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 47
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Children : William Alexander, born April 25, 1900; Marian, born January 8, 1904.
Mrs. Ropes has been President of the New Jersey Federation of Women's Clubs and is State Secretary of the Federation to the General Federation. For eight years she was a concert soloist and since 1900, has been the contralto soloist of the Montclair Congregational Church and of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Montclair.
The Naudains of France from whom she is descended were of Hugue- not stock and they founded the Naudain family of Delaware. Other branches of her line lead to Hermann Schee of Holland and to the Alexan- ders of Scotland. The first five years of her life were spent in Chicago. She had resided later in Pensacola, Fla., Atlanta, Ga., Washington, D. C., and in Brooklyn before in 1897 she came to New Jersey to make her home. Her first residence in this state was in Orange. She was educated at private schools in the cities in which her parents lived and at St. Agnes Episcopal School in Haddonfield, this state. Between 1890 and '98 she became widely known on the concert platform and her church connections as contralto soloist followed.
Mrs. Ropes's Presidency of the New Jersey State Federation of Women's Clubs covered the years 1913,-'14,-'15. In 1913 also, she was elected Presi- dent of the Montclair Federation of Women's Organizations and held that position until 1917. She is also President of the Montclair Women's Club, elected in 1915, and of the Montclair All-round Club. From 1915 to 1917 she was President of the Ex Club of the New Jersey State Federation.
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Mrs. Ropes's other connections reflect the diversity of her activities. From 1910 to 1917 she was Chairman of the Essex County Committee of the New Jersey Woman Suffrage Association; and she is Chairman of the Montclair Dramatic Club, one of the Board of Managers of the Camp Fire Girls Association, the Children's Home Association and the Homeopathic Society of Montclair and vicinity ; a Director of the Montclair Co-operative Society and a member of the Montclair Civic Association, the Montclair Musical Club, the Scout Mothers Association and the Montclair branch (its Vice President for a time) of the Needlework Guild. She is also Vice Presi- dent of the Unity Forum and a member of the New Jersey State Housing Association.
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P. SANFORD ROSS-Newark, (75 Johnson Avenue.)-Engineer and Contractor. Born at Newark, November 10, 1847; son of John J. and Eliza Jane (Sanford) Ross ; married at Newark, February 10, 1870, to Emma Kate Van Court, daughter of William H. and Kate Ostrom Van Court.
Children : Adelina ; Laura Van Court ; P. Sanford, Jr. ; Roland T .; Leland H.
The name of P. Sanford Ross is chiefly identified in business with rail- road and dock construction, and, officially, in connection with the Essex County Park Commission. Mr. Ross has been a member of the County Park Commission for ten years, and one of the chief factors in providing the state's richest county witn one of the most beautiful chain of recreation centers in the United States. Branch Brook Park in Newark, which has been largely adorned during his incumbency, is counted by landscape architects as probably the most picture- esque and artistic artificial park of its size in the country. The commission has spent about $6.000,000 upon the beautification of the county ; and it is no ex- travagance of phrase to say that the public of Essex county feels that it has got its money's worth.
Mr. Ross's parents were both natives of New Jersey-his father having been born in Springfield and his mother in New Milford. He attended the
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public schools in Newark, finished at the Newark High School and then took a course in Bryant and Strattons Business College. When ready for work, he continued the contracting business which had been established in 1829 by his uncle, Peter Sanford, and is still engaged in it. The company was incorporated in 1893 as P. Sanford Ross, Inc.
Mr. Ross was a member of the first Board of the Newark City Hospital, is Director of the Crippled Children's Home, Chairman of the Executive Board of the Alleghany Coal Company, Director of the Fidelity Trust Co. of Newark, a member of the South Park Presbyterian Church and President of the Board of Trustees.
He is connected with the Lawyers Club of New York, the Essex County, the Essex County Country, the Rumson and the Elberon Beach Clubs.
CONRAD ROSSI-DIEHL-Glen Ridge, (42 Hawthorne Avenue.) -Artist. Born at Rhenish, Bavaria, in 1842; son of Conrad L. and Therese ( Rossi) Diehl ; married to "Mignon" Rossi-Diehl. Children : Two sons and four daughters.
The father of Conrad Rossi-Diehl was a government official in high standing until he became a leader in the "Revolution of '48." For his activ- ities in that behalf he was condemned to death, his estates were confiscated and he was compelled to seek refuge in America. With his family he settled on a farm in Illinois, but when the gentle-bred mother succumbed to the ravages of malaria the four young children were distributed among rela- tives abroad, while the two older boys were sent to a boarding school in Missouri.
One of these two was Conrad. Having inherited the synthetic gift of poetic imagery from the mother and of analytic temperament from the father, he was equipped to take the initiative in thought and action when thrown upon his own resources. Though he was compelled to leave the common school even before he had completed the primary course, he readily found the helping hand of competent masters while serving apprenticeships in the various walks of life. This assistance is never denied by true mas- ters to youngsters whom they find striving onward and upward. The first to extend such friendly aid was Karl Schmolze, an historical painter of note who was also a refugee and a friend of the family.
At this time the boy lived in Philadelphia where he was apprenticed to a lithographer. One day he was asked by a little friend to accompany him on an errand to John Sartain, President of the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts; and that gentleman, in his casual talk with the boy, dis- covered his talent and ambition and persuaded him to enter the evening class for drawing from the antique. He consented, but here he was again thrown upon his own resources, because there was no instructor in charge.
In 1856 he joined his father in Chicago; and, after working at his trade and studying meanwhile under the friendly guidance of Karl Merck, portrait painter, he fell in with a firm of Fresco painters. There it became his privilege to design and paint the several heads and figures for the walls
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in Governor Mattison's new mansion in Springfield, Ill. In 1858, for a fourth of July celebration, he painted a transparency-larger than any picture he had ever seen-allegorically representing Columbia and Germania joining hands in celebration of the national holiday. The work, though somewhat crude, attracted so much attention that his father, now a Justice of the Peace, decided to send him to Europe to study art. Kaulbach was his ideal ; and he went to the studio of that famous historical painter in Munich to pursue his studies. Kaulbach tried to dissuade him from entering upon art for a profession, but, with- in three months, had taken him under his immediate charge, although he had not had a pupil for more than ten years. When pre- pared to enter a Composi- tion Class he had the good fortune to become a pupil of Philip Foltz, the real backbone of the Munich Academy in its halcyon days; and it was here he painted his first original composition - the trial scene in Hamlet-and won high praise for it from the "Muenchener Kunst-Anzei- ger." The work was first exhibited in the Darby Gal- lery in New York City where it had an enthusi- astic reception, and afterwards in Chicago where he made a free gift of it to the public as the nucleus of a city collection.
It was this work that prompted George P. A. Healy, portrait painter, to raise a fund to enable Rossi-Diehl to complete his studies in Paris, where, in order to acquaint himself with French methods, he entered the atalier of Leon Gerome. It was here that he produced a life size picture of Macbeth taking the fatal step from the high state of a dauntless hero to that of a craven, which, when exhibted in New York City, evoked columns of com- ment in the daily press. Its subsequent exhibition in Chicago attracted equally wide attention. When the great fire of '77 broke out, Rossi-Diehl rushed to the Academy building, and, finding no other way to save his picture, cut it from its frame and carried it through the burning city to a place of safety. Its gift afterwards to St. Louis led to the formation of an Art Society, and, under its auspices, the organization of an art school over which Rossi-Diehl presided. Several of his pupils from the Chicago Aead- emy of Design joined him upon its opening ; and, through the influence of Dr. William T. Harris, then Superintendent of the St. Louis public schools but later for several years chief of the National Bureau of Education, the artist's attainments were utilized in the local schools. Here he developed the well known "Grammar of Form and Form Composition," which was pro-
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moted further in Columbia, Mo., where he, for six years, occupied the Chair of Art in the Missouri State University.
Coming to New York later he was a co-worker with John Ward Stimson in building up the Artist Artisan Institute. During his leisure hours he painted a picture entitled "Love and Labor," modeled a floating figure of "Christ" and worked out plates for his new departure in art education in professional class work.
Notwithstanding his intense devotion to art, Rossi-Diehl has never sought for public or private patronage, nor for a prize, or painted for the market, or placed any of his works on sale; nor has any of his elaborated studies, educational models or charts ever left his hands. Among his elab- orated studies there figure a large penciled cartoon epitomizing the entire movement which led up to the American Revolution, and its counterpart epitomizing the Conquest of Mexico-an elaborated color study, character- izing and reconstituting the principal features, both as regards the mode of warfare, the architecture and costumes, so far as ancient archaeological data reveal them. He is now engaged upon a painting epitomizing the great Life Tragedy, the central feature of which is the "crown of thorns," and all in all an art message from the Nineteenth to the Twentieth century.
F. G. R. ROTH-Englewood, (Sherwood Place.)-Sculptor. Born at Brooklyn, N. Y., April 28th, 1872; son of Johannes and Jane Gray (Bean) Roth ; married at St. Lukes Church, New York City, April 29th, 1905, to Madeleine E. G. Forster, daughter of George F. and Gertrude S. Forster, of Bristol, England.
Children : Jack R., born July 1, 1909; Roger F., born June 12, 1915.
Frederick G. R. Roth was one of the first sculptors in this country to develop the making of small bronzes. A predilection for the animal in art led him to special studies in this line of sculpture. In late years however Mr. Roth has given marked attention to the study of the human figure; and his work on the Panama Pacific International Exposition and smaller works and portraits attest his skill in that field. Among his best known work in small bronzes are the "Performing Elephants," the "Polar Bear," and the "Performing Bear" and the "Pigs"-the three last mentioned of which have been acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City-and the "Princeton Tigers" at the entrance gate of the athletic fields in Prince- ton University. His collaborative work on the Kit Carson in Trinidad, and the work done in San Francisco should be classed as his larger work. Mr. Roth is also one of the first to use ceramics in the reproduction of his work and is pursuing the development of this interesting medium in his Engle- wood studio where the glazing and firing are done by him personally.
Mr. Roth received silver medals at the International Exposition at St. Louis in 1904 and the International Art Exhibition at Buenos Aires in 1910, and a gold medal was awarded his exhibit at the Fine Arts Palace of the Panama Pacific International Exhibition in San Francisco in 1915. Roth is an Academician of the National Academy of Design (elected 1906), a member
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of the National Sculpture Society, the Architectural League of New York and the National Institute of Arts and Letters and an instructor in model- ing at the school of the National Academy of De- sign in New York.
Mr. Roth's family origiu- ated in the small town of Roth in Bavaria. His fa- ther's ancestry can be traced back to the Twelfth century, mostly clergymen figuring in it. His mother's father was a Scotch design- er who made his home in Leeds, England, and to him Roth owes his artistic iu- heritance. Johannes Roth, his father, was a cotton broker in New York, who later conducted his business in Bremen, Germany, where Roth received his schooling and later was apprenticed in his father's office. After many years of misdirected efforts, he was permitted to follow his talents call and started his studies in 1893 at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Upon its termina- tion in 1896 he entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin for a number of years and traveled in Europe until he came to New York where he opened a studio.
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W. PARKER RUNYON-Perth Amboy .- Ship Owner. Born at New Brunswick, on December 3, 1861.
W. Parker Runyon set out at the start to be a physician, but eyes that were none too strong dissuaded him and he became a business man in- stead. The earliest of his branch noted in American annals was Vincent Runyon (Rognion) who, settling in East Jersey, was of French Huguenot extraction. Mr. Runyon was educated in the public schools and at Rutgers Preparatory School. When ready for business he became identified with navigation activities. For two generations his fore-bears had owned and operated the ship yards at New Brunswick. The business done at them was chiefly that which the Delaware and Raritan Canal provided. It developed into proportions that made the organization of a stock company to operate it advisable and, when the Perth Amboy Dry Dock Company came into existence twenty-six years ago, as a consequence, Mr. Runyou was elected its President and has since held that position. Its plant ex-
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tends for 600 feet along the river front and covers two blocks of the adja- cent upland. It is fitted with four dry docks, machine shops and boiler works and ample walls and piers.
Mr. Runyon is a member of the Perth Amboy Board of Trade and the State Chamber of Commerce. He is Director of the State Chamber of Com- merce's Harbor and Navigation Department and was the representative of the Chamber at the Seventh Annual Atlantic Deeper Water Ways Conven- tion held in New York City in 1914. In 1915 he represented the state at the Water Ways Eighth Annual Convention held in Savannah, Georgia. He was made a member of the State Harbor Commission of New Jersey ; and when the passage of the Economy and Efficiency acts reorganized the Board, he was given appointment on the State Board of Commerce and Navigation. His term there will expire July 1st, 1919.
Mr. Runyon is a democrat; in 1896 he was an alternate Delegate to the Democratic National Convention in St. Louis, and to that held at Denver in 1908 he was a District Delegate.
HENRY HURD RUSBY-Newark, (776 De Graw Avenue. )- Botanist. Born in Franklin, April 26, 1855; son of John and Abigail (Holmes) Rusby ; married at Franklin, in 1887, to Marga- retta Saunier Hanna, daughter of Samuel and Eliza Dees Hanna, of Franklin.
Children : Ruth, born March 9, 1891; Constance, born July 5, 1894; Marguerite, born May 25, 1901.
The most important work of Henry H. Rusby, Professor of Botany Physiology and Materia Medica in the Department of Pharmacy at Columbia University and Dean of the Faculty, has been in securing improvements in the conditions of Pharmaceutical education, both legal and professional. From 1897 to 1902 he was Professor of Materia Medica in Columbia Uni- versity and in Bellevue Hospital Medical College. For a number of years he lectured on the principles of stock feeding in the American Veteranary College. He is Chairman of the Board of Scientific Directors and of the Board of Managers of the New York Botanical Gardens and Honorable Curator of the Economic Museum.
Dr. Rusby graduated from the Massachusetts State Normal School in 1874, and from the University Medical College (New York), with the degree of M. D., in 1884. He was awarded a medal at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia for a herbarium of plants of Essex county. He made botanical explorations in New Mexico and Arizona in 1880, 1881 and 1883, as agent of the Smithsonian Institute. In 1885-'87 he crossed the South American con- tinent in the interest of Medical Botany, by a route part of which was en- tirely new. As a result of this expedition a number of new drugs were in- troduced to use in this country, two of which, Pichi and Cocillana, have be- come standard articles in our materia medica. Although medicinal plants constituted the principal subject of investigation much attention was given
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to the general botany of the regions traversed, forty-five thousand speci- mens being collected, the publications concerning them constituting the leading contribution to Bolivian botany. A large collection of birds was also made and formed the basis of an important paper by Dr. J. A. Allen of the American Museum of Natural History.
In 1896 Dr. Rusby acted as physician and botanist to a party engaged in exploring the delta region of the Orinoco River. Between 1908 and 1910 three journeys of exploration were made into Mexico for the study of the rubber resources of that country, this work having the sanction and support of the Diaz administration.
Dr. Rusby was a member of the Revision Committee (7th. 8th, 9th, revisions) of the United States Pharmacopacia, and of the Revisions Committee of the National Formulary. He was Chairman at the Pan-American Medical Congress, of the Com- mission for the study of Medi- cinal Flora and is Corresponding Member of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain and Honorary Member of the Insti- tute Medico Nacional of Mexico. He was President of the Torrey Botanical Club from 1905 to 1912 and of the American Phar- maceutical Association in 1909 and 1910. In 1907 to 1909 he was the expert in drug products for the Bureau of Chemistry of the United States Department of Agriculture, and afterwards till 1917 Pharmacognocist in the same Bureau. While in that relation his defense of Dr. Wiley, head of the United States Health Bureau, attracted wide atten- tion. Dr. Rusby has contributed several hundred new species and genera, and written much on medical botany.
The titles of his books are "Essentials of Pharmacognosy" (1895). "Morphology and Histology of Plants" (1899) ; "Materia Medica" of Buck's Reference Handbook of the Medical Sciences (S vols. 1899) and of two sub- sequent revisions ; "National Standard Dispensatory" (1905), and of two subsequent revisions, "Wild Vegetable Foods of United States" (1906), "Fif- ty years of Materia Medica" (1907) and "Manual of Botany" (1911), etc.
JAMES FOWLER RUSLING-Trenton, (226 E. State Street.)- Lawyer, Soldier. Born at Washington, Warren Co .. April 14, 1834 ; son of Gershom and Eliza Budd ( Hankinson) Rusling ; married at
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Pennington, January 1, 1858, to Mary F., daughter of Rev. Isaac Winner, D. D. and Mary Winner-died April 19, 1858 ; 2nd, June 30, 1870, to Emily Elizabeth, daughter of Isaac Wood, of Trenton, born December 29, 1847.
Children : 2nd marriage, James Wood, born May 31, 1874; Emily Wells, born October 18, 1884, married Arthur L. Bates, at Meadville, Pa., October 20, 1909; their children, Josephine Rusling, born Sep- tember 1, 1913.
James Fowler Rusling is of English extraction. Some members of his family still occupy the old family mansion in Winterton, Lincolnshire, Eng- land. His parents removed from Warren county to Trenton in 1845 and he has ever since made his home there.
His education was acquired at Pennington Seminary, and he delivered the Master's Oration and received his degree of A. M. at Dickinson College, Pennsylvania, 1857. In 1890, the LL. D. degree was conferred on him. He was Professor of Natural Science at Dickinson Seminary, Williamsport, Pa., 1854 to 1858; and, reading law at the same time, was admitted to the Penn- sylvania bar in 1857, and to the New Jersey bar in 1859. He at once opened an office in Trenton, was elected County Solicitor of Mercer county, 1861, and continued there until Aug. 1861, when he became first lieutenant 5th Regt. N. J. Volunteers. He served all through the Civil War-in the Army of the Potomac to 1863, in the Department of the Cumberland to 1865, and in the United States War Department to 1867, at regimental, brigade, divi- sion, corps, army, and de- partment headquarters, and retired as Brigadier Gener- al United States Volunteers (Bvt.) "for meritorious and distinguished services." His five promotions are noted as a record in the annals of the war.
He participated in all of Mcclellan's campaigns, Burnside's Fredericksburg campaign, Hooker's Chancellorsville campaign, Meade's Gettysburg campaign, Grant's Chatta- nooga campaign, Sherman's Atlanta campaign, and Thomas's Nashville campaign, and was at the battles of Yorktown, Williamsburg, Fair Oaks, Savage Station; Glendale, Malvern Hill, Manasses (2d), Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Rappahannock, Bristoe, Chattanooga, Atlanta, Nashville, etc.
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In 1868 Gen. Rusling received the republican nomination for Congress (2nd N. J. District) over ex-Governor Newell, but the district being heavily democratic then, he failed of election. In 1869 he was appointed U. S. Pen- sion Agent for New Jersey by President Grant and reappointed until 1877. He then resumed his law practice.
In 1896 he was appointed by Gov. Griggs on a commission to investigate the subject of Taxation in New Jersey ; and in 1897 made a Commissioner for New Jersey to the Tennessee Centennial Exposition, and became Presi- dent of the State Commission. Meanwhile he organized four land associa- tions at Trenton and conducted all successfully.
As an author Gen. Rusling has written considerably. In 1875, he pub- lished, "Across America ; or The Great West and the Pacific Coast," being an account of his observations and adventures there, 1866-'67, when In- spector in the United States Army. In 1886 he wrote a "History of the State Street Methodist Episcopal Church, Trenton, New Jersey." In 1890 he wrote a "History of Pennington Seminary." In 1869 he drew the charter and by-laws for the Ocean Grove Association, and in 1889 he delivered the Fourth of July oration there. These were followed in 1899, by his book on "Men and Things I Saw in Civil War Days," and in 1902 his "European Days and Ways," an account of his tour in Europe in 1899; and he is now engaged on a "History of Trenton."
In 1876 he delivered the annual address at both Dickinson Seminary and Dickinson College, and in 1SSS and 1895 the annual address at Penning- ton Seminary. His address on the "March of Methodism," delivered 1895 to 1900, in Philadelphia, Camden, Atlantic City, Long Branch, New Bruns- wick, Ocean Grove, Trenton, Bridgeport, Conn., Cleveland, O., Lynn, Mass., Waterville, Me., Harrisburg, Pa., Baltimore, Md., Washington, D. C., and elsewhere, attracted wide attention ; and in 1915 he delivered an address on "Abraham Lincoln" before the members of the Military Order of Loyal Legion, Philadelphia, Pa.
Gen. Rusling was President of the Mercer County Sunday School Asso- ciation, 1875-1876, Trustee of Dickinson College 1862 to 1917, a Trustee of Pennington Seminary, 1868-1917, and President of the Board of Trustees for several years. In 1852 he founded the Alpha Omega Society of Pennington Seminary, and the "Rusling Medal" for high scholarship there. In 1891 he organized the Mercer County Soldiers and Sailors Monument Association and was its first President. In 1904 he founded the "Rusling Scholarship" at Dickinson College. In 1891 he was elected member of the Board of Managers of the General Missionary Society Methodist Episcopal Church, and soon afterwards became its Vice President and continues so.
Gen. Rusling is a member of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion United States (Pennsylvania Commandery) ; Wilkes Post No. 23, G. A. R .; Third Corps Union; Society of the Army of the Potomac; Society of the Army of the Cumberland; Historical Society of New Jersey; Sons of the American Revolution, New Jersey ; Revolution Memorial Society New Jer- sey ; the Republican Club, Trenton ; Ashlar Lodge No. 76, F. & A. M. ; Union Philosophical Society (Dickinson College) ; President Mercer County Sol- diers' and Sailors' Monument Association, etc. In politics he was bred a democrat (his father, grandfather and great-grandfather before him) ; but
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