The biographical encyclopaedia of New Jersey of the nineteenth century, Part 121

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

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" The churches looked to him as their counsellor and father in Christ, and they have long since, from ample experience, by universal suffrage, conferred upon this apostolic man the imperishable distinction of being one of the most orthodox and evangelic divines of the last and present century. . . . The church is by his death bereaved of a burning and shining light, the Presbytery of New Brunswick mourn the loss of a father, and Bible societies the departure of a steady adherent and able advocate; the State of New Jersey gives up to-day a patriot, enlightened, ardent, inflexible-one who has long shone splendidly in the bright constellation of her illustrious citizens." In 1772 he was united in marriage to Sarah Spafford, of Philadelphia, and with this pious and excellent woman lived more than half a century. His granddaughter, Cornelia Neilson Woodhull, daughter of Rev. George S. Woodhull, of Princeton, New Jersey, was born at Cranbury, New Jersey, May 16th, 1803, and died in 1824.

RAVEN, JOHN JOSEPH, M. D., of Jersey City, was born in New Jersey, September 8th, 1822. He was apprenticed when a lad to David G. Ayres, house carpenter, of Newark, New Jersey, and upon attaining his majority entered the em- ployment of John Grigg, of Newark, carpenter and millwright. He was immediately employed in the construction of the Passaic Chemical Works, and when the works went into operation he was retained in the employ- ment of William Clough, proprietor, and a practical chemist, as Superintendent of Construction and Repairs. The staple products of the works were acids and dry salts, and it was from the study of the various processes of manu- facture employed that he first acquired a taste for scientific research. While holding this position he was married to Catherine S., daughter of Mr. Samuel Tichenor, of Newark. In 1845 Morse's telegraph across New Jersey was in course of construction, the Newark office being located in the court-house of that city. During the erection and testing of the first instruments, he became greatly interested in the new science ; hecame acquainted with Professor Morse and others connected with the Magnetic Telegraph Company, and, resigning his position in the Passaic Chemical Works, entered the service of the company as Superintendent of Construction. Under his supervision the line connecting Newark, Paterson, Hackensack and Fort Lee was erected, and having finished this work he remained for some time at Fort Lee, under the instruction of Professor Morse, experi- menting in the construction of submarine telegraph cables. The attempts in this direction, made in the latter part of 1845 and during 1846, were unsuccessful, a proper insula- tion of the wire presenting a difficulty that secmed to be wholly insurmountable. In 1847, however, he was shown,

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known commercially-and he was at once struck by its | Ict his name stand out in its proper place." In the same adaptability to the very purpose that he had in hand. In strain is the following extract from the Newark Courier, of January 15th, 1870: "A former citizen of Newark was the first person to suggest the utility of submarine telegraph cables, and to carry his suggestion into effect by practical experiment. There is much truth in the old adage that prophets are never honored in their own country, but we are glad to observe one exception at least in a rule which has such general application. A recent scientific report of pre-eminent authority very properly conceded the claim of the submarine cable inventor, and hands down to the rightful honor which awaits it the name of our former townsman, Dr. John J. Craven. Since Dr. Craven first undertook in a small, but nevertheless convincing way, to test the the month of August, 1847, in his own house, with the as- sistance of his wife, he covered with gutta-percha a copper wire, submerged it in water, and by repeated electrical tests satisfied himself that his discovery was in every way a snc- ccss. The wire that he had prepared being of sufficient length, he submerged it in the Passaic river at the railroad draw-bridge at Newark, and, by the consent of the Mag- netic Telegraph Company, connected it with the land wires on each side. Careful tests showed the new method to bc entirely effective, and the inventor had the satisfaction of knowing that he had won a great scientific victory-how great that victory was in the end to be, even hc little imagined. This at Newark was undoubtedly the first ap- practicability of submarine telegraphic cables, the matter plication of gutta-percha as an insulating substance for sub- marine telegraph purposes. In the latter part of 1847, gutta-percha having at that time been placed in our markets, he prepared wires for use at various points where it was de- sirable to carry telegraph lines across navigable streams, and all of these, when put into use, proved entirely satis- factory in their working. As he had unquestionably dis- covered the practical value, and had applied gutta-percha for the first time to telegraphic purposes, and as his discovery was evidently one of great commercial value, he took measures in 1848 to protect his rights by patenting the pro- cess which he had devised. By a quite unpardonable error of judgment on the part of the Commissioners of Patents, his application was refused; the very insufficient reason given for such refusal being that Professor Faraday had already mentioned gutta-percha as being a non-conducting substance. This was unquestionably true; but Professor Faraday had not remotely hinted at the invaluable purpose to which it had been applied by the American inventor, and the essential excellence of a patent rests quite as much upon application as upon discovery. It is a disgrace to the Patent Office that so excellent an invention was refused recognition, and that an inventor of such merit was de- frauded of his reward. The Hon. William D. Kelley, in his address delivered in Philadelphia at the cable celebra- tion (1858), thus alluded to the man who made submarine cables possible : " But we celebrate the laying of a sub- marine cable, and let me with my poor efforts draw from the obscurity into which it is fallen the name of that toiling worker of days-work who first laid a magnetic telegraph wire, coated in gutta-percha, under a body of water near his native town of Newark, New Jersey. He laid four thus coated, and for the use of one of them he received, from a powerful corporation, one dollar and twenty-five cents per day. He applied for a patent, but on grounds which, if I understand the case rightly, were very inadequate for such a decision, his claim was rejected, and he lost even his poor revenue from the work which the corporation used. John J. Craven, of Newark, New Jersey, made and laid the first practical, substantial, available submarine telegraph; and brilliant, and in 1851 he returned to the States, and in the

has received the attention of the scientific men of both sides of the Atlantic, and everybody knows the results obtained. Within a few ycars an electric current has bound the old world to the new, thus affording for intelligence a magnifi- cent triumph both over space and time. In point of com- munication, London and Paris are almost as near to us to-day as New York and Brooklyn. It is both proper and right 'to applaud the efforts of Field and others, whose energy and means contributed so much to this final demon- stration of practical science. Yet, while we cheerfully accord these indomitable spirits their just deserts, it is fitting that we should also remember the comparatively humble pioneer in this great undertaking, who has been rewarded in nothing but the late recognition of his just" claim." Notwithstanding the difficulties with which the inventor had to contend, he had a profound faith in his invention, and in a letter written in the early part of 1848 he prophetically says : "I have surely struck it. I have now in my possession a wire that is, in a short circuit be- neath a stream, in connection with a main line, doing its work faithfully. Mark my words : it will yet cross rivers, bays, seas and oceans, and connect continents." Having had his material prepared, he then, under the direction of the officers of the Magnetic Telegraph Company, laid down, on the 15th of June, 1848, a cable uniting New York and Jersey City, and making complete the line between New York and Washington. As at first laid this cable extended from the Cunard dock in Jersey City to the (then) Albany dock, at the foot of Cortlandt street, New York. This location he selected on account of its being almost in the track of the New York and Jersey City Ferry, hoping thereby to escape the dangers of disturbance from anchorage. In a few days, however, it was destroyed by an anchor, and a less exposed situation was in a little time selected. Mean- while his only pecuniary return for his labor and skill was the small salary paid him by the Magnetic Telegraph Com- pany, and in the hope of bettering his fortunes he sailed early in 1849 for the then just discovered gold-fields of California. His success upon the Pacific coast was not

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same year began the study of medicine, and subsequently strait, the president of the abattoir company applied to Dr. Craven, on the ground of his extensive chemical and sani- tary knowledge, to devise some plan by which the business might be unobjectionably conducted. Entering into the work with great interest and enthusiasm, he entirely suc- ceeded in bringing it to a successful issue, although in the course of so doing he was compelled to invent processes, and to, moreover, invent machinery for putting such pro- cesses into action. He is now the recognized authority upon establishments of this sort, and during the last ten years his advice has been sought by the projectors of the large abattoirs in this country. In this present instance his inventions have deservedly redounded to his own profit, and he can now contemplate with coolness the millions lost to him through the bungling of the Patent Office over his gutta-percha-coated wire. Oddly enough, he has himself come of late years to be a recognized expert in patent cases of a scientific character, too late, however, to be of any service to his own claims. One of his most important in- ventions, as yet unmentioned, is a process for the transporta- tion of fresh meat for long distances, a process that is now in successful use and seems to entirely fulfil all reasonable conditions. But the list of his successes is too long to be enumerated ; from what has been written the rest must be inferred. He is a typical, self-made man, of humble origin and without any early advantages of education; with, in- deed, almost insuperable natural disadvantages to weigh him down, he has by sheer force of nerve and strength of intelligence raised himself to a commanding position in the community. Summing him up, intellectually and person- ally, one of his fellow staff-officers wrote, a dozen years ago : " He is a very excellent, kind, skilful and conscientious medical attendant. A vigorous follower of field sports; rather spare of habit; pure Roman features, set off to ad- vantage by military whiskers and moustache ; a voice of excellent modulation, and manners of great courtesy and politeness. He is a devotee of science in all its branches, and more fully fills my idea of a savant than any other medical man it has been my fortune to meet in the army." placed himself under the preceptorship of Dr. Gabriel Grant, of Newark. Having attended lectures at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York, he en- tered upon the practice of medicine in Newark, and re- mained in successful practice in that city until 1861. On the breaking out of the late war he was offered and accepted the appointment of Surgeon to the Ist New Jersey Regi- ment, and served with that organization during the three months' term of its enlistment, Having returned he was invited by the Secretary of War to appear before a Board of Army Surgeons, then sitting in the city of Washington, as a candidate for Brigade Surgeon. Passing through this examination successfully, he was appointed Brigade Sur- geon and attached to the staff of General H. G. Wright, in Sherman's expeditionary corps. In February, 1862, he was promoted to be Chief Medical Officer of General Wright's brigade, and accompanied that force to Florida ; was sub- sequently assigned to duty on Tybee island, Georgia, and while active in this capacity, was selected by the medical director of the department for Chief Medical Officer to General Gilmore's command during the investment of Fort Pulaski. In September, 1862, he was made Medical Purveyor of the Department of the South, with head-quarters at Hilton Head. In May, 1864, he was made Chief Medical Officer of Field Operations against Forts Wagner, Gregg and Sumpter. On the reduction of the works General Gilmore organized the 10th Army Corps, with which Surgeon Craven proceeded to Virginia as Medical Director, and was in the following August detailed for thirty days as a member of a Board for the Examination of Hospitals in the Department of the East, saving which time he remained with the 10th Corps until 1865. On the 17th of January, by special order, he was assigned to duty as Medical Purveyor and Chief Medical Officer of the De- partment of Virginia and North Carolina, with head-quarters at Fortress Monroe. In March, 1865, he was brevetted Lieutenant-Colonel for faithful and meritorious services during the war, and on the 16th of December he was hon- orably discharged from the service. While on duty at Fortress Monroe he attended lectures at the Baltimore Academy of Medicine, and from that institution received his degree of M. D., a formality searcely necessary, since in EWELL, HON. WILLIAM A., was born in Ohio and graduated at Rutgers College. Moving to New Jersey when still a young man, he took an active interest in politics, and was shortly after- wards elected upon the Republican ticket a Representative to Congress from 1847 to 1851. Abraham Lincoln was a member of the same Congress, and the two men sat beside each other in the House, roomed and boarded together, and became intimate friends. In 1856 Mr. Newell was elected Governor of New Jersey by a Republican majority of about 1,000. In 1864 he was a Delegate to the Baltimore Convention, and was re-elected the school of the army lie had successively taken the degrees of Surgeon of the Regiment, Surgeon of the Brigade, Sur- geon of Division, Surgeon of Corps, Surgeon of the Army, and finally Chief Medical Officer of a Department, winning each of these positions- by his acknowledged professional and executive ability. In 1867 he again began the practice of his profession in New Jersey, establishing himself in Jersey City. About this time, as will be remembered, thc great abattoir at Communipaw was figuring prominently in the New Jersey courts ; had been formally declarcd to be by the chancellor-is it certainly was-a nuisance, and by the same authority its conduct had been enjoined. In this to the Thirty-ninth Congress, Mr. Lincoln at that time

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being President, and the friendship between them was re- newed. He served on the Committees on Foreign Affairs and Revolutionary Claims, and was an indefatigable worker. In 1868 and 1870 he was a candidate for re-election to Con- gress, but was hoth times defeated. In 1871 he was a can- didate for the United States Senate, and for a number of years he held the office of Vice-President of the National Union League.

ALLANTINE, PETER, of Newark, New Jersey, Brewer, was born in 1791 in Ayrshire, Scotland, memorable, among other things, as containing the birthplace of the poet Burns, and the Allo- way-Kirk, in which Tam O'Shanter had his midnight vision. In 1820 he came to this coun- try, and went to Albany, New York, where he entered the service of Robert Dunlop, a brewer, and one of the most ex- tensive at that time in the country, with whom he learned the process of brewing, though more from close observation of the work as done by others than from direct instruction. Such was his docility and mother wit, however, that he soon mastered the business, and was employed as brewer and malster by several leading firms in succession at Albany and the vicinity, and subsequently became a partner in the firm of Fidler, Ryckman & Co., in which he remained about six years. He was now not only an expert hut an experienced manager in the business. In 1840 he removed to Newark, New Jersey, and rented there a brewery, which, though it had never been operated successfully before, he carried on with steadily increasing success from the be- ginning, in the face not merely of the competition of the most celebrated brands in the country, but of the bad reputation of the ales previously brewed in the establish- ment. At the end of the eighth year he had increased his annual production to eleven thousand barrels, which, being the limit of the facilities then at his command, necessitated the erection of new buildings; whereupon he bought in 1848 a tract of land adjacent to the Passaic river, on which he built a malthouse of thirty thousand bushels capacity, and in the following year a new brewery, communicating with his new malthouse, and having a capacity of one hundred barrels a day. His business was at last in the full tide of prosperity, and flowed on with ever increasing volume, in- somuch that the difficulty was not to accelerate it but to keep pace with it, new facilities being constantly required to meet the new demands. The sales continued to grow until from brewing four times a week he was compelled to brew every day, and sometimes twice a day. He, however, kept his swelling business well in hand by dint of wisely yield- ing to its successive exactions, building first another malt- house of twenty thousand bushels capacity ; next enlarging his brewery; then building a third malthouse of sixty

thousand bushels capacity, which he afterwards enlarged to eighty thousand bushels; and, finally, building still another malthouse, two hundred feet long, forty-eight feet wide, and six stories in height. In these ample accommodations lie rests for the present, but as his business is as active and pro- gressive as ever, there is no telling how soon it may outgrow even such immense facilities. It should be stated that his establishment supplies malt to other brewers, producing con- sequently much more than is consumed in his own breweries. His house is thus a kind of mother-brewery, standing to others in something of the same relation that the metropolis bears to other cities. It is assuredly a grand monument of his energy and skill. During the first five years of his busi- ness career in Newark he was in partnership with Mr. E. Patterson, and since 1859 his three sons have been associ- ated with him, under the firm-name of P. Ballantine & Sons, one of them having charge of the principal depot in New York city, whence all the shipping is done and all the city trade supplied. But the father has been the head of the concern in fact as in name. He is now a patriarch not only among brewers but among men, being eighty-six years of age. All the most important improvements in his busi- ness have come in under his eye. He has seen hand labor, exclusively used in breweries when he began, superseded almost wholly by the appliances of modern invention; the old cumbrous and costly motive powers replaced by steam, with the consequent revolution in his own as in all other de- partments of industry ; and brewing, once thought practica- ble during only about eight months of the twelve, continued throughout the year, sound ale being brewed alike in July and in January. And all these improvements, as they have appeared one after another, he has been quick to seize and utilize for the benefit of his customers as well as himself, until he has succeeded not simply in amassing a fortune, but in raising the reputation of Newark ale in this country to a height scarcely less than that of Munich beer in Germany, keeping at the same time his own reputation, amid all vicis- situdes, free from spot or tarnish. Well does he merit, what he receives in full measure, the respect and veneration of his fellow-citizens.

HOMPSON, REV. STEPHEN OGDEN, Presby- terian Minister, of Connecticut Farms, New Jersey, was born in Mendham, New Jersey, and was a de- scendant of "Goodman Thompson," one of the founders of Elizabethtown, and a pioneer settler of extended reputation. His parents were Jacob and Hannah (Beach) Thompson, daughter of Elisha Beach ; his grandfather, Stephen Thompson, was nineteen years old when his father, Joseph, migrated from the old home at Elizabethtown to the head spring of the Passaic, in what is now known as the village of Mendham ; Joseph, the great- grandfather, was the son of Aaron, and the grandson of

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Goodman Thompson; the grandfather of Stephen O. firm, have been admitted to an interest in the business. having died at thirty years of age, the widow married Dr. The first store occupied by Forst & Taylor was a compara- tively small one at the corner of Green and Hanover streets, and in it they continued for one year. More commodious premises were then found at the northeast corner of Green and Academy streets. In 1866 their constantly increasing business demanding considerable enlargement of their facil- ities, their present handsome and capacious building was erected. The store and the business transacted therein are upon a scale fairly rivalling concerns of the same class in New York and Philadelphia. The development and prosperity of the establishment are the natural results of the energy, integrity and fine business qualifications brought to bear by Mr. Forst. He is a very public-spirited man, and labors in and out of season to advance the commercial and social status of his adopted city. He is an active member of the Board of Trade ; Director in the Mechanics' National Bank, and in the People's Fire Insurance Company. In politics he is a Republican, but he only takes a citizen's in- terest in political affairs. Joseph Ogden. The subject of this sketch studied at the College of New Jersey, and graduated from that institution in 1797. He was then, October 18th, 1798, taken under the care of the Presbytery of New York; and licensed to preach, October 9th, 1800. A call for his services as pastor was presented to the Presbytery, June 15th, 1802, from the church of Connecticut Farms; and he was ordained pastor thereof on Tuesday, November 16th, 1802, at eleven o'clock A. M. ; Rev. Asa Hillyer, of Orange, New Jersey, presided ; Rev. Aaron Condict, of Hanover, preached the sermon ; and Rev. James Richards, of Morristown, gave the exhorta- tion to the people. Thrice during his ministry, in 1808, 1813-14, and in 1817, his people were favored with notable revivals of religion. In 1834 he was dismissed. HIe sub- sequently removed to Indiana, N. E., and became a member of the Presbytery of St. Joseph (N. S.), in which he continued till his decease, May 31st, 1856, in his eighty- first year. February 24th, 1803, he was married to Henri- etta Beach, a daughter of Major Nathaniel Beach, of Newark. The ceremony was performed by Dr. Macwhorter, with whom, probably, he had studied for the ministry.

ORST, DANIEL P., Merchant, of Trenton, was born in New Hope, Bucks county, Pennsylvania, April 11th, 1822, and is the son of William H. Forst, of that place, a merchant and meniber of the firm of Daniel Parry & Co. After attend- ing for some years the schools and academy of New Hope, Daniel completed his education at Plainfield, New Jersey. On.leaving school he commenced his business life as a clerk in the employment of the firm of which his father was a member during his lifetime. In this engage- ment he continued until 1841, when, being then in his twentieth year, he removed to Bristol, Pennsylvania, and commenced operations on his own account in the coal, lum- ber and general mercantile business. Success attended his enterprise. In 1855, desirous of a wider sphere, he re- moved to Trenton, New Jersey, and opened a general store business on Broad street, which he prosecuted energetically for a period of three years. In 1858 the firm of Forst & Taylor was organized, the copartners being Daniel P. Forst and John Taylor, of whom a biographical sketch appears in another part of this volume, and it became one of the pioneers in the wholesale trade of Trenton. Its sales, which have now reached nearly a million of dollars per annum, at the time of the formation of the copartnership amounted to less than two hundred thousand. After an association of twelve years Mr. Taylor retired from the firm in 1870, and Mr. W. II. Skirm became a member, the style being D. P. Forst & Co. Since that date C. W. Leeds and Joseph M. Forst, son of the senior member of the | lege, St. Mary's Hall, both at Burlington, and the Episcopal

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The biographical encyclopaedia of New Jersey of the nineteenth century, Part 121

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