USA > Pennsylvania > Prominent and progressive Pennsylvanians of the nineteenth century. Volume III > Part 1
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GENEALOGY COLLECTION
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1.
PROMINENT AND PROGRESSIVE
PENNSYLVANIANS
OF THE
NINETEENTH CENTURY.
A REVIEW OF THEIR CAREERS.
"Nil Mortalibus arduum est." -HORACE.
VOLUME III.
Editors : LELAND M. WILLIAMSON, RICHARD A. FOLEY, HENRY H. COLCLAZER, LOUIS N. MEGARGEE, JAY H. MOWBRAY, WILL. R. ANTISDEL.
974.8 W67p V. 3
PHILADELPHIA : THE RECORD PUBLISHING COMPANY. 1898.
COPYRIGHT, MARCH, 1898, BY JAMES S. MCCARTNEY, RECORD BUILDING, PHILADELPHIA.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Willand -
MODERN PENNSYLVANIA'S ANCESTRY.
- -
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EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION.
HILADELPHIA," declared the late James Parton, "is Quakerism mitigated by Franklin." If by Franklin we understand, as well, the Scotch-Irish of the Western frontier and the Church-of-England people with whom he identified himself at the time of the French and Indian War, the American historian's aphorism may, indeed, be taken as a statement concerning the entire colony of Pennsylvania. But to obtain a true appreciation of exactly what the modern Commonwealth and modern Pennsylvanians are, it is necessary to emphasize much more fully than this the many diversified elements from which they have emerged by process of gradual evolution, an evolution not yet completed and crowned by a distinctive type. The greatness and the weakness of the Keystone State of the American Union are to be perceived in this fundamental heterogeneity of nationalities and sects, not yet become entirely and happily homogeneous. Without taking into account the mere fur-trading Dutch or even the stock-raising Swedes of ancient Wiccaco, the analyst of the modern Pennsylvanian's characteristics must devote careful study to the Germans, the Welsh, the Irish and the Scotch-Irish who settled in the olden province of the benignant Quakers, and who have each been decisive factors in the upbuilding of the great Commonwealth as it is to-day. Unhappy dissensions, unfraternal uprisings have marked the history of these conflicting factors; no other of the original Thirteen Colonies was composed of such diversified constituents, and yet to this unparalleled ancestry is due the fact that, from the start, Pennsylvania has been an even greater Holy Experiment than its own grand founder dreamed-
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EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION.
ever foremost in liberality and in ideas of freedom and patriotism, and in the van, as well, of New World commerce, invention, science, medi- cine, law, literature, art and the humanities. In the colonial days of struggle and stress and in the eagle morning of the Young Republic Pennsylvania was the cradle of almost every great experiment and birth of progress. If man be, as Emerson puts it, "a quotation from all his ancestors," equally certain is it of a State, which is the sum and substance of all its citizens. Aside from her native-born sons of genius, heroism and enterprise-numerous enough to make a sufficient bead- roll of honor of their own-it has sometimes been a matter of jest to declare of Pennsylvania that, in the case of three of her greatest men, Benjamin Franklin was a Bostonian, Albert Gallatin a Swiss, and Stephen Girard a Frenchman. But, after all, it was the soil in which they were transplanted that ripened even these giants. Franklin, for instance, never could have flourished in Puritan Boston.
What was the Quakerism that Franklin "mitigated?" The latter- day idea of the Friend goes little beyond the broad-brim. There can be no doubt that, even in Bayard Taylor's childhood, the character of the Quakers had become decidedly changed from its type of pre- Revolutionary days-the date of their political downfall. It is now- a-days the fashion to make as much of a historical caricature out of the Eighteenth Century Quaker as out of the Seventeenth Century Puritan. It is only necessary to read Howard M. Jenkins'-shall we call it Quaker ?- "History of Philadelphia " to comprehend the real greatness of the old-time Friends, who laid the basis of this Common- wealth; and Sydney George Fisher's recent works, to understand their peculiar relationship to the rest of the motley nationalities and sects, who came as pioneers to William Penn's refuge in the Western wilder- ness. From 1682 until 1776, a period of ninety-four years, the Quakers constituted the legislative and social power of Pennsylvania ; for the first seventy years their sway was practically supreme; and even when the "Presbyterians" and Church-of-England people joined to over- throw the political supremacy of Penn's disciples, the grateful German immigrants added the saving weight of their votes in the scales. It was only with the outburst of the Revolution that the Quakers saw their power vanish in a twinkling, and the Scotch-Irish gained the
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EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION.
ascendancy. Nor is it impossible to apprehend clearly how the Quakers lost their post at the helm.
Gradually but steadily, during their long control, the Quakers had been developing the civil liberty of the province, even while the Puritans of Massachusetts and the Cavaliers of Virginia had been losing all the original privileges which they possessed. The most liberal of all the New World sects, the most advanced in political free- dom, were the Friends. When Penn had secured his fee-simple title to the great barony that was to become this splendid Empire, he was left free to institute whatsoever type of government he chose within its lordly domains, and we have but to read again his "Frame of Government," in its quaint and homely Anglo-Saxon, to see how genuinely democratic was his ideal. "Governments, like clocks," said the sage founder, "go from the motion men give them; and as governments are made and moved by man, so by them they are ruined too." As Mr. Fisher expresses it: "Starting as a feudal pro- prietary province, under the treble control of deputy governors, pro- prietor and king, Pennsylvania gradually worked out for herself a body of constitutional liberty, which, at the time of the Revolution, gave her such a satisfactory form of government that it was a great obstacle, indeed, in the way of the movement for independence."
Voltaire could well look toward Pennsylvania as an ideal home of liberty and philosophy. Such America and all the world found it to be in those "times that tried men's souls," when John Dick- inson, "the first champion of American liberties," "the penman of the Revolution," wrote his "Farmer's Letters;" when Franklin carried the vital French alliance; when Charles Thomson sat as Secretary of the Continental Congress ; when Robert Morris pledged his immense private fortune ("the purse of the Revolution") ; when Anthony Wayne-the hero of the Pennsylvania Line, Mifflin, Cad- walader and Muhlenberg went to the front; and when the Liberty Bell in Independence Hall rang forth its prophetic tidings to the land and all the inhabitants thereof. Welshman, German, Irishman, Scotch-Irishman and Church-of-England men not Tories seized the sword ; and there was, too, the Fighting Quaker, as well as those broad-brims whom John Adams met at his memorable banquet. Dr.
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EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION.
S. Weir Mitchell's romance of "Hugh Wynne" is a worthy tribute to the memory of those courageous Friends who, like Greene and Mifflin (the latter a Pennsylvanian born and bred), took up arms for their country. It is said that the young Quakers who enlisted learned the manual of arms with astonishing celerity. It is not strange that from that day until now this State has been the cradle of such distinguished generals and of such innumerable troops- stemming the tide of the Civil War, in fact, at its highwater mark on their own ground, the farm at Gettysburg.
As on the field so on the wave. Pennsylvania has been the cradle of American navies and naval heroes. James Biddle, the hero of the "Wasp " and the " Hornet," indeed, foreshadowed at the old naval asylum in Philadelphia the present Naval Academy at Annapolis. Nicholas Biddle, who met his heroic death on the "Ran- dolph," was a native Philadelphian. Commodore Charles Stewart was born in Pennsylvania's chief city and there christened the "New Ironsides," built by the founder of the Cramps' shipyard in six months from the standing trees in the forest. Captain Truxton was a Sheriff of Philadelphia, and there lie buried Commodore Barry, old Stephen Decatur, Commodore Bainbridge, Samuel Francis DuPont and Isaac Hull, the hero of the Constitution, who died exclaiming: "I strike my flag." The two great admirals of the Civil War-Farragut and Porter-may be claimed as Pennsylvanians, in a broad sense, along with McClellan, Hancock, Meade and Patterson. The Porter family lived at Chester, where David Porter was born, and there Farragut, an adopted son, was drilled as a sailor.
Thus, in spite of the Quaker doctrine of non-resistance, and the Toryism of the Church-of-England men, that became so flagrant in the Meschianza festivities, the intermingling of nationalities in Penn- sylvania supplemented the Quaker ideas of liberty with patriots on land and sea. And so in the Quaker State, in spite of the quietism of Penn's own followers, the blending of bloods produced a social, literary and artistic community that was in its day the American Athens. The Quakers, of whom Bayard Taylor later declared-in reminiscence of his Kennett Square experience-that, in realizing the sternness of life, they overlooked its graces, were by no means
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EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION.
rigid and stiff in their days of political and social power. They knew how to enjoy life, and their "mighty feasts " and hospitality bewildered Puritan John Adams when he came to attend Congress. They really sowed the seeds of that luxury and gayety which prevailed in Phila- delphia during late colonial times and its heyday as the Capital, and they made it the chief city, and thus State, of the Union. From the very beginning Penn's experiment had not called down the epithet of " slow." As Jacob Taylor sang away back in 1723 :
" When Jove and Saturn were in Leo joined They saw the survey of the place designed. Swift were these planets, and the world will own Swift was the progress of the rising town. The Lion is an active regal sign, And Sol beheld the two superiors join."
That Philadelphia became the Athens of America is largely due to the too-much-misunderstood Quakers. Indirectly, the atmosphere created by them led to the first theatre and magazine as much as to the first library and hospital of the New World. The best library in colonial times had been Logan's, and here was established the first circulating library. The American Academy in Boston was the only scientific foundation within the Republic that was not in Philadelphia. Nearly every experiment in periodical literature was first tried in that city, from the first monthly magazine to the first daily newspaper. "William Cliffton, a native of Southwark, wrote the best verse produced in America in the Eighteenth Century," states Prof. Albert H. Smyth. "The earliest American drama, 'The Prince of Parthia,' was the work of Thomas Godfrey, the son of the inventor of the quadrant. The profession of letters began in this country with Charles Brockden Brown, whose ancestors had come to Philadelphia with William Penn in the 'Welcome'." It is interesting, too, to note that when Pennsylvania's prestige in literature was being despaired of, four of her chief poets were born within four successive years : T. Buchanan Read (English) in 1822, George Henry Boker (English) in 1823, Charles Godfrey Leland (German) in 1824, and Bayard Taylor (German and Quaker) in 1825.
It was the Quaker guarantee of religious liberty that brought to America the first waves of German migration, so valuable a factor
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EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION.
in modern citizenship. Of these founders of the German Town and settlers in Central Pennsylvania, it is also the fashion to over- emphasize their clannishness and thrift. And yet these Mennonites, Tunkers, Schwenkfelders and Moravians, as well as the wretched Palatines, lured over by the Golden Books of Queen Anne and the "soul-sellers," were fellow-protestants with Penn against dogmas. Penn himself, on the maternal side, was a half Hollander. To counter- balance their curious sects, all the way from the Ridge hermits and Ephrata mystics of old to the Amish of to-day, these Germans brought with them the printing press and the weaver's loom. The Tunker Elder, Christopher Sauer; Muhlenberg, the Lutheran leader ; Conrad Weiser, Gen. Peter Muhlenberg, Rittenhouse, Dr. Caspar Wistar, Dr. Joseph Leidy, Bayard Taylor-such are a few of the Pennsylvanians with German blood in their veins. Edwin Forrest was half German and half Scotch. The military annals of the country are rife with the names of German soldiers. The Moravians were the angels of the battlefield. While the Quakers inaugurated the modern spirit of philanthropy that now prevails, particularly in Pennsylvania, it was upon German suggestion that they became the first to advocate the abolition of slavery and the principle of universal suffrage.
Penn's well-beloved Welsh, who settled on their Wales-like tract along the Chester Valley, must claim gratitude as the real precursors and founders of Pennsylvania's position in the modern medical world. In the early days of the province all the physicians, from William Penn's own, appear to have been Welshmen. The Scotch seem to have been most attracted to the Bar, where, with the Scotch-Irish, they have blazoned their names high on Pennsyl- vania's noble legal annals. But it was only one of the many liberal and broad-minded traits of the inter-blended community that has made the State famous for her lawyers. Of old, as with Dickinson, it was the custom to send students abroad to the great law schools.
Of the Scotch-Irish, their prominence during and since the Revolution is so uncontested as to leave nothing more necessary to be said. Even their fierce " Whiskey Riot," or Western Insurrection, has been only recently explained in its true significance by Rev. Dr.
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EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION.
Henry C. McCook (in his romance of "The Latimers") as a mis- guided uprising of frontiersmen devoted to personal as well as political liberty. When the Quakers themselves had made the mistake of espousing royalty as against the proprietors, these sturdy sons of mountainous Pennsylvania, of the Cumberland Valley, were the men for '76. But in modern times they have produced such a far- sighted statesman as James G. Blaine, and governors such as Andrew Curtin. Among the Irish Pennsylvanians, who can forget the names of Wayne, Hand and Moylan? The Hibernian Society, for the Relief of Emigrants from Ireland, founded on March 3, 1790, can boast to-day of prominent members in almost every walk of life.
As for the Church-of-England men, who constituted with the Quakers the aristocratic class of yore, they embraced such forceful characters as the Chews, the Peterses, Robert Morris and other powerful leaders of fashion and commerce ..
Thus briefly one may glimpse at some of the main features of Pennsylvania's ancestral elements. Their amalgamations, as many even of the few names quoted will go to prove, have been bene- ficial from the start, despite serious contrasts and disputes. Between them these nationalities and sects have developed the wonderful resources of the Commonwealth as diversified as they themselves. The great captains of industry, the merchant princes and commerce- builders of the State to-day, her sons conspicuous in the arts and sciences, can trace back the real beginnings of their opportunities to these pioneer elements. Pennsylvania has always been able to produce the right men for the times at every great national crisis, and she still leads in experimental and initiative enterprise. Her citizenship to-day is one to be justly proud of, and promises as golden fruits of patriotism and progress for the future as in the storied past. W. R.A.
Herbert D allman.
HERBERT D. ALLMAN.
OURAGE and originality play very important parts in the upbuilding of a great business house, and when those qualities are coupled with sound judgment, determination and persistency, success is almost always assured. Largely through the efforts of Herbert D. Allman, the subject of this sketch, who possesses these qualities to a marked degree, one of the largest business concerns in the country was established in this city. Eminently successful though he has been in mercantile pursuits, in early life his inclination was in an entirely different direction. Possessed of more than ordinary natural talents in the way of drawing and sketching, he had a great desire to study art, and it is probable that, had he followed his bent to a con- clusion, he would have been famous in the fine arts as he has been successful in business. Qualities of courage and originality are abso- lutely necessary to the making of an artist, and Mr. Allman attended the Industrial Art School and the Franklin Institute, where he dis- played unusual ability and acquired considerable proficiency in the handling of pen, pencil and brush. The knowledge he thus gained and his natural love of art, no doubt, very materially aided him in the wall-paper business, in which he is now engaged. In the creation and selection of designs and the combining of colors, Mr. Allman's knowl- edge and love of art have been put to a thoroughly practical use.
HERBERT D. ALLMAN was born at the Northwest Corner of Eighth and Walnut streets, January 30, 1863. His father was David Allman, and his mother Pauline (Kayser) Allman. He was sent to the public schools, passed through the Northwest Grammar School, and later attended the Industrial Art School. Studious by nature, he was quick to learn, and had gone through the various grades before he
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HERBERT D. ALLMAN.
had reached his sixteenth birthday. He then entered the employ of M. M. Kayser, as junior clerk, in the wall-paper business. The concern was then a small one, at 406 Arch Street. He was assiduous in the discharge of his duties and early gained the entire confidence of his employer. Small things were not overlooked by him, and he soon acquired a thorough knowledge of the business. Still he had not yet given over his early desire to study art, and he attended at nights, alternately, the Industrial Art School and the Franklin Institute.
In 1883 the spirit of originality made itself manifest, and the courage to act at the same time came to the surface. His employer was in California for his health, and the young man was practically in charge of the business. He then conceived the idea, and immediately put it into execution, of the establishing of a mail-order system. This project, original with Mr. Allman, proved to be a great thing for the concern. The growth was rapid, steady and regular. Upon Mr. Kayser's return from the Pacific slope, he encouraged the efforts of the young man, commended him for what he had done, and enlarged the work. The firm, of which Mr. Allman is now a partner, developed the idea of the mail-order system, and it has proved so successful that orders are received from almost every State between the Atlantic and Pacific, and from many foreign points as well. They transact con- siderable business with the dealers in Australia and nearly all the South American countries. Business improved so rapidly that Mr. Kayser was warranted in adding the buildings at 408-410 Arch Street. In 1884, five years after entering the employ of Mr. Kayser, Mr. All- man was, at the age of twenty-one years, given an interest in the concern. The Wall-Paper Trust had been organized and various com- binations had been formed, but the firm of which Mr. Allman was an active assistant, and later a member, was and is still noted for declin- ing to take part in them. In 1888 the firm leased the five-story build- ing at 418 Arch Street, using it in addition to the other stores. At that time Mr. Allman secured a one-third interest in the partnership. Two years later, Mr. Kayser died, and he purchased a one-half interest in the firm, which then took the name of Kayser & Allman. In 1893 they leased additional buildings at 932-934 Market Street, which were fitted up as a retail store. The business increased, and in November,
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HERBERT D. ALLMAN.
1897, the firm consolidated all the buildings, including their art rooms, at their present location, 1214-1216 Market Street. This is said to be the largest and best fitted building, devoted exclusively to the wall-paper business, in the world. Shortly after re-organizing the firm as Kayser & Allman, they, in connection with Jackson, Huppuch & Kerlin, incorporated the Standard Wall-Paper Company, which has to-day one of the largest manufactories of fine wall-paper in the United States. The mill is situated at Sandy Hill, New York, that location being selected because of its proximity to the great raw stock- producing mills. This manufactory turns out upwards of twelve million rolls of paper per annum. Mr. Allman is a member of Sheki- nah Lodge, No. 246, Free and Accepted Masons, and Keystone Chapter. He is a charter member of the Century Wheelmen Club and one of the earliest members of the League of American Wheel- men. He is also a member of the Mercantile Club and is connected with many charitable associations.
On September 24, 1891, Mr. Allman and Mildred (Carvalho) Nunez were married. They have two children, Druard Nunez and Audrian Paul.
JOHN JOSEPH ALTER.
HEN ability and energy are combined, they usually W operate to place the possessor in the front rank of whatever walk of life he may follow. Vigorous, virile and capable, the subject of this biography, John J. Alter, has made his career a successful one largely through his own efforts. That he was imbued with determination and laudable ambition early in life and that he was willing to work in order to achieve success, is shown by his youthful experiences. He was a hard-working clerk in an insurance office before he was seven- teen years of age. He had learned the trade of plumbing and gas- fitting before he was nineteen, and, having picked up the art of cigar-making, was engaged at night in making a few dollars extra at that -trade. His early education had fitted him for almost any kind of clerical labor, and his natural ability, combined with his acquirements, enabled him to assume the management of the large corporation of which he is now the President.
JOHN JOSEPH ALTER was born in the old district of Southwark, now the First Ward of Philadelphia, December 30, 1850. His parents were John and Mary Alter. His father, a German and imbued with the German's firm belief in the value of learning, early directed the son's mind toward the requirement of a practical education. As a boy he was bright and active and his advancement was very rapid. The accomplishments were not neglected, for every hour of the youth's time, when not engaged in actual physical labor and exercise, was taken up by close application to his books. He was prepared by tutors when quite young and was sent to private schools later. He was early instructed in German and French and was able to speak and write those languages with almost as much fluency as his native tongue.
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The Rembrand 2 . Phila.
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JOHN JOSEPH ALTER.
In fact, it was not before he had thoroughly mastered French and Ger- man that he was permitted to perfect himself in his own language. Mr. Alter attended two business colleges, where he made mercantile book- keeping a special course of study. He had passed through all these courses of instruction when, at the age of seventeen years, he entered the insurance office of Gustavus Paul, who thirty years ago was one of the most extensive insurance brokers in the United States. Here his natural alertness and his keen discernment enabled him to quickly grasp not only the routine, but all the important features of the busi- ness. The big figures and long columns met with as an insurance clerk familiarized the young man with immense sums. This knowl- edge and familiarity, now that he has been placed at the head of a concern in which millions of dollars are invested, materially aid him in the discharge of his duties.
The elder Mr. Alter always believed that young men should have a trade, and his son John was apprenticed to learn plumbing and gas- fitting. As in other lines, Mr. Alter learned quickly and was soon a competent journeyman. A smoker and a lover of a good cigar, he determined to know how to make the best. He made many cigars and incidentally got a little money. At the age of twenty years Mr. Alter returned to the insurance business and a year later entered the office of Bergdoll & Psotta, brewers, at 508 and 510 Vine Street. His ability and energy quickly advanced him in the estimation of his employers, and when he suggested that he become a son-in-law of the head of the firm, in 1874, there was no objection on the part of Mr. Bergdoll. His rise in the brewing business was steady and rapid. He thoroughly learned the trade from the beginning to the end, and was able to personally perform any portion of the labor connected with the manufacture of beer. Through the various and multifarious positions from a clerk in the concern, he rose until, in 1896, he was made President of the Louis Bergdoll Brewing Company, an office which he still fills. The business of the company increased almost as rapidly as Mr. Alter advanced, and it is a matter worthy of note that during twenty-five years, the interim between his first employment in the concern to his elevation to the Presidency thereof, the business had increased five hundred per cent. The Louis Bergdoll Company
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