USA > Pennsylvania > A biographical album of prominent Pennsylvanians, v. 1 > Part 5
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" The sections in this bill to which I object propose, instead of bringing the cheap labor of Europe here, that the Secretary of the Navy shall go to cheap labor in Europe with America's money and buy in part these proposed ships of war, a proposition I am sure the American people will denounce as a blow at their industries, and an injustice they will be slow to forget. It is our duty to care for our own work- men without regard to what can be done by the pauper labor of Europe. The proposition here suggested to go abroad for material and armament for these war vessels is but an entering-wedge of the pernicious doctrine of free trade, and will not be tolerated by the freemen of America. If we have regard for the prosperity of our people, we will never allow the Secretary of the Navy to go abroad to buy a farthing's value in material, labor, or armament for these vessels.
" When the European comes to our country to make a home for himself and his family we extend to him a hearty welcome, but our citizens are not willing to adopt a policy which in any respect is more beneficial to the foreigner than to ourselves. Any measure which has a tendency to reduce the wages of labor should not be advocated for one moment in this House. I believe it is the patriotic duty of the Government to build our war vessels and all other vessels at home, even though to do so will cost more in wages to workmen than to go abroad. The building of ships is a great industry, and the Government should encourage those engaged in it. It will be anything but pleasant for the American people to behold the Secretary of the Navy of the United States in the workshops of Europe making contracts to build ships of war for the American Navy. Such a spectacle would hardly be creditable to the self- respect of our people.
" Permit me to illustrate how important it is to our people to foster and encourage the art of building ships. To build a first-class iron vessel costs about $550,000. Five per cent. only of this cost is for material. The balance, or ninety-five per cent., is for labor. This labor begins with the miner and his drill, the woodman and his axe. It passes through many other grades and kinds of employment, and receives wages ranging from $2 a day for the laborer to $20 a day paid to the skilled designer. When a ship is built in our own yards all this money is kept at home. It goes to the mechanic and laboring man, to the merchant and professional inan. It furnishes the wages and the profits by which our people are enabled to procure homes, to educate their children, and to cultivate the arts of peace. It also repre- sents the property upon which taxes are levied and collected to support the Government. For one I am not willing to take this money, no, not one cent of it, to a foreign country and pay it to their cheap labor. It belongs to our own people and should be kept here. In the name of the millions of freemen of Penn-
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EDWIN S. OSBORNE.
sylvania I protest against such a policy, and carnestly hope that the objections to which I have referred may be stricken from the bill.
" I appreciate fully how important it is to plant our flag boldly and strongly upon the sea, and I am sure the day is not far in the future when it will be there to stay. It is our duty to build up a navy ; but it must be an American navy, built in our own country, by our own people, and of domestic material. Then, indeed, may we begin to sce the dawn of that period when our country shall stand forth among the nations of the earth a beacon-light to cheer the world, and our flag shall be recognized as an emblem of the superior greatness and dignity of the American people." [Applause.]
His position with regard to the labor troubles is shown from the following extract from a speech delivered by him in the House on the Arbitration Bill, in which he said :
" MR. CHAIRMAN, I am heartily in favor of the bill under consideration reported by the chairman of the committee (Mr. O'Neill, of Missouri), and shall give it my cordial support. I am persuaded to this action because, in my judgment, if the bill shall become a law, it will have a tendency to elevate and dignify the rights of labor. The conflict now going on, and which has been growing and taking shape in this country for more than fifteen years between corporations on the one side and the individual citizen on the other, demands legislation hitherto unknown to our jurisprudence. This is true, not so much by the action of the individual as through the policy adopted by the States in granting extraordinary corporate rights to aggregated wealth. The ordinary rules of law governing personal rights do not meet the exi- gencies of the situation. This is so because both sides do not stand on a platform of equality. The person must answer for his own individual acts, and though provoked to deeds of violence hy the oppres- sion of hard masters, yet the provocation, however just, is no shield from punishment. But who answers for the corporations? There is no law, statute or common, that will reach and punish her so long as she acts within her corporate capacity, when, under the direction of bad influences, she may adopt a course of action that will impoverish whole communities. And yet the people must stand in silence, with no power for redress.
" There is, however, one tribunal before which the highest in the land will bow in humble submission, and that is the tribunal of public judgment. No man, no body of men, can any more withstand the breath of public sentiment than they can blow away with a breath the mist that comes up from the ocean. Let us then pass this bill, with a view of affording a means whereby differences arising between parties therein referred to may be adjusted without resorting to strikes, violence, or military force.
" Voluntary arbitration seems to be the desired remedy. It will satisfy the men, it will be accepted by the corporations, and it will be approved by the people."
One of the most important measures considered in the Forty-ninth Congress was the Presidential Succession Bill. This subject attracted general attention, and public judgment appeared to demand that something should be done by Congress to avoid entanglements, stich as confronted the country at the Presi- dential election of 1876. The Senate early in December, 1885, passed what is known as the Presidential Succession Bill. General Osborne opposed the bill in the House in a speech in which he took strong grounds against the constitu- tionality of the measure, and questioned the authority of Congress to act in the premises. In closing he said :
" I venture to say that no man can be found who would contend for a moment that the executive power could be anywhere except as vested by the Constitution. Nor do I think anybody entertains the opinion that Congress has the power to shorten or extend the term fixed by the Constitution. Such legislation would be usurpation, and the men who would' attempt it would receive, as they deserved, the just con- demnation of all citizens who love the Republic. Can we say less of an act passed by Congress that would establish a mode for choosing the Executive other than that prescribed by the Constitution ?
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EDWIN S. OSBORNE.
" This bill is aristocratic in its tendencies, does not conform to the spirit of our institutions, and if passed will be a usurpation by Congress of powers still vested in the States or in the people. Ilence, it is unconstitutional, and should not receive the sanction of this Ilouse.
" In the language of Alexander Hamilton, I would say : . The fabric of American empire ought to rest on the solid basis of the consent of the people. The streams of national power ought to flow inme- diately from that pure, original fountain of all legitimate authority.'"
Time alone can tell whether his objections were well founded. The best legal opinion seems to be that he was correct, and that the bill should have been defeated.
In the Tariff discussion which has occupied so much of the time of the present Congress, General Osborne has taken an important part. On April 26, 1888, he made a speech, in opposition to the " Mills Bill " for the reduction of the Tariff, in which he said :
" Pennsylvania, with her vast area of coal and inexhaustible beds of iron ore, early became a manu- facturing State. The only available mines of anthracite coal, the purest known in the world, lie within her borders. With an intelligent, moral and industrious population as a manufacturing community, we have always been foremost amongst the advocates of protection to American industries.
" In the name of that great Commonwealth I protest against the passage of this bill. It will destroy our industries, impoverish our farmers, and degrade our labor. It is not American.
" Representatives of a mighty people, I appeal to you by every sacred memory in the past, by every hope for a glorious future of our beloved country, show yourselves great enough to appreciate the bless- ings of our American institutions, wise enough to legislate for the happiness, prosperity and glory of the American people, patriotic enough to stand by the independence, the dignity, the honor, and the homes of American workmen."
General Osborne was married to Ruth Ann Ball on October 12, 1865. She is the daughter of William Ball, deceased, late of Carbondale, Pa., and a lineal descendant of Edward Ball, who settled in Branford, Conn., prior to 1640, and afterwards removed to Newark, New Jersey, where he was Sheriff of Essex county in that colony. They have a family of six children, four boys and two girls.
General Osborne is a man of medium size, is quiet and unassuming in his manners, loves the comforts of his home, and is ardently attached to his wife and family. He is slow to make friends, but having proved their worth never dis- cards them. He has been successful in his practice at the bar, both in acquiring a reputation for ability and in making money. He is ardent and eloquent as a pleader, logical and forcible as a reasoner, and one who before any jury is capable of establishing the merits of his case. As a local orator he is much sought after and has made many public addresses before literary societies and at public meetings, his services being in special demand among the Grand Army Posts on Memorial Day. He is also an excellent stump-speaker and has rendered valuable service to his party in that way. In fact he is ready at any time to employ his oratorical powers in any good cause. He has elements in his character which, when aroused, make him an adversary his opponents will do well not to underrate, and he brings to the performance of any duty a quiet strength and resolution that are marked characteristics.
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HON. FRANK C. BUNNELL.
FRANK C. BUNNELL.
H ON. FRANK C. BUNNELL, a banker at Tunkhannock and now Representative in Congress from the Fifteenth Congressional District, was born in Wash- ington township, Luzerne county (now Wyoming), March 19, 1842. His ancestors came originally from England, and have been settled in this country since 1735. At the time of the Indian massacre in the Wyoming Valley Solomon Bunnell, the progenitor of the family, was on his way from Connecticut to the Wyoming region, and had reached Kingwood, a point near Easton, where he met the fugitives retreating from the valley on their return to Connecticut. He remained there a short time, and died leaving a widow and several children. His · grandson, John Bunnell, the grandfather of the subject of this sketch, went to Luzerne county, in 1810, and purchased a tract of land which he converted into a large and productive farm, still owned by his son James, and on which Frank C. Bunnell was born and reared until he was sixteen years of age. The Bunnells were men of mark in their day, and notable as pioneers of strong character and upright in their dealings.
On his mother's side Mr. Bunnell is descended from the Hardings, who were identified with the tragic events that attended the early settlement of the Wyoming Valley. She was a granddaughter of John Harding, whose brothers Benjamin and Stukely were murdered by the Indians while cultivating corn near Pittston on the day before the Wyoming massacre, and also a granddaughter of John Gardiner, whom the Indians took prisoner at the time the Hardings were killed, and subsequently tortured to death .* From the same family are descended ex- Judge Garrick M. Harding, of Wilkesbarre, and ex-United States Senator Benjamin F. Harding, of Oregon, who succeeded General Baker in the United States Senate in 1863.
Mr. Bunnell when he was sixteen years of age was sent to Wyoming Seminary
* At the time Mr. Gardiner was taken prisoner his wife and children were in Forty Fort. He was granted the privilege of seeing his family before taking him into captivity, after the massacre and they had ransacked the fort. Elisha Harding, who had escaped and reached the fort, was present at the parting of Gardiner and his wife, and reports it as most affecting. His last words were, " I go to return no more." He represents him to have been "the nohlest, grandest-looking man I ever saw." After the interview with his wife a rope was placed around his neck, and then loaded down with goods they had pillaged on their march back up the Susquehanna river. A man by the name of Carr, who was taken prisoner at the same time and afterwards escaped, reports that Gardiner gave out under his excessive burden at or near Standing Stone in Bradford county, and was then handed over to the squaws, who tortured him to death.
Perigreen Gardiner, the father of John, owned the property known as Canonochet, so long occupied by ex-Senator Sprague, of Rhode Island. ITis family and the Stuarts were friends, and they were present at church and participated in the ceremonies of christening the child, Gilbert Stuart, who afterwards became so famous as an artist. Some of his paintings are at this time on exhibition in the Corcoran Art Gallery at Washington, D. C., notably one of President Washington.
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FRANK C. BUNNELL.
at Kingston, Pa., where he remained until the breaking out of the war of the Rebellion, when he enlisted, September, 1861, as a private in Company B, Fifty- second Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers. Quartermaster Dodge, noticing his aptness for business, had him detailed to assist him in the Quartermaster's De- partment, which he did while the regiment was in camp near Washington during the winter of 1861-62. At that time the basement of the National Capitol was used as a bakery for the army, and Mr. Bunnell had charge of teams, and drew bread from there for the regiment, and also clothing from the building now occupied as the Corcoran Art Gallery. At that time he had no expectation that he would ever return to the capital as a lawmaker.
In the spring of 1862 he was promoted to be Quartermaster Sergeant of the regiment, and served in that capacity, doing the work of the Quartermaster, in the absence of that officer while sick, throughout the campaign on the Peninsula under General McClellan. At Yorktown, Va., his health failed, and, not improv- ing during his furlough, he was discharged in April, 1863, being considered by the army surgeon too much shattered in health from the exposure in the swamps of the Peninsula for further service. Thus he was compelled to abandon the service just as he was about to be commissioned for well-earned distinction at his post of duty.
In 1865 he embarked in mercantile pursuits at Tunkhannock, Pa., and five years later established the banking house of F. C. Bunnell & Co., in which business he is still engaged.
In 1872 he was elected as a Republican over Col. Victor E. Piollet, Democrat, to serve out the unexpired term in the Forty-second Congress of Hon. Ulysses Mercur, who resigned by reason of his election to the Supreme Bench of Penn- sylvania ; and in 1874-76 and 1878 he was presented as the choice of Wyoming county as their representative in Congress, but was defeated in the Congressional conference. In 1884, however, he was elected to the Forty-ninth Congress as a Republican over Hon. George A. Post, Democrat, and was re-elected to the Fiftieth Congress over Col. Victor E. Piollet. During his Congressional career he has attained distinction as a faithful worker in the committees to which he is assigned, and as a representative who attends to the interests of his constituents in a painstaking, thorough manner. At this time his popularity is not confined to his own Congressional district, but extends over this and other States. ITis votes on all important questions are governed by rare discrimination and are be- yond criticism, and, although making no pretense to oratory, his influence and ad- vice are courted on account of his well-known judgment on public and private measures affecting the nation's welfare. Wyoming county, though strongly Democratic, has always given him a large majority of her votes.
Although never an office-secker, he has held a large number of minor offices. Ile was alternate delegate to the National Convention at Chicago in 1880; was appointed by Governor Hoyt a member of the Bi-Centennial Association of T'ennsylvania for Wyoming county in 1882; was a prominent candidate for the
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FRANK C. BUNNELL.
nomination of State Treasurer in 1883, but was defeated by a combination in favor of Hon. Wmn. Livesey, of Allegheny county; was elected Burgess and Treasurer of Tunkhannock in 1884; was a member of its Board of Education from 1882 to 1885, and was elected President of the Board of Trade in 1888.
Mr. Bunnell has always taken a great interest in farming, and has been elected annually President of the Wyoming County Agricultural Society since its organi- zation in 1876. He is also a member of Post 98 G. A. R., and prominent in Freemasonry, belonging to the Lodge, Chapter, Council, Commandery and Con- sistory, and has held offices in most of these bodies.
HON. JOHN PATTON.
JOHN PATTON.
H ON. JOHN PATTON, now representative in Congress from the Twentieth Congressional District, was born in Tioga county, Pa., January 6, 1823. 1 Iis paternal grandfather, Col. John Patton, was born in Sligo, Ireland, in 1745. Emigrating to America, in 1761, he settled in Philadelphia, where he soon became a prosperous merchant. During the Revolution he served as Col- onel of the Sixteenth Regiment, Pennsylvania line. He had charge of the defences of the city of Philadelphia, and in the most critical period of the conflict was among the number of patriotic merchants who with Robert Morris raised, on their own private bond, the sum of £260,000 to aid Washington in his necd. He was an honorary member of the Society of the Cincinnati, and in 1789 moved to Centre county, where he built the old Centre Furnace in 1791, the first one in blast west of Harrisburg. He died in 1804, at which time he was Major- General of a division of the State militia.
John Patton's maternal grandfather, Philip Antes, served in the war of 1812. He organized the first society, and aided in building the first Methodist Episcopal Church-Old Eagle Chapel-in Centre county in 1806, and gave the ground for, and aided largely in building, the first M. E. Church in Clearfield county, in 1829.
His father, John Patton, was a Lieutenant in the United States Navy, serving under Commodore Stephen Decatur. In 1826 he settled in Clearfield county, and two years later (1828) moved to Curwensville, when John, his son, the subject of this sketch, was five years of age.
His mother, Susan Antes Patton, was a woman of remarkable energy and earnestness of character, and to her wise forethought and Christian influence Mr. Patton attributes much of his success. She was a member of his household for the last thirty-eight years of her life, being a widow, her husband dying in 1848; and the intercourse between mother and son was of the most delightful character. She died at the ripe age of ninety-two, and her name is held in hal- lowed remembrance by all who knew her.
Mr. Patton's early education was very limited, owing to the want of facilities. The country was new. Public schools were not then, as they now are, the crowning glory of the State. His mind and body, however, were disciplined in that severe thoughi useful school-that of adversity. At the early age of twelve he went into a store as errand boy, and in 1844 he commenced business for himself as a merchant and lumberman with borrowed capital, and continued in it for sixteen years, having accumulated a fair competency. For the last twenty- three years he has been engaged in banking, and at present is President of one of the most successful institutions in Central Pennsylvania.
In politics Mr. Patton was a Henry Clay Whig, and in later years an active Republican. In 1852 he was a delegate to the National Convention of the Whig
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JOHN PATTON.
party at Baltimore that nominated General Scott for President. In 1860 he was a delegate to the Chicago Convention, and helped nominate Abraham Lincoln. In the same year, at the earnest solicitation of friends, he became a candidate and was elected to the Thirty-seventh Congress by the Twenty-fourth District, carrying the strong Democratic district, and likewise the Democratic county of Clearfield for the first time in its history. The records show that he served his constituents well during that trying period. As there was little legislation needed for his district during his term, Mr. Patton devoted a large part of his time to looking after the wounded soldiers of the army, the dead and dying, and the visiting of battle-fields, thus developing that catholicity of spirit which has ever since been one of his marked characteristics. He was a warm, personal friend of Lincoln, and one' of the Pennsylvania Electors in 1864 when Lincoln was re-elected. It was in accordance with his motion that all the pay, mileage, etc., of the Electoral College was donated to the United States Christian Com- mission in aid of the suffering soldiers.
In 1848 he was appointed aide to Governor Johnson, with the rank of Lieu- tenant-Colonel; and in June of the following year was commissioned Brigadier- General of the Fourth Brigade of the Fourteenth Division of Uniformed Militia, composed of the counties of Juniata, Mifflin, Centre, Huntingdon and Clearfield, by a strange coincidence commanding a brigade of the same division his grand- father was Major-General of in 1794.
Mr. Patton is a member-elect of the Fiftieth Congress, having overcome an adverse majority of 2,500, and for the second time carrying Clearfield county. He has never been an office-seeker, but was induced to run for offices of trust and responsibility only after the urgent requests of a large number of men com- posing the best elements of the party he represents. He has declined a re-elec- tion at a time when his district was conceded to have a majority of 2,000.
Mr. Patton has been a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church for thirty- seven years, keenly alive to all its interests, and a liberal contributor to every worthy object in that church, and also to every other church in the vicinity. He has been a Director of Dickinson Seminary, and a Trustee of Dickinson College and of Drew Theological Seminary, and was a delegate to the General Conference in 1872. He has a fund of $12,000 in the Church Extension Society, known as "The Patton Loan Fund," for the building of churches upon the frontiers, and has given thousands of dollars to colleges and schools at various times. He built the " Patton Graded Public School " at Curwensville, a building that is worth $25,000, and then presented it to the Public School Board. Super- intendent Higbec said that this act of liberality stood alone in the annals of the public schools of the State-an individual gift of the donor while living.
llis liberality is too well and too widely known to need further endorsement. It may be truly said of him that no deserving person and no worthy cause ever failed to receive from his hands the help solicited. In his peculiar characteristic manner he sums up the work of his life as " a little politics and a little giving."
PROPERTY OF AUSTIN BOYER WEISSPORT. CARBON CO, PA,
MATTHEW STANLEY QUAY.
TN looking over the history of Pennsylvania one is ever confronted with the fact that very many of the men who have made a broad mark upon its pages bear the stamp of the Scotch-Irish race. It has passed into a tradition that its descendants are noted for their strength of body and mind, for their aggression and undaunted courage. Take from the pages of the history of this Common- wealth, and indeed of the nation, the long list of men who have sprung from Scotch-Irish parentage, and there would be many a blank page. A glance at the face of the subject of this sketch and a review of his character is convincing proof that he is from one of the sturdiest families of this sturdy stock.
The family tradition runs that about 1710 three brothers by the name of Quay left the Isle of Man, emigrated to America, and settled in Canada. As early as 1715 one of the brothers left the Dominion and settled in that part of Pennsyl- vania which is now Chester county. From this plant the Quay family of Penn- sylvania sprang. Joseph Quay, grandfather of the ex-Secretary of State, was the eldest son of the man bearing the same name who first made a home upon Pennsylvania soil more than fifty years before the Revolution. It is said that he was a strong man, intellectually and physically, but fond of fun and frolic, and of an adventurous disposition. He came honestly by his inclinations, for his father before him was fond of sports, and loved the life of a soldier, and had seen service in the early French and Indian wars. Joseph Quay served in the Revo- lutionary war; and again in the war of 1812 the family name appears among the first of the volunteers in the defence of the new Republic. Joseph Quay was a saddler by trade, and while plying his vocation in Chester county he fell in love with the daughter of a well-to-do gentleman by the name of Anderson, also of Scotch-Irish stock, so that the subject of this sketch springs from that lineage on both sides. After a short courtship the two were married, but even this did not curb Mr. Quay's disposition for fun rather than business, and he spent what prop- erty he could gather in the sports of the field and turf. While thus engaged a son was born, whom he named Anderson Beaton Quay, after the father of his wife.
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