USA > Pennsylvania > Chester County > Biographical and portrait cyclopedia of Chester County, Pennsylvania : comprising a historical sketch of the county, by Samuel T. Wiley, together with more than five hundred biographical sketches of the prominent men and leading citizens of the county > Part 26
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J. FRANK E. HAUSE, a graduate from the law department of the University of Pennsylvania, and a rising young lawyer of the Chester county bar, is the eldest son of Davis and Catharine ( Waitneight ) Hause, and was born November 26. 1861, in East Pikeland township, one mile north of Phu- nixville, Chester county, Pennsylvania. His great-grandfather, John Hause, was a son of John Hause, sr., who was a native of Germany, and who left the Fatherland to find a home in the new world, and shortly after his arrival in America located in then Vincent, now East Vincent township, this county. John Hause was a farmer, and reared a large family, among whom was James Hause ( grandfather ), who was born in East Vincent township, Chester county, and in early life learned the trade of wheel- wright, at which he worked for many years. In later life he became a farmer, and inher- iting the sturdy characteristics of industry and frugality, he accumulated considerable property. In polities he was a Jacksonian democrat, and in religion a strict member of the Lutheran church. He married Eliza- beth Wagoner, by whom he had a family of six children, and died in 1878 at an
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advanced age. Davis Hause (father) was born in East Vincent township, this county, in 1830, and lived there until 1860, when he removed to East Pikeland township, re- maining one year, and then removed to Spring City, where he resided for a period of nineteen years. In April, 1881, he came to West Chester, and has resided in this borough ever since. When a young man he learned the carpenter trade, and worked at that business for fifteen years, teaching school in the winter season, and followed these occupations until 1864, part of that time being employed as a teacher in East Vincent academy. After locating at Spring City he was elected to the position of jus- tice of the peace, and opened a real estate and conveyancing office, continuing that business until his removal to West Chester, and serving as a magistrate for ten years. Soon after coming to this borough he em- barked in the general insurance business, in which he has been very successful, and has also served here as a justice of the peace by appointment. In religion he was formerly a Lutheran, but after removing to West Chester he identified himself with the Pres- byterian church. He married Catharine Waitneight, a daughter of Jonathan Wait- neight, of this county, and to this union was born a family of three children : J. Frank E., the subject of this sketch; Harry H., a professional stenographer : and a danghter, who died in infancy.
J. Frank E. Ilause received a superior English and classical education in the Spring City High school, and after leaving school entered the office of R. Jones Monaghan and began the study of law. Later he he- came a student in the law department of the university of Pennsylvania, from which he was graduated in June, 1883, Having
thoroughly prepared himself for the legal profession and passed the usual examina- tion, he was admitted to the bar of Chester county, October 25, 1883, and immediately opened a law office in West Chester with his preceptor, where he has been success- fully engaged in practice ever since. He possesses many of the mental traits that go to make the able lawyer, which, combined with his industry and upright character, have won him honorable standing as a citi- zen and an influential position at the bar. In polities Mr. Hause is a stanch democrat. giving his party an active and intelligent support on all general questions, and in re- ligion he is a member and liberal supporter of the Lutheran church.
On October 20, 1887, Mr. Hause was united in marriage to Eva Rupert, a dauglı- ter of Col. Alfred Rupert, of the borough of West Chester, and to Mr. and Mrs. Hause have been born two daughters: Helen Noble, born October 6, 1888; and Eliza- beth, born March 21, 1892.
p ROF. WILLIAM H. SNYDER,
principal of the public schools of Ox- ford, this county, and a successful teacher who has become widely known for his ability ax an educator, is a son of Abraham and Catharine (Woher) Snyder, and was born May 16, 1839, near Norristown, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania. The American an- vestry of the Snyder family is traced back to Peter Snyder (great-grandfather), who lived in East Pikeland township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, at the close of the rev- olutionary war. He had two older brothers, Casper and John, whose father, with other Germans, settled in this locality before the revolution. Peter Snyder was born in this
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region. He was a farmer by occupation, and lived in East Pikeland township until his death at an advanced age. Ilis son, Henry Snyder (grandfather), was born in that township about 1785. After attaining manhood he purchase a farm in Pikeland township, but sold out in a few years; changed to Valley Forge in 1825, and in 1830 removed to Norristown, Montgomery county, where he died in 1850, at the age of sixty-five years. He was by turns a farmer, blacksmith, and machinist, and was a man of great energy and untiring indus- try. In politics he was a democrat, and in religion a member of the German Reformed church of Vincent township. He married Catharine Carl, by whom he had a family of nine children, four sons and five daugh- ters. One of these sons was Abraham Snyder ( father), who was born on the old homestead in East Pikeland township, this county, February 15, 1812, but removed with his father's family to Norristown. Montgomery county, while yet a lad. He is still living in that county, and is now well advanced in his eighty-first year. In early life he learned the trade of blacksmith, and was engaged in that occupation until the infirmities of age compelled him to abandon active work. He is a republican in politics, and voted for John C. Fremont, and in religion is a strict adherent of the Presby- terian church. In 1838 he married C'ath- arine Wolmer, and to them was born a family of eight children, of whom three were sons and five were daughters. Mrs. Snyder is a native of Montgomery county, and is still living, being in her seventy- seventh year.
Professor William II. Snyder was reared principally near Norristown, Montgomery county, this State, and received his educa-
tion in the public schools there and at Washington Hall institute, Trappe, con- ducted by Prof. Abel Rambo. He afterward took a course of training in the West Chester State Normal school, receiving a State certificate in the class of 1877. For some years previous he had been engaged in teaching, having been employed in the academie department of Ursinus college from 1870 to 1873. In the latter year he came to Oxford as principal of the public schools here, a position which he has ac- ceptably filled ever since.
In 1861 Prof. Snyder, then twenty-one years of age, left his Montgomery county home and enlisted in the 2d Pennsylvania reserves as a member of the regimental band. He served in that capacity until the autumn of 1862, when he was discharged, and immediately enlisted with the emer- geney men who were aiding to drive Gen- eral Lee out of Pennsylvania. In 1863 he enlisted in Co. C, 34th Pennsylvania infantry, being commissioned first lieutenant of his company. He finally became acting adju- tant of his regiment. He was with the army of the Potomac during the peninsular campaign, participating in the historie seven day's fight at and near Mechanicsville. He was discharged at Harrison's Landing, Vir- ginia, on the 10th of August, 1862, by act of Congress discontinuing regimental bands.
On the 7th of September, 1864, Professor Snyder married Martha A. Bevan, of Shan- nonville, Montgomery county, this State. To their union was born an only daughter. Bella B., now the wife of Wilmer K. Bird. of Rising Sun, Maryland. She was married May 20, 1891, and her husband is a member of the foundry firm of J. C. Bird & Sons at Rising Sun.
In political sentiment Prof. Suyder is a
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republican, and was appointed by Governor Hoyt, in 1883, as notary public, which po- sition he still holds. He served as deputy collector of internal revenne for the sixth congressional district from 1863 to 1866, under collectors David Newport and Ben- jamin Haneoek, father of General Hancock. He is a member of the Presbyterian church, in which he has been a ruling elder for twelve years, and takes an active part in the Sunday school work of his denomina- tion, having served as superintendent since 1874. As a citizen Prof. Snyder is highly respected, and as an educator he takes high rank.
W ILLIAM EVERHART was born on
the 17th of May, 1785, in Vineent township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, and was the eldest son of James Everhart, of whom an obituary notice in the Philadel- phia North American thus speaks: "It was at a very critical period, when failure seemed imminent, just after the defeat of Brandy- wine and the massacre of Paoli; when the enemy had the strongholds of the country ; when the most zealous were dishearted and the lukewarm turned back, and the disaf- fected withheld provisions from the army and betrayed its movements, deserters thinned. that James Everhart volunteered, at the early age of seventeen years. His gun with the loek tied on, his uniform his leather breeches, his knapsack his pocket. his bed the ground, his covering the sky : exposed day and night to the rigors of winter, some- times marching through the storm without shoes, sometimes sleeping under the snow without a blanket; always without pay, often without food, struggling against na- ture, the elements and the enemy ; against fatigue, frost, famine, and the British. Thus
schooled and thus tried, he exhibited the vigor and virtue of those heroic days. Rigidly temperate and just, he had a eon- stitution free from disease and a character beyond reproach."
William Everhart, before he had reached his majority, entered into the mercantile business on his own account. On the deela- ration of war against England, he raised and drilled a rifle corps, but peace was eon- eluded without an opportunity being afforded for active service. Soon afterward, for the purpose of making arrangements for in- porting merchandise, he sailed from New York for Liverpool in the packet ship Albion. The wreck of that vessel on the coast of Ireland, by which so many dis- tinguished lives were lost, was made still more remarkable by the marvelous preser- vation of Mr. Everhart. Such a terrible wreck and loss of life, and on the part of Mr. Everhart such a miraculous preserva- tion, excited the public sensibility through- out Europe and America. When he landed at Liverpool it was difficult for him to get along the streets, the people crowded around in such numbers to see the only passenger "saved from the wreck of the Albion." When Mr. Everhart recovered from siek- ness, being in a strange land and perfectly destitute by the loss of $10,000, although that amount was found and freely and earnestly offered to him by the agents of the government, as it was most probably his, he nevertheless refused it for fear he might be mistaken in its identity. To this, Master James Redmond Barry, esq., of Glanmore House, Ireland, thus refers in a note to a friend, as well as to another inci- dent in this connection, that after the lapse of a quarter of a century, during the late Irish famine, Mr. Everhart had the gratification
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of contributing to the liberal aid which his native country designedly sent to the very neighborhood where he had been so kindly cared for. Mr. Everhart's name is and has been reverenced for many years by all who remember the event of 1822, when he evinced proofs of that upright and virtuous mind, which has since then dictated his noble exertions in directing the attention of his generous countrymen to the wants of our distressed community. That he and they may long enjoy every blessing that this world can afford, and still greater happiness hereafter-these are and have been the prayers of thousands who have participated in the bounty of the Chester county dona- tions, and they have a cordial response from one, who to the end of his life will never forget the name of Everhart. When Mr. Everhart returned from England he re- moved to West Chester, then a small vil- lage. He bought an adjoining property, and in a liberal public spirit laid it out in wide streets at his own expense, ineluded many elegant buildings, and gave such an impetus to improvement that in a few years the town more than doubled its extent, and is now one of the most handsome and in- teresting in Pennsylvania. In the fall of 1852 Mr. Everhart, with a well known character for business diseretion and in- tegrity, was chosen to represent the distriet, composed of Chester and Delaware conn- ties, in the house of representatives of the United States. His majority was very con- siderably above the rest of the ticket, and in his own town far exceeded that of any previous candidate of his party.
We may aptly conclude this sketch by a newspaper article from the press of the Hon. Charles Miner, the venerable author of the history of Wyoming, distinguished
no less for his talents than for the excellent qualities of his heart. He says, in speaking of Mr. Everhart's nomination for Congress in Chester county : " It will give pleasure to many attached friends in Luzerne. A holder of valuable property in this county. he is a frequent, a respected and ever wel- come visitor. One of the most extensive merchants in West Chester-he has been an importer for thirty years-has visited Europe, and the name will be recollected by many with interest, who have not the pleasure of an acquaintance with him, by the fact that he was the only passenger saved from the disastrous wreck of the ill- fated Albion. It showed his unshakened mind, that amid the appalling horrors that surrounded him, he saw everything, re- membered everything, and the public is indebted to his clear narrative for the deeply affecting circumstances attending that melancholy event. Simple in manners. pleasing and nuostentious, he was a man of bold and successful enterprise."
West Chester. that has grown from a village to a populous and beautiful city. owes its wonderful increase in a great meas- nre to his purchase of the Wollerton farm.
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REV. HENRY WHEELER, D. D., pastor of the Methodist Episcopal church at Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, was born in Wedmore, Somersetshire, England. in 1835. His childhood and youth were spent amid the beautiful scenery of his na- tive country, with the Mendip hills on the east and north, the Bristol Channel on the west, and the mountains of Wales beyond. He was reared in the established church, and was educated in its schools. When abont fifteen years of age he chanced to
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visit the Wesleyan chapel, and became in- terested in the Sunday school. A little later he united with the Methodist society. At sixteen he became a teacher in the Sunday school, and distributed tracts from house to house, occasionally holding prayer meetings in the cottages of the poor. At eighteen he was licensed as a local or lay preacher, and was placed on the circuit plan, preaching in the surrounding villages ten Sundays in thirteen. His youthful ap- pearance attracted large audiences. At twenty he was recommended to the district meeting to be educated for admission to the conference, but turning his attention to the United States, he came to this country in June, 1855. In August of the same year he was sent by the presiding elder to the Northmoreland circuit as junior preacher. This circuit had fifteen appoint- ments in Luzerne and Wyoming counties, Pennsylvania. In 1856 he joined the Wy- oming conference of the Methodist Episcopal church. A part of that year and the fol- lowing he was a student in the Wyoming seminary under its president, Dr. Reuben Nelson. After his marriage in 1858, to Miss Mary Sparkes, of Binghamton, New York, he served as pastor at Plainsville, Great Bend, and Waymart, in Pennsylva- nia, leaving this work to become chaplain of the 17th Pennsylvania cavalry, in which capacity he served in 1862 and, 1863. After his return from the army he was stationed at the Central church, Wilkesbarre, Penn- sylvania; at Wyoming, Pennsylvania; at Waverly, New York ; Owego, New York, and Norwich, New York. At the two last named places he was engaged in building churches, which now stand among the finest church edifices in that part of the State. Ile was then made presiding elder of Otsego
district, and later pastor of the church in Kingston, Pennsylvania. In 1872 he was elected reserve delegate to the general con- ference held in Brooklyn, and served in that body for a time in place of an absent delegate, Dr. R. Nelson. In 1876 he was elected delegate to the general conference which met in Baltimore. In 1879 he was transferred to the Philadelphia conference, at the urgent request of the church in Columbia, which church he served for three years. He has served a full term each Christ church and Cumberland street church in the city of Philadelphia. In 1888 he was asked for and sent as pastor to the Metho- dist Episcopal church, Phoenixville, and at the present writing is serving that church for the fifth year. He is popular with his people, and loved throughout the community.
Dr. Wheeler is widely known in his de- nomination as an author. In 1883 the Western Methodist Book concern published from his pen " Methodism and the Temper- anee Reformation," which has ever since ranked as a standard authority upon that subject. A year later " Rays of Light in the Valley of Sorrow" was published by P. W. Ziegler & Co., Philadelphia, which has had a wide sale. In 1889 the Methodist Book Concern of New York published " Deaconesses : Ancient and Modern." Bishop Hurst says of this book: "It is the first, so far as I know, in English, which gives a history of this important move- ment, and shows its place in the life and work of the church." These works have received flattering notice in this country and England. In 1891 the Methodist Book concern published from his pen, in tract form, " One Hundred Questions and Answers on the History, Polity, and Usages of the Methodist Episcopal Church," which is
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being used very largely by young people's societies and children's classes. A writer in the Evening Call, of Philadelphia, says in a review of Dr. Wheeler and his work : "lle is a clear, bright, strong, vivacious man, and the church of which he is pastor is one of the most progressive, and exerts a wide influence in the part of the city in which it is located."
Dr. Wheeler is still in the prime of life, and gives no evidence of abatement in zeal or labor. He is still busy with his pen, preparing a historical work for the use of the denomination.
In 1890 the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred on him by the Little Rock university, a well deserved recognition of his literary work.
Dr. Wheeler has three children: ' One daughter, Mrs. Minnie W. Newbury, A. M., wife of T. P. Newbury, of the Philadelphia conference of the Methodist Episcopal church; HI. S. Wheeler, M. D., and George 1. Wheeler, University Fellow in English, Princeton university.
G. D. ARMSTRONG, M. D., one of
the oldest physicians in Chester county, who graduated from Jefferson Med- ical college in 1839, and has been in con- tinnous practice since that time, is a son of William and Jane ( Little) Armstrong, and was born in Newcastle county. Delaware, January 22, 1815. His father was a life- long resident of the state of Delaware, and died there abont 1834, aged sixty-five years. He was a prosperous farmer, an old-line whig in polities, and a member of Lower Brandywine Presbyterian church, in which he served as an elder for many years. He mar- ried Jane Little, by whom he had a family of
six children, four sons and two daughters. among whom was Dr. G. D. Armstrong, the subjeet of this sketch.
Dr. G. D. Armstrong received his educa- tion at Moseo academy and Delaware col- lege, under the tutorage of Rev. Francis Latta. After leaving college he read medi- eine with Dr. H. F. Askew, of Wihnington. Delaware, and later matriculated at Jeffer- son Medical college, Philadelphia, from which institution he was graduated with the degree of M. D. in the spring of 1839. He soon afterward began practicing in New London township, Chester county, where he has been successfully engaged in the line of his profession ever since, and is now one of the oldest physicians in the county. He has always been inclined toward agricultural pursuits, also, and now owns two fine farms comprising one hundred and twenty acres of valuable land, highly improved, and in a good state of cultivation. His buildings are commodious and comfortable, and he takes great pleasure in superintending his farm operations, frequently lending a hand himself during the busy season. He owns stock in the Oxford National bank, and has been a director in that institution for a number of years.
On January 9, 1840, Dr. Armstrong mar- ried Anna M. Morrison. a native of Wil- mington, Delaware. To this union was born an only child, a daughter named M. J., who married George D. Hodgson, now deceased. Mrs. Hodgson now resides with her parents in their comfortable home in New London township.
In political sentiment Dr. Armstrong is a pronounced republican, but has never felt inclined to take a very active part in prac- tical politics, preferring to devote his time and attention to the requirements of his
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profession. In religion he has followed the traditions of his ancestors, and is connected with the New London Presbyterian church, which he is now serving as a member and secretary of its board of trustees. Dr. Armstrong is a man of medium height, stont build, and wonderful energy, being yet active and energetic, although now in the seventy-seventh year of what has been a busy and successful life.
H ON. PERSIFOR FRAZER SMITH
was born in Philadelphia, Jannary 23, 1808, and died at West Chester, this county, on the 25th day of May, 1882, aged seventy-four years. His father was Joseph Smith, son of Robert Smith, of Uwchlan, Chester county. Ilis mother was Mary (Frazer) Smith, a danghter of Col. Persifor Frazer, of Thornbury, then Chester county, but now Delaware county. From a carefully prepared pamphlet by Joseph S. Harris on the life of Robert Smith, reprinted from the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Bi- ography, we glean many of the following interesting facts :
Robert Smith was of Scotch descent. Little is known of the history of his family prior to the emigration to Pennsylvania, except that the family name was originally Macdonald, and that the branch of it from which he was descended formed an import- ant part of the earliest Scottish emigration across the North Channel into Ireland, in the time of James I., of England. Near the end of the seventeenth century Robert Smith's grandfather lived in the northeast- ern part of Ireland. Just before the battle of the Boyne, as the soldier king, William III., was personally reconnoitering the local- ity, which was soon to become famous, his
horse cast a shoe. There was, of course, no farrier in attendance to replace it; bnt Macdonald, in whose neighborhood the accident occurred, and who, like many other farmers in thinly-peopled districts, was something of a blacksmith, volunteered to repair the injuries, shod the horse, and so enabled the king to proceed.
His neighbors, who, like himself, were in sympathy with the cause of which William was the champion, dubbed Macdonald "the Smith." Such a change of name would not now be considered a compliment, as Smiths are so numerons that the name confers no special distinction ; but in that district there was a surfeit of Macdonalds; all the possi- ble changes had been rung on the name, and still there were hardly enough names to individualize the members of the clan. Smith was a novelty, and the branch of trade it represented has always been an honored one, especially in primitive society, and this particular Scotchman, proud to have his name linked with that a great man, and a decisive battle, as that of Boynewater was soon known to be, accepted the coguomen, and handed it down to his posterity as the family name.
The Macdonalds held their lands in Ire- land by tenant right, and while they, with the rest of their countrymen, were subdning the savage land which they then called home, they lived in obscurity.
The Scotch-Irish emigration to Pennsyl- vania in the first half of the eighteenth century, which gave to that colony so many of its best citizens, and which has done almost as much to determine the character of the State as the Puritan emigration did to decide the character of New England, included among its number the parents of Robert Smith-John and Susanna-who
Hon. Persifor Fazer Smith.
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OF CHESTER COUNTY.
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