USA > Pennsylvania > A biographical album of prominent Pennsylvanians, v. 1 > Part 24
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Mr. Africa's long experience as a surveyor, his field extending nearly over the whole State, together with his undeviating carefulness and accuracy, made him invaluable in suits where the land titles of Pennsylvania were involved. In fact, no suits of this nature were tried in the Huntingdon county court, and but few in the neighboring counties, in which his services were not required to unravel the mysteries of the law and aid in the administration of justice. He has been pronounced by competent authority the best surveyor in Central Penn- sylvania, and has not his superior in the State, if, indeed, anywhere outside its limits.
In 1853 Mr. Africa helped to establish the Standing Stone, an independent newspaper at Huntingdon, and continued one of its editors and proprietors until it was discontinued, two years later. The reasons for its discontinuance were that the publishers were engaged in other business which required nearly all their time and attention. It was disposed of to a party of Altoona gentlemen, and from it has sprung the present successfully conducted and prosperous Altoona Tribune. Mr. Africa would have made his mark as an editor. He is well quali- fied for editorial work, being an able, pungent writer, with a pure English style. All of his official documents and other writings attest the truth of this assertion. On all matters of local history he is considered an authority. He was the writer of the sketch of Huntingdon county in Egle's " History of Pennsylvania," and is given much credit for the information furnished in Lytle's " History of Hunt- ingdon County." He is also the author of an interesting and exhaustive " History of Huntingdon and Blair Counties," published in 1883.
In 1858-59 he was chosen one of the clerks of the State Senate of Pennsyl- vania, and in 1859 was elected to represent his native county in the Legislature, despite the fact that Huntingdon was even more strongly Republican than it had been Whig. He proved one of the ablest and most respected members of the body, served on the most important committees, and both on the floor and in the committee-room exercised a controlling influence in the proceedings.
During the civil war, from 1861 to 1865, Mr. Africa, while yielding a willing obedience and helping hand to the Federal authorities in suppressing the re- bellion, maintained a steadfast adherence to the Democratic party ; never for a moment permitting his allegiance to that organization or his faith in its ultimate
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triumph to falter. On the 20th of May, 1863, a lawless mob, incited to the act by a number of evil-disposed persons, broke into the office of the Democratic organ, the Huntingdon Monitor, then published by J. Irvin Steel, and the press, materials, etc., were thrown into the street and entirely destroyed. This roused the Democracy, not only of Huntingdon county, but of the entire State, to the highest degree of indignation, and the next day the following circular, signed by the leading Democrats of the county, was issued and had a wide dissemina- tion :
" MONITOR EXTRA.
" HUNTINGDON, PA., May 21st, 1863. " To the Democracy of Huntingdon county :
"An important hour in the history of our country is upon us. The question which presses itself home to every freeman now is, Shall the rights and liberty of the citizen be preserved, or shall the violence of a bloody mob override the majesty of the law and destroy both property and life ? In a crisis like this we appeal to the sovereign people-they are alike the source of virtue and of power, and their will to be obeyed needs but to be known. True to the sublime cause of constitutional liberty in the early struggles, they will not desert it now when the fires of persecution light its grand march to victory !
" Feeling deeply, as all citizens who love law and order must feel, the outrage committed on the office of The Monitor, on Wednesday, the 20th inst., we hereby unite in a call for a mass-meeting of the Democrats of Huntingdon county, to be held in the Court-Ilouse, on Friday, the 29th of May, at one o'clock P. M , to give expression to our utter abhorrence of such violence and brutality, and to renew our allegiance to the rights of the citizen and the Constitution of the Union.
"Freemen of Huntingdon county, shall your voice be hushed by the mob? Shall your property be destroyed, and your persons endangered, and that, too, in the name of liberty ? Never! By the sacred altars of our fathers, we swear-never !
" Then come in numbers and in power to the mass-meeting, and in obedience to the law of the land let us both assert and maintain our rights. The Monitor must be re-established, and every moment of delay breeds peril to our cause. Let there be a thousand Democrats in council. There is no man who loves liberty that cannot devote one day to its holy cause.
" John S. Miller, R. Bruce Petriken, W. P. McNite, A. Johnston, J. SIMPSON AFRICA, E. L. Everhart, F. Ilefright, F. B. Wallace, William Colon, A. P. Wilson, G. Ashman Miller, John H. Lightner, George Mears, R. Milton Speer, Joseph Reigger, Daniel Africa, Valentine Hoover, A. Owen."
There was a tremendous gathering of the Democracy of the county in response to this call. General George W. Speer presided, assisted by fifty vice-presidents and twenty-two secretaries, representing each township and borough in the county. An address was delivered by the late Hon. George Sanderson, then editor of the Lancaster Intelligencer, Mayor of Lancaster and President of the Democratic State Editorial Association. The Committee on Resolutions, after a lengthy preamble, reported a series of resolutions, setting forth the rights of individuals and the press under the Constitution of the United States as well as that of the State of Pennsylvania, and determining that " we will immediately re-establish The Monitor upon a firm and permanent basis, and yield it a generous support as the organ of our faith." The paper was re-established, and is to-day in a prosperous condition, S. E. Fleming & Co. being the publishers. This incident is recalled and related to show that Mr. Africa was never afraid, even in the darkest hours of our country's history, both by pen and voice, to boldly and unflinchingly advocate the rights of the people and the press.
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In the local affairs of Huntingdon borough he has always taken and continues to take a leading part. In every public improvement he has contributed the influence of his might and superior judgment. He has served as a member of the Borough Council, the School Board, was for two years one of the three Burgesses, Chief Burgess in 1874, and at the time of his election to the Secre- taryship of Internal Affairs was Cashier of the First National Bank of Hunt- ingdon.
Meanwhile Mr. Africa had become prominent in State affairs, and when the Department of Internal Affairs was created by the New Constitution of 1873, the following year the late General William McCandless, of Philadelphia, was chosen its first secretary. In casting about for his Deputy Secretary, the General appointed Mr. Africa to that position, for the reason that above all others he was the one most eminently fitted. The entire labor of organizing this new department of the State government rested upon him. An addition to the old Land Depart- ment building was necessary in order to accommodate the vast amount of business which was devolved upon the new department. The plans for the arrangement and improvement of the interior of the edifice were made by Mr. Africa, and under his direct personal supervision carried out. The result was that the structure in all its appointments is the finest and most complete of the public buildings of the State, and there are few which surpass it anywhere.
In 1878 he was nominated as the Democratic candidate for Secretary of In- ternal Affairs. It will be remembered as an intensely aggressive and bitter cam- paign, especially in reference to the gubernatorial nominces, who were, respect- ively, Andrew H. Dill, the Democratic, and Henry M. Hoyt, the Republican. Colonel Hoyt was elected by a majority of upward of 22,500, while Mr. Africa was only defeated by a majority of 12,159. His majority in Huntingdon county was 541, while Governor Hoyt's was only 337. This showed the continued hold Mr. Africa had upon the people of his native county, and also the estimate of him by the men of all parties in the State.
In 1880 President Hayes appointed him Supervisor of the Census for the Seventh District of Pennsylvania, comprising fourteen counties in the central part of the State, and extending from Clearfield to York. The appointment was unsolicited, but was made at the request of a number of leading Democrats of the State. The same vigor, the same care, the same intelligence, were exercised in the conduct of this office as he was wont to do in other positions, and the com- pletion of his labors was highly complimentary to himself, and extremely satis- factory to General Francis A. Walker, then Superintendent of the Census at Washington.
As the campaign of 1882 approached, there developed a great unanimity of sentiment that Mr. Africa should again be the nominee of the Democracy of the State for the Secretaryship of Internal Affairs. In bringing about this desirable result he took no part ; but in this, as in other cases, was ready to obey the bchests of his party. The unanimous nomination was therefore conferred upon
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forehead, and his head is covered with a luxuriance of brown hair, while his neatly-trimmed beard and mustache of the same color are slightly tinged with gray. His deep-rooted moral and religious convictions are the basis of his admirable character, so imperfectly sketched in the preceding paragraphs. Ile is a member of the Presbyterian Church of Huntingdon, is one of the Board of Trustees, and Treasurer of the congregation.
His domestic relations are of the most pleasant character. On the Ist of January, 1856, he was married to Dorothea C., daughter of Joshua Greenland, then Sheriff of Huntingdon county. Of this marriage there are three surviving children, viz., B. Franklin, draughtsman in the Department of Internal Affairs ; James Murray, a student in the Polytechnic Institute, at Troy, N. Y., and Walter G., Treasurer of the Huntingdon Gas Company and a practical surveyor.
HON. SAMUEL G. KING.
SAMUEL GEORGE KING.
H ON. SAMUEL G. KING, Mayor of Philadelphia from April 4, 1881, to April 7, ISS4, was born in the district of Northern Liberties May 2, 1816. His father, George Michael King, was a coppersmith by trade, and carried on his business successfully in the Northern Liberties for many years, respected by all who knew him for his industry and integrity of character. The mother of Mr. King, whose maiden name was Mary Gougler, was a woman of rare excel- lence, much admired in her circle of acquaintance and exemplary in her life of devotion to her family, which she fully exhibited in her care and education of the children left to her motherly guardianship after the death of her husband, which occurred the same year that Mr. King was born. The influence in early life of this pious, intelligent and devoted mother had much to do with implanting in Mr. King the seeds of a true character which afterward grew and brought forth good fruits, and which marked his progress onward through business and upward in all his political career from Revenue Inspector, in 1854, to the chair of Chief Magistrate of Philadelphia, in 1881. Mr. King belongs to the type known as " self-made men."
His education was such as the schools and academies of the day could give. He finished his tuition at the Friends' School, then at the corner of Dilwyn and Green streets. The moral influence of that school upon his after life has been such that, although by birth and family association a Lutheran, he has ever since attended Friends' meeting. In religion he is broad and liberal, seeing good in all forms, freely allowing to others that which he claims for himself-the right to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience.
After leaving school he learned the trade of brush-making with a relative. When he became of age, having established a character for industry, temperance, frugality and probity, he began business for himself, in which he prospered, establishing a brush manufactory on Second street near Callowhill, where he continued fourteen years, acquiring by prudent management of his affairs what he considered a competency. He retired from business with an honorable reputation among those with whom he had dealings. His prompt and charac- teristic answer to those who criticised his action in thus early retiring from busi- ness was: " I know when I have enough, and I know how to take care of it." He has certainly proved the correctness of his remark.
In politics Mr. King is a liberal Democrat-in national affairs adhering to the Jeffersonian doctrines of his party, while in municipal matters he has been a leader in all reformatory measures, caring more for honesty and integrity in the execution of public trusts, and the management of city affairs, than for personal preference and party triumph. In politics, as in business, he began at the bot- tom of the ladder. Commencing with election inspector, and serving on various
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SAMUEL G. KING.
minor committees and as delegate to conventions of his party, he steadily rose to more important positions. He had a particular friend in Mr. Charles Brown, who was Collector of the Port of Philadelphia in 1854, and who desired his services in connection with certain important duties connected with that office, and he accepted a position under him, and remained several years associated with that gentleman, who valued him for his services, his honesty and integrity.
Ile was elected October 8, 1861, to Select Council by the Democratic citizens of the Eleventh Ward, and entered that body January 6, 1862, succeeding Daniel S. Bidelman. In this position Mr. King began to show his distinguishing habits of character as a careful, economic, but earnest and progressive representative of the people. The citizens of the Eleventh Ward soon learned his value, and with excellent judgment retained him as their representative for twenty years. Ifis pleasant manner and courteous behavior towards his fellow-members gave him great influence, which he was not slow to use for the city's benefit. Only by carefully tracing the record of an official's public life in his votes and acts is it possible to come to a knowledge of his value and real character. And so in tracing the records of Select Council for the actions of Mr. King for twenty years, at a time and under circumstances calculated to develop all the good or evil in a man, he stands forth as a guardian of the people's municipal rights and a loyal patriot in the darkness which shadowed the country from 1860 to 1864.
The journal of Select Council from 1862 to 1881 will show the tendency of his mind to have been consistent and progressive in all things involving the best interests of the people. Ilis name was intimately connected, either as leader, originator or advocate, with all the reform measures which have added so much to the fair fame of the city. Among them may be mentioned the following : Fixing the amount of City indebtedness; restricting Council expenditures in appropriations to the amount of tax collected; funding of the floating debt ; the million dollar loan bill for school purposes ; establishing the Board of Revision of Taxes; extension of Fairmount Park; advocating the return by the National Government of twelve million dollars advanced by the city during the war; and he was an early and earnest advocate for the holding of the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia.
The election of Mr. King to the Mayoralty was the crowning act in his politi- cal life, and the manner in which he performed the duties of that office for three years, constitutes a creditable portion of the city's history. He was inaugurated April 4, 1881. having been elected the preceding February, receiving 78,215 votes, a majority of 5.787 over William S. Stokley, who was the choice of the Republican party (which was the majority party), and who had been three tinies previously elected Mayor. This result was attributed to two things: Mr. King's popularity as an honest, intelligent and fearless representative of the people, and the organized action of the " Committee of One Hundred," a body of independent citizens who had resolved to effect certain needed reforms in the management of city affairs, and to suppress the growing and festering corruptions of "Ring" rule and the imperious domination of " Boss " power by the self-selected few.
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SAMUEL G. KING.
Mr. King's first official act was the delivery of his inaugural address before City Councils after taking the oath of office. In it he promised an honest administration of the municipal government, a promise faithfully fulfilled. As to the police, he said :
"It will be my duty to free the city from a partisan police. An observation of many years has convinced me that a police force, in order to be effective, must be entirely disconnected from politics, and that its members should hold their positions as long as they conduct themselves honestly, soberly and efficiently. Under my administration the members of the police force will not be permitted to interfere in elections or in the nominating conventions of either parties. As- sessments on the police force for political purposes shall no longer be tolerated. If corporate bodies and wealthy citizens will continue to contribute their money with the knowledge that the money thus contributed is used to corrupt elections, it shall be known that during my administration the police of Philadelphia shall not be made accessories to such crimes by contributions for such nefarious purposes which strike at the foundations of our civil government."
Well and truly did he hew to this line, almost the first official order relating to the police force being the great surprise of his term-the appointment on that force of men of color. At a single blow he cut through the color line and crowned his own manhood by recognizing the brotherhood of the human race, and establishing the equal rights of all citizens under the National Constitution. This was a bold act. It required more courage, under all the circumstances, than was generally known. Ile stood fast while the storm of indignation swept around him, firm in his sense of the justice of his action, regardless of the vitu- peration and abuse of his own party or the sneers of his political opponents. His proclamation relative to the Fourth of July celebrations spread his fame in all the great cities of the Union. He urged the people to desist from the foolish, dangerous and wasteful expenditure of money for fire-works, which not only increased the danger to life, but caused great financial loss as well, by extensive conflagrations on the day for celebrating our National Anniversary. The laws relative to the sale and use of dangerous explosives were, by his order, strictly enforced, and it is due to the people to say that they cheerfully acquiesced in this new form, and promptly seconded his official leadership by sceking higher planes of grateful jubilation to mark and signalize the annual return of Independ- ence Day. The dangerous habit of carrying concealed deadly weapons had been largely on the increase for some years. Mr. King's moral training again made him the right man in the right place, as evidenced by his famous order against carrying revolvers, and ordering the arrest of all who were even suspected of doing so. These great moral reforms were carried into successful operation during the first year of Mr. King's term as Mayor.
His second year was equally prolific in the line of reform and economy, as far as his influence extended. His second message to Councils contains this para- graph which shows how fully he had in his mind the growing interests of his native city :
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SAMUEL G. KING.
"In all that pertains to an enlightened and economical administration of our city government, including a full and unfailing supply of pure water; a thorough repaving of our principal streets with Belgian blocks or other improved pave- ments ; extending the electric light system to our principal avenues, and espe- cially to the Delaware river front; a thorough system of sanitary regulations which will insure clean streets and the health of our people-in all such measures you may be assured of my earnest and energetic co-operation."
The same message refers to the Bi-centennial celebration of the founding of the State of Pennsylvania, which took place in September, 1882, in these words :
" Great have been the changes in our State and city since William Penn em- barked, September 12, 1682, at Deal, England, on the ship Welcome, and landed first at Newcastle, October 27, then at Upland, Chester, October 29, and then at Philadelphia about October 30, 1682. From that time to the present are presented marvels of human history. First the wilderness, then the march of progress, and now advanced civilization. A State with a population of over four millions of people ; a government with equal freedom for all ; a city of a million inhabitants, with resources of commerce, manufactures, and a classification of industries, professions and institutions so marvellous that a very limited display occupied six days in review."
His early training under the peace influence of the Society of Friends is beau- tifully reflected by these words in the same message :
" Hitherto it has been the custom of nations to celebrate their historic periods by grand military displays of brute force ; but this American Bi-centennial cele- bration was the display of the industries of peace and the social and scientific resources of a government by and for the people."
Another important feature in Mr. King's second year of administering the du- ties of the office of Mayor was the retaking of the census of the city relative to manufactures and other industries, which was done by the police force, and which resulted in adding greatly to the figures given in the general census of ISSo, taken by the national government ; as, for instance, it was shown that there were over 11.000 industrial establishments instead of 8,300, and about 235,000 persons employed instead of 173,000, etc., etc.
His third year gave many proofs of his anxiety for the public good. He rec- ommended a mounted suburban police for outer wards, began the new police patrol system, and advocated the increase of electric lighting in our streets. IIe sent to City Councils a message on January 1, 1883, which marks the charac- teristics of his mind. In it are many useful suggestions, relating to the water supply, reduction of the city debt, economy in the several departments, building of school-houses, completion of the new City Hall, improving the navigation of the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers, and reduction of taxation. In February of the same year he sent a message to Councils evincing his great interest in the civilization of the Indians, and fully approving a plan for their protection, educa- tion and admission to citizenship. During Mr. King's term the public debt was
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decreased $2,977,483. By those who are thoughtful and observing, the admin- istration of Mayor King is becoming more and more appreciated. It was a con- stant march for the good of the city and the advantage of the tax-payer.
Mr. King was nominated for a second term, and received the support of thou- sands who valued honesty and integrity of character in public office more than partisanship. He was not re-elected, however. The causes which led to his defeat need not be discussed here. He came out from the highest office in the gift of the citizens of a great municipality with clean hands and a character unstained by the touch of corruption. His parting words were these :
"To the people by whose choice I was called to the Mayoralty, I deem it proper to say officially that I shall not cease to labor for their prosperity. I shall ever cherish the municipal institutions of my native city, and sincerely hope that such reforms as have been begun may be continued, and others from time to time commenced and perfected, in order that honesty in public office, low tax- ation and a gradual and certain reduction of the city debt may be secured to the people."
It is almost beyond possibility for a citizen to hold the high office of Mayor of a great city like Philadelphia for even a single term of three or four years with- out making many enemies, and Mr. King was no exception to this rule. 1Ie gave offense to many because he rose above partisanship, and conducted the office upon a purely business basis, refusing to permit the corrupt methods, too frequent in politics, to have a foothold. The crowning act of his adminis- tration was bitterly denounced and criticised by many who had not yet been educated to the point of accepting the results of the baptism of blood which the country had undergone to redeem it from the stains of slavery. The appoint- ment of colored men on the police force aroused the ire of the more ignorant in Mr. King's own party, and the sneers of the most bitter of his political opponents; but he believed it a just act, and did not hesitate in putting it into effect.
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