USA > New Jersey > New Jersey's first citizens and state guide, Vol. II, 1919-1920 > Part 35
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Burdette G. Lewis is a descendant on his mother's side of one of the original abolitionists, Robert Braden, in the Western Reserve District of Ohio. His maternal uncle was Clark Braden, an anti-infidel lecturer, and a friend of James A. Garfield. His father's forebears were early settlers of New York City, who came from Holland and later moved to Dryden, N. Y., when that was a frontier town and in 1853 to Pennsylvania.
Mr. Lewis received his education in the public schools of Pennsylvania, which he attended in 1888-1896, and the Omaha (Nebraska) High School, which he entered in 1898, where he received his diploma three and one-
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half years later. He then took up studies at the University of Nebraska in 1901 and was graduated three years later. In 1904-1905, lie was ap- pointed Johnson Special Scholar in Economics, at the University of Wis- cousin, and was also for two years (1905-1907) appointed to the Andrew D. White Fellowship in Political Science, at Cornell University.
His education was not obtained easily or under favorable circum- stances. Occosionally it was interrupted and discontinued because of financial reasons. In 1896 and 1897 Mr. Lewis worked on a farm in Penn- sylvania, earning a large part of his expenses in High Schools.
In 1902 he worked as a day laborer in the Homestake Gold Mine, and while in that employment learned much of labor and industrial conditions which have served as an aid in his study of sociology and in his public administration.
While in High School and Colleges Mr. Lewis took a great interest in public speaking and in military training. He was the leading member of the Nebraska University debating teams. which won the championship of the West for three successive years. 1
In 1904 he won the Chancellor E. Benjamin Andrews prize for excel- lence in public speaking and debating. He was a captain in the University military battalion during his senior year at College.
The New Jersey State Legislature, acting upon the recommendations of the Prison Inquiry Commission and a Special Commission to investigate State and County charitable institutions, both appointed by Governor Edge, pursuant to a joint resolution of the Senate and Assembly, recognized that the success of the new and enlarged Department of Charities and Cor- rections of the State of New Jersey depended for the most part upon the type of man chosen as Commissioner of Charities and Corrections of the State.
In pursuance of this recognition provided in Section 108 that the Com- missioner should hold office at the will of the State Board, that he might receive a salary equal to that of the Governor of the State and that in the selection of a Commissioner the State Board should not be restricted to the residents of the State of New Jersey, the State Board appointed a sub- committee of the members whose Chairman was Mr. E. P. Earle, of Mont- clair, which made an investigation and canvassed the eligible inen of the country and finally recommended unanimously that the State Board ap- point Burdette G. Lewis, of New York, who was then serving as executive assistant to the first Vice President and General Manager of the Air Ni- trates Corporation.
Mr. Lewis had been Commissioner of the Department of Correction of the City of New York during Mayor Mitchel's administration, and prior to that time served the City of New York, the State of New York, the State of Wisconsin, and the United States as an expert in different capa- cities.
The sub-committee report recommended to the State Board the ap- pointinent of Mr. Lewis because of his reputation as a man who has had wider experience and training of the kinds required than any other man in the country. The State Board accepted the report of this sub-com- mittee and at its meeting on May 7, 1918. selected Mr. Lewis unanimously
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as Commissioner of Charities and Corrections, for an indefinite period, and during the pleasure of the State Board, at a salary of $10,000 per year.
The selection of Mr. Lewis was based upon the following considera- tions, according to a brief submitted to the district draft board by Houl. Ogden H. Hammond, acting chairman of the State Board of Charities and Corrections, and by Hon. E. P. Earle, chairman of the Executive Com- mittee of the same board.
"His professional education and political and civic training.
"His work in the field of taxation and public finance for the State of Wisconsin.
"His work as expert for the Inter-State Commerce Commission in analyzing the inter-corporate finances and relationships of the railways of the United States.
"His services for the State of New York as statistician of the Public Service Commission of the First District for three and one-half years, in which time he wrote the financial history of the Lighting and Power com- panies of Greater New York, made a report upon the probable earning power of the Street Railway Systems then in process of reorganization and upon the financial operation of the subway system of the city.
"His services for the City of New York as assistant to the President of the Board of Aldermen for three and one-half years, in which time he served as a member of the sub-committee of the Board of Estimate which determined the City's budgetary appropriations, as general direc- tor of the investigation of the Public Schools undertaken by a Committee of the Board of Estimate, as director of Investigation to determine the amount, value and use of the vacant lands owned by the City of New York, and as expert advisor of the Board of Estimate in determining the form of contract, the routes and the probable earning power and capacity of the old subways then in operation and of the new subways then being planned, respectively.
"His services as Deputy Commissioner and Commissioner of Cor- rection of the City of New York for a period of four years, in which time he carried through the re-organization of the Department, secured ap- propriations and planned for the complete reconstruction of the old in- stitutions of the Department and the construction of three new modern in- stitutions, drafted and secured from the Legislature the enactment of a parole and indeterminate sentence law extending to all the large institu- tions of the Department, helped promote the reorganization of the various Courts and Probation Departments of the City and thus inaugurated an entirely new system of correction for the City of New York.
"And his services as executive assistant to the First Vice President and General Manager of the Air Nitrates Corporation, where he drafted and developed an employment program, instituted a form of government for an entirely new industrial city of ten thousand inhabitants, a system of health and compensation insurance affecting twenty thousand employees gathered from various parts of the North and South for the purpose of constructing at Muscle Shoals, Alabama, the largest nitrate plant in the United States."
Mr. Lewis is a member of the Nassau Club, the City Club. of New York, the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, the Na-
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tional Conference of Social Work, the American Social Hygiene Associa- tion, the American Prison Association, and the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity. His business address is State House, Trenton, N. J.
VIVIAN M. LEWIS-Paterson .- Jurist. Born at Paterson, on June 8. 1869, son of Isaac Arriston aud Hannah ( Davies) Lewis.
Vivian M. Lewis is one of the Vice Chancellors of the New Jersey Court of Chancery, and enjoys, besides, the distinction of having been the Republican candidate for Governor in the campaign in which Woodrow Wilson, now President of hte United States, was the Democratic candidate. Mr. Lewis had been an active factor in Republican circles for some time prior to his nomination for the Governorship and upon the resignation of Edward C. Stokes from the office of Clerk in Chancery, he was named by Governor Murphy to fill the vacancy. He was renominated for the fol- lowing term, in 1905, by Governor Stokes, and, confirmed by the Senate, served until 1909. Then by Governor Fort's appointment, he became the State Commission of Banking and Insurance. In 1912 he resigned from that office to accept the offer of a Vice Chancellorship from Chancellor Walker. His term as Vice Chancellor will expire in 1919.
Vice Chancellor Lewis was educated in the local schools and by private tutors, and admitted to the bar in 1892. While studying for his profession, he wrote for the New York newspapers. His newspaper work gave him large opportunities for the study of public questions and for acquaintance with public men ; and in 1897 the Republicans of Passaic county nominated him for the New Jersey House of Assembly. Elected then, and re-elected to the Legislatures of 1899 and 1900, he was the leader of the Republican majority on the floor of the House during his last term. Meanwhile he served for many years as one of the counsel of the State Board of Health, and in 1904 was elected City Counsel of Paterson. He resigned the City position when Governor Murphy named him as Clerk in Chancery.
Before entering upon his public career, the Vice Chancellor had con- neeted himself with the old second Regiment of the National Guard ; and in July, 1896, was appointed Judge Advocate of the Regiment. When the Regiment was reorganized in 1899, he was placed on the retired list with the rank of Captain.
MARY ELIZABETH (GREEN) LIBBEY-('lub Woman .- Princeton. (Photograph published in Vol. 1, 1917.) Born at Prince- ton, October 30th, 1859; daughter of William Henry and Eliza- beth (Hayes) Green ; married at Princeton, December 7th, 1880, to William Libbey, q. v. ), sou of William and Elizabeth ( Marsh) Libbey.
Children : Elizabeth Marsh, born December 10, 1883; Amy Morse, born April 26, 1893 ; George Kennedy, born April 26, 1893 : (died April 27. 1894.)
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Mary Elizabeth (Green) Libbey is the wife of Professor William Lib- bey, (q. v.) of Princeton University, and since 1914, has been President of the Colonial Dames of New Jersey. She is active also with the Daughters of the American Revolution. She was State Regent from 1909 to 1911 and Vice President of the General Society of the D. A. R. from 1912 to 1914. Her interest in church work led to her election in 1911 to the posi- tion of President of the Women's Foreign Missionary Society of the Pres- bytery of New Brunswick.
Mrs. Libbey is a lineal descendant from Jonathan Dickinson, once President of Princeton College. Chancellor Henry W. Green, a distin- guished New Jersey jurist, was her granduncle. William Henry Green, her father, a widely known theologian, was Chairman of the American Old Testament Revision Committee, and for many years Senior Professor in Princeton Theological Seminary.
Mrs. Libbey is a member of the Order of the Crown through her descent from Obadiah Bruen, one of the first settlers of Newark.
Besides the organization memberships already referred to, Mrs. Libbey is an ex-President of the Present Day Club of Princeton.
WILLIAM LIBBEY-Princeton .- University Professor. (Photo- graph published in Vol. 1, 1917.) Born at Jersey City, March 27, 1855; son of William and Elizabeth (Marsh) Libbey ; married at Princeton, December 7th, 1880, to Mary Elizabeth Green, (q. v.), of Princeton.
Children : Elizabeth Marsh Libbey, born December 10, 1888 ; Amy Morse Libbey, born April 26, 1893; George Kennedy Libbey. born April 26, 1893, (died April 27, 1894.)
William Libbey is a direct descendant of Lion Gardiner, of East Hampton, L. I., one of the celebrities of colonial times. Jedediah Morse, author of the first American geography. and S. F. B. Morse, of telegraph fame, were first cousins of the family, and the same is true of Abram Clark, signer of the Declaration of Independence and of the Dayton's, father and son, of the Revolutionary forces of New Jersey. The family dates back to 1630 in this country, when six of the name were among the original settlers of south western Maine in the region of Portland. Over eighty members of the family were active participants in the Revolution. His father was for many years engaged in the dry goods business of New York as the partner of A. T. Stewart, and was also a Director in several banks and railroads, as well as a Trustee of Princeton University, and the Theological Seminary.
Dr. Libbey has been Professor of Physical Geography and Director of the E. M.Museum of Geology and Archieology since 1883 in Princeton Uni- versity. He is a graduate of the University, where he took the B.A. degree in 1877, and was given the A. M. and Sc. D. degrees two years later. He became Assistant Professor of Physical Geography in 1880, and of Histology in 1883, but resigned from the latter in 1902. His scientific work has consisted largely in exploration, in connection with which investigations have been
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carried on in every State in the Union, Alaska, Mexico, Hawaii, Cuba, Greenland and Syria. For four years he had charge of the physical work of the U. S. Fish Commission, in the study of the Gulf Stream, and demonstrated its relations to the Labrador current ; incidentally as a re- sult of this work the tile fish was rediscovered, and its mysterious disappearance accounted for. In recognition of this work Sir John Mur- ray named one of the deeper areas of the Atlantic, "Libbey Deep." in his honor, and he was made Vice President of the International Geographical Congress in 1896 in London. His study of the volcano of Kilanea, re- sulted in the discovery of the presence of hydrogen and other elements as gases accompanying the eruptions in Halemammau. In recognition of an address before the British Association for the Advancement of Science upon the subject of the distribution of earthquakes Prof. John Milne gave the name of "Libbey Zone" to the belt of earthquake activity which sur- rounds the globe.
Dr. Libbey has taken a deep interest in the National Guard of the State : and from 1900 to 1906 was Captain of Company "L" of the Second Regiment. In the latter year he was made assistant inspector General of Rifle Practice of New Jersey with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and was promoted to Colonel in 1917. Since 1915 he has been President of the Na- tional Rifle Association. He is also Vice President of the New Jersey State Rifle Association, and has been adjutant of two International teams- one of the Olympic Team in 1912, which won the world's championship at Stockholm : the other the United States Team, which won the Pan Ameri- can championship. In 1916 he was Captain of the National Guard Team which won the championship of the United States in the United Service match. He was honored by both Governor Wilson and Fielder, by an ap- pointment upon the military staff of each.
Dr. Libbey is Officier de l'Academie. France, and a member of the So- ciete de Geographie and the Societe de Geologie, of Paris: Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Geological Society of London ; eciresponding Member of the Geographical Society of Geneva, Honorary Member of the Geographical Society, Liverpool, England. He is also Vice President of the Geographical Society of Philadelphia, Fellow and Foreign Secretary of the American Geographical Society. Corresponding Member of the American Philosophical Society, the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, New York Academy of Sciences, Boston Society of Natural History : a member of the New York Historical Society and the Historical Society of New Jersey, the New England Society of New York. the A. A. A. S. and the Geological Society of America : member and Vice President of the Society of American Naturalists, of the National Geographic Society, General Secretary of the S. R., President of the New Jersey Society of S. R., Governor of the New Jersey Society of Colonial Wars and Governor General of the Order of Founders and Patriots.
Among the products of his pen are the books entitled "Jordan Valley and Petra," in collaboration with Dr. Franklin E. Hoskins, and the Smithsonian Physical and Meteorological Tables, besides many scientific articles in journals and newspapers.
In 1910 he was nominated for Congress by the Democratic party of the Fourth Congressional District, and came within 200 votes of being
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elected in a strongly republican district. He has been active in promoting the interests of the town in which he lives, having started and managed the Water works for many years-and also having been a manager of the Gas Company for several years until its dissolution. At present lie is Vice President of both the First National Bank and the Princeton Savings Bank. He is also Vice President of the Mckinley Memorial Hospital of Trenton.
Professor Libbey entered the U. S. service on Feb. 20, 1918, as a Major in the Ordnance Reserve Corps, and was ordered to the Small Arms Firing School at Camp Perry, Ohio, on May 14th, as Assistant Chief Instructor. He was promoted to Lt .- Col. on Sept. 9th, 1918, and ordered to Washington, D. C., on Oct. 8th, as Chief Rifle Demonstrator in the Ord- nance Department, and at present is in charge of the rifle demonstrators in all the demobilization camps, who are charged with the inspection and preservation of the rifles which are turned in by the troops upon their return to this country.
RICHARD VLIET LINDABURY-Bernardsville .- Lawyer. ( Photograph published in Vol. 1, 1917). Born at Peapack, Octo- ber 13, 1850; son of Jacob H. and Mary Ann ( Vliet) Lindabury ; married July 8, 1892, to Lillie V. S. Dinger, daughter of Albert Van Sann.
Mr. and Mrs. Lindabury have one son and two daughters sur- viving.
Richard V. Lindabury's father was a farmer in Somerset county ; and Mr. Lindabury spent his early years between the farm and the district school. He seems to have been rather disposed to the ministry in his youth : and the Rev. Henry P. Thompson, pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church which his family attended undertook to tutor him for the calling. A college preparation was in contemplation. But after three years had been devoted to the study to fit him for admission, a serious sickness inter- vened to change his plans; and the tender of a clerk-ship in the office of ex-Congressman Alvah A. Clark pointed his ambitions towards the legal profession.
Admitted to the bar at the February term of 1874, he opened an office in Bound Brook, but the field was small and he changed his locality to Elizabeth and afterwards to Newark. There in 1896, he established the law firm of Lindabury, Depue & Faulks, which is still practicing with offi- ces in the Prudential Building. As counsel for certain stockholders he suc- cessfully opposed the merger of the Prudential Insurance Company with the Fidelity Trust Company in 1902. In 1905 he was employed to repre- sent both the Prudential and Metropolitan Insurance Companies before the Armstrong investigating committee in New York, and in 1906 was elected General Counsel for the Prudential, a position which he has held ever since.
Mr. Lindabury's skill as a corporation lawyer has commanded attention outside New Jersey as well as in it; and he has appeared in many of the
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most noted of recent year cases. When the Singer Sewing Machine Com- pany charged the state of New Jersey with having taxed it in violation of its charter contract with the state, he was in court as the Company's counsel and won a decision in its favor. As counsel of the American To- bacco Company, he also resisted the State's attempt to dissolve it as a monopoly in restraint of trade. The sensational litigation that grew out of the controversy over the attempt of what was known as the "Rump" Senate to bar out newly elected members in 1892, brought him again to the front as counsel and adviser. The democratic holdovers in the Sen- ate of that year, claimed that a certificate of election did not constitute a title to a seat in the Senate, but that, under the constitutional pro- vision which makes the Senate the judge of the election and returns of its members, a member elect could not be seated until the hold-over Senators had passed upon and accepted his credentials. The hold-over Senators were dem- ocrats, those claiming seats were republicans ; and the refusal of the "hold- overs" to admit the others to the chamber provoked an almost riotous demon- stration at the State House. Mr. Lindabury and Frederic W. Stevens, now Vice Chancellor, were retained by the State and they succeeded in com- pelling the rival senates to submit their respective claims to the Supreme Court, which seated the republicans.
That was the second great state tumult in which Mr. Lindabury had been a leading figure. While he was still practicing law in Elizabeth, the race track issue became an absorbing one all over the common wealth. The jockeys, who had already opened all-the-year-around courses at Guttenberg at one end of the State and at Gloucester at the other end, also opened at Clifton in Passaic and at Linden in Union, other tracks that drew hordes of undesirable sports. They felt themselves in such absolute control of the State that they put a Gloucester tract "starter" in the Speakers chair in the House of Assembly, and, when protests against their seizure of the government poured into the Houses of the Legislature, refused even to permit them to be read.
The people of Union felt particularly outraged by the invasion of their county. and great mass meetings were held to arrange a demonstration at Trenton that would force the attention of the jockey legislators. The white-haired Parson Kempshall was second only to Mr. Lindabury in firing these monster gatherings to the burning point. The movement became in- fectious ; and an army of indignant citizens stormed the State Capital and took possession of the jockey Speaker's chair. The excitement did not abate until it had culminated in a movement for an amendment to the state constitution that would forever rob the racing resorts of their chief attraction. The proposed new clause of the State's charter forbade gamb- ling in any of its forms.
It was the issue in the campaign of the succeeding fall. Mr. Lindabury in Union was first among those who took the platform in advocacy of the amendment : and the people, at a special referendum, ordered it into the state constitution. The jockeys were hurled from power, and the democrat- ic party. whose chiefs in the State had countenanced them, lost control of the State for many years afterwards. The race track people attacked the amendment on legal grounds ; and Mr. Lindabury was of the counsel who pleaded successfully in the courts for its retention.
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It is in the courts outside the State however that Mr. Lindabury has been most largely in the eye of the nation. He was the chief counsel of the United States Steel Corporation in the suit set on foot by the United States Government to dissolve it as in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Law. The trial was before Judges Buffington, Hunt, McPherson and Wool- ley. Associated with Mr. Lindabury were Joseph H. Choate of New York, John G. Johnson of Philadelphia, C. A. Severance of St. Paul, and David A. Reed in the litigation Mr. Lindabury became, by the retirement of Fran- cis L. Stetson, the General Counsel of the Steel Corporation.
Quite as conspicuous were his parts in the New Haven Railroad con- troversies and in the Pujo Congressional Committee's investigation of the "Money Trust." He was the personal counsel of the late John P. Mor- gan in the "Money Trust" investigation and represented both Mr. Morgan and William Rockefeller in the New Haven litigation.
Mr. Lindabury was honored with degree of L. L. D. by Rutger's College in 1904, and by Princeton University in 1915. He has a farm at Bernardsville, covering several hundred acres which is noted for its fine herd of Guernsey cattle.
He is President of the New Jersey Interstate Park Commission and a member of several leading clubs in New York and New Jersey.
GUSTAV LINDENTHAL-Metuchen .- Civil Engineer. (Photo- graph published in Vol. 1, 1917). Born at Brunn, Austria, May 21, 1850; son of Dominik and Franciska (Schmutz) Lindenthal ; married at New York, on July 10, 1902, to Gertrude, daughter of Leopold and Matilda Weil (Mrs. Lindenthal died October 21, 1905) :- 2nd married at Durham, N. C., on February 19, 1910, to Carrie, daughter of Charles M. Herndon.
Children-Franciska, born November 24, 1913.
Gustav Lindenthal had made his name particularly well known among New Jersey people by his advocacy of the construction of a bridge across the North River from the Jersey Heights to New York, as early as 1887. The bridge was planned under the Pensylvania Railroad auspices by the North River bridge Company, and $100,000,000 was its contemplated cost. In the fall of 1901, however, the Pensylvania Railroad Company de- cided to enter New York through tunnels under the river and the proposed bridge was postponed to a more propitious time. Mr. Lindenthal was one of the Board of Engineers who designed and directed all of the tunnel work under the North and East Rivers in connection with the large Pen- sylvania Railroad station in Manhattan.
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