before the Court of Errors and Appeals, the independent authority of the Court of Chancery to disbar a solicitor for misconduct.
Col. Gaskill in 1917 was also assigned by Chief Justice W. S. Gum- mers as one of two commissioners to investigate financial operations of the Common Council of Newark.
He is a member of the Union League of Philadelphia, the Trenton Country Club and the Nassau Club of Princeton.
Col. Gaskill's business address is 2535 Monitions Building, 20th and B. Streets, Washington, D. C., until his discharge from the United States Army.
FREDERICK TAYLOR GATES-Montclair, (66 South Moun- tain Avenue.)-Benevolent Representative. Born in Maine, Broome County, N. Y., July 2, 1853 ; son of Granville and Sara J. (Bowers) Gates ; married on March 3, 1886, to Emma L. Cahoone, of Racine, Wisconsin.
Frederick T. Gates, whose father was a clergyman and who was for a few years in early life himself a minister of the Gospel, is one of the con- fidential advisers of John D. Rockefeller in the distribution of his various charities and the establishment of his several foundations.
Dr. Gates graduated from the University of Rochester with the degree of A. B. in 1877, was awarded the A. M. degree in 1899 and is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Fraternity of the University. Entering Rochester Theological Seminary, he graduated from there in 1890; and, ordained to the ministry the same year, became pastor of the Central Church in Min- neapolis, Minn. He served in that pulpit till, in 1888, he became executive head of the American Baptist Education Society.
Dr. Gates became business and benevolent representative of Mr. J. D. Rockefeller in 1893, and served in that capacity till 1912. He is Chairman of the General Education Board (Rockefeller Foundation) and also Presi- dent of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, and member or officer of various other business or philanthropic organizations. He was given the degree of LL. D. by the University of Chicago in 1911.
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