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 6
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Mr. Besler is a member of the Railroad, Engineers and Technology Clubs of New York and a director of the Coal and Iron National Bank of New York City.
UNION NOBLE BETHELL-Upper Montclair, (270 Upper Mountain Ave.)-Telephone President. Born at Newburgh, Ind., September 12, 1859; son of Union and Eva M. (Parrett) Bethell, whose ancestors were long established in this country, some having settled in North Carolina and Maryland, later migrating to Eastern Tennessee and then to Southern Indiana ; married in 1893 to Donna I. Brink, daughter of John Brink, of Owego, N. Y.
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Children : Richard Sargent, Francis Cutler, John Warren Bethell.
Union Noble Bethell is President of the New York Telephone Company and Senior Vice President of the American Telephone and Telegraph Com- pany, and in 1909 was decorated by the Emperor of Japan with the Im- perial Order of the Rising Sun, in recognition of his work in the telephone field, and in adapting the telephone to conditions in Japan.
Mr. Bethell was educated with a view to the practice of the law. He graduated from Hanover College in 1879 with the B. S. degree, and subse- quently received from the College the A. M. degree. Upon leaving college he took the position of Deputy Auditor of Warrick County, Indiana. Af- ter a year or so in that office he entered the Government service as a clerk in Washington, D. C. There he attended Columbia Law School, graduat- ing in 1885. The same year he was admitted to practice in the District of Columbia, and later in Indiana, and still later in the Supreme Court of the United States.
While in the government service as a special agent, Mr. Bethell spent several years in the West ; principally in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and the Dakotas. In 1889 he came to New York to enter the telephone service. Successively he assumed the management of the several Bell Telephone companies operating throughout the states of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. As Senior Vice President of the American Tele- phone and Telegraph Company, he organized the Bell Telephone System throughout the United States and continues as the operating head of that System.
Mr. Bethell is President of the Board of Education in Montelair, and of the First National Bank of Montclair, and a Director of the Columbia Trust Company of New York.
Mr. Bethell's club memberships are with the Lotos, Railroad, Bankers, Upper Montclair Country Club, and Commonwealth Club of Montclair.
JAMES H. BIRCH, Jr .- Burlington .- Manufacturer. Born in Burlington, on June 17, 1872; son of James H. (Sr.) and Hannah (Conrow) Birch.
James H. Birch became actively interested in the carriage manufac- turing business at his father's plant in Burlington, soon after he had com- pleted his education ; and visited nearly all parts of the world in promot- ing the extension and expansion of the business.
Mr. Birch in his extensive travels observed that every locality had its special vehicle suited to the peculiarities of the country and other condi- tions, and became satisfied they were so wedded to their own fashions that they would be slow to accept the probably better fashions prevalent here. And it came to him that the business of providing each with its own kind, could be easily extended over the world. It is due to these obser- vations of his and the energy with which he has acted on them, that the Birch name is now in the traffic of every country on the globe where people
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use vehicles of any kind; even Jinrikishas are made and shipped from their factory.
Mr. Birch was one of the pioneers in introducing American manufac tured products on 'round the world trips. Mr. Birch's chief diversion is the publication of "The Log" of the Circumnavigators Club, embracing in its membership those who have been round the globe once or oftener. Among its distinguished globe-trotting member-readers are Ex-President Wm. Taft, Ex-Secretary of State William J. Bryan, Poultney Bigelow, Brigadier Gen. Hon. Sir New- ton J. Moore, K. C. N. G., John Henry Mears, play manager, who holds the world record for encircling the globe, Ex-Gover- nor J. Franklin Fort of this state, and W. N. Macmillen of Nairobi, British East Africa, who entertained Ex-President Roosevelt on his hunting trip to the Dark Continent.
Mr. Birch is one of the three who launched the Circumnavi- gators Club. He is the first Keeper of the Records, then be- came Scribe, is one of the first Governors and has just been elected Governor for three years, by the Board of Governors.
Mr. Birch is a director in the Mechanics National Bank of Burlington, the Burlington City Loan & Trust Co., and the Robert Morris Trust Co., of Philadelphia and a member of the Board of Managers of The Burlington Savings Institution. He is also a member of the New York Athletic Club.
THOMAS HENDERSON BIRCH-Burlington .- Diplomat and Manufacturer. Born Burlington, September 5, 1875, son of James H. (Sr.) and Hannah M. (Conrow) Birch; married at Philadel- phia, to Helen L., daughter of Dr. Thomas and Helen Barr.
Thomas Henderson Birch is connected with the diplomatic service of the United States through appointment, by President Woodrow Wilson as U. S. Minister Plenipotentiary to the Kingdom of Portugal; and had pre- viously risen to wide recognition among the manufacturers of New Jersey. He was educated at private schools and business colleges, and soon went into the manufacture of carriages.
The business was established at Burlington by Ambassador Birch's father in 1862; and, until about twenty years ago, had continued its opera-
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tions wholly to the home trade. Its expansion was first promoted by an order from the Boston Fruit Company, now the United Fruit Company, for carts to be taken back to the West Indies on their empty banana steamers running out of Philadelphia. This trade grew into a fixture; and upon a visit made to Jamaica by one of the sons it was seen that the United States had great advantages for competing with vehicle makers in ahnost every country.
Through the push and energy of the father and sons, the ex- ports of the establishment reach every known country on the face of the globe. It even sends Jinrikishas to the cities in Japan, India, Madagascar. and South Africa. The first car- riage sent to Abyssinia had the Birch nameplate and was bought by King Menilek. The Boers and Britains alike used Birch wagons in the Transvaal war as did the Japanese and Russians in Manchuria, and the Ameri- cans and Spaniards in Cuba. The Birch export catalog lists hundreds of peculiar vehicles built after the fashions of those used in the countries to which they are sent. The catalog it- self is printed in three langua- ges and its business statements are carried in fourteen langua- ges, including the Chinese, Ara- bic and Hindustani.
Thomas H. Birch early inter- ested himself in the State Mili- tia, and rose to the rank of Col- onel. He made the acquaint- ance of Woodrow Wilson after Dr. Wilson had become Governor of New Jersey, and the relations between them, personal as well as political, be- came very close. Governor Wilson made Col. Birch one of his personal Aids ; and, after he had become President, he tendered to Col. Birch the position of United States Minister to Portugal. The diplomatic distinction was one that was not unagreeable to Colonel Birch and he accepted. The United States Senate, upon receiving the name in September, 1913, promptly confirmed the nomination. Col. Birch is now located at the American Le- gation in Lisbon, Portugal.
CHARLES CLARKE BLACK-Jersey City, 15 Exchange Place- Jurist. Born in Mt. Holly, July 29, 1858; son of John and Mary Anna (Clarke) Black ; married at Flushing, N. Y., February 12. 1890, to Alice Greenleaf Hazen, daughter of Melzar F. and Emma
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C. Hazen, of Flushing, Long Island. (Mrs. Black died March 21st, 1915.)
Charles C. Black is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the State of New Jersey. His birthplace was on a Burlington County farm. He was prepared for college at the Mt. Holly Academy and later graduated from Princeton College (class of '78). He studied law at the University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, was admitted to the bar as an Attorney in June 1881 and as a Counsellor three years later and practised law in Jersey City.
At the time when Mr. Black began the practise, the inequality between the taxation of individual property and of the railroad holdings was a topic of large interest in Jersey City ; and he gave particular attention to the problems incidental to the situation there. His view was that the rail- roads had so arranged legislation, and were so influencing the taxing authorities, as to escape a large share of the public burden they ought to bear ; and he, became quite conspicuous in the local and state agitation for equal taxation. The first immediate official result of his interest in the matter was his appointment in 1891 to the State Tax Board, and he served on that board till 1908. He was appointed by Gov. Griggs and by Gov. Murphy on the Equal Tax Commissions of 1896 and 1904.
Mr. Black's work for equal taxes led to his nomination on an "equal tax" platform for the governorship by the democratic State Convention of 1904. In that contest he was opposed by Edward C. Stokes and defeated. Governor Stokes subsequently nominated him as a member of the new Board for the Equalization of Taxation; and, the Senate confirming him, he served on that board till Governor Fort in January of 1908 appointed him a Circuit Court Judge. While he was serving on that bench a vacancy was created in the Supreme Court, by the death of Justice Voorhees ; and Governor Fielder named Judge Black to fill out Justice Voorhees's unex- pired term. He was appointed in 1915 for the full term by Governor Fiel- der. His circuit comprises the counties of Atlantic, Cape May, Cumber- land and Salem.
Justice Black has published "Proofs and Pleadings in Accident Cases," "New Jersey Law of Taxation" and "Law and Practice of Accident Cases."
ANTOINETTE LOUISA BROWN BLACKWELL - Elizabeth.
-Minister and Author. Born at Henrietta, N. Y., May 20th, 1825 : daughter of Joseph and Abby (Morse) Brown ; married at Hen- rietta, N. Y. in 1856 to Samuel C. Blackwell, son of Samuel and Hannah Lane Blackwell of Bristol, England.
Children : Florence, Mable, Edith, Grace, Agnes, Ethel.
Antoinette Louisa Brown Blackwell is Pastor Emeritus of all Souls Unitarian Church in Elizabeth where she preached for a number of years and the pulpit of which she still fills occasionally. She began lecturing
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more than seventy years ago. At that time the country was agitated over the slavery question. She was conspicnous in her denunciation of the slave system ; and, with Wendell Philips, William Lloyd Garrison and others of great note was a warm supporter of the Abolition party. but she always believed in working within the government. She was among the first from whose lips came the demand for suffrage rights for women, and for more than seventy years has been connected with the Women Suffrage Association. It is also nearly seventy years since the Purity Alli- ance was organized to carry out the plan of reform which is now known under the name of Social Hygiene-and she is one of the first members of the Alliance. Besides these activities, she has always been an ardent devotee of Temperance and long a member of the Womens Christian Temperance Union. Her prominence made her name worthy of the pen of Theodore Tilton, and she enjoys the distinction also of having had bi- ographical sketches written by Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.
The Rev. Mrs. Blackwell is a descendant. on one side, of Samuel Morse, one of the Puritans who came to America on the "Increase" in 1635 and on the other side of Joseph Brown, of whose birth in Redding, Mass .. there is a record in 1628. She was edu- cated in the district school in Henrietta, N. Y., and at the Monroe County Academy. At twenty she entered Oberlin Col- lege with the view of studying for the ministry and graduated from the Literary department in 1847 and from the Theological school in 1850.
She was ordained in 1853 at the Orthodox Congregational Church at South Butler, New York. Her first profession of faith was made when she was nine years of age in the Church at Henrietta, N. Y. The Church was then less than eighteen years old: within the last few months it has celebrated its centennial anniversary. Since her marriage she has held no regular parish but has continued to preach frequently in many churches. She has been connected with All Souls Church, Elizabeth. for 15 years, having preached her last sermon there on Easter Sunday of 1917.
Mrs. Blackwell's pen has been as busy as her tongue. She wrote "Shadows of Our Social System", for the New York Tribune, and is the author of "Studies in General Science", 1869; "The Island Neighbors". 1871; "The Sexes Throughout Nature", 1875; "The Physical Basis of Im- mortality", 1876: "The Philosophy of Individuality", 1893; "Sea Drift or
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Tribute to the Ocean", 1903; "The Making of the Universe", 1914, and "The Social Side of Mind and Action", 1915.
Mrs. Blackwell's club and society memberships are with the Associa- tion for the Advancement of Women, The Womens Suffrage Association, the Purity Alliance, the Association for the advancement of Science, the W. C. T. U., Peace Societies, Women's Press Societies and several literary clubs. Honorary member of some.
V
JONATHAN H. BLACKWELL-Born at Hopewell, Mercer Coun- ty, December 20, 1841; son of Stephen and Francenia (Hunt) Blackwell; married at Hopewell, N. J., on October 5, 1865, to Susan Weart, daughter of Spencer Weart of Hopewell.
Children : Stephen Weart, (who was lost in the sinking of the Titanic), Clara May, William Jewell and Henry Clayton.
Jonathan Hunt Blackwell, former State Senator from Mercer County, traces his descent back to an ancient English family. No less than six towns in that country bear the family name of Blackwell and his coat of arms is in Ricker's "Annals of Newtown."
Robert Blackwell, the founder of the Blackwell family in America, is recorded, in the seventeenth century, as engaged in business in Elizabeth- town, whence he moved to New- ton in 1676. His second wife, Mary Manningham, was of Man- ning's Island, in the East River. Mr. Blackwell became the pro- prietor of this island, gave it his name and cultivated the farm situated thereon and it has remained in possession of this family until within recent years.
Robert Blackwell, son of Rob- ert Blackwell who died in 1757. was the first one of the name to settle in Hopewell, Mercer Co .. Capt. Stephen Blackwell, great- grandfather, served as a private in Captain Israel's Troop of Light Horse, New Jersey Mili- tia. Hunterdon County, during the Revolutionary war, and rose to be a Captain, Stephen Black- well, grandson of Captain Stephen Blackwell, was a successful merchant of Hopewell. He was twice married, his second wife, Francenia A. Hunt. being the daughter of Jonathan Hunt, of the family that figured promi- nently in the early history of New Jersey. Francenia Hunt's cousin. Wil-
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son Price Hunt, was the first white man to cross the Rocky Mountains, at the head of the fur trading expedition of John Jacob Astor. Her uncle, Lieutenant Colonel Abraham Hunt, was a prosperous merchant of Trenton, and postmaster there under the crown as well as during the Revo- lution.
Jonathan Hunt Blackwell was educated in the public schools of his native place, at the New Jersey Conference Seminary at Pennington and in the Claverack Collegiate Institute on the Hudson. Upon leaving school at eighteen, he began his mercantile training in his father's store at Hopewell, and remained there until attaining his majority. Desirous of obtaining a wider experience, he accepted a position in the business of William Dolton, a wholesale dealer in groceries at Trenton. Here he ro- mained for a period of one year, then went to New York City and engaged in business, remaining there until 1864.
At that time he returned to Trenton, and formed, with his former em- ployer, William Dolton, a partnership which continued until the death of the latter. Mr. Blackwell then conducted the business under the firm name of William Dolton & Co. until 1902, when the firm was reorganized under the title of J. H. Blackwell & Sons.
In addition to Mr. Blackwell's private interests he has always shown great activity in local as well as state affairs. In his political affiliations a Democrat, he was in 1873 elected a member of the Trenton Common Coun- cil, serving for three years, and the succeeding year was nominated as candidate for State Senator and won the election in a Republican district. Although the youngest member of the Senate, he served on among others the Committee on Education, and on Banks and Insurance companies. Dur- ing the session of 1877, he was chairman of the first-named Committee, and of that on Claims and Pensions; was a member of those on Militia, on Lunatic Asylums, on State Library, and on Printing. Of the latter he was also Chairman. In 1878 he was appointed Commissioner to the Paris Exposition by Governor Mcclellan.
Mr. Blackwell was appointed Commissioner of the State Sinking Fund April 6, 1885, by Governor Leon Abbett. On the death of George M. Wright, January, 1885, the legislature not being in session, Governor Ab- bett appointed him State Treasurer on January 12, and he served until the legislature elected his successor. Mayor Gnichtel of Trenton made him one of the Commissioners for the erection of the new City Hall for Tren- ton.
Mr. Blackwell has been President of the Interstate Fair Association ; President of the Trenton Transportation Company ; Director of the First National Bank; of the Standard Insurance Company; of the Mercer Hos- pital Board ; of the Trenton Railroad Company and several other com- panies. He is also President of the Lotus Club of Trenton and of the Spring Lake Golf and Country Club, member of the Board of Managers of the State Sons of the Revolution and a member of the Sons of the Colonial War.
CLINTON LEDYARD BLAIR-Peapack .- Banker. Born 'at Belvidere, N. J., July 16, 1867 ; son of De. With &, and Mary Anna
AND
BIOGRAPHICAL SOCI
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Blair
(Kimball) Blair; married on October 1, 1891, to Florence Osborne Jennings, daughter of H. N. Jennings, of Orange, N. J.
Children : Mrs. William Clark, Mrs. H. Rivington Pyne, Edith and Marie Louise Blair.
C. Ledyard Blair is of the banking firm of Blair & Co. at 24 Broad Street, New York City. It was established by John I. Blair of Blairs- town in 1890 in association with De Witt C. Blair his son and C. Ledyard Blair his grand-son. John I. Blair was, for many years before his death, one of the most noted republicans in the state and was sent as a delegate to every Republican National Convention from that which nominated Lin- coln in 1860 till Mr. Blair's death in 1899. He was, too, one of the largest contributors to the Princeton College endowments and always a picturesque post-prandial orator at the annual banquets of the Alumni.
C. Ledyard Blair is of Scotch descent. He was prepared at the Lawrenceville school for admis- sion to Princeton University, from which he graduated with the A. B. degree in 1890. Mr. Blair has steadily refrained from seeking public office; but he represented the state of New Jersey at the National Republi- can Convention of 1908 which put William H. Taft in nomina- tion for the Presidency and at that of 1916 which nominated Ex-Justice Hughes of the United States Supreme Court against President Wilson.
Mr. Blair is a Governor, as well as a member, of the New York Stock Exchange, President of the Sussex Reality Company and Director of the Lackawan- na Steel Company ; the Pressed Steel Car Company ; the Secur- ities Company : the Sussex R. R. : the St. Louis & Hannibal Ry .; the Ke- waunee, Green Bay & Western R. R. Company and the Carolina, Clinch- field & Ohio Ry. His club and association memberships are with the Auto- mobile of America ; The Brook, Coaching, Metropolitan, New York Yacht, Princeton, Knickerbocker, Racquet, Union, and University Clubs and with the Sons of the American Revolution.
JOHN ALBERT BLAIR- Jersey City. - Lawyer. Born in Blairstown on July 8th, 1842; son of John H. and Mary (Angle) Blair.
John A. Blair has been a leading figure in the judicial life of Hudson County for many years. He is English on his mother's side, and on his
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Bobbitt
father's side descended from the noted Blair family of Blair-Athol, Perth- shire, Scotland-representatives of which came to America as early as 1720, and settled in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
Among those who came were two brothers; Samuel and John, both of whom were educated at the famous Log College on the Neshaminy under the celebrated William Tennant, and became distinguished ministers of the Presbyterian Church. A son of this Samuel, also the Rev. Samuel Blair, was pastor of the old South Church in Boston before the Revolution, and was offered the Presidency of Princeton College but declined in favor of Dr. Witherspoon. Rev. John Blair one of the two brothers in 1767 became Professor of Divinity and Moral Philosophy at Princeton College, and was Acting President of the College until the accession of Dr. Witherspoon in 1769. Later another member of the family, Samuel Blair, was sent from Philadelphia to take charge of the iron industry at Oxford Furnace, Warren County, New Jersey. He was the great-great-grandfather of John A. Blair.
Judge Blair was educated at Blairstown Presbyterial Acad- emy, and at Princeton College, where he graduated in 1866. with honors. He studied law with Jehiel G. Shipman at Bel- videre, and was admitted to the bar as an attorney in June. 1869, and as a Counsellor in June, 1872. He began the prac- tice of law in Jersey City in 1870. and has been there since. He was appointed District Court Judge in Jersey City by Gover- hor Bedle when the District Courts were first created in 1877. In 1885 he was appointed Corporation Counsel for Jersey City. and resigning in 1889, was reappointed in 1894, resigned again in 1898, when he was appointed by Governor Griggs Judge of the Hudson County Court of Common Pleas, General Quarter Sessious and Orphans Court. He held this position for fifteen years, and until appointed by Governor Wilson Judge of the Second District Court of Jersey City.
In religion Judge Blair is a Presbyterian and in politics a republican. He is President of the Union League Club of Hudson County and a member of the University and Princeton Clubs of Hudson County.
BENJAMIN BOISSEAU BOBBITT - Long Branch. - Editor. Born at Hickory, N. C., January 22, 1883, son of Dr. Emmett H. and Mary Elizabeth Boisseau Bobbitt.
Benjamin B. Bobbitt is the Editor of the Long Branch Record and
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Bobbitt
State Commissioner of Public Reports. The state officials had been too industrious in unloading literature from their several departments upon the state printers ; and to reduce its volume the Legislature in 1908 de- cided to appoint an editor for the revision and condensation of the output. Mr. Bobbitt is that Editor, with the title of Commissioner of Public Re- ports.
Mr. Bobbitt is of mixed ancestry, French, Spanish, Scotch, Irish and English, and his forebears figure conspicuously in the colonial history of the Virginias and the Carolinas. One of the founders of William and Mary College at Jamestown, Va., established in 1693, the second in the United States, is in his mother's ancestral line.
Mr. Bobbitt studied at private schools, and, at the University of North Carolina, specialized in history, language and political science, with law and medicine on the side. He was still in his teens when he began writing political articles and reviews for a local daily in Raleigh, N. C., and for Richmond, Philadelphia, and some New York newspapers and magazines. He was made Editor of the Evening Free Press in Danville and subsequently at- tached himself to the staff of the Norfolk, (Va.) Pilot, and of the Lebanon, (Pa.) Evening Report.
After coming to Long Branch, in 1903, to assume the editor- ship of the Daily Record there, Mr. Bobbitt was made Publicity Director of Long Branch and organized its Publicity Bureau. He was one of the special State Commission to Investigate the Causes of Dependency and Crime appointed by Governor Fort in 1908, and was prominent in its work. From the position of Assistant Supervisor of Bills in the New Jersey Senate in 1913 he was made Supervisor of Bills in the following year. He was meanwhile also President of the Trend Publishing Company in New York and Editor of the Trend Magazine; but resigned upon his ap- pointment by Governor Fielder as Commissioner of Public Reports, in Feb- ruary 1914. In the incumbency of that office he saved the state on its printing bills $19,000 in 1915 and $21,000 in 1916.
He is also a member of the Mosquito Extermination Commission of Monmouth County, a Trustee of the Long Branch Chamber of Commerce, Director of the Garfield Monument Association and a member of the Elks.
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