USA > Pennsylvania > Allegheny County > Pittsburgh > Biographical review : v. 24, containing life sketches of leading citizens of Pittsburgh and the vicinity, Pennsylvania > Part 29
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uncle's farm in Missouri, and during the fol- lowing fall and winter he continued his study of Shakspere until many of the plays were completely memorized.
On June 1, 1875, Mr. Church was employed by the Pennsylvania Company at Pittsburg as clerk in the office of the general solicitor, the Hon. John Scott, a former United States Senator. He remained in this position for four years, until he had imbibed a strong liking for the law, and had read a few books with an incipient notion of becoming a lawyer. But he had learned to write shorthand, and in an emergency he was called to a vacant position in the office of S. M. Felton, the general superintendent, where he was the principal stenographer for three months. At the end of that time the general manager of the road, Daniel W. Caldwell, took him to Columbus as his private secretary. This was on January 12, 1880. An official con- solidation brought him back to Pittsburg with Mr. Caldwell in August, 1881; but on May I, 1882, he again removed to Columbus as the chief clerk to a new general manager, Mr. James McCrea. While living in Columbus he was appointed aide-de-camp on the military staff of Governor Hoadly, with the rank of Colonel, and rendered the State valuable ser- vice in the suppression of the riots in Cincin- nati in 1884. As Governor Hoadly was a Democrat and Mr. Church a Republican, this appointment was purely a personal distinction. On January 1, 1884, he was appointed super- intendent of transportation. After residing in Columbus for several years, official changes again brought him back to Pittsburg on April 1, 1890; and he has since resided here, an active and esteemed official of the railroad.
His passion has ever been for literature, and he has made deep explorations into the whole field of English letters. He is essen-
tially an English scholar. The influence of the best English authors has moulded his mind and inspired his pen so that their strength and purity are woven into the very heart of his style. As a student, as a man of books, he is a follower of literature be- cause he loves it. When he was twenty years old he published his first book, a novel, entitled "Horatio Plodgers: A Story of To-day." It deals with love and politics, and, while not without merit, is naturally an immature work. He then wrote a few short stories and dramatic sketches which appeared in the newspapers and the lesser magazines, and contributed a sketch of his grandfather, Walter Scott, to Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography. In a season of indus- trial strikes he wrote " A Plan for Harmony," containing a practical suggestion for respon- sible contracts between employers and em- ployed, which was published in the Century Magasine in October, 1886. His popular lecture entitled "Early English Books and Heroes" is an eloquent and powerful analysis of the mind of the Dark Ages. He has made many interesting addresses on after-dinner and other occasions. After writing his Cen- tury article he dropped all other literary occupation, and began to study Cromwell.
There were many biographies of Oliver and many of Charles; but there was nothing short of Dr. S. R. Gardiner's fifteen volumes that told the story of each of them, and gave a fair recital of their quarrel and of the story of the Commonwealth. Mr. Church thought Cromwell was not understood. The opportu- nity attracted him, and he gave to its accom- plishment during six years all the devotion and application which so prodigious an under- taking could require.
Both in Europe and America his "Life of Cromwell " has been received as a noble and
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enduring acquisition to historical literature. In 1895 he visited England, and was received into the houses of leading citizens of that country as an honored guest. Lord Wolseley wrote to him that he was reading his book with delight while in camp with his army. Conan Doyle wrote, "You have taught me a great deal, your detail is so very good." Compliments upon the success of his book were received from Lord Salisbury, Lord Rosebery, Mr. James Bryce, Sir William Ver- non Harcourt, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, Stan- ley Weyman, and many other distinguished Englishmen.
The tone of the press was one of high ap- probation. The Spectator said, "On the whole, it is one of the safest and one of the most reasonable views of the great Protector ever put forward; and we know of no study of Cromwell's work and personality which we can more heartily recommend to those who want to see Cromwell as he really was." The Pall Mall Gazette said, "He knows how to choose essentials and how to keep things in due proportion." The Horse Guard's Gasette : "What, however, we confess interests us most in the volume is the excellent account furnished by Mr. Church of the military side of Cromwell's career. He appears to have neglected no means by which to arrive at the most complete and accurate account of the various conflicts of the prolonged Parliament- ary War. We doubt whether a better de- scription, on the whole, of the leading battles of the Civil War has ever been furnished than in this work. Altogether the production is a thoroughly satisfactory piece of literary work. It will, we predict, hold the field for a long time as the best complete life of the great Protector yet published."
The Right Hon. T. P. O'Connor, the Irish member of Parliament, reviewed the work
with critical appreciation in a whole page of his paper, the London Sun, and, in referring to a bed-room scene between Charles I. and his queen, said: "There is no need to spend words in emphasizing all there is of pathos, humanity, and the sacred relations between man and woman in this wonderful bit of writ- ing. I have seen few things which give one more completely the sense of reconstituting a scene - bringing up again and for the moment hot, passionate, conflicting, and yet loving flesh and blood out of the stiff letters in the faded ink of a yellow parchment."
Just before Mr. Church's arrival in England the critics had taken up this extract from his last chapter, in which he sums up Cromwell: "He [Cromwell] has no monument in Eng- land; and he can have none with the sanction of the government, because a monument to Cromwell would be an acknowledgment of successful rebellion." Mr. Herbert Glad- stone, at that time a member of the English government, wrote to Mr. Church informing him that there was a very fine monument to Cromwell in Manchester. Mr. Church replied that he was familiar with that work, but re- minded Mr. Gladstone that it had been erected by one woman as an expression of her individ- ual admiration of the Protector, and did not therefore come within the scope of his ani- madversion. Sir William Vernon Harcourt, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, then wrote an appreciative letter to Mr. Church, advising him that Mr. Herbert Gladstone, by his wish and at his request, had introduced a bill in Parliament to erect a statue of Cromwell among England's sovereigns in Westminster Hall. The book had appeared on June 1, 1894; and the bill for the statue had been in- troduced on August 7, 1894. Mr. Church replied to Sir William that as soon as the statue was erected he would gladly cancel the
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passage in his book in a later edition. The history of the bill is well known. It passed the first reading by a narrow majority. On the second reading the Parnell wing of the Irish representation refused to vote for a statue to the man who had committed the extreme military measures on the Irish at Drogheda and Wexford. The government was beaten. Mr. John Morley, the Home Secre- tary for Ireland, withdrew the bill, declaring Cromwell's campaign in Ireland "a blunder and a crime." The Liberal party appealed to the country, and in the ensuing election were badly beaten. While there were other ques- tions involved, yet, had the government held firm to the Cromwell statue proposal, which they basely deserted, it is doubtful if they would have been routed from office.
While in England Mr. Church made a pil- grimage over the whole of Cromwell's country. He visited his birthplace at Huntingdon, and followed him in the course of his battles, going carefully over Edgehill, Marston Moor, and Naseby in England, Dunbar and Edin- burgh in Scotland, and Drogheda and Wexford in Ireland. In Scotland, while the guest of Andrew Carnegie at Cluny Castle, he spent a week in the company of Mr. John Morley, and had many conversations with him on Cromwell, debating again that stigma of "the blunder and the crime." In one of these controversies Mr. Church asserted that Crom- well had acted at Drogheda and Wexford strictly in accord with the laws of war as they stood up to the time of Wellington. Mr. Morley asked him to prove it, when he promptly took down Gardiner's third volume of the Civil Wars and turned to a foot-note where the evidence was complete. Mr. Morley admitted that the point was a strong one for Cromwell.
In England Mr. Church was entertained by
his friend, Henry Phipps, at the ancestral Bul- wer seat of Knebworth House. Mr. Thomas F. Bayard, the American Ambassador, also entertained him and called upon him with special distinction. The London Chronicle, which had raised a popular subscription in twenty-four hours to build a Cromwell mon- ument upon the defeat of the statue bill in Parliament, interviewed him at great length; and other papers spoke of his visit with inter- est. He met many distinguished and titled Englishmen, and their invitations were re- ceived daily during his stay abroad. His trip covered the most interesting portions of Great Britain, and also Paris.
Soon after his return home Andrew Car- negie dedicated his great institution at Pitts- burg, comprising a library, art gallery, mu- seum, and music hall under one roof, and costing more than one million dollars. On the night of the dedication Mr. Carnegie gave the art gallery and museum an endowment of another million dollars, and soon afterward he selected Mr. Church as one of the trustees for life. On the organization of the board Mr. Church was elected secretary, and he has since taken a prominent and useful part in the administration of the great fund. His liter- ary labors have not stopped with the success - ful publication of the "Life of Cromwell." He has since written an historical novel entitled "John Marmaduke: A Romance of the English Invasion of Ireland in 1649," which was published by G. P. Putnam's Sons on September 1, 1897. The preliminary an- nouncements had attracted a great deal of attention to this book, so that the entire first edition was sold before publication, and the work ran through four editions in the first month following its appearance. The romance seems destined to take as high a place in fic- tion as the "Life of Cromwell " has secured in
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historical literature. The general press opin- ions are fairly indicated in this notice from the Christian Observer: "This is an historical novel in a new field, which brings out the character of the Protector and throws over a love story the added charms of military life and heroic deeds. The style is pure and dig- nified, the situations are exciting, and the characters are drawn with the pencil of genius."
During the political campaign in 1896, when the sound money issue was paramount, Mr. Church, after making an exhaustive study of the question, gave up the quiet of his li- brary to take part in the public speaking. Ile considered the situation filled with the gravest peril, and his speeches were listened to as complete expositions of the questions which were before the nation for decision. When a great body of railroad employees visited Mr. Mckinley at Canton, Mr. Church made the speech, which Mr. Mckinley gave out to the press for publication, and in his reply paid to it this tribute: "Your spokes- man, Mr. Church, has made an excellent and able argument against the free coinage of sil- ver as it affects your business; and I need not attempt to enlarge upon it. Free silver would prove equally, aye, probably more dis- astrous than free trade has proven to the people of the United States."
Two American universities have already recognized the worth of the "Life of Crom- well" by bestowing honorary degrees upon its author. The Western University of Penn- sylvania in 1895 gave him the degree of Doctor of Letters; and Yale University sum- moned him to New Haven on June 30, 1897, and bestowed upon him the honorary degree of Master of Arts. His library is almost complete in its collection of books relating to the Cromwell epoch. It is safe to say
that this collection cannot be duplicated in America.
EV. BENJAMIN F. WOODBURN, D. D., the pastor of the Sandusky Street Baptist Church, of Alle- gheny, residing at 19 Monterey Street, was born at Shoustown, this county, March 23, 1832. A son of William Woodburn, he is of Scotch-Irish descent. His paternal grand- father, James Woodburn, came to Pennsylva- nia from the north of Ireland, where his Scotch ancestors had previously located. At first he settled in Cumberland County, near Carlisle, this State, where he reared his fam- ily, and was engaged in general farming for many years. The descendants of his elder sons, who remained in that district, are now living there. He came to Allegheny County in the year after Anthony Wayne camped at Legionville, bringing his youngest son, Will- iam, and remained for some time. Grand- father Woodburn served for a time in the Revolutionary War
William Woodburn was a farmer by occupa- tion, owning a large tract of land near Shous- town. He was a prominent man in the com- munity and for many years served as Justice of the Peace. His death occurred on the old homestead in 1858, at the age of eighty-one years. His wife, Elizabeth, was a daughter of Elijah Veazy. The latter, born in Balti- more, Md., removed to Beaver County, Penn- sylvania, buying a farm near Sheffield, on which he spent his remaining days. Of the nine children of William and Elizabeth Woodburn six grew to maturity. The sur- vivors are: Mary, the eldest, a venerable woman of eighty-two years; Captain John Woodburn, formerly a boat captain, but now living retired in Cincinnati, Ohio; and the Rev. B. F. Woodburn, the subject of this
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sketch. Captain James Woodburn, a son that died at Sewickley, this county, in 1881, was for many years prominent in shipping, insur- ance, and business circles.
Benjamin F. Woodburn was reared in his native town, and in his young manhood was a steamboat captain on the Ohio River. He subsequently entered Jefferson College at Canonsburg, now called Washington and Jefferson College. After receiving the de- grees of Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts at that institution, he studied for the ministry at the Western Theological Seminary, then under the control of the Presbyterians. At a later date he was honored with the degree of Doctor of Divinity by the University at Lewisburg. Accepting a call to Mount Pleas- ant in Westmoreland County, he preached there a few years. From there he came to Allegheny in. 1870, since which time, a period of twenty-seven years, he has had charge of his present church. Under his min- istrations the church society has been greatly augmented. In 1893 his congregation built a new and handsome house of worship on the corner of Sandusky and Erie Streets, he being a member ex officio of the Building Commit- tee. Taking an active interest in all matters pertaining to education, Dr. Woodburn has been prominent in promoting beneficial enter- prises as a school director and a member of the Committee of the Allegheny High School. He is also the chairman of the committee having charge of the school library, and is the president of the Allegheny General Hospital. For a long time he has been a correspondent of several New York religious weeklies. At one time he was the editor and publisher of the Witness, a paper issued in the interests of the Baptist denomination.
In September, 1854, Mr. Woodburn married Margaret Shouse, who was born in Shous-
town, Pa., daughter of Samuel Shouse. She comes of German ancestry by her father, who was a native of this county, and who died at an advanced age in the town of Elizabeth. Thirteen children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Woodburn, nine sons and four daughters, of whom Samuel Shouse, John, Mary, Grace, Frank, Joseph, Walter, and Arthur are living. Grace is the wife of K. T. Meade. Samuel Shouse Woodburn, the eldest son, attended the public schools of Allegheny in his younger days. His studies were continued in the Western University of Pennsylvania and sub- sequently at Mount Pleasant, where he gradu- ated in 1878. In 1879 he read medicine with Dr. John Dickson. Then he entered Jeffer- son Medical College in Philadelphia, where he received his diploma in 1882. Since that time Dr. Woodburn has been engaged in the medical profession in Allegheny City, and has won an assured position among the lead- ing physicians of the place. For two years he was police surgeon of Allegheny. He was surgeon for the Pittsburg & Western Railway Company for seven years and a member of the medical staff of the Allegheny Hospital for five years. On January 31, 1889, he married Miss Sarah C., daughter of Hugh and Sarah A. (Chaney) Richardson. In politics he is a sound Republican. Both he and his wife are active members of the Baptist church.
NDREW JACKSON BARCHFELD, M. D., one of the leading physicians of the South Side, Pittsburg, was born there, May 18, 1863, son of Henry and Mary (Neuenhagen) Barchfeld. His grand- father was a well-known manufacturer of yarn and woollen goods in Cassel, Germany. The father, a native of Hesse-Cassel, Germany, where he was educated and studied engineer-
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ing, emigrated to Pittsburg in 1847, settling on the South Side. He was first employed to take charge of an ore plant at Emlenton on the Allegheny River. This position he had held for five years, when he resigned it to as- sume similar duties at the Loud Soda Factory, where the American Iron Works now stand. In 1856 he opened in one of the suburbs a general store, which he conducted until the Civil War broke out. Then he enlisted in Company G, Two Hundred and Fifth Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, and sub- sequently served until the war was over. After returning home, he followed his former business of engineer for eight years, during which time he was second man in charge of the construction of the Fort Wayne & Pan Handle Railroad bridges, then considered masterpieces of mechanical engineering, and inspected all the work in the drafting-room. In Baltimore he married Miss Neuenhagen, whose father was a German officer under Na- poleon at the battle of Waterloo, was with the Emperor in Moscow, and who sprung from a long line of military ancestors. Of the five children of Henry and Mary Barchfeld two died when very young. The others are: Martin L., who is a resident of Pittsburg; Mary, now the wife of George H. Geyer, who is in charge of the structural department of the American Iron and Steel Works in Pitts- burg; and Dr. Andrew J. Barchfeld, who is the youngest of the family. The mother died June 16, 1879. The father, who had quite a reputation as an accountant on the South Side, was the secretary of eight building and loan associations.
After receiving his knowledge of the rudi- ments in the public schools of the South Side, Andrew Jackson Barchfeld was prepared for the high school by a private tutor. After graduating in 1881, he took up the study of
medicine with the late Dr. E. A. Wood, a renowned surgeon of his time, and subse- quently graduated from the Jefferson Medical College at Philadelphia in 1884. Having taken his hospital course between his second and third years of college work, he began practice in the South Side immediately after graduation. Here he has since built up a large general practice in medicine and sur- gery. During the past two years a partner, Dr. Lehner, has shared his labors and his suc- cesses among the best people of the vicinity. The Doctor is a member of the Pittsburg medical society, of the Allegheny County Society, and of the State and national medical associations. He is also connected with the Peter Fritz Lodge, I. O. O. F., of which he is Past Grand Master, and with the encampment. He has been county coroner's physician for many years past, and also has held the posi- tion of city physician. In May, 1885, he married Miss Anna Pfeiffer, daughter of Philip Pfeiffer, of this city; and he has one son, Elmer A. Barchfeld.
Outside his professional sphere, since 1884, the Doctor has taken an active part in the Re- publican politics of his ward. In 1885 he was elected a member of the School Board, in which capacity he served for three years. The year 1886 found him a member of the City Council for the Twenty-sixth Ward and serving on the Committee on Railroads. After spending a second term in the Council, he declined further renomination. In this term he was successful in passing the ordi- nance to locate the new Baltimore & Ohio Railroad depot on ground previously used for a stone-yard, and from which the city had received no revenue, defeating the machine ring, and obtaining for the city a permanent addition of three thousand dollars to its yearly income. Afterward, in 1888, 1892, and
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1896, when he was the Republican candidate for the Senatorial nomination, he was defeated by the influences he had worsted in the Coun- cil, aided by the unfortunate system of dele- gates that the rules of the Republican party called for. It is, however, believed that on each occasion the Doctor received over one thousand majority in the district. In the past few years and especially throughout the Mc- Kinley campaign he has been one of the prominent speakers in the city. For the past ten years he has been a firm and consistent supporter of Senator Quay. He was delegate in 1886 to the State convention that nomi- nated General Beaver for Governor, and in 1894 he was a delegate in the convention that nominated Governor Hastings. He has been chairman of the city convention at three different times when the nomination of Jo- seph Dennison for City Treasurer was de- clared, and he ably discharged the important duties of that office at various other times in the history of the city. Dr. Barchfeld is president of the company engaged in publish- ing The South Pittsburger, to which he contributes strong and fearless articles oppos- ing the reigning political machine. He is also a member of the South Side Board of Trade, a stockholder in the different insurance companies of the city, and he is largely inter- ested in the invention recently put upon the market, the American cotton-picker.
AMUEL HAMILTON, A.M., Su- perintendent of the Schools of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, was born in Washington County, in this State, June 30, 1856, the fourth son of Sam- uel and Mary Patterson Hamilton. His father, who was of Scotch-Irish stock, and was the son of an early settler in Washington
County, was born there, August 13, 1807. He was a man of fine literary tastes, and early in life he travelled extensively in Europe. While abroad he married Miss Mary, daughter of Cairnes Patterson, of Donegal, Ireland; and, after spending some time in Europe, he brought his young wife to Washington County, Pennsylvania, where they located per- manently.
Eight children were born to them, as fol- lows: October 7, 1850, John P. and Sarah Catherine, twins; April 14, 1852, James Steele; May 31, 1853, William Cairnes; June 30, 1856, Samuel, the subject of our sketch; October 29, 1858, Jane, widow of the late Jacob A. Alter, of Plum township, Allegheny County, Pa. ; March 28, 1861, Elizabeth, wife of D. B. Kuhn, of the same township and county; and on May 3, 1863, George Marshall. Too old to be drafted into service, the father as a volunteer raised a com- pany, and went out during the latter part of the war of the Rebellion.
About the close of the conflict he purchased a small farm in Plum township, Allegheny County, Pa. Not long after the family moved to their new home, the father died, leaving a wife with seven children. They were mem- bers of the Presbyterian church, of which the father had been an Elder.
For some time after the death of his father the subject of this sketch worked on his mother's farm and on other farms near by. By close application to his studies at home and in the township school he fitted himself for the teacher's profession, and at the age of sixteen entered upon his career as a teacher in the school that he had attended as a pupil. While teaching he pursued his studies with private tutors, and during the vacations at- tended the academy in the neighborhood. In this way he earned sufficient money to enable
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him to take a course in Laird Institute, where he completed his education in 1877. In 1878 he took charge of the schools of Chartiers Borough, now Carnegie, Pa. After spending three years in this position, he resigned it to accept a similar one in the town of Braddock, Pa. While supervising these schools he studied law with James McF. Carpenter, of Pittsburg, but never entered upon its practice, preferring to give his attention to educational work.
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