USA > Pennsylvania > A biographical album of prominent Pennsylvanians, v. 3 > Part 4
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In politics he has always been a prominent and active Republican. Many times he has been called to represent his district in county and State conventions, and in June, 1880, he was one of the delegates from the Ninth Congressional District to the Republican National Convention at Chicago. He was one of the memorable " 306" who voted to nominate General Grant for a third term, and prides himself on possessing one of the valued memorial medals struck in honor of the event, and as a souvenir for those who were members of that forlorn hope.
In 1882 President Arthur appointed him Collector of Internal Revenue for the Ninth District of Pennsylvania, a position that he held for a period of three years and one month.
Of late years his attention as a practitioner of law has been largely directed to matters pertaining to the Orphans' Court, and when, in 1887, the question of the organization of a separate Orphans' Court for Lancaster county was in contem- plation Mr. Kauffman was prominently and favorably mentioned as Judge of the new tribunal.
In church affairs he is a member of St. Paul's Protestant Episcopal Church of Columbia, and one of its vestrymen, and has frequently been a member of dio- cesan conventions.
On June 6, 1866, Mr. Kauffman married Anna Fausset, daughter of Dr. Daniel Ireland Bruner, of Columbia, Penna. They have three children-Bruner Kauff- man, of Philadelphia, Elizabeth Davies Kauffman, now pursuing her studies in Zu- rich, Switzerland, and Reginald Kauffman, who is with his parents at Columbia.
W. U. B.
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F. GUTER WAT.
PA LA
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FRANCIS W. KENNEDY.
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FRANCIS WRIGHT KENNEDY.
F RANCIS W. KENNEDY, President of the Spring Garden National Bank of Philadelphia, was born in the city of Pittsburgh, Pa., December 6, 1843. His father, Thomas Kennedy, Jr., was a prominent merchant and manufacturer of that place, who removed in 1862 to Philadelphia.
Mr. Kennedy is of Scotch descent, and received a good English education at the public schools of Pittsburgh, and finished at the Western University located there. After leaving the university he read law under David W. and Algernon S. Bell, the eminent attorneys of his native city, and afterwards attended the law course of lectures at the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia, and was admitted to practice at the Pittsburgh bar December 9, 1865.
Early in the succeeding year he followed his father to Philadelphia, and was at once admitted as a practitioner at the bar of that city. He, however, did not practice in his profession, but relinquished it in order to engage in the wholesale dry-goods business, in which he embarked on January I, 1867, as a member of the newly-established firm of Fling, Kennedy & Co., whose place of business was located at the north-west corner of Fifth and Market streets, the necessary capi- tal having been furnished and the building purchased for the purpose by his father. The firm's name was afterwards changed .to F. W. Kennedy & Co., and the business was carried on until November, 1870, when the bank over which Mr. Kennedy now presides having been organized by his father, he wound up his dry-goods business, and was elected the first Cashier of the institution, which opened for business April, 1871. His father was the President of the bank from its organization, until declining health prompted his retirement from business on March 1, 1883. The son was immediately promoted to the vacated office, and has filled the position ever since with marked success and popularity.
The bank, of which Mr. Kennedy and his family are large owners of the stock, occupies a prominent place among the financial institutions of the great commercial and manufacturing city in which it is located, both with regard to its credit and the amount of the business it transacts, having a capital of $750,000, with assets of more than $3,500,000. Its President is regarded in financial circles as an able, intelligent and progressive bank officer.
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Mr. Kennedy is also well known in commercial, philanthropic and social circles. He is Treasurer and large owner of stock of the Hero Fruit-Jar Company of Philadelphia; Vice-President of the Clearfield Bituminous Coal Company, one of the largest and most important coal-mining corporations in the State; is a Director of the Delaware and New England Company, which controls the great Poughkeepsie Bridge and its connecting railroads ; is a mem- ber of the Union League and of the Manufacturers' Club; a Trustee of the Hahnemann Medical College and of the Homoeopathic Hospital. He is the
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FRANCIS W. KENNEDY.
President of the Young Men's Christian Association of Philadelphia, in the work of which he has been actively engaged as an officer for over twenty years, and is a ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church.
Mr. Kennedy was married on October 2, 1873, to the second daughter of the late Peter B. Simons, a well-known silversmith and jewelry merchant and manu- facturer. Their family consists of three sons and one daughter.
C. R. D.
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F. GUTEKUNST.
PHILA.
GEORGE D. MCCREARY.
GEORGE DEARDORFF McCREARY.
G EORGE D. McCREARY, now Vice-President of the Market Street National Bank, and a leader in the higher politics and active in the philanthropies of Philadelphia, was born at York Springs Village, Adams county, Pa., on the 28th of September, 1846. He is the son of Rachel D. and the late John B. McCreary. His early ancestors, on his father's side, were Scotch-Irish, and emigrated to this country from County Tyrone, Ireland. His mother's family, the Deardorffs, were of German descent-Dunker Baptists, who came to this country to avoid religious persecution in the year 1729, and temporarily located in or near Germantown, Philadelphia.
In the year 1848 his parents moved to Tremont, Schuylkill county, where his father became one of the pioneer coal operators. About 1856 the family removed to Tamaqua, where they remained till 1859, when they went to reside in Mauch Chunk, remaining there until the year 1864, when Mr. McCreary's father moved permanently with his family to Philadelphia. George D. McCreary's early education was obtained in the different towns above named, but in 1861, while the family were residents of Mauch Chunk, he, with his brother, was sent to Saunders' Military Institute in West Philadelphia, which was then one of the best known boarding schools of the day. In 1864 he and his brother entered the University of Pennsylvania, where he remained until 1867. At that time he had an offer to engage in active business in the employ of the Honey- brook Coal Company, of which his father was President. The question of a mercantile life or the adoption of a profession then presented itself, and he decided to accept the proffered position. He availed himself of the rare opportunity thus offered of learning the coal business, and devoted his earnest attention to thoroughly mastering the details of that important branch of trade. During this period he also edited a weekly column devoted to the coal interests for the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. In the year 1870, with his father's assistance, he associated himself with W. Beaumont Whitney, of Philadelphia, and Mahlon S. Kemmerer, of Mauch Chunk, as wholesale coal-selling agents, under the firm- name of Whitney, McCreary & Kemmerer, and established a large and profitable business.
In 1879, by reason of the important and varied duties which fell to his care owing to his father's death, and the necessity of the active attention to the lat- ter's affairs which devolved mainly upon him, he sold out his interest in the firm and devoted himself entirely to the administration of the estate. As its repre- sentative he is a Director in the Upper Lehigh Coal Company, and the Nescopec Coal Company. He is also a Director in the Pioneer Mining and Manufacturing Company of Alabama, the Lochiel Furnace Company, and the Philadelphia Mortgage and Trust Company. In 1887 he assisted to organize the Market Street National Bank of Philadelphia, and became its first Vice-President.
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GEORGE D. MCCREARY.
While Mr. McCreary has time and again held back his friends who have urged him to take public office, he has felt and taken a deep interest in municipal, State and National politics, and in scores of ways, notably as one of the foremost men in the famous Committee of One Hundred, has done much to eradicate the taint of dishonesty from the political atmosphere of Philadelphia, and to raise in the public mind a high and just appreciation of what our officials should be. He was one of the pioneer members of that noted reform organization, and during his association with it he was a member of the Campaign Committee, the Executive Committee, the Legislative Committee and the Ward Organization Committee, and he was Chairman of the two last named. He was also Chairman of the Special Committee on the Investigation of the Almshouse under the Phipps regime. It was largely owing to the persistent personal investigation of Mr. McCreary that those extensive frauds were unearthed. The committee as a body had halted in the investigation, but Mr. McCreary, believing the matter of the greatest importance, personally employed counsel, and, as a result, the com- mittee again resumed active inquiry into the conduct of the institution, and car- ried it on under his lead to a successful issue.
He was a delegate to the last two Republican conventions which nominated George S. Graham for District Attorney, and each time was honored by being made the Chairman of the conventions. He was also a delegate to the Tax Receiver's Convention, and was again honored by being made one of the Vice- Presidents of that body. He has persistently refused several places of honor and profit which have been tendered him through appointment, and also of an elective character. He was, however, prominently spoken of for the Mayoralty prior to the adoption of the "Bullitt Bill " charter now in force in Philadelphia, and as he is popular, and a strong man in every sense, possessing unusual executive ability and the reputation of succeeding in all his enterprises, had he been nominated he would undoubtedly have been elected and have made an excellent chief magistrate of the city whose prosperity he cares so much for, but he was in no sense a candidate. .
While, however, he has not sought office himself, he has had a strong influ- ence, all-powerful at times, in naming good men for public positions where political tricksters have attempted to usurp them. He has a marked public interest in the well-being of the citizens of Philadelphia and in the good name of the city itself. Among the important public positions Mr. McCreary has filled or is now filling are the following: He is the Vice-President of the Sani- tarium Association of Philadelphia, one of the noblest and most unselfish charities in the State, the good accomplished by which can hardly be overestimated either in a sanitive or moral view, and Vice-President of the Franklin Reformatory Home, whose good work is attested by many men who are now occupying prominent places in society, and who owe their regeneration to the assistance and encour- agement received by them while inmates of the Home, and from the active managers of it after they have left it and began anew the struggle of life.
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GEORGE D. McCREARY.
Mr. McCreary was one of the originators and is President of the Pennsylvania Humane Society, which was incorporated December 31, 1887. Its object, as stated in the charter, was "to recognize, encourage and reward, by suitable tes- timonials and otherwise, acts of heroism, courage and charity, and other good and excellent services rendered in behalf of humanity." It was organized pri- marily as a stimulus to the Department of Public Safety of Philadelphia, although its general purpose is to recognize and reward any person for saving life, or for any other deserving effort made or result obtained in behalf of humanity. Pre- vious to the formation of the society members of the Fire and Police Department of Philadelphia, as well as citizens in private life who had performed in many instances noble and self-sacrificing deeds in efforts to save and protect life and property, had gone unrewarded save in the consciousness of having done a good and brave deed, and the gentlemen forming the society determined that in the future such acts should receive recognition in a more substantial manner, and that those performing them should be furnished with tangible evidence that their acts were appreciated.
Mr. McCreary is a Director of the Sheltering Arms, and is Treasurer of the Philadelphia Sketch Club, which organization presented him at its annual recep- tion in 1887 with a beautiful and unique testimonial of their esteem in the form of an album containing a series of original sketches and etchings, the plates of which latter were destroyed after the single impression was made for the album. As a work of art it is exceedingly valuable, and as an offering of good-will he holds it above price. He is a Trustee and member of the Sunday Morning Breakfast Association, an active member of the Union League, a member of Rising Star Lodge, No. 126, A. Y. M., and a charter member of Signet Chapter, Royal Arch Masons.
While Mr. McCreary is a communicant member of Holy Trinity Protestant Episcopal Church, and now an active teacher in one of the mission schools of that congregation, he, however, officiated for a long time as Assistant Superin- tendent of the Sunday-school of the Western M. E. Church, where he regularly taught a class of young men. He has been a member of the numerous commit- tees which have been formed during the last fifteen years for the relief of suf- ferers by flood, fire and disease, frequently being selected to visit the points where the distress existed as one of the city's representatives. He visited the Southwest, and, with his associate members, disbursed a large sum to relieve the wants of those suffering from the distress caused by the great flood which followed the overflowing of the Ohio river. He went to Brisbin, near Houtz- dale, Pa., which was entirely destroyed by fire, to investigate the needs of the people there, and was also one of the committee which went to Shenandoah, Pa., to see to the distribution of the fund raised for the sufferers by the disas- trous fire at that place. He also went to Plymouth, Pa., during the typhoid fever scourge, and went through the hospitals investigating their needs and the system of relief and nursing. Mr. McCreary was also a member of the Charles- ton Relief Committee organized to raise funds for the earthquake sufferers.
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GEORGE 'D. MCCREARY.
He has devoted considerable time to travel, but has confined himself in this to the North American continent. He made an extended tour through Mexico in company with Bishop and Mrs. Simpson in the winter of 1873-74, and again travelled through that country in the spring of 1886. He has visited nearly every portion of his own country, including the wonderful Yellowstone Park.
Mr. McCreary was married in 1878 to a daughter of the late Mr. William Howell, the prominent wall-paper manufacturer, and has four children-two daughters and two sons. He is a cultured gentleman, a good judge of human nature, a staunch friend, and a foe to the oppression of the poor and weak, no matter from what quarter it may emanate. He has wealth, a spotless character, a wide experience of life, unusual executive ability, and business inter- ests that alone would take up the time of six ordinary men, yet he has leisure to devote to the many charities with which he is connected, and to which he gives invaluable aid and counsel. Mr. McCreary contributed to the Press of Philadel- phia an essay on "Success in Life," which was one of a series of articles on the subject by successful business men which were published in that journal, and attracted very considerable attention. He is a clear, forcible public speaker, whose evident sincerity is more attractive and winning than the flowery ver- biage of more fluent orators, and is in every particular an excellent sample of an American gentleman and a consistent Christian, "with malice towards none, with charity for all."
C. R. D.
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F SUTELLOST.
FHILA
SAMUEL H. REYNOLDS.
SAMUEL HENRY REYNOLDS.
TT is said that success is not a matter of accident so far as the professions are 1 concerned. "An illiterate, almost ignorant miner may become a million- aire, for instance, because he may by mere chance 'strike a lead' that will make his fortune, but no man will succeed in the practice of a profession unless he pos- sesses qualifications for it allied to industry, and an aptitude for his chosen call- ing." HON. SAMUEL H. REYNOLDS, for over thirty years a prominent and suc- cessful member, and a leading practitioner of the Lancaster county bar, and late President of the People's National Bank of Lancaster, was apparently made for the law, but showed that he had also a keen ability in the ways of finance and business, and would undoubtedly have succeeded in whatever vocation he might have entered upon.
Mr. Reynolds was born at Brier Creek, Columbia county, Pa., November 20, 1831, but soon after his birth his father, Thomas Reynolds, moved to Danville, Pa. Here the boy spent his childhood, and attended the ordinary schools of the day. He was then sent to Bellefonte, and completed his preliminary educa- tion in the Presbyterian school of that town. He was early prepared for college, and chose Dickinson for his Alma Mater. Among his classmates, who subse- quently won distinction in the walks of life which they entered, may be men- tioned Rev. C. H. Tiffany, in the ministry ; Moncure D. Conway, in journalism and letters ; and George DeB. Keim, in the law and in the railroad business. After graduation he took a literary course under Professor Allen, of Philadel- phia, and then returned to Bellefonte, where he entered the law office of Hon. James T. Hale, one of the most distinguished lawyers of his day, and was ad- mitted to the bar when but twenty-two years of age. He was advised to settle in St. Louis ; but the prevalence of epidemics, a dislike for the place and the urgent request of his father to return to Pennsylvania led him to establish him- self at Bellefonte in this State. While in St. Louis he occupied the office of the late Senator Polk, who afterwards became a Confederate general. After a short stay in Bellefonte, Mr. Reynolds turned his steps toward Lancaster, which has always been noted for an exceedingly able bar. He took with him letters of in- troduction to Hon. Thaddeus Stevens, Colonel Reah Frazer, Thomas E. Frank- lin, Rev. Samuel Bowman and others. Being a Democrat in his political faith, he was kindly received by Colonel Frazer, who welcomed him as a young, en- thusiastic and eloquent political ally. On Colonel Frazer's motion he was admitted to the Lancaster county bar.
Mr. Reynolds early entered into politics. Young, full of enthusiasm for his home-taught Democratic faith, made all the more strong by the intense currents of heedless passion that were fanning the smouldering fires so soon to burst forth into the flames of civil strife, ambitious to make a name, full of the influ-
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SAMUEL ,H. REYNOLDS.
ences of the classics and the glowing rhetoric of college days, honest and fervid in his belief of the tenets of his party, commanding a wonderful vocabulary which admitted of no hesitancy of speech, but rather dragged the speaker on, possessing a marvellous voice, rich, deep, sonorous, vibrating, pleasing and sym- pathetic, he was the beau ideal of the popular orator. His first speech on the hustings was made in Lancaster in the fall of 1855, where he had been located but a short time when he was called for at a Democratic meeting being held one evening in the market house. The call was largely intended as a joke, and he was introduced by the chairman of the meeting as the "Mountain Sprout," a name which clung to him for a long time afterwards. There was a meeting of Whigs in the adjoining square, and Mr. Reynolds not only attracted the attention of the Democratic gathering, but his unfamiliar and sonorous voice reached across the square and attracted the attention of the Whigs, who flocked to hear the un- known speaker, thereby breaking up their own meeting. The fearless and trenchant denunciation of the Know-Nothings in which the orator indulged made his speech notable, and the ability he displayed as a speaker was the town- talk next day. In fact, it made his reputation throughout the county, and in 1856 Mr. Reynolds made fifty-six speeches for Mr. Buchanan in Lancaster, and at the age of twenty-five, after but a short residence in their midst, he became the orator and pride of his party in the county of his adoption. So popular had he become as a speaker that his voice was often heard before lyceums and liter- ary societies, and in a very short time his name was as familiar as a household word in the community to which he had come as a stranger but a twelvemonth before.
But popular as he was in his party, then in the zenith of its power, he had no desire for political preferment. President-elect Buchanan asked him to be his private secretary ; but after ten days' consideration Mr. Reynolds declined the honor, and was commended by the shrewd old statesman for his decision. Mr. Reynolds was always willing, however, to respond to the call of and serve his party, and led a hopeless contest against Hon. Thaddeus Stevens for Congress, was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1873, and served nine years on the public school board of Lancaster. Though often a delegate to State and national conventions, he sought nothing for himself. His true mistress was the law, and to her jealous demands he ever gave his allegiance, and at the outbreak of the rebellion his place at the bar was established as among the first.
Mr. Reynolds was neither handicapped by wealth at the start of his career, nor was he pinched by poverty, although the latter does not always keep genius from pushing to the front. In announcing his proposed retirement from practice on May 1, 1889, the Lancaster Daily Examiner in an appreciative article contained the following comments :
" He started with that comfortable fortune which does not dwarf endeavor, but gives dignity to action and makes ambition honorable. He had a keen, active mind; he could analyze motives; he under- stood human nature, both in its nobility and selfishness; he learned men and their ways by association,
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SAMUEL H. REYNOLDS.
not by books; he acquired the knowledge of law more by practising it and in attrition with the keen intellects of the bar than by poring over musty volumes in a stuffy office ; he was full of expedients and resources; could not be browbeaten nor bullied; was always courteous to young or old when deserved, but terrible in denunciation and sarcasm when justified; accurate in detail, but greater in generaliza- tion; well grounded in the foundation principles of the law, he cared less than many for the hoary precedents of past conditions and dead judges; keen in cross-examination, his clear, ever-moving eye caught every expression on judge or juryman's face. To these qualities add accuracy of statement, clearness of argument, and all maintained with an expressive eloquence, rich in choice rhetoric, in which every sentence ended with a rhythmic cadence, and it can readily be seen why at twenty-nine he had secured a position which he maintained until the present, when, full of honor and with an abun- dance of wealth, he retires in the prime of life to enjoy what he has earned in many a forensic contest. Mr. Reynolds was equally great in civil and criminal practice. His complete knowledge of the law made him one of the leading counsel in all the important civic suits in this and often in the neighboring counties, while his splendid eloquence was in demand when character and life hung in the balance of fate. It can be said with justice that Mr. Reynolds, during his twenty-four years' practice, has been retained in more important cases than any of his contemporaries of the Lancaster bar."
Although he gave up the active duties of his profession, Mr. Reynolds still continued to act as counsel for the corporations and unsettled estates which he . represented at the time of quasi retirement. In an interview, regarding his con- templated withdrawal from active practice at the bar just prior to that event he said :
" It is with great reluctance and deep regret, and not without weighing carefully the sacrifice, that I concluded to abandon the forum and the delightful professional associations that I have heretofore had with an enlightened and spotless court and a most distinguished bar. For more than thirty years, under the administration of justice by such shining lights as Judges Long, Hayes, Livingston and Patterson, I have enjoyed marked courtesy and kind consideration at the hands of the bench, and, may I not be- lieve, maintained the confidence and respect of the bar. . . . The shadows are drawing longer every day. The old must make room for the young, or be prepared at all times to do battle with the energy, the strength and the ambition of youth, which is always a terrible contest. The law is a jealous mis- tress. She exacts constant work, indefatigable effort, in the performance of all her behests. She will not tolerate idleness one day, and give you the choice of what is most agreeable the next. You must do everything she demands, otherwise no reward, no legal reputation.
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