The biographical encyclopaedia of New Jersey of the nineteenth century, Part 118

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

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Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

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viously he had manifested an interest in politics. In 1853 he was elected by the Democrats to the New Jersey Legis. lature from Jersey City, and although quite a young man, took an active part in legislative affairs. He was five times elected Alderman of Jersey City-in 1857, 1858, 1859, IS60 and 1862. During the last-named year he was chosen President of the Common Council. In 1868 he removed to Bergen, and during the first year's residence there was almost unanimously elected to the town council. During the same year he was elected State Director of Railroads by the New Jersey Legislature, and in 1872 represented the Fourth Congressional District as their delegate to the Balti- more National Convention. He again removed to Hudson county in 1873, and has since continued to reside there. In 1874, at the solicitation of his friends, he became the Democratic candidate for Congress, and although the dis- trict had gone Republican two years previously by over one thousand majority, he was elected by nearly five thousand majority. He is a ready and graceful speaker, a cultivated gentleman, and is a representative who reflects honor on himself and his State. He was again elected in 1876.

OBESON, WILLIAM PENN, Lawyer and Jurist, was the son of Morris Robeson and Tacey Paul, his wife. He was the third son of a large family of children, and was born in Philadelphia, No- veniber Ioth, 1798. His ancestor, Andrew Ro- beson, came to Warren county, New Jersey, from England with William Penn, and was a member of Gov- ernor Markham's Privy Council. He had a son, Andrew, who was sent to England and educated at Oxford Univer- sity. The second Andrew had two sons, Jonathan and Ed- ward. Jonathan Robeson was one of the pioneers in the iron manufacture in America. He built a blast furnace called " The Forest of Dean," in what was then called the "Highlands of York," in the province of New York; the " Weymouth " Furnace, in what is now Ocean county, New Jersey ; and "Oxford" Furnace, in what is now Warren county, New Jersey. This last-named furnace was com- menced in 1741, and the first iron was run from it March 17th, 1743. The same furnace, now belonging to the Ox- ford Iron Company, is still in successful operation, and the iron mines on the same estate are among the most valuable in the State. Jonathan Robeson had two sons, John and Morris. John was the father of Judge James M. Robeson, of Belvidere, and several other sons, most of whom are now dead. Morris, the father of William P., lived a portion of his life in Philadelphia and another portion at Oxford, where he died in 1823. William P. was a large land- owner in Warren county, engaged a large portion of his life in agricultural and mercantile pursuits, and for a long time occupied a position on the bench of the Common Pleas, over which he presided for more than twenty-five years.

He was married early in life to Anna Maria Maxwell, the daughter of Hon. George C. Maxwell, and sister of Hon. John P. B. Maxwell, both of whom at different times represented the State of New Jersey in the United States Congress. She is the granddaughter of Captain John Maxwell and grandniece of General William Maxwell, both of the Con- tinental army. His wife still survives him, and resides at Camden, New Jersey. Judge Robeson was an ardent Whig in politics, and occupied a prominent position in the party in the upper portion of the State, but as that region was during his entire career largely Democratic, he was never elected to any important office. During the latter years of his life he was a decided Republican, but took less interest in politics. He was by birth a Quaker in religious belief, but afterwards connected himself with the Episcopal Church, of which he was a prominent supporter. He re- sided for several years after his marriage at Oxford Furnace, which then belonged to his brother-in-law and himself, but had for a long time been out of blast. About the year 1832, having rented the furnace to Messrs. Henry Jordan & Co., who at that time put it in operation, he removed to Belvidere, where he resided until his death. He died at Belvidere, December 2d, 1864, leaving his widow and four children surviving him, viz. : George Maxwell, the present Secretary of the Navy; William Penn, who served with honor as Colonel of the 3d New Jersey Cavalry under Sheridan in the war of the rebellion, and was brevetted as a Brigadier-General; Emily Maxwell, married to Joseph M. P. Price, of Philadelphia ; and Anna M.

cCAULY, REV. THOMAS, D. D., Presbyterian Clergyman, was born February 28th, 1818, in Franklin county, Pennsylvania, and is a son of Thomas McCauly, a merchant of that county. The family are of Scotch-Irish origin ; the grand- father of the subject of this sketch emigrated to this country, and with his associates settled at Ringgold Manor, in Maryland. His son not liking the institution of slavery, removed to Pennsylvania, where Thomas, as already stated, was born. He was prepared for college at Green- castle Academy, and in 1848 entered the College of New Jersey, at Princeton, where he was graduated with the class of 1852, together with Senator Magie, of Elizabeth, New Jersey, Donald Cameron, late Secretary of War, and Presi- dent Kendal, of Lincoln University. The same year he entered the Theological Seminary, and was graduated there- from in 1855. Immediately upon graduation he entered the ministry as pastor of a Presbyterian church on Long Island, where he remained for nine years. Then he moved to Philadelphia, and became Secretary of the Presbyterian Board of Education. In 1867 he accepted a call to the Presbyterian Church of Hackettstown, New Jersey, where he has since continued to officiate. At the present time he is

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Moderator of the Presbyterian Synod of New Jersey. He | in 1874. Mr. Gifford was endowed with a strong constitu- was married, October Ist, 1857, to Maria Louisa Dunton, of Philadelphia.

ACDONALD, REV. JAMES M., D. D., lately Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Prince- ton, was born at Limerick, Maine, in 1812, the son of Major-General John Macdonald. He re- ceived the advantages of an excellent education ; graduated from Union College, New York, in 1832, and from the Divinity School in New Haven soon afterwards. Drawn towards the ministry of the Presbyte- rian Church, he was ordained in 1835. For a time he was pastor of the Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church in New York, and for twenty-three years he was pastor of the First Church in Princeton, filling the position once occupied by the late President John Witherspoon, of the College of New Jersey. His first book, "Credulity, as Illustrated by Suc- cessful Impostures in Science, Superstition, and Fanati- cism," appeared in 1843. Five years later he published his " Key to the Book of Revelation," of which there was a second edition in 1848. In 1847 he issued a short " His- tory of the Presbyterian Church of Jamaica, Long Island," where he was once settled as pastor. In 1856 appeared " The Book of Ecclesiastes Explained," a scholarly com- mentary widely and favorably reviewed. A few years later he printed a volume of sermons with the title of " My Father's Ilouse; or, the Heaven of the Bible," and at the time of his death he was engaged in preparing another work for the press. He died at Princeton, April, 1877, leaving a wife and six children.

GIFFORD, HON. C. L. C., Lawyer and Jurist, late of Newark, was born in that city in November, 1825. Ile was a son of the late Arthur Gifford, one of the most esteemed of the old residents of Newark, whose estate he inherited and occupied at the time of his death. He graduated from the Yale Law School in 1844, and afterwards studied with his father. In 1847 he was licensed as an attorney-at-law, and was admitted as counsellor-at-law in January, 1850. For four years he was Deputy Collector for the port of New- ark. Mr. Gifford was elected to the House of Assembly in 1857, and in 1858 appointed State Senator, which position he held for two years, during the second year of his term being chosen President of the Senate. Although a Demo- crat, he received the Republican nomination for Mayor in 1862, but was defeated by the late Moses Bigelow. On the 29th of June, 1872, he was sworn in as Presiding Judge of the Essex County Court of Common Pleas, to fill the un. expired term of Judge Frederick II. Teese, and remaincd upon the bench until the appointment of Judge Titsworth,

tion, and although he is supposed to have overworked him- self in early life, when prominent in politics and the cause of temperance, retained an unusual amount of health and vigor until the closing years of his life. He was first taken ill during the early part of 1875, and in the spring of that year made a trip to Europe in the hope of recovering his health, but failed to derive any permanent benefit from it. Throughout his final illness he was attended by a devoted wife, whose care and patience were unremitting. He was a genial, kindly gentleman, beloved by many friends and respected by all who knew him. His death occurred March 31st, 1877.

OUDINOT, ELIAS, was born in Philadelphia, May 2d, 1740. His ancestors were French Hu- guenots, who came to America soon after the rev- ocation of the Edict of Nantes. He received a classical education, and having resolved upon the law as his profession, entered the office of Richard Stockton, the elder, of New Jersey. Bcing admitted to the bar, his agreeable manners, good principles, practical qual- ities and ready abilities as a speaker, early opened the way to a lucrative practice at the provincial bar, a way made more easy, perhaps, by his marriage with a sister of his pre- ceptor in the law, Mr. Stockton, himself already at the head of the New Jersey bar of that day, as also by the marriage of Mr. Stockton with the sister of Mr. Boudinot. But in every part of the colonies the troubles with the mother coun- try soon began to direct to the political and military fields all the abilities of the bar. Mr. Boudinot, with his brother Elisha and his wife's family connections, the Stocktons, early espoused the cause of the colonies, and in 1777 he was appointed Commissary-General of Prisoners, an office for which his humanity and sympathetic disposition, com- bined as these were with an inflexible sense of justice, a deep feeling at the treatment received by our own prisoners at the hands of British officers, and great dignity of person and manner, peculiarly fitted him. In the same year he was elected a member of the Continental Congress. In 1782 he was made President of that body, and signed in 1783 our treaty of peace with Great Britain. In common, however, with most intelligent men in public life, he had perceived long ere this timc the entire inadequacy of the then existing form of government to conduct with efficiency the affairs of the nation. And early relations of friendship cxisting between himself and Alexander Hamilton, who as a youth had indeed been almost domesticated in the family of Mr. and Mrs. Boudinot, led the subject of our notice into active endeavors to bring about a far stronger system of national government. From the beginning of the effort to change the system established by the articles of confederation, he advocated all the ideas and supported all

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the efforts of Hamilton, and in 1789 had the happiness to | about ten acres in size, and planting them in the best style see them crowned by the adoption of the " Constitution of the United States of America;" a constitution not indeed quite so national or so strong as he would have desired (for like Hamilton he would have had one where some control emanating from the central source should have operated on all State legislation which affected the general welfare- a feature which, had it been adopted, would have rendered impossible the late rebellion)-but one, nevertheless, which, if interpreted in furtherance of its professed ends, and not in defeat of them, he looked upon from the time of its adoption as likely to secure even those immeasurable bless- ings which, under it, the nation has since enjoyed. As an appropriate recognition of his services in the line just spoken of, Mr. Boudinot was elected to the first Congress of the United States under the present Constitution, and re-elected during six years. Having, while attending upon the Con- gress, fixed his residence in Philadelphia, where he built and resided in the handsome mansion still standing at the southeast corner of Arch and Ninth streets, and where his only child had married the Hon, William Bradford, Attorney- General of the United States, one of the most eminent men of his time, and so being no longer eligible as a member of Congress from New Jersey, Mr. Boudinot in 1796 was ap- pointed by President Washington, who long had had oppor- tunities of witnessing his abilities and integrity, Director of the Mint, an office which he held till 1805. He was among the very few officers appointed by Washington that Mr. Jefferson, who had come into power on the 4th of March, 1804, exhibited no disposition to remove. However, Mr. Boudinot had been in public life now for nearly thirty years; advancing years were coming upon him; the death of his accomplished son-in-law, Mr. Bradford, in the very bloom of life, had deeply affected him; and the triumph of Democracy in all departments of the federal government, as also in those of the State of Pennsylvania, made it more agreeable to him, blessed as he was with ample fortune, to retire from official life. The names of himself and his brother, Elisha Boudinot, were honored ones everywhere throughout New Jersey, and in the politics of that State still exerted, as they continued during their lives to do, a con- trolling influence. The attractions of the city of Burlington, then distinguished above almost any place in the State for an assemblage of distinguished and excellent men, among whom may be gratefully recalled by this day the Rev. Dr. Wharton, William Griffith, William Coxe, Joseph McIl- vaine, Joseph Bloomfield, Joshua Maddox Wallace, and different members of the families of Smith, the historian of New Jersey, Lawrence, so well known in our naval annals, and Fenimore Cooper, not less known in those of litera- ture, led him, by the advice of his friend and near kinsman, Mr. Wallace, to fix his residence in that then beautiful and salubrious place. He built there the noble mansion still standing, though in a form greatly changed, at the extreme west end of Broad street, laying out its surrounding grounds,

of ornamental garden. In this elegant abode, with his wife and daughter, he devoted himself to a liberal hospitality and to benevolent and literary pursuits. He became an active Trustee of Princeton College, into the board of whose trus- tees he had been elected so far back as 1772, and endowed it with a cabinet of natural history. In 1812 he was a member of the American Board of Commissioners for For- eign Missions, and in 1816 was made the first President of the American Bible Society; an institution in which he ever took great interest, and to which in a single donation he gave $10,000, a great sum of money at the time he gave it. During his whole residence in Burlington, there being at that time no Presbyterian church there, Mr. Boudinot was a devout worshipper and communicant in St. Mary's Protestant Episcopal Church, as also in his life and death a liberal benefactor to it. As both his own education and his wife's were in the Presbyterian denomination, and as his preferences were probably for it, his constant interest in St. Mary's must be regarded as a proof of a truly catholic dis- position. Mr. Boudinot died at his residence in Burlington, October 24th, 1821, and is buried in the grounds of St. Mary's Church, where his daughter, wife, and many of his connections are also interred. It is much to be regretted that no life of this eminent citizen of New Jersey has been written. His familiar letters were singularly agreeable, while those on public subjects have superior value. One of these, a letter addressed to Mr. James Searle, who in be- half of the Congress of the United States had apparently offered to him a valuable commercial post at the disposal of the government, gives us an idea of Mr. Boudinot's wis- dom and integrity, and affords so valuable an example to men in public office that we give it entire :- " Philadelphia, April 5th, 1779. Dear Sir : I have been seriously consid- ering the proposal you were kindly pleased to make me last evening, and am induced to answer it in the negative for the following reasons : I have ever made it a principle of my conduct in life not to eat the bread of the publick for nought, which, did I accept your proposal, would in some measure be the case in the present instance, as far as I am unequal to the task. I esteem it a most useful piece of wisdom to know what department in business one can fill with propriety, and to be careful not to aspire to any beyond my reach. I consider myself so totally inferior to this de- partment in mercantile knowledge, especially when com- pared with many who might fill it with reputation, that it appears to me a little like publick robbery to accept a lucra- tive employment which from the generous provision of the contract is apparently designed for a man of abilities in this particular branch of business. And lastly : in the present stage of public affairs an honest man must expect to be herded together with the general complexion of office, which . must wound the delicacy of public spirit or love to one's country. My plan of life is to avoid as much as possible being too much entangled in public business. My family

Prunted by waldo & Jewett

ELIAS BOULING -4.

Stue Bond ml

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is small ; my wants are few. In retirement and obscurity I can enjoy domestic happiness, which is the summit of my wish. I am nevertheless equally obliged to you for your kind attention as if I had accepted it, and am, dear sir, Yours, affectionately, ELIAS BOUDINOT. To Hon. James Searle, Esq."

UTLER, REV. MANASSEII, LL.D., Clergy man, Chaplan in the Revolutionary Army, was born at Killingly, Connecticut, May 28th, 1742, and graduated at Yale College in 1765. He then entered upon a course of legal studies, and in due time was admitted to the bar. Edgarton, Martha's Vineyard, was eventually selected as a field of labors, and there he was engaged for some time in the prac- tice of his profession. He subsequently devoted himself to the study of theology ; September 1Ith, 1771, was or. dained, and at once installed pastor of the Congregational church in Hamilton, then Ipswich Hamlet, Massachusetts. He served also during two campaigns in the war of the Revolution as chaplain in the American army. In 1786 he had become associated with a company, afterward known as the Ohio Company, whose leading spirits were revolu- tionary officers, organized with a view to the purchase of lind north of the Ohio. In Junc, 1787, he went to New York, as the company's agent, to negotiate with the Ameri- can Congress for the purchase of a large tract, somewhere in the new country, west of Pennsylvania and Virginia. " With consummate tact he accomplished his mission, and made a contract for the purchase of over a million and a half of acres, at two thirds of a dollar per acre. He kept a journal of his journey and his proceedings at New York, from which it appears that his plan could only be carried out by allowing some private parties to make an immense purchase of Western lands under the cover of the contract of the Ohio Company." The bargain included five mil- lions of acres, one and a half millions of which were for thc Ohio Company, and the remainder for the parties operat- ing through him. In his journal, under date of Friday, July 27th, 1787, he gives this account of the closing of his mission to New York : "At half past three I was informed that an ordinance passed Congress on the terms stated in our letter, without the least variation, and that the Board of Treasury was directed to take order and close the con- tract. This was agreeable but unexpected intelligence. Sargent and I went directly to the board, who had received the ordinance, but were then rising. They urged me to tarry the next day, and they would put by all other business to complete the contract, but I found it inconvenient, and, after making a general verbal adjustment, left it with Sar- gent to finish what was to be done at present. Dr. Lee, a brother of the famous Virginia orator, congratulated me, and declared he would do all in his power to adjust the terms of the contract, so far as was left to them, as much in

our favor as possible. I proposed three months for collect- ing the first half million of dollars and for executing the instruments of the contract, which was acceded to." By this ordinance was obtained the grant of over five millions of acres of land, amounting to three million five hundred thousand dollars ; one million and a half for the Ohio Com- pany, and the remainder for private speculation, in which many of the principal characters in the Eastern States were then concerned. " Without connecting this speculation, similar terms and advantages could not have been obtained for the Ohio Company. On my return through Broadway I received the congratulations of my friends in Congress, and others with whom I happened to meet." " It is an in- teresting fact," says Rev. Joseph F. Tuttle, D. D., " that he was in all these negotiations in constant communication with Colonel William Duer, of the Treasury Board, and closely related to several of our New Jersey and New York families." Dr. Tuttle continues : "I cannot bring myself to drop this part of Dr. Cutler's history without referring to two facts, as I fully believe them to be such. The ordinance to be submitted to Congress was placed in his hands for examination, and his two grand suggestions were adopted. The first was the exclusion of slavery forever from the Northwest Territory, and the second was the devotion of two entire townships of land for the endowment of an uni- versity, and section sixteen in every township of land and fractional township in that vast purchase for the purpose of schools. Those two ideas adopted by all the new States made the great West what it is." At a certain stage of his negotiation with Congress, in 1789, he made a trip to Philadelphia, and thence made an extended tour through New Jersey, whose lands, manners, towns, etc., are de- scribed at length in various parts of his journal. In the course of the following winter the first colony, under Gen- eral Rufus Putnam, made its way across the mountains, and on the 7th of April landed on the east side of the Muskingum river, where it enters the Ohio. In July he also made a journey thither in his sulky and on horseback, meanwhile. keeping a journal for the amusement of his daughter. In this journey he crossed New Jersey twice, and hoth the records concerning that State and the narrative of his jour- ney are of great interest. In 1789 he received from Yale College the honorary degree of LL.D. He was regarded as one of the most learned botanists of his day in the United States, and in many other respects was a talented and re- markable man. In 1787, in a published pamphlet, he predicted that " many then living would see the Western rivers navigated with steam, and that within fifty years the Northwestern Territory would contain more inhabitants than all New England." His first night in New Jersey was at " Walling's tavern, kept by one Scars, a surly old fellow, very extravagant (in his charges), and an empty house. . . . . Went on to Sussex Court House; road good fourteen miles. Breakfastcd at a tavern just above the court house, kept by Jonathan Willis. This is a pretty village on the eastern

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side, and near the summit of a high hill ; land good ; houses indifferent. . . . . At Log Jail, or Log Town, is a miserable tavern, kept by Jones, a Jew. Six miles from Log Town is Hope, commonly called Moravian Town. This is a small, new, but very pretty village. Houses mostly stone, built in Dutch style." In describing Bedford, the shire- town of the county, he says that which "should interest Jerseymen and Buckeyes also:" "Judge Symmes, John Cleves had taken lodging at the best tavern ; we, however, made shift to get lodgings in the same house, Mr. Wert's, a Dutchman. Judge Symmes was complaisant. I had a letter to him from his brother at Sussex Court House, New Jersey. He had his daughter with him, a very pretty young lady." Dr. Tuttle speaking of this extract, at a reading of the New Jersey Historical Society, says : " Well might these two remarkable men treat each other 'with com- plaisance,' as they met in Bedford on their way to a country whose destiny was to be so greatly affected by their plans and energy." The following is from a letter dated July IIth, 1787 : " . Two miles from the Hook is Bergen- town, a very compact village of considerable extent. It is inhabited entirely by the Dutch. There is a large Dutch church built with stone, and a handsome steeple. The houses are mostly built with stone, in the Dutch style. After leaving Bergentown I entered a very extensive marsh which goes far into the country. . . . Newark is a small village situated on a plain ; it has no considerable build- ings ; there is a small church, a Presbyterian meeting-house, and a Dutch church. . . . Elizabethtown is a very pretty village, several handsome houses, one meeting-house, and another new building. I passed through Spanktown (now Rahway), but the meeting- house and the thickest of the buildings were at some distance. It is a small village of no consideration. New Brunswick is a large town, and well built. Many of the buildings are brick and stone. There seems to be considerable trade carried on. in this town, though the shipping consists of very small craft. .

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The biographical encyclopaedia of New Jersey of the nineteenth century, Part 118

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