USA > Pennsylvania > Delaware County > Biographical and historical cyclopedia of Delaware County, Pennsylvania, comprising a historical sketch of the county > Part 29
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By his marriage, December 3, 1866, to Annie E. Brace, of Camden, New Jersey, Mr. Baxter has two sons : Harry V. and Howard B. Mrs. Baxter was a daughter of David Brace, and en- tered into rest in 1879, aged thirty-seven years. Politically Mr. Baxter is a stanch republican, and while supporting the principles of his party with great tenacity, is not intolerant to- ward the opinion of others.
T HOMAS MOORE, an esteemed citizen of Chester, and the originator of the Chester institute of science, whose continued existence would have been highly beneficial to the county and State, is a son of Storey and Elizabeth (Armstrong) Moore, and was born at North Shields, in Northumberland county, England, February 12, 1821. Thomas Moore was the eldest of a family of six children, of whom three were sons and three were danghters. Storey Moore married Elizabeth Armstrong, who died in 1834, aged thirty- seven years. They had six children : Rob- ert, William, Elizabeth, Thomas, Ann and Mary Ann. Mrs. Moore was a danghter of Thomas Armstrong, of Scotch blood, and whose whole family was noted in the an- nals of border warfare along the English and Scotch boundary line, as among the boldest and most daring of the celebrated rovers.
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The Armstrongs were noted for size and strength and many of them followed black- smithing.
Thomas Moore, after attending the free schools at Newcastle upon the Tyne until he was eleven years of age, was put in the print- ing office of Enos Mckenzie, on the New- castle Press, after which he became an appren- tice to the blacksmith trade, which he learned at Winlaton, County Durham. While serving as an apprentice he built small engines that he could run with the steam from a tea-kettle spout, and after completing his apprenticeship he engaged most successfully in working on locomotive engines. At twenty-three years of age he informed his grandfather that he thought himself a good enough republican to become a citizen of the United States and was too good to remain longer under monarchial control, he being a strong Chartist. Having come to this conclusion he set sail in 1844 in the Normandy, with his sister, for Philadelphia. Arriving at that city he started across the mountains to Pittsburg, which trip took him two weeks to make, where he was engaged in making an- vils. Leaving Pittsburg in a few days he went to Braddock's Fields, and after working at blacksmithing and chain making for some time, he secured the superintendency of the tool repairing department of the Great West- ern Armstrong Company's iron works, which position he was compelled to resign in order to take his sister, who had become sick, back to Europe. After a stay of two years in his native land he returned to this State, where he was engaged in building engines at Lamber- ton, New Jersey, and saw mills at Clarksboro for some time. He then went to Philadelphia, where he engaged in the manufacture of clay spades, which took a premium at the industrial exhibition at Baltimore, Maryland, in 1849. Shortly after this he entered the locomotive shop of Norris Brothers, and in his line of work visited Chester, where he conceived the idea of starting a blacksmith shop, which he put into successful operation the following spring.
Mr. Moore engaged upon a large scale in small work for the extensive cotton and woolen mills. After some years he quit blacksmithing and embarked in gun repairing, which he followed until he engaged in the hardware business at Sixth and Welsh and Twenty-third streets. He established one of the first hardware houses in the county, and in connection with it did a large business in cutting stamps and brands in steel and iron, until 1876, when the death of his son, William, so affected him that he re- tired from all active commercial pursuits. He spends a considerable portion of his time in gunning and fishing. In 1881 Mr. Moore in- augurated the movement for the establishment of the Chester institute of science. He con- tributed liberally of his time and means to the building up of that institution, gave to it his valuable and somewhat extensive entomolog- ical cabinet, and acted as manager and treas- urer of the association, but after an existence of four years, during which time it occupied rooms in the Cochran building and at Fourth and Market streets, the association went down for want of support by the people, in whose interest it was established. In politics Mr. Moore was a socialist of the Robert Owen type, when at Newcastle, in England, and in 1842 led a party of his fellow apprentices on one oc- casion during the Chartist riots in the Forth Fields. Since residing in the United States he was a Democrat of the Douglas type, after which he became a republican. He is a past grand of Leeperville Lodge, No. 62, and a member of Chester Encampment, Independ- ent Order of Odd Fellows.
On the 20th of June, 1850, Mr. Moore mar- ried Elizabeth Greenwood, who died July 7, 1856, aged twenty-six years. For his second wife he wedded Mary C. Cloud, by whom he had one child, Thomas A. By his first mar- riage he had two children, a son and a daugh- ter : Anna J., who died at three years of age, and William James, who passed away at twen- ty-one years of age, when an honorable career was opening before him.
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William James Moore was a born student of nature and directed his studies and researches particularly in the fields of entomology and ornithology, where his collections were exten- sive and of value. He had that valuable edu- cuation that is born of patient perseverance and hard work, as well as the finished educa- tion of the schools. In the very spring time of life, in the opening season of joy and bliss, of strength and pride, he was cut down by the hand of Death. He was born October 6, 1854, and died November 23, 1875.
J OSEPH MESSICK, one of the proprie-
tors of the Grove worsted mills, corner of Rose and Walnut streets, in the city of Ches- ter, is a gentleman whose successful business career fitly illustrates what can be accom- plished in this country by a right use of hand and head, even when unaided by a dol- lar of inherited capital. This lesson has been taught again and again by the brilliant career of men who with undiscouraged energy have climbed from the bottom to the higher rounds of life's ladder, but there is little danger of its being too often repeated. The subject of this sketch was born February 15, 1846, at Fried- berg, Baden, Germany, and is a son of George and Madeline ( Hauck ) Messick, both natives of the same place. When five years of age, in 1851, he was brought to America by his parents, who first settled at Wilmington, Dela- ware, and later removed to New Castle, that State, where the father died in 1857, at the early age of forty-two years. His widow im- mediately returned to Wilmington, where she has resided ever since, being now in the sev- enty-third year of her age. George Messick (father) was a butcher by occupation, a demo- crat politically, and a member of the Catholic church. By his marriage to Madeline Hauck he had a family of four children, two sons and two daughters : Joseph, Katharine, Mary, and one other.
Joseph Messick was reared partly in New
Castle and partly at Wilmington, Delaware, receiving a fair English education in the pub- lic schools of New Castle and St. Peter's paro- chial school in Wilmington. At the age of twelve he went to work for a furniture dealer in that city, with whom he remained for a year and a half, and in the latter part of 1859 en- gaged to run a sawing machine in a carriage factory at Wilmington. In the summer of 1860 he entered another shop to learn carriage trimming, but the breaking out of the war in that year disorganized the business and left him without work. In September, 1861. he went to Philadelphia and secured employment in a factory making knapsacks for the United States government, and after remaining in that city one year he returned to Wilmington to finish learning the trade of carriage maker. Later he came back to Philadelphia, where he worked as a journeyman until 1865, when he once more went to Wilmington and worked at his trade for nine months with John Merrick, after which he assumed charge of the trim- ming department of Gregg & Bowe's carriage factory in that city, and remained in that posi- tion until 1874. In the latter year he came to the city of Chester and embarked in the furni- ture business on his own account. Being en- terprising, accommodating and pushing, and depending on pluck rather than luck to win success in the battle of life, he soon had an excellent trade, which constantly increased un- der his able management, and which he suc- cessfully conducted until 1886, when he sold out, and, in partnership with D. H. Daley, built the large worsted mills, known as the Grove mills, at the corner of Rose and Walnut streets, in this city, and began the manufacture of all kinds of worsted yarns. These mills are fitted up with the finest modern machinery, and turn out a product that finds a ready sale in the best markets of this country. They give employment to one hundred people the year round, and the business aggregates the sum of one hundred and eighty thousand dollars annually. To the practical skill and sound
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business judgment of Mr. Messick much of this conspicuous success is due. In addition to his interest in the manufacturing business he is also one of the largest property owners of this city, owning and renting ont more than twenty residences and business houses. He was one of the original stockholders and is now a director in the Delaware County Trust. Safe Deposit & Title Insurance Company of this city, and was one of the organizers of the Chester Electric Light & Power Company, in whose board of directors he has also served. Since 1889 he has been president of the Frank- lin Building & Loan association of this city, and has done much toward creating its suc- cess and to aid its members in securing homes of their own.
On the 7th of July, 1867, Mr. Messick was united in marriage with Hannah Dougherty, a daughter of Mary Dougherty, of the city of Wilmington, Delaware. To Mr. and Mrs. Messick has been born a family of twelve children. five sons and seven daughters, of whom two sons and one daughter are dead. Those living are : George F., now engaged in the gentlemen's furnishing business in this city: Mary, Madeline, Annie, Joseph, jr., Laura, Elizabeth, Nellie and Stephen.
In religious faith Mr. Messick follows the tradition of his family, and is a member of St. Michael's Catholic church of this city. Polit- ically he is independent, voting for the men or measures that in his judgment will best sub- serve the public good, but taking little active part in politics, preferring to devote his active energies to the successful business he has built up, and to the management of his vari- ous property interests.
WILLIAM BAAGGS ULRICH, M.D.,
one of the most successful and skillful physicians of southeastern Pennsylvania, who has led an unusually active and busy life, and is noted for his enthusiasm and able discus- sions in medicine and politics, was born in the
city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, May 4, 1829, and is the son of Samuel and Catharine H. ( Baggs) Ulrich. Dr. Ulrich's grandfather, John Ulrich, was a native of Germany, where he lived until twenty-five years of age. He then came to America and settled in Phila- delphia, where he married and where his fam- ily was reared. His son, Samuel Ulrich ( fath- er), was born and brought up in that city, and resided there until 1834, when he removed to Chester. Delaware county. Here he spent the remainder of his life, dying December 6, 1871, at the age of sixty-nine years. In 1828 he married Catharine H. Baggs, a native of this city and a daughter of William and Rachel Baggs. To them was born a family of nine children, three sons and six daughters, of whom Dr. Ulrich is the eldest. In early life Samuel Ulrich was an admirer and follower of Andrew Jackson in political affairs, but in later years joined the opposition and was a whig and republican. He served as justice of the peace in this city for many years, and his knowledge of law and natural sense of justice enabled him to discharge the duties of that office with great acceptability. For a long time he was also a notary public, and in addi- tion to the regular duties of that position be- came a kind of general legal adviser for his friends and neighbors. His wife was a native of the city of Chester, a person of clear judg- ment and the embodiment of all that was good and admirable; her kindly disposition circled everybody who suffered and came to her for relief, and was daily manifested in increasing works of love, faith, hope and charity. She died in Chester, December 1, 1885, aged sev- enty-eight years.
William Baggs Ulrich was brought from his native city to Chester by his parents when seven years of age, and grew to manhood here, receiving his education in the public schools of this city and at Jonathan Gause's boarding school, at Unionville, Chester county. After leaving school he entered a drug store in Phil- adelphia, and while performing his duties there
William B. Illich, MLD.
THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
ASTOR, LAVOIX ** TILDEN FOUNDATION! P
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OF DELAWARE COUNTY.
also attended the college of pharmacy in that city, and thoroughly learned the drug busi- ness. In 1845 he matriculated at the Phila- delphia college of medicine, and dividing his time between attending lectures and his duties as a druggist, he continued to pursue his pro- fessional studies in that institution until 1850, when he was duly graduated with the degree of M. D. In the fall of that year he received an advantageous offer from a firm at Natchez, Mississippi, who desired him to assume charge of a drug store in that city, and needing money and believing the south would offer a good opening for the practice of his profession, he accepted the offer and removed to Mississippi, going by rail to the foot of the Alleghenies, where he took a stage over the mountains to Brownsville, by boat to Pittsburg and thence to- Natchez. After one year spent in the drug store he left that position and located in Con- cordia parish, Louisiana, some twenty-five miles below Natchez, where he soon had a. large and lucrative practice, and where he re- mained until after the close of the great civil. war. In 1865 Dr. Ulrich took a special post graduate course in the New Orleans school of medicine, at New Orleans, and graduated in 1866. While in the south it was his fortune to go through four epidemics of yellow fever, and he became well acquainted with the dis- ease and very skillful in its management. In . 1870, while on a visit to this city, the yellow fever made its appearance at the Lazaretta quarantine, this county. The disease getting outside of that institution, Dr. Ulrich was summoned as an expert to take charge of the cases, three having occurred in Chester, which were successfully treated by him, and in recog- nition of which the city council of Chester tendered him a unanimous vote of thanks for his efforts in protecting the city from the rav- ages of that dread disease. About that time he made some strictures on the management of the Philadelphia board of health, and in con- sequence got into a bitter newspaper discus- sion, in which he demonstrated as complete a 14
command of the pen as on other occasions he has shown of the healing art and the art of platform oratory. His father's health being poor, and a number of friends urging him to locate here, Dr. Ulrich determined to remain, and he consequently began a practice in the city of Chester, which soon increased to ex- tensive proportions and has become quite lucrative. His reputation as a skillful and successful physician extends to all parts of the county, and he is frequently called in consul- tation to distant points. In 1872 he was ap- pointed surgeon for the Pennsylvania Military college at Chester, which position he has held ever since, and about the same time he became lecturer on hygiene in the same institution. During the same year he was made official surgeon of the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore railroad, and has held that place to the present time. Dr. Ulrich owns a stock farm at Newark, Delaware, on which he keeps some highly bred horses.
Taking an active interest in everything that concerns the advancement of his profession, Dr. Ulrich has long been a prominent member of several medical societies and a contributor to leading medical journals. He holds mem- bership in the Delaware County Medical so- ciety, of which he has several times served as president ; the Pennsylvania State Medical society, in which he has filled the chair of first vice-president ; and in the American Medical association, of whose judicial council he was a member for several years. He is also an honorary member of the Delaware State Med- ical society, and known to the profession throughout the Union as an able discusser of medical subjects. He has served as a dele- gate to many of the State Medical conventions of Pennsylvania and other States, and also as a delegate from the American Medical associa- tion to the Medical association of Canada. Being a fluent speaker and well posted in his profession, he has ever borne a conspicuous part in the discussions that have taken place at these meetings, and exercised great influ-
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ence in the official action of the associations. Politically Dr. Ulrich is an ardent democrat, and has been scarcely less active or eloquent on behalf of his party than in defense of his views concerning medicine and medical prac- tice. For many years he was a member of the school board in Louisiana, and also served several years as a member of the school board of this city. He has done a good deal of effec- tive political speaking, and was made a candi- date of his party here for the State senate, without any effort on his part, but of course could not overcome the big majority of his political opponents in this district.
On May 4, 1854, Dr. Ulrich was married to Eliza L. Miller, a daughter of David F. Mil- ler, a large cotton planter of Louisiana. To Doctor and Mrs. Ulrich were born three sons : Samuel B., William R. and David M., and one daughter, Mary. Dr. Ulrich enjoys a well earned reputation as a skillful surgeon, a learned physician, an able and eloquent speaker, and an affable and an agreeable gen- tlemen, whom it is a pleasure to meet and know. His distinguished services have en- deared him to many, and rendered his name a household word in this section.
E LMER VALENTINE, proprietor of the prosperous Electric Carpet Cleaning works at 622 and 624 Crosby street, in the city of Chester, is a son of William G. and Mary E. (Wier) Valentine, and was born April 7, 1865, at Claymont, Delaware. This family is of direct Scotch descent, and originally set- tled in Pennsylvania, near this city, but after- ward removed to Claymont, Delaware, where George Valentine, paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was born and reared. He was a farmer by occupation, and owned a large and valuable farm adjoining Claymont, where he died November 26, 1869, aged seven- ty-two years. Politically he was a whig and republican, and in religion a member of the Episcopal church. He married Sarah Coch-
ran, by whom he had a family of seven chil- dren : Alexander, now a wholesale milk dealer at Wilmington, Delaware; William G., father of Elmer ; James, a retired farmer of New Castle county, Delaware; Engle, a resident of Wilmington; John, living at Sherson Hill, Pennsylvania ; Sallie, wife of Ephraim Royal, also of Sherson Hill ; and Lydia, who married Charles Body, of Wilmington, Delaware. William G. Valentine (father) was born at Chester, Delaware county, in 1832, and now resides in the city of Wilmington, Delaware, where he owns and manages what is known as the Front street flouring mill of that city, doing a large and lucrative business. He is a stanch republican, a member of Lafayette Lodge, No. 14, Free and Accepted Masons, and for a number of years has been a prom- inent member of the Methodist Episcopal church, which he served for a time as trustee. At the age of twenty-two he married Mary E. Wier, a daughter of William Wier, of Ches- ter, and by that union had four children : Melissa, married George Bently, superinten- dent of the Harrisburg Iron works; Horace, engaged in the wholesale milk trade at Wil- mington, Delaware; William, now in business with his father in that city ; and Elmer, whose name heads this sketch. Mrs. Mary E. Val- entine is of American descent, and is now in the sixty-first year of her age.
Elmer Valentine grew to manhood in his native State, receiving a superior English education in the Harckness academy at Wil- mington, and after completing his studies embarked in the general upholstery business in that city. After three years in that line he removed to the city of Brooklyn, New York, where he engaged in the furniture and carpet trade. He remained in Brooklyn, doing a prosperous business, until 1892, when he came to Chester. Pennsylvania, and in partnership with his brother, William Valentine, started the Electric Carpet Cleaning works at Nos. 622 and 624 Crosby street, this city. In Jan- uary, 1893. Elmer Valentine purchased his
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brother's interest in the works, and since that time has conducted the enterprise in his own name, doing a business which will average about eight thousand dollars per year.
On June 3, 1891, Mr. Valentine was united in marriage to Mary E. Crosley, youngest danghther of Thomas Crosley, of the city of Chester. In political matters Mr. Valentine is a pronounced republican, and while enter- taining no ambition for himself, yet always gives his party a loyal support on questions of State and National policy.
WILLIAM HENRY BOWEN, senior
member of the publishing firm of Bowen, Cooper & Temple, proprietors of the Chester Evening News, was born in Chester township, Delaware county, Pennsylvania, on the 15th of November, 1850, and his career is therefore entirely comprised in the latter half of the nineteenth century. He is a son of the late John and Mary A. (Anderson ) Bowen, and one of a family of seven children, four of whom are yet living : Alfred A., James A., Mary Ellen, who married Samuel A. Hollingshead, and William H., the subject of this sketch. His grandparents were Stacy and Ellen ( Mont- gomery) Bowen, both of remote Welsh de- scent, and Robert and Eliza (Lowry) Ander- son, the latter a daughter of James and Mary Lowry.
The early boyhood days of William H. Bowen were spent in the city of Chester, to which his parents removed while he was yet an infant, and were passed without unusual incident. The first school he attended was then known as the Larkintown public school, a frame building that stood in what is now Madison street, at its intersection with Elev- enth street. Later the family removed to Nether Providence township, this county, where young Bowen completed his education in what was then known as the Union Gram- mar school. The elder Bowen had decided that his son William should be a manufac-
turer, and to that end had him acquire a prac- tical knowledge of cotton spinning, with all the various stages of work connected there- with, and later learn the various processes belonging to the manufacture of woolen yarns. But young Bowen's tastes ran in a different direction, and it must be recorded that he did not apply himself to the spinning of cotton and woolen yarns with that degree of assiduity which he gave to those of a literary character. Seeing this bent in his makeup, his father finally consented to his adopting journalism as a calling, and apprenticed him to Vernon & Cooper, publishers of the Delaware County American, at Media, this county, where he be- gan an earnest effort to master the intricacies of the "art preservative of arts," and soon acquired a remarkable degree of skill in every- thing connected with the printing business, as then practiced in a country newspaper office. He remained with the American a dozen years or more, during which time he became profi- cient in all the mechanical branches of the business, and filled successively several posi- tions connected with the management and reportorial conduct of the paper. Having a taste for further knowledge of newspaper work, in 1876 he identified himself with the Chester Evening News, where he remained a year or two, and was then induced to return to Media to " set up " the office of the Media Record, then being started by Batting, Chad- wick & Williamson. Leaving there he came back to the Chester News again. Soon after his first employment in this office he had made the assertion that he would one day own the Evening News, a prophesy he never forgot and that came true later on.
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