USA > New Jersey > Scannell's 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 14
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William J. Davis's interests therefore centre largely in the towns in the west part of Hudson County, but at the same time necessarily branch out to the larger circle outside. He attended Hackettstown Seminary and gradu- ated from Yale College. He read law in the office of William Brinkerhoff, in Jersey City, and was admitted as attorney in 1884. He has woven his business interests in with his law work; was director of several of the Essex and Hudson Co. trolley companies before their absorption by the Public Service ; was one of the organizers, and is now the President, of the West Hudson Trust Company, and was President of the East Newark Gas Light Co., and the Hudson Electric Light Co. until they too were taken up by the Public Service Corporation.
In his public relations Mr. Davis is president of the Martin Tax Act Commission of Harrison and Kearny and a Sinking Fund Commissioner there. At one of the times when the consolidation of the towns and cities in Hudson County into one municipality was under consideration, Governor Voorhees named him as one of the commissioners to consider and report upon the advisability of the consolidation. By Governor Fort's appoint- ment he served on the commission created to study the question of the taxation of trust and banking companies' stock and to report to the legisla- ture.
Mr. Davis organized the West Hudson County Trust Company, Harri- son, and has been President of the company since its organization.
He was instrumental in securing passage of the act creating the Hud- son County Park Commission and was appointed by Judge John A. Blair, on June 23rd, 1903, one of the Commissioners. On May 26th, 1905, Mr. Davis was elected President of the Board and is still acting as President.
Mr. Davis is also one of the Trustees of the Harrison Free Public Library and has been a member of the Sinking Fund Commission of the Town of Harrison for a number of years. He is a member of the Union League Club, Carteret Club and New York Press Club.
IDA WHARTON DAWSON (Mrs. Henry Hollister Dawson) - Newark, (692 High Street) and Avon by the Sea .- Social Worker. Born at Newark, daughter of John and Mary A. (Greenwald) Wharton ; married at Newark, on May 7, 1890, to Henry Hollister
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Dawson, son of Edwin Hicks and Julia (Hollister) Dawson, of Newark.
Children : Mary, born March 3, 1899.
Ida Wharton Dawson's activities are in the recent club and uplift movements of the state. She has been President of the New Jersey State Federation of Women's Clubs, and of the Contemporary Club of Newark, whose membership of 1,500 makes it one of the largest in the Federation of Women's Clubs in the United States. She has been a Director in the Bureau of Associated Charities, is now Vice President of the Women's Auxiliary of the Y. M. C. A. of Newark, and Secretary of the Women's Housing Association, and was one of the members of the Committee of 100 in the Celebration in 1916 of the 250th birthday of Newark.
Mrs. Dawson is of English descent on her father's side and French on her mother's. The house in which the generations have been reared since 1796 still stands on Kingsland street on the banks of the Yanticaw river, Nutley. The land on which it stands was part of a grant made in 1668 to Major Nathaniel Kingsland of The Barbadoes. His West India products were sent to the New York mar- kets ; and his sea-faring associ- ates brought back such glowing stories of New Jersey's richness in soil and scenic beauty, that he asked for a grant of land in what is now the Nutley region, and it was given to him. The old homestead was built by a nephew of his in 1796; and, modernized with later day con- veniences, was occupied by his descendents until after the open- ing of this century. A grand- mother of Mrs. Dawson, helped to start the first Sunday School opened in New York City.
Mrs. Dawson was educated in the public schools and at Hough- ton Seminary, in Clinton, N. Y. Upon leaving school she began civic work by joining the Newark Female Charitable Society's Board of Managers. She organized its Registration Department and was a member of its building Committee when it began its industrial relief work. In the Bureau of Associated Charities, she was Chairman of its District Conference and organized and was President of its Friendly Visi- tors Conference, where the problems of poverty, their cause and cure, were worked out for the first time in Newark.
Mrs. Dawson has been Recording Secretary of the General Federation of Women's Clubs, numbering two millions in membership; and compiled and edited the report of the official proceedings of its tenth Biennial Con-
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vention. As President of the New Jersey State Federation of Women's Clubs she re-organized the Federation as to methods and departments of work ; and as President of The Contemporary organized its civic work. One result was the Girls' Industrial School in Newark which has since been taken under the wing of the City Board of Education. The Industrial School is designed to meet the needs of girls leaving the grammar schools to enter Industrial life. Several hundred women were trained in civic work, through this civic department of The Contemporary while Mrs. Daw- son was President. The Women's Housing Association opened the first ho- tel in Newark for working girls, known as the Caroline, and has entire charge of it still. It is conducted on a purely business basis and not as a philanthropy. In her work as Vice President of the Women's Auxiliary of the Y. M. C. A. of Newark she is especially interested in mothers meetings where home training for the young is considered ; and as a member of the Newark Celebration Committee of 100 she rendered assistance on its His- torical and Literary sub-Committee.
Mrs. Dawson is also a former President of the Sesame (Women's) Club which was one of the two clubs founding The Contemporary. She is deeply interested in church work. Avon by the Sea is her summer home.
WILLIAM JAMES DAWSON-Newark, (1028 Broad Street. )- Clergyman and Author. Born in Towcester, Northamptonshire, England, November 21st, 1854; son of Rev. William James and Susan (Waller) Dawson; married to Jane Powell, of Lowestoft. Eng., in September, 1879.
William J. Dawson was educated at Kingswood School, Bath, and Didsbury College, Manchester, on leaving which in 1875 he became a Wes- leyan minister, being for some time the pastor of John Wesley's Chapel in City Road, London, and holding various other pastorates in England and Scotland. He first visited America in 1891, as a delegate to the Aecumenical Council of the Methodist Church. In 1892 he became the minister of the Highbury Quadrant Congregational Church, one of the largest churches in London, in which pastorate he remained until 1904. Leeturing during this period, the largest public buildings in the country often proved inadequate for the crowds that sought to hear him.
In 1904 he visited this country for the second time, holding a series of services in Plymouth Church, Brooklyn. The interest aroused by these services resulted in a call for similar services from other parts of the United States. The sermons preached in Brooklyn were printed verbatim day by day in the "Brooklyn Eagle," and were afterwards republished in his "The Evangelistic Note." He returned to the States in 1905 for a prolonged preaching tour, 70,000 persons hearing him in the first six weeks. The enthusiasm of his reception determined him to settle in the United States, and in 1906 his family joined him, taking up their residence at Taunton, Mass. He continued his travels until 1911, when he began to preach in the Old First Church. Newark, as stated supply. becoming. in 1912 the settled pastor. He has taken a great pride in the old Church,
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whose origin is coincident with the settlement of the city; and on the oc- casion of the City's 250th Anniversary Celebration, delivered the Founders' Day Oration and represented the Protestant Churches of the city in the great united memorial service held in Weequahic Park.
Dr. Dawson's work as an author is large and various. His first volume was poetry, published in 1884, "A Vision of Souls." This was followed by a volume of literary and critical essays, "Quest and Vision," published in 1886. His first novel, "The Redemption of Edward Strahan," published in the following year, won the praise of Mr. Gladstone. Since then he has published many novels, the best known of which are "A Prophet in Babylon,“ "Judith Boldero" and "Master- man and Son." His trilogy of books on literature, "The Mak- ers of Modern English, Poetry, Fiction and Prose," is his best known work. It was commenced twenty-five years ago, has had a wide sale, and has been often used as a text-book on modern lite. ature. His "Readers' Libra- ry," prepared in conjunction with his son, Coningsby Daw- son, containing volumes on the Great English Letter-Writers, Novelists, Essayists, etc., may be considered as a companion work.
Dr. Dawson's contribution to religious literature includes several volumes of sermons, devotional volumes such as "The Forgotten Secret" and "The Empire of Love ;" and a "Life of Christ," which tells the story of Jesus from the human point of view, its original title in the English edition being, "The Man Christ Jesus." In his latest volume, - "America and Other Poems" - published since his settle- ment in Newark, he has returned to poetry. He is also the editor of "The American Hymnal," which is used in the First Church at Newark, and in many of the leading Churches of the country. It contains several original hymns by Dr. Dawson.
Dr. Dawson's eldest son, Coningsby Dawson, with whom he has colla- borated in some of his productions, is author of the novels, "The Garden without Walls," "The Raft" and "Slaves of Freedom."
EDITH BARNARD DELANO-East Orange, (9 Webster Place.) Author. Born in Washington, D. C., daughter of William Theodore
,
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and Emma J. (Thomas) Barnard; married in 1908, to James De- lano, son of James and Elizabeth R. Delano, of New Bedford, Mass.
Edith Barnard Delano, besides being active in the book world, is a con- tributor to the leading magazines and the author of several feature photo- plays. Much of her work is done in Deerfield, Mass., where she spends her summers. Her grandfather, Theodore Barnard, one of the founders of the Associated Press, was the only one of her grand-parents of New England origin ; the others were from Maryland and Virginia. Dr. William T. Barnard, her father, built the first Chicago elevated railroad ; in connection with the B. & O. Railroad, originated the travel- ing library idea, and introduced into this country the first sys- tem of employees relief.
Mrs. Delano was educated mostly by governesses, and at Bryn Mawr Preparatory School in Baltimore, where a large part of her girlhood was passed. Her first story was written in the summer of 1904, and sold to the Woman's Home Companion. Since then she has been a hard worker with the pen.
Besides her contributions to the leading magazines for twelve years she has written the fol- lowing books: "Zebedee V." 1912; "The Land of Content," 1913 ; "The Colonel's Experiment," 1913; "Rags," 1915; "When Carey Came to Town," 1916; "June," a story for girls, 1916; "To-morrow Morning," a 1917 serial in the Ladies' Home Journal, to be published by Houghton Mifflin Company in October, 1917.
Those of Mrs. Delano's photoplays already produced were filmed by the Famous Players Film Company, featuring Mary Pickford, Marguerite Clark, Hazel Dawn and Marie Doro, and are "Rags"; "The Heart of Jennifer"; "The White Pearl"; "Still Waters"; and "Hulda from Holland." "The White Pearl" was also novelized by a collaborator, upon Mrs. Delano's photoplay of the same title.
Mrs. Delano is a member of the Southern Society of the Oranges, the Authors' League of America and the Vigilantes, the latter an association of authors and artists.
MILTON DEMAREST - Hackensack, (78 Main Street) - Jurist. Born in Middletown, Rockland Co., N. Y., June 8, 1855 : son of John C. and Isabella (Taulman) Demarest ; married at Hackensack on December 15, 1SSO to Carrie W. Christie, daughter
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of Jonathan S. and Charlotte (Beemer) Christie of Hackensack ; 2nd to Adaline B. Christie, widow of Walter Christie and daughter of Albert Bogert and Ellen Flearabaum Bogert, of Westwood.
Children : Charlotte, born May 3, 1888; Carrie I., born June 10, 1890; Edith, born November 14, 1891.
Milton Demarest was for some years the Presiding Judge of the Ber- gen County Courts, and is the President of the Hackensack Improvement Commission, the governing body of the city. His family of Huguenot origin, is one of the oldest in America. From Middletown his parents went to New York, and, settling later in Nyack, he acquired his early education there. When the family subsequently settled in Hackensack he attended the Hackensack Academy, of which Prof. William Williams was the head. Early in his school life he picked the law for his profes- sion and meanwhile maintained himself by work in an upholstery estab- lishment. He was admitted in 1877 as an attorney, and became a coun- selor in 1880. His brother-in-law, Walter Christie was his business partner during the year 1879; and, practicing alone then until '94, he entered into partnership with Abram De Baun, and the partnership has since continued.
While practicing alone he began to participate in public affairs, and from 1894 to 1908 was a member of the local Board of Education, its President during the last seven of the fourteen years. He was Counsel for the town from 1897 to 1904 and in 1906 his law firm succeeded to the duties of the position. He was made the Judge of the Court of Common Pleas and Orphans Court by Gov. Fort in 1908, and sat on that bench until Woodrow Wilson became Governor. Gov. Wilson being a democrat and Judge Demarest a republican, he gave way in April, 1913, to William M. Seufert. He had scarcely stepped from the bench when, on January 1, 1915, he assumed the duties of President of the Hacken- sack Improvement Commission, the governing body of Hackensack, and was re-elected by the combined vote of the republican and democratic parties in 1916.
Judge Demarest is a member of the Holland Society of New York City by right of descent. and in 1904-'05 was a Vice President of the Society for Bergen County. The Bergen County Branch of the Holland Society in New York owes its organization to his initiation, and he was its first President. He is a member of the First Reformed Church of Hackensack and served at one time as the Superintendent of the Sunday School. He is a member also of the Pioneer Lodge, No. 70, F. & A. M., and of Bergen County Lodge, No. 73, I. O. O. F., and one of the trustees of the Union League Club of Bergen Co.
WILLIAM HENRY STEELE DEMAREST-New Brunswick .- College President. Born at Hudson. N. Y .. on May 12. 1863; son of David D. and Catharine L. (Nevius) Demarest ; un- married.
Wm. H. S. Demarest is President of Rutgers College. Since 1864 the Scientific School of the College has been the State College for the benefit
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of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts. The 1917 Legislature named it the State University of New Jersey. Dr. Demarest is the first alumnus of the college to become its President. Ancestrally his connection with the college is almost co-extensive with its history. His mother is the daughter of James Schureman Nevius, who was a Justice of the Supreme Court of the State of New Jersey just before the middle of the last century ; and her great grandfather, John Schureman, a Judge and member of the legisla- ture. was a member of the College Board of Trustees from 1782 to 1795. Dr. Demarest's great grandfather, the Rev. Henry Polhemus, was trustee from 1800 to 1816; and his ma- ternal grandfather was a trus- tee from 1825 until 1858, for five years beginning in 1825 Sec- retary of the Board. The Rev. David D. Demarest, D.D., L.L.D., Dr. Demarest's father, was, for thirty-three years, Professor of Pastoral Theology and Sacred Rhetoric in the New Brunswick Theological Seminary ; and Dr. Demarest himself has served as a Trustee since 1899 and was the Board's Secretary from 1904 to 1906. Thus his family has been identified with the history of the college for nearly a cen- tury and a quarter.
President Demarest's boyhood and young manhood were spent in New Brunswick ; and, having graduated in 1879 from the col- lege grammar school, he entered Rutgers College as a student. At the commencement exercises in 1883 he was first honor man. He taught in the college grammar school for two years, and entered the Theological Seminary, graduating in 1SSS. Licensed by the Classis of New Brunswick to preach, he was ordained by the Classis of Orange, and became Pastor of the Reformed Churches in Walden. N. Y. (1SSS to 1897) and Catskill, N. Y. (1897 to 1901). In 1901 the General Synod elected him Professor of Ecclesiastical History and Church Govern- inent in the New Brunswick Theological Seminary. He continued in this professorship for five years : he was also, during the last of the five, Acting President of the College. The Trustees formally elected him President on February 8, 1906; and, in the June following, his inauguration took place in the presence of a notable assembly of Alumni and friends.
Rutgers conferred the degree of Doctor of Divinity on Dr. Demarest in 1901 and New York University in 1916. In 1910 he received the LL. D. degree from Columbia University, in 1911 from Union College and in 1912 from the University of Pittsburg.
Dr. Demarest is a member of the University Club of New York, of the
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Huguenot Society, the Holland Society, the Japan Society and of the Delta Phi Fraternity.
ALFRED LEWIS DENNIS-Newark, (25 James Street) - Broker. Born Newark, October 26, 1857; son of Martin Ryerson and Josephine (Rose) Dennis.
Alfred Lewis Dennis is a member of the firm of Post & Flagg, mem- bers of the New York Stock Exchange, and has been the resident partner in charge of the Newark Branch since 1894. His ancestry in direct and collateral lines reaches back to the settlement of this country in the seventeenth century. John Howland, John Tilley and Elizabeth Tilley, who landed with the Pilgrims, on the "Mayflower" at Plymouth, Mass. in 1620, were his forbears on this side of the seas. His father was the son of Ezekiel and Mary Baldwin Dennis of Newton; son of Jesse and Ann Schooley Dennis, of Wantage, (Sussex Co.) ; son of Joseph and Hannah Lewis Dennis, of Quakertown, Bucks County, Pa .; son of Joseph, of Cohansey, (N. J.) ; son of Jonathan and Rachel Moore Dennis, of Wood- bridge ; son of Robert Dennis, of Yarmouth, Mass.
Alfred L. Dennis was educated at the Newark Academy and was graduated from Princeton University with the class of 1879. After fin- ishing his course at the University, he entered the firm of Martin R. Dennis & Co., bankers and general brokers. Outside of business he has taken an active interest in musical affairs and has done much to cultivate the taste of the community and encourage native talent. He is a mem- ber of the board of directors of the Newark Symphony Orchestra and Treasurer of the Newark Music Festival Association. He is also Presi- dent of the Playfellows, an amateur comedy club, a director of the Dennis Library at Newton, and of the Martin Dennis Company of Newark, one of the trustees of the First Presbyterian Church, and a member of the Sussex County Country Club at Newton.
LABAN W. DENNIS-Newark .- Manufacturer. Born Fulton, Mo., April 7, 1858; son of Isaiah and Caroline (Van Winkle) Dennis ; married at Newark, December 5. 1883, to Eliza Willis Morton, daughter of James Morton of Matawan.
Children : Dorothy Dennis, born July 19, 1895.
Laban W. Dennis is Treasurer of the George Brown & Company on Passaic Street, Newark. In his early boyhood he lived with his parents in Jersey City and attended the schools there from 1866 to 1870. He was afterwards tutored at S. A. Farrand's Private School in New York and took a course in business at the New Jersey Business College.
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Mr. Dennis is a member of the Down Town Club and of the Union Club, both of Newark.
SAMUEL SHEPARD DENNIS-Morristown, (Miller Road. ) - Trustee and Director. Born in Newark, September 11, 1852; son of Alfred Lewis and Eliza (Shepard) Dennis; married Eliza Thomas, daughter of Richard S. and Helen (Naylor) Thomas of Chicago, on April 15, 1SS4.
Children : Helen Ewing, Dorothy and James Shepard.
Mr. Dennis received his preparatory education at Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass. He entered Yale, class of 1874, but was obliged to with- draw on account of ill health. He traveled extensively in Europe and the Orient, and on his return became connected with the hardware firm of Gifford & Beach of New York. He retired in 1880 to give attention to his father's estate.
Mr. Dennis is President of the Howard Savings Institution of Newark ; vice-President of the United New Jersey Railroad and Canal Company ; Director of the Chicago Junction Railways and Union Stockyards Com- pany, the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad Company, the Morris and Essex Railroad Company, the Pennsylvania Tunnel and Terminal Railroad Company, the Harrison and East Newark Connecting Railroad Company, the American Insurance Company, the Prudential In- surance Company of America and of The National Newark Banking Com- pany ; Trustee of the Syrian Protestant College of Beirut, Syria, and of the Dennis Library of Newton, (N. J.), and a member of the Society of the Cincinnati, New Jersey Historical Society, The Washington Association (Morristown), Century, Union, Down Town (New York) Clubs. He is a Republican and an Episcopalian.
Mr. Dennis' family can be traced back in the maternal line through eight generations to Governor William Bradford of the Mayflower and the Plymouth Colony, and on his father's side to English Quakers who came over in the early colonial times and settled in Easton, Pa. They subse- quently moved to Northern New Jersey.
Mr. Dennis's office is at No. 768 Broad Street, Newark.
BELLE DE RIVERA-Mountain Lakes .- Women's Clubs. Born at Philadelphia, Pa., on March 15, 1848 ; daughter of Henry S. and Isabel (Patton) Camblos ; married at New York City, on Feb. 7th, 1877, to John de Rivera.
Children : Henriette, married to Henry Loney, of New York.
Belle de Rivera was instrumental in organizing the New York City Federation of Women's Clubs and is now honorary President for life of the
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Federation. The General and State Federation had already been organ- ized, but there was no Federation of the Womens Clubs in New York City until Mrs. de Rivera undertook the task of consolidating them. She was the first President of the new local Federation and served for two terms of two years each. It was in recognition of her services that the Federation created the title of Founder for her and made her honorary President for life.
Mrs. de Rivera has interested herself in the Women Suffrage movement and in movements for the improvement of the condi- tion of the working girls. She assisted in the establishment of the working girls hotel on West 22nd street, New York City and was President of the Board of Directors for seven years after its foundation.
Mrs. de Rivera is of French and Scotch ancestry and was educated at the Emma Willard Seminary, in Troy, N. Y. Her father served for three years in the Civil War ; and upon his re- turn from the army the family moved from Philadelphia to New York City, where Mrs. de Rivera lived until 1912 when she purchased property at Mountain Lakes to make her home in New Jersey. There she has organized and was first President of the Womens Club of Mountain Lakes.
Mrs. de Rivera is a Director of the Daughters of Pennsylvania, honor- ary member of the Government Club, Le Lyceum and of the Minerva Club, President of the New York Theatre Club and a member of the Society for Political Study, the Current Events Club, Post Parliament, (N. Y.),. Equal Suffrage League, Society of New York State Women and of the Emma Wil- lard Association.
DIEHL-See Rossi-Diehl.
JOHN A. DILLON-Newark, (91 Washington Street. )-Clergy- man. Born in Lamington, Somerset Co., in 1878; son of Thomas Dillon and Ellen Sullivan.
John A. Dillon (Rev.) is Superintendent of the Parish Schools of the Newark Diocese and National President of the Parish School Department of the Catholic Educational Association.
The Rev. Father Dillon received his early training in St. Patrick's
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School, Elizabeth, and took his college course at Seton Hall College, South Orange, graduating in 1899. He was ordained to the priesthood September 20, 1902, one year before the completion of his course in theology and ap- pointed Head Master of Bayley Hall, the preparatory institution connected with Seton Hall. He was elected Vice President of Seton Hall at the con- pletion of his year's term as Head Master. This was followed in 1908 by two years of parish work at St. Mary's, Elizabeth.
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