USA > Pennsylvania > Cumberland County > Centennial biography : Men of mark of Cumberland Valley, Pa., 1776-1876 > Part 32
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But this did not satisfy his love of labour. He was during this period President of the Cumberland Valley Railroad and continued in that office, discharging faithfully all its duties for twenty-six years. To his professional duties and those connected with the railroad, he added (what was always with him a labour of love) constant activity in agri- cultural pursuits, not only managing his farms, but as President of the Cumberland County Agricultural Society and an active projector of the Agricultural College of Pennsylvania, furthering the general agricultural interests of his county and State.
Judge Watts was born in Carlisle, May 9th, ISO1, and is a son of David Watts, one of the most distinguished lawyers of his day, whose practice extended through all the middle counties of the State. His mother was a daughter of General Miller, of Revolutionary fame, who afterwards commanded the United States troops at Baltimore, during
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the War of 1812. Ilis grandfather, Frederick Watts, was a member of the Executive Council of Pennsylvania, before the Revolution, and one of the prominent men of the province and subsequent State. Having been duly prepared, he entered Dickinson College, whence he graduated in 1819, and passed the two subsequent years with his uncle, William Miles, in Erie county, where he cultivated his taste for agricultural pursuits. In 1821, he returned to Carlisle and entered the office of Andrew Carothers, Esq., as a law student, was admitted to practice in August, 1824, became a partner of his preceptor and soon acquired a large and lucrative practice. In 1829, he and the Hon. C. B. Penrose, became reporters of the decisions of the Supreme Court, and they published three volumes, after which Judge Watts became sole reporter, and published ten volumes, and subsequent thereto, he and Henry J. Sergeant, Esq., published nine volumes. In 1845 he ceased reporting, and the same year became President of the Cumberland Valley Railroad. It is to his energy and able manage- ment that the people of the valley are indebted for a road which, when he took hold of it, was in debt, out of repair, unproductive, and in a dilapidated condition, but which, through his energetic and economical management, has been brought up to a high state of prosperity, having paid all its indebtedness and caused it to yield handsome returns to its stockholders.
On the 9th of March, 1849, he was commissioned by Governor Johnston, President Judge of the Ninth Judicial District, composed of the counties of Cumberland, Perry and Juniata. He retained the office until the Judiciary became elective, in 1852, when he resumed his practice. In 1854, he exerted all his influence and energy in favour of the Agricultural College of Pennsylvania, and upon its organization was elected President of the Board of Trustees, in which capacity he still acts. During the year 1854. he also projected the erection of gas and water works for Carlisle, and having formed a company, was elected its President, and remained such until its success was assured.
If asked for his most prominent characteristics, we would say, force of character and abiding self confidence. Whatever he undertook he did with all his might, and whatever he believed, he believed implicitly. He never sat down at the counsel table to try a case, that he did not impress the court and jury that he had perfect confidence that he would gain it; and if fortune did not seem to favour him, he never desisted until it was disposed of by the court of last resort. His temper was completely within his control. Ilis equanimity was perfect, and he was ever ready to avail himself of any slip of his adversary. He had great
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powers of concentration, and always prepared his law points at the counsel table as soon as the evidence was closed. This he did with great facility, always directing them to the main points of the case. His power with the jury was very great. He knew and was known by every man in the counties where he practised, and was regarded as a man of large intellect, sterling integrity and unblemished honour. To these he added the impression of perfect belief in the justice of his cause ; and this was effected by a manner which was always dignified, and in speech that was clear, strong, convincing and never tedious. He despised quirks and quibbles, was a model of fairness in the trial of a cause, and always encouraged and treated kindly younger mem- bers of the bar that he saw struggling honourably for prominence ; and when he closed his professional career, he left the bar with the profound respect of all its members.
In 1860, Judge Watts removed to one of his farms, at some distance from town, and gradually withdrew from active practice, intending to devote his whole time to agricultural pursuits. In 1871, he was ten- dered the appointment of Commissioner of Agriculture, which he declined. The offer was renewed and he was finally induced to accept the appointment, and entered upon its duties, August ist, 1871. He has ever since devoted himself assiduously to the practical develop- ment of the agricultural resources of the country. An admirable system pervades his department, and the three divisions are so ar- ranged, that the most detailed and accurate information can be obtained with the greatest facility.
The country has not in its employ a more industrious, honest, faith- ful, and large hearted servant.
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HON. THOMAS GRUBB MCCULLOH.
O name is remembered with warmer admiration by the people of Franklin county, than that of Thomas Grubb McCulloh, whose fame as the great lawyer was the pride of his com munity. He was born in Greencastle, on the 20th day of April, 1785. His grandfather, George McCulloh, born about 1710, at Killibegs, in the county of Donegal, Ireland, came to the American Colonies in 1728. settled in Lancaster county, and died in Little Britain, in that county, in 1806 or 1807. His father, Robert, was the eldest son of George, and was born in 1750. On the maternal side, he was a descendant of Thomas Grubb, whose father was one of the earliest emigrants from England to this country, coming over with William Penn. Thomas Grubb settled in Lancaster county, and his oldest daughter, Prudence. was united in marriage with Robert McCulloh, the father of the subject of this sketch, in 1778. About this time Robert McCulloh removed to Franklin county, where all his children were born.
Thomas G. McCulloh was educated in Greencastle, under the tuition of Mr. Borland, who afterwards became a very eminent Professor in a literary institution, in the state of New York. He studied law in Chambersburg, under Andrew Dunlop, one of the most distinguished lawyers of Pennsylvania, and was admitted to the bar in ISo4 or 1805 : and was married on the ist of September, ISO8, to Margaret Purviance. He practised law in Chambersburg about forty-three years, during part of which period he attended the courts of Bedford county, and was frequently called upon to try causes in other parts of the state, going as far as Pittsburgh even, being retained as counsel in important land suits, in which class of cases he had great celebrity. The reports of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania furnish ample evidence of his immense practice, and bear convincing proof of his renown as a lawyer.
In 1821, he was elected to Congress, and during his service there his wife died suddenly, 26th February, 1821. For five or six terms, he represented his county in the House of Representatives of Pennsyl- vania, and was mainly instrumental with his colleague, James Dunlop. Esq., son of his preceptor, Andrew Dunlop, in having the Cumberland Valley Railroad extended to Chambersburg. He was the first Presi-
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dent of this road, but resigned a few years before his death. At the time of his decease. he was President of the Bank of Chambersburg.
Thomas G. McCulloh was not only prominent as a lawyer, but he was a man of varied information, capable of discussing almost any subject brought before him. He was well versed in agricultural pur- suits, and very attentive to the improvement of his farms, of which he had, at times, two or three. A man of public spirit and enterprise, he was always willing to lend a helping hand to all public improvements in his town or county.
To the day of his death he was a close student, reading works upon all subjects, particularly those of a legal character. He had a large, well selected library, miscellaneous and professional, and was constantly adding to its volumes.
When the first drum beat for volunteers to repel the British invasion of Baltimore, he stepped from his office into the ranks of the recruiting party, and marched with the company to the threatened city. When the regiment was formed he was appointed its Quartermaster. He took charge of the Franklin Repository, and edited it while its cele- brated editor, Mr. Geo. K. Harper, was absent with the army, on the northern frontiers. He died at Chambersburg, September 10th, 1848.
Mr. McCulloh was always popular with the members of the bar, not only on account of his unusual legal attainments, but for his profes- sional courtesy, which was especially extended to its junior members. As a public speaker he was not fluent, but was clear and logical, and his manner of speaking was of a conversational character, carrying great weight with juries. He wrote with skill and force. It is tradi- tional that he was singularly independent of the stereotyped formulas of legal documents, and that his brief papers were remarkably pointed and unassailable. He has left behind him the reputation of being one of the ablest jurists of his day. His manners were exceedingly plain and popular, and he was always a favourite of his fellow citizens.
PATRICK ALLISON, D. D.
ATRICK ALLISON was born in Franklin (or what was then known as Lancaster) county, in the year 1740. His father. William Allison, immigrated to this part of Pennsylvania, early in the eighteenth century, from the north of Ireland. He was born in 1696, and died at his home in Franklin county, in the year 1778. His oldest son, John, inherited a large estate and on part of it laid out the town of Greencastle. William, the youngest son, lived and died on the paternal farm, and for many years exhibited the old house, so replete with ancient memories of border life.
Patrick Allison graduated at the University of Pennsylvania, in 1760. HIe commenced his theological studies shortly after he left the Univer- sity, but in 1761 was appointed Professor in the Academy at Newark, Delaware, which office he accepted. He was licensed to preach by the Second Presbytery of Philadelphia, in March, 1763. In August of that year, he was invited to a church in Baltimore. He was ordained in Philadelphia, by the same Presbytery that licensed him, in 1765, but does not appear to have been ever installed in Baltimore, though he was always regarded as the pastor, during the long period (thirty-five years) that he continued to serve the congregation.
Mr. Allisc : received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from the University of Pennsylvania, in 1782.
Dr. Allison was married in March, 1787, to Wellary, daughter of William Buchanan, a gentleman who distinguished himself by his civil services during the War of the Revolution. She survived him about twenty years. He left an only child, a daughter, who intermarried with Mr. George L. Brown, and died in 1849, leaving six children.
" Dr. Allison's personal appearance," says Robert Purviance, Esq., of Baltimore : "was high, commanding and impressive. He was of about the medium height, and in every way well proportioned. His manners combined grace with dignity in an uncommon degree, so as to invite confidence on the one hand, and to repel all undue familiarity on the other. While there was nothing about him that savoured of ostentation, there was always that genuine self-respect, that considerate regard to circumstances, that cautious forbearance to give unnecessary pain, which never fail to secure to an individual a deferential respect from all with whom he associates. His moral character was entirely above reproach. Accustomed, of course, to move in the highest circles
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of society, he never forgot the sacredness of his calling, while yet he was a highly entertaining and agrecable companion. As he was him- self remarkable for propriety of speech, he would never tolerate gross improprieties in others, no matter what might be their standing in society, and if an expression bordering on profaneness, or even indecent levity, were uttered in his hearing, it was very sure to meet with a deserved rebuke. His intellectual character was universally acknowledged to be of a very high order. His early opportunities for the culture of his mind were among the best which the country then afforded, and these diligently improved, in connection with his fine natural powers, rendered him decidedly eminent even among the greater minds of his profession. He was always a diligent student, and his studies, instead of being strictly professional, took a wide range. He was an elegant Belles Lettres scholar, and was very familiar with both ancient and modern history.
"The versification of Pope, and the chaste beauties of Addison, had great attractions for him, and I rather think that the style of Robertson, the historian, was the model on which he formed his own. His power of mental abstraction is said to have been so remarkable, that he experienced no interruption in the composition of a sermon by the presence and conversation of company. In the delivery of his sermons he always had his manuscript before him, and though his manner could not be said to be attractive to a stranger, yet to those who were accus- tomed to it, it was very agreeable. His discourses were generally didactic, often profoundly argumentative. I once heard an Episcopal clergyman of some note expressing rather a low estimate of some of the ministers of the day, but of Dr. Allison he remarked with empha- sis, 'He was a man of matter!' He was especially eminent in the judicatories of the church, and in all public bodies, being possessed of great penetration, the utmost self-control, and an admirable command of thought and language, the most appropriate and elegant. I remem- ber to have heard that Dr. Samuel Stanhope Smith, then President of Princeton College, remarked to a gentleman of our city, . Dr. Allison is decidedly the ablest statesman we have in the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church.' And the late Dr. Miller, of Princeton, has left behind him a similar testimony."
Dr. Allison died August 21st, 1802, aged about sixty-two. His great aversion to appearing as an author induced him to leave, as one of his dying injunctions, that all his manuscript sermons should be com- mitted to the flames; otherwise, doubtless, there might have been a selection made from them for the press, which would have done honour to our American pulpit.
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JOSEPH POMEROY.
OSEPH POMEROY, merchant, banker and politician, was born in Lurgan township, Franklin county, Pa., October 18th, 1804. Educationally his advantages were only such as the common schools of the district afforded. While a mere boy, he was placed in a store at Shippensburg, Pa., where he acquired a thorough knowledge of country business. Shortly after attaining his majority -- that is, in 1826-he commenced business on his own account at Con- cord, Franklin county, Pa., continuing the same for twenty-five years, and becoming, in 1841, associated with William R. and John M. Pomeroy in a steam tannery at the same place. In April. 1851, he removed to Juniata county, where he had previously acquired consider- able property, and where he resided until his death, conducting a very large business in merchandising, tanning, milling and farming.
In 1867, he was elected President of the Juniata Valley Bank, Mifflintown. He devoted considerable attention to politics, and was the recipient of several marked tokens of favour from his party -- the Republican. In 1831, he was elected to the State Legislature as Representative from Franklin county; in 1861, Associate Judge of Juniata county, being the only successful nominee on the Republican ticket ; and in 1872, the Representative of his Congressional District in the National Republican Convention, held in Philadelphia, in June of that year. Judge Pomeroy was a man of extraordinary enterprise and energy, of firm convictions and great tenacity of purpose, com- bincd with strong common sense, good judgment and excellent address. To these qualities his success in life, which was without interruption. was wholly due, for he commenced with limited means and only such friends as his talents and character had won.
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HON. HENRY M. WATTS.
ENRY MILLER WATTS, late Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Austria, was born on the roth day of October, A. D., 1805, in the borough of Carlisle, Pennsyl- vania. He cannot boast, as many justly do, of being a self-made man, having, under the Providence of God, derived his being from a most respectable and well-known parentage, able and ready to afford him all the advantages of education, wealth and position.
Frederick Watts, his grandfather, was an emigrant from Great Britain during our provincial days, and settled in Cumberland county. Pennsylvania, having previously married Jane Murray, of the lineage of David Murray, famous in the days of the Pretender. In the War of the Revolution he held the commission of a General, and was also a member of the Executive Council of Pennsylvania.
General Henry Miller was his maternal grandfather, and from him the subject of our sketch derived his name. When a Lieutenant, he organized a company in the borough of York, and marched it to Boston, where, as the only body of men from a section south of the Hudson, it participated in the skirmishes and battles with the British on Breed's and Bunker's Hills. His wife was Ursula Rose, one of the daughters of Joseph Rose, of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who was called to the bar in Dublin, Ireland, as a barrister, and emigrated eventually to the United States.
General Miller was an active partisan officer during the Revolution- ary War; was on intimate and confidential relations with General Washington and Colonel Hamilton; belonged to the Cincinnati Society, and during the course of his life held several civil offices under the Federal party. He died poor.
David Watts, the father, and only son of Frederick Watts, was a graduate of Dickinson College, during the presidency of the Rev. Charles Nisbet, D. D. He studied law in the office of William Lewis, and after his admission to the bar, began the practice of his profession in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He was profound in classical lore, eminent as a lawyer, and distinguished in the wide circuit of his practice at the bar.
Henry Miller Watts, favoured with an ancestry so honourable, was carefully trained in the best schools; graduated at Dickinson College
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in 1824 ; studied law in Carlisle in the office of Andrew Carothers, who had been a pupil of his deceased father; was admitted to the bar as Attorney at Law, and removed to the city of Pittsburgh, and within a : year thereafter, was commissioned as Deputy Attorney General of the State of Pennsylvania. This office he held under two successive Attorneys General, and then relinquished it for more general practice. His legal career, amidst many of the most eminent of the profession, was a rising one, and soon brought him distinction, and with it the confidence of the people.
In 1835, at the carnest solicitation of the electors of Allegheny county, he consented to represent that district in the popular branch of the State Legislature. He continued to serve for three successive terms, until in 1838, having married Anna Maria, second daughter of the late Dr. Peter Shoenberger, he determined to withdraw from the arena of politics and to remove with his family to Philadelphia, and there follow the more serene and congenial occupation of a lawyer. The period of three years, during which he represented his constitu- ency, was distinguished by events of great public importance; the foundations of the system of canals and railways were laid ; education by means of common schools was instituted ; the Bank of the United States was re-chartered ; there was made the first serious assault upon the existence of slavery in sister states by advocating the right of trial by jury of fugitive slaves; and the charitable institutions, which now redound so much to the credit of the great State of Pennsylvania, were enlarged and strengthened.
In 1841, induced by the position and reputation of Mr. Watts, President Harrison conferred upon him the office of Attorney of the United States for the Eastern District of the State of Pennsylvania, in which position he was duly confirmed by the Senate of the United States. He fulfilled the duties of this office to the entire satisfaction of the Government until the end of the term.
The incidents of a lawyer's life-devoted to his clients, wear and tear of mental and physical powers, an income too often inferior to his expenditures, and a disagreeable monotony-became in time irksome to Mr. Watts, until, weary of the practice of the law, in 1857 he crossed the Atlantic with his family for the purpose of educating his children, then eight in number, in the elementary schools of Paris.
Soon after the outbreak of the great American conflict, Mr. Watts became one of the founders of the Union Club of Philadelphia, an asso- ciation of fifty patriotic gentlemen, who, in the darkest day of the war, about the close of the year 1862, determined to meet alternately at their
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respective homes in a social circle, in order to knit each other's hearts more closely in the holy cause of perpetuating the Union-the only condition of membership being unqualified loyalty to the United States. At a meeting of the Club in January, 1863, the articles of the associa- tion of the Union League of Philadelphia were submitted, duly con- sidered, and subscribed by all present.
It was composed of nearly two thousand wealthy and influential citizens; was distinguished for its carnestness in the cause of the Union ; for its liberality in the raising and equipping of several regi- ments for the war ; and for the power it exercised in stimulating the whole country to active exertion. It still exists as a political and social organization, being incorporated by the laws of the Commonwealth.
In 1863, he took his eldest sons to Dresden, in Saxony, that they might enjoy the advantages of education to be derived in that metro- polis of literature, and having acquired a knowledge of the German language, to become students in the School of Mines and Engineering located in that neighbourhood.
Mr. Watts devoted his time and talents, and made large contribu- tions of money in behalf of the Union. Before the close of the war, he revisited Europe, and spent much of his time in the cities of Frank- fort-on-the-Maine, Dresden, and Berlin.
After a sojourn of about eighteen months, Mr. Watts returned to Philadelphia, anticipating to quietly pass in that city the remainder of his life. Yielding, however, either to the promptings of a restless ambition, a taste for European habits, or to the wishes of his friends- perhaps to all combined-he accepted the honour of Envoy Extra- ordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Empire of Austria. Accordingly, in August of 1868, President Johnson, with the unanimous consent of the Senate of the United States, forwarded to him his commission and letters of instruction.
Under the peculiar circumstances of this appointment, (with which the public mind is still familiar,) this testimonial of respect and confi- dence was very grateful to the recipient. His predecessor, the Hon- ourable J. Lothrop Motley, had been recalled, much against the sense of propriety on the part of his numerous friends, upon some unfounded charges preferred against him by a certain McCracken, an epistolary myth.
The period at which Mr. Watts was accredited to Austria was unusually propitious. Our civil war was ended; the battle fields at home, and the signal naval victory in the British Channel, had falsified the confident predictions of European powers that our Union was a
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rope of sand, and incapable of the least strain. An American could now enter the courts of Emperors, Kings, and Potentates in simple costume, with the firm assurance of a man entitled to the highest respect.
Whilst Mr. Watts was engaged in faithfully discharging the duties to which he had been called, the unexpected announcement of the purpose of the President to send another Minister to Vienna, led to the following correspondence :
VIENNA, May 12th, 1869.
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