USA > New Jersey > New Jersey's first citizens and state guide, Vol. II, 1919-1920 > Part 9
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While living in Chicago (1884-1897) Mrs. Brown was a member of the Fortnightly Club serving a term as Secretary, and also Vice President of the Chicago Woman's Club. She was a member too, of the Board of Managers of the Training School for Nurses connected with Cook County Hospital and served as Director in the Home for the Friendless. At the World's Fair in 1893 Mrs. Brown was a member of the Committee on Organization of the World's Congress of Representative Women.
Since making her home in East Orange Mrs. Brown has been interested in all kinds of social and civic work. In 1906, '7, 'S she was President of the Womans Club of Orange. In 1910 Governor Fort appointed her a mem- ber of the Board of Managers of the New Jersey State Reformatory for Women, at Clinton. Later Mrs. Brown received commissions from Govern- ors Woodrow Wilson and Fielder, but in 1915 she was obliged to resign from the Board on account of ill health. She is a member of the Board of the Woman's Exchange, Vice President of Young Womens Christian Association, a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution and just now is, of course, much interested in Red Cross and other forms of "Preparedness" work. As a member of Trinity Congregational Church she is active in the Womans Guild.
WILLIAM JOHN BROWNING-Camden, (315 Linden St.)- Merchant. (Photograph published in Vol. 1-1917). Born in Camden, April 11, 1850; son of William Hinchman and Mary Cooper (Boroughs) Browning ; married at Camden, on December
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30, 1873, to Lillie a Taylor, daughter of Rev. Thomas R. and Sarah S. (Webb) Taylor.
Children : W. Kempton Browning.
William J. Browning probably has a larger acquaintance with the public men of the United States than any other man in New Jersey. For sixteen years he was Chief Clerk of the National House of Representatives at Washington, and left his desk there only to take a seat on the floor as a member of the House. Congressman Henry C. Loudenslager, who had represented the first district for eighteen years, died in August, 1911; and Mr. Browning was elected in the Fall of that year to fill the vacancy. He served in the office of Chief Clerk longer than any man who had ever held the office. He was elected to Congress in 1912-1914-1916. In the campaign of 1912 he was the only Republican elected in the New Jersey Congressional delegation.
Mrs. Browning's father was Pastor of the First Baptist Church in Camden for many years ; and her brother. the Rev. Thomas R. Taylor, who is also a Baptist minister, is Chaplain of the New Jersey State Prison in Trenton. Mr. Browning himself is of Quaker descent and was brought up a Quaker. His early schooling was acquired at the Friends Central High School, Philadelphia. He was engaged in the wholesale dry goods business in Philadelphia for thirty years, entering the firm of Davis Kempton & Company, when a boy of fifteen and finally becoming a member of the firm.
Mr. Browning served as a member of the Board of Education in Cam- den for four years and as a member of the City Council for four years more. President Harrison named him in 1889 as postmaster of Camden. and Clerk of the House of Representatives in 1895. The famous Thomas B. Reed of Maine was its presiding officer. His position not only gave him unusual opportunities for acquaintance with the distinguished men of the country but brought him into intimate relations with all of them. He has been a friend of the Presidents. and, when President Mckinley fell before the pistol of an assassin, Chief Clerk Browning was one of those who ac- companied the remains to the grave and took part in the memorial ser- vices. His influence has also been largely exerted in the most important National legislation of the years.
Ever since Mr. Browning's election to Congress he has been a member of the House Committee on Naval Affairs; and, always an advocate of a large navy, he was largely instrumental in securing the $536,000,000. appropriation for a more efficient and larger navy authorized at the close of the 64th session. Besides these larger activities Congressman Browning succeeded in pushing through the House at the session of 1916 an item in the River and Harbor bill appropriating $79,000 for the deepening of the Delaware River in front of the city of Camden; and it would have passed the Senate but for the filibuster over the "armed neutrality" resolu- tion that defeated the consideration of all other legislation.
Mr. Browning served in the National Guard of the state of New Jersey for twenty years, connecting himself with Company ( of the Sixth Regi- ment and retired with the rank of Major. He was Adjuster of the Camden and Suburban Railway for several years before it merged with the Public
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Service Corporation, and is at present a Director and Secretary of the West Jersey Traction Company. He is a member of the Y. M. C. A. in Camden, the Gloucester County Historical Society, the Camden Board of Trade, the Union League of Philadelphia, the New Jersey Society of Pem- sylvania and the First Ward Republican Club of Camden, a 32d Degree Mason, a Knight Templar, Tall Cedar of Lebanon, a Shriner and a member of Camden Lodge, B. P. O. E.
Congressman Browning's son is physician practicing in Camden.
LEWIS T. BRYANT-Atlantic City .- Lawyer. Born in Atlantic County, July, 1874.
Lewis T. Bryant is the head of the New Jersey State Department of Labor and the State Commissioner of Labor. With the idea of following the profession of Civil Engineer. Gen. Bryant entered Pennsylvania Mili- tary College at Chester. Pa., and gradnated from there with the C. E. degree in 1891; but, preferring the practice of law, he entered the office of Allen B. Endicott as a student and was admitted to the bar in 1898.
Connecting himself with the United States Volunteer Army as Captain of Company F., 4th Regiment of New Jersey Volunteers Infantry, Gen. Bryant became Major in the spring of 1899 and later Assistant Inspector General of the National Guard of New Jersey with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He was later commissioned Inspector General of the National Guard with rank of Brigadier General.
Gen. Bryant was Secretary of the New Jersey Commission at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition from early in December, 1903, till the close of the display. He served also as Secretary of the Jamestown Exposition Commission. In January of 1904 he was appointed to succeed John C. Ward as Inspector of Factories and Work Shops. An act passed a little later in the year changed the title of the office to that of Commissioner of Labor ; and Gov. Murphy continued him in the office under the new title. On the expiration of his term in 1909 Governor Stokes renominated him and when that second term ran out, in 1910. Governor Fort appointed him again. Governor Wilson reappointed him although a Republican; and by legislative enactment his term was extended until September, 1918, when Governor Edge reappointed him.
Colonel Bryant is identified with the hotel and other real estate in- terests in Atlantic City and for 13 years was Captain of the Morris Guards, Atlantic City's celebrated military social organization.
PERCY BRYANT-Rahway, (Bowdoin Park. )-Physician and Alienist. (Photograph published in Vol. 1-1917). Born at Charles City, Iowa, on April 19. 1862; son of Nathaniel C. and Mary Eliza (Southall) Bryant ; married at New York City, Feb.
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21, 1900, by the Rev. Melville K. Bailey of Grace Chapel, New York City, to Josephine Myrick Webb, daughter of Edward and Hannah Elizabeth (Myrick) Webb, of Newcastle, Maine.
Children : Nathaniel, born Dec. 26, 1900; Cushing, born June 15, 1902-both at Newcastle, Maine.
Percy Bryant's paper on Simple Idiopathic Epilepsy, (State Hospital Bulletin, N. Y., October, 1896), is the earliest medical literature ever pub- lished on the Auto-Toxaemic origin of Epilepsy; and shortly afterward was copied by the Journal of Mental Science, London, England. He was one of the surgeons who assisted Dr. William T. Bull in the notable Ma- loney case, in 1886; - Maloney suffered a wound of the abdomen with a 38 cal. revolver, the bullet making eleven punctures of the intestine, an in- jury that was then classified as fatal. The accident occurred in the even- ing, and a laparotomy was performed the same night at eleven o'clock, at Chambers St. Hospital. The patient mnade a rapid recovery and developed no sequelae. This case established a land mark in the development of ab- dominal surgery, because extended surgical interference in these cases was, at that time, generally regarded by the profession as harmful and futile, if not malpractice. The operation has since saved hundreds of lives, especially in military service, thongh, surprising to note, during the early part of the Great European War, English Military surgeons clung obsti- nately to the obsolete "expectant" treatment and subjected hundreds of seriously wounded soldiers to the tortures of thirst, morphine and the Fowler position, with its attending appalling mortality. A year later, in extenuation of this "conservatism" the plea was made by the surgeons that there was no literature on the subject to guide them! (British Medicine in the War, 1914-1917, Page 40.)
Dr. Bryant is eighth in deseent from Jolin Bryant, Sen. of Scituate, a Plymouth Colony Colonial Legislator, and Mary Hyland, his wife, whose family came to America in 1636, from Tenterdon, Eng. John Bryant was a member of the Military Company of Scituate in 1643, and in 1658 was commissioned sergeant. He was three times elected a Representative to the Legislature from Scitnate. His son, Thomas Bryant, Esq., served as a Representative in the Massachusetts Legislature for several years. He was a ship-builder, as four generations of his descendants were also, and a man of great wealth and influence in New England. with an estate of £10,000 which was many times larger than the average estate of the well-to-do of that period, 1748, when he died. (Vol. XI, P. 221, Probate records. Plymouth, Mass.)
Another of the descendants was Nathaniel Bryant, Shipbuilder, of Newcastle, Me., who was born in 1738. He built there before the Revo- lutionary War, a wharf, the remains of which are still to be seen; and his son, Nathaniel Bryant, born in 1765, had ship-yards at Newcastle and Nobleborough, and a trading post at Jefferson, then ten miles distant by water, where he owned over 1,000 acres of timbering land which supplied lumber for his vessels.
Dr. Bryant's father was Commander Nathaniel Bryant, U. S. N., who served in the Mexican war as Acting Master of the U. S. Sloop Dale, and served in the American Civil War, from the beginning to the end of
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hostilities. Ile commanded the Gun-boat "Cairo" of the Mississippi Flotila in 1862, and received prize money for the capture of the Confederate Gun-boat "Sumpter," "General Bragg," and "Hiawatha."
Dr. Bryant was educated in the High School at Cedar Falls, Iowa, Columbia College, New York City, (M. D. 1888), and at the Chicago Homeopathic Medical College (M. D. 1883). He served twenty-two months as an Interne and House Surgeon in Cook County Hospital, Chica- go (1883-5), and was afterwards Ambulance Surgeon to the Chambers Street Hospital, New York City. During his incumbency as House Surgeon he was lecturer to the Illinois Training School for Nurses. He was subse- quently assistant physician at Wards Island Insane Asyium, New York City, and at the Buffalo State Hospital. He was promoted to First Assist- ant Physician in the latter named institution in 1895, after passing No. 1 in the competitive Civil Service examination held at Albany, Dec. 20, 1894, and was promoted to Medical Superintendent of the Manhattan State Hos- pital, New York City, in 1897, after passing No. 1 in a competitive Civil Service examination held at Albany, Dec. 10, 1895. In 1901, he resigned on account of failing health, and later entered into private practice at 52 Midwood St., and afterwards at 134 Hawthorne St., Brooklyn, but was obliged to move from the city and take up an out-door life. In 1906 lie purchased the Bowdoin estate of ten acres, at Rahway, and is living there in retirement.
Dr. Bryant was Asst. Opthamologist in St. Bartholomews Hospital, New York City, in 1902, and Assistant Surgeon, with the rank of Capt. 74th Regt., N. Y. N. G. from 1893 to '97, and during his service there quali- fied both as a sharpshooter and as an expert. He reorganized the methods of instruction in the Training School for Nurses at the Buffalo State Hos- pital in 1890, and at the Manhattan State Hospital in 1897, and brought both schools from a primitive state of development to a high degree of efficiency. He is a Democrat in politics, in religion an Episcopalian, a companion of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion and member of the Society of Mayflower Descendants (life member), Society of Colonial Wars (life member), American Medico-Psychological Association, Colum- bia University Alumni Association, New York State Medical Association, and New England Historic Genealogical Society (life member).
Mrs. Bryant, (Josephine Myrick Webb) was graduated from the Lin- coln Academy. Newcastle, Me., 1892, is Corresponding Secretary of the Womens Political Union, Rahway, and is a member of the Society of Colonial Dames, Massachusetts Chapter, in right of General Constant Southworth, who served in King Philips War. From both parents she comes of notable New England stock "In ye old Colonye," and is a de- scendant of two signers of the Mayflower Compast, Isaac Allerton and Stephen Hopkins.
JOSEPH RAY BUCHANAN-Montclair, (Watchung Ave.)- Journalist, Author, Lecturer. (Photograph published in Vol. 1 -1917). Born at Hannibal, Mo., December 6, 1851 ; son of Robert
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S. and Mary Ellen ( Holt ) Buchanan ; married at Denver, Col., December 16, 1879, to Lucy Anna Clise, daughter of John Dawson and Amanda Williams Clise, of Denver, Col.
Children : Robert, born July 7, 1881 ; Gilbert D., born March 25, 1894; Ray, born July 9, 1899.
Joseph R. Buchanan's father was a native of Virginia, of Scotch an- cestry, his mother, a daughter of Judge William E. Holt, was born and reared in "Old Kentucky." A pompous southern Colonel once remarked to Buchanan : "The trouble, sir, with you New Jerseymen is that you have no pride of race and nativity." Buchanan rather upset the stiff-necked gentlemen by his reply: "How do a Virginia father, a Kentucky mother and a Missouri birthplace strike you, Colonel?"
Young Buchanan, when choosing a career, just naturally followed in the footsteps of his father and his father's father, although when the choice was made he was entirely free from parental restraint or influence. It was in the blood. His grandfather established at Hanibal one of the first newspapers published in Northeastern Missouri. It was on this paper that Samuel L. Clemens ("Mark Twain") received part of his early train- ing in a field he afterwards adorned. Robert S. Buchanan, father of Joseph R., learned the printing business and received his editorial training in this same establishment, by the side of the young man who was des- tined to become one of the world's most famous writers and humorists.
Joseph R. Buchanan began his career as a newspaper man in his early twenties, at Louisiana, Pike County. Mo., under the tutelage of Captain J. C. Jamison, proprietor and editor of the "Riverside Press." Captain Jamison was one of the best known of the "old school" journalists of the south and west. Under his wise guidance Buchanan was enabled to add the journalistic touch to an education which had been obtained in private schools of Missouri and Illinois.
After two years of service on the Riverside Press, when he was in his twenty-fifth year, he established, as its manager, the first daily newspaper ever published in Pike county. It was as editor of this paper that Champ Clark, later Speaker of the House of Representatives, first actively entered political life and made himself known outside the lines of the county. On account of a business disagreement with the owners of the paper. Buchanan withdrew and began the publication of an opposition daily. In this enter- prise he was financially supported by men then and since prominent in the politics of the nation and upon the bench, among whom were Colonel David P. Dyer, United States Senator and later Justice of the United States District Court, and Judge T. J. C. Fagg, for years a leading mem- ber of the Missouri bar and Judge of the State Supreme Court. The paper suspended publication soon after the election of 1876 and Buchanan re- turned to the Riverside Press. In 1878 he was attracted by the great silver discoveries in Colorado and joined the throng that headed for that state and fortune. Instead, however, of grasping the pick and shovel to dig for wealth, Buchanan gave way to the "call of the blood," and again took up daily newspaper work. He was editor of the Denver Daily Democrat in 1878 and 1879 and advertising manager of the Daily Republican, which succeeded the Democrat in the latter part of 1879. During 1880 and 1881
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he was connected with newspapers in Leadville, Colorado, which was then a hustling mining town of 35,000.
Returning to Denver in 1882, Buchanan, who had become greatly in- terested in the labor movement, established the "Denver Labor Enquirer," which during the six years of its existence was widely known and intheu- tial among papers devoted exclusively to labor interests in the country. In response to the urgent calls of the organized workingmen of Chicago, Bu- chanan began the publication of a semi-weekly paper in that city, in March, 1887. This paper he called the "Chicago Enquirer."
In addition to the service rendered by his two newspapers, Buchanan was an active and influential personal force in the labor movement during the years of its most important development. He traveled in almost every state in the Union and in Canada, lecturing, organizing and participating in the management of strikes and trade disputes of various kinds. He was a member of the General Executive Board of the Knights of Labor in 1884 and 1885, at a time when that organization was the dominant ele- ment in the labor movement and was counted the strongest combination of workingmen in the world. In September, 1888, owing to the dishearten- ing strife between the many conflicting elements, then existing in the labor movement, Buchanan suspended both his Denver and Chicago papers and withdrew from active participation in the inner concerns of the move- ment. He continued, however, to write and lecture on labor topics and to sturdily defend labor unionism. He never entirely abandoned this work. even after his walks in life led him far afield.
In October, 18SS, Buchanan removed to New York City, accepting the editorship of the departments of economics and politics with the American Press Association, a position he held for over fifteen years. In 1904 he joined the editorial force of the "New York Evening Journal," a connec- tion sustained for ten years. In November, 1914. he took charge of the educational and publicity bureau of the New York Department of Street Cleaning, and in October, 1915, was elected secretary-treasurer of the So- ciety for Street Cleaning and Refuse Disposal of the United States and Canada. At the close of the administration of Mayor John Purroy Mitchell, Dec. 31, 1917, Buchanan's term as Secretary of the New York Department of Street Cleaning terminated and he entered the service of the National Government as United States Commissioner of Conciliation, attached to the Department of Labor.
Mr. Buchanan is author of "The Story of a Labor Agitator," au inti- mate autobiographical record of the American labor movement during its crucial period, published by the Outlook Company in 1904. He is also the author of numerous short stories and of papers on social, economic and political questions.
Although during recent years he has been identified with and has sup- ported the regular organization of the Democratic party, Joseph R. Buch- anan has all of his life been essentially an independent in politics. It has been said of him by his best friends that "he wouldn't stand hitched." His answer to this challenge has always been : "Parties and party organi- zation are necessary under our form of government: but I shall always follow the principles in which I believe, regardless of party or of how
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often I feel it necessary for me to change my allegiance to organizations or leaders."
Before he cast his first vote for President, he had accepted the doc- trines of Peter Cooper, Jesse Harper, James B. Weaver and the leaders of that time who opposed the monopolies which controlled the currency, and the transportation and telegraph lines of the United States. He sup- ported the Greenback party and was active in the organization and the propagation of the doctrines of the reform parties which succeeded it, such as the Union Labor party, the Anti-Monopoly party (first People's party). the United Labor party and the Populist party. He was associated with Ignatius Donnelly and other radicals in the organization of the latter party and wrote into its declarations the first organized national demand for the adoption of the Initiative and Referendum, in law-making in this country. This party in 1892 carried 22 electoral votes for its candidate for President, James B. Weaver, of Iowa, and in that year and 1894 elected sixteen Representatives in Congress, four United States Senators and eight Governors of states. The party went into rapid decline after 1896, when the Democratic party adopted most of its leading principles and nominated William Jennings Bryan for President. The Populist endorsed the can- didacy of Mr. Bryan and went down with him in his first defeat for the office of President. Mr. Buchanan was the New Jersey member of the National Committee of the Populist party and was its nominee for Con- gress in the Sixth New Jersey District in 1892 and 1894. He supported Mr. Bryan's candidacy in 1896 and 1900, campaigning continuously for two months prior to election day in the former year, in New Jersey and New York. He ceased to believe in Mr. Bryan after the Democratic convention, held in St. Louis in 1904. He was one of those who said, "Bryan took the final step in his desertion of Populist principles and broke the last tie that bound Populists to him at St. Louis."
Mr. Buchanan took an active part in the Municipal Ownership and Independence party movements in New York, 1905 to 1908, inclusive. In 1906 he organized and headed on its tour through New York State the famous "Flying Wedge," which stumped the State for William R. Hearst, candidate of the Democratic and Independence parties for Govenor, in 1906. He organized the states of New Jersey and Pennsylvania for the Independence Party in 1908 and was largely instrumental in the organi- zation of the party in Delaware, Colorado and New York.
Never in full accord with the old management of the Democratic party in New Jersey, Mr. Buchanan welcomed the leadership of Woodrow Wilson in this State. In 1912 he supported Governor Wilson for the Presidency, in 1916 was a forceful advocate for his re-election and has since been a consistent. zealous and outspoken champion of the President and his policies.
JAMES MONROE BUCKLEY-Morristown .- Clergyman of the Methodist-Episcopal Church, Editor, Author. (Photograph pub- lished in Vol. 1-1917). Born at Rahway, on Dec. 16, 1836; son of John and Abby L. (Monroe) Buckley; married at Detroit, Michi-
Bunce
gan, August 2nd, 1864, Eliza Burns, died February 27th, 1866- 2nd at Detroit, Michigan, April 22nd, 1874, Mrs. Sarah Isabella ( French Staples, died November 29th, 1883-3rd at Dover, N. H .. August 23rd, 1886, Adelaide S. Hill, died April 23rd, 1910.
Children : 2nd marrige-Monroe, born August 2, 1875, married to Ethel Cantlin ; Sarah Isabella, born July 16. 1883. married to Ernest Edward Pignona.
James Monroe Buckley was elected Editor of "The Christian Advo- cate," New York, in 1880, and successively re-elected every four years until he declined re-election in 1912. He was a Delegate to the General Con- ferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church from 1872 to 1912; and to the Eenmenical Conferences at London in 1881. Washington in 1891 and Toronto in 1911. For many years he was a member of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church. serving as Vice President for a large part of that time and for three years as its President.
Dr. Buckley's father, a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church was a native of England. Dr. Buckley was educated at Pennington Semi- nary and Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn. ; but his health failed in his second year in the University. and he studied later under private instructors. He holds the Honorary degrees of A. M. and D. D. from Wesleyan. L.L. D. from Emory and Henry College, Va., and L. HI. D. from Syracuse University.
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