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 24

Author: Sackett, William Edgar, 1848- ed; Scannell, John James, 1884- ed
Publication date: 1917
Publisher: Patterson, N.J. : J.J. Scannell
Number of Pages: 592


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 24


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Apart from his official work for the state and the county, Mr. Gourley has been energetic in party service. He associated himself early with the Passaic County Committee ; and for ten years was the Chairman of its sub-Committee on organization. His service as Chairman of the Demo- cratic State Committee covered the nine years from 1898 to 1907. The Democratic National Convention of 1900 designated him as New Jersey meniber of the Democratic National Committee; and he served until 1908, when ill health forced him to abandon active participation in politics and he resigned his positions on both Committees to devote himself to his law practice. He has been a delegate to many State Conventions and was Permanent Chairman of two. That of 1898 was one of the most tumultous that ever sat in the state; and Mr. Gourley was selected to occupy the chair because of his known ability to deal with situations of that kind.


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Since his retirement from politics Mr. Gourley has devoted himself entirely to his practice, which is mainly in the line of corporation work. He is a member of the Hamilton, Lotos, Reform, Grolier and Baltusrol Clubs.


ROLLIN P. GRANT-Westfield .- Banker. Born at Westfield, on Jan. 6, 1870; son of Anson F. and Elizabeth P. Grant; married at Westfield, on Oct. 16, 1895, to Mary Coger, daughter of John J. Coger,-(now deceased).


Children : Winifred Mae.


Rollin P. Grant is President of the Irving National Bank of New York City. The Irving National Bank conducts its operations on a strictly com- merical basis. Its resources, since it absorbed the National Nassau Bank, exceed $130,000.000, and it has a capital of $4,000,000 with a surplus in excess of $3,000,000.


Mr. Grant left school when he was eighteen years of age to accept a place with the wholesale shoe house of Morse & Rogers. He was soon offered the position of Paying Teller in the New York National Exchange Bank, and three years later, in 1901, he became its Cashier. In 1908, when the consolidation with the New York National Exchange Bank was effected, the title, "Irving National Exchange Bank" was adopted and he was elected Vice President. When, later, it purchased the control of the Mercantile Bank, the title was changed to the Irving National Bank. For a long time the business was conducted at Chambers Street and West Broadway, but upon the completion of the Woolworth Building, it took the more ample accomodations offered there.


Mr. Grant, who was elected President of the Irving National Bank in 1912, is one of the youngest of the executives of the great metropolitan finan- cial institutions. He had assumed a good part of the administrative work, and was therefore in close contact with every branch of the business, before he succeeded to the Presidency, and, ever since he became a force in the management of its affairs, the policy has been one of conservatism as well as wide-awake enterprise.


Mr. Grant is well known as a lover of outdoor sports, devoting a good part of his leisure time to golf and tennis. He is a familiar figure on the links near Westfield, where he resides.


Mr. Grant is also a Director in the Peoples Bank & Trust Co., of Westfield ; and his clubs are the Union League, Hardware, and Bankers, of New York City ; Siwanoy Country Club, Mount Vernon, (N. Y.), Wyan- danch Club, Smithtown, L. I., and the Baltusrol Golf Club, at Milburn.


HOLMES FRANCIS GRAVATT-Camden .- Clergyman. Born in Clarksburg, (Monmouth Co.), on August 3, 1866; son of Paul Morris and Elizabeth (Francis) Gravatt ; married on June 3, 1890 to Matilda C. Francis of Clarksburg.


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Children : Charlotte Vivian, a graduate of Goucher College, teacher of English in the High School, Camden; Mildred Francis, a graduate of the State Normal School, teacher in a public school near Camden; E. Carlisle, Freshman in Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn.


Holmes F. Gravatt has, for more than a quarter of a century, been connected with the New Jersey Methodist Conference; and twice repre- sented the Conference as its delegate in the General Con- ference of the Methodist Church - in that at Baltimore in 1908 and that at Saratoga Springs in 1916. His pastorate of the First Methodist Episco- pal Church in Camden has cov- ered a period more than twelve years.


Dr. Gravatt's boyhood days were spent at Francis Mills ; and his education, begun in the country public schools, was con- tinued in a private Academy at Perrineville, conducted by the Rev. George MacMillan, a Pres- byterian clergyman. He subse- quently attended the High School at Toms River, and for three years after his graduation therefrom taught school while he took private lessons in Greek, Latin and the sciences. He finally entered Drew Theological Seminary at Madison graduating in 1890. He was admitted to orders at once and became a member of the New Jersey Annual Conference.


His first pulpit was in the Methodist Church at Delanco where he served three years. He was afterwards assigned to Beverly for four years, to Grace Church at Red Bank three years, Central Church at Atlantic City three years, First Church Millville for two years and in 1904 he was called to the First Church in Camden.


EDWARD W. GRAY-Newark, (141 Wakeman Avenue)-In- surance. Born in Jersey City, on Aug. 18, 1870; married in 1898 to Altha R. Hay, of Summit.


Edward W. Gray is a member of Congress from the Eighth New Jer- sey District, and in business is President of the Argus Press, publishers of the Bayonne "Review." He attended the public schools of Jersey City ;


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and, beginning as a clerk in a store, entered newspaper work a few years later as a reporter on the "New York Herald." In 1898 he became City Editor of the Newark "Daily Advertiser," and five years later was made President and General Manager of the Company that published it. Leaving the newspaper field he organized the Commercial Casualty Insur- ance Company.


Mr. Gray was Secretary of the Republican State Committee when he was first elected to a seat in Congress, in 1914. He was a member of the State Board of Tenement House Supervision for eight years, served for three years as Private Secretary to Governor Stokes and for six years as Secretary of the Republican State Committee.


CHARLES HENRY GREEN-Ridgewood, (123 Spring Avenue.) -Industrial Promoter. Born at Albion, Mich., April 17th, 1867 ; son of Henry S. and Mary E. (Ketchum) Green; married on July 16, 1890, to Ada May Kernaghan, daughter of William G. and Hester A. Kernaghan, of Detroit, Mich.


Charles H. Green had much to do with the International Exposition held at San Francisco in 1915 in commemoration of the opening of the Panama Canal; and as the result of his work as an exposition manager, he has since 1903 been Manag- ing Director or President of more than forty Industrial Ex- positions. He was Chief of the Department of Manufactures and Varied Industries of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition and active for two years before the Exposition opened in making preparations for the display. He was ap- pointed United States Commis- sioner to Japan and China in the interest of the Exposition. was President of the Depart- ment Jury and a member of the Superior Jury of the Interna- tional Jury of Awards. For his labors in connection with the Exposition and in special recog- nition of his distinguished ser- vices, he received from the Em- peror of China in 1916 the Chia Ho Decoration.


Mr. Green comes from sturdy Vermont ancestry, his grandfather, White Ketchum, having beene the first white man to locate as far West as Marshall, Michigan. Orator H. Green, his other grandfather, was one of the


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founders of Albion, Michigan. Mr. Green's parents both graduated from the Albion Seminary, now known as Albion College, and these two pioneer families were united through their marriage, in the early sixty's.


Mr. Green was educated at the Homer Academy, Calhoun County, Michigan, and became a registered chemist of that State. He was after- wards, from 1900 to 1902, advertising and sales manager of the Shredded Wheat Sales Company of Niagara Falls, N. Y. He next turned his atten- tion to the sales and advertising promotion for a number of large indus- trial concerns through the medium of Trade Expositions in various parts of the country, including the Brooklyn Automobile Show, the Brooklyn Food and Industrial Exposition, the New York Food and Industrial Expo- sition, the New England Industrial Exposition in Boston, the Boston Mechanics Exposition, the National Music Show and others of which he is still Managing Director.


Mr. Green ยท is an enthusiastic Jerseyite and was an organizer and President of the New Jersey Society of California during the Exposition period and took active interest in the participation of New Jersey.


In politics Mr. Green is a Republican and in religion an Episcopalian. His Clubs are the Sphinx and the Hardware of New York, the Union League of Bergen County, the Ridgewood Country, and the Olympic of San Francisco. He has offices at 277 Broadway, New York.


JAMES MONROE GREEN, (Ph. D., LL. D.)-Trenton, (55 N. Clinton Avenue.)-Educator. Born at Succassunna, (Morris Co.) on August 29th, 1851; son of William Hampton and Alice (Hop- kins) Green; married at Long Branch, on October 8, 1878, to Caroline E. Morris, daughter of Jacob Wolcott and Elizabeth L. (Pearce) Morris, of Long Branch.


Dr. Green obtained his early training in the district schools in the vicinity of his home until January of 1867, when he went to Trenton and entered the State Model School. In the following September he entered the Normal School where he remained a year. For the next twelve months he taught district schools at Mt. Freedom and Ledgewood, in his home county, at the same time continuing his studies. He then returned to the Normal School and completed the course, graduating with the class of 1870.


After graduation from the Normal School, Dr. Green taught at Morris Plains for a year, when he received the appointment to the principalship of School No. 1, at Long Branch, where he remained until 1874, when he entered Dickinson College. During his stay at Dickinson the schools of Long Branch were grouped together and related to a new high school. On leaving Dickinson, Dr. Green was assigned to the principalship of this high school and to the superintendency of all of the schools of the city.


In 1889 he was appointed by the State Board of Education to the prin- cipalship of the State Normal and Model Schools at Trenton, where he has been ever since, and in which position he remained until his resignation became effective, June 30, 1917. In 1887 Dickinson College conferred the degree of A. M. upon Dr. Green, and LL. D. in 1905. In 1884 he received


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the degrees A. M. and Ph. B. from Illinois Wesleyan University, and Ph. D. in 1890.


Dr. Green is a life member of the National Education Association, of which he was president in 1901, the general session of this body holding its meeting that year at Detroit, Michigan. In 1895 he served as president of the Normal Department of the N. E. A. He holds membership in the Association of Colleges and Preparatory Schools of the Middle States and Maryland (Pres. 1910-'11), the State Teachers Association (Pres. 1881), the New Jersey Council of Education (Pres. 1896), and the New Jersey Sanitary Association (Pres. 1886). As a member of the State Board of Examiners he is familiar with the history of the system of cer- tificating teachers for the State, and has frequently suggested and drafted the revision of the rules pertaining thereto. He has served too on the advisory boards of the State Conference of Charities and Corrections, and the New Jersey Congress of Mothers and Parent-Teacher Associations, and is actively in- terested in the success of their work.


Dr. Green has lectured at sev- eral of the large Universities, at Harvard, Pennsylvania, etc., and his contributions to educational literature may be found in the Volumes of the National Educa- tion Association, the official doc- uments of the New Jersey Council of Education, the "Edu- cational Review," and in various educational periodicals and newspapers of the State and country. As a speaker he has been in demand at the various educational, patriotic, civic and social gatherings of the State and nation. He was for years an instructor at the county institutes, in which capacity he has addressed the teachers of every county many times. He is a member of Phi Kappa Psi and Phi Beta Kappa fraternities, the Sons of the Revolu- tion, the Trenton Chamber of Commerce, the Young Men's Christian Asso- ciation, the Schoolmaster's Club, the Symposium, and the Trenton Country Club.


During Dr. Green's administration of the State Normal and Model Schools the annual enrollment of the Normal department increased from 255 to 682, the Model from 445 to 641, and the staff of instructors from 29 to 66. The course of study in the Normal School has been developed to include - in addition to the general course - kindergarten, domestic science, manual training, and commercial courses, of two years in length,- and a four year high school teachers course - a teachers college course ; and the entrance requirements have been raised to graduation from a four


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year course high school on the "Approved List." In 1889 Dr. Green pro- posed a system of approving high schools, adopted by the State Board of Education, resulting in an approved list of 132 public and 51 private high . schools, from which the Normal School now draws its students.


Student teaching centres have been established throughout the State so that Normal students might secure there a very practical experience, in addition to the student teaching done in the Model School.


Under Dr. Green's principalship, the original school buildings were connected by a centre building in which are housed the auditorium, labora- tories, class rooms, etc., a separate gymnasium, and a large wing in which are accommodated the domestic science and nature departments, the library, and various class rooms. The boarding halls were also enlarged by two dormitory wings, and an isolated infirmary.


JOHN W. GRIGGS-Paterson .- Lawyer. Born in Newton (Sussex Co.) July 10, 1849; son of Daniel and Emeline (Johnson) Griggs ; married on October 7, 1874 to Carolyn Webster Brandt of Belleville, daughter of William and Eliza (Leavitt) Brandt- 2nd on April 15, 1893 to Laura Elizabeth Price, daughter of War- wick and Beulah R. (Farmer) Price.


Children : John Leavitt, born June 10, 1876 ; Helen, born Novem- ber 22, 1877; Leila, born November 21, 1879; Daniel, born Novem- ber 21, 1880; Constance, born November 23, 1SS2; Elizabeth, born May 31, 1894; Janet, born June 20, 1896.


John W. Griggs has been, since 1901, a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, was Governor of New Jersey for 1896-98, and Attorney General of the United States from 1898 to 1901; and is President of the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America. As the plurality of 27,000 by which he reached the Governorship in 1896, over the candidacy of Chancellor McGill, was three times as large as any by which any previous candidate had been chosen, and, as the first Republican the State had accepted for the office since Civil War times, his election was of direct and immediate import in national politics.


At that time the national campaign of 1896 was in its formative state, and it was generally understood that Ex-Gov. Mckinley of Ohio, was to be made the republican nominee for President. The capture of New Jersey by the republicans by so striking a majority, pointed her out as the state in the East that should name Mckinley's running mate, and eventuated in the nomination for the Vice Presidency of Garret A. Hobart, of Paterson, whose splendid campaign, as Chairman of the Republican State Commit- tee for Mr. Griggs, had put him in the eye of the people.


Mr. Griggs had previously served in both branches of the State Legis- lature. The Republicans of Passaic county sent him to the House of As- sembly in 1876 and again in 1877. In 1882 he became the Senator from Passaic and, re-elected, served in the Upper House until 1SSS, being Presi- dent of the body in 1886. His caustic oratory and force in debate com-


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manded quick attention, and he had scarcely entered the legislative arena before he was among the recognized leaders of the State.


A most important service was that which he rendered while in the Senate in connection with the first act ever passed for the taxation of the railroads. The railroads were once claiming exemption from taxation under irrepealable contracts with the state; and even the great Pennsyl- vania Railroad Company was then paving into the State Treasury less then $300,000 a year in the form of transit duties. Governor Abbett had made his campaign on the insistment that they should be made amenable to the taxing laws of the state as other property holders were; and soon after the opening of the Session of 1884 he flung into the legislature an act he had drawn to that end. The act was one of the most bitterly contested in the recent history of the State. The Houses were for a time deadlocked over it. The Democratic Assembly insisted upon passing it as Abbett had drawn it; the Republican Senate stood for modifications Senator Griggs had proposed to it. Agreement was not reached through a series of con- ference committees ; but a joint committee in which Senator Griggs was the master-mind, finally got it into the shape in which it was finally passed. The income of the state under the law and others by which it has since been elaborated, now exceeds $4,000,000 a year.


Senator Griggs' senate work put him among the leading statesmen of the commonwealth; and the Republican State Convention of 1895 placed him in nomination for Governor. Assuming the office early in January of 1896, he resigned in 1898 to become Attorney General of the United States. He resigned that position on April 1st, 1901 and resumed practice of law in its larger field in New York City and Paterson. He is identified with large financial interest in both cities and has appeared in many im- portant litigations for some of the most prominent corporations in the country. He is a Director of the New York Telephone Co., the Bethlehem Steel Co. and the American Locomotive Co.


Governor Griggs graduated from Lafayette College in 1868 and received the degree of L. L. D. from Princeton in 1896 and from Yale in 1900. He studied law first in the office of Ex-Congressman Robert Hamilton at New- ton and afterwards in the office of Socrates Tuttle of Paterson, father of Mrs. Hobart. He was admitted as an attorney in 1871 and as a counselor in 1874. In '78 he was appointed Counsel of the Passaic County Board of Freeholders and in 1879 made City Counsel of Paterson.


He is a member of the Union League of New York City, the Hamil- ton Club of Paterson and of the Arcola Country Club.


EDWARD E. GROSSCUP-Wenonah .- Real Estate. Born in Bridgeton, August 2, 1860; son of Charles C. and Anna D. Gross- cup.


When James R. Nugent was retired as Chairman of the Democratic State Committee, in August, 1911, Edward E. Grosscup, who was represent-


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ing Gloucester County in the Committee, was elected to succeed him, and the conduct of the New Jersey campaign for Governor Wilson's election in the Presidential contest of 1912 fell to Mr. Grosscup's hands. Mr. Gross- cup was re-elected in 1913 for the three year term ending in 1916.


Mr. Grosscup had led forelorn hopes as a democratic candidate in sever- al local contests before he thus came into State view. In 1896 he was the democratic candidate for Sheriff in Cumberland County and in 1898 for State Senator. In the latter campaign he was opposed by Edward C. Stokes, afterwards Governor; and, in both, the republican leanings of the county made his candidacies hopeless ones. In 1899 he removed to Glouces- ter county and there, in another republican county, he sought political preferment as a candidate for the House of Assembly. In 1908 he con- sented, in the interest of party antonomy, to stand as a candidate for Con- gress against Congressman Henry C. Loudenslager.


Governor Wilson appointed Mr. Grosscup a member of the State Board of Equalization of Taxes in 1911, but he resigned before the expiration of its five year term to accept the office of State Treasurer, to which the Legislature elected him in 1913. He served there until the spring of 1916. In the fall of that year Governor Fielder appointed him State Purchasing Agent under an act just previously passed by the legislature. His term will expire in 1921.


WILLIAM STRYKER GUMMERE-Newark .- Jurist. Born in Trenton, on June 24, 1852; son of Barker and Elizabeth (Stry- ker) Gummere.


William S. Gummere is Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the State of New Jersey. His father was one of the leaders of the State Bar.


Chief Justice Gummere was educated at the Trenton Academy and the Lawrenceville school and graduated from Princeton in 1870. Having read law in his father's office he practiced for a time in the office of G. D. W. Vroom, who was then Prosecutor of the Pleas for Mercer County. Later in association with Ex-Goveror Joel Parker, who was his uncle, he prac- ticed in Newark; when that firm was dissolved he became the senior mem- ber of the firm of Gummere & Keen. This partnership was terminated when Mr. Gummere was made Counsel of the Pennsylvania Railroad Com- pany with offices in Trenton to succeed Edward T. Green, who had been appointed Judge of the United States District Court.


Mr. Gummere's first seat on the Bench of the Supreme Court of the State in February, 1895, was given to him on Governor Werts's appoint- ment, to fill out the unexpired term of Ex-Governor Leon Abbett, who had died while serving as a member of the Court. Governor Voorhees in 1901 nominated him to the Senate, for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and, confirmed in February, he took his place as the Chief of the Court in November. He succeeded Chief Justice David A. Depue who had resigned after thirty-five years of service on the Bench. Governor Fort re-appointed


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him in 1908, and Governor Fielder in 1915 gave him another term of seven years.


THOMAS G. HAIGHT-Jersey City, (104 Bentley Avenue.)- Jurist. Born at Colts Neck (Monmouth Co.), on August 4, 1879; son of John T. and Mary (Drummond) Haight ; married at Free- hold. in 1905, to Annie M. Crater, daughter of David S. and Annie Woodhull Crater, of Freehold.


Children : Nancy, born June 24, 1908; Catharine, born April 13th, 1913; David Crater, born April 5th, 1917.


Thomas G. Haight is a Judge of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. His father was, at the time of his death in 1892, County Clerk of Monmouth County, and had always been prominent in the councils of the Democratic party. Mrs. Haight's father was Secre- tary of State from 1912, until his sudden death in New York, in 1914; and Judge Haight's uncle, General Charles Haight, was a brilliant lawyer and orator. Judge Haight's grandfather, for whom he was named, was, in 1847, prominently mentioned as a Democratic candidate for Gov- ernor.


Judge Haight was educated at the Freehold Military Insti- tute and at Princeton Universi- ty. He read law in the office of Edmund Wilson, once Attor- ney General of New Jersey, and meanwhile attended the New York Law School, from which he graduated in 1900 with the de- gree of L. L. B. He became an attorney in November of 1900 and a counselor in 1904. For a time after his admission he was managing clerk in the office of Queen & Tennant in Jersey City, but upon the dissolution of the firm he formed a partnership with the junior member and practiced under the firm name of Tennant & Haight. That partnership was dissolved on the appointment of Mr. Tennant by Gover- nor Wilson to be Judge of the Hudson County Common Pleas. In 1911 Mayor Wittpenn appointed Mr. Haight City Attorney of Jersey City but he resigned two years later to become the County Counsel of Hudson County. He was holding that position when, in February, 1914, Presi- dent Wilson named him to the United States Senate for United States District Court Judge.


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Judge Haight rose rapidly to professional recognition after he had begun the practice of law in Jersey City. He became interested in the politics of the state at the time when Woodrow Wilson was first pro- posed for Governor. He entered enthusiastically into Governor Wilson's canvass; and was a delegate from the 12th Congressional District to the Baltimore Convention of 1912.


Judge Haight is a member of the Carteret Club and Down Town Club of Jersey City, the Nassau Club of Princeton, the Cannon Club of Prince- ton University, the Princeton Alumni Association of Hudson County, the Arcola Country Club, Bergen Lodge No. 47, F. & A. M., the American Bar Association of New Jersey, State Bar Association and the Hudson County Bar Association.




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