The biographical encyclopaedia of New Jersey of the nineteenth century, Part 98

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

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the Assembly, where it was negatived by seventeen nays to |served until the 5th of March, 1863, when he resigned his elcven yeas. Thereupon the Council, on the next day, commission. Returning to New Germantown he resumed his private practice, continuing actively engaged until June 18th, 1865, when he was thrown from his carriage and killed. He was a member of the Hunterdon County Med- ical Society, and in his profession his standing was excel- lent. He married a Miss Waldron, of New Germantown. passed a resolution requiring Isaac Collins to furnish it with the information, and a copy was served on Collins, but he declined to make any answer, and the matter dropped. Livingston was re-elected by a vote of twenty-nine to nine for Philemon Dickinson, but for some time the Governor ceased to write for the Gasette. By other authority it is asserted that this temporary cessation of journalistic work was owing to the remonstrance of some legislators, who judged it undignified. However this may be, all are now GDEN, ISAAC, M. D., late of New Brunswick, was born about the middle of the last century ; graduated from the College of New Jersey in 1784; studied medicine, was licensed as a physi- cian, and established himself at Six Mile Run, a village adjacent to his native town. Here he was married to a daughter of Elder Peter Stoothoff, the only child by this marriage hecoming in early life the wife of the Rev. Isaac N. Wyckoff, D. D., of Albany, New York. He subsequently removed to Whitehouse, a few years later to New Germantown, and in 1809, relinquishing his prac- tice in favor of his nephew, Dr. Oliver Barnet, to New Brunswick. As an obstetrician he attained to considerable celebrity, and was also successful as a general practitioner. lIe was an earnest student of astronomy, and during the latter portion of his life gave the greater portion of his time to that science. For several years he published an almanac in which, beside the usual tables, etc., he presented prog- nostications-generally in rhyme-of the weather for the coming year ; a work that had at the time a very extensive circulation, and of which, preserved as curiosities, copies are still to be found in out-of-the-way country houses, and in the hands of book collectors. In 1821 he was one of the founders of the Hunterdon County Medical Socicty, was President of that organization in 1823, and in 1826, on leaving the county, was elected the first honorary member. He died suddenly, of apoplexy, some few years after his removal to New Brunswick. agreed that he was peculiarly fitted for the very difficult duties he was called upon to perform. Whenever appealed to, in regard to the enforcement of the laws of the State, making the Continental money a legal tender, he always sustained them, though he always opposed the passage of such laws, and would not take advantage of them himself. On the proclamation of pcace he quitted Trenton and re- turned to his house at Elizabethtown. In June, 1785, he was appointed by Congress Minister to the Court of Holland, but, while he was at first disposed to accept, eventually declined. During the succeeding year he became a mem- ber of the society in New York for promoting the emanci- pation of slaves, and emancipated the two he owned. He was appointed by the Legislature in May, 1787, a Dclegate to the convention that formed the national constitution, and subsequently, in a message to the Legislature, expressed his gratitude to God that he had lived to see its approval and adoption by the States. Yale College in the next year con- ferred on him the degree of LL. D. He was a man of strong literary inclinations, and during both his earlier and later life wrote largely on political subjects, indulging also occasionally in poetical effusions. In the year 1745 he married Susannah French, whose father had been a large proprietor of land in New Jersey ; she died in 1789. His own death occurred June 25th, 1790. Of his thirteen children, six died before him. One son, Brockholst Liv- ingston, became a distinguished lawyer in New York, sat for several years on the Supreme bench of that State, and in 1807 was elevated to that of the United States, occupying his seat thereon until his death in 1823.

ARCLAY, ALEXANDER, JR., M. D., late of New Germantown, Hunterdon county, son of Dr. Alexander Barclay, of Newburgh, New York, was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, January 9th, 1832. Having read medicine under his father, he attended medical lectures, was graduated M. D., and in 1860, being duly licensed by the State Board of Censors, established himself in practice at New German- town. On the 15th of September, 1862, he was commis- sioned Assistant Surgeon in the United States volunteer army, was attached to the 13th New Jersey Regiment, and

ARRISON, JOSIAH, Lawyer, late of Salem, was born in Essex county, New Jersey, in 1795; was licensed as an attorney in 1800, and as a counsel- lor in 1803. After teaching a classical school for a few years at Deerfield, Cumberland county, he settled as a lawyer in Salem, where he married a lady of great respectability and worth. " He was a man of small stature, and had a respectable business as a con- veyancer and attorney." The most remarkable circumstance in his professional career was his connection with the will of John Sinnickson, a citizen of Salem, who died without descendants, leaving a large property, consisting principally of real estate, about the year 1815, whose final instrument he drew and witnessed. The contest about this will lasted

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several years, was of a very exciting character, and divided the society of the town into two very hostile parties, " mak- ing breaches in very respectable families, which are hardly healed to this day." The principal opponent of the will was Dr. Rowan, who married a niece of the deceased. Probate of the will was refused by the Orphans' Court, and upon an appeal to Governor Mahlon Dickerson, as judge of the Prerogative Court, he affirmed this decree. He then removed his residence to Philadelphia, and filed a bill in the Circuit Court of the United States for the establishment of the trusts in the will. An issue of will or no will being or- dered, the case was brought on before Judge Washington, and a jury which, after a protracted trial, rendered a verdict establishing the will. The case is reported in 3 Wash. . C. C. R., p. 580, Harrison vs. Rowan. A motion for a new trial being made, was decided in 1820. Judge Wash- ington declared himself perfectly satisfied with the verdict; but as Judge Pennington, who sat with him, was not so, a new trial was ordered. The parties then compromised and allowed a decree to be entered establishing the will, releases and other papers being executed by the heirs and devisees. A life-estate was thus settled on Dr. Rowan, who lived to extreme old age. After this trial, his wife having died in the meantime, he resided for several years in Camden, New Jersey, and carried on business as a printer. During that time he acted also as Reporter of the Supreme Court. Re- moving subsequently to Salem, he resided there permanently until his decease, which occurred in the ycar 1865.

OODRUFF, HON. GEORGE WHITEFIELD, Lawyer, United States District Attorney, late of Trenton, was born at Elizabethtown, New Jersey, March 16th, 1765, and was a brother of A. D. Woodruff, who graduated at Princeton in the class of 1779. He pursued his studies in the Alma Mater of that brother, and after graduation studied law, and was admitted to practise as an attorney at the April term of the Supreme Court in 1788. He then removed to the State of Georgia, and in that State acquired a posi- tion of much respectability at the bar. Subsequently he was appointed, by President John Adams, United States District Attorney. Having acquired an ample fortune, he returned to New Jersey, and took up his residence near Trenton. Here he lived "in much companionship with books, withdrawn from active business, but not from con- stant amiable intercourse with men, until his death," which occurred in 1846, at the advanced age of eighty-two years. At the time of his decease he was the oldest member of the New Jersey bar. It is said that his most intimate friends never knew him to be betrayed into an angry deed or word. Possessed of fortune and a well-cultivated and richily stored mind, he exercised, notwithstanding his retiring manners,

the influence which wealth and intelligence confer. One of his sons graduated from Princeton College in the class of 1836.

EEDHAM, LEWIS RANDOLPH, M. D., late of Perryville, New Jersey, was born in East Haddam, Connecticut, in 1808. He was for some time a school teacher in Sussex county, New Jersey ; read medicine a short time with Dr. Jepthah B. Munn ; subsequently with Dr. John Blane; at- tended medical lectures in New York, and in 1835 received his degree of M. D. Having been duly examined and licensed by the State Board of Censors, he entered into part- nership with Dr. Blane, under whom he had studied, and this partnership was continued up to the time of his death. In practice he was highly successful, and for his ability, as well as for his genial manner and truc kindliness, was very generally esteemed. He was a member of the Hunterdon County Medical Society, and was elected Secretary of that organization in 1836. IIe married Susan F. Sayre, of Madison, Morris county, New Jersey, by whom he had two children, one of whom, a son, is still living. He died November 12th, 1841.

CHENCK, HENRY H., M. D., late of Reading- ton, New Jersey, oldest son of Dr. Henry and Ellen (Hardenberg) Schenck, was born in New York State in February, 1782 ; his father removing a few years later to Neshamie, New Jersey. His strong love of adventure led him to enlist in the United States army when a mere lad, but being a minor, his enlistment was cancelled by his father before he had seen service. His next performance, when he had arrived at the mature age of seventeen years, was to get married; the lady of his choice being Jane Herder, who, being sixteen years old, was no less endowed with gravity and discretion than was her husband. Being married, hc deemed it proper to settle down in life, and to this end entered vigorously upon the study of medicine under the supervision of his father. But medicine was monotonous, so one morning he left his books and his bride, and the next that was heard of him he was once more a soldier. This time his father concluded to give him his head, trusting to the many drawbacks to army life to cure him of his military proclivities. But he did not cure easily, and it was a round seven years before he lapsed back to the life of a civilian, having in the mean- time fought through the war of 1812, up to the battle of Queenstown IIcights, and after that event having passed his time as a prisoner in the British lines. Ilis seven years of service quieted down his love of adventure, and during the remainder of his life he practised medicine vigorously and with very uniform success. As a matter of course he was

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extremely popular in the communities where he lived, his | its restoration to a flourishing condition. "It was through energetic habit and bright, cheerful manner making him hosts of acquaintances, and these, when they came to know his real kindliness of heart, rarely failed to become his warm friends. He was for some time in practice at Quakertown, removed thence to Readington, (about) 1810, and remained in practice at Readington until the time of his death, December 20th, 1823.

COTT, MOSES, Physician and Surgeon, Revolu- tionary Soldier and Officer, late of New Bruns- wick, New Jersey, was born in 1738, and at seventeen years of age accompanied the unfortu- nate expedition under Braddock, and shared in all the privations and perils of the time and cir-

cumstances. At the capture of Fort Duquesne, three years afterward, he had risen to be a commissioned officer. In the course of the following year he resigned his commis- sion, on account of the invidious distinction made between royal and colonial officers; and, by the advice of Dr. Ewing and Mr. Beattie, entered upon a course of studies in medi- cine. His first residence was at Brandywine, but about 1774 he removed to New Brunswick. When the revolu- tionary struggle commenced he took an active part on the patriotic side, and was appointed, July 2d, 1776, Physician and Surgeon-General of the State forces, and Director-Gen- eral of the Military Hospitals. He then procured a supply of medicines and surgical instruments from Europe, partly by his own means and credit; but, unfortunately, a great portion of his needed and valuable store fell into the hands of the enemy on their sudden invasion of New Brunswick, at which time he barely saved himself from capture. " He was just sitting down to the table when the alarm was given, and the enemy, entering soon after, took possession of his house and regaled themselves on his deserted dinner. A tory neighbor told them that the boxes of medicine which they found had been poisoned by the rebel doctor, and left there purposely to destroy the British troops; whereupon they lost no time in emptying thein into the street." In 1777 Congress took the entire direction of the medical staff, and he was commissioned as Senior Physician and Surgeon of the Hospitals, and Assistant Director-General ; and in the discharge of the numerous and responsible duties attendant on his station he won universal encomiums. He was present at the battles of Trenton, Princeton, Bran- dywine and Germantown; and at Princeton was near the gallant Mercer when he fell. On the restoration of peace he resumed the practice of his profession in New Bruns- wick, New Jersey. He was one of the most active workers in raising the First Presbyterian Church of that city from its dilapidated and embarrassed state; and his is a prominent name on the committees called for the purpose of securing

his agency, and partly, it is believed, by his gift, the ground was procured for the building." Having made a profession of religion at an early age, he was during his entire life a main pillar of the church; and for many years was an effi- cient and zealous Elder, and Treasurer of the Board of Trustees. His death occurred, December 28th, 1821, at the advanced age of eighty-three years.

TTO, JOHN C., Physician and Surgeon, late of Philadelphia, was born near Woodbury, New Jersey, March 15th, 1774, and was the son of Bodo Otto, an eminent physician, and a distin- guished public character in the stirring days of the revolutionary conflict. His literary education was obtained at Princeton College, and he graduated from that institution after the usual course of study and examina- tion. He then entered the office of Dr. Rush, and in 1796 received his medical diploma from the University of Penn- sylvania. He soon attained a highly respectable rank among his contemporaries, and in 1798 was elected one of the physicians of the Philadelphia Dispensary, an institution which he faithfully served for a period of five years. In 1813 he was appointed to succeed Dr. Rush (lately de- ceased) as one of the physicians of the Pennsylvania Hos- pital. Here his untiring devotion to the sick, his sound medical knowledge, his matured judgment, and a deep and ever-present sense of the responsibilities of the post, proved him to be the right man for the important position. He held this office during a period of twenty-two years. His clinical lectures while connected with the hospital were models of conciseness, simplicity and truthfulness. One of his pupils, himself afterward eminent as a physician, writes : " Who cannot look back with lively satisfaction and recall the slender and slightly-stooping frame of this vener- able physician, as he passed around the wards of the hos- pital, stopping at each bed as he passed, kindly saluting his patient, making the necessary inquiries into his condition, and then, in the most unaffected and yet impressive man- ner, addressing himself to the assembled class, and fasten- ing upon their minds some valuable medical precept." In addition to this responsible position, he was connected and identified with several other public charities. During twenty years he served the Orphan Asylum, where he was greatly beloved by the children and by all connected with the institution. He was also Physician for many years to the Magdalen Asylum, in whose prosperity he always evinced a deep and generous interest. In 1840 he was elected Vice-President of the College of Physicians, a po- sition which he occupied at the time of his decease. In social life he was remarkable for the simplicity and ease of his manners, and for the vast amount of instructive and

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suggestive matter that generally pervaded his conversation. He was warmly attached to the Presbyterian forms and teachings, but was also of a truly liberal and catholic spirit; and his religion was peculiarly vital and practical. He read the Scriptures morning and evening, and rarely passed a day without perusing a portion of Thomas A Kempis' " Imitation of Christ." He died as he lived, an humble and devout Christian, beloved and respected by all, June 26th, 1844. He published " Medical Papers " in the New York Medical Repository, 1803; contributions to Coxe's Medical Museum, 1805; essays in the Eclectic Repository ; and articles on medical and scientific subjects in the North American Medical and Surgical Journal, 1828, 1830.

IRCII, REV. ROBERT, late of New Brunswick, New Jersey, was born in New York city, in January, 1808, and was the son of an eminent physician of that city. While an infant he was attacked by a severe inflammation of the brain, and life was despaired of, insomuch that his mother made his shroud while watching at his couch. He was saved, however, by the opening of a vein in his head ; but he always suffered somewhat from the effects of that illness to the end of his days. At a very early age he lost his father, and with him his expectation of a liberal educa- tion. Ile was then taken from school and placed in a counting-house, for the purpose of acquiring a practical and thorough knowledge of mercantile transactions and affairs. " Becoming pious, he was received to the communion of the Cedar Street Church, under Dr. Romeyn, at the age of twelve. The fatherless and sprightly boy then attracted the notice of Dr. John Breckinridge, and was induced by him to resume his studies." After graduating at Dickinson College he taught a classical school, first at Lancaster, and subsequently at Savannah, where he gained many friends of high standing and distinction. His theological studies, commenced at Andover, were completed at Princeton ; and after his licensure, by the Presbytery of New York, he preached for a short time to a new church in a hall in Broadway, from which he was called to New Brunswick, on a salary of $1,000. March 14th, 1839, Rev. Thomas Smyth, D. D., of Charleston, South Carolina, having de- clined an invitation to serve as successor to Dr. Jones, he was chosen pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, Father Comfort presiding. The sermon was preached by the late Professor Dod, from Psalm xcvii. 1 ; the charge to the min- ister and that to the people being both given by Rev. Ra- vand K. Rodgers, Rev. James Alexander, who had been appointed to the latter duty, being taken suddenly ill. His pastoral carcer was brief, but full of zeal and promise ; and his interest in the young was evinced in the pains he took to get up a course of winter evening lectures of a popular

character. After his decease, September 12th, 1842, in the thirty-fifth year of his age, the congregation erected, in the new cemetery, a handsome marble monument to his memory.

EASLEY, REV. FREDERICK, D. D., Clergy- man, Author, late of Elizabethtown, New Jersey, was born in North Carolina, in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. During his college course at Princeton, where he graduated, he con- tracted an intimate friendship with John Henry Hobart and Henry Kollock, which was terminated only by death. After graduating he studied theology with President Samuel Stanhope Smith, acting at the same time as tutor in the college. In 1801 he was ordained deacon by Bishop Moore, of New York, and priest by the same divine in 1802. In September of this year he became Rector of St. John's Church, Elizabethtown, but in the following spring resigned his charge and accepted a call to the Rectorship of St. Peter's Church, Albany. Here he remained until 1809, the date of his removal to Baltimore, where he be- came Rector of St. Paul's Church. In 1813, his health being in a precarious condition, and feeling the need of a position where lighter and less trying service would be re- quired, he resigned his charge and accepted the office of Provost of the University of Pennsylvania, a place that suited admirably his intellectual tastes and habits; and during the ensuing fifteen years he discharged the duties of that station with acknowledged fidelity and ability. The office of Provost he resigned in 1828, and in 1829 became Rector of St. Michael's Church, Trenton, New Jersey, where he remained until 1836. His health becoming very much impaired, he relinquished also his charge at Trenton, and removed to Elizabethtown, where he spent the re- mainder of his days. He received the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity from Columbia College, and from the University of Pennsylvania in 1815. "IIe was a man of slight frame, below the ordinary height, and was very easy and rapid in his movements. He was remarkably social and frank in all his intercourse." His acquirements in literature were extensive and varied, and his chief delight was found in reading, studying and meditation. His ser- mons were terse, well-written, and cogent in reasoning, and while his studies lay mainly in the direction of mental philosophy, he had no relish for the Scotch philosophers, but admired John Locke above all others. He published "A Discourse before the Ladies' Society, institutcd for the Relicf of Distressed Seamen in the City of Albany," ISOS; " Inaugural Sermon," in St. Paul's Church, Baltimore, ISIO; "A Sermon on Duelling," ISHI; an anonymous pamphlet, entitled "Scrious Reflections addressed to Epis. copalians in Maryland, on the State of their Church gen- erally, but more particularly on the Pending Election of a

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Suffragan Bishop," 1813; "A Sermon before the Diocesan Convention of Pennsylvania," 1815 ; "American Dialogues of the Dead," IS15; "A (second) Sermon on Duelling," 1822; "A Search of Truth in the Science of the Human Mind : Part I.," one volume, Svo., 1822 (he left in MSS. Part II. complete); "A Vindication of the Argument a priori in Proof of the Being and Attributes of God, from Objections of Dr. Waterland," 1825; " Review of Brown's Philosophy of the Human Mind," 1825; "A Vindication of the Fundamental Principles of Truth and Order in the Church of Christ, from the Allegations of Rev. William E. Channing, D. D.," 1830; "An Examination of No. 90 of the Tracts for the Times," 1842. He edited also the two volumes of Dr. Samuel Stanhope Smith's posthumous ser- mons, and wrote the memoir of his life, prefixed to the first volume; and contributed largely to the periodical literature of the day. He died at Elizabethtown, New Jersey, No- vember Ist, 1845.

AVARD, IION. JOHN, Colonel in the Revolu- tionary Army, Mayor of New Brunswick, late of that place, was born on Bohemia Manor, in Cecil county, Maryland, August 11th, 1738. His father left no will at his decease, and he, being the eldest son, became entitled, by the laws of his native State, to the whole real estate. Such, however, was his affection for his twin brother that no sooner had he reached the age of manhood than he conveyed to him half the estate. After receiving an academical education, under the preceptorship of Dr. Finley, he was placed as a subordinate in the counting-house of John Rhea, a well- known merchant of Philadelphia. " It was here that the seeds of grace began first to take root, and to give promise of those fruits of righteousness which afterward abounded." He early became a communicant of the Presbyterian church, under the charge of Gilbert Tennent, of Log College fame. Some years after his marriage he was chosen to occupy the station of Ruling Elder, and filled this place with accept- ance and energetic zeal. Mr. Whitfield, while on his visits to America, became intimately acquainted with him; formed for him an affectionate and enduring attachment; and in company with him made several extended tours. In 1770 he lost his only brother, Dr. James A. Bayard, a man of promising talents, of prudence and skill, and of a most amiable disposition, and growing reputation. The violence of his sorrow at first produced an illness which confined him to his bed for several days. " But by degrees it sub- sided into a tender melancholy, which for years after would steal across his mind, and tinge his hours of domestic inter- course and solitary devotion with pensive sadness." At the death of that brother's widow he adopted the children and educated them as his own. One of them became an emi- nent statesman, and placed his name high on the tablets of

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The biographical encyclopaedia of New Jersey of the nineteenth century, Part 98

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