The biographical encyclopaedia of New Jersey of the nineteenth century, Part 87

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

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ARRISON, JOHN D., Patent Leather Manufac- turer, was born in Morris county, New Jersey, in October, 1829. He is a son of Henry Harrison, a native of Orange, New Jersey, and a grandson of Captain Thomas Harrison, also a native of Orange, and a revolutionary soldier. On the ma- ternal side likewise he is of revolutionary stock, his mother, whose maiden name was Pamela De IIart, having de- scended from the De Harts famous in the war of independ- ence. He received a very thorough education, attending first the select schools of Orange, and finally the celebrated school of Dr. Wicks, at Newark. On leaving school he proceeded to learn the art of manufacturing patent leather, in which his brother, Charles II. Harrison, was already a proficient, and a few years later entered into partnership with his brother, under the name of C. II. & J. D. Harrison, for the prosecution of that business. A notice of the firm will be found in a sketch of the senior member in another part of this work. The junior member, it may be said here, however, has borne his share in the conduct of the business of the firm, and is entitled proportionately to the credit of its signal success. At the same time he has been somewhat largely interested in outside matters, especially in public affairs, for which he has shown a decided aptitude. IIe is a zealous and active member of the Republican party, of which he is a prominent leader in the city of Newark. For two consecutive terms of two years each he represented the Thirteenth Ward of Newark in the Board of Aldermen of the city; and in February, 1875, he was elected Sheriff of Essex county, to fill the vacancy made by the death of David Canfield, who dicd a few months after his election, leaving unexpired nearly his full term of four years. He is, there. fore, the present incumbent of the sheriffalty, the responsible duties of which he has performed with the method and pre- cision to be expected from a business man of his high standing, and with the firmness and spirit natural to one

whose veins are filled with revolutionary blood. The sheriffalty, particularly in a mixed and populous community, is one of the severest tests by which the manhood, integrity, and business capacity of a man can be tried, and it is to his abiding honor that he has borne this test with credit. Be- sides serving his city and county in the stations mentioned, he is a Director of the Manufacturers' Bank, of Newark, and also of the Merchants' Insurance Company. In short, he is in every relation a man of marked prominence and in- fluence in his community. He was married some years since to Marie Dean, of Newark.

IERSON, HION. ISAAC, Physician and Surgeon, President of the Medical Society of New Jersey, late of Orange, New Jersey, was born there, Au- gust 15th, 1770, and became an intimate friend and classmate of Dr. David Iosack, of New York. His father, Dr. Matthias Pierson, a contemporary of Dr. John Condit, was also born in Orange, New Jersey, June 20th, 1734, where he spent his life in the practice of medicine, and died May 9th, 1808. He was an alumnus of Nassau Hall, Princeton, a Fellow of the College of Phy- sicians and Surgeons, and in 1827 was President of the Medical Society of New Jersey. He was also a member of the Twentieth and Twenty-first Congress of the United States. He was a distinguished and notably successful practitioner of medicine in Orange, and its vicinity, for a period extending over forty years, and was the father of Dr. William Pierson, Sr., " who is glad to share the mantle with his son, Dr. William Pierson, who will probably secure the succession for at least another generation." Except in the case of Dr. John C. Budd, who was the son of Dr. Berne Budd, and the father of Dr. Berne W. Budd, and the grandfather of Professor Charles Budd and Dr. Berne Budd, of New York, none, of whom there is record in New Jersey, can boast of so long a medical ancestry. Cyrus Pierson, his brother-in-law, was born in South Orange, and was also an alumnus of Nassau Hall, Princeton ; he practised medi- cine in Orange, Woodbridge, Caldwell and Newark. While in the latter place he was a partner of Dr. Samuel Hays until his decease, October 7th, 1804.

ONDIT, IION. JOIIN S., Physician, late of Newark, was born in Morristown, New Jersey, in 1801, and was the nephew of John Condit, and a son of the late Hon. Silas Condit. In a sermon delivered in the Second Presbyterian Church, in Newark, April 7th, 1848, he is spoken of as a " highly respected fellow-citizen, who was passing the me- ridian of his days with a vigorous step." He was a gradu-

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ate of Princeton College in 1817 ; and, after studying law | City; also that of a great part of "German Valley," in under the tutorship of the late Hon. Theodore Frelinghuy- sen, turned his attention to the study of medicine. He was a member successively of the Assembly and Senate of New Jersey. " Purity of private character, strong sense of moral obligations," are terms applied to him by a discriminating friend. He is spoken of also as "a man of strong moral convictions." The distinguished physician and statesman, Lewis Condict, of Morristown, who had three sons who were physicians, descended from a collateral branch of the family, which adhered to the ancient mode of spelling its name. He died, April 7th, 1848, at the age of forty-seven years.

ALSTED, DR. ROBERT, Physician, Revolution- ary Patriot, was born in " Essex District," New Jersey, September 13th, 1746. He was a leading and fearless citizen in the gloomy days of the contest with Great Britain, and a medical practi- tioner of unquestionable talent and sterling attain-

ments. On one occasion a notorious Tory informed against him as a rebel and an aider and upholder of rebellion, and he was temporarily lodged in the old Sugar House, in Liberty street, New York. On another occasion he saved the life of Colonel Aaron Ogden, who had been seriously wounded by the IIessians while out alone on a military re- connoissance. He was serious, and by some is spoken of as stern ; yet he was by all admired and respected, and was a patriot in a time when the title bore a significant and an eloquent meaning. He died 1815-20. His younger brother, Caleb Halsted, was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Sep- tember 15th, 1752, and was also an eminent physician. July 15th, 1825, while confined to his house by illness, he received a visit from General Lafayette, and had the pleasant honor of entertaining that famous son of France. He was travelling at the time from Morristown, under the conduct of the late General Andruss, the father-in-law of Dr. Jabez G. Goble. During the French revolution, many of the refugee nobility settled in and about Elizabeth, and most of these families came under his professional care. He died August 18th, 1827, aged seventy-five years.

UDD, DR. JOHN C., Physician, late of Orange, was born in Morristown, New Jersey, May 26th, 1762, and studied under the supervision of Dr. John Condit, of Orange. His father, Dr. Bernard Budd, appears the first on the roll of fourteen who formed the New Jersey Medical Society in 1766, and was a surgeon in the revolutionary army. John Budd, his ancestor, was an English surveyor for the Lord Proprie- tors ; and in him was the title of Powles Hook, at Jersey

Morris county, New Jersey. At eighty-three years of age he was perfectly erect, and had a pleasing, cheerful face. " He was careless in dress and in his business habits; naturally preferred fun to professional toil, but was yet a skilful and trusted practitioner. His humane disposition rendered him a faithful physician, and his fine abilities and power of observation, a counsellor of unusual resources. He had the reputation, in those far-off witch-burning times, of being able to raise the devil. It is said he had some- thing to do with the ' Morristown Ghost,'-but not dis- creditably-which created so much excitement in 1778 and some years after." He had two famous prescriptions : one he called his Tincture Botanæ, the other, his Diabolical Pill. " The first," he said, " I give when I don't know what else to do, for it is emmenagogue, sedative, cathartic, tonic, and expectorant, and cannot fail to hit somewhere." He died in Orange, New Jersey, January 12th, 1845.

OVE, JOIIN J. H., Physician and Surgeon, of Montclair, was born in Harmony township, War- ren county, New Jersey, April 3d, 1833, and is the eldest son of Rev. Robert Love and Ann Thompson (Fair) Love. He was educated at Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania, and in due time graduated from that institution; his medical de- gree was obtained in the medical department of the Univer- sity of New York; and, before enlisting in the United States service, he practised his profession for a period of seven years at Montreal. July 19th, 1862, he was commis- sioned Surgeon of the 13th Regiment, New Jersey Volun- teers, and was mustered into the United States service August 25th, 1862. March 23d, 1863, he was assigned to duty as Surgeon-in-Chief of the 3d Brigade, Ist Division, 12th Army Corps, Army of the Potomac, whose offices he performed, in addition to his regimental duties, until August Ist, 1863, when, under special orders from corps head- quarters, he assumed the position and duties of Surgeon-in- Chief, Ist Division, 12th Army Corps. In this important station he was constantly engaged until January 28th, 1864, when he resigned his commission and was honorably dis- charged from the United States service. He was always engaged in field service, and May 5th, 1862, was sent out as a volunteer surgeon by Governor Olden, and assisted in the transportation and care of the wounded after the battle of Williamsburg, Virginia. He was present and on duty also at the battles of Antietam, September 17th, 1862; Chan- cellorsville, May Ist, 2d, 3d, 1863 ; Gettysburg, July Ist, 2d, 3d, 1863; and assisted in caring for the wounded after the battles of Lookout Mountain and Mission Ridge, near Chat- tanooga, Tennessee, in December, 1863. In his opinion the medical history of the civil war has developed no one fact

Fing by W G. Jackman from a Photograph.

Quotoane, orthop of new Jersey

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more prominently than that, to maintain an army in an effective condition, a constant and enlightened attention must be given by the surgeons and officers to the laws of hygiene. He remarks: "From ignorance of these laws the majority of the physicians commissioned to attend to the wants of the soldiers found themselves, when in active ser- vice, unable satisfactorily to discharge the duties devolving upon them; particularly was this the case with regimental surgeons from civil practice, who had left their homes with the idea that their whole duty consisted in treating disease and operating. These soon learned that to prevent sick- ness in their commands was the primary object. And now that the war is over, and they have resumed civil practice, the knowledge gained of hygienic laws will be used in the prevention and amelioration of disease among our citizens. Surgeons in active field practice have little or no oppor- tunity to know the results of their practice. No matter how interesting the case in its inception, when the termina- tion is unknown the facts are useless." He is now prac- tising at Montclair, Essex county.

OANE, RT. REV. GEORGE WASHINGTON, D. D., LL. D., Bishop of New Jersey, late of Burlington, was born in Trenton, New Jersey, May 27th, 1799. His father, Jonathan Doane, was a well-known master builder and contractor; "he was a man of singular perseverance and high principle, commanding and handsome in his appear- ance, most loving and devoted in all his home relations, and very proud of his son ; " his paternal grandmother was " a noble woman, heroic and self-denying. . . . . She was one of the women of the Revolution, no whit less heroes than its men," and on her grave-cross is inscribed " The Bishop of New Jersey to the Best of Mothers." Moving from Trenton when the State IIouse and other public build- ings were completed, his second home was in New York, where his early training was obtained under the care of Dr. Barry, whose bishop he afterward became. In 1808 he re- moved with his family to Geneva, and there continued his studies with Dr. Axtell, a Presbyterian clergyman. Of his experiences at this place he has written : " The Rev. Dr. Orin Clark was the pastor of my boyhood. The wax was soft, and the impressions are deep. My father went to Geneva in 1808. The church, what little there was of it, was then 'a stranger in a strange land.' Geneva was an outpost. 'Father Nash ' had been there, and the venerable Davenport Phelps. These were the pioneers of the church. They came once a month. . . . . The intervening Sundays were supplied with lay reading by two most excellent men, John Nicholas and Danicl W. Lewis. Judge Nicholas was prominent in political life ; Mr. Lewis was a sound and learned lawyer. . . There was no church built when we

went to Geneva; indeed my father was the builder of Trinity Church. The Rev. Orin Clark, then a young man, came in aid of the Rev. Mr. Phelps. . . . . I was cate- chised by him, and prepared by him for confirmation." After preparing for college, under Ransom Hubbell, in 1816, he entered the second term of the sophomore year in Union College, Schenectady, New York, under the presi- dency of Dr. Nott. In 1818 he graduated, taking an honor ; the salutatory was then assigned to him, but he failed to deliver it on account of his inability to return to the com- mencement. Leaving college at the end of the term he went to New York, to cultivate still further the seed of his collegiate sowing, that it might bear fruit for the good of others. In 1819 he became a candidate for holy orders in the Diocese of New York, and found support for himself in teaching in a large school of the metropolis. Then he thought of going as an assistant in Rev. Dr. Rudd's school at Elizabethtown. This, however, was never accomplished, but his course in consequence of it brought him closely in contact with Bishop Hobart, under whose directions he was studying. His first teaching was in New York, where he established a classical school for boys ; and here his success and popularity were so great that he attracted the attention of Dr. Brownell, who secured him for a professorship in Trinity College, and there he was installed in 1825. At the cxpiration of three years his absorption in parochial work withdrew him for a time from the sphere of teaching, except in the pulpit and at the chancel-rail. "But no sooner had the full commission to St. Peter 'to feed the lambs' been given him, in the apostolic office, than he re- turned, with renewed earnestness and further reaches, both of effort and success, to the great work of education." St. Mary's Hall and Burlington College; the increasing paro- chial schools throughout his diocese, and the care and at- tention paid through all the surrounding parishes of the State to the duty of catechising, are witnesses to the truth of his own estimate and use of his life as the instrument in God's hands to found, and promote and perfect the great work of Christian education in the American church. Pre- viously he left New York for Hartford, in 1824, and there, in Washington College, filled the position of Professor of Belles-Lettres, and also took charge of the whole working system of this institution, his appointment as Bursar laying upon him much detail of financial labor. He was warmly interested in the formation of the Historical Society of the State, and was one of the incorporators; also in the organi- zation of a college society, called the Athenaeum. Ilis acquaintance with Dr. Croswell began in 1826, and was the result of certain cfforts and movements made relating to the publication of a church paper. Upon the establishment of The Episcopal Watchman he became its editor, with William Croswell as associate and assistant, speaking of whom he said : " Man has never been in closer bonds with man, than he with me, for five and twenty years. Our in- tercourse was intimate at once, and we never had a feeling,

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or a thought to part us." When he went to Trinity Church, insertion of the prayer for Congress during its session, ad- Boston, " the unhelped and lonely labor drew heavily on the mind and heart of Dr. Croswell." An effort was then made to reunite the friends and colaborers, and in the year in which he was ordained, having discontinued his con- nection with the paper, Croswell also went to Boston, first as assistant, then as rector of Christ Church. ITis coming was announced, and for some time he was known as " Mr. Doane's friend." They were again associated in Boston in the editorship of the Banner of the Church, and upon his removal to New Jerscy, almost his first thought was to get Croswell nearer to him, as the editor of the New York Churchman. Regarding the decease of this valued friend, he spoke to his convention as follows: "His heart was large enough to take in all the world. His generosity was unbounded. If he excelled in any one relation, after his service to Christ's poor, it was in all the acts and offices of friendship. . . . On Sunday, in the Church of the Ad- vent, in the city of Boston, at the request of the wardens and vestry, I preached a sermon, commemorative of the late rector, Rev. William Croswell, D. D .; as the sermon has been published, I need not dwell upon his beautiful and blessed memory." The Watchman was fearless in tone and utterance, and unvaryingly true to its principles, which were at the time by no means the prevailing views, either in the diocese of its publication or in the country generally. It was undertaken, March 26th, 1827, on the suspension of the Churchman's Magazine and the Gospel Advocate, to disseminate pure and undefiled religion in "what is be- lieved to be the scriptural and most effectual way," also to elucidate and defend the doctrines, discipline and worship of the American Protestant Episcopal Church, and to up- hold the truthfulness of "the perfectness of the gospel only in the church." Among other notable points may be cited his admiration of painted glass in churches; his line of argument against fraternizing with the denominational min- isters, whose enforcement brought down such torrents of abuse, on the last year of his episcopate; his love for the Liturgy, as the great preserver of truth and the rebuker and preventer of error in doctrine ; his opposition to the progres- sive idea of religion, set on the sliding platform of human science ; his happy adaptation of his thoughts to children's comprehension ; his zealous care for the support of the gen- eral institutions of the church, its unity, and the duty of her members to support it; and his enthusiasm in missionary and educational work and reform. While editing the Ban- ner he made it " an out and out expression of uncompro- mising churchmanship, with the same stress laid upon all missionary and educational work; " and he counted it his chief delight to be esteemed emphatically a " missionary bishop," and found glory also in being regarded as a mis- sionary editor. In one of his articles occurs a logical yet ardent plea for the daily service, then (1832) nowherc real- ized in the American church; and in the same year he wrote an essay full of force and significance concerning the

vocating it even in family prayers; while, during the latter years of his episcopate, when special political dangers threatened the country, he urged the families of the dio- cese, in his conventional address, to make daily use at home of the prayer for Congress. Fully convinced, both in theory and practice, of the importance of a church news- paper-the Banner having been discontinued-he estab- lished the Missionary, the first number appearing April 20th, 1834. It was continued uninterruptedly until Janu- ary Ist, 1838, and was renewed again for a few years' life in 1847. After 1850 the publication of the Missionary was discontinued. Its very low price, and the very large num- ber to whom it was sent free, made it impossible that it should be self-supporting. " Like most of his luxuries, it was for the good of others; and with his luxuries this ceased when his means were gone." But the influence of these papers was very great, and by their instrumentality he urged upon many who could not be reached from the pulpit, or by private intercourse, the great importance of missions and Christian education, and the weekly offertory, and many other things besides, which owed to him their earliest and incessant inculcation through the church in America. " His dealings with the press were manifold, in the publication of his own sermons, etc., and in the issuing of the catalogues of the schools. In the printing office he was much at home, and a most thorough and accurate proof-reader. He learned this in Mr. Bogert's printing office in Geneva during his boyhood."-" I have known three printers brought into the church from 'setting up' his very many publications." The Episcopal Watchman, of April 12th, 1828, contained the announcement of his unanimous election as assistant minister of Trinity Church, Boston; and at the death of Dr. Gardiner he was unani- mously elected Rector, December 3d, 1830. In that city his position was very influential, and indeed through the whole diocese; and in all that could advance the interests of the church he was a prominent and active mover. He was identified also with the Church Scholarship Society of Connecticut, and with the Massachusetts Missionary Society; also with the formation of Diocesan Sunday- school Unions, auxiliary to the General Union. " But of the great points to which the energies of his soul and mind, his thoughts and words, his efforts and prayers were given, the cause of missions came perhaps first. Reaching first to the full limits of his own cure, and then over the surface of the city, and then through the borders of the diocese, they grew into the glorious Catholicity of the present mis- sionary organization of the American church, which, with- out invidious distinction, I may claim as the creation of his wisdom and earnestness. Ilis interest in it did not begin in Boston, but was maturing there." , In Hartford he was much interested in an auxiliary society to the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society. Upon the organization, in 1828, of the African Mission School Society, with the pur-

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pose of educating colored schoolmasters, catechists and missionaries, to be sent to Africa under the direction of the General Society, he was a prominent Director, and acted as one of the Executive Committee. In 1830 he was called to preach the sermon before the missionary society in Phila- delphia; it was entitled " The Missionary Argument," and is on the text, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." November 27th, 1831, he preached his memorable sermon, " The Missionary Spirit," in Christ Church, Boston. "But his greatest work and service to this glorious cause was rendered late in life. He was one of a Committee of the Board of Directors of the Missionary Society, in 1835, to consider the organization of the society. It was the very opportunity of his life. He brought to it years of thought and prayer, and all the ear- nestness and energy of his nature, in its very prime. And the original draft of the report, in his own writing, with scarce an alteration, . shows how, for all time, the American church owes to him a debt (always acknowledged but once and by one man) of unforgetting gratitude." He preached the sermon at the consecration of Dr. Kemper, the first missionary bishop of the American church; and his famous four sermons, " The Missionary Spirit," "The Missionary Argument," " The Missionary Bishop " and " The Missionary Charter," are " wells of unfailing refresh- ment for all painfulness of work; shadows from the Great Rock in the weary land of missionary toil." The sermon at the consecration, on the text, " How shall they preach except they be sent," is full of exuberant joy at the com- pletion of a long-cherished desire; and of the exulting and overcoming hope, in the working of a thoroughly thought- out plan. The last of the four sermons is on the whole of the apostolic commission, as recorded by St. Matthew, and was preached when he ordained Dr. Wolff, in Sep- tember, 1837. Upon the refusal of the lower house, in 1841, to accede to the bishops' desire of sending missionary bishops to Texas and Africa, which seemed to indicate a lessening interest in the cause he looked upon with such sincere affection, he spoke strongly and frankly in his con- ventional address, "with the eloquent and earnest plainness of deep-seated conviction." To the convention of 1839 he wrote of two subjects, often in his heart as connected closely with each other-Christian missions and Christian education; and to the Diocese of Maryland, of which he had charge in 1840, he spoke, as he could with no per- sonality, as to the proper and just support of the episcopate. While, generally speaking, " the perfectly independent way in which he battered the solid front of his convictions against the wall of popular opinions, was another element of his character and work. Of all walls, none is more solid and brazen than the prevailing notion which considers the commission to evangelize the world as given mainly to Sunday-school teachers. He had not so learned," and would have been sorry to think of the Sunday-school, as such, as a permanent idca in the church. IIe did not carc

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The biographical encyclopaedia of New Jersey of the nineteenth century, Part 87

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