USA > Pennsylvania > Delaware County > A history of Delaware County, Pennsylvania, and its people; Volume II > Part 38
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53
Through the Quaker emigrant, Daniel (1) Walton, Charles S. Walton obtains membership in the Colonial Society of Pennsylvania; his clubs are the Union League and Manufacturers of Philadelphia.
Mr. Walton married, May 11, 1887. Martha, daughter of Thomas Y. England. She is also a devoted member of the Baptist church, and co-oper- ates with her husband in his Christian work ; children : Thomas E .; Martha ; Charles Spittall (2) and Joseph W.
FURNESS The name of Furness, known wherever the English language exists in printed form, is worthily borne in the present by Walter Rogers Furness, Horace Howard (2) Furness and William Henry Furness. M. D. They are sons of Horace Howard (1) Fur- ness, the world famous Shakespearean scholar and author : grandsons of Rev. William Henry Furness, the equally eminent Unitarian divine, anti- slavery advocate and author : great-grandsons of William, born March 3, 1767, died April 8, 1836, and Rebecca ( Thwing) Furness, of Medford, Massachu- setts, great-great-grandsons of John, of Boston, born September 3, 1733, died Way 24, 1810, and Ann (Hurd) Furness, and great-great-great-grandsons of Jonathan and Elizabeth ( Milliken) Furness. Jonathan Furness, of distin- guished English ancestry, died in Boston in April, 1745, married September 16, 1731, Elizabeth Milliken, a sister of Mary Milliken, wife of his brother, Benja- min.
Rev. William Henry Furness was born in Boston, Massachusetts, April 20, 1802, son of William and Rebecca (Thwing) Furness. He was a graduate of Harvard College in 1820, studied theology at the School of Divinity, Cam- bridge, and from 1825 to 1875 was pastor of the First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia, l'ennsylvania. He as then made pastor emeritus and practically retired from the ministry ; during the next twenty-one years he preached fre-
667
DELAWARE COUNTY
quently in various Unitarian pulpits. He died in Philadelphia, January 30, 1896, at the great age of ninety-four years.
Harvard College conferred upon him in 1847 the degree of D.D., and Columbia in 1887, that of LL.D. Dr. Furness belonged to the extreme hu- manitarian school of Unitarian thinkers. He maintained the essential historic truth of the Scriptures and accepted most of the miracles of the New Testa -- ment, accounting for them by the moral and spiritual forces of the Saviour, whom he considered an exalted form of humanity. In his writing and preach- ing, his constant endeavor was to obtain the historical truth and develop the spiritual ideas relating to the life of Christ. He took an active interest in the anti-slavery movement and "wrought mightily" in the cause, both from the pulpit and in the practical form of personal assistance to escaping slaves. In 1845 he became editor of an annual called the "Diadem," holding that position three years. He published between 1835 and 1866: "Remarks on the Four Gospels," "Jesus and His Biographers," "Domestic Worship." "A History of Jesus," "Discourses." "Thoughts on the Life and Character of Jesus of Naza- reth," "The Veil Partly Lifted Jesus Becoming Visible." "The Unconscious Truth of the Four Gospels," "Jesus." "The Power of Spirit Manifest in Jesus of Nazareth," "The Story of the Resurrection Told Once More." "Verses, Translations and Hymns." His translations from the Gerinan are numerous ; his translations of Schiller's "Song of the Bell" being considered the best in the English language. He married in 1825. Annis Pulling Jenks.
A worthy son of the old divine followed his honored father in the public eye, Horace Howard Furness, Ph.D., Litt.D., LL.D. He was born in Phila- delphia, November 2, 1833. died in his native city, August 13, 1912. He was a graduate of Harvard University 1854, spending the following two years in Europe. On his return he began the study of law and in 1859 was admitted to the bar. An unfortunate loss of hearing prevented his following his chosen career and altered his whole course of life and slowly cut him off from the pleasures he loved most, music and drama. But it only altered his career and . in another field he won imperishable honors. Barred by his deafness from being a soldier, when he offered himself in 1861, Dr. Furness joined the San- itary Commission, and in this service saw many of the battle fields of the civil war, ministering to the sick and wounded. After the war he returned to Phil- adelphia and began the work that later made him famous, his variorum edition of Shakespeare, which is accepted in America, England, and by Shakespearean scholars everywhere as the standard work of its kind, supplementing, as it does, Malone's edition of 1821, with the results of Shakespearean study and investigation during the last half of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth. He published the first volume of the variorum edition, "Romeo and Juliet," in 1871, and was at work on the sixteenth volume "Cym- beline." at the time of his death. During the last seven years of his life he was assisted by his son, Horace Howard (2), who completed his father's un- finished work.
The first volume of the series was immediately greeted with warm ap- preciation by the leading critics of America and England, and as each new vol- ume appeared at intervals of from two to three years, it was enthusiastically welcomed by scholars and critics. As the work progressed. Dr. Furness slight- ly modified his manner of treatment, especially in the matter of the main text. In the earlier volumes he constructed a text for himself by collation and com- parison with others, giving other readings in his notes. This system he aban- doned, and gave the main text. that of the first folio, pure and simple, with all its errors and difficulties, the subsequent readings being given at the foot. A reviewer in Blackwood's Magazine wrote in 1890: "In what is called the
668
DELAWARE COUNTY
Variorum Edition of Shakespeare, America has the honor of having produced the very best and most complete edition, so far as it has gone, of our great national poet. For text, illustration (happily not pictorial), commentary and criticism, it leaves nothing to be desired. The editor combines with the pa- tience and accuracy of the textual scholar, an industry which has overlooked nothing of value that has been written about Shakespeare by the best German and French, as well as English commentators and critics: and what is of no less moment he possesses in himself a rare delicacy of literary appreciation and breadth of judgment. disciplined by familiarity with all that is best in the literature of antiquity as well as of modern times, which he brings to bear on his notes with great effect." In the course of his work, Dr. Furness accumu- lated a collection of Shakespearean material unequalled elsewhere in America. He was a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania, and took time from his im- portant work to prepare the article on "Homoeopathy" in the American edition of the "Encyclopedia Britannica," also serving on the "Seybert" commission for investigation of modern spiritualism. The University of Halle conferred upon him the honorary degree of Ph. D. : Columbia University, L.H.D .; Har- vard University, LL.D., and Cambridge, England, Litt. D. He also was a mem- ber of the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and of the Academy of Arts and Letters.
Dr. Furness married Helen Kate Rogers, who died October 30, 1883, daughter of Evans Rogers, a wholesale hardware merchant of Philadelphia and New Orleans. He died in Philadelphia in 1869, aged seventy-four years. His wife, Caroline Augusta Fairman, bore him two children: Fairman, and Helen Kate, wife of Dr. Horace Howard Furness. Mrs. Furness published a "Concordance to Shakespeare's Poems; an index to every word contained therein," intended as a supplement to Mrs. Cowden-Clarke's concordance to the plays published in 1873. This work of Mrs. Furness has been accepted as a standard work. Both Dr. and Mrs. Furness were members of the Unitarian church. Their children were: Walter Rogers, mentioned below ; Horace Howard, mentioned below ; William H., mentioned below : Caroline Augusta, deceased, married Dr. Horace Jayne.
While the foregoing outlines the lifework of Dr. Furness, there is another side to his character, the human one, that has been most beautifully dwelt upon by the novelist. Owen Wister, in a memorial published in the "Harvard Magazine" of December 12, 1912, from which the following extracts are taken :
"In August in the days that followed the sudden and quiet death of Dr. Furness, amid international comment and lament that learning must now do without the world's greatest Shakespeare scholar, an unexpected voice spoke in verse. It came not from a colleague, a fellow academie, a man of letters, it was not a tribute to fame; the touching lines were written by a waiter at a club and he told only of his personal sorrow and of how he had lost and would miss a friend who had been like no one else. Nothing in the many columns of appreciation printed about Dr. Furness throws upon him a more revealing light. The waiter's verse must have been read with nods of silent assent by engineers and firemen in their cabs, by signalmen at their crossings, by conductors of street cars, by an unnamed and unknown company of workingmen and women all over Philadelphia and its neighborhood. These had loved the deaf old editor of the New Variorum, because to their call for assistance he had never been deaf; to their halls, schools and associations he had been wont to come and read Shakespeare in his beautiful silvery voice and thereby draw gate money into the purses they needed to fill. Similarly, when some corner stone was to be laid, some library opened, tablet unveiled, anniversary commemorated, he had given himself lavishly to the occasion, journeying forth from his chosen seclusion, ear trumpet and manuscript in bag, to deliver the requested and care-
fully pondered speech. * * * Creature of books and of tongues ancient and modern, though he was, never did his learning come between him and the unlettered; in those speeches by corner-stone or tablet, the genial kindness, the tender sympathy and the
669
DELAWARE COUNTY
excellent sense which radiated from his words, found their direct way home to the hearers, and so the large motly scattered army that these had grown to be, was made one by a single throb of grief at the news that he would never speak to them again, and never again would they smile and warm up at the sight of that quaint, courteous figure in black clothes and silk hat, along with the lawyer's bag wherein was the ear trumpet. It wasn't merely that Dr. Furness always handed up the morning paper to the engineer or fireman, as he walked by their locomotive, halted in Broad street station at the end of its suburban run,-some other passengers do this kindly act; his paper went up into the cab, accom- panied by a smile or word in which twinkled something, something particularly his own. This same winning quaintness seemed to sparkle in his very gesture when he twisted up and whirled the afternoon's paper to the flagmen at the crossing. By the same con- juring fellowship were the hearts of every sort of human being opened to him; he learned oddities of thought and fact from beggars, peddlers and people on ferry-boats. To the conductors on the street cars he talked, and in the streets his figure was so marked, so well known, that often the glances of passersby, who were unknown to him, followed him with a sort of smiling affection, as much as to say: 'There goes our Dr. Furness.' Children, too, became absorbed in him, directly he began to pour out for them his delight- ful fancy. Two months before his death he went to Boston to be pall bearer at the funeral of Professor Goodwin. Inveterate in his dislike of Pullmans, he shared a seat in the crowded car with a mother and baby, Italians, whom the conductor wished to remove. Dr. Furness stopped him, and during the several hours they journeyed together, he played with the baby and kept it amused. Beside the garden walk in front of his glass enclosed porch was built a small platform, where in days of snow the birds came by habit to find the seed always kept in store for them. Before going to his morning's correspond- ence, lie seldom forgot to make sure that the platform was well sprinkled with seed and often he stood enjoying the sight of the feathered breakfast party. He rejoiced in all animals, domestic or not, his favorite bird being (I think) the crow, whose wild call enthralled him and whose social gifts, when tamed, endlessly interested him. He knew when best to plant flowers and vegetables and how best to buy a cow. To see him going about his garden or farm yard giving directions, one might easily have supposed this to be his chief knowledge and concern. Indeed a stranger could have talked with him for a day and never guessed he was an editor. Shakespeare had shut him in from nothing, but rather opened to him everything the more. He followed the daily news, politics, science; our best American modern writing he completely enjoyed. He said to a friend upon a recent occasion, when their common bereavement induced confidence : 'When I found I was going to be deaf, I determined it shouldn't spoil my temper.' He used to thank his deafness for saving him from all the tiresome empty words the rest of us had to endure; but this was part of his game of making light of it. At his own table (where tiresome words were uttered by none unless by some unusual visitor ) it was plain how often he wanted to catch the back and forth of the talk, and when the not rare hilarity burst out to him visibly, he would begin to laugh, too, and often demand 'what is it? what on earth is it?' And when the joke or the story was told through the ear trumpet-how he joined then! Some people do not laugh well, Dr. Furness laughed with a whole soul, musically and contagiously. I am sure this cheered him often in his struggle through dark ways. He could tell anecdotes at his own expense until he and the listener would be rocking helplessly, tears of mirth coursing down their cheeks.
"Though he sallied forth from it, his library was his lair, his treasure house, his fit frame and his fittest hour was the deep of the night. With stillness in the garden trees and in the house. In the winter perhaps best of all, with the white snow and the tree rising dark from it-shut in safe beneath the walls of books, pictures and relics, the ceiling light shining down upon his silvered head, and here and there a light falling upon some open volume, some pile of manuscript he was correcting at the request of a friend. then was the time to listen to him. to be alone with him in the stillness. So in his sweet voice the old editor would sing the folk-tune that he had caught on the plains of Castile, sixty years before, ere his deafness had come upon him, and then it would be bedtime for the listener and Shakespeare time for the editor-that work (in later years) was done between the hours of midnight and two, three or four. The morning was given to his heavy correspondence and to reading the books, pamphlets and manuscripts, which importunate authors loaded upon him. If the listener happened to return to the door, and standing there stole a last good night look back into the room, there at its far end, beneath the walls of books, sat the editor bending over his page, the many volumes to be consulted standing before and around him, the light streaming down upon the round silvered head. Yes, the gods loved him, Ariel and Puck stayed with him to the end, and ah! by his nativity was he brother to Beatrice, for then was a star danced and under that was he born."
Walter Rogers, eldest son of Dr. Horace Howard and Helen Kate
670
DELAWARE COUNTY
(Rogers) Furness, was born in Philadelphia, June 7, 1861. He spent his early years in Philadelphia and Wallingford, Pennsylvania, prepared in pri- vate schools, entered Harvard University, whence he was graduated A.B., class of 1883. He followed the profession of architect for a few years, then returned to his private estate. He is a member of the Masonic order, and of the Rittenhouse, Racquet, Country and Gun clubs of Philadelphia. He is a Republican in politics, and both he and his wife are members of the Unitarian church. He married, June 2, 1886, Helen Key Bullitt, born in Philadelphia, February 26, 1867, daughter of John C. Bullitt, born in Louisville, Kentucky, died in Philadelphia, aged seventy-nine years, an eminent attorney. His wife, Terese Laughorn, also born in Louisville, bore him thirteen children, among them being: William C., married Louisa Horowitz; Therese, married John Coles of the United States navy : Logan M., married Maria Stockton Brown ; Julia D., married (first) Frank M. Dick, (second) A. Haller Gross: John C. (2), married Edna Dever ; Rev. James F., married Margery Emmons. Children of Walter Rogers and Helen Key ( Bullitt) Furness: 1. Helen Kate, born May 18, 1887 ; married Wirt Lord Thompson, member of the banking firm of Brown Brothers & Company, and resides in Abington, Pennsylvania : 2. Fair- man Rogers, born January 6, 1889, unmarried, now ( 1913) in St. Petersburg, Russia, as member of the diplomatic corps of the United States government. The family home is at Wallingford, Pennsylvania.
Horace Howard (2) Furness was born in Philadelphia, January 24, 1865. second son of Dr. Horace Howard and Helen Kate ( Rogers) Furness. He prepared in private schools in Philadelphia and at St. Paul's School, Con- cord, New Hampshire, and entered Harvard University, whence he was graduated A. B., class of 1888. He then entered the department of music of the University of Pennsylvania and after a three years' course was granted a certificate of proficiency in 1891. From 1891 to 1901 he was instructor in physics at the Episcopal Academy, Locust and Juniper streets, Philadelphia. then until his father's death, associated with his honored father as co-editor of the variorum edition of Shakespeare, and completing the unfinished work after the latter's death. He is a member of the American Philosophical So- ciety ; the Franklin Institute and the Shakespeare Society of Philadelphia. His clubs are the Rittenhouse, Merion, Cricket and Racquet of Philadelphia; his college fraternity, Delta Phi. In political views, he is a Republican, and in his religion, Unitarian. He married in Philadelphia, in May, 1901, Louise Brooks, daughter of William Davis Winsor. Their residence is at No. 2034 De Lancey place, Philadelphia.
Dr. William Henry (2) Furness, third son of Dr. Horace Howard and Helen Kate (Rogers) Furness, was born at the family home in Wallingford, Delaware county, Pennsylvania, August 18, 1866, and there still resides. His early life was spent in Wallingford and Philadelphia, preparing for college in private schools. He entered Harvard University in 1884, whence he was graduated A. B., class of 1888. He chose the profession of medicine, entered the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania, receiving his de- gree of M. D., class of 1891. He spent some time in the University Hospital and at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, but is especially distinguished as a traveler and writer. He has made six trips around the world, dwelling in many out-of-the-way places, gathering material for his literary work. He is a member of the American Philosophical Society ; the Societe de Geographie of Paris; Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, London, and the An- thropological Society of Great Britain. He is the author of "Home Life of Borneo Ilead Ilunters : its Festivals and Folklore;" "Uap, the Island of
671
DELAWARE COUNTY
Stone Money," and of many monographs of the American Philosophical So- ciety. His clubs are the Rittenhouse and Oriental of Philadelphia.
Dr. Furness has never married, but maintains his residence in the family mansion at Wallingford, situated in the midst of spacious grounds, made beautiful by the landscape gardener's art. He is devoted to his literary work, and has many interesting experiments being wrought out at his country home. One of his theories is that the ape, monkey and chimpanzee can be taught a great deal beside useless tricks, and in carrying out his theory, he has two orang-outangs and a chimpanzee, in an apartment in his green- house, that he has taught most marvelous things, and which seem to bear out his theory that they possess an intelligence that can be taught to think and speak.
Several years ago the Horace Howard Furness Free Library was found- ed, and has occupied a room in the public school building in Wallingford. In his will, Dr. Horace Howard Furness left a bequest to this library of five thousand dollars, on condition that its name be changed to the Helen Kate Furness Free Library. This condition was accepted and an exclusive free library and readingroom will be erected on the grounds included in the Fur- ness estate, owned by Dr. Wiliam Henry Furness, and donated by him for the library site.
HAMILTON The Hamiltons of this record spring from John Hamilton, born in county Tyrone, Ireland, November 5, 1822. He attended the public schools of his native parish and worked on the home farm until he was eighteen years of age. In 1840 he came to the United States, settling in Philadelphia, where he learned the trade of boxmaker, but later journeyed to Olean, New York, and worked at farming for a time. On returning to Pennsylvania, he farmed for a while in Bucks county, then returned to Philadelphia, where he was employed until 1874,
when he located in Chester, establishing a box factory. This he successfully operated until 1902, when he retired, with a competence, to his present resi- dence on West Broad street, Chester. He is a Republican in politics, but has never accepted public office. He married in Philadelphia, Margaret Arm- strong, born in county Tyrone, Ireland, in 1823, daughter of Alexander Arm- strong, a road supervisor under the Crown in Ireland, who died there, and his wife Sarah, who died in Chester, Pennsylvania, in 1899, aged ninety-five years. Children : I. Alexander R., born in Olean, New York, in 1857; settled in the South, operating a sawmill at Norfolk, Virginia, for many years, and there died. 2. Thomas M., born in Philadelphia, in January, 1861, now cashier of the Delaware County Bank; married Ida Howard, and resides in Chester. 3. James M., see forward. 4. Elizabeth, born June 6, 1871, in Philadelphia ; married Charles T. Vance, a mining company auditor, and re- sides at San Luis in the Accacia Valley, California. 5. Sarah, born in Jan- uary, 1874, at Philadelphia, a graduate of Dr. Sargent's School, and is a teacher of physical culture, residing in Chester at the family home. She is a woman of great energy and a leader in the live progressive movements in her city. 6. Margaret, born in Chester, in 1876; married John M. Broomall, of Media, Pennsylvania.
James M. Hamilton was born in Spinnerstown, Bucks county, Pennsyl- vania, September 1I, 1864. He attended the public schools of Philadelphia and Chester until he was fifteen years of age, then began business life in his father's box factory, located on Front street, near Franklin street, Chester. He continued his father's valued assistant until 1902, when he bought the bus-
.
673
DELAWARE COUNTY
iness, Mr. Hamilton Sr. retiring. The business in 1893 had been greatly enlarged, by the addition of a planing mill, for the manufacture of sash, blinds, doors and interior wood finish. The business has been successfully conducted along these dual lines and the firm is known as one of the prosperous manu- facturing concerns of Chester. Of strong Republican principles, Mr. Hamil- ton has been for the past fifteen years in opposition to the regular party or- ganization in Delaware county, and true to the fighting spirit of his race, has had a leading part in the constant warfare between the two elements in his party, but has never been driven from the fight to free his party from the domination of those who would use the organization for selfish ends. In 1902 he was a leader in the organization of the Lincoln party, and was the candi- date of that party for the office of sheriff of Delaware county. In the three- cornered fight that followed, Mr. Hamilton was defeated by about six hundred votes, but had the satisfaction of having fought a good fight and establishing a spirit of independent political freedom in the county that will never die. He remained as chairman of the Lincoln party county committee for three years, but in 1904 supported Theodore Roosevelt for the presidency. In 1911 he was again a candidate for sheriff, but again the forces opposed to him were too strong. In 1912 he was the nominee of the Republican party for mayor of Chester. This resolved itself into one of the bitterest political fights ever known in the city, and while there were political principles involved, it virtually nar- rowed down to a temperance issue and an attempt to unseat a powerful or- ganization that was closely allied with the state leaders. Mr. Hamilton was defeated, but his opponents will long bear scars of the fight. He was in charge of the campaign of Mr. McDade against Judge Johnson, for judge of Dela- ware county, but the judge running on both the Keystone and Democratic tickets, triumphed. On February 6, 1912, Mr. Hamilton was appointed post- master of Chester, an office which came to him unsolicited. He has taken an active interest in the Chester Fire Department, having been for thirty years a contributing member of Franklin Fire Company, and for ten years was in active service, never in that time being absent from a fire in the city. He is a member of Chester Lodge, No. 488, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, has filled all the chairs and is now exalted ruler; is also venerable consul of Chester Camp, No. 5808, Modern Woodmen of America.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.