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, 1919-1920, Vol II > Part 4
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Of Mr. Auger's children, the oldest, Frank, is living on the farm, "Glenacres," in East Ridgewood ; Emma, married Frank T. Powers, (died) ; Mary (or May) married Henry C. Muhs-they are living in Ridgewood with their two small children ; Charles L., Jr., is an engineer and graduate of Princeton, enlisted in the army at the beginning of the war, became a First Lieutenant in May, 1918, went overseas in charge of the one-pound gun service, 319th Infantry, was in a number of battles, going over the top several times. He was promoted, Captain of Hd. Qts. Co., in Feb., 1919.
Louis F. Auger. who was studying engineering at Princeton, joined the New Jersey Squadron at the beginning of the war, afterward enlisted in the Artillery, became a Lieutenant of Battery E, 36th Regiment and was on the point of sailing overseas when the armistice was declared.
JOHN BOYD AVIS-Woodbury .- Lawyer. Born at Deerfield, (Cumberland Co.) July 11th, 1875; son of John H. and Sarah (Barker) Avis; married at Asbury Park, September 27th, 1899, to
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Avis 23
Minnie Genung Anderson, daughter of Charles H. and Ruth A. Anderson of New York City.
John Boyd Avis is one of the recognized forces in the politics and affairs of South Jersey. He was a notable figure in the legislation of the State in the four terms he served in the House of Assembly and in the subsequent three year term of his service in the Senate. He rose to be the Speaker of the Assembly, in which his father had had a seat twenty years earlier. The long interest his family has taken in public affairs is reflected in the fact that his great-great grandfather, Joseph Avis, was of the patriot army in the Revolutionary War, connected with Major Somer's Brigade, and one of the brave fellows who suffered the tortures of that dreadful winter at Valley Forge.
Though born in Cumberland County and educated at the schools in Deerfield township there, Mr. Avis has spent all of his active years in Gloucester County. When he had been admitted to the bar as an attorney, at the February term of 1898, he opened an office in Woodbury. He was a partner with ex-Governor David O. Watkins till 1907, when the partner- ship was dissolved, and he has since been practicing alone. Besides his large private practice he has been attorney for a number of the Gloucester county municipalities.
With a taste for politics and skill in the game as well, Mr. Avis . soon became a member of the Gloucester County Republican Committee and served one year as Chairman of the Committee. In 1912 he was chosen a delegate from the First Congressional District to the Republican National Convention at Chicago. He was the New Jersey member of the Convention's Committee on Credentials and gave active support to the candidacy of Colonel Roosevelt for the nomination that the convention finally gave to President Taft.
Mr. Avis's legislative career began with his election in 1901 as the member from Gloucester in the New Jersey House of Assembly and he achieved the unusual distinction of being re-elected in each of three suc- cessive years. The House of 1904 selected him as its Speaker, and he per- formed the functions of the chair with an acceptability that prompted the Assembly of 1905 also to make him its presiding officer. His service in the Upper Chamber of the Legislature was for the term of 1906-190S. There, he was appointed to the leading committees, and exerted a marked in- fluence on the legislation of the day. His name was most conspicuously identified however with the act creating the County Boards for the Equali- zation of Taxes. Senator Avis, believing that a system for the equaliza- tion of taxes should be devised, formulated and drew an act authorizing the appointment by the Governor of non-partisan Tax Equalization Boards in the several counties of the state. He advocated the act with an earnest- ness and force that eventuated in making it a law. In subsequent years attempts were made to repeal the act, but a study of its effects in opera- tion discouraged the plea and the efforts to repeal have been unsuccessful.
Mr. Avis is prominent also in the church and social and fraternal order movements of his locality. He is of the Presbyterian faith and an active worker in the Y. M. C. A. He is a Mason, and in 1916 was Wor- shipful Master of Florence Lodge No. ST. F. & A. M. of Woodbury. His
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other connections are with the Red Men, the Jr. O. U. A. M., the Loyal Order of Moose, the Grange, the Odd Fellows and the Foresters of Amer- ica.
FRANCIS WAYLAND AYER-Camden .- Advertising. (Photo- graph published in Vol. 1-1917.) Born at Lee, Massachusetts, February 4, 1848; son of Nathan Wheeler Ayer and Joanna B. .
Wheeler.
Nathan Wheeler Ayer, a native of Preston, Connecticutt, was gradu- ated from Brown University in 1840 and admitted to the bar in 1852. His preference however inclined him to the profession of teaching in which he was eminently successful as Principal of several College Preparatory Schools in the State of New York. He removed to Philadelphia in 1867.
Francis Wayland Ayer was educated under his father's supervision ; and at the age of fourteen accepted a position as teacher of a district school in New York state, continuing in his profession until 1867 when he matriculated as a freshman at Rochester University. In 1869, at the age of twenty-one, he joined his father in Philadelphia and founded the firm of N. W. Ayer and Son, Advertising Agents. He became head of the firm on the death of his father in 1873. As a mark of respect to his father, the firm name, N. W. Ayer and Son, has been continuously retained.
The first Advertising Agency was established in Philadelphia in 1841. The business was still in its infancy in 1869, and the firm of N. W. Ayer and Son has not only been one of the pioneers in the business of News- paper Advertising, but has rapidly forged to the front and has ever main- tained a position of recognized leadership. The American Newspaper An- nual, published by N. W. Ayer and Son since 1880, is a complete directory of United States newspapers. Its relation to the newspaper publisher and advertiser is not dissimilar to that of Dun and Bradstreet to the commer- cial man.
The history of the house is epitomized in its motto: "Keeping Ever- lastingly at it Brings Success." Mr. Ayer removed to Camden in 1869, and has since retained his residence in New Jersey, where he is largely interested in street railway development, having for many years been a Director, and later President, of the Camden and Suburban Railway Com- pany.
A leader in the field of religion and philanthropy, Mr. Ayer has been for nearly fifty years a Sunday School Superintendent ; and is the head of his denomination (Baptist) in New Jersey, President of his City and of the State Young Men's Christian Association, a member of its Interna- tional Committee and President of the last International Convention of the Associatons in Cleveland.
ISAAC BACHARACH-Atlantic City. - Financier and Real Estate Broker. (Photograph published in Vol. 1-1917.) Born
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Bacheller
in Philadelphia, January 5, 1870; son of Jacob and Betty Bacha-" rach.
Isaac Bacharach is of a family that has for years exerted a large in. fluence in Atlantic County affairs, and is himself & forceful factor not only in that community, but throughout South Jersey. At the present time he is serving his second term in the National House of Representatives in Washington, having been first elected in 1914 and re-elected with a very greatly increased majority in 1916. Congressman Bacharach received his education in the schools of Atlantic City, graduating from the Atlantic City High School in the Class of 1885. He was engaged in the mercantile business in Atlantic City for a number of years, giving up that pursuit to engage in the real estate business.
Mr. Bacharach was twice elected a member of the City Council of At- lantic City, serving from 1905 to 1910; during his term in Council he headed a number of the most important committees, was chairman of the Committee on Finance, and also acted as floor leader of his party.
While serving in Council he was selected by the Republicans of At- lantic County to represent that county in the House of Assembly in 1911. He declined a renomination for the Assembly and retired from public life until 1913 when, responding to the persistence of prominent leaders in the Second Congressional District, comprising Atlantic, Burlington, Cape May and Cumberland counties, he became a candidate for Congress in the primary campaign of 1913, and received the nomination for that office.
Mr. Bacharach is First Vice President of the Second National Bank of Atlantic City, and a Director of the Atlantic Safe Deposit and Trust Company, and the Absecon National Bank, and President of the Atlantic City Lumber Company.
JOSEPH HENRY BACHELLER-Newark, (97 Johnson Ave.) -Financier. Born in Newark, February 1, 1869; son of John Collins and Harriet (Parcells) Bacheller; married to Edith Adele Smith, daughter of Israel Pierson Smith, of Newark.
Children : Murriel, Adele, Joseph Henry, Jr., and John Smith.
Mr. Bacheller traces his ancestry back in this country through a long ancestral line to before the middle of the 17th century. The family is of English extraction, scattered all through the counties of Kent, Sussex and Surrey. The first record it discloses of any settler here, shows that John Bacheller, of Canterbury, came across the seas to Ipswich, Mass., between 1630 and 1635. The family had written the name in various ways; and it was not till 1700 that it came to be spelled as the branch to which J. H. Bacheller belongs has spelled it since. One of Mr. Bacheller's fore-bears, Sergeant John. was a Selectman in the town of Watertown, Mass. His son John was the fourth large contributor to the new Meeting House Building Fund there, and served in King Philips War. The family spread into other towns in Massachusetts, and one of Mr. Bachellers line (Samuel II, born 1725) was among the earliest settlers in the now great textile
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Baird
centre of Massachusetts, Lynn. Joseph Newhall Bacheller was the first of the stock to come to New Jersey and he located as a farmer in the South Orange and Vailsburg section of Essex County. John C., of the ninth gen- eration of the family in this country, was the first to make his permanent home in Newark. He went into business as a manufacturer.
Joseph Henry Bacheller was educated in the schools, grammar and high, of Newark. When he was ready for business he secured a clerical position with the New York Life Insurance Company and was engaged there until he became associated with Samuel S. Dennis in 1890 in looking after the large real estate holdings of the late A. L. Dennis, who was among the first promoters of the old Camden & Amboy Railroad Co., now part of the Pennsylvania system. He retained his connection with Mr. Dennis until very recently when the last of the real estate belonging to the estate of A. L. Dennis was sold. Meamwhile in June, 1907, the Iron bound Trust Co. was organized and Mr. Bacheller was made President.
Even these large business preoccupations have not prevented Mr. Bacheller from taking an active part in the politics of the city and state ; and for some years he was an important figure in the councils of the Republican party of New Jersey. From 1887 till 1901 he served as a member of the Board of Aldermen-from the ninth ward and was Re- publican leader and chairman of the Finance Committee for several years and in 1903 was President of the Board.
Meanwhile the field of his activities was enlarged by his election, in 1900, to a seat in the Assembly ; and three years later he was sent to the State Senate, as the representative of Essex County. His democratic rival in the campaign for the Senate was Samuel Kalisch who has since be- come a Justice of the Supreme Court of the State. In the House he served on several important committees; and in the Senate was chairman of the Municipal Corporations Committee.
When the Shade Tree Commission was established in Newark, Mayor Doremus named Mr. Bacheller to serve upon it, and he became the first President of the Commission. In 1905 Mayor Doremus appointed him comptroller of the City of Newark, an office in which he served for six years and he handled anywhere between seven and ten millions of dollars of the peoples funds, annually.
Senator Bacheller is a member of the Essex and Down Town Clubs in Newark and President of the Rockaway River Country Club.
DAVID BAIRD-Camden .- Lumber Merchant and Banker. (Photograph published in Vol. 1-1917). Born in County Derry. Ireland, April 7, 1839; married at Philadelphia to Christianna Beatty.
Children : Mary Baird Fox, Irvine Baird, Christianna B. Humphreys 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. his ancestry was Scotch-Irish of sturdy Covenanter faith and his father
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Baird
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 board- ing 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 conducting 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 Camden's docks, for 20 cents an hour.
Mr. Baird's connection of fourteen years with Gillingham & Garrison gave him opportunities for study of the lumber trade and of methods he was quick to improve. He made friendships and acquired a reputation 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 business 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 Southland. One of his enterprises was anticipating a "corner" projected by his competitors, by buying up all the spars 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 another of his memorable enterprises.
A lumber king with whom he dealt was Secretary of War Alger, for 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
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Baird
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, re-organized the company, rebuilt its plant and as a result the residents of that Camden suburb are now furnished 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 its branches, nearly half a century ago; and he soon made himself felt among the Re- publicans of the locality. Ex-Consul Thomas H. Dudely 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 decided 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. Gov- ernor Fort would have re-appointed 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 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.
Mr. Baird was appointed United States Senator, February 23, 1918. by Governor Edge, to fill a vacancy caused by the death of William Hughes. The appointment came as a surprise to him, as he was traveling in the South at the time and knew nothing of the movement by his friends to obtain the honor for him. At the primary, in the following September,
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Baker
he was nominated without opposition and was elected, November 5th, 1918, for the remainder of the term, by 15,680 plurality over Charles O'Connor . Hennessy, Democrat. His term as Senator expires March 3, 1919.
CHARLES WHITING BAKER-Montclair, (20 S. Mountain Ave.)-Editor and Civil Engineer. (Photograph published in Vol. 1-1917). Born at Johnson, Vt., January 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, Sergeant in 503d Aero Squadron, died Oct. 8, 1918.
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 Philadelphia, 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 circulation and influence, but a period of rapid growth began and it became the leading engineering journal of the United States. In 1895 Mr. Baker became 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 Engineer. In his work as Editor of the Engineering News, Mr. Baker has exerted wide influence in con- nection 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 Interstate Park Com- mission and was reappointed in 1917 for a second term. 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
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Baker
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 is a Deacon of the First Congregational Church. He is a member of the Phi Delta Theta and Phi Beta Kappa college fraternities, the Sons of the American Revolution, and the Engineers' Club of New York.
His New York office is at 31 Nassau Street.
J. THOMPSON BAKER-Wildwood .- Banker and Real Estate operator.
J. Thompson Baker, of the city of Wildwood, New Jersey, was born on a farm in Union County, Pennsylvania, owned and occupied for gen- erations by his fore-bears, who were refugees from the religious persecu- tion and civil oppression which obtained two hundred years ago. Mr. Baker was educated in the Common Schools (in the establishment of which his father took an aggressive interest), and at Bucknell University, from which he received the degree of Master of Arts. He studied law and is a member of the Pennsylvania Bar Association and the American Bar Association. He was instrumental in creating and was at the head of various Public Utilities in Pennsylvania; was President of the Union National Bank of Lewisburg many years and was repeatedly nominated in his native county to represent the district in Congress, but he was not a candidate. He was tendered positions of responsibility and distinction by President Cleveland, which he declined becaue of professional and business engagements. The founding and development of the city of Wildwood and the Borough of Wildwood Crest, in Cape May County, New Jersey, where he is now President of the Wildwood Title and Trust Com- pany and of the Wildwood and Delaware Short Line Railroad Company, required the incessant attention of Mr. Baker and his brothers.
In 1905, (he being then and ever since a citizen of New Jersey) he was elected and served as Permanent Chairman of the Democratic State Convention of Pennsylvania, at Harrisburg. In the State Convention at Trenton in 1910, he seconded the nomination of President Wilson of Princeton University, for Governor of New Jersey.
In 1911 Mr. Baker was elected Mayor of the city of Wildwood, and in 1912 he was elected a delegate from the Second District of New Jersey to the Democratic National Convention at Baltimore which nominated Woodrow Wilson to the Presidency of the United States. In November of the same year, he was elected to represent the Second District of New Jersey in the Congress of the United States.
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