The biographical encyclopaedia of New Jersey of the nineteenth century, Part 106

Author: Robson, Charles, ed; Galaxy Publishing Company, publisher
Publication date: 1877
Publisher: Philadelphia, Galaxy publishing company
Number of Pages: 924

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was soon after evacuated by the American armies. The general, in May of the same year, returned to Elizabeth- town, New Jersey, which had been his home for some years. Subsequently a court of inquiry was called, " but the result only redounded to the fame of General Scott." In 1852 he was the unsuccessful nominee of the Whig party for the Presidency, receiving 1,386,580 votes, to 1,601,274 for the Democratic candidate, General Pierce. In 1855 the brevet rank of Lieutenant-General was revived, in order that it might be conferred upon him, and was expressly so framed that it should not survive him. In 1859, serious differences as to the boundary line of the United States and British America through the straits of Fuca having arisen, and a disputed military possession occurring, he was ordered to that locality, where he succeeded in establishing a satis- factory state of affairs, and settling the difficulty. During the war of the rebellion he was a staunch and zealous up- holder of the Union, and during the latter portion of Bu- chanan's term " urged the wisest precautions to prevent the armed withdrawal of the eleven seceded States from the Union." He secured the safe inauguration of President Lincoln, the defence of the national capital, the organiza- tion of the Union army, and its establishment upon the strategetic points of the country. "At his advanced age he has exerted an astonishing energy in the efforts to hold to- gether the interests, the affections, and the doctrines of the republic." November Ist, 1861, he retired from active service, retaining, by a special provision in the act of Con- gress, passed at its extra session in the summer of 1861, his full pay and allowances, and, November 9th of the same year, sailed from New York for Europe, expecting to build up anew there his waning health. His later days he de- voted to the preparation of his "Autobiography," two vol- umes, 8vo., published in 1864. He died at West Point, New York, May 29th, 1866.

OISNOT, JAMES M., M. D., was born, July 20th, 1836, in Somerset county, New Jersey. He was educated at Trenton, New Jersey, and at Carlisle Seminary, in Schoharie county, New York, and studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, from which he graduated in March, 1858. He settled in Philadelphia, where he became a lecturer on Anatomy and Operative Surgery. Among his notable cases is the successful reduction by manipulation of a double dislocation of the hip-joint, fol- lowed by a perfect recovery. This case he made the subject of a paper in the American Journal of the Medical Sciences. He is a member of the Northern Medical Society and of the Philadelphia County Medical Society. He has been a frequent and valued 'contributor to the medical journals of . the day. In the civil war he was Surgeon of the 98th Pennsylvania Volunteers.

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HARTON, CHARLES HENRY, D. D., Clergy- [ tate of great value-the whole patrimony of the conveyer- man, Scholar, Poet, Author, etc., was born in St. Mary's county, in Maryland, on the 25th of

May, O. S., 1748. His ancestors were Roman Catholics, and the family plantation, called Notley Hall, from a governor of that name, was pre- sented to his grandfather by Lord Baltimore. From him it descended to the father, Jesse Wharton, and at his death in 1754 became the property of Charles Henry, his eldest son. When not quite seven years old he was attacked by a furious dog, which had already torn off part of his scalp, when his father, with signal presence of mind and prompti- tude of action, seizing a loaded gun from behind the door, shot the dog while the child's head was still in its jaws. In 1760 he was sent to the English Jesuits' College at St. Omer's. At the close of two years the college was broken up by the expulsion of the Jesuits from France. The teach- ers and scholars retired to Bruges, in Flanders. "Seques- tered from all society," he writes, " beyond the walls of the college, and of course a total stranger to everything incon- sistent with the strictest discipline, in acquiring classical attainments, and those habits of devotion which were deemed essential to a Roman Catholic youth, I applied myself very diligently to my studies, and became prominent among my associates, in a very accurate knowledge of the Latin language, which became nearly as familiar as English, as we were obliged to converse in it during our ordinary re- laxations from our studies." His Letters of Orders bear date in 1772, having been admitted in June of that year to the Order of Deacons, and in September to that of Priests, in the Roman Catholic Church. At the end of the war of the American Revolution, he was residing in Worcester, England, as Chaplain to the Roman Catholics of that city, deeply interested on the side of his country, and anxious to return. He employed his pen at this time in a poetical epistle to General Washington, with a sketch of his life, which was published in England for the benefit of Ameri- can prisoners there. His mind was at this period much agi- tated on the subject of his religious creed. He returned to this country in 1783, in the first vessel which sailed after the peace. In May, 1784, he visited Philadelphia for the purpose of publishing his celebrated Letter to the Roman Catholics of Worcester. "This production," says Bishop White, " was perused by me with great pleasure in manu- script. The result was my entire conviction that the sound- ness of his arguments for the change of his religious pro- fession was fully equalled by the sincerity and disinterest- edness which accompanied the transaction." On the death of his father he was the legitimate heir to the paternal estate. Upon taking orders he immediately conveyed it to his brother. After the controversy had taken place with Archbishop Carroll, occasioned by the Letter to the Roman Catholics of the city of Worcester, it appearcd that the con- voyance was not complete. A meeting took place in the most amicable manner, the paper was executed, and an es-

given the second time to a younger brother. For the first year after his return to America, Mr. Wharton resided at the paternal mansion, on leaving which, in July, 1784, the principal residents of the vicinage presented him, unasked and unsolicited, with a most honorable testimonial of his worth as a gentleman, a scholar, a Christian, and a Chris- tian minister. It is a document of singular excellence in sentiment, spirit, and expression, and does high honor to them who freely gave as well as to him who worthily re- ceived it. While Rector of Immanuel Church, New Cas- tle, Delaware, he was an influential member of the General Convention held in Philadelphia in 1785. On the 28th of September, in that year, he was on the committee "to pre- pare and report a draft of an Ecclesiastical Constitution for the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States." On the 5th of October he was on the committee " to prepare a Form of Prayer and Thanksgiving for the Fourth of July," and also on a committee " to publish the Book of Common Prayer with the alterations, in order to render the Liturgy consistent with the American Revolution and the Constitu- tions of the respective States." On the 21st of July, 1786, he was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society. Between this date and 1792 he was connected with the Swedish Church at Wilmington, Delaware, from which time until 1798 he resided on his estate at Prospect Hill, in the neighborhood of that town, in feeble health. On the 20th of August, 1796, the vestry of St. Mary's Church, Burlington, New Jersey, made proposals to him with reference to the rectorship soon to be vacant, and on the 5th of September following unanimously elected him Rector. It was not, however, until March 15th, 1798, that he arrived at Burlington with his family. In less than three months his wife, who had been long an invalid, died at Philadelphia, and was buried in St. Peter's burial-ground. This was the occasion which evoked from his pen that most touching and melancholy production, evincing very high poetic talent, called " An Elegy to the Memory of Mrs. Mary Wharton, by her Husband." In October, 1801, he was unanimously elected President of Columbia College, New York, which he accepted so far as to preside at the com- mencement ; but his vestry at Burlington consenting to his conditions of remaining with them, he declined the presi- dency of the college. In 1803 he was powerfully urged to become Principal of the College at Beaufort, South Carolina, and Rector of the parish there, but declined. He was at this time, and so continued to be until the day of his death, the most scholarly and influential clergyman in the Diocese of New Jersey. He was President of the Standing Committee, and Senior Deputy to the General Convention. Under his ministry in ISII, the church building at Burlington was rc- arranged internally, and a semi-circular chancel extension made on the east end. At the annual convention of the diocese, August 30th, 1815, he preached the opening ser- mon, and, by resolution, received the thanks of the conven-

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tion for the same. It was at this convention, when the | practice dealing more particularly with these diseases in Rev. John Croes, D. D., was chosen Bishop of New Jersey, women and children. He is a member of the Philadelphia County Medical Society; of the American Medical Associ- ation; of the Academy of the Natural Sciences of Philadel- phia, etc., etc. The literary promise he gave in his gradu- ating thesis has been fulfilled by the performances of his riper years, his medical writings being both numerous and valuable, and presenting the fruits of original investigation as well as the flowers of speech. They embrace publica- tions on " Zooadynamia," " Researches on Nitrous Oxide," " Human Rights as Exemplified in the Natural Laws of Marriage," "Legitimacy," and "Life." He is also the author of papers on "Tubercolosis," " Reproduction," " Reparation of Bone," and many other subjects. He was for years an editor of the Dental Cosmos, and later editor and publisher of the Medical Cosmos. He was Accoucheur and subsequently Physician to the Philadelphia Hospital, but was obliged to resign on account of ill health, his deli- cate constitution having in fact greatly restricted his profes- sional activity in general. The wonder is that with his feeble health he has been able to achieve so much that is useful and excellent in the field of practice and of literature. His achievements under the circumstances do hardly less honor to his tenacity of purpose than to his vigor and fer- tility of intellect. that the Rev. Dr. Wharton was the only other person who received any ballots for that office. Dr. Croes, only two months previous, had been elected to the Episcopate of Connecticut, and it was while the committee from that dio- cese was in correspondence with their bishop-elect in re- gard to his support, consecration and removal, that the convention of New Jersey met and elected him-an exhi- bition of human nature of which it is not the only instance in electoral bodies. At the convention held May 28th, 1828, Dr. Wharton offered two resolutions which showed him to be fully abreast, if not ahead of the times. The first was "recommending all congregations in the diocese to re- peat distinctly all the responses and prayers as the rubric directs," and the second was " highly approving the objects and designs of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary So- ciety," and " recommending it to the attention and patron- age" of the diocese, both of which were unanimously adopted. " It was not my good fortune," writes Bishop George W. Doane, "to know Dr. Wharton until within a short time previous to his death. I had indeed known him by reputation as a pillar and ornament of the church, adorn- ing with his life the doctrines which witli his voice he pro- claimed, and with his pen so ably advocated. I knew him as among the first in scholarship of the clergy of America, a sound and thoroughly accomplished divine, a practised and successful controversialist, a faithful parish priest, a patriarch of the diocese in which he lived." " He fell sweetly asleep, even as an infant sinks to rest upon its mother's bosom, on Tuesday morning, July 23d, 1833, hav- ing entered nearly two months upon his eighty-sixth year, and having been for more than sixty-one years a minister of Christ-the senior Presbyter, if I mistake not, of the American Protestant Episcopal Church." Dr. Wharton was twice married-the second time to Anne, daughter of Chief Justice Kinsey, who survived him. He had no chil- dren.

IEGLER, GEORGE JACOB, M. D., was born, March 6th, 1821, at Long-a-coming (now Ber- lin), Gloucester county, New Jersey. He is the third child of George E. and Elizabeth Ziegler, who, when he was still a youth, removed to Philadelphia. He acquired his general education in the public schools of Philadelphia, supplemented by private tuition and self-cul- ture. His medical studies were begun under Dr. George W. Patterson, and completed at the University of Pennsyl- vania, from which he graduated in 1850, his thesis on the occasion being recommended for publication. He settled in Philadelphia, where he has ever since resided. His specialty is nervous, pulmonary and chronic diseases, his | tion of Julius Steele, in 1816.

XTELL, REV. HENRY, D. D., late of Geneva, New York, was born in Mendham, New Jersey, June 9th, 1773, and was a son of Henry Axtell, a farmer and a revolutionary officer. His studies were pursued at Princeton College, where he duly graduated. Subsequently he taught school for several years in Morristown and Mendham, and in 1804 removed to Geneva, New York, where he was also for sev- eral years at the head of a flourishing educational institute. On the Ist of November, 1810, he was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Geneva, and, after laboring zealously and with eminent usefulness in various places, was, in 1812, installed as colleague pastor with Rev. Jedediah Chapman, at Geneva, where he spent the remainder of his life. The degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred upon him by Middlebury College in 1823, as a mark of his scholar- ship in theology. He was a bold and faithful preacher, and when unusually warmed by favoring circumstances, or spurred on by exceptional difficulties, became very powerful and singularly endowed with the fire of grace. He was both practical and argumentative, and emi- nently Scriptural in his preaching. In stature, he was rather above the average, and was of a broad and athletic build. " He died in the utmost peace, February 11th, 1849." He published a " Sermon " preached at the ordina-

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HOMPSON, IION. RICHARD P., Lawyer, At- torney-General of the State of New Jersey, late of Salem, New Jersey, was born in that town in 1805. He studied law with William N. Jeffers, and was licensed as an attorney in 1825, and as a counsellor in 1828. "He was, within the sphere of his knowledge, a very adroit and respectable advo- eate." His expertness in the trial of eauses and in the transaction of business was very great, and for several years his practice was extensive and lucrative. For several years he prosecuted the pleas of New Jersey with noteworthy ability and success; and, while holding this office, was ap- pointed, by Governor Haines, Attorney-General of the State, to fill the vacancy occasioned by the death of Attor- ney-General Molleson. At the expiration of the term of that temporary office, he resumed the duties of Prosecutor, and was met by a writ of quo warranto sued out by the Iate Judge Clawson. The Supreme Court decided that, by the acceptance of the office of attorney-general, that of prosecutor was vacated, the two offices being incompatible. Concerning that case the Hon. L. Q. C. Elmer writes : "Although as his counsel I was dissatisfied with this de- cision, on the ground that, admitting the two offices to be incompatible, it was the office of attorney-general that could not be legally held, it was not thought advisable to carry the case into the Court of Errors, Mr. Clawson having re- linquished all claim to the fees received as prosecutor." In 1852 he was appointed, by Governor Fort, Attorney- General ; and, being confirmed by the Senate, held the office the full term. He succeeded also in inducing the Legislature, by the act passed in 1854, to place that office upon its present respectable footing, relieving the attorney- general from the necessity of taking upon himself the ordi- nary prosecution of criminals, giving him a respectable salary, and extra compensation for his aid in all extraordi- nary cases. On the last day of the year 1852 he carried through the prosecution of Treadway, for the murder of his wife, "in a manner that strikingly contrasts with many modern cases of this kind, and therefore deserves special mention." The case was well tried on both sides. The Court of Oyer and Terminer of the county of Salem, for this trial, was opened at 9 A. M .; thirty witnesses were ex- amined; the case was ably summed up on both sides ; Mr. MacCulloch being the counsel for the defendant; the jury retired at ten o'clock in the evening, and at eleven returned with a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree. The criminal afterward confessed his guilt and was executed. "Although the evidence was circumstantial, it was entirely satisfactory. .... The defendant, several days hefore he had committed the crime, had been heard to threaten it; he was shown to have had a gun, and to have purchased powder and buckshot in the morning, the shot preciscly of the kind extracted from the body of his victim ; he was shown to have been seen, late in the afternoon, with his gun, in the neighborhood of the house where his wife was.

She stood near a window in the evening, employed at a table on which there was a lamp, when she was shot through the window, several buckshot penetrating her body and heart, so that she ran into an adjoining room, fell down, and immediately died. The place where the person stood who shot her was easily determined, and upon being examined the next morning, a slight rain having fallen during the night, the paper wadding of the gun was found, discolored, but whole, and this, upon being pressed smooth, exactly fitted the torn part of a newspaper found in the criminal's pocket. The Attorney-General had made himself fully ac- quainted with all the circumstances of the case, and had arranged the evidence so that each witness testified to the material facts known to him, and nothing else. No case ever tried before me, during an experience on the bench of fifteen years, was better conducted, or more satisfactory in the result."-Hon. L. Q. C. Elmer. He died in Salem, New Jersey, in 1859.

ER, REV. NATHAN, Clergyman, and formerly Pastor of the Church of Springfield, was born at Basking Ridge, New Jersey, in 1735. He was the great-grandson of Walter Ker, who was banished from Scotland, September 3d, 1685, and came to America, settling at Freehold, New Jer- sey, where he was regarded as one of the principal founders of the town and the local church ; his son, Samuel, had two sons, Samuel and Joseph; the grandson, Samuel, also had two sons, Jacob and Nathan. The last named graduated at the College of New Jersey in 1761, and with his brother, Jacob, was ordained by the Presbytery of New Brunswick, July 17th, 1763. Shortly after this he was transferred to the Presbytery of New York, and took charge of the church of Springfield, New Jersey. He continued here but two years, and at the expiration of that time re- moved to Long Island, and in 1766 to Goshen, New York, where he continued in the faithful discharge of his ministry until his decease, December 14th, 1804. His brother, Jacob Ker, graduated also at the College of New Jersey, in 1758, was a tutor in his Alma Mater from 1760 to 1762, and afterward became a highly respectable minister of the Presbyterian Church in Delaware.

URNET, HION. WILLIAM, Judge, Physician, late of Elizabethtown, New Jersey, was born in that place about the middle of last century, and was the son of Ichabod Burnet, a distinguished physician of his native place. After graduating, he studied medicine with Dr. Staats, of New York, but the trouble with Great Britain dwarfing all other events, publie and private, he relinquished a lucrative prac-

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tice, and entered actively into the political and aggressive movements of the day and the patriot citizens. Ile pre- sided as Chairman of the Committee of Public Safety, which met daily at Newark; in 1775 was Superintendent of a Military Hospital, established on his own responsibility in the same city; and in the winter of 1776 was elected a member of the Continental Congress. Early in the session, however, Congress divided the thirteen States into three military districts, and he was appointed Physician and Surgeon-General of the Eastern District. He accordingly resigned his seat in Congress, and entered at once upon his office, the arduous duties of which he continued to discharge with zealous ability until the close of the war in 1783. He was for a time stationed at West Point, and on a certain oc- casion was dining with a party of gentlemen at the house of General Arnold, when the officer of the day entered, and reported that a spy had been taken below who called himself John Anderson. It was remarked by the persons who were at the table that this intelligence, interesting to the general as it must have been, produced no visible change in his conduct or behavior ; that he continued in his seat for some minutes, conversing as before; after which he rose, saying to his guests that business required him to be absent for a short time, and desiring them to remain and enjoy themselves till his return. The next intelligence they had of him was, that he was in his barge, moving rapidly to a British ship-of-war, the " Vulture," which was lying at anchor a short distance below the Point .- (On authority of his son, Hon. Judge Jacob Burnet, of Ohio.) At the ter- mination of the contest he returned to his home and family, and devoted himself to agricultural pursuits. He was sub- sequently appointed Presiding Judge of the Court of Common Pleas by the Legislature of New Jersey, and was also elected President of the State Medical Society. Being a fine classical scholar, on taking the chair. he read an elaborate essay in Latin, " On the Proper Use of the Lancet in Pleuritic Cases." He died October 7th, 1791.

OOLE, HENRY B., M. D., late of South River, Middlesex county, New Jersey, son of Cyrus Poole, was born in Enfield, England, April 24th, 1791. In 1801 his parents emigrated to America, settled at New Brunswick, and in that town his father was for a long time principal of a very well- conducted and popular school. Under his father's super- vision he was prepared for college, entered Rutgers, and in 1809 graduated from that institution with first honors. He was subsequently engaged for several years as a teacher, being for a time Principal of a high school, and then private tutor to the children of the patroon of Albany, receiving, while occupying the latter position, the very high salary (for

the times) of a thousand dollars a year. In 1816 he mar- ried Olivia M., daughter of Samuel Jacques, of Middlesex, and in the same year entered the office of Dr. Augustus R. Taylor, and began the study of medicine. Applying for examination in 1818 to the Censors of the District Medical Society of Somerset county, his term of study was regarded as too brief, and he was subjected to an examination of altogether unusual severity. From this he came out with credit, was recommended for license, was licensed on the strength of the Censors' approval, and at once began the practice of his profession in Flemington. While resident at Flemington he was one of the founders of the Hunterdon County Medical Society (in 1821); was the first Secretary of that organization, serving until 1826; was in that year elected Vice-President, and repeatedly served on the Board of Censors. He was also a member of the New Jersey State Medical Society, serving as a Censor of that body and, in 1822, as Vice-President. In 1827-28 he practised in New York; returned to New Jersey in the latter year and established himself at South River, Middlesex county. Here he remained actively engaged until 1855, when he was disabled by a stroke of paralysis. He died six years later, December 2d, 1861.

AN SYCKEL, CHESTER, Lawyer, of Fleming- ton, New Jersey, son of the late Aaron Van Syckel, Esq., was born in Union township, Hun- terdon county, New Jersey, June 6th, 1838. Having received his preparatory education at the well-known school of the Rev. John Vanderveer, at Easton, he entered Lafayette College in 1859; was a student in that institution for two years; entered the junior class in the College of New Jersey, at Princeton, and was graduated thence in 1859. Immediately upon graduation he was entered at the New Jersey bar, began his legal studies in the office of his brother, Bennett Van Syckel, Esq .- now one of the judges of the New Jersey Supreme Court-and in 1862 was licensed as an attorney. For some two years he was associated with his brother ; was licensed as a counsellor in 1865 ; shortly after became a member of the law firm of Bird, Vorhees & Van Syckel-subsequently Vorhees & Van Syckel-with which he continued until 1872. Since 1872 he has practised - alone. For several years lie has been a Special Master in Chancery, and also a Commissioner of the Supreme Court; is attorney for the Clinton National Bank, and independently of these sources commands an extensive practice. He is a member of the Democratic party, but is in no sense a politician ; his pro- fessional duties amply engrossing his time and affording full scope for his exceptional ability. At the bar, as well as among his fellow-citizens, his standing is of the best.

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The biographical encyclopaedia of New Jersey of the nineteenth century, Part 106

Author: Robson, Charles, ed; Galaxy Publishing Company, publisher Publication date: 1877 Publisher: Philadelphia, Galaxy publishing company Number of Pages: 924

Author: Robson, Charles, ed; Galaxy Publishing Company, publisher
Publication date: 1877
Publisher: Philadelphia, Galaxy publishing company
Number of Pages: 924