USA > Pennsylvania > A biographical album of prominent Pennsylvanians, v. 1 > Part 30
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GEN. E. BURD GRUBB.
ened. When Governor Parker's proclamation was issued less than half the Twenty-third was in camp. Colonel Grubb, after assembling the men, asked all who would follow him to the assistance of a sister State to step forward, when the entire force volunteered. The regiment was received with hearty cheers in Philadelphia, but coldly in Harrisburg, though they were the first regimental organization to reach the city. They at once threw up rifle-pits on the banks of the Susquehanna, and from the Colonel down they worked with a will; but, before the labor was completed, were recalled to Beverly, and were mustered out.
Colonel Grubb was a popular officer. A strict disciplinarian, he managed to so direct those of his command that duty became a pleasure, and he never asked his men to face any danger which he was unwilling to share. In July, 1863, he was commissioned by the Governor to take command of the camp at Beverly, where he recruited and sent to the front the Twenty-fourth. By request of Governor Parker he raised the Thirty-seventh Regiment, and leaving Trenton, June 28, 1864, reported to General Grant at City Point, and was ordered by him to report to General Butler at Bermuda Hundred. Landing at Point of Rocks, July Ist, they were assigned to picket and garrison duties. On August 28th they marched to the extreme front at Petersburg, where they did duty in the trenches until their term of service nearly expired. On September 25th they were highly complimented in general orders by Major-General Birney, as being exceptionally a superior regiment of one hundred days' men. On March 4, 1865, Colonel Grubb was made Brevet Brigadier-General of Volunteers for meritorious service before Petersburg.
After his retirement from the service he resided until about 1873 in Burlington, where he became a member and President of Common Council for two years, and Trustee of St. Mary's Hall and of Burlington College.
Upon the death of his father, in 1867, General Grubb assumed the manage- ment of large iron interests in Dauphin, Lancaster and Lebanon counties, Pa. The well-known Cornwall ore-banks of Lancaster county are among his interests, though at one time they were owned by the family exclusively, the title having been received direct from William Penn.
General Grubb has travelled extensively through the Eastern Hemisphere, and his wife was the first white woman to pass through the entire length of the Suez Canal, the trip having been made in the company of her husband in Baron De Lesseps' steam yacht, he having letters of introduction to that eminent engineer. Upon his return to the United States he prepared an account of his travels, which was published in Lippincott's Magasine and extensively copied, and he was elected a member of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia.
In 1878 General Grubb built the first coke pig-iron furnace in the State of Virginia at Lynchburg, and opened and operated largely the iron mines along the James river. He is President of the Lynchburg Iron Company.
General Grubb is a member of the Philadelphia Club, the Clover Club, the Union Club of New York and the New York Yacht Club, and has taken two of
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the Bennett Prize Cups. He is also a member of the Society of the Cincinnati, the Loyal Legion, the Grand Army of the Republic, and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
He commanded the New Jersey Battalion in the Centennial ceremonies at Yorktown, Va., in October, 1881, and is Captain of the Philadelphia City Troop, an organization which served in the Revolutionary War as the body-guard of General Washington, and which has been kept up in Philadelphia ever since. On February 9, 1888, General Grubb was elected Department Commander of the Grand Army of the Republic for New Jersey, over Capt. Charles Merritt, by a vote of three hundred and seventy-seven to one hundred and twenty-three. He is an active member of the Republican party. In 1874 he removed to Edgewater Park, just above Beverly, N. J., where he resides in a delightfully situated country-seat with a park of twelve acres, handsomely laid out and fronting the river. He married, in 1863, Elizabeth Wadsworth, daughter of Rev. Courtlandt Van Rensselaer, an eminent Presbyterian clergyman, and the son of Stephen Van Rensselaer, the "Patroon," of Albany, N. Y. She died in Philadelphia, April 17, 1886, leaving one child, a daughter.
GEN. HARRISON ALLEN
GEN. IIARRISON ALLEN.
G ENERAL HARRISON ALLEN, soldier, lawyer, legislator and ex-Auditor-General of Pennsylvania, was born in the town of Russellburg, Warren county, December 4, 1835, his parents being Samuel P. and Mary (Thompson) Allen. On his mother's side he is of American-German extraction; on his father's, of Scotch-Irish descent, the noted Gen. Anthony Wayne having been his father's great-uncle.
General Allen was reared on a farm until he reached the age of cighteen years, and during the winter months attended the district school. He was unusually industrious as a student, improving his leisure hours and gaining all the infor- mation to be acquired in the schools which the neighborhood afforded. He possessed a retentive memory, was quick to comprehend an idea and to act upon it, it being his aim to know his duty and to do it. In the school he was an excellent declaimer, and exhibited ability and taste for such exercises. In the autumn of 1854 he attended the academy at Jamestown, N. Y., and during that and the following winter taught school at Farmington, in his native county, meeting with excellent success. During 1856 and 1857 he was a student in the academy at Randolph, N. Y., where he stood high in his classes, and received the highest honors of the school and the literary society of the academy. In the spring of 1857 he left school to engage in business, of which "lumbering " was an important part, in order to earn the money to sustain himself and prosecute his studies. In 1857 and 1858 he attended the Freedonia Academy. IIere he again won distinction, securing the highest honors, one of which was his election to the Presidency of the literary society with which he was connected. In 1859 he entered the law office of Judges Johnson and Brown, of Warren, where he remained until the spring of 1861.
Having a taste for military affairs, he devoted considerable attention thereto, and served as aide de camp (with the rank of Captain) on General Brown's staff, Twentieth Division Pennsylvania Militia, and was promoted by election to Lieu- tenant-Colonel of the regiment in his county. At the outbreak of the Rebellion he volunteered, April 20, 1861, for three months' service as a private, and was elected by the men Captain of the company. After two months he re-enlisted with his company for three years. He was ordered to Pittsburgh, and thence up the Allegheny river, twelve miles, to Camp Wright. He drove the first tent-peg on the ground, and had command of the camp, containing about four thousand men, until relieved by Colonel McLean, of Erie. At that time the Tenth Regi- ment of Pennsylvania Reserves was organized, including his company (at Camp Wilkins), and he was elected by the men Major of the regiment, and commis- sioned by the Governor. He was tendered the Colonelcy of the Eleventh Regi- ment of Reserves, but declined it, preferring to serve under Col. John S. McCal-
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mont, a West Point graduate, and remain with his men. The regiment became part of the Army of the Potomac.
In November, 1862, he organized the One Hundred and Fifty-first Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers, and was elected Colonel, serving during the term of his enlistment. He was brevetted Brigadier-General United States Volunteers for meritorious service, and was especially complimented for gallantry and efficiency by Generals Doubleday, Meade, Reynolds and Ord. He was in the engagements at Drainsville, Port Conway, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and Williamsport. Here, as a mark of confidence, he was assigned by General Doubleday to command the advance line of the division, and suc- cessfully routed the Confederates, took possession of their line, and held it-the enemy retreating under cover of night. On the expiration of his term of service he returned to Warren, and resumed his law studies, and was admitted to prac- tice as an attorney-at-law.
In 1866 he was nominated on the Republican ticket as Representative in the Legislature from Warren and Venango District, and was elected. The following year he was renominated by acclamation, and elected by a majority of eleven hundred and eighty-two in his own county, running largely ahead of his ticket. He served with great credit and to the entire satisfaction of his constituents, guarding their particular interests, and also faithfully conserving those of the whole State. During his term he took part in all the important discussions, especially signalizing his services by an eloquent speech upon the Constitutional Amendment. His influence as a legislator was marked. In 1868 he was a delegate-at-large to the Soldiers' National Convention at Chicago, and also a District Delegate to the Republican National Convention, by each of which General Grant was nominated for the Presidency. Ile took a very active part in the campaign which followed, in speaking and organizing. In 1869 he was a candidate for the State Senate in the Mercer, Warren and Venango District, against a very prominent member of his own party, and after an animated contest carried seventy-nine out of the ninety-nine delegates in his own county. The contestant, Judge Wetmore, withdrawing, he was nominated by acclamation, endorsed by the District Conference, and, after a hard-fought contest, was elected by over one thousand majority. During his term in the Senate, as in the House, he was always upon the side of right, and ranked as one of the strongest and most faithful members of that body, taking a leading part in all discussions with marked ability. He was earnest in support of all measures pointing to economy and reform. During the discussion upon the contested election cases in the Senate he received high compliments for his speech upon the Right of Petition. In 1872 he was elected Auditor-General of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania by the unprecedented majority of thirty-six thousand seven hundred and eighty, and entered upon the duties of his office December 2d of that year. During the heated campaign preceding his election to this office the Democrats of his own county passed the following resolution at a mass meeting held by them, giving him at the same time the proud title of " The Poor Man's Friend :"
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" lle has been almost the first in every charitable enterprise, and has thereby blessed the homes and lightened the hearts of the needy without reference to creed or condition. He has not only proven him- self a good citizen, a true and brave soldier, but, when fortune had favored him with means, he opened his hand in charity and scattered hus gifts liberally to the deserving poor, and many have blessed him for his acts of kindness. He has provided homes for the homeless, cheered the fallen, and strengthened and encouraged the weak when temptation was dragging them down to ruin and to death."
In 1874 he was renominated for Auditor-General by acclamation in the Republican State Convention. In 1880 he was elected a delegate to the National Republican Convention in Chicago, and was one of the noted three hundred and six members who voted continuously for the nomination of General Grant, and possesses the handsome medal which was struck off to commemorate their fidelity to the great commander. He took prominent part as a speaker in the great campaign for Garfield in Indiana and other States.
In 1882 General Allen was appointed by the President as United States Marshal for Dakota for four years. In 1886 he was elected Chairman of the Territorial Central Republican Committee of Dakota for two years, and in March, 1887, he was elected Commander of the Grand Army of the Republic for that department. His administration has been very successful, resulting in a large increase in the number of posts and membership, notwithstanding the unfavorable times ; and at the close of his first year he delivered an address that was every- where highly commended, and of which we append the peroration :
"COMRADES :- My duties as commander of this department will soon end. The honor conferred in my election, and the kindness, courtesy, united support and fidelity of its officers, and all in this depart- ment, I fully appreciate and have sought to deserve. The condition of our department must be the evidence of success. I surrender the honored trust with great thankfulness for the honor conferred, and with the pleasing hope of the future prosperity of our grand and ennobling organization. Its mission is good, its purposes are pure and heroic. Be faithful to them and God will prosper it. Let not the voice of hunger or suffering be unheeded. Be as prompt to answer to the call of the needy as you were to respond to the demand of your country, and blessings will be your reward. Let not the helpless and hungered soldier languish at your threshold. Open wide the door, as you will ask at that last great day that it shall be opened unto you. Let your lives be evidences of fixed principles of right within you, that the coming generation may take pride in your present life, as they glory in your heroic past. As you were sworn to defend it, let the law of your God and your country be your guide. Be temperate in all things; in temperance and caution there is safety.
"Comrades, I cannot permit this opportunity to pass without congratulating you and expressing my great pleasure in the character evidenced in our members of the Grand Army of the Republic every- where. In our post meetings, in our encampments, department and national, we see so positively fixed that grand principle of rectitude, temperance, obedience to law, and the requirements of duty so firmly instilled by your great sacrifices in defence of law. We may feel justly proud of the temperate and dig- nified character of our representatives and our meetings, evidencing the faith of our members that temperance means honor, dignity, prosperity and power, while intemperance means degradation, penury and want. Avoid it, as the serpent that beguileth, that your children may take heed, and shun its sting. Let your motto be, duty, dignity and honor. Let our lives be so marked that the youth of our land may take pride in our example and emulate our virtues. Ilonor the Government you have saved, in the faith of its honorable return. Its dignity and character ennoble you as its defenders. Teach your children to cherish its sublime principles, planted in the graves of our sainted heroes, and watered with the blood of their fathers. Let no personal interest mar the perfectness of our brotherhood, nor chill that brotherly feeling so strongly cemented on the field of conflict. May our lives illustrate that ennobling motto of our
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organization, ' Fraternity. Charity, and Loyalty,' so that when the last bugle shall sound we may all gather under our Great Eternal Commander in that last grand encampment to receive the proud plaudit- " well done.' "
At the present time General Allen is mentioned as the probable choice of the Republican Convention as candidate for delegate to Congress. One of the oppo- sition journals, the Fargo Daily Sun, recently bore this remarkable testimony to his sterling character :
'. Perhaps there is not a man in Dakota more widely known and more justly popular than General Harrison Allen. Ile has been in the Territory long enough to entitle him to the claim of being an old settler, and to enable him to fully understand the wants of the entire people. His ability as a statesman has never been questioned, and his long experience in public affairs has given him a prestige which could not fail to count at Washington, should he be so fortunate as to be sent there to represent the great Ter- ritory of Dakota. In addition to all this, General Allen is a thoroughbred gentleman in all that the word implies. Ilis honorable and upright dealings, his affable and pleasing manners, and unimpeachable integrity have endeared him to all classes of Dakotains, and if the position of delegate is to be held again by a Republican, there certainly is no one who could wield a greater influence or more capably represent the Territory than the General. The Sun, for one, hopes the Republicans for once will show their good sense by nominating him "
GEN. HORACE PORTER.
GEN. HORACE PORTER.
T HE name of Porter is a familiar and honored one in the higher life of Penn- sylvania. The men and women who have borne it within the borders of this Commonwealth have made large contributions to its prosperity. David R. Porter, the father of HORACE PORTER, was Governor of the Keystone State for two terms, during years that will be reckoned among the most important of its existence, and in many ways he made a powerful impression upon the better features of its intellectual and material growth. Perhaps he was the most dis- tinguished man of the long line of useful and important citizens who brought that name to this country, and, by their efforts, gave it a lasting place in the his- tory of the New World. His immediate family came from near Londonderry, and he took a wife whose ancestors were born near Glasgow. Thus he endowed his children with the able strain of Scotch-Irish stock from both sides of the primary plant. For many generations, both in this and the mother country, the men and women of this family have been strong in the head and heart. The first of the Porters came to the United States many years ago, and there has been no cause, either of sentiment or with arms, fought on this continent in which its members have not taken a prominent part. Early in the history of Pennsylvania they settled on its soil. David R. Porter and his immediate ances- tors spent most of their years in the State in which he attained so high a place. He was a man of strong intellect, and of many winning qualities. He inherited these attributes from a man who had already made his name prominent in our struggle for independence. Gen. Andrew Porter, who served with distinction through the revolutionary war, was his father. He, too, was born in Pennsyl- vania in the early Colonial days, and was a man who stood high as a mathema- tician as well as a soldier.
Horace Porter was born, on April 15, 1837, in the little mountain town of Huntingdon, a short time before his father was elected Governor. The boy saw very little of his native place, however, for he went to Harrisburg when quite young. His early education was obtained there and at the high school at Law- renceville, N. J. He early learned the English branches, and studied the classics with a view of graduating at Princeton. He looked ahead to a professional career as a lawyer, or, rather, his parents did for him; but the tides of his own ambition changed the hopes of his family. Most boys, once in their lives, have a longing for a soldier's career. Horace Porter was no exception to this rule, for he inherited military ardor from his grandfather, Gen. Andrew Porter, of revolu- tionary fame.
West Point early became the aim and purpose of young Porter. This pen- chant took him to the scientific school of Harvard College. Very early in life he had evinced a strong mechanical turn. When he was twelve years of age he
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invented a gauge to indicate the supply of water in the tanks which fed the steam boilers in his father's iron furnace. Later, he fashioned a bit machine, and all through his boyhood days was thinking out and perfecting some new device of greater or less value. But to these gifts were added strong intellectual powers which subdued his mechanical inclinations, or, rather, carried them into a higher sphere of action.
His training at Harvard College produced good results from the first, and in 1854 he was so far advanced that he set out alone to secure his appointment to the military academy on the Hudson. He went to Washington with a letter of introduction to President Pierce, and applied for an appointment to West Point "at large." He waited some time before securing an interview with the Presi- dent, and then found that the list was already full. Although disappointed, he returned to school, and then turned in another direction and succeeded.
Nerr Middlesworth was the Congressman from his district. The next year he had the appointment of a cadet, and application was made to him. This singular man will be remembered as a most remarkable product of the old Pennsylvania Dutch life. He had brains and force, but both were as crude as his manners. Yet, in those days, he had great influence in politics, especially in his own State. No more picturesque citizen of a new Republic can be remembered than this Congressman, to whom Horace Porter applied for an appointment to West Point.
The second time young Porter went to Washington he carried little more than his application for a cadetship and recommendations from his teachers. He waited about the doors of Congress until he secured an interview with Mr. Mid- dlesworth. This peculiar character heard the boy's story, and said :
"Well, young man, you are the first on hand. Give me your papers. It is an old and a good adage : 'First come, first served,' and I will see what I can do for you."
The lad again returned to college with nothing more definite as to his future ; but, when he was least expecting it, his appointment came. Nerr Middlesworth liad kept his word and Horace Porter entered the military academy in 1855.
His life at the military school was like that of most other boys of his age. lle accepted the studies and discipline graciously, but was as fond of sport as almost any of the lads of his class. He was appointed Cadet Adjutant in his first class year. He took most naturally to engineering and ordnance --- the two highest grades of study. The record tells how well he succeeded in them, for he was graduated in 1860 third in a class of forty-one bright scholars. He chose the ordnance arm, and was first made a brevet Second Lieutenant. He served as Instructor of Artillery at West Point for a few months after his graduation, and was a successful teacher. It was while he was acting in this capacity that the commission authorized by Congress to revise the studies at the West Point Academy arrived. Four distinguished men composed the Board-Jefferson Davis, Senator Foote, of Vermont, Major Robert Anderson, who soon after commanded at Fort Sumter, and Henry Winter Davis, United States Senator
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from Maryland. Thus, while a lad, he was early introduced to the man who, in less than a year, was to head the conspiracy against the Government, in which the young officer was to play a prominent part.
After this experience he served for a time at Watervliet Arsenal, New York, and in April, 1861, just as rebellion was awakening the country to the realities of war, he was promoted to a full Second Lieutenancy of Ordnance.
Communication with the National Capital was at that time, by the ordinary methods of travel, cut off. He was made bearer of important despatches to the authorities in Washington, and was compelled to reach it by ascending the Potomac river. The journey was full of hazardous incident, and he met with many interesting adventures by the way.
On June 7th the exactions of approaching conflict made him a First Lieutenant of the same arm of the service. Soon after he was ordered to the staff of Gen. WV. T. Sherman, who had been assigned to command on the South Atlantic coast, and sailed with him from Fortress Monroe as an ordnance officer of the Port Royal Expeditionary Corps. At Hilton Head, S. C., and in erecting bat- teries of heavy artillery on the Savannah river and Tybee Island, in Georgia, he rendered valuable services.
The first real chance that was offered to test the mettle of Lieutenant Porter was at the siege of Fort Pulaski. He was the chief of artillery in that combat, and directed the guns against that work, which forced it to surrender. Q. A. Gillmore, who afterwards became a famous general, was at that time in command in front of Pulaski, and the artillery service of young Porter was so effective that he made an extended report upon it, which has been translated into several languages. Up to that time no masonry fortification had ever been breached at a greater distance than eight hundred yards range. Fort Pulaski was reduced at one thousand six hundred yards. This was such remarkable artillery work at that time that Horace Porter was brevetted a Captain for "gallant and meritorious services at the siege of Fort Pulaski." This was an unusual promotion for one so young at this stage of the game of war ; yet this was not enough to show the commanding general's appreciation of his first really important service. In addi- tion to this brevet he presented him with one of the captured swords, on which was engraved a suitable inscription testifying to his gallantry.
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