The biographical encyclopaedia of New Jersey of the nineteenth century, Part 44

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

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OOPER, SHERMAN, M. D., of Westfield, was born in Croydon, Sullivan county, New Hamp- shire, August 20th, 1833, his parents being Lem- uel P. and Laura (Whipple) Cooper, both natives of New Hampshire. He was educated at the public schools at Rome, and at the Kimball Union Academy at Meriden, graduating from the latter institution in 1852. Electing the profession of medicine, he attended a course of lectures at Dartmouth College in 1855, and read in the office of Professor David S. Conant in New York. In 1856-7 he attended lectures at the New York Medical College, and in the latter year was appointed assistant sur- geon to the hospital on Blackwell's Island. In 1858 he was made chief of staff at that hospital. In the subsequent year he entered upon the practice of his profession at Clare- mont, New Hampshire, and continued in successful prac- tice until the breaking out of the war. In 1861 he entered the United States service as surgeon of the 6th Regiment New Hampshire Volunteers, and served with credit for three years. In the spring of 1865 he returned to Clare- mont, and during the succeeding five years was actively engaged in the duties of his profession. In 1866-7 he held the chair of Assistant Professor of Surgery in the University of Vermont. In the latter year he received his degree of M. D. from the University of New York. In October, 1871, he removed to Westfield, where he has since continued in successful practice. He was elected Coroner for Union county in the fall of 1875. He has been for several years a prominent member of the Union County Medical Society. On the 23d of June, 1858, he was inarried to Celia Pierson, of Westfield.

CRIVENS, ZEBULON W., M. D., late of Long Branch, was born in Petersburg, New York, Sep- tember Ist, 1826. After a good preliminary training, he entered the Literary University, New York, from which he was graduated with honor in 1849. From his early childhood he was a hard student and a literary aspirant, possessing a retentive mind that never grew weary in its pursuit after knowledge. It was very natural therefore that he should incline toward a learned profession. He chose that of medicine, and began reading under the direction of Dr. A. H. Hull, of Berlin, New York, and took a full course at the Albany Medical College, from which he was graduated in 1852. The prac- tice of his profession he opened in his native town, Peters- burg, where he pursued it for twelve months. For a similar period he labored at Eagle Mills, in the same State, whither he removed from Petersburg. In 1854 he succeeded Dr. Jacob Vanderveer, at Long Branch, in a laborious and in- creasing practice, extending over a section of country four miles wide and sixteen miles long. But his reputation was not thus limited, called, as he often was, miles away to hold consultations with neighboring physicians in critical cases. He was a man of large perceptions and excellent judgment ; devoted to his profession, sacrificing everything else to its pursuit, even his life; for although a large, stalwart man, possessing great bodily vigor and vitality, he had to suc- cumb before the heavy labors he imposed on himself. A careful and successful general practitioner, he especially ex- celled in surgery, and was remarkably successful in his oper- ations. He died February 11th, 1876, from pneumonia, complicated with other diseases. By all who knew him he was not only respected but beloved.

OBS, EUGENE, M. D., late of Springfield, was born at Liberty Corner, Somerset county, New Jersey, February 23d, 1821, being the son of Nicholas C. and Margaret C. Jobs. After an or- dinary country school education, he commenced life as a teacher, and also as an assistant to his father in his store. Attracted toward the medical profes- sion, he began to study medicine with Dr. Smith English, at Manalapan, Monmouth county, and in due course ma- triculated at the University of Pennsylvania, medical de- partment, from which he was graduated April 4th, 1844. He was licensed to practise in New Jersey, at Elizabeth, by the Board of Censors of the Medical Society of New Jersey, for the Eastern District, September IIth, 1844. Practice he commenced at Springfield, Union county, in the spring of 1845, an'd there he continued uninterruptedly until his death. On October 28th, 1846, he was married to Mary L., oldest daughter of Thomas C. Allen, of Connecti- cut Farms, Union county, who died September 12th, 1863,

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leaving two sons and two daughters. He was a member of the Presbyterian Church, joining the communion in Springfield in 1848, and remaining a consistent member through after life. He died suddenly, of apoplexy, May 22d, 1875. Patient, industrious and ambitious, his incessant toil, his great exposure and many hardships overtaxing the brain and body, brought on the fatal attack. He fully ap- peciated the duties, responsibilities and privileges of his profession, honoring it in all his actions. Although his practice became very large, it was not especially remunera- tive, but his poor patients ever received from him the same careful attention extended to the rich. He recognized his calling as one enabling him to do good, and never neglected an opportunity of helping the afflicted and poor. He en. joyed a high reputation as a skilful physician, and was very highly respected and esteemed in a large neighborhood for his sterling character and social qualities.

ATZMER, WILLIAM H., Railroad Promoter and Manager, was born, July 22d, 1807, near Somerville, Somerset county, New Jersey. On the paternal side he is of German descent, his father having emigrated from Coburg in 1794, and settled first in Bustleton, near Philadelphia, and later in Somerset county, New Jersey, where he had charge of the Campbell Mills. His limited means did not permit him to furnish his son other educational advantages than those of a country village, but these were so well used that at the age of twelve years the latter was qualified to fill the situation of clerk in a country store. A year later he entered a more extensive establishment at Somer- ville. Here he remained for five years, displaying such business qualifications that the entire management of the house was confided to him, and the proprietor was desirous that he should acquire a partnership interest. To this, however, his want of capital was a bar, and believing that the knowledge of some trade would render him more secure of winning success in life, he left the store and entered a . printing office in the same town. The opportunities for self-culture which such a position offers were not neglected by him, and he soon acquired not merely a practical ac- quaintance with the trade but a general knowledge of science and literature. Thus provided, a rational ambition prompted him to seek a wider field than that of a country village, and, supplied with high testimonials of character and ahility, he applied successfully to the wealthy steam- boat firm of Stevens Brothers, of New York city, for a situa- tion. At that date, 1830, they controlled the principal trade of the North river, and they placed him as chief clerk on the " North America," then the finest boat afloat on the New York waters, where he distinguished himself by his executive skill and agrecable manners. The brothers Stevens were at this period engaged in constructing the , warmly acknowledged by Judge Packer. In 1867 Edwin

Camden & Amboy Railroad, a charter of which had been granted by the Legislature of New Jersey in 1830. In 1833, having completed the eastern sections of the line, they transferred him to the steamboat route between New York city and South Amboy, which position he occupied about three years. After the completion of the road from Amboy to Camden a responsible position was assigned to him in the office in Philadelphia by the same firm. Its duties he fulfilled so satisfactorily that soon not merely the management of the Philadelphia office but of the whole in- terests of the company were intrusted to him. It is not easy at this day, when the railroad system is thoroughly organized and acknowledged successful, to appreciate how onerous and responsible those duties were. The Camden & Amboy Rail- road was the first great through line completed in this country. By many sound and cautious men it was deemed a hazardous and even chimerical experiment, likely enough to bankrupt its stockholders. The respective rights of the public and the road were yet undefined ; costly litigation was unavoidable, and the immense labor of organization had all to be performed without the light of precedent or example. The company justly recognized that one mind must control the whole, untrammelled by interference or conflicting opinion, and the brothers Stevens rightly judged that such a mind could be found in their late employé. Hence for years he may be said to have been the autocrat of the road, appointing and deposing any subordinate officer, carrying his plans and wishes through the Board of Direc- tors with little opposition, and, withal, using this extensive authority with such discretion that neither employés nor stockholders ever preferred just grounds of complaint against his management. The company obtained control, early in its history, of the Philadelphia & Trenton Railroad, to secure the direct all-rail route between Philadelphia and New York, and ran a steamboat, first to Bristol and then to Tacony, in connection with this line. They also became proprietors of the ferry between Philadelphia and Camden, and of several freight and ferry lines on the Delaware. From these beginnings the road extended the area of its branches in all directions, so that it finally received the transportation of nearly one-half the territory of New Jersey. The smaller connecting roads, which were from time to time constructed, were supplied with funds and eredit by the Camden & Am- boy, and generally managed in accordance to the advice of its efficient superintendent. Nor was his influence bounded by the limits here defined. The Belvidere & Delaware Railroad, one of the important connecting branches of the Camden & Amboy, approaches the vast coal regions of Pennsylvania. The extension required to unite this with the coal ficlds was the Lehigh Valley Railroad and its branches, projected by Judge Packer, of Pennsylvania; and certain privileges and assistance essential to that important undertaking were, by Mr. Gatzmer's advice, granted the Lehigh Valley Company by the Camden & Amboy, services

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A. Stevens having resigned the Presidency of the Camden ] entered the United States army as an Assistant Surgeon, & Amboy Railroad Company, that honor was conferred, by serving until the end of the war. When mustered out of the service he entered the freshman class in the university at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, and continued his studies until, having reached the last term of his senior year, failing health compelled a total cessation from labor. A series of hem- orrhages from the lungs, superinduced by an attack of pleuro-pneumonia while in the army, threatened his life, but after a few months of rest his strength seemed restored and he was ordained a minister of the Baptist Church, in February, 1870. He was immediately called to the pas- torate of the church at Ringoes, New Jersey, an office that he held until his death. In January, 1870, in connection with his brother, Cornelius W. Larison, he founded the seminary at Ringoes, taking the position of Principal, and holding the chairs of Moral Science and Languages. His death occurred September 25th, 1872, and although the term of his ministry comprehended less than three years, upwards of eighty new members were added to the church through his exertions. Few men, laboring for so brief a period, have left so distinct an impress upon the moral tone of the community in which they have lived. Mr. Larison was married, October 6th, 1869, to Catherine B. Brown, a graduate of the University Female Institute, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, who was to him an excellent helpmate, both in pastoral duties and in the duties of the seminary. unanimous consent, on him, who for thirty-seven years had been the faithful and successful steward of the company's interests. In this year the New Jersey Railroad and Trans- portation Company was amalgamated with the Joint Com- panies of New Jersey, and the public works of the State, embraced in the Delaware & Raritan Canal Company, the Camden & Amboy Railroad Company, and the New Jersey Railroad Company were managed by a Joint Board, through the respective presidents. He was appointed Chairman of the Passenger and Freight Committee, and Secretary of the Joint Board and Executive Committees, which positions he held until the lease of the works to the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. To this lease he was op- posed, and stated the reasons for his opposition in a forcible argument, entitled, " Views upon the Proposition to Lease the Public Works of New Jersey to the Pennsylvania Rail- road Company ; read before the Joint Board of Directors, at their meeting at Trenton, New Jersey, April 20th, 1871." The lease, however, was finally ratified and executed by the presidents of the companies, by directions of the Joint Board, his views of its inexpediency remaining, nevertheless, unchanged. In May, 1872, his official connection with the United Canal and Railroad Companies of New Jersey, and as President of the Camden & Amboy Railroad Company, ceased. His connection with the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company, of which he was a Director as early as 1853, continues, and he was elected unanimously its Consulting Manager. When twenty-two years of age he married Eliza A. Campbell, of New York city, and has had the pleasure of witnessing an exemplary family grow up around him. His personal character has not merely been conspicuous for fair dealing and sincerity, qualities essential to the posts he has filled, but also for uniform courteousness, and a freedom from the irritability which so frequently mars the manners of the best men when overworked and weighted with the cares of a complex business. The capacity of very rapid labor, and the power of occupying the mind with more than one topic of attention at a time, are traits he has manifested in a uni- versal degree, and explain the facility with which he could transact, without errors, such varied affairs.

ARISON, REV. ANDREW B., late of Ringoes, was born, December 31st, 1841, at Sandy Ridge, Hunterdon county, New Jersey. He was the third son of Benjamin Larison, and his boyhood was passed upon his father's farm. He prepared for college at Flemington High School, of which his brother, C. W. Larison, was at that time principal, and in October, 1861, entered the medical college at Geneva, New York. He graduated thence in 1864, and immediately

EAVITT, JOHN, M. D., of Baptistown, was born in New Hampshire in the year 1819. After a good New England education he moved to New Jersey, where he became a school teacher in New Hampton. At the same time, having determined to adopt the medical profession, he began to read medicine with Dr. R. M. McLonahan, of that place. Hav- ing prepared himself for a college course, he proceeded to New York, pursued a full course and graduated. Upon receiving his diploma, he opened an office in Asbury, Warren county, New Jersey, where he practised from 1846 to 1847. In the latter year he removed to Ohio, where he prosecuted his profession for a short time. But he tired of the West, and returned to New Jersey and located in Fines- ville, Warren county. There he remained until 1854, when he took up his residence in Baptistown, Hunterdon county, where he continued actively engaged until his death. An extensive practice rewarded his labors, his skill and care. He married Miss Smith, daughter of James Smith, who with two children, a daughter and a son, survive him. After moving to Hunterdon county he became a member of the District Medical Society for that county ; in 1860 he was chosen its President, and also one of its Board of Censors. He was very conservative in practice. Unob- trusive in his manners, beloved by his patients, and warmly esteemed by the community in which he lived, he was also

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highly respected by his professional brethren. Religiously he was a Presbyterian. He died October 20th, 1875.

HELPS, HON. WILLIAM WALTER, Lawyer and Member of the Forty-Second Congress, was born in August, 1839. The Phelps family were early merchants of New York, and were noted for their culture as well as for their business con- quests. They reaped wealth through wise and fair dealing with their fellow-men. Phelps' father, John Jay Phelps, rose to affluence in days when Moses Taylor, Com- modore Garrison, William E. Dodge, and other men whose names are now historical in commerce, were his friends and competitors. The elder Phelps is remembered as a finan- cier of great shrewdness in his immediate dealings with events, but who, in common with all truly large-minded men, had a faculty for planning and executing projects that were not only intended to produce riches, but to surprise and charm by their originality and vastness. It was he who with consummate judgment decided that the coal regions of Pennsylvania, in which he had invested much money, should be connected with tide water at New York by the rail- way which is known as the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western. Our greatest men are not merely planners; they are also executors; and if we count the really successful men of our century we may say of them that in no project which they contemplated were they less willing to become responsible with their own money or reputations, than they were to invite the trust of others. So that it may be said that John Jay Phelps was an investor and not what we in our day are likely to call, with the falling inflection, a " speculator." Of the railway which he projected, he was President for many years. Carlyle says that self-esteem is one of the greatest qualities of men ; and when this capital- ist became in August, 1830, the father of a son, he was. proud enough to borrow time from his wide enterprises to devote to the development of the boy's character. Nor was he mistaken either in his plan or in the character of the . child; for while William Walter Phelps inherited the quick

intelligence of his father, he early in life developed a pas- sion for " mere culture " for its own sake-that brooding over what Emerson calls the " beautiful in doing," and what Matthew Arnold would call the literary instinct. At Yale College, William Walter P'helps became one of the most pop- ular of the undergraduates, mainly because he united the hab- its of the scholarly recluse, when duty called for them, with a sturdy interest in the social demands of the institution. It is perhaps his leading characteristic that his nervous-san- guine temperament leads him to take a practical interest in whatever surrounds him. So lasting is the memory of his active workings for his Alma Mater that when he was only passing his thirtieth year he was chosen a Fellow of Yale by a vote which led that of cven William M. Evarts. He

early showed readiness for debate; and he was both in and out of college one of the few really great speakers whom that stern and jealous institution has produced. Men who are powerful in speaking are seldom good writers, as Charles James Fox has suggested; and those who fashion their thoughts into a graceful style of writing usually fail, as Addison did, when they ascend the rostrum. There are few exceptions to this rule, Wendell Phillips being one, and William Walter Phelps being another, in our country and our generation. Yct, wisely, Mr. Phelps does not plunge into the arena of popular literature. His style of speaking, when reproduced in print, possesses the true literary qual- ity, resembling very much that of Sargent S. Prentiss, who was popular as an orator in the generation just preceding ours. Without this literary quality Phelps might have un- duly developed his ready practical talent, so that, while he would not have been lacking in force as a debater, his qual- ity of learning might not have acquired for him the liking of that by-no-means-wcak element in politics which is some- times called doctrinaire. It is the spirit of the poet chas- tening the action of the executor : the blue depth that gives picturesque color to the hurtling cataract. Wirt, Story, Phillips, and Phelps have had more lasting power in politics than turbulent speakers like Randolph and Tom Marshall and Butler and Cox. The quality that our speakers with the literary instinct possess is powerful because it charms. The campaign speaker who rouses cheers at every stamp of his brogans and every sweep of his hand is forgotten in a day; but in true intelligence there is somewhat the same sort of conservation of force which exists in physics; and as in poetry " a thing of beauty is a joy forever," so in politics a word spoken with that intelligence which transcends com- monplace, is like bread cast upon waters and returning after many days. The Englishman whom Phelps most resembles is Canning, whose life was very much like that of our Jersey- man, so far as the latter has lived long enough for us to make the comparison. There are the same microcosmic word, the same graceful phrase, the same melodic period, the same merciless sarcasm, and the same reverence for the subject. It was said of Canning by his enemies in sarcasm that contained genuine praise that his rhetoric could not hide the sinews of his oratorical power. The same may be said of Phelps. But it can never be said of Phelps, as Can- ning's enemies said of him, that he is cver tawdry. Phelps' European journey was a visit to the shrincs of great men, mainly in literature ; and newspaper men have no need to cease their liking for him when we tell them that he went with reverential footsteps to Thackeray's habitual scenes. Columbia Law School furmshed him with the means of attaining a thorough legal education, and there, as at Yale, he won the honors of his class. Ile immediately upon graduating became known for his skill in financial and railroad law, a branch of his profession in which S. L. M. Barlow and Governor Tilden have proved so successful. Among his chents were capitalists like Moses Taylor,

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George Bliss and William E. Dodge. Soon after he began to achieve distinction in his profession his father died, leav- ing him so large a fortune that he was compelled to give exclusive attention to the interests which it involved. He had already chosen New Jersey as his place of residence, and had purchased a farm in Bergen county, including a thousand acres of land, reaching from the Hudson river to the town of Hackensack. His manner of life among his neighbors, though never lacking the gracefulness which makes the outer sign of a gentleman, was and continues to bc unassuming, cordial and democratic. He is emphati- cally a hearty man. The present writer has said otherwhere that a man of great powers cannot find substantial success in public life unless he has had a background of country life. Burke used to raise turnips for recreation ; Bismarck hides himself on his farm ; and Webster found his best ideas while leaning over the fences watching his fat oxen. Phelps' most valuable help in the study of politics has heen his New Jersey country life. It was in 1870, just after he had assumed the responsibility of being thirty years old, that Judge Ryerson discovered that if John Hill was to be elected to Congress in the Fifth District, the vote of Bergen county, which has been Democratic from the time when the memory of man runneth not to the contrary, should be weak- ened; and in his despair, which bred ingenuity, he deter- mined to appeal to the farmer-lawyer of the Hackensack valley. William Walter Phelps was so practical in his re- sponse, working with all his nervous energy and frank inde- pendence of character, that he reduced the Democratic vote two-thirds, and elected Hill. Thereafter, Phelps became known as the man in his district who could make large majorities. He is the only Republican within our knowledge who ever had a Democratic majority in Bergen county. In Passaic county his popularity was comparatively as great. When, in 1872, he was elected to Congress, he began at once to win honors for his State; so that men who marvelled whence this young man had so suddenly sprung began to say in the Paterson shops and on the hillsides of Morris that the Fifth District of New Jersey was able to send to Washington a man who could honor it with his learning and his brilliancy. Certainly no man in the State ever made so substantial a fame in so short a time. In Congress he rose so high above the conception of hin existing in some minds that he was a mere man of money, that con- stituents who gloomily doubted at the intrusion of one who was almost a stranger, began to applaud when the whole country learned to admire him. He at once made himself popular among the members by several amusing speeches which, tearing the nap from a good deal of shoddy politics, left it threadbare for the study of men. The use of wit in debate is hy no means to be reprehended when it serves. its purpose of good ; and by its use alone is humhug some- times best exposcd. When Phelps' satire was keenest and when his humor was huhbling over, his friends never ceased to respect him, and his enemies, vying with his friends in

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The biographical encyclopaedia of New Jersey of the nineteenth century, Part 44

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