USA > Pennsylvania > A biographical album of prominent Pennsylvanians, v. 1 > Part 46
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Mr. Handy is a member of the Masonic fraternity, belonging to Lodge 51, of Philadelphia, and to Richmond Commandery, Masonic Knights Templar, of Richmond, Va. He is popular in social circles and as an after dinner speaker has very considerable reputation. He is known all over the country as the inimitable President of the Clover Club of Philadelphia, the most famous dining organization in America at least, which has during the seven years of its existence entertained many of the prominent men in the United States. As its presiding officer Mr. Handy has justly acquired a reputation for ready wit and the possession of the happy faculty of introducing guests in such a manner as to bring out their strong points in a few brief remarks that has made him the model tost-master of the country, and given him fame as such on the other side of the ocean.
CLIFFORD P. MCCALLA
CLIFFORD PAYNTER MACCALLA.
COME one has said that Americans, as a rule, are of the lineage of no single people, since there runs intermingled in the veins of almost every one English, Scotch, Irish and German blood. This combination is usually happy, being apt to produce strength of character matched with enterprise in action- sound sense animated by generous impulses.
CLIFFORD P. MACCALLA is of mingled Scotch, Irish and German descent-both Celt and Saxon ; and, although yet a comparatively young man, he has distin- guished himself in several lines of professional endeavor. He was born in the city of Philadelphia in 1837, and was reared and educated in the city of his birth, where he has lived continuously up to the time of our present writing. He has been identified with the "city of brotherly love" in a number of its interests, and its champion more than once, having been zealous in claiming and successful in establishing for it the first place among the cities of the United States in several important connections.
Mr. MacCalla is the son of the late James S. MacCalla, who at the time of his death, in June, 1885, was the oldest employing printer, and one of the most successful and respected newspaper publishers in the State of Pennsylvania, his religious, scientific and Masonic publications being known and valued throughout the United States. From him his son inherited that love of litera- ture and literary pursuits which has dominated his life. Educated at the Central High School, he was graduated Master of Arts in 1855, when the accomplished Professor John S. Ilart was Principal. He then read law with Francis Wharton, LL. D., the eminent author of numerous law books of national and European reputation, and at the present time advisory counsel on International Law to the Secretary of State of the United States. Whilst reading law he was also a student in the Law Department of the University of Pennsylvania, graduating thence as Bachelor of Laws in 1858. At the period named Judge Sharswood, Peter Mc- Call and E. Spencer Miller-all since deceased-were the legal lights of that institution of learning. Admitted to the Philadelphia bar the same year, Mr. MacCalla has been in continuous practice down to the present time, limiting his practice to the care of estates as advisory counsel, and to the Orphans' Court, in which he is an active practitioner and trusted counsellor and advocate. He is also a member of the long-established and successful publishing and printing house of MacCalla & Stavely.
Early in his career, the subject of this sketch, as we have already intimated, became interested in literary pursuits. While but a boy he regularly wrote a small monthly magazine, for a series of years, his only patrons being his father and mother, who thus encouraged his literary aspirations. Soon after attaining his majority he became a member of the editorial staff of the Episcopal Recorder
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-through a period of more than forty years the most successful organ of the Episcopal Church in this country. His legal preceptor, Dr. Francis Wharton, during a portion of this time was editor-in-chief, while he was the literary editor. Subsequently Mr. MacCalla was the literary editor, and for a time chief editorial writer, of the Episcopal Register, now The Church. From early manhood he has been actively and prominently identified with the Episcopal Church, and for some eight years past one of the Secretaries of the Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the diocese of Pennsylvania.
In 1869 Mr. MacCalla became the editor of The Keystone, the leading organ of Freemasonry in the United States, and having as well an international reputa- tion, being only less influential in England and Scotland than on this side of the Atlantic. He is still the editor of this journal, and has made it known to and its influence felt among the Craft of Freemasons round the globe. He is the present Deputy Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, and in the natural course of events will succeed to the Grand Mastership-a station which has been graced by such eminent men as Dr. Benjamin Franklin, the Hon. George M. Dallas, Chief-Justices J. Bannister Gibson and Jolin M. Read. In whatever cause Mr. MacCalla's pen is wielded, or whenever his voice is raised in the lodges of the fraternity, it is to enforce, with cogency of reason, wealth of illustration and in polished phrase the important principles which distinguish the Craft of Freemasons. His ability as a speaker and writer is widely recognized, and his services are often in request in the interest of the cause which he has so much at heart. Lodges, both in Great Britain and on the continent of Europe, have conferred upon him the distinction of honorary membership.
In this connection it should be mentioned that Mr. MacCalla was the first to claim for Philadelphia the unique and significant title of the " Mother-City of Freemasonry in America; " and the first to prove, by the discovery of a number of important original contemporaneous records, that Freemasonry was authorita- tively established in this city in 1730-31, and that such eminent early citizens of Philadelphia as Dr. Benjamin Franklin, Chief-Justice William Allen, Dr. Thomas Cadwalader, Joseph Shippen, James Bingham, Thomas Hopkinson, Philip Syng, Henry Lewis and Henry Pratt, all members of the "first families," were among its members. These facts, first announced by him in 1874, were made clear and conclusive by his discovery in the year 1884, in the archives of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, of the original Lodge Ledger (Liber B.) of St. John's Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons of Philadelphia, of date 1731-38, a portion of its entries being in the handwriting of Dr. Franklin, as Secretary of the Lodge. Such value was attached to this discovery by the then Grand Master of Pennsylvania, Conrad B. Day, Esq., that he caused phototypes to be made, by Gutekunst, of ten pages of this Lodge Ledger, covering the records of Benjamin Franklin, William Allen and others, copies of which were presented to all of the Grand Lodges over the world with which the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania is in fraternal correspondence. These phototypes are also deposited in the British
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Museum, London, in the library of the American Philosophical Society at Phila- delphia, and in other leading libraries throughout the United States.
Always foremost in championing the cause of Philadelphia, it was natural that Mr. MacCalla should have been one of the leaders in the Bi-Centennial celebra- tion of 1882. lle was one of the original corporators of the Bi-Centennial Association, and its Corresponding Secretary during the two years of its existence, and to his zeal and wisdom, in connection with that of the other officers- Edward C. Knight, Esq., President, Colonel Clayton McMichael, Chairman of the Executive Committee, J. Thomas Stavely, Treasurer, and Charles W. Alexander, Secretary-the success of that celebration was largely due. The City Councils and the citizens of Philadelphia earnestly supported this organization, and the four days of commemoration, in October, 1882, will never be forgotten by those who witnessed their varied and pleasurable programme of proceedings. Just mention is made of the Bi-Centennial in Scharff and Westcott's valuable " Ilistory of Philadelphia," in which work there are also fitting references to the literary achievements and Masonic discoveries of Mr. MacCalla; and to this reliable, able and popular authority we have been indebted for the principal facts in this biographical sketch, Several volumes of large interest have been written by Mr. MacCalla, and published-one of which, "The Abbeys and Cathedrals of Great Britain," has met with a wide sale. He is still a young man, and doubtless many years of usefulness and distinction are in reserve for him. Whoever honors Philadelphia, Philadelphia honors ; and in the necessarily brief reference we have made to his life-work, we have only partially chronicled that which is to his credit, and to the advantage of his native city.
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JOHN H. TAGGART
JOIIN HENRY TAGGART.
C OL. JOHN H. TAGGART, editor and senior proprietor of Taggarts' Times, of Philadelphia, was born in Georgetown, Kent county, Md., on the 22d of January, 1821. His father and mother were both Marylanders, the former being a native of Cecil and the latter of Kent county, on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay. After the death of his father, Henry L. Taggart, he came to Philadelphia, in 1829, with his mother and sister, where he resided up to the breaking out of the Rebellion in 1861. In May, 1844, he married Miss Eliza- beth Graham, a native of Philadelphia, by whom he had six sons and four daugh- ters, of whom only four, two sons and two daughters, are now (1888) living.
He is a practical printer, and began setting type when only ten years old on the old National Gasette, published by William Fry. After it ceased publication, about 18440, he became a compositor on the Public Ledger, and, except about six months in the latter part of 1849, when he published a weekly military paper called the Pennsylvania Volunteer, he remained on the Ledger setting type until 1858, when he accepted a position as reporter on the Sunday Mercury ; next he was employed as a reporter on the Public Ledger for about a year; then on Forney's Press, till the early part of 1860. At that time he bought a half interest in the Sunday Mercury, and it was then published by Jones & Taggart, the senior partner being George W. Jones.
Colonel Taggart had a taste for military exercises, and was for many years connected with the Washington Blues, Captain Wm. C. Patterson, of Philadel- phia, and carried a musket in defence of the civil authorities in the Kensington and Southwark riots of 1844. After the attack on Fort Sumter, in 1861, he raised a company of one hundred and two men in Philadelphia, called the Wayne Guards, which was accepted by Governor Curtin as part of the Pennsylvania Reserve Volunteer Corps. Captain Taggart marched his company to Ilar- risburg on the 7th of June, 1861, and remained in Camp Curtin for several weeks in command of it until the 25th of July of that year, the day on which the Twelfth Regiment of the Reserve Corps was organized, when he was elected Colonel and placed in command of the regiment. During this time he rendered efficient service in preventing a serious riot on the return of the three months' enlisted men, who were discharged in Harrisburg before being paid off, and great dissatisfaction existed at the delay of the paymasters, who were threatened with personal violence. For his prudence on this trying occasion Colonel Taggart received the warm commendation of Governor Curtin. Soon after this the regi- ment was ordered to Washington, and formed part of the division of Pennsylvania Reserves under command of Brigadier-General Geo. A. McCall. Colonel Tag- gart's regiment was assigned to the Third Brigade, commanded by Brigadier- General E. O. C. Ord. Colonel Taggart, in command of his regiment, took part in the battle of Dranesville, December 20, 1861, and for his gallantry in action
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was recommended for Brevet Brigadier-General by General E. O. C. Ord, who commanded the Third Brigade in that brilliant engagement, which was the first Union success after the first disastrous battle of Bull Run and the massacre at Ball's Bluff in the fall of 1861. Colonel Taggart was also highly complimented by General Geo. A. McCall in his official report of the battle of Mechanicsville, the first of the seven days' battles in front of Richmond, Va., for gallantly defending Ellerson's Mill against an overwhelming force of the enemy.
Colonel Taggart also commanded his regiment in the battles of Gaines's Mill, New Market Cross Roads and Malvern Hill in the Seven Days' Battles. His newspaper business having suffered from his long absence, he resigned his com- mission as Colonel, July 8, 1862; and, after the dissolution of the partnership with Mr. Jones, Colonel Taggart again returned to the army as a war cor- respondent for the Philadelphia Inquirer, and in that capacity was at the first battle of Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, and other engagements.
In the beginning of 1864 he was selected by the Supervisory Committee for Recruiting Colored Troops in Philadelphia as Chief Preceptor of the " Free Mili- tary School for Applicants for the Command of Colored Troops," which proved a great success, as upwards of one thousand of the students passed Gen. Silas Casey's examining board in Washington, and more than five hundred were com- missioned as officers in the Union army to command colored troops. This school was organized under the authority of the Secretary of War, E. M. Stanton, and was supported by the contributions of the patriotic citizens of Philadelphia.
After the close of the War of the Rebellion Colonel Taggart, in 1865, was appointed Collector of Internal Revenue for the First District of Pennsylvania, one of the largest in the State. He held this position for nearly a year, and afterwards removed to Washington City, where he became a correspondent for the Inquirer, Evening Telegraph, Evening Bulletin and Sunday Dispatch, of Phila- delphia, Cincinnati Times and Chicago Republican, He remained in Washington till the fall of 1869, when he removed his family to Philadelphia, and in Novem- ber of that year bought the Sunday Morning Times, published by Robert C. Smith & Co. This was enlarged several times, and now enjoys a large and pros- perous share of business. Colonel Taggart is a vigorous and aggressive editorial writer, devoting much attention to the reform of local abuses, by which he has established for his paper a reputation for fearless independence and as a staunch advocate of the rights of the people. In 1871 he associated with him his eldest son, Harry L. Taggart, under the firm style of John H. Taggart & Son. In Oc- tober, 1873, the publication office was removed from the northeast corner of Third and Dock streets to 819 Walnut street, where they afterwards erected a handsome and spacious building, expressly designed as a newspaper office, with extensive back buildings, containing the press-room, stereotyping and composing-rooms. The name of the paper has been changed from the Sunday Morning Times to Tag- garts' Times, by which it is known far and wide. Colonel Taggart is the editor- in-chief; Harry L. Taggart, managing editor ; and William M. Taggart, business manager.
JOSEPH SAILER.
JOSEPH SAILER.
J OSEPH SAILER, who for over forty-two years was the Financial Editor of the Public Ledger, was born in Clarksboro, Gloucester county, N. J., April 23, 1809, and was the youngest of seven sons. His early life was spent on his father's farm, but becoming tired of agricultural pursuits, he entered the office of a New Jersey newspaper, where he learned the trade of a printer. At the age of twenty years he became connected with the Woodbury Constitution, and was for several years its proprietor and publisher. He then came to Philadelphia, and soon afterwards associated himself with John S. DuSolle in the management, and sub- sequently in the proprietorship, of the Spirit of the Times, Mr. Sailer, in his writings, devoting his attention chiefly to the discussion of financial matters, and the daily presentation of correct reports of the condition of the markets. At the same time he acted as the Philadelphia correspondent of the New York Journal of Commerce, and other papers of similar standing and influence for the same purposes.
In 1840, four years after the publication of the Public Ledger had been com- menced, Mr. Sailer's financial writings having attracted considerable attention, the then proprietors of the Ledger, Messrs. Swain, Abell and Simmons, adopted the idea of a column devoted exclusively to financial and commercial matters, and secured the services of Mr. Sailer in taking charge of it. The first article contributed by him was published July 1, 1840, and from that time until his resignation, January 1, 1883, a period of over forty-two years, it was his pride that there was never an issue of the paper that did not have something from his pen in its money column. Having sold out his interest in the Spirit of the Times at an early date after his new connection, his whole time and service were devoted to his work on the Ledger, and when the proprictors of the latter started the Dollar Newspaper, which was for many years quite a successful family journal, reaching a circulation of sixty thousand, he became its editor, and continued as such, in addition to his other duties, until the abandonment of the publication of that paper.
Mr. Sailer was prominently connected with the early history of the electric telegraph. He was one of the very few to perceive the value of Morse's inven- tion, both as a means of communication and as an investment for capital. The old " Magnetic Telegraph Company" was organized May 15, 1845, directly after the experimental line erected between Baltimore and Washington by the Post- Office Department had been proven a success. Amos Kendall, Postmaster- General, was its President and one of the principal stockholders. The line between New York and Philadelphia was first put under construction, and in the fall of 1845 subscriptions were procured for an extension of the line from Phila- delphia to Baltimore. The capital for this line was subscribed principally in
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Philadelphia, and was furnished largely by the then proprietors of the Public Ledger. About this time Mr. Sailer became pecuniarily interested in the com- pany, and was thereafter prominent in the stockholders' meetings. Some two or three years later he was elected a Director, and became Secretary of the company, which position he held until its amalgamation with the American Telegraph Company, in 1859.
As a director and officer of the company he was at all times active in organiz- ing its methods of doing business, and shaping its policy in dealing with com- petitive and connecting lines. The success of the " Magnetic Telegraph Com- pany " stimulated the organization of other companies, some operating under the license of the owners of the Morse patents, and others under palpable infringe- ments of those patents. It was no easy task to conduct the business in those days; but to the credit of those early organizers it may be said that the methods and forms adopted by them remain to-day practically unchanged, and, further, that the rates then were lower than are now charged over the same routes ; yet so economically was the business conducted that large dividends were paid on the investment.
Mr. Sailer was also an investor in several other telegraphic enterprises, the largest of which were the Washington and New Orleans and the Atlantic and Ohio Telegraph Companies. These companies all secured valuable right-of-way franchises from the leading railway corporations, which could not be secured by any of the companies that came into the field later except at great cost. His connection with the carly telegraphs, and his advocacy of the extension of rail- roads, together with the reliability of his articles on money affairs, which were often copied into foreign journals, gave him great influence with the financiers and railroad magnates of his day; and not infrequently J. Edgar Thompson, Edwin A. Stevens, Commodore Stockton, John Tucker, Franklin B. Gowen and Asa Packer could be found together in Mr. Sailer's office. It is said that no great financial enterprise was ever carried out by those men without first taking him into their confidence, getting his opinion on the subject, and through him communicating to the public so much of the scheme as was advisable. His judgment on investments was regarded as next to infallible, and a comfortable fortune, acquired by a common-sense use of his money, bears evidence of the correctness of this estimate of his financial shrewdness. Unusual caution pre- vented him from becoming a speculator, in the common acceptance of the term ; yet it was a peculiarity of his to invest money in every new scheme that came up in which he had confidence.
When National banks were established he took stock in the first one that was started, now the First National, of Philadelphia, and he also supported and took stock in the Bank of North America and in the Girard National.
During his long journalistic career he was one of the most methodical of men. Promptly at ten o'clock every morning he would appear in his editorial sanctum. There he would stay a couple of hours looking over his correspondence and the
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morning newspapers. Then he would make a tour of the railroad offices, and those of the bankers and brokers on Third street, and gather the news of the day. Having got through this he would go home, and dine at three o'clock. At four o'clock he would be back at the Ledger office, and begin work on his review of the " Money Market." When he could be persuaded to take a vacation, which was seldom, he always left behind in his desk a lot of "special" matter. llis vacations were never extended beyond a week until within the last four or five years of his life. It bored him to be out of the harness. On numerous occasions Mr. Childs, who had become the proprietor of the Ledger in 1864, planned pleasant trips both in America and Europe for the veteran Financial Editor, covering a full summer's recreation, with a handsome testimonial in the way of salary and travelling expenses in advance, but was never able to get him to accept the generous offer.
On January 1, 1883, Mr. Sailer resigned his financial editorship, and shortly afterward was attacked by an illness which terminated fatally on January 15th. The Ledger, which had borne strong testimony to his worth and efficiency at the time of his resignation, said on the morning after his death :
"The intelligence and integrity of his work for more than forty-two years in the direction of his department of the Public Ledger are well known, and have been acknowledged to his great credit on all sides by the distinguished financial authorities of this country. To ourselves the loss is far more than a business separation. It is akin in its nature now to the deep sorrow of his family. They lost a loving, gentle and devoted husband and father when the light went out with the life of the honored head of the house. We lose, with the profoundest regret, a cherished friend and most faithful and efficient coadjutor. The public lose a conscientious and impartial journalist in a department of which he was a master.'
Ilis funeral was attended by a gathering of prominent citizens the like of which seldom meet on such occasions. Bankers, bank presidents, railroad officials and journalists attended in numbers, while among the pall-bearers were Anthony J. Drexel, George W. Childs, William V. McKean, M. Richards Muckle, A. Boyd Cummings, Frank McLaughlin, James M. Robb and Thompson Westcott. The interment took place in Woodland Cemetery on January 18th.
Mr. Sailer left a family of three sons and two daughters, who, with the widow, survived him. One of his sons, Mr. John Sailer, is now the senior partner in the well-known banking house of Sailer & Stevenson. J. A. J.
MICHAEL WEYAND.
MICHAEL WEYAND.
M ICHAEL WEVAND, who for more than half a century has been connected with the journalism of Pennsylvania, and is now one of the veteran edi- tors of the State, was born, in the year 1825, in the town of Somerset. He is of German descent, but both of his parents are natives of this country and of Somerset county. When he was a mere infant his parents removed to the northern portion of Beaver county, where his father followed farming as his principal occupation, although he also taught school, both in German and English, during the winter seasons. At the early age of ten, young Weyand went to New Castle, Pa., to learn the printing business, and spent a year in the office of the Intelligencer, the first journal of note published in that now thriving city. In May, 1838, he removed to the town of Beaver, and finished his apprenticeship in the office of the old Argus, then edited by Hon. William Henry, now deceased, and remained connected with that journal as apprentice, journeyman and editor for nearly a generation. In 1874 he founded the Beaver Times, a thirty-six column folio sheet, and with the assistance of his two sons has managed the paper as editor and proprietor up to the present time. It was started as an Independent Republican paper, and so continues. It is the only non-" patent " journal published in Beaver county, and presents a flourishing and attractive appearance.
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