The biographical encyclopaedia of New Jersey of the nineteenth century, Part 82

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

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EWTON, HON. ISAAC, First Commissioner of Agriculture, late of Washington, District of Co- lumbia, was born in Burlington county, New Jer- sey, in 1800, and passed his early years on a farm, attending school during a few months of the winter seasons. After his marriage he settled on a farm in Delaware county, Pennsylvania, which, under his ceaseless care, became celebrated for its neatness, order and productiveness; and he eventually took place in the front rank of the model farmers of the State. At an early period he became an influential and valued member of the State Agricultural Society, and was among those who urged upon Congress the importance of establishing an agricul- tural bureau. On the election of Abraham Lincoln the measure he had so ardently and wisely advocated was finally adopted, and he received an appointment to preside over the new department as its Commissioner. The act of Congress was approved May 15th, 1862. He possessed an extensive and practical acquaintance with agricultural mat- ters and methods, and the various systems of farming; and was eminently qualified for the position which he was called upon to fill. He died at Washington City, June 19th. 1867.

OSTER, REV. DANIEL REQUA, eighth Pastor of the Hopewell Presbyterian Church, of Pen- nington, New Jersey, was born, September 22d, 1838, at Patterson, Putnam county, New York, and is the son of Edmund Foster and Ann Eliza Foster. In January, 1849, he was received into the full communion of the church. IIc was prepared for college at the Peekskill Academy; in 1863 he took the degree of A. B. at the College of New Jersey; and in 1866 that of A. M. In the latter ycar also he graduated at the Princeton Theological Seminary ; April 24th, 1866, was licensed as a probationer for the gospel ministry, by the Presbytery of Con- necticut, at Bridgeport, and entered upon the performance of his duties as pastor-elect in the Presbyterian church of Phelps, New York, June Ist, 1866. Ile was ordained to the work

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of the gospel ministry, and installed pastor of the church at | Sunday-school of St. Mary's Church, one of the first Phelps, on the following July 29th, by the Presbytery of Rochester city. In October, 1869, his pastoral connection with the church at Phelps was dissolved. He then entered on his ministerial duties at the Pennington Church on the first Sabbath of October, IS70. Having received a cordial and unanimous call from the people, he was installed pastor, April 17th, 1871, by a committee of the Presbytery of New Brunswick. January 25th, 1874, the church was destroyed by fire, shortly after the dismissal of the congregation, and a new church opened, January 14th, 1875. In the opening of the ensuing year a gracious revival cleansed and purified the spiritual atmosphere of his pastorate, and by February 20th, 1876, between forty and fifty persons joined the church. As a result of his labors, one hundred and eighty-one per- sons of both sexes have been added to the roll of communi- cants on profession, besides twenty-six by certificate.

CILVAINE, RT. REV. CHARLES PETTIT, D. D., LL. D., D. C. L., Bishop of Ohio, was born in Burlington, New Jersey, January 18th, 1799, his father being Hon. Joseph McIlvaine, at one time a Representative of the State in the United States Senate. His mother's parents, Bowes Reed and Mrs. Reed, were residents of the same place. Bowes Reed was brother of Joseph Reed, of Phila- delphia, confidential secretary of General Washington. Joseph McIlvaine, grandfather of the bishop, served through the war of the Revolution, and attained the rank of Colonel in the patriot army ; he resided at Bristol, where his remains now repose. The bishop lived in Burlington until his ordi- nation as deacon, and the graves of four generations of his family-from the parents of his mother down to the daugh- ter of his sister, Mrs. Commodore Engle-are in the church- yard of St. Mary's in that town, as are also those of his wife's parents and many of her relatives. He was baptized in the old church in his fifteenth year, by Dr. Wharton. The baptism was delayed thus long through his mother en- tertaining conscientious scruples about presenting her chil- dren for baptism while not a communicant herself. He re- ceived his education, preparatory to college, in the Burling- ton Academy, an incorporated institution; the building stood on the ground now occupied by the new edifice of St. Mary's Church, which it was taken down to make room for. Rev. Christian Hanckel, D. D., afterwards of Charleston, South Carolina, was one of his tutors, succeeding his brother John as master of the school. From this institution he passed to Princeton College, from which he was gradu- ated in 1816. Thereupon he became a candidate for orders, but being too young to be ordained, he remained-except for a period of about eighteen months passed in the Theo- logical Seminary of Princeton-in Burlington, reading under Dr. Wharton. During this period he organized the

Sunday-schools organized in the United States. He him- self, in a letter to Rev. Dr. Hills, now rector of St. Mary's Church, gives the history of this organization as follows: " While I was in college in Princeton, one of my class- mates, John Newbold, of Philadelphia (who in graduating became a candidate for orders, but died before he could be ordained), on returning to college from a vacation, brought to us students an account of a Sunday-school he had at- tended in Philadelphia. It was in the very beginning of Sunday-schools in this country. He brought specimens of the blue and red tickets used. A number of students in the college formed a Sunday-school Society, and raised a fund of about four hundred dollars, of which I (then in my seventeenth year) was made treasurer. We set up four schools in and about Princeton. I and John Newbold, and (I think) the present Dr. Hodge, of Princeton, and the present Bishop Johns (a classmate of Dr. Hodge, and both a year before me), were teachers in different schools. My first extempore address was then made to the school I was detailed to, in a barn of what was called Jug Town, a suburb of Princeton. Going home in 1816, the project of the Burlington school originated. Such a thing had never been heard of in Burlington. I first obtained Dr. Whar- ton's approbation, and then began to talk it up. Mr. Aikman, the clerk of the church, co-operated. . . .. The organization took place, and the school was always held in the academy as long, I believe, as Dr. Wharton continued rector, and how much longer I do not know. The organi- zation took place in the spring of 1816. Consider that I was then only seventeen years of age, and therefore almost all concerned, except as pupils, must have been older. And as I am now in my seventy-fourth year, it is not likely that anybody lives who was actively concerned in those things then. I was not aware that my name has been taken by one of the classes, but am much pleased to know it now." He was the first Superintendent of the school, and held that position for one year, between his graduating and returning to Princeton to enter the Theological Seminary. Mr. Aik- man was his successor. While a candidate for orders the bishop officiated as lay-reader at Bristol, during a vacancy in that parish. IIe was ordained a Deacon by Bishop White, July 4th, 1820, and then went to his first parish, Christ Church, Georgetown, District of Columbia. After officiating there for about two years he received Priest's orders from the hands of Bishop Kemp, of Maryland. Ile remained in this charge until 1825, officiating during part of the time as Chaplain of the Senate. In the last-men- tioned year he was appointed, through the friendly offices of John C. Calhoun, Professor of Ethics and Chaplain in the United States Military Academy, West Point. . This position he relinquished to become Rector of St. Anne's Church, Brooklyn, New York. In 1831 he was appointed Professor of the Evidences of Revealed Religion and Sacred Antiquities in the University of the City of New York. On

Chat_ P. M Ham.

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October 31st, 1832, he was consecrated Bishop of the | A high recognition of Bishop MeIlvaine's influential stand- Protestant Episcopal Diocese of Ohio. He continued in ing was his reception of the degree of Doctor of Civil Law from the University of Oxford in 1853, and that of Doctor of Laws from the University of Cambridge five years later. As a pulpit orator he had few equals. With a commanding presence, a clear, penetrating, trumpet-like voice, an ex- traordinary power of accurate extemporaneous expression, and a profound insight, he possessed rare qualifications for effectiveness on the platform and in the pulpit. He died in Florence, Italy, on March 13th, 1873. the active diseharge of his episcopal duties until the conse- cration, in 1859, of the Rev. S. T. Bedell, D. D., as assistant bishop; but subsequent to that date he was fre- quently incapacitated for active work by failing health. His career as Bishop of Ohio, without being especially eventful, was characterized by untiring energy and the most gratifying results. For many years he resided at Gambier, in the midst of the educational institutions under his epis- eopal supervision, acting directly as President of Kenyon College from the commencement of his episcopate to 1840. He was perhaps best known to the world as an author. During his incumbency of the professorship in the Univer- AYTON, JONATHAN, a Distinguished Civilian of New Jersey, late of Elizabeth, was born, Oc- tober 16th, 1760, at Elizabethtown. He gradu- ated at the College of New Jersey in 1776, and in February of the same year entered the Continen- tal army as Paymaster of the 3d New Jersey Battalion, commanded by his father. He subsequently served a time on the staff of General Maxwell, commanding the New Jersey Brigade, and on the Ist of May, 1779, was commissioned as Major and Aide-de-Camp on the staff of Major-General Sullivan, accompanying the latter officer in his expedition of that year against the western Indians. In 1780 le rejoined the Jersey Brigade, being commissioned, March 30th, as Captain in the 3d Regiment. While on duty at Elizabeth, November 4th, 17So, he was taken prisoner by the British, together with his uncle, General Matthias Ogden. After his exchange he served with the Ist New Jersey Regiment, which, with the remainder of the brigade, landed near Williamsburgh, Virginia, on Septem- ber 21st, 1781, and engaged in the siege of Yorktown. He was soon detached for duty in a command under General Lafayette, whom he aided in storming one of the British redoubts, and was present at the surrender of Lord Cornwallis, October 19th, 1781. In the winter of 1781-82 he was statione 1 in East Jersey, and especially distinguished himself in a skirmish December 5th, which resulted in the retirement of a force from Staten Island which attacked Elizabeth. He served to the end of the war with undimmed credit, and became an original member of the Society of the Cincinnati. In 1787 he was appointed one of the dele- gates from New Jersey to the convention at Philadelphia for the purpose of framing the Federal constitution. He took part in the deliberations, and on the 17th of September, 1787, affixed his name to that noble charter, being one of the youngest, if not the youngest, of the signers. After the Revolution he had been repeatedly elected to the I.cgis- lature of New Jersey, and in 1790 was elected Speaker of the House. In 1791 he was chosen as a Representative in Congress, and was repeatedly re-elected until he had served for eight successive years. He was active in legislation, and heeame one of the most prominent leaders of the Federalist party. In 1795 he was elected Speaker of the sity of the City of New York, he delivered, in 1831, a course of lectures on the " Evidences of Christianity." At the request of the University Council these lectures were published in a collected form in 1832, and have had an im- mense circulation, heing reprinted in London and Edin- burgh, while several different editions have been published in this country. In 1841 he published a work entitled, " Oxford Divinity Compared with that of the Roman and Anglican Churches, with a Special View of the Doctrine of Justification by Faith." Although this work has now dropped out of sight, it attracted universal attention at the time of its publication, when the celebrated tractarian con- troversy was at its height. The Edinburgh Review char- acterized the work as one of the best " confutations of the tencts of the Oxford school," of which Dr. Pusey was the head. This work, and the other labors of his life, rendered the bishop the recognized champion of evangelical principles in the Protestant Episcopal Church. Among his other more important works were : " The Sinner's Justification before God," 1851; " The Holy Catholic Church," 1844; " The Truth and the Life," 1854. Numerous volumes of sermons were given hy him to the world, and he also contributed many valuable articles to the leading religious periodicals of the day. The bishop was a man of large and liberal views. During his incumbency of the rectorship of St. Anne's Church, Brooklyn, he became involved in a contro- versy with the bishop of the diocese, who endeavored to repress a clerical prayer-meeting, and to prevent his clergy from identifying themselves with " mixed institutions," like the American Bible and Tract Societies, in which he took a decided stand on the liberal side, and for many years he acted as President of the American Tract Society. His influence was not restricted to the circle of his church, but was widespread. At the opening of the rebellion he was, because of his high standing, selected by President Lincoln and Secretary Seward to visit Europe on a confidential mission, and contributed largely towards counteracting the intrigues of the Confederate emissaries in Great Britain. The late Archbishop Hughes and Thurlow Weed, it will be remembered, also visited Europe about the same time, and on a similar mission, at the request of the administration.

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House of Representatives, and in 1797 re-elected by a vote of seventy eight to two. When a war with France was looked upon as probable, in 1798, he was commissioned by President Adams as a Brigadier-General of the regular army. The happy settlement of that difficulty brought his military services to a close. He was soon after elected to the Senate of the United States, and served with distin- guished reputation from 1799 to 1805. An intimacy in boyhood, and his later association with him in the Senate of the United States, led him to be a devoted friend and admirer of Aaron Burr. So strong was their regard that, in 1803, he undertook a duel in his behalf, sending a chal- lenge to De Witt Clinton, afterwards governor of New York, but the matter was arranged without a meeting. This long- standing, personal friendship led him to look with more trust upon that aspiring politician than prudence would have dictated, and he paid the penalty when moneys, ad- vanced in matters of joint interest, were used by Burr to further his own questionable projects. When Burr was tried for his misdemeanors, nothing was found which justi- fied proceedings against Mr. Dayton, but, notwithstanding, the complicated condition of things seriously compromised his reputation among those who could be afforded no oppor- tunity to know the facts. This unhappy affair, and the ac- cession of Mr. Jefferson to the Presidential chair, leading to the breaking up of the Federal party, caused his retirement from leadership in the national parties. But in his own State, honored for his faithful service and beloved for his known worth, he was continued in office and chosen to serve several terms in the Senate. His latter days were passed at home in the enjoyment of a comfortable compe- tence, interesting himself in the welfare of the schools, the establishment of a public library, and other benefits to his native town. In connection with John Cleves Symmes and others, he held large tracts of land in Ohio, and the city of Dayton was so named in compliment to his family. When General Lafayette visited America in 1824, Mr. Dayton re- ceived him as a guest at Elizabeth, and attended him in his tour through the State. This pleasing event proved to be his last appearance in public, as he died at Elizabeth on the 9th of October in the same year. He was a man of stately presence and appearance, and kept up his formal dignity of manner to the close of his life. He was known as " The last of the cocked hats."

RIGHT, HON. WILLIAM, late of Newark, New Jersey, son of Dr. William Wright, a prominent physician and citizen of Rockland county, New York, and descended from early settlers of Con- necticut, was born in Rockland county, New York, in 1791. He was at school in Poughkeep- sie, preparing for college, when the death of his father de-

prived him of means of support and compelled him to abandon his intended collegiate course. Learning the trade of harness-making, he not only supported himself during the term of his apprenticeship, but succeeded in saving from his scant wages three hundred dollars, a fund that he applied, upon attaining his majority, to hiring and stocking a small shop in Bridgeport. Icrc, while working with the energy and industry that characterized his entire career in business and in public life, he continued his inter- rupted studies ; but the ground that he had lost could never be entirely regained, and his education was derived less from books than from men and affairs. Entering into a partnership with his father-in-law, the late William Peet, and Sheldon Smith, he founded a firm for the manufacture of harness and saddles, establishing at the same time a branch house in Charleston, South Carolina. In 1821 the northern manufactory was transferred to Newark, New Jer- sey-then coming into prominence as a manufacturing town --- and during the ensuing thirty-three years his business steadily increased, until it became one of the most important of its kind in the country. In 1854, having, by untiring energy and well-directed commercial talent, amassed a large fortune, he retired from active business life. He took no part in public affairs-unless his services as a volunteer for the defence of Stonington, in the war of 1812, can be held to come under this head-until 1840, when he was elected, without opposition, Mayor of Newark. At that time he was a pronounced member of the Whig party, and was an earnest supporter of Henry Clay. In 1842 he was elected a member of the House of Representatives as an independent candidate, defeating the regular Whig and Democratic nominees; and in 1844 he was re-elected from the same district. In 1851 he abandoned the Whig and entered the Democratic party, and in 1853, as Democratic candidate, was elected a member of the United States Senate for a full term, succeeding the Hon. J. W. Miller. Appointed Chairman of the Senate Committee on Manufac- tures, his extensive practical knowledge and sound common sense gave weight and point to his utterances; and while he was never prominent in debate, his counsels in commit- tee were always listened to with attention, and were very generally followed. On the Committee to Audit and Con- trol the Expenses of the Senate, his services, while less emi- nent in degree, were no less eminent in kind. Upon the expiration of his term, in 1859, he was succeeded by the Hon. John C. Ten Eyck ; but in 1863 he was again put in nomination by the Democratic party, and was again elected. During that portion of his second term which he was enabled to serve, he displayed the same qualities that had made him so useful when first in office, but at the end of two years failing health disabled him from close attention to his senatorial duties, and for the last twelve months of his life his attendance upon the sessions of Congress was necessa- rily irregular. He died at his home in Newark, November Ist, 1866.

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AAR, DAVID, ex-Judge, Trenton, New Jersey, form was needed, and to put his suggestions into working was born in St. Thomas, Danish West Indies, form. During the hotly-contested campaign that terminated in the election of President Polk he was a prominent par- tisan of the successful candidate, his services being re- warded, and the interest of the country at the same time well served, by his appointment to be Commercial Agent of the United States at St. Thomas. In this position he re- mained during the term of President Polk's administration, and upon being relieved by his successor, President Taylor's appointee, returned to his home in Elizabeth, where he was shortly elected Recorder of the borough, and a member of the Borough Council. In 1851-52 he again took part in State politics, being Clerk-of the General Assembly of New Jersey for two successive sessions. During his public life up to this point, while frequently writing political leaders for one or other of the principal journals attached to the interests of the Democratic party, he had not established himself in any newspaper connection. In 1853 he determined upon enter- ing the profession of journalism, and to this end bought The True American, a publication established on a sure finan- cial basis, and being generally regarded as the governing factor in the Democratic party in that portion of the State. His extended personal acquaintance among the leading men not only in his own but in the opposite party, his thorough knowledge and understanding of the political history of New Jersey, and of that of the country at large, and his rare faculty, already alluded to, of perceiving the probable future of the political measures of the present, all united to fit him in an eminent degree for the discharge of the editorial func- tion, and during his incumbency The True American was unquestionably the leading Democratic journal of New Jersey. For seventeen years he remained in the editorial harness, and during this long period his paper was stead- fastly firm to its political faith; upholding with brilliant vigor the party measures; supporting with earnest warmth the party men, and hitting all the while keen blows among the party's enemies. In 1870 when he resigned his editorship, he had well earned the title of "the Democratic War-horse," for in his long editorial career he had made himself known and felt by every public man in the State, and few there were but had been wisely guided by his counsels, or had come under the stinging lash of his criticism. Five years before his retirement from journalism he was appointed by the joint vote of the Senate and General Assembly of New Jersey State Treasurer, and during the years 1865-66 that he was in office his influence was of an excellently reformatory character. At the closc of the year the Repub- licans came into power and he was displaced. The system of bookkeeping and general accounting that he introduced into the Treasury Department is still retained by his successors, and is greatly superior to any system previously devised. After his retirement from this office, in 1868, he was ap- pointed by ex-Governors Vroom and Olden, the then com- missioners of the State Sinking Fund, Secretary to that com- November 10th, 1800. He is an Israelite, and a direct descendant of one of the families of Spain and Portugal that suffered religious persecution. His progenitor was a resident of Spain in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, who to avoid that perse- cution left the country with the first expedition to South America after the discovery of this country by Christopher Columbus. His destination was Rio de la Hacha, South America, but being wrecked on the island of Curacoa, he remained there and was succeeded by twelve generations. When fifteen years old David Naar was sent to America to receive his education, returning upon graduation to St. Thomas and entering a large exporting and importing house as an apprentice. Here he was thoroughly drilled in com- mercial affairs, and after mastering the varied branches of business, founded an establishment of his own, which he conducted successfully for a number of years. During his residence in St. Thomas he held various important offices under the Danish government, the most onerous, and at the same time the most honorable, of these being that of com- mandant of one of the militia forces of the island, a position that placed upon him responsibilities and entailed upon him duties of a very grave character. In all of his trusts his duties were discharged in the most exemplary and satisfactory man- ner. In 1834 he removed the seat of his business from St. Thomas to New York, and four years later, 1838, withdrew altogether from mercantile pursuits. In the latter year he pur- chased a farm near Elizabeth, New Jersey; removed thither and settled down to agriculture. But the quiet life of a farmer was by no means suited to his active temperament, and while retaining a general supervision of the work done on his domain, he gave the greater portion of his time to political affairs. Uniting with the Democratic party, hc earnestly and with ardor devoted himself to promulgating and advo- cating its principles. Naturally a ready and popular speaker, possessing a remarkable talent for foreseeing the ultimate as well as the immediate effects of public measures, and being, moreover, a genial, affable man of the world, he rapidly rose in the favor of his party, and almost from the beginning of his public life he was a leader. In 1843 he assumed his first (in America) official position, being in that year ap- pointed Mayor of the borough of Elizabeth by the New Jersey Legislature. This was previous to the incorporation of Elizabeth as a city, and while it still formed a part of Essex county. In 1843 also he was appointed one of the lay Judges of the Court of Common Pleas of Essex county, an office that he held for a number of years, and the delicate duties of which he very satisfactorily discharged. In 1844 he was elected a Delegate from Essex county to the State Constitutional Convention, and as such exercised an im- portant influence upon the remodelling of the organic law of the commonwealth, his sound common sense and prac- tical legal knowledge enabling him to perceive wherein re- , mission, an office that he still (1877) continues to fill in the

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The biographical encyclopaedia of New Jersey of the nineteenth century, Part 82

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