USA > New Jersey > Passaic County > Passaic > The Passaic valley, New Jersey, in three centuries.. Vol. 2 > Part 15
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37
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BIOGRAPHICAL
Mr. Meeker was not ambitious politically. He had no taste in that direction, and so when urged several times to accept the nomination for Mayor of Newark he declined. His tastes ran in other channels, and he delighted to serve his fellow citizens in positions where he knew he contd do so with benefit to those interested and with credit to him- self. He was a business man, familiar with financial prob- lems, possessed of great prudence and sagacity, a profound insight into human nature, and with an uncommon ability to judge men. The community soon learned his capabilties, and gave him full employment in his favorite pursuits.
Hle was made President of the State Bank in Newark in 1854, and continued to hold that position until his death. During a part of the time he was President and afterward Vice-President of the Newark Savings Institution, having resigned its presidency. He was also President of the New- ark Gas Company for many years before his death, and President of the Passaic and Hackensack Bridge Company. lle also became interested in the Newark Library Associa- tion, and for many years served in its Board of Managers. He was strongly attached to the worship of the Episcopal Church, and when he first came to Newark he identified himself with Trinity Church, was soon selected to serve as a member of the Vestry, and was for many years a Warden and Treasurer of the church. He was a Republican in poli- ties, and during the Civil War strongly supported the gov- ernment in its attempt to restore the Union. He died at Pisa, Italy, July 15, 1864, while on a trip abroad. He mar- ried thrice. His first wife and the mother of his children was a Miss Harbeck. His second wife was Miss Thomas, and his third a Miss Parsons, whom he married late in life. He had several sons and one daughter. One of his sons, John Harbeck Mecker, was a graduate of Yale College, class of [842. He was a practicing lawyer in Newark and Judge of the Court of Common Pleas. He died at his home in South Orange, January 20, 1889, in his sixty-sixth year. Another son, Charles H1. Meeker, became a physician, and another, Samuel A. Mecker, a business man. His daughter married Oliver Spencer Halstead, Jr., one of the sons of Chancellor Oliver Spencer Halstead.
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The family is represented to-day in New Jersey by Dr. Charles H. Meeker, of Rahway, N. J., the only surviving child of Samuel Meeker; by Samuel Meeker, of East Orange, and John Harbeck Meeker, a practicing lawyer in Newark, both sons of Judge John Harbeck Meeker; and by Frederick Wood Meeker, a son of Samuel Augustus Meeker, who lives in New York.
HENRY RICHARD LINDERMAN, of Newark, was born in Philadelphia, Pa., September 8, 1858, being the only son of Hon. Henry R. Linderman, M.D., Director of the United States Mints, and Emily H. D. Linderman, and a grandson of Dr. John Jordan Linderman, one of the best known phy- sicians of Northeastern Pennsylvania, for nearly fifty years a practitioner of medicine in Pike County, Pa., and Sussex County, N. J., and Rachel Brodhead Linderman, a sister of the late Hon. Richard Brodhead, United States Senator from Pennsylvania before the Civil War. The elder Dr. Linderman was a student at the College of Physicians and Sur- geons, New York, under the famous Valentine Mott and the elder Dr. Ilosack, and removed to Pennsylvania in 1816. He was born in Orange County, New York, in the house built by his grandfather, Jacob Lin- derman, or von Linder- man, when the latter HENRY R. LINDERMAN. came to this country in 1710, having fled from Saxony to England on account of religious persecution and coming from England here. He was a large landowner, an
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Eider in the Presbyterian Church, and a man of prominence in Orange County. The house he built and a large por- tion of his land are still in possession of his descendants. Dr. John J. Linderman's brothers were both lawyers of prominence, the elder, Willett Linderman, having been Dis- triet Attorney of Ulster County, New York, from 1837 for several years, and a younger brother, JJames Oliver Linder- man, being one of the youngest judges in the State, having been County Judge of Uster County from 1844, when he was thirty-four years old, until his death in 1856. Judge Linderman was also for several years a law partner of Gen- eral George H. Sharpe, the former Treasurer of New York State, and one of his sons, Henry Willett Linderman, a cap- tain of cavalry, served on General Sharpe's staff in the Civil War.
A near kinsman of the first American Linderman was Frederick Linderman, who served throughout the Revolu- tion as a Sergeant in the German regiment of the Conti- mental Line of Pennsylvania. The Linderman family is de- scended from a brother of Margaretta Linderman, the wife of Hans Luther and mother of Martin Luther, the great re- former, and reached distinction in Germany in the law and medicine, several of its members having been counsellors and physicians to the electors of Saxony in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Mr. Linderman's grandmother was a member of the well known Brodhead family, sister of United States Senator Richard Brodhead ; a daughter of Judge Richard Brodhead, of Pike County, Pa .; a granddaughter of Garrett Brod- head, who served through the Revolution in the New Jersey State troops as a Sergeant ; a grandniece of Lake Brodhead, Captain in the Sixth Pennsylvania Regiment, Continental Line, who retired after the battle of the Brandywine on ac- count of a severe wound, from which he suffered until his death; and a grandniece of Daniel Brodhead, Colonel of the Eighth Pennsylvania Regiment, Continental Line, Brevet Brigadier-General, commandant of the Western Military Department from 1778 to 1781, thanked by Congress, mem- ber of the Society of the Cincinnati, and for eleven years after the Revolution Surveyor-General of Pennsylvania.
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General Daniel Brodhead's son, Daniel, Jr., was a Lieuten- ant in Shay's Battalion of Pennsylvania Continental troops. The Brodhead family descends from Captain Daniel Brod- head, of Charles II.'s grenadiers, who accompanied Colonel Nicholls's expedition which captured New Amsterdam from the Dutch in 1664, and who remained and settled in the province after it became a British possession. He was a great-nephew of John Brodhead, of Monk Britton in York- shire, whose line terminated in England in 1847 in the per- son of Sir Henry T. L. Brodhead, Bart.
Mr. Linderman's father, the late Dr. Henry R. Linderman, studied medicine under the eminent Dr. Willard Parker, of New York, who was his personal preceptor, and at the Col- lege of Physicians and Surgeons. He was a successful phy- sician, beginning practice when he was barely twenty-one, but gave it up on account of his health when about thirty- one or thirty-two, at which time he entered the United States Mint at Philadelphia as chief clerk. After remain- ing in that position for several years he resigned to engage in the banking and brokerage business in Philadelphia. In 1867 he was appointed Director of the Mint, which position he resigned in 1869. In 1870 he was one of the commission- ers for erecting the new mint (one of the largest in the world) and government refinery in San Francisco. In 1871 he was a commissioner to Europe to investigate and report on the different mints and coinage systems of Great Britain and the Continental nations, with a view to adopting what- ever might be advantageous to the United States mint ser- vice. Upon his return he wrote the Coinage Act of 1873, after long consultation with officers of the mints, assay offices, and Treasury Department, and secured its passage through both houses of Congress. The trade dollar and the demonetization of the old silver dollar were distinctly the individual ideas of Dr. Linderman. He sought a mar- ket in Oriental countries for our large output of silver and discontinued its coinage here, giving this country in law what had long existed in fact, the single gold standard. He was appointed the first Director of the Mints under the act of 1873, and under his hands the re-organization of the mints, assay offices, and coinage service gave the govern-
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ment the mint service practically as it is now conducted. For the first time since the Civil War the New Orleans Mint was opened during Dr. Linderman's administration and on his recommendation. In addition to his duties as Director of the Mints he served ( without compensation), in 1877, as a commissioner, with power to appoint two colleagues, to in- vestigate the mint, custom house, and other Federal offices in San Francisco. He appointed ex-Governor and ex-United States Senator Low, of California, and Henry Dodge, a leading merchant of San Francisco, and this commission sat through the summer of 1877. Dr. Linderman's self-sacri- ficing work that year is thought to have hastoned the illness from which he died two years later. He was also the au- thor of the act of March, 1874, establishing the present form of computing foreign exchange instead of the old and com- plicated system. In 1877 he wrote and Putnam published " Money and Legal Tender in the United States." As a financial authority, and as the honored Director of the United States Mints, no man stood higher in this country; he was widely known, not only in the United States, but abroad, as an anthority upon coinage and finance by all those competent to understand his work. During his life several of his official reports were used as reference text books at some of the technical schools connected with our larger universities, and when the Japanese government built their mint they offered him $50,000 to go to JJapan for one year and organize their new service, an offer which he declined.
Of a patriotic Colonial and Revolutionary ancestry, Dr. Linderman was an able American of the highest type. Having achieved a comfortable fortune in early mid- dle life, his private interests suffered from his devotion to the public service, and he died in moderate circumstances at his home in Washington in 1879.
Henry R. Linderman's mother was a daughter of George Ilver Davis, of Lancaster County. Pa., who was one of the early coal operators of the Carbon County district, and a member of the Coleman and Bull families, both prominent in the Revolution in Lancaster County. She was a grand- daughter of Samuel Philip Holland, of Wilkesbarre, an
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Englishman of large means, who invested extensively in coal lands, and who was the first president of the old Penn- sylvania Coal Company.
Henry R. Linderman was educated at private schools, prepared for college at the Episcopal school of St. Clement's, Ellicott City, Md., entered Lehigh University in 1876, and finished a three years' special course in literature in 1879. Hle studied law under Hon. John B. Storm, member of Con- gress, at Stroudsburg, Pa., and practiced first with the Dis- trict Attorney of Monroe County, Pa., and then with Hon. John Lynch at Wilkesbarre, Pa., who was later a member of Congress and Judge of the Court of Common Pleas. IIe was admitted to the bar in 1883, and to the bar of the Su- preme Court of Pennsylvania in 1885. He has been en- gaged in the insurance business for ten years. He removed to Newark, N. J., in 1894, to take charge of the interests of the Washington Life Insurance Company of New York, and as General Agent for New Jersey has charge of their ex- tensive business in this State.
Mr. Linderman is a member of the Episcopal Church and has been active in its affairs, having served three terms as vestryman of his parish, as a delegate to the Diocesan Con- vention four times, and as Registrar of the Diocese of New- ark from 1897 to 1899. 1Ie is a member of the Pennsylvania Society of the Sons of the Revolution, a member of Zeta Psi fraternity, and a member of the Newark Board of Trade.
In 1899 he married Mrs. Harriet S. Wright, daughter of the late Cornelius J. Sprague, of Brooklyn, and a grand- daughter of Roswell Sprague ( whose wife was Mehitable Hobart), an eminent merchant of New York and Charleston, S. C., who amassed a fortune in the cotton trade. Ile was one of the organizers of the Consolidated Gas Company of New York, and was a prominent figure in all the public movements of that city a generation ago.
JAMES E. FLEMING, of Newark, N. J., was born in Warren, Trumbull County, Ohio, July 24, 1836. His parents were Algernon Sidney Fleming, born August 17, 1807, and Julia A. (Karskaddon) Fleming, daughter of James Kars-
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kaddon, Esq., a connection of the well known family of shipping merchants of Londonderry, Ireland.
The families of Fleming and Smith were united by mar- riage in the year 1640 through the union of David, the see- ond Earl of Wemys, to Lady Eleanor Fleming, daughter of John, sec- ond Earl of Wigton, of Scotland. The early members of the Flem- ing family espoused the faith of the Scotch Presbyterian Church, while the Smith family wort Episcopalians. Hon. John Fleming was appointed an Associate Justice in 1798 by Gov- ernor Mittlin, of Penn- sylvania. He was a na- tive of Chester County, Pa., and was born in 1760 near London Cross Roads, Pa., his father JAMES E. FLEMING. being a descendant of the Earl of Wigton, Scotland, who, about the year 1760, purchased a tract of land of Dr. Francis Allison, on which tract is the borough of Lock Haven and part of the town of Flemington, now in the County of Clinton, Pa. JJohn Fleming died in February, 1817. His wife was Sarah Chat- ham, a daughter of Colonel Chatham, who owned a large estate at Chatham's Run and was active and prominent in the Indian War of 1777-78. Mrs. Fleming was born in the (ity of Dublin in 1763, and came to this country an infant. She died in 1824. They had six sons and three daughters. General Robert Fleming, of Lycoming County, Pa., held prominent positions under the government, among which were those of Senator and member of the convention which recommended and adopted the present constitution of Penn- sylvania.
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Algernon Sidney Fleming, the father of Colonel James E. Fleming, was at one time High Sheriff of Clinton County, Pa., an office in which his fourth son, John Wister Fleming, succeeded him at the age of twenty-two.
Colonel James E. Fleming spent his boyhood in Illinois and Kentucky with his father, who had business interests in those States. Returning to Pennsylvania, he for some time received instruction under the care of Mr. Charles Berkley, an English gentleman of education. Hle was then sent to Philadelphia for the purpose of obtaining a knowl- edge of business. In that city he began the study of law in the office of S. Moore Du Bois, Esq., and he was thus en- gaged when the Civil War broke out. Ile at once volun- teered, and through the assistance of his family organized a company of cavalry, which he took to Washington. There an effort was made to force his company into a regiment of New York cavalry. The attempt was frustrated by young Fleming's prompt decision to fight his way out if not al- lowed to go in peace, declaring that his organization had volunteered from Pennsylvania and would not sacrifice its State pride to fill the quota from New York. He was offered a captaincy if he would remain without his men, but de- clined to do so.
Ile served in Harlan's celebrated Eleventh Pennsylvania Cavalry, receiving promotion to the grades of First Lieu- tenant and Captain. He was wounded and taken prisoner May 30, 1862, and was a prisoner of war at Salisbury, N. C., and in Libby Prison. He escaped, and, having been subse- quently exchanged, was ordered on staff duty, serving on the staffs of General Alford Gibbs and Brigadier-Generals Terry and I. J. Wister. Te acted on the staff of the latter during the celebrated expedition to capture Jefferson Davis by a bold dash into the City of Richmond. He was also on the staffs of General William F. (" Baldy ") Smith and O. E. C. Ord. He was wounded at Black Water Bridge, Va., at Longstreet's siege of Suffolk, at Cemetery Hill, and in front of Petersburg, Va. Hle resigned from the service, on account of wounds, on the 13th of February, 1865. Just at the close of the war he was asked by Governor Curtin, of Pennsylvania, to take the position of Lieutenant-Colonel
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and Assistant Inspector-General, but before being mustered in the war closed.
In Inly, 1865, Colonel Fleming engaged in the shipping business at New Berne, N. C. He subsequently purchased a plantation and became active on the conservative side of polities, tilling the military appointment of Sheriff of Craven County, N. C., under General Daniel E. Sickles. While the incumbent of this office he cleared the county of highwaymen, receiving the co-operation in this work of a, body of ex-Confederate soldiers which he had organized. Ile captured and brought to execution the notorious out- laws, Louis Albrition, Wash Hicks, and George Davis, who had murdered Colonel Neathercutt and others. His ad- ministration met with cordial approval. He retired from the office under the Reconstruction Acts.
In 1872 Colonel Fleming returned North, and in the fol- lowing year be accepted a position with the Wilkesbarre Coal and Iron Company. He organized a branch of this company's business in Newark, N. J., in 1873, and has since been its responsible manager in thai city.
He is one of the well known and influential citizens of Newark. He has held the offices of Frecholder and member of the City Council. During the Presidential campaign of 1880 he was a member of the State Committee of Veterans in the interests of General Hancock's candidacy. He organ- ized and commanded the Essex Troop of Light Cavalry, which military crities at the Columbian parade in October, 1892, said was the finest troop of cavalry over seen in America. He is a member of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion, of the Army and Navy Club, and of the Essex Club of Newark, and a member and one of the Governors of the Essex County Country Club.
Colonel Fleming was married, April 28, 1859, to Isabella Penn Smith, eldest daughter of the late Richard Penn Smith, of Philadelphia. Mrs. Fleming is a lady of brilliant intellectual gifts. She is a great-granddaughter of Dr. William Smith, founder of the University of Pennsylvania. Colonel and Mrs. Fleming have had six children, of whom one, Mary Louis Smith Fleming, survives.
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JASPER RAYMOND RAND, for many years an honored citizen of Montelair, N. J., was born in Westfield, Mass., October 17, 1837, and died in Montelair on the 18th of July, 1900. He was a lineal descendant in the eighth generation of Robert Rand, who came to this country with his wife, Alice Sharpe, and several children, in 1635, and settled in Charlestown, Mass. Their eldest son, Robert Rand, Jr., a farmer, died in Lynn, Mass., November 8, 1694. By his wife, Elizabeth, he
had six children, of whom Zechariah married, in 1684,
Ann Ivory. Daniel
Rand, eldest son and
child of Zechariah, was born about
1686, moved to
Shrewsbury, Mass.,
in 1718, and married,
January 18, 1720,
Mary, daughter of
Major John and
Mary (Eames) Keyes,
granddaughter of
Elias and Sarah
( Blanford) Keyes,
and a great-grand-
daughter of Robert
and Sarah Keyes, of Watertown, Mass.,
1633. Solomon Rand,
son of Daniel and Mary ( Keyes) Rand,
was born March 13,
JASPER R. RAND.
1723, married September 15, 1741, Deborah, daughter of Jabez Dodge, and died in July, 1801. Their son, Jasper Rand, born March 10, 1760, died in April, 1838, was a private in Colonel Job Cushing's regi- ment, Captain Ebenezer Ingoldsby's company, in 1777, and received a pension. He married, first, April 30, 1783,
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BIOGRAPHICAL
Rachel, daughter of Joseph and Mary ( Knowlion) Knowl- ton, who was born March 15, 1765, and died March 7, 1802. He married, second, May 15, 1803, Sarah, daughter of dona- than and Hepzibah ( Baker) Adams. By his first wife Solo- mon Rand had eight children, of whom Jasper Raymond Rand, the youngest, was born June 6, 1801, at Shrewsbury, Mass,, and when a young man moved to Springfield and thence to Westfield, in the same State, where he died Feb- ruary 15, 1869. He owned large farms and for thirty-two years was a manufacturer of whips. He was Postmaster of Westfield under President Lincoln, a member of the State Legislature for two years about 1858, and a leader of the Whig party and in town affairs. He also secured the appro- priation for the State Normal School. September 5, 1823, he married Lucy Whipple, born May 26, 1805, died January 30, 1868, daughter of Joshua and Huldah ( Cooley) Whipple, granddaughter of Joshua Whipple, Sr., a soldier in the Revolutionary War, and a great-granddaughter of Symonds Whipple and Elizabeth Mason. She was also a descendant of Major John Mason, Deputy Governor of Connecticut and a founder of the towns of Windsor, Saybrook, and Norwich, and of Deputy Governor Samuel Symonds, of the Massa- chusetts Bay Colony.
The children of Jasper Raymond Rand, Sr., and Eney Whipple were George Waterman, born March 14, 1825; Albert Tyler, born January 30, 1827; Lney Cornelia, born March 26, 1830; Jasper Raymond, born April 3, 1832, died in infancy; Ellen Ahuira, born December 7, 1834; Jasper Raymond, the subject of this sketch; and Addison Critten- den, born September 17, 1841.
Jasper R. Rand was educated at Middleboro Academy, at Fairfax, Vt., and at Westfield Academy, at that time one of the famous educational institutions of the Eastern States. Subsequently he studied law for nearly a year in the office of Judge Winchester, at Springfield, Mass. But preferring a business career to the legal profession, he joined his father in the manufacture of whips at a time when West- field, his native town, controlled the whip manufacturing industry of this country and sent many shipments abroad. When the father retired the son carried on the manufactur-
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THE PASSAIC VALLEY
ing industry at home and also conducted the affairs of its office in New York City.
In 1870, when the late Addison C. Rand, well known in Montclair, began the manufacture of drills, air compressors, and other mining machinery, Jasper R. Rand became an associate in that business. The firm prospered and engaged also in the manufacture of a high explosive known as Rac-a- rock. This was used with great effect in the removal of the rocks in Hell Gate. and of submerged obstacles to naviga- tion in other waters. The Rand Drill Company and its interests have grown to immense proportions since then and its agencies are to be found in every quarter of the globe. Nearly all of its employees have shared in the prosperity of the firm, for the proprietors were as just and appreciative toward them as they were in all their business transactions generally. As proof of the reciprocal spirit that governed the firm's affairs and the close attachment that has been maintained between employer and employe it is worthy of note that the greater number of the men engaged in the New York office have been with the company for more than twenty years, each loyally and devotedly guarding the in- terests entrusted to him. Addison Rand was President of the company when he died, and Jasper R. Rand succeeded him in that capacity. The two brothers were unusually de- voted to each other; they were almost inseparable, and what was of the least concern to either was of equal im- portance to the other.
Mr. Rand moved to Montelair in 1873 and bought a part of a farm, which he converted into the beautiful home whose hospitalities so many have enjoyed. He and his family were members of the Congregational Church, and for fifteen years he was an efficient member of its Board of Trustees. Mr. Rand was personally very popular, and his counsel was sought whenever any important problem was to be solved. His kindly, genial nature drew men toward him. No worthy object appealed to him in vain. He was a careful speaker and a deep thinker, and had the gift of analyzing and discerning the trend of things in an unusual degree. No public spirited movement was under- taken while he was a resident of Montelair without his
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BIOGRAPHICAL
hearty co-operation. Recognizing his value as a citizen, the people elected him a member of the Township Commit- tee in 1880 and again in 1881. In 1887 they elected him a Chosen Freeholder for a two years' term, and further public honors were offered to him. In polities he was a steadfast and loyal Republican.
Mr. Rand was the first and only President of the Bank of Montelair, an incorporator and Director of the Montelair Water Company, and President and incorporator of the Montelair Club. He was also a Master Mason and a mem- ber of the New England Society, the Hardware Club, the Engineers' Club of New York, and the American Institute of Mining Engineers. He married, October 11, 1860, Annie Margaret, daughter of Peter and Mary ( Osborn) Valentine, and had five children: Florence Osgood, Albert Holland, Josephine Freeman, Annie Grace, and Jasper Raymond.
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