USA > New Jersey > The biographical encyclopaedia of New Jersey of the nineteenth century > Part 102
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essays and articles to the current magazines and journals of his day. He died, February 11th, 1836.
ANNERS, HON. JOHN, M. D., Physician, Law- yer and State Senator, late of Clinton, son of John and Rachel Manners, was born in Hunter- don county, New Jersey, April 8th, 1786. Having received his preliminary education-including, probably, a full course in the College of New Jersey-he entered the medical department of the Univer- sity of Pennsylvania, and from that institution received, in 1812, his degree of M. D. While prosecuting his profes- sional studies at -the university he was also an office student with Drs. Benjamin Rush and Thomas Cooper, the latter of whom became in due course of time his father-in-law, and with the former of whom he maintained for many years a more or less close friendship. Shortly after his gradua- tion he applied to the New Jersey Board of Censors for permission to practise in the State; was examined, passed and licensed. He at first established himself at Fleming- ton ; subsequently removed to a handsome country-seat (to which he gave the name of Belvoir), near Clinton, and finally settled in the town of Clinton. He became a mem- ber of the Hunterdon County Medical Society on the revival of that organization, in 1836, but as the society immediately fell to pieces again, and was not permanently revived until 1846, he lost interest in it, and during the few years pre- vious to his death that it was in active operation he was but an irregular attendant at its meetings. He married, August 2d, 1810, Eliza, daughter of Dr. Thomas Cooper, of South Carolina, a connection that brought him into intimate rela- tions with many eminent Southerners, and led to a devel- opment on his part of a very sincere respect and admiration for southern character and customs. The latter to a certain extent he introduced at Belvoir, patterning that establish- ment, as nearly as circumstances would permit, upon the model of a southern homestead. He was an earnest be- liever in blooded stock, and his horses were the best bred in all the country side; and the same was true of his cows, pigs and chickens. After practising medicine for some years he determined upon entering the legal profession also; and to this end read law in the office of James M. Porter, of Easton, Pennsylvania. After the usual course he was examined and admitted to the har. Although qualified to practise at the bar of both the State and United States courts, he does not seem to have been very largely em- ployed in either, and it is prohable that he studied law mainly with the view of making it a stepping-stone to politi- cal preferment. For three years previous to his death he represented Hunterdon county in the State Senate, being during the last year of his term President of that body. That he would have risen to greater prominence in public life, had he lived, is extremely probable, for he is repre-
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sented as having displayed while in office more than ordi- nary legislative ability. He died, June 24th, 1853. By his will, he ordered that his body should he buried in the cemetery at Trenton, and that over his grave should be erected, " of the best Italian marble," a monument bearing this inscription : " Erected to the memory of Hon. John Manners, Esq., A. M., M. D., and Counsellor at Law of the Supreme Court, United States of America. The Friend and Medical Pupil of Benjamin Rush, M. D., LL. D., Phil- adelphia. The Friend, the Pupil and the Son-in-law of Thomas Cooper, M. D., LL. D., etc., of South Carolina; and the Friend and Correspondent of Thomas Jefferson, LL. D., of Virginia, formerly President of the United States."
IERSON, CLARK, Journalist, of Lambertville, was born in Lambertville, New Jersey, July 13th, 1836. He was educated at the private school of Mr. Parson, which he attended until he was twelve or thirteen years of age, when he entered the printing office of the Lambertville Telegraph, in which he remained for several years, passing through all the grades of the craft, and ending with the superintendence of the joh work, an excellent course of training for one dcs- tined to he a journalist. He did not, however, immediately take his seat on the tripod, but first added another chapter to his preliminary experience, becoming in 1856 a clerk in the office of the Belvidere Delaware Railroad, where he remained until 1858. In the latter year he bought the Beacon newspaper (formerly the Telegraph), editing and publishing it till 1869, and then disposing of it. But he made this disposition with no thought of retiring from the newspaper business, his eleven years' experience in which had not dulled his partiality for it, or failed, as may well be imagined, to perfect his mastery of it, particularly as those eleven years included the period of the civil war, during which American journalism, in all its branches, underwent an improvement so rapid and vast that it may be said to have been born anew. On the contrary, the sale of the Beacon establishment was but a step in his journalistic career-a step that he followed up hy a stride in 1872, when he founded the Lambertville Record, which at once. took a prominent place among the journals of New Jersey, and of which he is still the proprietor and editor. In politics he is a Republican, as he has heen since the out- break of the civil war, previously to which he was a Demo- crat of the Douglas school; but as a journalist he is accus- tomed to follow his own convictions, which enlist his pen and the influence of his paper in the service of every praise- worthy reform, whether set down in the party platform or not. He is especially identified with the cause of temper- ance, of which he has proved himself an effective advocate, his strictures on the Lambertville Common Council, for in-
stance, the majority of whose members he deemed to have sacrificed the welfare of the people to the interests of the rumsellers, telling with such effect that at the next election the faithless members were all defeated and their places filled by temperance councilmen, no license to sell liquor being granted for the three succeeding years. He is also a devoted friend of education, and in 1861 his fellow-citizens gave him an opportunity to make his devotion fruitful by electing him Superintendent of the Public Schools of Lam- bertville, an opportunity which, it need not be said, he turned to good account. He was the first President of the Young Men's Christian Association of Lambertville, in the organization of which he bore a leading part. To religion, temperance and education, in the cause of each of which he is an efficient worker, he adds philanthropy, being, to cite no further evidence, a Free Mason, belonging to the Lam- bertville Lodge and Chapter. In 1876 he was the Repub- lican candidate, in the First Legislative District of Hunter- don, for the State Assembly; but, the district being largely Democratic, he was defeated. His standing in his own immediate community was shown in 1877 by his trium- phant choice as Postmaster of Lambertville, the appoint- ment having been left to a vote of the people. But the character in which he is best known and most influential is that of conductor of the Lambertville Record. As a jour- nalist he is an acknowledged power in his section of the State.
COTT, COLONEL WARREN, Lawyer, was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, toward the close of the last century, and graduated from Princeton College. He subsequently studied medicine for a short time with his father, and also paid some attention to theology, " a science congenial to his intellect and early education." On one occasion he at- tended court in New York, and became greatly interested in the able argument of one of the lawyers, and this was the incentive that led him to adopt the law as his profes- sion. He was admitted an attorney of the Supreme Court of New Jersey at the February term, 1801, and as a coun- sellor in February, 1804. In February, 1816, he was called to the position of serjeant-at-law. In criminal cases he showed great power and almost resistless eloquence. He argued his last case at the age of eighty, and spoke for several hours with very little apparent weariness, consider- ing his years. Hon. Hamilton Fish, Secretary of State of the United States, on hearing of his death, writes: " Genial and bright in intellect and wit, fourscore and ten years had not, when last I met him, quenched the ardor of his warm and impulsive nature; and I shall ever remember. Colonel Warren Scott as one of the most attractive talkers and agreeable companions whom it has been my fortune to meet." He died, April 27th, 1871.
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ICIIOLS, ISAAC A., M. D., of Newark, was born ! and now he would be obliged to rely upon his profession." in that city on the 24th of February, 1828. Hav- The opinion thus expressed proved to be entirely correct. He rapidly took rank as a reliable counsellor and an able advocate, so that, during the last twenty years of his life, he stood, if not at the head of the profession in the northern part of the State, yet among those relied upon in all impor- tant cases. In the years 1833-1834 he was a member of the Assembly ; and in 1848, after the adoption of the new Constitution, was chosen a member of the State Senate for three years. "Of unimpeached integrity, and thoroughly imbued with the eonservative spirit of the old school poli- ticians, he exercised a salutary influence in legislation, and was active in promoting the success of the Whig party." -Hon. L. Q. C. Elmer. He was a leading member of the delegates from New Jersey to the Whig Convention of 1840, and united with them in voting for General Scott, "without even consulting Mr. Southard, upon whom Henry Clay laid the blame of their not voting for him, as he expected." Although he did not favor the selection of General Har- rison as the Whig candidate for the Presidency, he cor- dially supported him at the election, and aided materially in securing for him the vote of New Jersey. He died in the spring of 1860. ing received an ample preparatory education, he de- cided upon adopting medicine as his profession, and in accordance with this determination matric- ulated at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York. After duly attending lectures, he was grad- uated thence, with distinction, in 1850; received his degree of M. D., and in the same year entered upon the practice of his profession in his native city. From the outset of his career, both as a physician and surgeon, he was successful, and he has now been for many years one of the leading medical men of Newark. In 1858 his standing was such that he was appointed City Physician, a position that he has since, during a. period of nineteen years, continued to hold. As a surgeon, his reputation is quite exceptional, his prac- tice in this branch of his profession being so skilful as to lead to his appointment as surgeon to Saint Michael's Hos- pital, Newark, and also as surgeon to the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. In his profession, among his brother physicians, his standing is of the highest; a fact evidenced by his election in 1873 to the Presidency of the Essex County Medical Society. Of the Newark Medical Associa- tion, and of the New Jersey Academy of Medicine, he is also a distinguished member, taking a prominent part in the discussion of all important matters, and being a member of the leading committees of both organizations. He was married in 1854.
HITEHEAD, IION. ASA, Lawyer, late of New- ark, New Jersey, was born in Essex county, New Jersey, and was the son of Hon. Silas White- head, who was appointed, in 1817, Clerk of the county of Essex. He was licensed as an attor- ney in 1818; as a counsellor in 1821; and was one of those called to the degree of serjeant-at-law in 1837, after which time that degree ceased to be conferred. He was subsequently commissioned by the Governor to fill the position of Clerk of the county of Essex, made vacant by the death of his father ; and, at the meeting of the Legisla- ture in 1819, was regularly appointed to the office. Being reappointed in 1824, he occupied that station for a period of ten years. Connected with the Pennington family by marriage, his politics were like theirs, Democratic, until the eontest between Adams and Jackson, after which he became a Whig, and continued an active and influential supporter of this party as long as it existed. His term of office as Clerk expiring in 1819, when the Jackson party was largely in the majority, and political feeling running very high, he failed to be re-elected at the moment, " very mach to his regret." Chief-Justice Ewing remarked at the time, however, that " it would prove a great benefit to him, for the reason that although he did not seem himself to be aware of it, he had the ability to make a first-class lawyer, her bishops, if they had opportunity.' The many letters of
ALBOT, RIGIIT REV. JOHN, M. A., Founder and first Rector of Saint Mary's Church, Bur- lington, New Jersey, and the first Bishop in America. The earliest information at hand concerning this noteworthy clergyman is, that he was once Rector of Freethern, in the county of Gloucester, England, and then chaplain on the ship "Cen- turion," which sailed from the Isle of Wight, April 28th, 1702, bringing to America the first missionaries from the Society of the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts- George Keith and Patrick Gordon. All that follows is quoted from a sermon preached at the Ninety-third Annual Convention of the Diocese of New Jersey, in Saint Michael's Church, Trenton, May 30th, 1876, by the Rev. George Morgan Hills, D. D., Rector of Saint Mary's Church, Bur- lington, New Jersey : "During their six weeks' voyage, a warın friendship sprung up between Keith and Talbot. So like-minded were they that, before the ship reached her moorings, Keith proposed and Talbot consentcd-if the Society approved-that they should be associated. 'Friend Keith and I,' writes Talbot from New York, ' have been above five hundred miles together, visiting the churches in these parts of America, viz., New England, New Hamp- shire, New Bristol, New London, New York, and the Jer- seys as far as Philadelphia. We preached in all churches where we came, and in several Dissenters' meetings, such as owned the Church of England to be their mother church, and were willing to communicate with her and to submit to
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Mr. Talbot to private persons, as well as for the public eye, present him to us a well-furnished priest of apostolic sim- plicity, resolute, fearless, transparently honest, intent only on the kingdom of God and the righteousness thereof. 'God bless Queen Anne,' he exclaims, in one of his letters to a personal friend, ' and defend her that she may defend the faith; and her faithful councellours, if they have any piety or policy, I'm sure will take some course with these heathens and hereticks, for if they be let alone to take the sword (which they certainly will when they think they are strong enough) we shall perish with it, for not opposing them in due time.' When we reflect that this utterance was made seventy years before the armed hostilities of rev- olution, we must regard it as a prophecy remarkably ful- filled. There was not only timid temporizing in managing the government of the colonies, but culpable neglect in manning the church. And yet what openings there were ! ' It grieves me much,' writes Mr. Talbot, 'to see so many people here without the benefit of serving God in the wil- derness. I believe I have been solicited to tarry in twenty places where they want much, and are able to maintain a minister, so that he should want nothing.' The earnest determination of Mr. Talbot finds vent when he says, 'I believe I have done the church more service since I came hither than I would in seven years in England. Per- haps when I have been here six or seven years, I may make a trip home to see some friends (for they won't come to me), but then it will be Animo Revertendi, for I have given myself up to the service of God and his church apud Amer- icanos ; and I had rather dye in the service than desert it.' . . . ' I use to take a wallet full of books and carry them a hundred miles about, and disperse them abroad, and give them to all that desired them, which in due time will be of good service to the church.' In November, 1705, the clergy of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, met at Burlington, and drew up an address to the Society, the whole burden of which was that a Suffragan Bishop might be sent to them. This address was signed by fourteen clergy, some of whom belonged to the Church of Sweden- (a beautiful instance of the catholic inter-communion of those days) -- and with it was their united letter to the Bishop of London, commending Mr. Talbot, who was de- puted to carry it across the ocean. The following March Mr. Talbot was in London, ' soliciting for a suffragan, books and ministers; ' and two years afterwards we hear from him in New Jersey once more. August 24th, 1708, he writes : ' I am forced to turn itinerant again, for the care of all the churches from East to West Jersey is upon me ; what" is the worst is that I can't confirm any, nor have not a dea- con to help me.' Three years more elapsed, and in Octo- ber, 1712, the famous property of John Tatham, at Burling- ton, a 'great and stately palace, pleasantly situated on the north side of the town, having a very fine and delightful garden and orchard,' and embracing in its domain ' fifteen acres,' was bought by the Society for six hundred pounds,
sterling money of England, or nine hundred pounds cur- rent money of New York, for a Bishop's Seat. A bill was ordered to be drafted to be offered in Parliament for establishing bishoprics in America. Everything presaged success; but, before the bill was introduced, its great patroness, Queen Anne, died. The first George was ab- sorbed hy what politicians regarded as more important than religion in the colonies. He alienated many by the course he pursued both in church and state; and Mr. Talbot, it was rumored, omitted from the litany the suffrage that the king might have ' victory over all his enemies.' Whether this was only rumor, we are unable to say. We know that he and three of the most distinguished laymen in New Jer- sey, ex-Governor Bass, Hon. Colonel Coxe, and Alexander Griffiths, Attorney-General, were charged by Governor Hunter, in a very scurrilous letter, with 'incorporating the Jacobites in the Jerseys.' Mr. Talbot's vestry, who had known his doctrine, manner of life, and purpose, with whom he had been at all seasons for twelve years, united in a formal disavowal of the charge, pronouncing it ' a calumni- ous and groundless scandal,' and indorsing their rector as ' a truly pious and apostolic person.' During the next twelve months one of Mr. Talbot's bills was ordered to lie by for a half a year, and a missionary was sent over to take his place in case of his removal. Of this he writes in 1716, ' I suffer all things for the elect's sake, the poor church of God here, in the wilderness. There is none to guide her among all the sons that she has brought forth, nor is there any that takes her by the hand of all the sons that she has brought up. When the apostles heard that Samaria had received the word of God, immediately they set out two of the chief, Peter and John, to lay their hands on them, and pray that they might receive the Holy Ghost ; they did not stay for a secular design of salary; and when the apostles heard that the word of God was preached at Antioch, pres- ently they sent out Paul and Barnabas, that they should go as far as Antioch, to confirm the disciples, and so the churches were established in the faith, and increasing in number daily; and when Paul did but dream that a man of Macedonia called him, he set sail all so fast, and went over himself to help them; but we have been here these twenty years, calling till our hearts ache, and ye own 'tis the call and the cause of God, and yet ye have not heard, or have not answered, and it is all one. I must say this, that if the Society don't do more in a short time than they have in a long, they will, I fear, lose their honor and char- acter too. I don't pretend to prophesy, but you know how they said the kingdom of God shall be taken from them, and given to a nation that will bring forth the fruits of it.' These and such like appeals, petitions, remonstrances, and warnings, were made persistently, not only by Mr. Talhot, but by all whom he could associate with him, for a period of eighteen years. Finally, in 1720, Mr. Talbot went to England, and received the interest on Archbishop Tenison's legacy as a retired missionary. He was absent nearly two
Galaxy Pub. Co. Philad.
Richard A Terhune M.O.
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years and a half, and during this time made the acquaint- ance of the nonjuring bishops who had perpetuated their succession from the days of Sancroft and Ken. In 1722 he received consecration from this source, and returned to America. On his arrival he did more as a missionary than ever before. He instituted the daily service in Burlington, with frequent communions, preaching on Sunday mornings, and catechising or homilizing in the afternoon. He urged the establishment of a college, and suggested that the Soci- ety's house in Burlington be devoted to that purpose. He travelled from the capes of Delaware to the mountains in East Jersey. He visited Trenton and Hopewell and Am- well, preaching and baptizing nineteen persons in one day. He visited persons that were sick, in one instance going all the way from East Jersey to Burlington and back, to get the elements, that he might administer the holy communion to some converts eighty years of age who had never received it. He set up a schoolmaster to read prayers, and controlled the churches of Pennsylvania and New Jersey with the magnetism of his warm and honest heart. Two years he was thus engaged, ' no man forbidding him,' when another nonjuring bishop, one of his consecrators, Robert Welton, arrived and took charge of the church in Philadelphia. Contrasted with the establishment in Great Britain, the nonjurors were a ' feeble folk,' yet in the transatlantic world, they could 'make their houses in the rocks.' The govern- ment became alarmed. "His Majesty's ' Writ of Privy Seal ' was served on Welton, commanding him upon his alle- giance to return to England. Talbot was ' discharged ' the Society, and ordered to ' surcease officiating.' Welton went to Lisbon, where he shortly died. Talbot remained in Bur- Iington, universally respected and beloved. More than one memorial was sent to the authorities in his behalf. The church people of Philadelphia, Bristol, and Burlington united in praying for the removal of his inhibition, declar- ing with solemn deliberation 'that by his exemplary life and ministry, he had been the greatest advocate for the Church of England, by law established, that ever appeared on this shore.' The next information comes from a news- paper, dated ' Philadelphia, November 30th, 1727 .- Yes- terday, died at Burlington, the Rev. Mr. John Talbot, for- merly minister of that place, who was a pious, good man, and much lamented.' On his widow's will I discovered, within a few months past, his episcopal seal-a mitrc, with a plain cross upon it, and beneath, the monogram, 'J. Tal- bot.' Such, in outline, is the career of one who did what he could to act the good Samaritan to the ' half dead' church in the wilderness, which the priest and the Levite of the court passed by. Because he acknowledged that he had the oil of the apostolate, as well as the wine of the priesthood, he was buried-a confessor for the truth. His character, his acts, his motives, examined through every available medium, fail to furnish him with a harsher epi- taph than ' the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.' In spirit, he resembled Ridley ; in fidelity, Juxon; in suffering,
Sancroft; in devotion, Ken. He sought no emolument, he claimed no jurisdiction, he assumed no title, but a hun- dred and fifty years after his entombment, we, members of a free church in a free State, custodians of his sepulchre and trustees of his memory, arise up and give him the title emeritus, ' First Bishop of the Continent of America.'"
IERSON, WILLIAM, JR., M. D., was born in Orange, New Jersey, November 20th, 1830. He comes of a line of physicians, being a son of Dr. William Pierson, a grandson of Dr. Isaac Pier- son, and.a great-grandson of Dr. Matthias Pier- son. He was educated at Nassau Hall, taking the degree of A. M., as well as that of A. B., and studied medicine in the medical department of the University of the City of New York, from which he graduated, settling in his native town. His specialty is surgery, in which he has attained marked distinction. He is a member of the Essex Medical Union ; of the Essex District Medical Society, of which he was President in 1865; of the Medical Society of New Jersey, of which he has been Secretary; and of the New Jersey Academy of Medicine, of which he is now Vice- President. He was Surgeon of the Board of Enrolment for the Fourth Congressional District of New Jersey during the civil war. In 1851 and 1852 he was House Physician and Surgeon to the Brooklyn City Hospital. He is at present Surgeon to the Orange Memorial Hospital, and Consulting Surgeon to Saint Barnabas Hospital in Newark. His reputation alike as a physician and as a man is high and clear. He was married in 1856.
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