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 4
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Senator Bacheller is a member of the Essex and Down Town Clubs in Newark and of the Republican Club, New York, and President of the Rock-
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away River Country Club. He is a member of the Fairmount Baptist Church.
JOHN H. BACKES-Trenton .- Jurist. Born in Trenton, August 18, 1863 ; son of John and Mary Hannis Backes ; married at Tren- ton, August 28, 1889, to Elizabeth Cherry Hattersley, daughter of Charles M. and Josephine Hattersley, of Trenton.
Children : Florence, Elizabeth and Eleanor.
John H. Backes is a Vice-Chancelor of the New Jersey Court of Chancery, and one of a family of six brothers, five of whom are lawyers. Mr. Backes is of German parent- age. As a boy, he attended a local parochial school, and at the age of thirteen entered the law office of Edward H. Mur- phy, Trenton, where he was of- fice-boy and clerk. He served an apprenticeship until he was admitted to practice at the Bar as an attorney at the Novem- ber term. 1884. He was licensed as a counsellor at the February term, 1888. Shortly after he was admitted to the Bar, he opened an office at the corner of State and Warren Streets. Trenton, where he practiced his profession, until he was elevated to the bench. His practice was extensive and varied, he appear- ing in the law and equity courts of the State in many important litigations.
In politics, Vice-Chancellor Backes is a Democrat, but although for many years prominently identified with his party, never sought or held a political position.
In February, 1913, Chancellor Walker appointed Mr. Backes a Vice Chancellor for the term of seven years.
DAVID BAIRD-Camden .- Lumber Merchant and Banker. Born in County Derry, Ireland. April 7. 1839. Married at Philadel- phia to Christianna Beatty.
Children : Mary Baird Fox, Irvine Baird. Christianna B. Humph- reys and David Baird, Jr.
David Baird has been one of the leading factors in the Republican politics of New Jersey for more than a quarter of a century. Remotely,
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his ancestry was Scotch-Irish of sturdy Covenanter faith and his father was a contractor of moderate means near Londonderry. When he came to America as a mere boy, he engaged with a farmer near Port Deposit, Maryland, to husk corn for $6. a month and his board. This was during the hard times of the Buchanan Administration ; and in December when the farmer told him he was unable to pay him for his services, Baird was glad to throw off his wages and give his services for board during the following winter months. While peddling eggs, butter and potatoes in Port Deposit, a Mrs. Long, one of the farmer's customers who conducted a boarding house for lumber men, induced her husband to interest himself in young Baird, and through him he secured a job as a raft hand with Gillingham & Garrison, merchant lumber princes of those days. Their lumber yards were located where Cramps shipyard is now in Philadelphia, but the firm subsequently moved to Camden and built up a business there which Mr. Baird himself is now conduct- ing on the same site. With characteristic energy the young Irish boy pieced out the $2. per day he received as a rafter by doing night work at rolling freight on hand-trucks from the Camden & Amboy trains to the Baltimore ships that lay at Cam- den's docks, for 20 cents an hour.
Mr. Baird's connection of fourteen years with Gillingham & Garrison gave him opportuni- ties for study of the lumber trade and of methods he was quick to improve. He made friendships and acquired a repu- tation that stood him in good stead when he started out for himself in the lumber trade in 1874. It was a modest start ; and his youthful bride was his cashier and bookkeeper and bus- iness confidante. He rafted timber down the Susquehanna, from the Pennsylvania woods until the timber was all exhausted - then turned his attention to the great forests of New York, Michigan and the South- land. One of his enterprises was anticipating a "corner" projected by his competitors, by buying up all the spars in sight in the East and rafting them to the markets himself, thereby turning over his experience as a master raftsman with gratifying financial returns. On another occasion, when he started as the guest of the late Wm. H. Cole on a trip to Niagara Falls, a purchase of choice spars, on a side trip to Tonowanda, yielded a profit that enabled him to come back as the host. A dash away up into Oregon for a cargo of big spars shipped East "around the Horn" was an- other of his memorable enterprises.
A lumber king with whom he dealt was Secretary of War Alger, for
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Baird
many years previously United States Senator from Michigan. Baird's pur- chases from the Alger yards one year amounted to $100,000. The year happened to be a "tight one" in the money market; and Gen. Alger ar- ranged to meet Mr. Baird in Philadelphia in the hope of getting an advance of $10,000 on his order. Mr. Baird met the request with the breezy sug- gestion that $25,000 would be better, and the Senator went away happier with a check for the larger amount. The friendship, business and person- al, between them lasted till General Alger died. Baird could get audience with the Secretary, when crowds cooled their heels in the ante-room.
When to the discomfort of many of Mr. Baird's office-holding friends, the Committee of One-Hundred captured control of the municipal ma- chinery of Camden, Alger, then Secretary of War, helped Mr. Baird to set them busy again in the Arsenal at Philadelphia ; and, later, as a delegate- at-large to one of the National Republican Conventions, Mr. Baird was the warm advocate of General Alger's nomination for the Presidency of the United States. His force has been felt in enterprises in other lines of business. By 'sheer nerve he once saved a big lumber company operating in Alabama from going to the wall; and, when the Merchantville Water Company was on the edge of bankruptcy, he took hold of it, reorganized the company, rebuilt its plant and as a result the residents of that Camden suburb are now furinshed with an adequate supply.
However, it is Mr. Baird's political activities that have made his name a sort of household word all over the state. He got his first inklings in politics from his old friend Cole, who knew the game in all branches, nearly half a century ago ; and he soon made himself felt among the repub- licans of the locality. Ex-Consul Thomas H. Dudley ventured in the early days to challenge the leadership in Camden county of General Wm. J. Sewell; and the General was in need of a strong man to run for Sheriff on the ticket with Senator Richard N. Herring whom the General had de- cided to send for a second term to the Upper House in Trenton. Mr. Baird came into his mind; and he sent Frank F. Patterson, Sr., a noted South Jersey newspaper editor, to lay the matter before Mr. Baird. He followed the lumber merchant up into the woods of New York, where he was building a railroad for timber he was cutting, and spent three days in the effort to induce him to run. Mr. Baird finally yielded ; and, be- coming a candidate, was the only republican in the county who was elected that fall.
Other than serving four terms as Freeholder from the First Ward of Camden, that was the only office Mr. Baird held until in 1895 he was ap- pointed a member of the State Board of Assessors, which at that time fixed the state's railroad taxes. He resigned in '96 to run for Sheriff again ; and upon the completion of this term in 1900 he took his seat again in the State Board and served as President of that body until 1908. Gover- nor Fort would have reappointed him then, but, because of political dif- ferences between the two, though Mr. Baird had been largely instrumental in securing Mr. Fort's election as Governor, he refused to serve longer. Mr. Baird was a candidate for United States Senator after General Sew- ell's demise. At that time the Senator was elected by the State Legisla- ture. John F. Dryden, Ex-Governor Edward C. Stokes, Barker Gummere, John J. Gardner also were candidates. Baird made a good fight, but the
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Baker
nomination went to Mr. Dryden, whom Baird supported loyally and in whom he had a good personal friend, until the Senator's death.
Mr. Baird was a District Delegate to the convention that nominated Harrison in 1892 at Chicago; and as a Delegate at Large to the St. Louis Convention in 1906 contributed much to the nomination of Garret A. Hobart of Paterson for the Vice-Presidency. He was also one of the Dele- gates at Large who nominated Taft for the Presidency in 1908 and was Chairman of the New Jersey Delegation in 1916, when Hughes was nom- inated.
CHARLES WHITING BAKER - Montclair, (20 S. Mountain Ave.)-Editor and Civil Engineer. Born at Johnson, Vt., Jan. 17, 1865, son of Thomas Jefferson and Mattie (Whiting) Baker ; married June 4, 1890, to Rebekah Wheeler, daughter of Lewis Hopkins Wheeler and Mary ( Hockley) Wheeler.
Children : Jefferson W., born April 7, 1891; and Charles Whit- ing, Jr., born Oct. 22, 1895.
On his father's side Charles Whiting Baker is a descendant of Capt. Thomas Baker, who was one of the pioneer settlers of Topsfield, Mass., about 1680, and whose son and grandson also lived in Topsfield and bore the same name and military title.
Mr. Baker received his early education at the country district schools and at the State Normal School. He was graduated from the University of Vermont as a civil engineer, in the class of 1886. After working for a part of a year at the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadel- phia, he was offered a position on the editorial staff of the "Engineering News" in New York City in 1887. The journal at that time had limited circu- lation and influence, but a per- iod of rapid growth began and it became the leading engineer- ing journal of the United States. In 1895 Mr. Baker be- came Editor-in-Chief of the journal and continued in this position until 1917, when the paper was consolidated with its principal competitor, the "En- gineering Record." Mr. Baker then became Consulting Editor of the consolidated journal, the "Engineering News-Record "', and opened a New York office for practice as a Consulting En- gineer. In his work as Editor of the Engineering News, Mr. Baker has
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Baker
exerted a wide influence in connection with leading public questions in which engineering is involved, such as the adoption of the lock type of canal, at Panama, which was powerfully supported by the "Engineering News."
Very early in his editorial work, Mr. Baker became interested in economic questions, and he was the author, in 1889, of a book entitled. "Monopolies and the People," which ran through several editions and was revised ten years later. He became a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1893, and was a Vice President of the Society from 1909 to 1911. In 1913 he was appointed by the Governors of New York and New Jersey a member of the Palisades Inter-state Park Com- mission and was recently reappointed for a second five-year terni. He is Chairman of the Committee in charge of the construction of the Henry Hudson drive, a scenic roadway under the Palisades.
Mr. Baker has been a resident of Montclair, N. J., since 1SSS. He assisted in the organization of the Montclair Civic Association and served for several years on its Board of Directors.
He was President of the Montclair Outlook Club from 1914 to 1917: and has served as a Deacon of the First Congregational Church. He is a member of the Phi Delta Theta and Phi Beta Kappa college fraternities and of the Sons of the American Revolution.
His New York office is at 31 Nassau St.
MOSES NELSON BAKER-Upper Montclair .- Editor, Engin- eer. Born at Enosburgh, Vt., on Jan. 26, 1864: son of Benjamin Nelson and Sarah Maretta (Wright) Baker; married at Burling- ton, Vt., on Aug. 22, 1889, to Ella S. Babbit, daughter of Asher Stevens and Emmeline (Jones) Babbit, of Keeseville. N. Y.
Children : Theta Helen, born in 1890; Will, born 1892 (de- ceased 1895) ; Frederick Wood, born 1894; Elizabeth, born 1896; Ruth, born 1902; Dorothea, born 1907.
Moses Nelson Baker is Chairman of the Executive Committee of the National Municipal League; was a member of the Montclair Board of Health for twenty years, serving as its President from 1904 to 1915: was a member and Vice-President in 1915-'16 of the New Jersey Department of Health, and in 1904 served as President of the New Jersey Sanitary Association. He served as a member of the Montclair Township Committee in 1893-'94.
Mr. Baker can trace his American lineage back for many generations. He was educated in the Enosburgh district school and at Craftsbury Acad- emy and the University of Vermont, from which latter he received the Ph. B. degree in 1886 and C. E. degree in 1899. After working on the Union Pacific Railway at Pocatello, Idaho, in 1886-87 and being elected school trustee of Pocatello, he spent a short time in an architect's office in Fitchburg, Mass. In November, 1887. he became Associate Editor of "En- gineering News," New York City. continuing in that position until and after consolidation as "Engineering News-Record" April 1, 1917. He was a Director of the Engineering News Publishing Company prior to
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Baker
1911 and of the Hill Publishing Company from 1911 until the formation of the McGraw-Hill Publishing Company in 1917.
Mr. Baker edited "The Manual of American Water Works" of '88-'89-'90, '91 and '97, and "The Municipal Year Book" of 1902, and is the author of "Sewage Purification in America," 1893; "Sewage Disposal in the United States" (joint author), 1894; "Sewerage and Sewage Purification", 1896; "Potable Water", 1899; Municipal Engineering and Sanitation" (jointly with Ella Babbit Baker), 1901; municipal engineering articles in the In- ternational Year Book, 1898 to date, and likewise in the International En- cyclopedia and the American edition of Nelson's Encyclopedia ; "British Sewage Works", 1905; "Notes on British Refuse Destructors", 1905, and of numerous articles and addresses on municipal engineering and sanitation and on public health.
PHILIP P. BAKER-Wildwood .- Founder, Banker. Born at Cowan, Pa., Jan. 14, 1846; son of Jacob and Catharine (Pontius) Baker; married at Vineland, on November 21, 1876, to Lizzie J. Noyes, daughter of Thomas J. and Lizzie J. Noyes, of Balti- more, Md.
Mr. Baker has six children.
Philip P. Baker and his brothers J. Thompson and Latimer R., are the founders of Wildwood-by-the-Sea and of Wildwood Crest, growingly popu- lar sea-side resorts on the South Jersey coast. He comes of old colonial stock who in the early history of our country settled in the Buffalo Valley of the Old Keystone State, and who, although repeatedly driven out by the wily savages, returned with in- domitable perseverance again and again, to win at last and stay. He was born on a farm and brought up at the plow handle, where his forefathers, with their rifles by their sides, had watched and toiled. Left fatherless at sixteen years of age, the responsibility of the management of the large farm fell on his shoulders. In 1869 he removed to Vineland, Cumber- land Co., and with his brother Latimer R., engaged in the gen- oral merchandise business which soon grew to large proportions. The "Baker House Block," they built was at the time accounted one of the finest buildings in South Jersey.
Mr. Baker was a member of the House of Assembly from the second district of Cumberland county in
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1882, and in 1886 was elected to the State Senate. To his credit as a state senator are the laws to pay Grand Jurors and for the protection of the extensive oyster industry of the State, and a provision for enlarging manual training tuition in the public schools. It was largely through his efforts in the Senate that the New Jersey Training School for Feeble Mind- ed Children,-of the Board of Managers of which he is President-and the State Institution for Feeble Minded Women were established and located at Vineland.
The Senator was one of the Delegates-at-Large with the then Governor Green, Ex-Governor Abbott and Moses Biglow, to the National Democratic Convention held in St. Louis in 1SSS ; and in 1892 as one of the Presidential Electors-at-Large on the Democratic ticket, he helped to cast the vote of New Jersey for Grover Cleveland for President of the United States. In the poll, the Senator received the highest cast for any of the Elector candi- dates. In August, 1891, he was appointed Receiver of the Philadelphia Seashore Railway, by Chancellor McGill.
Mr. Baker has been, since it was established, President of the Trades- mens Bank of Vineland, and is, besides, devoting himself to the develop- ment of Wildwood-by-the-Sea and of Wildwood Crest.
With the exception of one son, all of Senators Baker's six children are living. The departed member of the family is Curtis T. Baker, whom Governor Wilson named in 1912 to be Presiding Judge of the Cape May county Courts and who died a year later while serving on the Bench. The Senator with his family are attendants of the Presbyterian Church.
Senator Baker is President of the Vineland Country Club and a mem- ber of the Poor Richard Club of Philadelphia and the Holley Beach Yacht Club at Wildwood Crest. Besides being President of the New Jersey Train- ing School, he is President of the Wildwood City Board of Trade, and Vice- President of the Wildwood and Delaware Bay Shore Line Railroad Co., and of the Wildwood Title Trust Co., and one of the organizers of the Nar- rowgauge Railway of Philadelphia and Cap May.
CAROLINE PEDDLE BALL - Westfield. - Sculptor. Born in Indiana.
Caroline Peddle Ball studied drawing and modeling in Philadelphia and New York. She was a pupil of Augustus Saint Gaudens and Kenyon Cox and spent a winter in Florence and three years in Paris.
Mrs. Ball's work has been largely in decorative subjects for churches, memorials and garden ornaments, but has also included portraits and children subjects.
Some of her executed works are that of "Victory" for the Quadriga on the United States building at the Paris Exposition of 1900. memorial foun-
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Ballard
tains at Flushing, L. I. and Auburn, N. Y., memorial corbels in Grace Church, Brooklyn and numerous sun-dials, fountains, bird-baths, etc.
AARON EDWARD BALLARD - Ocean Grove. - Clergyman. Born at Bloomfield, Dec. 25th, 1820 ; son of Jerry-Meyer and Hetty (Brown) Ballard ; married at Morristown in 1849 to Emily Young, daughter of David J. and Caroline Young, of Morristown (de- ceased )-second, at Ocean Grove in February, 1887, to Anna Miller, daughter of Fanny and John Miller of Philadelphia.
Children : (first marriage) Frank and Carrie ; (second marriage) Anna Stokes.
Aaron E. Ballard is President of the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Asso- ciation which controls the famous Methodist Coast resort at Ocean Grove and has long been a dominating figure in the camp meeting history of the M. E. Church. He is President also of the Pitman Grove Camp Meeting Association, a Trustee of Pen- nington Seminary, has been Sec- retary of the American and For- eign Christian Union, and is, al- together, one of the most wide- ly known clergymen in the . country.
Dr. Ballard's grandfather commanded a regiment in the Revolutionary War and was sta- tioned at Valley Forge during the patriot army's awful winter there. His grandmother, while Holland Dutch, came to this country in fellowship with those of her country who had allied themselves with the Huguenots.
Dr. Ballard is self educated, though he holds the D. D. de- gree from Taylor University of Indiana. Having prepared him- self for the pulpit he was licensed as a minister of the Methodist Episcopal church in 1884. He entered the New Jersey Conference the same year. Among localities in which he afterwards preached are Bergen, Lambertville, Somerville, Red Bank, Princeton, Burlington, Newark, Camden, Bridgeton and Borden- town.
Dr. Ballard has been almost as conspicuous as an advocate of temper- ence as he has been in camp meeting activities. The last active work he did was to serve as the President of the Evangelical Church Commission and as its State Agent on the subject of temperance. Upon retiring from active pastoral work he allied himself with the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting
Balliett 33
Association and devoted himself to its upbuilding. His energies and the success that attended his efforts commanded a recognition that pointed him out as the active chief and he became President of the Camp Meeting Asso- ciation in 1898. Under his administration the camp meeting service has been enormously enlarged and popularized. New temples have been erect- ed and new features added to the exercises. The new tabernacle will seat more than 10,000 people; but even its amplitude is frequently inadequate to the accommodation of the crowds that surge to hear the leading plat- form orators of the church who are called to its platform during the camp meeting season.
Dr. Ballard is an active Director in the Asbury Park and Ocean Grove Bank.
SARAH JOANNA DENNIS BALLIETT (Mrs. L. Dow) -Atlan- tic City. - Writer and Lecturer. Born near Mays Landing. on March 1, 1847, daughter of Joel Dennis and Sarah Ann Risley : married at Delanco on August 15th, 1872, to L. Dow Balliett, M. D. son of Levi and Elizabeth (Follmer) Balliett, of Milton. Pa.
The Womens Research Club on April 26th, 1917, planted to the honor of Mrs. Balliett, as the Club's founder, a pin oak tree on the Lincoln High- way in the park at Trenton near the Washington monument. Mrs. Balliett had founded the Womens Re- search club twenty-one years ago and was its first President : and, at the State Convention of the New Jersey Womens Clubs held in the May following. her name was put upon the State Founder's list. She had served on the State Federation Board of Womens Club as Director of Music. Before coming to At- lantie City twenty-three years ago she had been the first Presi- dent of "The Round Table" ('lub of Du Bois, Pa. She was one of the earliest workers in the W. C. T. U. there and assisted in the organization of the local Union in Clearfield County, where she resided at the time. She also organized the first Temperance Cadets, that reached a membership of more than 200 boys. In Atlantic City her activities have been as marked. A pioneer in Womens Club work, she had helped select the "little blue pin" of the General Federation. When the Atlantic County Historical Society was established three years ago, she was made its first
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President ; and for seven years she has been President of the Womens Homoeopathic Club of Atlantic City.
Besides being, meanwhile, engaged in literary pursuits she has made portraits and was invited to exhibit at the Chicago Fair. Her writings · have been upon philosophical and musical subjects. Among her books are "The Body Beautiful, according to the Delsartian Philosophy", "How to Attain Success through the Strength of Vibration", a "System of Numbers as Taught by Pythagaros", "Philosphy of Numbers, their Tone and Color"; "Nature's Symphony" and "The Day of Wisdom".
Mrs. Balliett is a descendant of the early settlers in New Jersey, and the name of Hancock, Ballinge, Dole, Somers, Lake, Frambes and Dennis figure in her line. She was educated in the public and private schools and has devoted herself from her school days to philosophic and civic affairs. Her Quaker mother's motto, to "Leave the place where you stop the better for your having been there", has been the Golden Rule of her career.
LOUIS BAMBERGER-Newark .- Merchant. Born at Balti- more, Md., on May 15, 1855 ; son of Elkan and Theresa (Hutzler) Bamberger.
Louis Bamberger, foremost among the merchants of New Jersey, is of Bavarian origin. His father came here in 1823 from a town near Nurem- burg, where the grandfather, Isaac, was engaged in mercantile pursuits. Louis was nine years old when the family crossed the seas to settle in Baltimore. A leading dry goods house of the day in the Maryland city was that of the Hutzler Brothers; and the daughter of the founder of the busi- ness became the wife of Elkan, and was Louis Bamberger's mother.
With the education the public schools of the city afforded, young Bam- berger began his business career in the service of his uncles, who had meanwhile succeeded to the Hutzler Bros. business. But, when his father, who had meanwhile temporarily retired, re-opened a store, Louis went into business with him. Upon the retirement of the elder Bamberger, the sons took hold of the business and Louis was made Business Manager. A career in New York, with its larger opportunities, lured Mr. Bamberger north- ward; and in New York City he established himself as a resident buyer for several large Western concerns and built up a large and important clientele. Later with Louis M. Frank and Felix Fuld he became owner of the business of the bankrupt firm of Hill & Craig in Newark. Within two years he had his trade house commanding wide recognition and patronage.
When Mr. Bamberger selected a site for his rapidly growing business- up Market street, at the Halsey street corner-he was warned that it was too off the beaten track to become popular. The shopping throng that surges down Broad street was wont to halt at the Market street corner ; then turn back on its tracks. It was not long however before he had the stream rounding the corner into Market street and swarming to his store doors. The two floors to which the business was first confined became in- adequate to the accommodation of the crush ; and all of the five story struc-
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