USA > Pennsylvania > Cumberland County > Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of the Nineteenth Congressional District, Pennsylvania > Part 57
USA > Pennsylvania > Adams County > Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of the Nineteenth Congressional District, Pennsylvania > Part 57
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NINETEENTH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT.
well as the confidence and respect of his fellow townsmen.
On September 22, 1865, Samuel Smyser was united in marriage with Rebecca M. Lewis, a daughter of Dr. Robert Lewis, of Dover, York county. Mrs. Smyser was a zealous and active member of the Lutheran church, and passed away in 1889. Her re- mains are entombed in a pleasant spot in Prospect Hill cemetery, of York, and on the marble shaft rising above her grave is the following inscription: Rebecca M. Smyser, departed this life July 11, 1889, aged 65 years, 10 months and 3 days.
"Religion filled her soul with peace, Upon her dying bed;
Let faith look up, let sorrow cease; She lives with Christ o'erhead.
Yes faith beholds where she sits, With Jesus, clothed in white. Our loss is her eternal gain; She dwells in cloudless light."
R ICHARD REES, a resident of Delta, Pennsylvania, and a slate operator of the Peach Bottom district, is a son of Rob- ert and Jane Rees, and was born in Carnaer- vonshire, in the North of Wales, March 13, 1835. His parents lived and died in that country and Richard came to the United States in 1855. He obtained his education privately in Wales, where he also acquired a knowledge of the slate business. On ar- riving in this country he located in Delta and worked in the slate quarries for a time, afterward engaging in the business for him- self in the Peach Bottom district. In 1862 he enlisted in Battery A, Third Pennsyl- vania heavy artillery, and served two years and three months until discharged from the hospital on account of disability contract- ed in the service. He served under General Graham, and on the gun boats during an engagement on the Appomatox river in
June 1864, in which the boat, General Brewster, was destroyed. After returning from the war he took up the manufacture of slate in Peach Bottom district, Harford county, Maryland, which business was con- ducted under the firm name of the Peach Bottom Slate Company, of Harford county, from 1868 unto the present time, and in 1886 it was incorporated as such. Mr. Rees is president and superintendent, W. H. Harlan, of Belair, Md., secretary and treas- urer. They employ fifty-five men and are now opening another quarry which will require a large increase in their force. In politics Mr. Rees is a Republican and takes an active interest in public affairs. For three terms he has been a school director and also school treasurer of his district. For one year he served as burgess of the bor- ough, being the second citizen of the town to hold that office. Besides holding these public offices he has on a number of occa- sions served his party in conventions in the capacity of delegate. He is a member of the Welsh Presbyterian church in which he has for a number of years filled the posi- tion of deacon. He is also a member of Corporal Bear Post, Grand Army of the Republic.
July 31, 1865, he married Miss Winifred E. Parry, of New York City, and daughter of Robert and Gwen Parry, of Dolgelhy, Wales, a Welsh lady, and they have a fam- ily of four children: Robert E., a professor of music of Delta and graduate of Peabody Conservatory, of Baltimore. He married Mary, a daughter of a Mr. McGonigal. Harry P., is a book-keeper in the employ of the Peach Bottom Slate Company. Richard, Jr., is employed in the quarry. Mrs. Rees died August 27, 1896, aged fifty- eight years. Mr. Rees is a highly esteemed citizen of his community and is a popular employer.
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BIOGRAPHICAL AND PORTRAIT CYCLOPEDIA.
R EV. A. M. HEILMAN, a prominent young clergyman of the Lutheran church, of Shrewsbury, was born in Para- dise township, York county, February 27, 1867, the son of P. W. and Deliah (Moul) Heilman. He is of sturdy Pennsylvania German ancestry. Peter Heilman, grand- father of our subject, came from Lebanon county and settled in Paradise township, where the two succeeding generations of the family were born and reared. Mr. Heilman farmed all his life. He was the son of a Revolutionary soldier. In politics he was a Republican and in religion was of the Reformed faith. By his wife he had four children: Mrs. Peter Grim, Elias P., W. and Daniel.
P. W. Heilman, the father of our sub- ject, was born in 1836. He followed farm- ing and carpentering during his entire life, in Paradise township. In politics he was a Republican and in Religion a member of the Reformed faith. Mrs. Heilman was a daughter of Solomon and Rebecca Moul. She was of the Lutheran faith and was the mother of ten children, seven of whom are living: Rev. H. M., located at Altoona; J. M., a farmer at Abbottstown; Emma J., wife of C. A. Little; Sarah A., wife of John Q. A. Mummert; C. M., a farmer of Para- dise township; Rev. A. M., our subject; and P. M., carpenter at Hanover. Mr. Heilman died in 1885. His wife survives and has her home at Hanover.
Our subject received his education in the common schools and then took a course in a local normal school at New Oxford, Adams county, after which he taught for two years in North Codorus and Paradise townships. He had, however intended that his con- nection with the profession of teaching should merely serve as a stepping stone to another of the higher professions and he now terminated his educational career.
In 1885 he prepared to enter the ministry
by taking the classical course in Pennsyl- vania College at Gettysburg, from which institution he graduated with honors in the class of '89, delivering the Latin salutatory. From the college he went to the Theologi- cal Seminary the succeeding fall and spent three years in the study of the Lutheran faith and theology, graduating in 1892. He was ordained at the meeting of the West Pennsylvania Synod at York, having al- ready accepted a call to the pastorate of the Lutheran church at Dallastown, York county, where he remained for three years. His reputation as an able thinker and a pulpit orator of no mean ability was soon made and as an evidence thereof he received a call from the Shrewsbury charge in 1894. He accepted the call and has been stationed at Shrewsbury ever since. Rev. Heilman is a speaker of considerable eloquence and during his career in the ministry has de- livered many addresses besides his regular sermons. He is to-day one of the rising young clergymen of the West Pennsylvania Synod. In the York County Conference, with which his connections are more inti- mate, he has served several terms as secre- tary of the body.
July 14, 1892, he married Anna C., a daughter of Frederick and Margaret Wecker. To that union have been born two children: Albert H. M., and Paul M.
W TILLIAM M. HENDERSON, JR., a well known citizen of Carlisle, a civil engineer by profession, is a native of that borough and was born January 21, 1864, the son of James Wilson and Jane Byers (Alexander) Henderson. He is of Scotch-Irish ancestry on both his paternal and maternal side. His paternal grand- father, after whom he was named, was a native of Perry county, but in early life settled in Cumberland county and became actively engaged in milling and agricul-
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NINETEENTH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT.
tural pursuits, and after a long and success- ful career died at the homestead "Oakland," near Carlisle, in 1886, aged 92 years.
James Wilson Henderson, father of our subject, was born on the old homestead, before referred to, October 22, 1824, and died March 25, 1880. In early manhood he and William Reed engaged in the grain and commission business in Carlisle, besides which he gave considerable attention to his large farming interests. The mother of our subject was Jane Byers Alexander, daughter of General Samuel Alexander, who, during his life was a distinguished and prominent member of the Cumberland county bar and Major General in the State volunteer service in the district. His wife, the maternal grandmother of our subject, was Ann S., a sister of Hon. James G. Blaine's father, an aunt of that distinguish- ed statesman.
Wm. M. Henderson, Jr., was educated at the Pennsylvania Military College at Ches- ter, Pennsylvania, graduating there in 1885. He has been for a number of years con- nected with the National Guard of the State of Pennsylvania. After serving seven years as a member the the "Gobin Guards," Co. G, 8th Regiment, N. G. P., he received his present commission, Battalion Adjutant of the same regiment.
R EV. ANDREW EDWARDS TAY- LOR, pastor of the Methodist Epis- copal church of Mechanicsburg, is a na- tive of Rockbridge county, Virginia, where he was born November 26, 1833, the son of Rev. Stewart and Martha E. (Hickman) Taylor. The Taylors are of Scotch-Irish origin, James Taylor, grandfather of our subject, having been a native of County Armagh, Ireland. He was one of five brothers who came to America about one hundred and thirty years ago and who, upon their arrival, invested the money they
brought with them in land and slaves in Rockbridge county, Virginia. John was killed in the French and Indian war, during the ill-fated Braddock expedition; Can- fould was a prisoner for a year or two. He was liberated by the birth-throes of the new nation.
George and James married daughters of Captain Audley Paul, who was also of Scotch-Irish stock and was a fellow-lieu- tenant with George Washington in the Braddock campaign. They were all hardy, energetic, Scotch-Irishmen of the old Cov- enanter stock; and fought gallantly for the freedom of America in the war of the Revolution. James Taylor had a family of fourteen children, one of whom was Rev. Stuart Taylor, father of our subject, born in Rockbridge April 4, 1796. He was a farmer and tanner. Impressed with the evils of slavery, he became an anti-slavery man and as fast as his slaves had earned what their purchase had cost him he liber- ated them. During the war he was a staunch union man and acted as agent of the so-called "under ground R. R.," to aid deserters: feeding from 5 to 90 one night and giving them directions how to proceed and where to get their next sup- plies. Being union all through he was able to take the "iron-clad oath" to help in the work of reconstruction. He was for many years a local preacher in the Metho- dist Episcopal church.
His wife was Martha E., daughter of William Hickman, a farmer and stock raiser of Bath county, and of English des- cent. To that union were born five sons and six daughters: William, now Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal church in Africa; Mary, deceased, wife first of John McHenry and then of C. A. Harrison; John, who died at Mound City, Illinois, while in the Union service; Christia A., married J. W. McCowen, of Illinois; Rebecca, deceased;
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BIOGRAPHICAL AND PORTRAIT CYCLOPEDIA.
Rachel V., who was married to George Peterson, of Florida; Eliza, wife of Thomas Kirkpatrick, of Virginia; James, farmer of Georgia; Archibald minister of the Metho- dist Episcopal church, now of Georgia; Andrew E .; and Huldah, wife of George Miller, of Virginia.
Our subject was brought up on the farm and worked in his father's tannery when not actively engaged in securing his earlier education. Brought up in a devoutly reli- gious family his mind turned toward the ministry as the calling he would prefer to pursue and with this idea in view he enter- ed Dickinson College, where he remained for some time but was unable to complete his course on account of ill health. In 1856 he entered the Baltimore conference of the Methodist Episcopal church and has been actively engaged in the work ever since, losing but two or three Sundays and then on account of sickness. When the confer- ence was divided in 1857 he became a member of the East Baltimore Conference, and in 1868 when another division took place, he became a member of the Central Pennsylvania Conference. He spent about twenty-five years in the Williamsport dis- trict and came to Mechanicsburg in 1894. Rev. Taylor is a member of the Masonic body. 1
January 3, 1860, he married Cleopatra F., daughter of Captain Frederick Diehl, of Cashtown, Adams county, Pa., by whom he had five sons and two daughters: Rollen Stewart, a minister of the Methodist Epis- copal church at Central Pennsylvania Con- ference; Frank W .; William L .; and Olin W., deceased; Jennie M., a physician and dentist, practicing her profession in the Angola district, South Central Africa; Charles Diehl, a minister of the Baltimore Conference; and Olive C., a stu- dent of Irving College.
W T TILLIAM H. PEFFER, the present
postmaster of Carlisle, is a son of Hon. Henry K. and Jane M. (Weakley) Peffer, and was born at Monmouth, War- ren county, Illinois, January 4, 1857. He was reared at his native place and in Car- lisle, where he received his education in the common schools and learned the trade of printer in his father's newspaper office. In 1889 he became editor and proprietor of the Daily and Weekly Sentinel, and served in that capacity up to August, 1894. He has conducted the postoffice very creditably and his term will expire in 1898. Mr. Peffer is a working Democrat, who is ever active in the interests of his party. He is a pleasant and congenial gentleman, and has been a member for some years of the Second Presbyterian church of Carlisle. He is also a successful and practical business man, owning the Carlisle opera house building and a large dairy and stock farm adjoining the borough, besides being inter- ested in other remunerative enterprises. In 1882 he founded the first daily paper in Cumberland county.
On May 30th, 1883, Mr. Peffer was united in marriage with Eleanor Hoffman, a daughter of the late Leonard Hoffman, of Carlisle. Their union has been blessed with two children, a son and a daughter, named Henry K., and Edith.
The Peffer family is of German lineage and has been identified with Cumberland county for several generations. The immi- grant ancestors came from Germany to what is now South Middleton township, where his son, Adam Peffer, was born and reared. Adam Peffer married twice, first to Mary Kerr, of Scotch descent, and after her death to Elizabeth Delancy, by whom he had several children. The only child by his first marriage was Hon. Henry K. Pef- fer, who was born January 13, 1827, and died in Carlisle, April 13, 1891. At twenty-
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NINETEENTH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT.
four years of age he removed to Warren county, Illinois, where he followed farming for ten years, and then became a law part- ner of Colonel J. W. Davidson, of Mon- mouth, that State, for three years. During that time in 1862 he was elected in a Re- publican district to the Illinois legislature, in which he served with Hon. Melville W. Fuller, the present chief justice of the United States. He afterward received the unanimous nomination of his party for State Senator, and was one of the Presi- dential electors on the McClellan and Pend- leton ticket. During 1865 he visited Texas and the Southwest, and in 1866 permanent- ly located in Carlisle, where he was a lead- ing journalist and prominent factor in poli- tical affairs of the county until his death. In 1871 he was nominated for State Sena- tor but was defeated with the rest of the Democratic ticket of that year. In the en- sting year he was admitted to the Cumber- and county bar, shortly afterward took charge of the Valley Sentinel, of Shippens- burg, and two years later purchased and removed that paper to Carlisle, where he issued it as an Independent Democratic weekly and was its editor and proprietor until succeeded by his son, W. H., in 1889, when he was appointed postmaster of Car- lisle by President Cleveland. Mr. Peffer lived an active and useful life, was honest and energetic, and was a consistent mem- ber of the Second Presbyterian church of Carlisle, of whose Sunday school he was superintendent for many years. In 1848 Mr. Peffer married Jane M. Weakley, a daughter of Nathaniel Weakley, who was a farmer and a member of the old Weak- ley family of Cumberland county. To their union were born four children, three sons and a daughter: William H., Charles A., publisher of the Battle Creek Times, of Battle Creek, Iowa; Adam F., a merchant
of Monmouth, Illinois; and Mary, who married Milton A. Sprout, and is deceased.
P ROF. GEORGE W. GROSS, Sc. D., the present efficient principal of the York County Academy, is a native of Jack- son township, York county, Pennsylvania, and was born on January 17, 1856. He is a son of Israel F. and Malinda (Hantz) Gross. Mr. Gross received his elementary education in public and private schools. He fitted for college at the York County Aca- demy, then under the direction of Prof. George W. Ruby, Ph. D., and subse- quently entered Pennsylvania College, Get- tysburg, in 1873, from which he was grad- uated four years later. Subsequent to his graduation he entered the law office of Henry L. Fisher, Esq., and in 1879 was ad- mitted to the Bar of York county. He then opened an office and practiced about six months at the expiration of which he was elected to the principalship of the York County Academy. This position he held for a period of five years, at the expiration of which he resigned on account of ill health and was leisurely occupied in private tutor- ing and other quiet pursuits until the year 1892. In the latter year he was again elected head of the famous old academy and has so continued up to the present time. In 1880 Prof. Gross received the de- gree of Master of Arts from Pennsylvania College and later the degree of Doctor of Science. from same institution. He is a man of fine intellectual culture, unquestion- ed scientific attainments and under his ad- ministration as its executive head the York County Academy has maintained a higlı standard of efficiency. He is a Republican in politics, but takes only an indifferent part in the activities of that party. Reli- giously he is a member of the Lutheran church and fraternally a member of the Phi
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BIOGRAPHICAL AND PORTRAIT CYCLOPEDIA.
Kappa Psi, Greek letter organization of Pennsylvania College.
In December, 1896, Prof. Gross was united in marriage with Gertrude Merriken.
R EV. W. J. HOUCK, pastor of Grace United Brethren church, of Carlisle, is a son of John G. and Genivieve (Faeth) Houck, and was born in York, York county, Pennsylvania, April 20, 1855. John Houck was a native of Bremen, Germany, where he learned the trade of miller. He came to Baltimore about 1843, but soon re- moved to York, where he spent the re- mainder of his life, excepting the three years from 1866 to 1869. He quit milling on account of his health and sought other and to him more healthful occupations. He was born September 20, 1807, and died October 14, 1878. He was a member of the Catholic church and wedded in Balti- more Genivieve Faeth, who had come over from Germany in the same ship with him and was of the same religious belief. Mrs. Houck was born Christmas 1814 and died May 25, 1881. They had seven children: John A., a tinner, of Baltimore; Mary, wife of William Davis, of Reading, this State; Josephine, married William H. Spangler, of York city; Rev. W. J., and three, which died in infancy.
Rev. W. J. Houck was reared at York, received his education in the Catholic pa- rochial schools of that place and Baltimore, Md., and was intended by his parents for the priesthood. He was, however, con- verted to the faith of the United Brethren church, and instead of taking orders in the Catholic church he engaged, in 1875, in the mercantile business at Hellam, York county, where he served as a justice of the peace for ten years. In the meantime the subject of the ministry had been frequently called to his attention and on January 26, 1889, he was granted quarterly conference
license. A year later, on February 28, 1890, after passing a thorough examination, he was granted annual conference license at Chambersburg by Bishop J. Weaver, the senior bishop of the United Brethren church; and after completing the required course of five years reading and examina- tions he was ordained by Bishop N. Castle, at Harrisburg, February 25, 1893. He was appointed in March 1890, to his first charge, which was at Newburg,Cumberland county, where his labors were blessed by an in- crease of 152 in membership, and the finan- cial reports showed an equally increased and healthy condition. Here he remained until March, 1893, when he came to Car- lisle and took charge of the interests of the denomination and built Grace church and parsonage, with which he has labored most faithfully ever since, having the class in- crease in membership from 15 to 250 at present time.
On February 20, 1875, Mr. Houck mar- ried Mary A. Cramer, daughter of Charles Cramer, of York city. They have six chil- dren, sons and daughters: W. J., with the Bedford Shoe Company; Charles E., a salesman in Heffelfinger's clothing estab- lishment; Fannie L., Grace V .; Henry Ot- terbein, at school, and Mary Ruth.
The United Brethren in Christ are dis- tinguished by no new doctrines but are an organization in which the ministers and the people, in the main, have an equal propor- tion of power, and the rulers hold office only by the authority and consent of the governed. The present membership of the denomination is 238,782, having 15 educa- tional institutions, and operate missions in Africa, China, Japan, Canada and Germany.
PROF. JOHN E. BAHN, headmaster Eichelberg Academy, at Han- over, Pa., is a native of Germany, where he was born on June 24, 1841, the son of
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PROF. JOHN E. BAHN.
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NINETEENTH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT.
Charles and Sophia (Schaarschmidt) Bahn.
Charles Bahn, father of the subject of this sketch, was born in Havelberg, Ger- many, in 1806, and died in 1849. He was a surgeon in the Prussian army and practiced medicine all his life. In religion he was a member of the German Lutheran church. He was the father of ten children: Paul, who served as captain in the Franco-Prus- sian war and was decorated with the high- est honors of that war, died in 1885; Charles and Otto, whose birth preceded that of our subject are dead; Anna is the wife of C. J. Little, D. D., president of Gar- rett Institute Evanston, Illinois; Rosa is dead; Regina, resides in Berlin, Germany; Max is dead; Marie lives in Berlin, the Ger- man capital; and Charles is a colonel of ar- tillery and chief of the technical bureau of the war department at Berlin. Mrs. Bahn is still living at the advanced age of eighty- one and has her home with her children in Berlin.
Prof. John E. Bahn was born at Stolpe, Kingdom of Prussia, and received his edu- cation at the Werder Gymnasium in Berlin and another Gymnasium at Zullichau. He then entered the German army and subse- quently was graduated from the military college at Erfurt. In 1861 he was made an officer of the line and served three years. At the expiration of his term of service in 1864 he left Germany and came to America. The war of the Rebellion was then in pro- gress and having been trained as a soldier, Mr. Bahn enlisted in the Union army and served until the close of hostilities. After the war he went to Williamsport, Pennsyl- vania, and engaged in private teaching. In 1870 he was called to the chair of languages in Dickinson Seminary at Williamsport, Pa., and taught there eight consecutive years. Subsequently he left Williamsport and removed to Maryland, where he bought a country home. He soon afterward became
principal of the Stewartstown, York
county, Academy. When the Glenville Acadeiny was built and opened he became principal of that institution. Since 1896 he lias resided in Hanover and has been prin- cipal of Eichelberg Academy, an institu- tion which had its inception in Glenville Academy. Under Prof. Bahn the new in- stitution is in thrifty condition and has a well established reputation for excellence. Students are prepared for college in the classical department and in the normal de- partment professional training is given to those who intend to enter the profession of teaching. Prof. Bahn is a popular instruc- tor among students and teachers. He has splendid abilities and his cultured and scho- larly mind is a store house for a vast and unusual accumulation of knowledge gained from experience as well as from books and nature. He is thoroughly conversant with the principles of teaching and is thereby enabled to transmit by well directed and skillful methods the knowledge of which he himself is a master. In his manner he is affable, courteous and refined; and no ed- ucator in York county is more highly es- teemed than he.
In religion Prof. Bahn is a member of St. Mark's Lutheran church at Hanover. He has charge of the teachers' class in the Sun- day school and is active in many good works, which inure to the benefit of the church and Sunday school.
January 19th, 1866, Prof. Bahn married Ellen, a daughter of Jonathan and Susanne Paily, of Baltimore county, Maryland. To that union have been born six children: Eugene, married to Havanna Harbold; El- sie, wife of Charles Hoffheiser; William, Rosa, Ella, and Maud.
D R. MILTON M. DOUGHERTY, a rising young physician of Mechanics- burg, Pennsylvania, is the son of William
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