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 65
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Upon leaving college, he taught music in Salem College, and in 1897 began public school teaching in the Shiloh schools. At that time he took his family to Colorado and for five years was a teacher of Latin and History in the Manitou High School, Colorado. He took a course in su- pervision of public school music at Chicago, and returned to Manitou, where he took over the supervision of music in the public schools of Mani- tou and Colorado City.
In 1903 he returned to this state, and was made supervising principal of the schools of Center Township, Camden County. In 1907 he took a sim- ilar position in Glassboro, and since 1913. he has been superintendent of the Salem Schools.
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In the various communities where he has lived, he has always taken an active part in civic and church affairs. For a number of years he has served as chorister in various churches. During the great war he was one of the Four Minute men, who spoke at various gatherings in the interests of the Liberty Loans, Red Cross, and other patriotic activities. He has also been active in the N. J. State Teacher's Association and other educational organizations.
He is a member of the Masonic Order, Tall Cedars, Odd Fellows, and Patriotic Order Sons of America.
His business address is Salem High School Salem, N. J.
WILLIAM JEROME DAVIS-Harrison .- Lawyer. (Photo- graph published in Vol. 1, 1917). Born at Harrison, November. 1858; son of Hiram W. and Emma L. (Sandford) Davis.
William J. Davis, President of the Hudson County Park Commission, has been known in Republican State Councils for some years. He comes of a family that owned the farms on which East Newark and Arlington rest, and whose members were deep in the life of the community about them. His father, a member of the Hudson County Board of Freeholders, was instrumental in establishing the free bridge across the Passaic that connects Hudson with Essex County, and had a large hand, too, in the erection of the Hudson county Penitentiary at Snake Hill.
Mr. Davis's family on his father's side can trace its line away back to Cedric in the 5th Century, decorated later on with the names of Charle- magne and Frederick the Great. The first of whom there is any record in New Jersey is Jacobie Davis, whose son, Aaron, was born in Asbury (Hunterdon Co.) in October, 1775. Aaron was a cousin of Wm. Davis, who owned the territory that is now the town of Arlington. His son, Mark W., grandfather of Wm. J. Davis, removed to Harrison and purchas- ing the farm on which Harrison has since been built, engaged in the cattle business and maintained a road house that was patronized by cattle drivers. Mark's son Hiram W. (Mr. Davis's father). reserving the homestead, set the rest of the farm off into building lots and devoted himself to his estate and to community affairs.
Mr. Davis's mother traced her ancestry back to William the Conqueror. Their estate in England was confiscated by Parliament and Captain Sand- ford. then head of the family, came to Barbadoes, W. I .; and afterwards settled in Union (N. J.) on a farm covering 5,000 acres of upland and 10,000 acres of meadow land. The farm has since become the site of East Newark.
William J. Davis's interests therefore centre largely in the towns in the west part of Hudson County, but at the same time necessarily branch out to the larger circle outside. He attended Hackettstown Seminary and gradu- ated from Yale College. He read law in the office of William Brinkerhoff. in Jersey City, and was admitted as attorney in 1884. He has woven his business interests in with his law work: was director of several of the Essex and Hudson Co. trolley companies before their absorption by the
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Public Srvice; ; was one of the organizers and is now the President of, the West Hudson Trust Company, and was President of the East Newark Gas Light Co., and the Hudson Electric Light Co. until they too were taken up by the Public Service Corporation.
In his public relations Mr. Davis is president of the Martin Tax Act Commission of Harrison and Kearny and a Sinking Fund Commissioner there. At one of the times when the consolidation of the towns and cities in Hudson county into one municipality was under consideration, Governer Voorhees named him as one of the commissioners to consider and report upon the advisability of the consolidation. By Governor Fort's appoint- ment he served on the commission created to study the question of the taxation of trust and banking companies' stock and to report to the legisla- ture.
Mr. Davis organized the West Hudson County Trust Company, Harris- son, and has been President of the company since its organization.
He was instrumental in securing passage of the act creating the Hud- son County Park Commission and was appointed by Judge John A. Blair, ` on June 23, 1903, one of the Commissioners. On May 26, 1905, Mr. Davis was elected President of the Board and is still acting as President.
Mr. Davis is also one of the Trustees of the Harrison Free Public Library and has been a member of the Sinking Fund Commission of the Town of Harrison for a number of years. He is a member of the Union League Club, Carteret Club and New York Press Club.
EDITH BARNARD DELANO -- East Orange, (9 Webster Place.) Author. (Photograph published in Vol. 1, 1917.) Born in Wash- ington, D. C .; daughter of William Theodore and Emma J. (Thomas) Barnard; married in 1908, to James Delano, son of James and Elizabeth R. Delano, of New Bedford, Mass.
Edith Barnard Delano, besides being active in the book world, is a con- tributor to the leading magazines and the author of several feature photo- plays. Much of her work is done in Deerfield, Mass., where she spends her summers. Her grandfather, Theodore Barnard, one of the founders of the Associated Press, was the only one of her grand-parents of New England origin ; the others were from Maryland and Virginia. Dr. William T. Barnard, her father, built the first Chicago elevated railroad; in con- nection with the B. O. Railroad, originated the traveling library idea, and introduced into this country the first system of employees' relief.
Mrs. Delano was educated mostly by governesses, and at Bryn Mawr Preparatory School in Baltimore, where a large part of her girlhood was passed. Her first story was written in the summer of 1904, and sold to the Woman's Home Companion. Since then she has been a hard worker with the pen.
Besides her contributions to the leading magazines for twelve years she has written the following books: "Zebedee V," 1912; "The Land of Content," 1913; "The Colonel's Experiment," 1913; "Rags," 1915: "When Carey Came to Town," 1916; "June," a story for girls, 1916; "To-morrow
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Morning," a 1917 serial in the Ladies' Home Journal, to be published by Houghton Mifflin Company in October, 1917.
Those of Mrs. Delano's photoplays already produced were filmed by the Famous Players Film Company, featuring Mary Pickford, Marguerite Clark, Hazel Dawn and Marie Doro, and are "Rags ;" "The Heart of Jen- nifer ;" "The White Pearl ;" "Still Waters;" and "Hulda from Holland." "The White Pearl" was also novelized by a collaborator, upon Mrs. De- lano's photoplay of the same title.
Mrs. Delano is a member of the Southern Society of the Oranges, the Authors' League of America and the Vigilantes, the latter an association of authors and artists.
FREDERICK WILLIAMS DE VOE-Milltown, (583 Main St.) -Lawyer and Assemblyman. Born at village of Old Bridge, Mid- dlesex county, N. J., Nov. 15, 1889; son of George W. and Alice (Appleby) De Voe; married at Spotswood, N. J., July 14, 1915, to Marion Behringer, daughter of Michael and Lydia (Jones) Beh- ringer, of Spotswood, N. J.
Children : Dorothy Frances, born July 12, 1916.
Frederick Williams De Voe, democratie assemblyman from Middlesex county, comes from an old Middlesex county family. His paternal grand- father was George W. DeVoe, founder and president until his death, of the Peoples National Bank of New Brunswick. His grandfather was also one of the founders of the well known paint and oil business now known as F. W. De Voe & C. T. Reynolds & Company of New York City. This business was conducted by him and his partner until taken over by the assemblyman's uncle, Fred W. De Voe. It later became known as F. W. De Voe and C. T. Reynolds Company, although the De Voe family continued to hold controlling interest in the business. Assemblyman De Voe's maternal grandfather is Herbert Appleby, a Civil War veteran and former postmaster of Old Bridge, New Jersey. His father is George W. De Voe, a former postmaster of Spotswood, N. J.
Assemblyman De Voe attended the public school at Spotswood and later had two years of business training at Peddie Institute, at Hights- town.
At the close of his schooling, he became a reporter on the "New Brunswick Home News," where he spent two years, and later on the "Perth Amboy Evening News," where he put in two more years in the news- paper game. In 1912, deciding that his profession would be law, he entered the New York Law School, and in 1915 passed the bar examination, study- ing in the offices of Russell E. Watson, of New Brunswick.
He has been practicing since that date at New Brunswick, the county seat of Middlesex county, and is now attorney for the First National Bank of Milltown ; the Milltown Building and Loan Association, and the Mid- dlesex County Building and Loan Association of New Brunswick. While the Great War was in progress he worked on fifteen war drives, serving as chairman for the Red Cross campaigns in Milltown.
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He is a member of the following clubs and lodges: K. O. K. A., of New Brunswick; Charles L. Walters Council, No. 178, Junior O. U. A. M., of Milltown, Palestine Lodge, No. 111, F. and A. M., of New Brunswick, Wickatunk Tribe, Redmen, of Milltown, Associate member Frank Lloyd Post, G. A. R., of Middlesex county.
His business address is 41 Paterson Street, New Brunswick, N. J.
WILLIAM L. DILL-Paterson, (307 Seventeenth Avenue. )- Assistant Secretary of State and Motor Vehicle Commissioner. Born at Freeburg, Pa., March 15, 1874; son of William H. and Margaret C. Dill; married at Hartford, Conn., on July S, 1902, to Clara Baker Gorman, daughter of James O. and Frances Gor- man.
Children : three boys and three girls.
William L. Dill's father was Major William H. Dill, commander of the famous 118th Regiment of New York Volunteer Infantry, which served in the Civil War, and who was also one of the formost educators in Pennsylvania during the latter part of his life.
Mr. Dill attended the public school of Freeburg, Pa.
In 1888 he came to Paterson, N. J., where he engaged in the fire insurance business. In 1902 he was appointed secretary to the Mayor of Paterson, and served in that capacity during the fire, floods, and labor troubles of that city.
After retiring from this position on December 31, 1903, he was chosen secretary of the Passaic River Flood district commission, and upon the completion of that body in 1905 was appointed secretary of the Tax- payers Association of Paterson, which performed the work a Board of Trade would have done, had there been one in that city at the time. In 1909 Mr. Dill became clerk to the Board of Fire and Police Commissioners of Paterson, and remained such until December 31, 1913.
For six years he was secretary to the Democratic Senate Minority, and when this party gained control of the state in 1913, he was unani- mously chosen as Senate Secretary during that period. For four years, 1911-1915, he was a member of the Passaic County Board of Taxation, serving as president during the last three years of his term. On April 5, 1915, he was appointed assistant Secretary of State, his term to expire in 1920.
Perhaps his best work for the state, however, has been done, and is being done as Motor Vehicle Commissioner to which office he was ap- pointed April 5, 1915. At present he is also secretary of the Democratic State Committee.
Mr. Dill is a member of the following clubs : Elks, Hamilton and National Democratic Club, 617 Fifth Avenue, N. Y.
His business address is State House, Trenton, N. J.
HENRY CALEB DIXON-Salem, (64 Walnut St.)-County Superintendent of Schools. Born at Tolesboro, Lewis county, Ky.,
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September 18, 1864; son of Levi and Mary A. (Towler) Dixon; married at Madison, Ind., December 19, 1895, to Helen Irene Stan- ton, daughter of C. A. and Anna B. Stanton, of Madison, Ind.
Children : Morris S., born January 16, 1898; Eric S., born May 30, 1899.
Mr. Dixon removed with his parents to Indiana when he was but a child and received his early education in the public schools of that state. Later he attended Franklin College of Indiana, from which he was graduated in 1893. ,
Previous to coming to New Jersey in 1906 he was principal of graded and high Schools in Letts and in Elizabethtown, Indiana for ten years, and of the Classical and Scientific Institute of Mount Pleasant, Pa. His first position in New Jersey was as superintendent of schools in Wood- bury, which he held from 1906 to 1913, when he resigned to become head of the public schools of Salem county, which office he now holds. -
FREDERICK W. DONNELLY-Trenton .- Merchant, Mayor. (Photograph published in Vol. 1, 1917.) Born in Trenton, on Oc- tober 14, 1866; son of Richard A. and Susan (Davisson) Don- nelly ; married at Trenton, on January 25, 1895, to Eliza Wool- man Lukens, daughter of Mary Stockham Lukens, of Bucks coun- ty, Pa.
Children : Frederick S .; Katherine E .; Helen E.
Frederick W. Donnelly is Mayor of Trenton, under the new Commis- sion system of rule the city adopted in the summer of 1911. Mr. Donnelly was one of the early advocates of the Commission plan for New Jersey. A leader in the campaign for its adoption in Trenton and elected as high man in the first Commission Government election held in the city, he was named as Mayor when the Commission organized in August, 1911. In the canvass for new Commissioners in 1915, he was high man again and made Mayor for another term. His election as Mayor brings to the Donnelly family, the unique distinction of establishing the only precedent in Tren- ton where the father and son have served the city as its Chief Executive. His father, Quartermaster General Richard A. Donnelly, was Mayor from 1884 to 1SS6.
The Pennsylvania Railroad Co. was planning to build a bridge across the Delaware River at the southern extremity of Trenton, at the time of Mayor Donnelly's first election. The Mayor made opposition on the ground that the construction of the large railroad span at that point would effectually "bottle up" the Trenton harbor and practically vitiate all the improvements that had been made in the river channel and in the city's waterfront. After he had carried the controversy even into the halls of Congress, the Pennsylvania Railroad Company not only changed the proposed location of the structure to a point nearly two miles farther down the river, but in addition granted to the City of Trenton more than
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a million dollars' worth of concessions, such as new canal bridges, dedi- cated lands for park purposes and improved crossing and water terminal facilities.
Mayor Donnelly received his early education in the Trenton public schools and the State Model School. Later he attended the Episcopal School at Burlington, and prepared for a business career at A. J. Rider's Business College in Trenton. At the age of seventeen he obtained a posi- tion with a New York wholesale clothing concern, following the vocation of a traveling salesman for several years. On his return to Trenton, he assumed the management of the store of his father, and a few years later established the business of which he is now the head.
Mr. Donnelly has long been an enthusiastic supporter of waterway projects and is often referred to as the "Father of New Jersey Water- ways." He is President of the Trenton-Philadelphia-New York Deeper Waterways Association, which he organized; President of the New Jersey Rivers and Harbors Congress; Vice President of the National Rivers and Harbors Congress ; and Vice President and one of the charter members of the Atlantic Deeper Waterway Association. He was President of the New Jersey Ship Canal Commission, which formulated the original plans for the trans-state canal. When the Trenton Harbor Board was in ex- istence, Mayor Donnelly was its president also. He was likewise Presi- dent of New Jersey League of Municipalities, which he was instrumental in organizing, for three years.
He has written and lectured extensively on government reforms and his two treatises on "Securing Efficient Administration under the Commis- sion Plan" have gained wide circulation. He has also written many arti- cles on the subjects of improved inland waterways and transportation.
Mayor Donnelly is a member of the Masonic Order, Scottish Rites, Crescent Temple; Sons of Veterans; Patriotic Sons of America ; Wood- men of America ; B. P. O. E .; I. O. O. M .; National Union ; Forresters ; Eagles ; American Academy of Political and Social Science; the National Municipal League and the American Civic Association, Trenton Country, Engineers, Canoe, Yacht and Rotary Clubs. He worships at Trinity Epis- copal Church.
MICHAEL J. DONOVAN-Bayonne .- Contractor and Assem- blyman. Born at Bayonne, N. J., on May 12, 1889.
Michael J. Donovan was educated at St. Mary's parochial school, in Bayonne, the place of his birth, and upon his graduation entered St. Francis Xavier College.
Assemblyman Donovan has always taken a prominent part in the public and civic affairs of Bayonne, and for a term of three years, from 1914 to 1917, he served as a member of the Bayonne Board of Education. At the elections in the fall of 1918 he was elected to the Assembly on
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the Democratic ticket with a plurality of 20,230 votes over Mayberry, his opponent.
GEORGE W. DOWNS-Madisou, (24 Loantaka Way) -Con- tractor and Assemblyman. Bora at Hackettstown, N. J., October 14, 1855.
George W. Downs, Assemblyman from Morris county, is serving his fourth year in the Legislature. Previous to the present term, when he defeated his Democratic opponent Fancher at the elections in the fall of 1918 by a plurality of 2,307, he served for three consecutive years, 1914, '15, and '16.
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Assemblyman Downs was educated in the public schools of Hacketts- town, his birthplace. He later changed his residence to Madison, his present home, and from September. 1904, until May, 1910, he served as a member of the city council of Madison. Then, on the death of Mayor Anderson he was elected to fill the vacancy, and at the close of the year was again elected for a two year term. It was largely through his ef- forts, while filling the mayoralty chair in Madison that a Board of Public Improvement was organized, as well as the Mayors' Society of Morris County, in 1913. He was elected president of the latter organization.
He is a member of the following clubs: Madison Lodge, No. 93, F. & A. of M., the Madison Golf Club and the Board of Public Improvement.
JAMES BUCHANAN DUKE-Somerville .- Capitalist. Born at Durham, N. C., in 1857; son of Washington D. Duke; married 2nd on July 23, 1907, to Nanie Lee (Holt) Inman, of Atlanta, Ga.
James B. Duke is President of the American Tobacco Company, which in large measure controls the tobacco industry throughout the country. Since 1912 he has been Chairman of the Board of Directors of the British- American Tobacco Company which has an equally important relation to the tobacco industry of the world.
Mr. Duke was educated in the country schools of the farming district near Durham, N. C., in which he was born, and went into the tobacco busi- ness with his father and brothers in Durham. He acquired an interest in the firm of Duke Brothers at eighteen and came to New York in 1SS4. He organized the American Tobacco Company. a combination of large tobacco manufacturing concerns, and was its President from the time of its organization in 1889 until 1912. The Continental Tobacco Company, Inc., had meanwhile taken out a charter, and he was made its President also; and when in 1898 it became known as the Consolidated Tobacco Company, Inc .. he succeeded to the Presidency, holding this office until 1901.
In February, 1917, President Duke announced his purpose of equipping a coast patrol boat which several of his employees volunteered to man. The
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boat was to have a speed of more than twenty knots an hour and be fitted with every device known to modern naval warfare and the total outlay for the expedition was estimated at $1,000,000.
Mr. Duke is a Director of the Imperial Tobacco Company of London, the National Bank of Commerce, N. Y., the Union Bleaching and Finishing Company, N. Y., the Guaranty Trust Company, N. Y., the Morristown Trust Company and the Southern Power Company ; and is a Trustee of the American Surety Company.
CHARLES WARREN EATON-Bloomfield .- Artist (Photo- graph published in Vol. 1, 1917). Born in Albany, N. Y., February 22, 1857; son of Daniel Oliver and Mary Bounds Eaton.
Charles W. Eaton, a direct descendant of Francis Eaton of the Pilgrim party that came over in 1620 on the Mayflower, was a pupil at the Na- tional Academy of Designs and the Art Students League in New York. He opened a studio in New York in 1886 and has since been following his art work there. He has exhibited in the Royal Academy and the Gros' venor Gallery in London. One of his works won honorable mention at the Paris Exposition of 1900 and another at the Pan-American Exposition. He received a silver medal at the Charleston Exposition and won the Proctor Prize in 1901, the Inness prize in 1902 and the Shaw prize in 1903 at the Salmagundi Exhibition. The Philadelphia Art Club in 1903 awarded him a gold medal. The National Academy of Design in 1904 awarded the Inness gold medal. At the St. Louis Exposition in 1904 and at the Buenos Aires exposition in 1910 he received silver medals: and the Paris Salon in 1906 awarded him a gold medal. :
Mr. Eaton is a member of the American Water Color Society. the New York Water Color Club and of the Salmagundi and Lotos Clubs of New York.
FREDERICK W. EGNER-Newark, (360 Mt. Prospect Avenue) Financier. Born at Orange, August 6, 1870; son of John Fred- erick and Elizabeth (Graah) Egner, married in 1895 to Florence G. Carter; 2nd in December, 1907 to Elizabeth Wigton of Phil- lipsburgh.
Frederick W. Egner is one of the Vice Presidents of The Fidelity Trust Company, Newark. He attended the public schools at Orange until he was fourteen years of age, when he went to work in the Half Dime Savings Bank that had just been organized there. In 1891, he was of- fered the position of assistant bookkeeper in the Savings Department of the Fidelity Trust Company. in Newark. Six months later he was made assistant teller, and, six months beyond that, Paying Teller of the Com- pany.
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In January, 1889, the Company named him as its Secretary and Treas- urer and he held that position until, ten years later, he was promoted to the office of Third Vice President.
Mr. Egner is a member of the Newark Board of Trade and a Director of the Union County Trust Company of Elizabeth and of the Essex Trust Company in East Orange. His club memberships are with the Essex County Country, the Balustrol Golf, the Forest Hills Field, the Salmagundi and Lotos.
CHARLES H. ELLIS-Camden .- Mayor. (Photograph pub- lished in Vol. 1, 1917). Born in Camden, April 22, 1862; son of Charles H. and Hannah A. (Kille) Ellis; married at Camden, 1883, to Emma, daughter of Stephen T. and Sarah Taylor ; (died October 25th, 1897)-2nd on April 29th, 1907, to Hattie B., daugh- ter of John Weber.
Children : Ella T., Frank M., Laura D. and Elizabeth M.
Charles H. Ellis is now serving his fifth term as Mayor of Camden and has held the office continuously since 1904.
Mr. Ellis, who was educated in the public schools of Camden, had been previously groomed for the public service in minor local places. He was in the grocery business before Collector Moffett named him as Deputy Col- lector of Internal Revenue for the United States Government in the South- ern District of New Jersey. That was the beginning of his political ca- reer and he served in that relation for eight years.
His work municipally was, until the time he reached the Mayorality, in the City Council and in the Board of Education. He was first elected to the local school board .in March of 1891 and served until an act of the legislature ordered the replacement of the board by an appointive Com- mission of Public Instruction. The act was passed on the eve of Mayor Pratt's retirement from office; and, on the day his term expired, the Mayor appointed Mr. Ellis to serve on the new Commission. Mayor Wescott, who took office the next day, contested the right of the former Mayor to appoint the members of the Commission; and the courts sus- tained him. That decision. of course, ousted the Commissioners whom Mayor Pratt had appointed and gave the power of appointment to Mayor Wescott. Mr. Ellis was one of Mayor Pratt's appointees whom Mayor Wescott selected for the new Board. Mr. Ellis was first President of the new board. In 1892 he was elected to the City Council. made lead- er on the floor of the Chamber, and in 1894 became the President of the body. In 1903 he was given the republican nomination for Mayor; and, elected then, was re-elected in 1907. 1910, 1913, and 1916.
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