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 69
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RICHARD C. JENKINSON-Newark .- Manufacturer. Born in Newark, April 14, 1833, son of George Bestall and Jane (Stringer) Jenkinson ; married at Newark, December 21, 1876, to Emily Pendleton Coe, daughter of George Villers and Mary (Blair) Coe.
Children : Louis Emily, born June 10, 1878; Charlotte M., born April 14, 1880; Margaret Blair, born February 8, 1882.
Richard C. Jenkinson's father was a manufacturer of trunks, bags and leather goods in Newark, and was President of the Newark Electric Com- pany and Vice President of the Newark Gas Company.
Mr. Jenkinson was educated in the public schools of Newark, and, having graduated from high school, pursued a course of instruction in German and French under private tutors. Five years later he went abroad for the larger information travel would bring to him. In 1869 he engaged in the wholesale dry goods commission business in New York City. In 1876 he started in the business of manufacturing metal goods and hardware and is still engaged in that line.
Mr. Jenkinson is a republican, and the city convention of that party in 1900, nominated him for Mayor. The city was at that time of demo- cratic leaning, but, in spite of his defeat, Mr. Jenkinson made an agreeable showing at the polls. He has since been solicited to permit the use of his name in connection with other nominations but has steadily declined. At the same time he is deeply interested in the public and civic affairs of Newark, and scarce a citizens' movement is undertaken without his parti- cipation. His last connection was with the Committee of 100 that arranged and conducted the six months celebration of Newark's 250th Anniversary.
Mr. Jenkinson's club memberships are with the Union League, the Republican and the Lotos Clubs of New York and the Essex Club of Newark.
WILLIS FLETCHER JOHNSON-New Providence, (Firleigh Hall.)-Editor, Author and Publicist. Born in New York, on
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Johnson
October 7th, 1857; son of William and Alathea Augusta (Coles) Johnson ; married at Tuckerton, in 1878, to Sue Rockhill, daughter of Captain and Mrs. Z. Rockhill, of Tuckerton. 1
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A few weeks after his birth the family of Willis Fletcher Johnson re- moved to a large estate at New Providence where it has since been settled. `Dr. Johnson began his education at home under his father, a man of high attainments ; later attended the Ladd School at Summit, near his home, and also Pennington Seminary, where he was graduated with high honors. He was next. matriculated at New York University and remained there for some time, but, owing to impaired health, left before the completion of his course. In 1876 he was the Centennial Fourth of July orator at a great union celebration heid by a number of towns in Burlington and Ocean counties, and for a time thereafter was principal of a public school at Tuckerton.
Soon after his marriage to Miss Rockhill, who is a relative of the late Ambassador to Russia, William Woodville Rockhill, Dr. Johnson began work as a lecturer, and also as a journalist, his first writing having been done for the Toms River "Courier." In 1879 he was for a time city editor of the "New York Daily Witness," and early in 1880 he became a member of the editorial staff of the "New York Tribune," a connection which has ever since remained unbroken.
During the administration of President Arthur he became deeply in- terested in civil service reform, and has since been an earnest advocate of the merit system, and a frequent writer and speaker upon it. He has al- so concerned himself with civic affairs. He was one of the founders and first President of the Republican Club of New Providence township, and has frequently been a speaker in political campaigns.
He has written and published a number of books, chiefly biographical and historical. In 1903 he published "A Century of Expansion," which is recognized as the standard treatise on the territorial growth of the United States and its constitutional, diplomatic and political results. In 1904 Dr. Johnson accompanied Secretary Taft on a visit to Panama, and later published "Four Centuries of the Panama Canal," which has been repub- lished in other countries and is accepted as the authoritative history of the isthmian canal enterprise. In 1916 he published his magnum opus, "America's Foreign Relations ;" a two-volume history of the foreign rela- tions of the United States from the earliest times to the present, which has been generally accepted in America and Europe as the authoritative and standard work upon that subject. In 1917 appeared his "America and the Great War for Humanity."
For many years Dr. Johnson has been actively interested in educa- tional affairs. He was one of the organizers and President of the Board of Trustees of the Priscilla Braislin School for Girls, at Bordentown. For a number of years he was President of the Board of Trustees of Penning- ton Seminary, and is a member of the Council of New York University. For thirty years he has been a popular lecturer, delivering many occasional lectures and orations, as well as educational addresses at Pennington Semi- nary, the Lawrenceville School, the Priscilla Braislin School, the Borden- town Military Institute, and the public schools of Newark, Jersey City,
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Kays
Hoboken, Bayonne and other places in this State. He has also been in demand as a lecturer in New York, Washington and other cities, and at New York University, Wesleyan University, Dickinson College, Amherst College and elsewhere, and since 1903 has been one of the staff lecturers of the New York City Board of Education. In 1914 he was elected Honorary Professor of the History of Foreign Relations in New York University. In recognition of his literary and scholastic attainments, he has received from New York University the honorary degree of Master of Letters, (L. H. M.), and from Dickinson College the degrees of Master of Arts (M. A.) and Doctor of Humane Letters (L. H. D.).
Dr. Johnson has always been an earnest organization republican, and has frequently been invited to be a candidate for elective or appointive office, but invariably declined until the Spring of 1908, when, on May 8, he was appointed by Governor Fort a member of the State Civil Service Commission, which had just been created by act of Legislature. Upon the organization of the Commission he was elected its President, and he was retained in that position, by successive re-elections at the hands of his colleagues, during the four years of his service. He retired from the Com- mission in May, 1912.
Dr. Johnson is descended from a cousin of Samuel Johnson, the famous Lexicographer, and from the English families of May, Fletcher, Coles and Reeves, and the French family of Paschal. His books besides those already referred to include "Colonel Henry Ludington, a Memoir," "Parsifal and the Holy Grail," "An American Statesman, Life and Works of J. G. Blaine," "Life of General Sherman," "Stanley's Adventures in Africa," and "A Political and Governmental History of the State of New York," in five volumes, octavo, now in course of preparation.
Dr. Johnson is a member and lay preacher of the Methodist Episcopal church.
HENRY T. KAYS-Newton, (38 High St.)-Lawyer and Sen- ator. Born at Newton, N. J., Sept. 29th, 1878.
Mr. Kays, State Senator from Sussex County, was elected to that office last year over his Republican opponent.
Senator Kays attended the public schools of his home city, Newton, graduating in 1896. He entered the English and Classical school, gradu- ating in 1898, and thereupon entered Princeton University, in 1899. He was graduated from that institution in the spring of 1903.
He received his law training in the office of his father, Thomas M. Kays, and in February 1910 was admitted to the New Jersey bar. From May 1910 until June 1911 he served as counsel for the Sussex County Board of Freeholders, and two years later he was elected to the Assembly, which office he held for three years, and was elected to the State Senate in 1918.
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Kellam
During the Great War he was named Federal Food Administrator for Sussex County.
EDWARD QUINTON KEASBEY-Morristown .- Lawyer. Born at Salem, July 27th, 1849; son of Anthony Q. and Elizabeth (Mil- ler) Keasbey ; married on October 22, 1885, to Eliza G. Darcy, daughter of Henry G. and Anne Mckenzie Darcy, of Newark.
The father of Edward Q. Keasbey was for twenty-five years United States District Attorney for New Jersey ; and his mother was the daughter of Jacob W. Miller, who was United States Senator for New Jersey from 1841 to 1853.
Mr. Keasbey is a graduate of Princeton College and of the Harvard Law School. He was admitted to the Bar of New Jersey as attorney in June, 1872, and as counselor in June, 1875, and entered at once into active practice in Newark. He was associated with his father until the death of the elder Mr. Keasbey in 1895; and Edward Q. and George M. Keasbey are still carrying on the business of A. Q. Keasbey & Sons.
He served in the legislature of New Jersey in 1884 and 1SS5. He was a United States Commissioner and is a Supreme Court Commissioner and Special Master in Chancery. In 1904 he was a delegate to the Uni- versal Congress of Lawyers and Jurists held at St. Louis. He is a member of the American Bar Association, and in 1918-'19, President of the New Jersey State Bar Association. From 1879 to 1885 he was editor of the "New Jersey Law Journal," and he has contributed legal essays to the Harvard, Yale and Columbia law reviews. He is the author of a book entitled "The Law of Electric Wires in Streets and Highways," Callaghan & Co., 1892, 1900 and also of the first two volumes of "The Courts and Law- yers of New Jersey," Lewis Publishing Co., N. Y., 1912.
Mr. Keasbey is a Director of the North American Company, the Kearny Land Company, the Lake Superior Consolidated Iron Mines and other corporations, a Trustee of the Howard Savings Institution and of the Hospital of St. Barnabas in Newark and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Episcopal Fund of the Diocese of Newark.
His club connections are with the Essex of Newark, the Morris County Golf and the Morristown.
RALPH NEWTON KELLAM-Merchantville .- Lawyer and As- semblyman. Born at Philadelphia. Pa., Nov. 16th, 1878. -
Ralph Newton Kellam was educated in the public schools of Camden, and entered the Friends Central High School of Philadelphia. In 1900 he was graduated from the College Department of the University of Pennsyl- vania with the degree of Bachelor of Science, and three years later from the Law School of the University of Pennsylvania with the degree of Bachelor of Laws. The same year he was admitted to the bar of Pennsyl-
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King
vania and in 1906 to the New Jersey bar. He has since been practicing law, both in Camden and Philadelphia. He is solicitor of the County Building and Loan Association, the Westmont Building and Loan Asso- ciation, and is a director of the Economy Building and Loan Association. Since 1910 he has been a solicitor for the Board of Health of the Borough of Collingswood.
His interest in public and civic life began in 1905 when he was named a member of the Board of Education of Haddonfield which office he held for three years. He was a member of the Camden County, Republican Committee for the Borough of Merchantville in 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918. Assemblyman Kellam is now serving his third term in the Legis- lature, having been re-elected at the fall of 1918 elections with a plurality of 10,236 votes over Nicholson high Democrat.
His club memberships are : New Jersey Society, Sons of the Revolu- tion, Camden Lodge ; Lodge No. 293, B. P. O. E .; Merchantville Lodge No. 119, F. & A. M .; Silcam Chapter, No. 19, R. A. M .; Law Association of the City of Philadelphia; Law Academy of the City of Philadelphia; University Club of Philadelphia; Delta Kappa Epsilon Club of New York.
WARREN CHARLES KING-Bound Brook, (East Union Ave.) -Chemical Manufacturer. Born at Binghamton, N. Y., Dec. S, 1876; son of Charles Artemus and Mary Helen (Bevier) King; married at Atlanta, Ga., Oct. 4, 1899; to Jessie Calhoun Cald- well, daughter of Joseph B. and Alexine S. (Frossard) Caldwell, of Atlanta, Ga.
Children : Joseph Caldwell, born October 5, 1900, graduated from Lawrenceville June, 1918, entered Princeton University Sept., 1918, U. S. Military Academy, West Point, Nov. 2, 1918; Charles Arte- mus, born February 27, 1904; Kalbryn Virginia, born Sept. 6, 1907.
Warren Charles King is a descendant of the King family which early settled in Massachusetts and Connecticut.
His ancestor, James King, was granted a large tract of land in the vicinity of what is now known as Suffield, Conn., and who settled there in 1678. Mr. King's paternal ancestors all lived in and around Suffield, Conn., and some of the land is still owned by members of the king family.
His father, Charles Artemus King moved from Suffield to Binghamton, N. Y. about 1870. He entered the customs service in New York in 1857, and was Deputy Collector of Customs for more than twenty years.
Warren Charles King was educated in the public schools of Bing- hamton, N. Y. and Brooklyn, N. Y. He later studied at the Pratt Institute of Brooklyn, from which he was graduated in June, 1899. On Jan. 2, 1896 he entered the employ of Martin Kalbfleisch Chemical Company, and when the General Chemical Company was formed in April,
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Kirkpatrick
1899, he was placed in charge of the New York City and Export depart- ments.
While still with this concern, he organized in 1907 the Independent Chemical Company, of New York, to handle imported products. In 1913, he became the president and treasurer of the company, and severed his other business connections.
Mr. King has also organized a considerable number of other plants. In July, 1915, he started the King Chemical Company at Bound Brook, N. J., and became its president and treasurer. In 1916 he organized, and is- now the president and treasurer of, the Sterling Color Company of New York, and in September, 1916, began the Peerless Color Company at Bound Brook, and is now the treasurer of that firm.
But his list of organizing activities have not yet been fully recorded, for, in 1901 he started the Pratt Institute Chemical Alumni, and served as its first president for two years, and in 1916 he organized the Manu- facturers Association at Bound Brook; one year later the Bound Brook Committee of Public Safety, and again in 1918 he continued his work, and organized and is now serving as its first president the Manufacturers Council of New Jersey.
Through the last mentioned organization, Mr. King voices his op- position to the abrogation of contracts by the Public Service Corporation, and he opened a bureau at Washington, D. C., to place the facilities of Manufacturers of New Jersey at the disposal of the Government. In June 1918 he launched a movement to organize the manufacturers of the United States along the lines of the Federation of Labor, and at present, is a member of the Committee on Readjustments after the War of the National Association of Manufacturers.
Mr. King's memberships in fraternal and commercial organizations are, president of the Bound Brook Council Boy Scouts of America, chair- man of the Manufacturers Association and the Manufacturers Club of Bound Brook; member of the Executive Committee of the Red Cross Chapter ; Liberty Loan Committee; United War Work Campaign; Presi- dent of the Bound Brook Board of Trade; member of the War Service Committee of the Resource and Conversion section, War Industries Board, in Region No. 3 and Region No. 4; member of the sons of the American Revolution ; National Marine League, National Security League; Aerial League of America ; Travel Club of America; National Geographic So- ciety ; Academy of Political Science ; American Society for the Advancement of Science; Metropolitan Museum of Art; Society of Chemical Indus- try; American Chemical Society ; United States Chamber of Commerce; New Jersey State Chamber of Commerce; Railroad Club; The Meridian and Chemists clubs of New York; the Hamilton Club of Paterson; the Raritan Valley Country Club; Middlebrook Country Club; Automobile Club of America, and the International Motor Club.
His business address is 122 West Street, New York City.
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ANDREW KIRKPATRICK-Highland Park, (233 Lawrence Ave.)-Real Estate; Assemblyman. Born at New Brunswick, N. J., in 1SST.
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Kip
Andrew Kirkpatrick, was educated in the public schools of New Brunswick. Upon graduating he attended Coleman's National Business College at Newark.
His father was the late J. Bayard Kirkpatrick who conducted a real estate and insurance business. It was there that upon completion of his school work, young Kirkpatrick served his apprenticeship. Upon the death of his father, the business was incorporated under the name of J. B. Kirkpatrick Company, and he filled the position of secretary and treasurer.
Assemblyman Kirkpatrick is prominent in building and loan circles and has taken an active part in movements for the promotion of the war.
He was elected to the assembly in the fall. 1918 election.
IRA A. KIP, Jr .- South Orange .- Manufacturer. Born in Pas- saic, on April 22, 1876 ; married in 1893, to Katherine Flower.
Ira A. Kip, Jr., is one of the rising men in New Jersey politics and prominent as well in industrial circles. From 1907 to 1913 he was Gover- nor of the New York Stock Exchange; and he has been a delegate to the three Republican National Conventions and a Presidential Elector.
Mr. Kip was eighteen years of age when he began his business career in the office of H. H. Croker & Co., East India importers and brokers. He is now President of the Duratex Company on Frelinghuysen Avenue, Newark, and Vice President of the Salts Textile Co., Inc. The Textile company manufactures pile fabrics ; and it has factories in Europe as well as here. He became a member of the New York Stock Exchange in 1901 continuing the connection until 1913.
Mr. Kip first evinced his interest in politics by participating in the public affairs of South Orange. He was twice President of the Village. During his administration, he participated in the movement for a joint trunk sewer system, and largely improved the South Orange water service. The first of the National Conventions to which he was a delegate was that which at Chicago in 1904 nominated Theodore Roosevelt for the Presidency. He was one of the Electors who cast the vote of the state for William H. Taft for President in 1908. He served as a delegate from his Congres- sional district to the Chicago Convention of 1916 that nominated ex- Justice Charles E. Hughes, and was an ardent worker for the election of the Hughes ticket. In 1917 Gov. Edge appointed him a member of the State Highway Commission.
Mr. Kip was connected with the Seventh Regiment of New York City. Besides belonging to the Holland Society is a member, and for two years was President, of the Essex County Country Club, and is also a member of the Morris County Golf Club, the Calumet Club, the New York Yacht Club, the Thousand Islands Yacht Club and the Stock Exchange Luncheon Club.
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Leaming
Mr. Kip's home is Walnut Gate in the fashionable section of the Oranges, and he has a summer place, Leek Island, among the Thousand Islands, of the St. Lawrence River.
ANTHONY R. KUSER -- Bernardsville .- Member of State High- way Commission. Born at Newark N. J., May 12th, 1862.
When he was five years old, Mr. Kuser's parents moved to Trenton, where he spent his boyhood, and where he consequently received his early education. He attended the public schools of Trenton.
In 1889 he was appointed by Governor Leon Abbett, as a member of his personal staff, with the rank of Colonel, and later was also a mem- ber of the staffs of Governor Worts, and Governor Griggs. In 1892, upon his appointment by Governor Abbett, he began his four-years mem- bership of the State Board of Assessors.
At present, he is considerably interested in gas, electric and traction companies. He is a vice president and director of the Public Service Cor- poration of New Jersey. His activities are not confined to these however, for he is also connected with a number of banks and trust companies and is also a director in a number of them.
On March 14th, 1917, he was appointed by .Governor Edge as a mem- ber of the State Highway Commission.
MARK LAKE-Ocean City, (639 Central Ave.) .- Assemblyman. Born at Bargaintown, N. J., on Aug. 13, 1863.
Mark Lake was educated in the public schools. In April 1880 he came to Peek's Beach, Cape May County, which at that time was a wilder- ness, to lay out Ocean City. He has lived there ever since, and taken an active part in the public and civic activities of not only the city, but the entire county.
From 1898 to 1902 he served on the city council, one year as president of that body. He also served one year as acting Mayor of Ocean City. In 1908 he was elected Coroner of Cape May County, and in 1913 he was re-elected. He held that office until 1916 when he was elected to the State Assembly on the Republican ticket. He was re-elected in 1917 elections.
EDMUND B. LEAMING-Moorestown, (618 Chester Ave. )- Vice Chancellor. Born at Seaville, Cape May County, N. J., on May 24th, 1857, son of Jonathan F. and Eliza (Bennett) Leam- ing ; married at Brookline, Mass., on June 4, 1907 to Edith Hand. daughter of Dr. Daniel Whildin and Sue Edgerton Hand.
Children : Edmund B. Jr., born January 26, 1913.
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Levi
Edmund B. Leaming is the son of former Senator, Dr. Jonathan F. Leaming, who occupied a seat in the Senate from 1862 to 1865, and again from 1877 to 1880, and also the brother of the late Dr. Walter S. Leaming, who was Senator from Cape May, from 1889 to 1892.
Mr. Leaming received most of his early education under private tu- torage, but later in 1877 and 1878 attended the University of Pennsylvania as a post graduate.
Upon completion of his studies at this institution he began the reading of law in the offices of the late Judge and one time Congressman, Jas. Buchanan in Trenton. Among the notables who prepared them- selves for the bar in Trenton at the same time, were United States Judge William M. Lanning, Congressman Ira Wood, Prosecutor of the Pleas Eugene Emley, Alfred L. Black, Samuel W. Beldon, and Samuel Walk- er, Jr.
In February, 1881, Mr. Leaming was admitted to the New Jersey State Bar as an attorney, and in February, 1884, as a counselor.
He practiced in Camden, N. J., from 1881 to 1891; at Bellingham, Washington, from 1891 to 1896, and at San Francisco, Cal., from 1896 to 1903, when he returned to New Jersey. On his return in 1903 he formed a law partnership in Camden with Samuel W. Beldon. When that firm was dissolved upon the appointment of Mr. Beldon as general counsel of the Fidelity Trust Company, at Newark, N. J., Mr. Leaming practiced alone.
On September 21, 1906, he was appointed Vice Chancellor to fill the va- cancy caused by the death of Martin P. Grey. In 1913, he was re-appointed for another term which expires in 1920, by Chancellor Walker.
Mr. Leaming is a member of the Union League of Philadelphia.
His office address is Camden Court House Building, Camden. New Jersey.
LEWIS LEVI-Paterson, (70 Carroll St.)-President Manhat- tan Shirt Co. Born at Brucken, Germany, July 11, 1844, son of Abraham and Rebecca (Mayer) Levi, married at Paterson, N. J., April 4th, 1869, to Bertha Ellenbogen, daughter of Samuel and Elizabeth (Lowenstein) Ellenbogen.
Children : Abram L. Leeds, Jan. 14th, 1870; Juleo C. Leeds. Dec. 1, 1871; Elsie ( Mrs. Jacob Samuels) April 13, 1875; Lillian (Mrs. Charles M. Weil) Aug. 20th, 1879; Thelka (Mrs. Albert J. Sperry) Dec. 18, 1883.
Coming to New York from Brucken in 1857, at the age of thirteen, Lewis Levi, immediately started in business with his oldest brother, Jacob Levi, who had already established a small business of manufacturing shirts and overalls.
Mr. Levi's education as his start in life was secured after a struggle. He attended the public schools at Brucken. Germany, but was com- pelled to leave at the age of thirteen to assist in his brother's busi- ness.
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Lincoln
After ten years residence in New York City, in 1867, Mr. Levi came to Paterson and established a shirt manufacturing business. At that time the concern employed only 100 persons, but to-day has 3,000 on its pay rolls, with branches in Passaic, N. J., Kingston, N. Y., Albany, N. Y., Fort Edward, N. Y. Greenwich N. Y .. Salem, N. Y., Poultney, Vt., and Paw- tucket, R. I. All of Mr. Levi's sons are assisting him.
During the latter part of his life, Mr. Levi has been doing a great deal of charity work in giving to various institutions regardless of reli- gious denomination.
At present he is a director of the Paterson Safe Deposit and Trust Company of Paterson, N. J.
His club memberships are, Arcola Country Club, North Jersey Coun- try Club, Hamilton Club of Paterson, and the Hallywood Golf Club.
Mr. Levi's business address is 195-237 River Street, Paterson. N. J.
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