Commemorative biographical record of central Pennsylvania : including the counties of Centre, Clearfield, Jefferson and Clarion, Pt. 1, Part 9

Author: J.H. Beers & Co
Publication date: 1898
Publisher: Chicago : J. H. Beers
Number of Pages: 1358

USA > Pennsylvania > Jefferson County > Commemorative biographical record of central Pennsylvania : including the counties of Centre, Clearfield, Jefferson and Clarion, Pt. 1 > Part 9
USA > Pennsylvania > Centre County > Commemorative biographical record of central Pennsylvania : including the counties of Centre, Clearfield, Jefferson and Clarion, Pt. 1 > Part 9
USA > Pennsylvania > Clarion County > Commemorative biographical record of central Pennsylvania : including the counties of Centre, Clearfield, Jefferson and Clarion, Pt. 1 > Part 9
USA > Pennsylvania > Clearfield County > Commemorative biographical record of central Pennsylvania : including the counties of Centre, Clearfield, Jefferson and Clarion, Pt. 1 > Part 9

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In an address delivered in 1894, Wm. Pep- per. M. D., LL. D., said:

I feel that it is impossible to let such a day as this pass without some word of tribute, such as I as an outsider might fitly speak, of what President Atherton has done for this place, and for the people of Pennsylvania. Twelve years ago, in 1882, State College had thirty-four students in the cal- lege classes, one building on this campus, and a very un- savory reputation. To-day, after twelve short years of vig-

orous administration, we see this fine group of buildings, we know there are three hundred students in attendance, that the curriculum has been enlarged, and the standard greatly raised, and that all over the State thoughtful men and women are turning their eyes to this College as one where excellent educational results are secured.

The Faculty and Instructors in 1897-98 are: George W. Atherton, LL.D., president, profes- sor of political and social science; William A. Buckhout, M. S., professor of botany and horti- culture: I. Thornton Osmond, M. S., M. A., pro- fessor of physics; Harriet A. McElwain, M. A .. lady principal, professor of history; Louis E. Reber, M. S., professor of mechanics and me- chanical engineering; William Frear, Ph. D .. professor of agricultural chemistry; George Gil- bert Pond, M. A., Ph. D., professor of chemis- try; Henry P. Armsby, Ph. D., lecturer on stock feeding; Henry T. Fernald, M. S., Ph. D., pro- fessor of zoology; Benjamin Gill, M. A., profes- sor of Greek and Latin; Magnus C. Ihlseng, E. M., C. E., Ph. D., professor of mining engi- neering and geology; John Price Jackson, B. S., M. E., professor of electrical engineering; Fred E. Foss, B. S., M. A., professor of civil engi- neering; Joseph M. Willard, B. A., professor of mathematics; Fred Lewis Pattee, M. A., profes- sor of English and rhetoric; George C. Watson, B. Agr., M. S., professor of agriculture; Law- rence M. Colfelt, D. D., preacher to the College, professor of ethics; Martin G. Benedict, M. A., Ph. D., professor of pedagogics, in charge of sub-

freshman class; Daniel C. Pearson. Captain 2d Cavalry, U. S. A., professor of military science and tactics; George C. Butz, M. S., assistant professor of horticulture; Harry H. Stoek, B. S .. E. M., assistant professor of mining engineering and metallurgy; Madison M. Garver, B. S., as- sistant professor of physics; Franklin E. Tuttle, M. A., Ph. D., assistant professor of chemistry: William Mason Towle, B. S., assistant professor of practical mechanics; Erwin W. Runkle, M. A., Ph. D., assistant professor of psychology and ethics; Joseph H. Tudor, C. E., M. S., assistant professor of mathematics; Thomas C. Hopkins. M. S., M. A., assistant professor of geology; Car! D. Fehr, M. A., assistant professor of German; Harry K. Monroe, M. A., assistant professor of English; T. Raymond Beyer. B. S., C. E., as- sistant professor of civil engineering; Charles L. Griffin, B. S., assistant professor of machine de- sign; Silvanus B. Newton, A. B., M. D., director of physical education; Anna E. Redifer, instructor in industrial art and design; Herbert E. Dunkle. B. S., M. E., instructor in mechanical drawing; John A. Hunter, Jr., B. S., M. E., instructor in mechanical engineering; Henry A. Lardner, B. S., E. E., instructor in electrical engineering; Harry

COMMEMORATIVE BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

Hayward, B. S., instructor in dairy husbandry; John H. Leete, B. A., instructor in mathematics; Irving L. Foster, M. A., instructor in the romance languages; Francis J. Pond, M. A., Ph. D., in- structor in assaying; Walter J. Keith, M. A., Ph. D .. instructor in chemistry; Paul B. Breneman, B. S., instructor in civil engineering; Thomas H. Taliaferro, C. E., Ph. D., instructor in mathe- matics; F. H. Greenwood, B. S., instructor in practical mechanics; Budd Frankinfield, B. S., E. E., instructor in electrical engineering: Lloyd A. Reed, B. S., assistant in the electrical labor- atories; Warren P. Smiley, B. S., assistant in the chemical laboratories.

Other Officers-Helen M. Bradley, libra- rian; Clara Dayton Wyman, in charge of music; Anna Adams McDonald, assistant librarian.

AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION .- Of- ficers and Assistants. The President of the College; Henry Prentiss Armsby, Ph. D., direct- or; William Frear, Ph. D., vice-director and chemist; William A. Buckhout, M. S., botanist; George C. Butz, M. S., horticulturist; George C. Watson, M. S., agriculturist; William C. Pat- terson, superintendent of farm; Miss Julia C. Gray, secretary; William S. Sweetser, B. S., J. August Fries, Milton E. McDonnell, M. S., Charles Albert Browne, Jr., M. A., and Cassius W. Norris, assistant chemists; Harry Hayward, B. S., instructor in dairy husbandry; Enos H. Hess, assistant to the director; Miss Minnie Edith Gray, stenographer.

J UDGE ADAM HOY (deceased), late a dis- tinguished citizen of Bellefonte, and member of the Centre County Bar, was a native of the county, born in Spring township, September 6, 1827.

George Hoy, the grandfather of the Judge, came into what is now Centre county, near the close of the eighteenth century, and in connec- tion with a brother, Charles, purchased (jointly) 400 acres of land, dividing it equally. His birth occurred September 10, 1773, and his death on April 16, 1863. Of his twelve children, Albert, who married Magdala Weckerly, was the father of our subject. When but four years of age, the latter was sent to school, his first teacher being George Padget, a noted teacher of sixty years' experience in Buffalo and Penn's Valleys, and who then held school in Swartz' school house, on the Eckenrode place, in Spring township. In 1851-52 he attended the Mifflinburg Academy, and from there went to Airy View, near Perry- ville, to the academy kept by David Wilson. In the fall of 1854 he entered the sophomore class

in Pennsylvania College, Gettysburg, and was graduated in 1856. He read law with the late Hon. H. N. McAllister, and was admitted to the Bar April 27, 1858. Upon the invitation of the late Judge J. T. Hale, Mr. Hoy occupied a room in his law office, and became more or less asso- ciated with the Judge in his extensive business up to the death of the latter. He was appointed president judge of the district in 1883, by Gov. Pattison, which position he held with great credit until January, 1885, when he was succeeded by Judge Furst.

During the Civil war Judge Hoy acted with the Republican party, but shortly after its ter- mination he joined the Democratic party, and up to the time of his death he was an active and in- fluential member of that party. In 1873, and again in 1876, he was a candidate for the Senate, but failed to procure the nomination. In 1884 he was the Democratic nominee for president judge, but was defeated in consequence of local dissensions and political complications in the Congressional District. He bore his defeat man- fully, and the faithful and earnest manner in which he fulfilled the duties of chairman of the Democratic County Committee, to which he was elected the year following his defeat, proved how devoted he was to the principles he espoused, and how true to the cause he advocated. His death occurred August 23, 1887. "As a lawyer, Judge Hoy had few, if any, superiors at the Bar; as a judge, he was cool, fair, and fearless, and won the respect of all by the conscientious, able and impartial manner in which he discharged the duties of the position; as a citizen, he was large-hearted, liberal and progressive, and as a neighbor, he was kind and obliging to a fault. He was a consistent and active member of the Presbyterian Church, and a trusty, good man; one whose work and actions in life would make a worthy example for others to follow."

On December 26th, 1865, Judge Hoy was married to Miss Louisa M., daughter of the late James D. Harris. He left, surviving him, his widow and seven children, namely: Anna H., Mary, Albert, Louise, J. Harris, Edward L. and Randolph Hale.

H TON. FREDERICK KURTZ was born in York, Penn., December 28, 1833, and came from there to Aaronsburg in the fall of 1846. After conducting the Centre Berichter for upward of ten years, he removed to Centre Hall. Here he established the Centre Reporter on the ist of April, 1868. From the start Mr. Kurtz conducted the business of his office in business

COMMEMORATIVE BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

style, editing its columns with vigor and to the best interests of his party, and diversifying his reading-matter with more original matter than is contained in the majority of inland journals.

Success has crowned his efforts, and the Reporter is now one of the largest of the county papers, and is a dominant factor in county poli- tics. Mr. Kurtz has at all times stimulated public enterprise, and is the embodiment of a go-ahead man. He was elected to the Legisla- ture in 1866 over Gen. James A. Beaver, and re- elected in 1867 by a largely increased majority, and the highest vote upon the Democratic ticket. His record as a legislator was unsullied, and rendered him still more popular among his con- stituents. Among other indications of this is the fact that at a public meeting of the citizens of the county, irrespective of party, held at Belle- fonte in the winter of 1867, his course in oppo- sition to the railroad monopoly was heartily in- dorsed by Hon. H. N. McAllister and other leading citizens. It is to the credit, too, of Mr. Kurtz that he was one of the hardest and most earnest workers for railroad facilities for Penn's Valley, devoting days and weeks canvassing for subscriptions, and giving the enterprise continued editorial support, while he was also one of the most liberal subscribers for the stock.

Mr. Kurtz always has taken high ground in support of educational interests, especially advo- cating the establishment of teachers' institutes, and speaking on that behalf at various points in the Valley. He served some twelve years as a school director. For over a dozen years he was president of the joint council of the Lutheran charge; for about sixteen consecutive years he has been elected president of the Farmers' Mutual Fire Insurance Co., of Centre county; for some twenty-six years has been president of the Centre Hall Water Co .; was chairman of the building coinmittee in the erection of the handsome Luth- eran church building at Centre Hall, and for nearly ten years has been an elder in that Society-all of which positions he has filled with characteristic zeal and efficiency. Centre Hall is also indebted to him for the reconstruction of its water-works, and change of the wooden pipes to iron pipes of the best modern style, and he has added to the improvement of the town itself a large roller flouring-mill and five dwel- lings. Moreover, the beautiful little town owes much of its reputation abroad to the columns of the Reporter, through which its exceedingly healthful location has become far famed.

On January 26, 1861, Mr. Kurtz married Miss Anne Harter, who was born September 6, 1835, daughter of William Harter, of near Aaronsburg,

and children as follows were born to them: Will- iam L., April 12, '1862; Charles R., October 31, 1864, John F., May 23, 1868; George W., March 21, 1874 .-

UDGE DANIEL RHOADS. On one of the elevated points adjacent to the mountain town of Bellefonte, Centre county, is the lit- tle burying ground of the Society of Friends, in which rest the remains of "one of the grandest characters that ever lived anywhere," those of Daniel Rhoads, whose grave is marked by a plain granite slab, on which is the simple inscription: "Daniel Rhoads, born 9th month, 25th, 1821,

Died 3d month, 11th, 1893."

Encircling the inscription and climbing about the stone are sprigs of ivy, while the family lot is a plain grassy sward under the shadow of one of Nature's grandest forest trees; the picture pre- sented, suggested, as we stood by the grave, the thought of how like the life and taste of him who rested there.

The Rhoads family is a most historical and interesting one in both this and the Mother coun- try. For upward of two hundred years the fam- ily have lived in Philadelphia, the old homestead now at Haddington, in the 28th ward, being still in the possession of the family, occupied by the eighth generation. The progenitor of the family here in America was John Rhoads (1), who came over from Derbyshire, England, in 1687. How- ever, previous to this two of his sons-John (2) and Adam-had preceded him a number of years, being contemporaries with William Penn. John (1) was the son of Sir Francis Rodes II, whose grandfather. the first Sir Francis, built, in 1583, Barlborough Hall, in Derbyshire, England. the palatial, castle-like home of the family. Barl- borough Hall is situated in the parish of the same name in Derbyshire. The village of Barl- borough is on the estate which is on the verge of the county southeast of Sheffield and northeast of Chesterfield. James P. Pilkington, in " Pres- ent State of Derbyshire," 1789, writes:

Barlborough Hall is a handsome mansion of the age of Elizabeth; the inside has been modernized, but the principal front retains its original appearance [still the same in 1884]. having projecting bows terminating in octagon embattled turrets and large transom windows with very small panes set in lead. In the space between the first and second stories in the fronts of the octagonal turrets are busts of Sir Francis Rodes and his wife in bas-relief.

Anna V. Bailey, a cousin of Daniel Rhoads, who visited Barlborough Hall in 1884. thus alluded to the place:

The grounds are very picturesque, noble trees scattered profusely, and groves in the distance The house is approached by beautiful avenues of limes or lindens, a quarter of mile in length, very ancient and grand-looking trees. The De Rodes

COMMEMORATIVE BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

arms are over the great front door, and the forearm with the oak branch and clusters of acorns beautifully carved in sev- eral places around the house. The drawing room, a very spacious square room, filled with paintings, busts, portraits, etc., contains a very magnificent stone chimney-piece, origi- nally in " the great chamber;" it is enriched with fluted Doric pillars supporting statues of Justice and Religion, and coats of arms and various articles in bas-relief. In this room is an immense stained-glass window, very rich in color and design, divided in small, octagonal panes, each pane con- taining the name and crest of the different families with whom the Rodes had intermarried. There are hundreds of old miniatures done on ivory, very antique, a magnificent col- lection of old china, said to be the finest in Derbyshire, con- tained in beautifully inlaid antique cabinets, also very richly inlaid tables. The furniture of this room is covered with very old Gobelin tapestry, of mythological subjects, and the curtains are of rich, wine-colored velvet, with strips of tapes- try down the fronts. The buff coat and sword of Sir Francis Rodes, worn in the time of Charles I, are preserved in this house. They are engraved in Groses' Ancient Armor, Plate XXXIX, as are also the armor, breast-plates, helmets, gaunt- lets, sword-proof coats of heavy chamois skin, lances, spears, swords, etc., contained in the great hall.

Washington Irving writes:

I had been passing a merry Christmas in the good old style at Barlboro' Hall, a venerable family mansion in Derby- shire, and set off to finish the holidays with the hospitable proprietor of Newstead Abbey. A drive of seventeen miles through a pleasant country, part of it the storied region of Sherwood Forest, brought me to the gate of Newstead Park. During my recent sojourn at Barlboro' Hall, on the skirts of Derbyshire and Yorkshire, I had witnessed many of the rus- tic festivites peculiar to that joyous season, which have rashly been pronounced obsolete by those who draw their experi- ence merely from city life. I had seen the great Yule log put on the fire on Christmas Eve, and the wassail bowl sent round brimming with its spicy beverage. I had heard carols beneath my window by the choristers of the neighboring vil- lage, who went their rounds about the ancient hall at mid- night, according to immemorial custom. We had mummers and mimers, too, with the story of St. George and the Dragon, and other ballads and traditional dialogues, together with the famous old interlude of the Hobby Horse, all represented in the ante-chamber and servants' hall by rustics who inher- ited the custom and the poetry from preceding generations.

Sir Francis Rodes, the builder of the Hall, was of the eleventh generation from Gerard De- Rodes, who lived during the reigns of Henry II, Richard I, John, and Henry III, from all of whom he received great favors. Gerard DeRodes was one of the greater barons, the capital seat of whose barony was Horn Castle in Lincolnshire. It would appear from the following quotation from old ballads that this family had at one time a seat either in Scotland, or nearer the border than Horn Castle, Lincolnshire-"The House of the Rodes on the Hill:"

"The Gordon then his bugle blew, And said, 'Awa, awa.' This house of the Rodes is a' in a flame: I haud it's time to g'a."

Gerard DeRodes would have been one of the signers of the Magna Charta but for his absence as an ambassador to foreign ports, whither he had been sent by King John, March 29, in the ninth year of his reign, 1208. Burke says Ger- ard DeRodes was one of the noble Armagnac family of the ancient French nobility. The

family at Bellefonte have a record of their lineal descent from generation to generation from Ger- ard DeRodes along the line of which are inter- esting and historical characters prominent for their ability and interesting from their nearness to royalty. Pictures of Barlborough Hall, of the old Philadelphia homestead, with those of some of their occupants, together with family treasures of "ye olden times" grace their home. The or- thography of the name has undergone a number of changes.

One Samuel Rhoads of the family was mayor of Philadelphia about the year 1765, and pre- sided as vice-president over the deliberations of the American Philosophical Society during the absence of the president, Benjamin Franklin, at the court of France. Another ancestor of whom Daniel Rhoads was a lineal descendant-was John Blunston, a minister of the Society of Friends, who came frem Derbyshire, England, in 1682, and settled at Darby, near Philadelphia, he being "An Original Purchaser" of fifteen hundred acres of land, comprising several tracts of various sizes situated mostly, if not entirely, within the limits of the present Delaware county, Penn. He was a member of the first Provincial Assem- bly of Pennsylvania, and one of the committee appointed to receive William Penn on January 12, 1683. He was several times Speaker of the Assembly, being a member for thirteen years. He was also one of the justices of the Court, and in 1690 a member of the Council of State. He frequently acted as attorney for persons residing in England who held lands in this country. For the years 1701-'02-'03-'04 and 'o5, he was again a member of the Governor's Council. William H. Egle, in his "History of Pennsylvania," in speaking of him says: "he was regarded as a person of great ability and probity."

The father of Daniel Rhoads was Joseph Rhoads, who was the son of Adam and Sarah (Jeanes) Rhoads. Joseph Rhoads was born at "the old homestead " 5th Mo. 2, 1779. On Ist mo. 16, 1806, at Friends Meeting House, Rad- nor, Penn., he married Naomi Thomas, daughter of Abel and Zillah (Walker) Thomas. Joseph Rhoads was a leading member of the Society of Friends, and was active in the anti-slavery cause, being president of the Delaware County Anti-Slavery Society, aud was always willing to give work and shelter to any who appealed to him as having escaped from bondage. His home was a station on the "underground railway." His son, Daniel, in his younger days, frequently conducted fugitive slaves to the next station, twenty-five miles farther north. He was also one of the earliest in the temperance movement,

COMMEMORATIVE BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

and a pioneer in abolishing whiskey from the . harvest fields. He died August 28, 1852, and his wife, Naomi, died August 9, 1842. Both are interred in the Friends graveyard, at Darby, which piece of ground was given to the Society by the John Blunston mentioned above, great- great-grandfather of Joseph Rhoads. Naomi Thomas, the mother of Daniel Rhoads, was born Ioth mo. 23, 1783. She was of ancient Welsh and English ancestry, the progenitors of the vari- ous branches of her family, being Friends, were among the first settlers of Chester Valley and of Radnor, which were of the earliest of Pennsyl- vania settlements. They came from Wales and England in the years 1683-84 and 1687. Her great-grandfather, Isaac Walker, owned the historic Valley Forge property, which included the ground on which Washington's Headquarters now stand, and considerable of the encampment site. Gen. Anthony Wayne was a kinsman of hers. Both he and Gen. LaFayette were fre- quent visitors to her grandfather's house, and it is said that her aunt, " The Little Naomi," as a little girl was a special favorite of the gallant young Frenchman. Naomi (Thomas) Rhoads, like her husband, was an active and consistent member of the Friends Society. She was a de- voted wife and mother and one of the most ex- emplary of women, possessed of great strength of character and rare intelligence, and of the sweetest disposition.

The family of Rhoads have for generations been stanch adherents to the principles of the Society of Friends. A number of the name suf- fered repeated persecutions in the Mother coun- try for conscience' sake, and it was doubtless the hope of enjoying religious liberty which led John Rhoads and his sons to leave their Derbyshire homes and seek the wilderness of Pennsylvania.

Daniel Rhoads early in life was sent to a Friends boarding school at Burlington, N. J. Later he attended the schools at Philadelphia, re- ceiving a liberal education. At the time of his birth, which happened in the old homestead re- ferred to, the latter was "out in the country"; the Judge used to remark that: "I was born and raised in Philadelphia, although no one knew it at the time, nor was it dreamed of then that the old Quaker city would in time stretch to the extent it is to-day." In 1850 John K. Smith, uncle of the wife of Daniel Khoads, of Trenton, N. J., bought in the neighborhood of ten thou- sand acres of the Levy lands, and on Miles run, some three miles south of the river in Burnside township, Centre county, Penn., built a large sawmill of the capacity of six million fect yearly, equipped with two circular saws; the firm operat-

ing here in 1853 was Sinith, Taylor & Smith. That year Mr. Rhoads came from Philadelphia to engage in the lumbering business with them, buying the interest of Mr. Taylor, the firni be- coming Smith, Rhoads & Smith, with Mr. Rhoads as manager. The business was one of considera- ble scope, and employed many men in cutting timber, and in sawing and shipping timber. For four or five years the firm was most successful in the extensive operations, cutting and shipping about three million feet annually, until in 1858, when their mill-the " Sterling "-was destroyed by fire. In the latter year Mr. Rhoads returned to his native city to take charge of the Market street horse-car line. In 1860 he accepted the superintendency of the Bellefonte & Snow Shoe railroad, a position he held with honor and credit for twenty-one years until the road was sold to the Pennsylvania Company on March 17. 1881. In the meantime the firm continued to operate at Burnside, and until 1876 manufactured considera- ble square timber and sawed lumber, later the business being confined to nothing but square timber. After retiring from the railroad office Mr. Rhoads, with Richard Downing, Wistar Mor- ris and other Philadelphia stockholders, formed a company known as the Dunkirk Ore Association, purchased the James Love farm at Loveville, Centre county, and went into the business (Mr. Rhoads being engaged at the same time in mer- cantile business at that point) of mining and ship- ping ore. In addition to his own large business interests he had shared for twenty-six years the responsibility and care of the William A. Thomas estate, of which he was sole trustee after the death of Mr. John Irwin, and so well was the trust kept that the property more than tripled itself.

On the death of Associate Judge Smith. of Centre county, in the spring of 1887. Mr. Rhoads was appointed by Gov. Beaver to fill out the un- expired term. In this capacity he showed such good judgment and honest purpose that in the same fall he was nominated, much against his own wishes, and elected to the Bench by a large majority, notwithstanding the fact that the county was strongly Democratic, and he was an ardent Republican. He loved his party and be- lieved in its principles, but he was a Republican from honest convictions and not for expediency's sake, for he never sought an office, and was very loath to accept the one that sought him. As a judge he gave general satisfaction, and was often appealed to for advice by the president judge. who had the greatest respect for his sound judg- ment. Editor Meek, of the Democratic Watch- man, said:

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Commemorative biographical record of central Pennsylvania : including the counties of Centre, Clearfield, Jefferson and Clarion, Pt. 1, Part 9

Author: J.H. Beers & Co Publication date: 1898 Publisher: Chicago : J. H. Beers Number of Pages: 1358

Author: J.H. Beers & Co
Publication date: 1898
Publisher: Chicago : J. H. Beers
Number of Pages: 1358