The biographical encyclopaedia of New Jersey of the nineteenth century, Part 53

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

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HITEHEAD, WILLIAM A., of Newark, is a gentleman widely known in New Jersey as an historian and antiquarian. IIe was the originator of the New Jersey Historical Society, of which he has heen from the first and is still the Correspond- ing Secretary, and his pen has been most prolific in contributions to its annals. Principal among these are his " History of New Jersey Under the Proprietors," and "Contributions to the Early History of Perth Amboy," etc., each being a volume of several hundred pages, replete with evidence of the industry, research and ability of their author. Besides these interesting and useful labors, he has for many years kept a daily record of the weather, including thermo- metrical and barometrical observations, monthly statements of which have been published in the Newark Daily Adver- tiser. On this subject, as well as upon the history of the

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State, Mr. Whitehead is an established authority. These employments, which have given him large fame, are the recreations of a life devoted to close and daily labor. At sixteen he left school and entered a bank, of which his father was cashier. In early manhood he joined an elder brother then engaged in mercantile pursuits at Key West. He was appointed collector and lived there several years, em- ploying his spare time in close study and self-development. At his father's death he returned to the North, and entered into business in Wall street, which he relinquished and became successively Treasurer of the Haarlem Railroad; Secretary of the New Jersey Railroad, and Treasurer of the American Trust Company, at Newark, a position he still fills. Mr. Whitehead is the father of the Newark Library, as well as of the New Jersey Historical Society. He has accepted no public office except that of a member of the Board of Public Education, in which he was for years very efficient. It is believed he was the first to suggest a city hospital, and he has ever been foremost in local benevolence. IIe is now about sixty six years old, and full of health and energy. He was born in Newark, within a few steps of where he resides. His wife is a daughter of James Parker, late of Perth Amboy. He has had several children, of whom three grew up. One son is a distinguished Episcopal clergy- man, Rev. Cortlandt Whitehead, of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

QYNTON, CASSIMER W., Manufacturer, of Woodbridge, son of Gorham L. and Louisa (Bassford) Boynton-his father being the pro- prietor of large tracts of timber land, an extensive builder and owner of saw-mills, and for a number of years surveyor-general of the lumber interests of the State-was born in Bangor, Maine, February 14th, 1836. Educated at the Bangor public schools, at the Law- rence Scientific school, Cambridge, and at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York, remaining at the latter for three years, he received a thorough training as a civil engineer; indeed, during the last two years of his course at Troy, he was Assistant Teacher of Mechanical Engineering. Shortly after his graduation, in 1857, he was appointed Assistant Engineer and placed in charge of the western end of Bergen Tunnel, remaining upon that important work until its completion. He was then engaged to finish the construction of the San Francisco Water Works, and under this appointment he built two large reservoirs and put up the necessary pumps, one of which is one of the highest single lifis-three hundred and ten feet through a half mile of pipe-in the country. In connection with the water works, he also built an aque- duct three thousand feet long, through solid rock, beneath the fort on Black Point. This was completed in 1862, and for two years thereafter he was engaged as a mining engi- neer in Sonora and Mexico. From 1864 to 1866 he was

again professionally engaged in San Francisco. In the early part of the latter year he returned to the Atlantic coast, and, after some months passed in examining mill sites, finally selected property at Woodbridge, and, in part- nership with Mr. J. P. Davis, there erected extensive works for the manufacture of brick drain-pipe and tile. The works as at present existing, having been several times added to during the eleven years that they have been in operation, comprehend two down-draft kilns (sixteen and a half feet in diameter by eleven feet high, and fourteen and a half feet in diameter by ten feet high) with all adequate appliances; employ a large force of men, and have an out-put during the height of the busy season of about one thousand dollars' worth of finished pipe, etc., per day. The location is pecu- liarly eligible, the property having a frontage of eleven hun- dred feet upon Woodbridge creek, and another of six hun- dred and fifty feet upon Staten Island Sound; the latter permitting the erection of wharves at which vessels of the largest draught can safely lie even at the neap tides. The market for the product of the works is mainly found in the Eastern States, but a considerable business is also done in supplying other portions of the country ; in New York there is a very general demand for the Woodbridge hollow bricks (used for roofing fire-proof buildings), and the larger por- tion of the drain pipe used in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, and in the capitol grounds at Washington, came from the Wood- bridge factory. Beside the hollow bricks above referred to, the firm makes a specialty of a small pipe for under-draining, so constructed, with a loose-fitting collar, as to permit the entry of water at the joints, but effectually barring the entry of sand, a very obvious improvement upon the common variety. Mr. Boynton has filled various positions of trust and honor in Woodbridge, and, having done so much to stimulate its business activity, is naturally regarded as one of the most useful inhabitants of the town. He was mar- ried, December 20th, 1866, to Eunice A. Harriman, of Georgetown, Massachusetts.

UMONT, JOHN F., Lawyer, was born, November I Ith, 1824, near New Germantown, New Jersey. His family is of Huguenot extraction, his ances. tors having left France shortly after the massacre of St. Bartholomew, though it was not until as late as 1710 that his ancestors came to this country, settling on their arrival here in Somerset county, New Jersey. His grandfather, William Dumont, served in the revolution- ary army, taking part in the battle of Monmouth, and be- coming after the war one of the judges of Hunterdon county. His maternal grandfather, John Finley, of Am- well township, Hunterdon county, New Jersey, was also a revolutionary officer, a commissary. His father, John W. Dumont, was a farmer in the vicinity of New Germantown, Hunterdon county, from which he removed to Warren

Gauery Fur Ca Phi.

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county, and thence to the State of Illinois. The son spent the first eighteen years of his life on a farm, attending mean- while, as occasion offered, the common school of the neigh- borhood, in which he acquired his early education, and after- ward taught school himself, spending the time not thus occupied in study and the education of himself as a self- made man. In 1845 he entered the law office of S. B. Ransom, of Somerville, New Jersey, remaining there till he was admitted to the bar in 1849. He practised at New Germantown until 1852, when, having been licensed as counsellor and appointed Prosecutor of the Pleas for Hun- terdon county, he removed to Flemington, where he re- mained four years, after which he resigned his office as Prosecutor, and in the spring of 1856 removed to Phillips- burg, Warren county, New Jersey, at which he still resides. Ilis practice is large and valuable. Ile stands, by common consent, at the head of the Phillipsburg bar. He is a law- yer such as clients love; tenacious of their rights, zealous for their interests, and sure to contest with unflinching energy and skill every point in a case. In politics, he is a Democrat; was a supporter of the war for the Union. He has never suffered political ambition to step between him and his profession, having never sought a political office. He was married in 1853 to Anna E. Kline, daughter of the Rev. David Kline, a Lutheran minister, formerly of West Camp, Ulster county, New York, now of Clarksville, New Jersey.

REGANOWAN, AMBROSE, A. M., M. D., of South Amboy, Middlesex county, New Jersey, was born in Camborne, county of Cornwall, Eng- land, February 14th, 1836. His parents are John and Ann Treganowan, of the same county; his mother's maiden name was Ann Clymo; she is still living. He is the youngest of four children, all sons, and, besides this immediate family and their relatives, there is not another family of Treganowans, and their pedigree is Iost, except what is related in some curious and romantic traditions. Ilis father died before his recollection. The family are largely identified with the mining interests of that county, some of its copper ore mines being the most famous in the world. The doctor's early education was received at a select academy for boys in the town where he resided, conducted by one Mr. William Bellows, a Quaker, and a former resident of New York city. At the early age of four- teen years he commenced his preparation for the medical profession, by being indentured for seven years to the cele- brated surgeon, Alfred Prideaux, Esq., of Siskeard, about forty miles from his native town, in the same county. After fulfilling about three years of his articles of engagement, however, he grew restive, and cvinced a determination to go to America. His family, seeing his determination, suc- cecd in cancelling his articles of indenture, and equipped , two years. Much of the time he was on detached duty in him with an abundant outfit and the necessary incans. Ile | charge of field hospitals in the Army of the Potomac, doing

left the shores of old England in the year 1853, from the port of Penzance, in the ship " Marquis of Chandos," Cap- tain Colenzo commanding (an old friend of the family), with a faithful mother's prayer to heaven for the protection of her " wayward child." It was not dreamed but that he would return again to England in the same ship, after his curiosity had been satisfied and the reconciling influences of a year's absence from home and its comforts had mollified his rov- ing nature. But he left the good old captain and the ship on her arrival at New York, and after a few days entered the drug store of Eugene Dupy, corner of Houston street and Broadway, where he performed the duties of translator in the English prescription department. In 1854 he went to Philadelphia, and resumed his regular medical studies, under the preceptorship of Professor James Bryan, Professor of Surgery in the Philadelphia College of Medicine, in Fifth street, below Walnut. After being in Philadelphia but a short time he received letters of introduction from England to Professor Dunglison, Professor of Therapeutics and the Practice of Medicine in Jefferson Medical College, who had known the young student's family in England, and who took a deep and earnest interest in his behalf, giving him much private instruction and wise counsel, although he was a can- didate for the degree of Doctor of Medicine in another col- lege. During the years of his study in Philadelphia he supported himself, purchased his college tickets and bore other expenses attending his studies, by connecting himself with the press as reporter, but especially as a stenographic reporter, in which he then excelled. Dr. Treganowan graduated from the Philadelphia College of Medicine in the year 1857 with honor and high distinction, and com- menced his professional career at Beverly, New Jersey, meeting with proud success, but was soon compelled to abandon that field on account of failing health, his medical friends and advisers recommending him to some location on the seaboard. He removed to South Amboy in the year 1860, where he has been actively engaged ever since, com- manding a large and responsible practice. His love for his chosen profession is very strong, founded on qualifications and tastes which characterize him as the "natural physi- cian." The doctor's biography may be said to have but just commenced. As a general practitioner, he is sound in diag- nosis and quick in application; as an obstetrician, he has few superiors ; as a surgeon, he is bold and fearless, but few men in general practice having a larger experience. The doctor has some peculiarities which make him decided ene- mies, but his hosts of friends are more than is necessary to neutralize this bitter ingredient in the mixture of his daily life and duties. A more considerate man of his brother physicians' feelings and honor cannot be found ; his honor, generosity and forgiving nature cannot be excelled. In 1862 he entered the army as Surgeon of the 14th Regiment New Jersey Volunteers, and remained in the service about

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all that a brave man and surgeon could do. In 1864 his | tised it with success until the difficulties with the mother health failed him, and his resignation from the service be- came imperative. After a few weeks rest at home, he again began the usual duties of his profession at Amboy. For a number of years previous to the lease of the old Camden & Amboy Railroad Dr. Treganowan was a salaried surgeon in their employ, which position he still holds in the service of the Pennsylvania Central Railroad Company. He is Ex- amining Surgeon for most of the important life insurance companies for his neighborhood. He is fondly attached to the medical society of the county, and has, at various times, held all the offices appertaining to that society; has been repeatedly a delegate from the State Medical Society of New Jersey to other State medical societies ; was appointed dele- gate to the American Medical Convention, held in San Francisco in 1869, and also to the International Congress, held in Philadelphia, June, 1876; is member of the New Jersey Microscopical Society, etc., etc. Notwithstanding the numerous and arduous duties of his profession as a country practitioner, he devotes much time to journalistic and other literary pursuits, both for home and foreign pub- lication. The true extent of the doctor's labors in this de- partment of mental culture is something far beyond the idea of his most intimate friends, and little do they and the com- munity at large think, whilst enjoying some literary treat, that it is from the doctor's pen, as he has always refused to identify himself with his writings. Some of his poetic writ- ings are of the highest order of thought and expression. He is a P. M. member of the ancient order of Freemasons, and has written some most beautiful Masonic odes. He is also associate editor of the South Amboy Argus. Dr. Treganowan was married in 1855 to Constance Gordon, daughter of the late Judge Thomas F. Gordon, the historian and legal writer, so well known to the people and the legal profession of the United States, and a granddaughter of Count Resean, once an eminent physician of Philadelphia, who fled to America, somewhere about the year 1782, dur- ing the revolution in France. The doctor is a member of the Episcopal Church ; passionately fond of music, himself being a good musician.

URNET, HON. JACOB, LL. D., was the son of Dr. William Burnet the elder, of Newark, New Jersey, and the grandson of Dr. Ichabod Burnet, a native of Scotland, who was educated at Edin- burgh, removed to America soon after his educa- tion was finished, and settled at Elizabethtown, New Jersey, where he practised his profession with great success as a physician and surgeon until his death, in 1773, at the advanced age of eighty. Dr. William Burnet was born in 1730, educated at Nassau Hall during the Presi- dency of the Rev. Aaron Burr, and graduated in 1749, before that institution was removed to Princeton. He studied medicine under Dr. Staats, of New York, and prac-

country became alarmingly serious, when he took an active and leading part in resisting the encroachments of the Brit- ish government. He was a member of the Newark Com- mittee of Safety, composed of himself, Judge J. Hedden, and Major S. Hays, until, in 1776, he was elected a member of the Continental Congress. He resigned that position to accept an appointment as Surgeon-General of the Eastern Division of the American army, which position he filled with distinction until the close of the war. Dr. Burnet died in 1791, in the sixty-first year of his age. Jacob Burnet, his sixth son, was born in Newark, New Jersey, February 22d, 1770; was educated at Nassau Hall, Princeton, under the Presidency of Dr. Witherspoon, and graduated with honor in September, 1791. He remained there a year as a resident graduate, and then entered the office of Judge Boudinot, of Newark, as a student of law, and under that distinguished lawyer laid the foundation for his future attainments in his profession. He was admitted to the bar by the Supreme Court of the State in the spring of 1796, and proceeded at once to Cincinnati, in the neighborhood of which his father had made considerable investments. At that time Cincinnati was a small village of log cabins, including about fifteen rough, unfinished frame houses with stone chimneys. There was not a brick house in it, and only about 150 inhabitants, and the entire white population of the Northwestern Territory was estimated at about 15,000 souls. In 1798 it was ascertained that the Territory contained 5,000 white male inhabitants, and was entitled to enter upon the second grade of Territorial Government provided for under the ordinance of 1787. This provided for a General Assembly, consisting of representatives elected by the citizens of the Territory, and a Legislative Council of five persons, nominated by the lower House and ap- pointed by the President by and with the advice and consent of the United States Senate. Judge Burnet was appointed by President John Adams a member of the first Legislative Council, together with James Findlay, Henry Vanderburgh, Robert Oliver and David Vance. He remained a member of this body until the organization of the State government in 1802-3. The practice of his profession, which obliged him to travel over the whole settled portion of the Territory as far as Detroit, in Michigan, on the north, and Vincennes, in Indiana, enabled him to become acquainted with the Territory and the people by personal observation, and in the Legislative Council he was able to use the information thus acquired to good purpose in shaping legislation to meet the wants of the rapidly-growing population of the Territory, and was himself the author of most of the important meas- ures adopted by the Legislature. When it was proposed to go into a State government, Judge Burnet believed the step premature and opposed the action, and when the State was formed he retired from active participation in politics and devoted himself to the practice of his profession. His talents, ripe scholarship, and brilliancy as an advocate

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secured for him from the first an extensive and lucrative ' to prevent the introduction of spirituous liquors into certain practice, and enabled him to assume and maintain the fore- Indian towns; a bill for the appointment of general officers in the militia of the Territory; a bill to revise the laws adopted or made by the Governors and Judges; a bill for the relief of the poor; a bill repealing certain laws or parts of laws, and a bill for the punishment of arson. He was also appointed to prepare and report rules for conducting the business of the Legislative Council, and an answer to the Governor's address to the two Houses at the opening of the session. Also to draft a memorial to Congress in be- half of purchasers of land in the Miami country, and a complimentary address to the President of the United States. After the formation of the State government he succeeded, by his researches into the laws of Virginia and his lucid demonstration of the same, in settling in favor of the State of Ohio the right which Kentucky controverted of arresting criminals on the river between the two States. Under the system established for the sale of the public domain by the law of 1800 and acts supplementary thereto, an immense debt was contracted and became due to the government of the United States from the people of the West, exceeding the entire amount of money in circulation in the West. The debt had been accumulating for twenty years, and was swelling daily with increasing rapidity. The first emigrants to the West, and the greater part of those who followed them from time to time, were compelled by necessity to purchase on credit, exhausting their means to the last dollar in raising the first payment on their entries. The debt due the government in 1820 at the different Western land offices amounted to $22,000,000, an amount far exceeding the ability of the debtors to pay. Thousands of industrious men, some of whom had paid one, some two, and some three instalments on their lands, and had toiled day and night in clearing, enclosing and improving them, became convinced that they would be forfeited and their money and labor lost. This appalling prospect spread a decp gloom over the community, and it was evident that if the govern- ment attempted to enforce its claims universal bankruptcy would ensue. Serious fears were felt that any attempt on the part of the government to enforce its claim would mcet with resistance, and probably result in civil war. Judge Burnet, at this crisis of affairs, gave the matter his most earnest attention, with a view of devising a plan of relief, and was able to mature and propose a plan which met the approval of all the sufferers, and so commended itself to Congress and the government that it was specdily adopted. The evils threatencd were thus averted, and the prosperity and rapid settlement of the country greatly promoted. At a very carly period he recognized the importance to the trade and commerce of the West of the unobstructed naviga- tion of the Ohio river, and especially the importance to the trade of the upper Ohio of removing the obstruction caused by the falls in the river at Louisville. He was one of the first to advocate the construction of a canal around the falls, and was appointed by the State of Indiana one of several most position at the bar, until, in 1817, he retired from the practice of the law. In the year 1821 he was persuaded to accept an appointment by the Governor to the bench of the Supreme Court of the State, and was subsequently elected by the Legislature to the same place. In 1828 he resigned his position on the bench and was elected to the United States Senate to fill a vacancy occasioned by the retirement ' of General William H. Harrison, and accepted the position on the condition that he should not be considered a candi- date for re-election, but on the expiration of his term be permitted to carry out his long-cherished purpose of retiring to private life. His term expired in 1833, and from that time until his death, in 1853, at the advanced age of eighty- three years, he took no further active part in public affairs. As a lawyer and legislator Judge Burnet was without doubt the most influential and prominent person in the section of country he represented and with which his interests were identified. Educated amid the stirring scenes of the Revo- lution, and the scarcely less stirring scenes connected with the discussion and adoption of the Federal Constitution ; brought into association with Washington and Hamilton and other leaders of the struggle for independence, through his father's intimacy with and friendship for them; with great natural ability united to thorough scholarship, and having with it all strong and decided convictions and great energy and persistence in enforcing them, he was eminently qualified to take the leading part he did in developing the resources of the great Northwestern Territory and in shaping its institutions. As a lawyer he was the acknowledged leader of the bar in the West. Within the period of twenty years-which was about the extent of his practice at the bar -few men have been engaged in more important causes or with more uniform success. His fame as an advocate was coextensive with the West, and the story of his forensic efforts is perpetuated in the traditions of his profession. About the time also of his appointment to the Supreme bench of Ohio he was elected to fill the Professorship of Law in the University of Lexington, Virginia, and received from that institution the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws, an honor subsequently conferred upon him also by his own Alma Mater, Nassau Hall. It has already been stated that while in the Territorial Legislature Judge Burnet was the author of most of the necessary legislation. During the session of 1799 alone he prepared and reported the following bills : " To regulate the admission and prac- tice of attorneys-at-law;" "to confirm and give force to certain laws cnacted by the Governor and Judges ; " a bill making promissory notes negotiable; a bill to authorize and regulate arbitrations; a bill to regulate the service and re- turn of process in certain cases ; a bill establishing courts for the trial of small causes; a bill to prevent trespassing by cutting of timber; a bill providing for the appointment of constables; a bill defining privileges in certain cases ; a bill

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The biographical encyclopaedia of New Jersey of the nineteenth century, Part 53

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