The biographical encyclopaedia of New Jersey of the nineteenth century, Part 113

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

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BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPÆDIA.

a sweeping revival occurred. It continued two years, and about one hundred and thirty persons were added to the church on profession, of whom one hundred were received in the course of twelve months. In the spring of 1803 he engaged zealously in making preaching tours in the neigh- borhood of Newark, and even to a considerable distance in the surrounding regions, leaving the pulpit in the care of his venerable colleague. The present (1853) parsonage house, on Mulberry street, was built about this time for his and his family's accommodation. The old one was a stone build- ing two stories high, and stood upon the west side of Broad street, below the corner of William street. The site of the new structure was purchased of Rev. Aaron Burr. In the spring of 1807 commenced a very powerful effusion of divine influences. A deep impression had been made upon the congregation by the death of Dr. Macwhorter, and it was confirmed and made more intense through the labors of Rev. Gideon Blackburn, who preached in Newark several times with stirring earnestness. The influence was felt in Orange and Newark at the same time, and during the month of March, 1808, ninety-seven persons joined the church in Newark, and seventy-two that in Orange. But his ministry in this church, recent as it was, was now draw- ing to a close. As early as the year 1805 he had been in- vited to leave his post for the purpose of taking charge of the First Reformed Dutch Church in Albany ; but that call, though it cost him no little doubt and perplexity, he at length judged it his duty to decline. But later, two invita- tions, each having attached peculiar claims, pressed them- selves simultaneously on his attention-one to the chair of Pulpit Eloquence in the Theological Seminary in Andover, the other to become the stated preacher in the New Church in Park street, Boston. The path of duty seemed plain ; and, having first obtained the consent of his people, he was released from his pastoral charge in April, 1809, and, on the 28th of May following, took a solemn leave of his flock in an eloquent farewell sermon. " During the eight years of his ministry in this congregation, less than two of which he was the sole pastor, sixty-two persons were received into the church from other churches, and three hundred and seventy- two on a profession of their faith. When he came here the church consisted of two hundred and two members. During his ministry the number had more than doubled, including, when he took his dismission, five hundred and twenty-two persons." He left Newark, May 29th, 1809, taking with him five young men who had consecrated themselves to the work of the ministry under his influence; and who were desirous of availing themselves of his instruction in his new sphere of service. He was inaugurated to the office of Professor in Andover, June 21st, and held that station two years, preach- ing at the same time on the Sabbath to the church in Boston. But, finding it impossible to fulfil the duties of both offices, he eventually resigned his professorship, and was installed as pastor of the Park Street Church, Boston, July 31st, 1811. In the summer of 1815 he left his charge,

in Boston, and became the pastor of the Second Presby- terian Church in Newark, New Jersey, where he remained about six years. In October, 1821, he assumed the Presi- dency of Williams College, whose duties he discharged with eminent success during a period of fifteen years. "And now, the evening of life drawing on, he returned to Newark, to which he still looked, amidst all his changes, as the home of his affections; and, becoming an inmate of his eldest daughter's family, he passed the little remnant of his days in domestic love and cheerfulness, and died in hope, Novem- ber 8th, 1837, in the sixty-eighth year of his age." He was married, May 17th, 1796, to Frances Huntington, daughter of Rev. Joshua Huntington, D. D., of Coventry, and adopted daughter of her uncle, Governor Samuel Huntington, of Norwich, Connecticut.

UCIIANAN, JAMES, Lawyer, was born at Ringoes, New Jersey, June 17th, 1839. He is the son of Samuel Buchanan, a farmer, of Hunterdon eounty. His family is of Scotch origin, having emigrated to this country several years previous to the Revo- lution. He was educated in the public schools of IFunterdon, and at the Clinton Academy in Clinton. In 1860 he began the study of law with the Hon. J. T. Bird, of Flemington; and in 1863, having fairly mastered the principles of the science under his able preceptor, entered the law school of the Albany University, in which he remained until 1864, when he was admitted to the bar of his native State. He at once began the practice of his profession at Trenton, where he has since resided. In 1866, before his practice had become absorbing, he was elected Reading Clerk of the New Jersey Assembly, serving during the ses- sion of that year, but, in consequence of the rapid increase of his practice, declining a re-election offered to him. In 1868 he was admitted to practise in the United States Cir- cuit Court, as in the previous year he had been admitted to the United States District Court, and in these courts he rapidly established an extensive practice. His vivid con- ception of the great principles of the law, and his skill in applying them, combined with his resources as an advocate, and his force and persuasiveness as a speaker, made him a prominent figure at the bar. Ile was elected in 1868 a member of the Trenton School Board, in which he served two years, declining a re-election. In 1872 he was a mem- ber of the Republican National Convention that renomi- nated General Grant ; and in 1874 was appointed by the New Jersey Legislature to succeed Judge Reed as Law Judge of the County of Mercer, a position which he still holds. The University of Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, in recognition of his learning and ability, conferred on him in 1875 the honorary degree of A. M. In his activities, as in his sympathies, he is many-sided, taking not only a lively interest, but an active part in all the more important

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movements of socicty. . He is a member of the Trenton Board of Trade; one of the Trustees of the Peddie Insti- tution; and has been since 1873 President of the State Convention of the New Jersey Baptists. He was married in 1873 to Mary Isabel Bullock, of Flemington, New Jersey.

OLLESON, HON. GEORGE P., Lawyer, Attor- ney-General of the State of New Jersey, late of New Brunswick, was born in New Jersey, May 25th, 1805, and was the son of Elias Molleson, a descendant from one of the twenty-four proprie- tors of East Jersey. Upon embracing the profes- sion of the law, he met with much and merited success, and, the possessor of promising talents and popular man- ners, rapidly attained distinction as a practitioner of thorough skill and ability. IIe was chosen three times successively to the lower house of Assembly, and there took a prominent and leading part in the current measures and movements. Declining a re-election, he was appointed Prosecuting At- torney for the County of Middlesex, from which post he was, in the course of the following year, promoted to the more important office of Attorney-Gencral of the State. During the three years in which he held this station, he acquitted himself with great credit in the midst of unusually arduous and harassing circumstances. It was about the year 1837 that he became deeply sensible of the value of religion. In the church he grew to be a decided favorite, on account of his many amiable qualities. He was chosen Superintendent of the Sabbath-school, which flourishcd greatly under his eare ; and, March 5th, 1843, was ordained Ruling Elder. " His personal popularity, his honored an- cestry, his affable manners, and his evident sincerity, gave him unbounded influence; his presence was everywhere welcome, and his persuasions were sufficient to reconcile contending parties. Thus he gave fair promise of useful- ness, when his career was suddenly arrested by that man- date which none can resist. His disease was the same as that which carried off his father-dropsy on the chest." IIe died May 17th, 1844, in the thirty-ninth year of his age.

INNICKSON, IION. CLEMENT HI., Lawyer, of Salem, was born in Salem county, New Jersey, September 16th, 1834, where the family have long been residents, one of his great-uncles having served as member of Congress from the same county as carly as 1789. Ilis uncle, Thomas Sinnickson, also from the same county, was elected to Con- gress from the same district in 1828. Clement II. gradu- ated at Union College, New York, with the class of 1855, and the same year commenced his preparation for the bar

with the late IIon. William L. Dayton, at Trenton, New Jersey. He was admitted in 1858, and commenced practice in his native county. The civil war soon afterward inter- rupted his progress in the profession. On the breaking out of the war he was commissioned Captain of the 4th New Jersey Volunteers, and served until the term of enlistment of that organization expired, when he returned to Salem and resumed the practice of his profession, and has since resided there. In 1874 he was nominated by the Republicans of the First District as their candidate for Congress, the dis- trict ineluding the counties of Cape May, Canden, Cumber- land, Gloucester and. Salem, and notwithstanding the re- verses to the Republican party that year, he received a handsome majority. IIe is a decided Republican, and proved an efficient Representative.

ARNAHAN, REV. JAMES, D. D., President of the College of New Jersey, at Princeton, late of Newark, New Jersey, was born in Cumberland county, Pennsylvania, November 17th, 1775. In November, 1798, he entered the junior class in the College of New Jersey, and received the first degree in the arts in September, 1800. Ile subsequently devoted himself to the study of theology under the guidance of Rev. John McMillan, D. D., in the western part of his native State. In 1801 he returned to Princeton as tutor, but ceased to act further in that capacity in the fall of 1803. In April, 1804, he was licensed by the Presbytery of New Brunswick, which was then assembled at Basking Ridge, to preach the gospel; and selected the vicinity of Hacketts- town, Oxford and Knowlton, as his field of labors. Janu- ary 5th, 1805, he was ordained and installed pastor of the united churches of Whitesborough and Utica, in the State of New York. In February, 1814, he removed on account of health considerations to Georgetown, District of Colum- bia, and there opened a classical and mathematical school, where he was engaged in teaching for about nine years. In May, 1823, he was chosen President of the College of New Jersey, was inaugurated August 5th, 1823, and, after a service of thirty years, resigned in 1853. His connection with that institution was dissolved in June, 1854. He was, in different capacities, ideutified more or less prominently with the college for a period of thirty-five years, viz., two years as a student, two as a tutor, and thirty-one as Presi- dent. He was one of the Trustees also of Princeton at the time of his death, and President of the Board of Trustees of the Theological Seminary. During life he was associated with many illustrious persons of his time, and was one of the last of the venerable men who, for so many years, ren- dered Princeton renowned for its intellectual and moral greatness. During the long period he presided over the college, he was zealous and untiring in his devotion to its

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interests. In 1823, the date of his entry into office, the faculty consisted of a president, vice-president, a professor of mathematics, and two tutors-total, five. In 1854 there were six professors, two assistant professors, three tutors, a teacher of modern languages, and a lecturer on zoology -total, with the president and vice-president, fifteen. In the annual catalogue for the year 1823 there were the names of 125 students ; in that of 1851, the names of 254 students. The whole number of graduates to 1859, 107 years, was 3,390; number of graduates before 1823, seventy-six years, 1,680; from 1823 to 1854, inclusive, thirty-one years, 1,7 10. So that he, as President, conferred the first degree upon a grealer number of alumni, by thirty, than had all his predecessors taken together. He died at the residence of his son-in-law, William K. McDonald, in Newark, New Jersey, March 2d, 1859, in the eighty-fourth year of his age. His remains were removed to Princeton, the scene of his longest and most important services, and the funeral took place on the 8th instant. The services were held in the First Presbyterian Church, which was crowded with sympathizing friends, and the deserted appearance of the business streets of the city showed that for a time the ordi- nary transactions of its inhabitants were relinquished as a mark of respect to one revered and loved. His faithful friends, the alumni of the college at Newark, New Jersey, sent a deputation with the remains, which arrived at Princeton in the morning train on the day of the funeral. The sermon was preached by Rev. Dr. Macdonald, from I Corinthians xv. 12-20. Dr. Stearns, of Newark, and Dr. Cooley, of Trenton, assisted in the services at the church. A funeral procession was formed to the grave headed by the students of the college, and followed by those of the seminary, with the professors of both institutions. Said IIon. William Pennington, at a meeting of the alumni of the college : " IIe was a wise man; his judgment was re- markable. . . . It was his habit to let others express their sentiments freely upon any subject ; but before the matter was decided he gave his opinion modestly and with diffi- dence, and time and again those opinions settled the con- troversy. Wisdom, I think, was the chief characteristic of the man. He was noble, too, with great generosity, and looked at things upon a broad scalc. He was a learned man ; his scholarship was fine, . and he acted in the College of New Jersey as a helm does to a ship; and the young men found in him a safe head to guide them."

REARLY, HON. DAVID, Chief Justice of the State of New Jersey from 1779 to 1789, was born in the State in the year 1745, received a good education, and was practising his profession at Allentown, Monmouth county, at the time of the breaking out of the war of independence. IIis sympathies led him into warm support of the patriotic

cause and into the patriot army, wherein he held a commis- sion as Lieutenant-Colonel in Maxwell's brigade, of the Jersey line. At the time of his nomination as Chief Justice, June 10th, 1779, the army was on its march, under the command of General Sullivan, to subdue the Indians in the western part of New York. Some persuasion was necessary to secure his acceptance of the position and resignation of his commission. He presided over the Supreme Court for a period of nearly eleven years, when he resigned, Novem- ber, 1789, to accept the appointment of Judge of the United States District Court for New Jersey. The duties of this office he continued to discharge until his death, in 1790. His reputation as President of the Supreme Court rests upon tradition only, no reports of its decisions during that period being published. He is regarded as having proved a faith- ful, reliable judge, and that he enjoyed the high esteem of his contemporaries is very clear. The College of New Jersey, at its commencement in 1781, conferred upon him the honorary degree of Master of Arts. Two years later he was elected one of the Vice-Presidents of the State Society of Cincinnati, and held the position until his death. In 1787, while still Chief Justice, he was appointed by the Legislature of New Jersey a delegate to the convention which framed the constitution of the United States, and he took his seat in that body, participated in its deliberations, and signed the instrument when it was agreed upon. He was afterwards a member of the State convention which ratified it. A deep interest was ever manifested by him in public affairs, and he exercised an influence in politics that was entirely wholesome. In 1788 he was a Presidential Elector, and he aided to secure the election of General Washington.

EED, ALFRED, Lawyer, was born, December 23d, 1839, in Ewing township, Mercer county, New Jersey. He attended the Lawrenceville High School in 1856, and the Model School at Trenton in 1857-58, entering Rutgers College, at New Brunswick, in 1859. In the fall of 1860 he was matriculated at the State and National Law School, Poughkeepsie, New York, and in the summer of 1862 ad- mitted to the practice of law in the State of New York. Not content with the legal proficiency thus attested, how- ever, he returned to Trenton, and renewed his study of the law, being admitted to the bar of New Jersey at the June term in 1864. The seed sown in his unusually thorough preparation for the bar has already borne him a harvest of abundant honors in and out of the profession, though he is not yet forty. In the spring of 1865 he was elected to the Common Council of Trenton, of which he was made Presi- dent. He was elected Mayor of Trenton in 1867, serving for one term. In the spring of 1869 he was appointed President Judge of the Common Pleas and Special Sessions of Mercer county, a position he held for a full term of five

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years; and April 8th, 1875, he was appointed by Governor Bedle a Justice of the Supreme Court of the State. He is the youngest member of the Supreme Court, as in fact all his previous honors were attained at an age remarkably early, having been President of the Trenton Common Council when twenty six, Mayor of the city when twenty-eight, and Law Judge of Mercer county when thirty. So much, in part at any rate, for getting thoroughly ready before he started. The lesson is worth heeding by the rising genera- tion. The rapidity and degree of his advancement is the more noticeable that he has about him nothing of the in- triguing politician, but, on the contrary, is distinguished as greatly for manly candor and straightforwardness in public matters as for legal ability and personal worth. His record, political, judicial and private, is without a stain. In poli- tics he is a Democrat.

EASLEY, HON. MERCER, LL. D., Lawyer, and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New Jer- sey, was born in Mercer county, New Jersey, about 1815. He graduated at Princeton College with the class of 1834, which institution has since conferred on him the honorary degree of LL. D. After leaving college he began his preparation for the New Jersey bar, to which he was admitted in the June term, 1838, and was made counsellor in 1842. He practised his profession in the city of Trenton and acquired an extensive and lucrative practice. In politics an earnest Democrat, he yet avoided taking active part in any of the violent poli- tical agitations, devoting his talents and energies exclusively to his profession, and soon becoming recognized as one of the leaders of the New Jersey bar. In 1864 his ability and legal attainments were recognized by Governor Parker, by whom he was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New Jersey. At the expiration of his term of service in 1871, he was reappointed by Governor Randolph, and is now serving his second term of seven years, which will ex- pire in 1878. IIis carecr as Chief Justice has been emi- nently satisfactory to the bar and people of the State. His son, Mercer Beasley, Jr., is the present Prosecutor of the Pleas for Mercer county, and a young man of ability, rapidly rising in the profession.

BERNETIIV, HUGHI HOMER, M. D., of Phil- lipsburg, New Jersey, of Scotch-Irish descent, son of Samuel Abernethy, a farmer, was born at Tinicum, Bucks county, Pennsylvania, Decem- ber 12th, 1808. Ilis family was founded in Bucks about the middle of the last century ; has since then taken a prominent part in county affairs, his father and grandfather having severally held various offices

of trust and importance. Having received a sound English education, supplemented by a careful classical course under the late Rev. Dr. Studdiford, of Lambertville, he began the study of medicine in 1827 under Dr. Stewart Kennedy, of Greenwich, and afterwards of Easton, Pennsylvania. A year later he entered the medical department of the Univer- sity of Pennsylvania, under the office instructions of Profes- sor Dewees, and in 1830 was graduated thence M. D. Among his classmates and fellow-graduates were a numher of since eminent medical men, including his brother, the late Dr. Samuel Abernethy, of Rahway, New Jersey ; Dr. J. C. Kennedy ; Dr. Ferguson. From the date of his grad- uation until 1841 he practised at Greenwich, New Jersey, and in partnership with Dr. Green, of Belvidere. In that year (1841) he began-a partnership with his former precep- tor, Dr. Stewart Kennedy, in Easton. The association lasted only a few months, failing health compelling Dr. Kennedy to retire, leaving the practice in his hands. In 1853 Dr. Abernethy was himself compelled by the same cause to relinquish for a time the practice of his profession. Dr. Kennedy retired to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and lived but a short time. During the ensuing fourteen ycars his time was spent partly upon his farm at Greenwich, partly in travel. In 1867, establishing himself in Phillips- burg-where, and in Jersey City, he has since continued to reside-he resumed practice, and has during the past ten years been more or less actively engaged. Among the many physicians whose professional study was begun under his supervision may be mentioned Drs. Fields, C. V. Robbins, II. Race, G. Sandt, R. Ritchey, L. D. Grey and Asher Riley. Throughout his long career his standing has been of the highest, his reputation extending beyond the limits of the State, and his services being very generally sought in consultation in extreme or unusual cases. For the past few years his practice has been restricted almost en- tirely to consultation. In politics, while taking no active part, he steadily voted with the Whig party until that organi- zation was merged in the Republican, and since the forma- tion of the Republican party he has been one of its most earnest members. He married, in 1831, Mary J., daughter of the late John Maxwell, of Phillipsburg; since 1864 he has been a widower.

ITTELL, SQUIER, M. D., was born in Burlington, New Jersey, December 9th, 1803. His ancestors in both lines (Littell and Gardiner) were among the earliest settlers of the State, although no generation of the family has been more honorably distinguished than the one of which he is a prom- inent member, his eldest brother being that eminent literary benefactor of the American public, Eliakim Littell, of Littell's Living Age, and another brother, John Stockton Littell, having signalized himself by his researches into the unwritten history of the revolutionary period ; while his

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cousin, the late William Littell, LL. D., was a legal author of repute and a noted member of the Kentucky bar, at which he was the early associate of Clay, Grundy, and the rest of the constellation of statesmen and orators that shone in the legal firmament of Kentucky during the first quarter of this century. He studied medicine at the University of Pennsyl- vania, from which he graduated in 1824, settling in Phila- delphia, where he still resides. In 1825 he made a voyage to South America, practising for a time in Buenos Ayres, with such skill and success as to win from the Academy of Medicine of that city the degree of Licentiate. His specialty is ophthalmology, in which he has acquired an extensive reputation, not only from his practice, but from his original investigations. He is a member of the various medical societies of the city and county of Philadelphia, and of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. In 1828-29 he was editor of the Journal of Foreign Medical Sciences, published by his brother, the present proprietor of the Living Age, and for several years he was connected with the editorial department of the Museum of Foreign Literature and Science, also published by his brother. He is the author of a work entitled " Manual of Diseases of the Eye; or, A Treatise on Ophthalmology," of which two editions were published, the first being reprinted in London and receiving the highest commendation from the British and Foreign Medical Review. " It is replete with informa- tion," said that authority, " yet so terse in style and com- pressed in bulk as at once to entice and repay perusal." In 1853 he edited Haynes Walton's treatise on "Operative Ophthalmic Surgery," being the first American from the first London edition. He has also written a memoir on " Gran- ular Ophthalmia," published in the " Transactions of the Congress D' Ophthalmologie de Bruxelles ;" " Ophthalmic Reports from Wills' Hospital ; " a discourse on " Electrical Fluctuations, or Variations of Electrical Tension, as the Cause of Disease," in " Transactions of the American Med- ical Association for 1866;" papers on "The External Remedial Use of Cold Water," " Non- Malarial Origin of Disease," and other medical subjects ; a report on a " Case of Morbid Growth in the Sphenoidal and Ethnoidal Cells," Dunglison's Medical Intelligencer, with many other reports on various cases; and " Medical Obituaries," chiefly of members of the Philadelphia College of Physicians, before which they were read. His literary activity, however, has not been strictly confined to the sphere of his profession. For a number of years he edited the Philadelphia Banner of the Cross, and he has from time to time contributed arti- cles, in prose and verse, to the literary periodicals of the day, it being his custom, as it was that of his cousin, the Kentucky Doctor of Laws, to relieve his more abstruse studies by original excursions into the domain of polite litera- ture. From 1834 to 1864 he was Surgeon to Wills' Oph- thalmic Hospital, in Philadelphia, to which he is now Emeritus Surgeon, an honor which he won by a career of service not more distinguished by duration than hy ability

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The biographical encyclopaedia of New Jersey of the nineteenth century, Part 113

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