USA > Pennsylvania > Encyclopedia of Pennsylvania biography : illustrated, Vol. VII > Part 26
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Reese plants were the only ones to pre- serve their individuality and to retain their own offices and the firm name of Isaac Reese & Sons Company.
The men to whom Isaac Reese owed the most in his last business venture, and to whom his gratitude was unbounded, were: Mr. Joseph S. Seaman, Mr. Joseph Sleeth and Mr. J. B. Young, for their financial backing; to Dr. C. G. Hussey for building the first furnace without other guaranty than Mr. Reese's own word that the brick would stand the proper requirements ; and to Mr. William Johns and Mr. David Harris for practical suggestions and faithful oversight of the furnaces personally almost day and night.
Isaac Reese said to a friend one day : "I have done two men's work from the time I was eighteen years old up almost to the time of my retirement at eighty-two years of age. I never took a vacation until I was seventy years old. I shall not live to my father's great age, and neither will Jacob or Abram." Jacob Reese was working on an alphabet for the deaf and dumb at the time of his death, at eighty-four years of age. Abram was working on plans for a flying-ma- chine at seventy-eight years of age. They died in the full possession of their facul- ties. Dr. Rees says in his preface to his Cyclopaedia that he had not worked in fragments of time, but whole days of twelve to fourteen hours each for twenty years on this work. He died at eighty- two years of age. His father preached for seventy years, and died at ninety years of age. They died in full possession of their faculties.
A man of action rather than words, Isaac Reese demonstrated his public spirit by actual achievements which advanced the prosperity and wealth of the commu- nity. He was noted for his clarity of thought, great resourcefulness, large knowledge of men, quickness of percep-
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tion and accuracy of judgment, and was often consulted in regard to public measures and improvements. Justice and benevolence were dominant traits in his character. As a consequence he possessed to the close of his life the respect and con- fidence of his workmen, and it was one of his proud boasts that he never had a "strike" in his works.
Mr. Orr Buffington, Mr. Reese's friend and attorney, who had a thorough insight into the industry and the history of Mr. Reese's efforts to put his brick upon the market writes of him :
Without capital other than that which one or two of his friends recognizing his integrity and ability, supplied, Isaac Reese ventured to make and market a new and untried line of refractory brick for furnace linings. He came a stranger into Armstrong county for this purpose. To appreciate the gravity of the undertaking it must be realized that these bricks, designed for use in costly furnaces, with their more costly contents to be fluxed, must prove the most perfect success, otherwise the entire proposition became a total loss to the purchaser. The bricks were produced as designed, but the customers had to be con- vinced. This involved untold patience and per- sistency through a series of years, against the strong and bitter opposition of wealthy competi- tors. The excellence and uniform character of this product and his fair dealing overcame the obstacles in his path, and not many years before his death, his competitors were compelled to buy his interests at his own figure. The instances are few of record where at sixty years, when most workers are preparing to lay aside life's work and rest, a man, alone and apparently defeated in life's struggle, grapples a new and great problem and in spite of his years and adversity compels success to surrender.
I knew Mr. Reese intimately during these nearly thirty years, and in all these years saw no change in the man himself; the same genial nature, the same patience, the same absence of personal pride, the same fairness in his methods of business, the same extreme care for his family, his friends, and his church, bespoke his manliness and goodness of heart.
When abundant results rewarded his work there was perhaps the usual elation always present in man, but it did not take the form of boastfulness,
but rather only added to his pleasure in seeing those around whom his interest centered enjoy the fruits of his victory. Many quiet unknown gifts to those who had aided him were bestowed. His was essentially an honest and trusting nature. Once his confidence was won it remained un- shaken, and once lost could never be regained. His mind was wholly constructive-he was a builder; his work was a public service-he made the world better and his memory deserves per- petuation.
Isaac Reese married Elizabeth Bebb Jones, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, May 24. 1844. She was born in Llanbrynmair, Northern Wales, February 21, 1824. Eliza- beth Bebb Jones was the daughter of Robert and Mary (Bebb) Jones, who emi- grated to America with their two chil- dren, Elizabeth and John, in 1841; the older two, Thomas and Mary, having come over the year previous with Dr. Chidlaw, a personal friend of the Jones family. The Jones and Bebb families figure in the parish history of Llanbryn- mair as far back as 1663, as vicars, church wardens and overseers of the poor, and in the churchyard of the "Old Independent Chapel" is the tomb of Edward Bebb, Quaker, died April 23, 1740, the ancestor of Mary (Bebb) Jones and her brother, Edward Bebb. She was related to Jo- siah Jones (nom de plume Brynmair) the old Welsh bard and religious writer of Wales. Judge William Bebb, the four- teenth governor of Ohio, was a cousin of Mrs. Reese. He tutored the children of old General Harrison (of "Tippecanoe and Tyler too" fame), when he was twenty years of age, in mathematics, Latin, French, and German, living in the Harri- son family one year. Heafterwards start- ed an academy at South Bend, Indiana, and through the influence of General Har- rison the leading families of Cincinnati sent their children to this institution. He then studied law, became judge and later governor of Ohio, through the appoint- ment of the President, and according to
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history he was the first governor to take the stump against slavery. He afterwards held other offices under the United States government. He was the intimate friend of Thomas Corwin, and their portraits in the Statehouse at Columbus, Ohio, are called the "David and Jonathan" of the Ohio bar.
On the Jones side of the house the family is a branch of the ancient house of "Esgair Evan." The great-grandson of Robert Jones, Reese Olver Snowden, has named his ranch in Lancaster, California, "Esgair," in honor of his Welsh forbears. In Llanbrynmair Mrs. Reese's people were staunch supporters of disestablish- ment. History says Llanbrynmair was the Piedmont of Wales in the seventeenth century, and that next to Palestine, no other name in the principality is so re- vered as Llanbrynmair. The house is still standing there where during the religious persecutions of the seventeenth century, Mrs. Reese's people kept the Covenant for sixty-four years, before they dared build the "Old Independent Chapel," in 1739. Mrs. Reese was related to Rev. John Roberts as well as connected by close marriage ties. John Roberts and his two sons held the pulpit of the "Old Inde- pendent Chapel" for sixty years. Their names are honored wherever the Welsh language is spoken. "God had sifted three kingdoms to find the wheat for this planting." (Longfellow.) Dr. Abraham Rees and Rev. Samuel Roberts (the most noted of the Roberts trio of preachers) were both born in the "Old Independent Chapel-house" of Llanbrynmair. A tablet above the pulpit commemorates the events. Mrs. Reese was baptized, nursed and nourished in the faith of the "Old Inde- pendent Chapel" of Llanbrynmair until her emigration to America, as was her mother and her grandmother, Mary Roberts, who had been a member of the "Old Independent Chapel" for seventy-
four years after her first communion. Mrs. Reese was a faithful and respected member of the First Congregational Church of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for fifty-four years at the time of her death, June 2, 1898. Her life from childhood had been a consecrated life. She had been a tower of strength to her husband in the dark days of his business life and a most loving, devoted mother. "Her children rise up and call her blessed " She was a loyal friend in the hour of adversity, and her sister, Mrs. William Hopkins, was a faithful and respected member of the First Congregational Church of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for sixty years. They were both worthy of their high ancestry
Eleven children were born to Isaac and Elizabeth (Jones) Reese, six of whom died in childhood and early youth. The five who lived to maturity are:
I. George W. Reese, eldest son of Isaac and Elizabeth (Jones) Reese, was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, October 13, 1858. He was educated in the public schools of Pittsburgh and in the Iron City Business College. He was his father's ablest assistant in the manufacture of Sil- ica and Phoenix fire-brick, and the son whom Isaac Reese said "Could smell clay through a mountain," through his finding mines in the most inaccessible and hith- erto unknown clay localities. After the Reese firm entered the Harbison Walker Refractories Company he retained his stock and is on the board of directors. After the death of his brother, Benjamin, he was president and manager of the Plate Glass Company of Kittanning, and still is a stockholder and director in the same. In February, 1911, he organized the Fort Pitt Powder Company of which he is president. In 1877 Mr. Reese was married to Mary M. Donnelly, of Pitts- burgh. One child, Margaret, was born of this union. The second marriage of Mr. Reese was to Juanita Truby, daughter of
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Simon Truby, a descendant of Colonel Christopher Truby, a distinguished pi- oneer and patriot who served as colonel in the Revolution. One child born of this union, George, is deceased.
2. Benjamin F. Reese, second son of Isaac and Elizabeth (Jones) Reese, was born in Pittsburgh, February 16, 1862. He attended the public schools of Pitts- burgh until he was fifteen years old, when his father's business failure impressed him with the necessity of doing some- thing toward the family's support. Ac- cordingly, without saying a word to any one, he started out in search of work and found it in the steel works of Miller, Barr & Parkin. (It is a significant fact that his great-grandfather, left an orphan at ten years of age, and the eldest of several sisters and brothers, had started out on a similar quest and found work in a blast- furnace at Brecon. This is the first known instance of a member of the Rees family engaging as an iron worker.) Benjamin remained with Miller, Barr & Parkin until his father had the works started at Man- orville, when he became foreman. The bent of his mind lay in gas and oil fields, and had he lived to these days of vast ex- ploiting in those field, the germ would doubtless have fructified and borne iarge fruit. His business career though brief was highly successful, and gave promise of great results. His clear perception, his quick mental grasp of a business proposi- tion and his broad-mindedness and daring bore early fruit, and his generous and manly treatment of his business associ- ates gained their confidence and esteem. He was one of the founders and heavy stockholders in the Kittanning Plate Glass Company. He valued his word above his bond. "Your Benjamin's word stands the same as his bond in Butler county," said an oil producer to Mr. Reese one day in Butler. "It stands the same in Allegheny county and Armstrong
county, wherever he is known," said the pleased father. He married Eleanor Ma- thias, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. David Mathias, of Chicago, Illinois. He died without issue, October 4, 1904.
3. Walter Lawrence Reese, the youngest son of Isaac and Elizabeth (Jones) Reese, was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, September 26, 1868. He married Tirzah. daughter of Mr. and Mrs. David Thomas, of Greensburg, Pennsylvania. They re- side in Pittsburgh.
4. Elvira, eldest of the family living, re- sides in Pittsburgh. "Elvira seems to have inherited in a marked degree the in- tellectual and religious endowments of both branches of the family. This she has cultivated and developed, by wide, discriminating and critical reading of liter- ature in all its branches-philosophy, the- ology, poetry, fiction, etc. One of the re- sults of her extensive reading is the pub- lication of a literary calendar, entitled 'Showers of Blessing.' The book contains selections for every day in the year, culled from the writings of all nations and all ages. 'Showers of Blessing' was published by the Pilgrim Press of Boston, Massa- chusetts, whose chief reader pronounced it the finest book of its kind on the market. Its conception and execution reveal most comprehensive intellectual grasp coupled with a masterly genius for details. It contains four hundred pages. The book is one of the most beautiful demonstra- tions of the doubleness of the great prob- lem of existence-the spiritual and ma- terial, the Divine and Human, the Fi- nite and Infinite. 'Everything that is is double.'"-G. S. Richards, Pastor First Congregational Church, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
5. Emma, second daughter, married F. L. Snowden, of Allegheny City, Pennsyl- vania (now Northside, Pittsburgh) Sep- tember 27, 1876. They have two sons: Reese Olver Snowden, now a resident
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Fach Reese
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of Lancaster, California. He married Minerva Burke, of Pittsburgh, Pennsyl- vania. F. Laird Snowden, second son, married Cora Thomas, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. David Thomas, of Greensburg, Pennsylvania.
The loyalty of his disposition was in nothing more strikingly manifested than in Mr. Reese's strong and lasting friend- ships. The fraternal relations of Mr. Reese were with the Masons. Politically he was a staunch Republican.
The death of Isaac Reese, which oc- curred January 1, 1908, was a loss well- nigh irreparable. Strong in his convic- tions, quiet, firm and decisive in negotia- tion, possessing a clear mind and excel- lent memory, regular in his habits and liberal in his charities, he represented a type of man who has helped to make Pittsburgh one of the dominant cities of the United States and of the world at large. Such a man leaves the world better than he found it and such a man was Isaac Reese. The testimonials of respect to his memory and the outpouring of friends gave evidence to the high esteem in which he had been held.
Note .- (Much of the history of the Reese sketch was contributed by Miss Elvira Reese- some of the material taken from translations of Welsh letters, some from family traditions, and much from a copy of a history given to her mother many years ago, when in Wales, by her cousin, the author of it, Richard Williams, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.)
REESE, Jacob,
Manufacturer, Inventor.
Among the prominent men of Pitts- burgh of the past was the late Jacob Reese, the inventor of the essential con- ditions of the basic Bessemer and the basic open-hearth process for steel mak- ing, which revolutionized the industry in the United States.
Jacob Reese was born in Llannelly, Wales, July 14, 1825, the son of William
and Elizabeth (Joseph) Reese. A full account of the Reese family is to be found in the biography of Isaac Reese on pre- ceding pages of this work. William Reese, the father, constructed the first sand-bottom furnace as applied to pud- dling in the United States, at Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, and his son Jacob, a mere lad, assisted in making the first "bloom" under the "boiling" process. Jacob Reese built and was general manager of the first iron works in Sharon, Pennsyl- vania. He erected and was the first superintendent of the Cambria Iron Works in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, an- tedating John Fritz, a recent recipient of the Bessemer gold medal of the British Iron and Steel Institute. He built and operated the Fort Pitt Iron Works in Pittsburgh, of which he was part owner, and during the Civil War made iron armor plate of one-inch thickness for the United States government. He brought the earliest shipments of ore from the lake regions, which ore was used as a "fix" for the "boiling" furnaces which had superseded the puddling furnace, and before there was a blast furnace in Alle- gheny county. Prior to the erection of the Fort Pitt Iron Works (known famil- iarly as the Reese & Graff mill), Mr. Reese, with the same partners, owned and operated the Petrolite Oil Refinery, of Pittsburgh, the largest oil refinery in the State.
During his lifetime Jacob Reese took out about one hundred and seventy-five patents in the United States, and has a record of over five hundred inventions and discoveries. He discovered that basic slag from basic Bessemer process, when properly ground, is a good fer- tilizer, and worked up an industry in this. Jacob Reese was eminent as a metallurgist and scientist. His long legal contest over his patent claims for the open-hearth process of steel-making made
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his name known the world over among capitalists and men of science. In prac- tical demonstration he was foremost as an engineer and worker.
He was a stockholder in many con- cerns of magnitude. He was a resident of Pittsburgh for over fifty years. He moved to Philadelphia in 1892, where he died on March 25, 1907, from paralysis. At the time of his death he was working on a system of language for deaf mutes. Jacob Reese was a fellow of the Ameri- can Association for the Advancement of Science; a member of Franklin Institute, and the Philadelphia Academy, Philadel- phia ; he was a past master of Franklin Lodge, No. 221, Free and Accepted Ma- sons, held at Pittsburgh ; he was a thirty- second degree Mason, and a master Ma- son for fifty-two years ; and was a Knight Templar. He had held the office of dea- con in the Baptist church for sixty-one years; he was a public advocate of tem- perance, a platform orator, and a parlia- mentarian. During the whole of his adult life he was identified with all leading phil- anthropic, civic and industrial movements in Pennsylvania. Jacob Reese for a time was manager of the Clinton Iron Works at Pittsburgh, owned then by English, Bennett & Company, and in this mill he made the first iron rails that were made in Pittsburgh. While in the oil refinery business he had one tank, the largest ever made for oil refining up to that time, with a capacity of one thousand barrels; also the largest still.
Jacob Reese married (first) Eliza Mat- thews, of Pittsburgh, by whom he had the following children: George, Frank, Walter and Harvey Reese, of Philadel- phia and New York City; Mrs. John Q. Everson, of Pittsburgh; and Mrs. Barton Kinne, of New York. Mr. Reese married (second) Miss Jessie McElroy, of Phil- delphia.
Jacob Reese was a man of great merit.
He led a life of usefulness and honor, and he set an example worthy to be studied and imitated by the rising generation of the country.
REESE, Abram, Manufacturer, Inventor.
Abram Reese, of Pittsburgh, who in June, 1871, had the honor of rolling the first rail rolled west of the Mississippi river, was born in Llannelly, Wales, in 1829, the sixth child of William and Elizabeth Reese. A full account of the Reese family is to be found in the biog- raphy of Isaac Reese, which, with his por- trait, is elsewhere in this work.
Abram Reese came to this country with his parents in 1832. He was a child when his father built the first sand- bottom furnace as applied to puddling in the United States, at Bellefonte, where the first "bloom" was made. Abram Reese had an enviable record as an in- ventor. When a young man he invented a bolt machine of such perfection, and which shaped head and spike in one operation, that the principle on which the machine was built is unchanged to- day. This machine was operated for years in the Lewis, Oliver & Phillips mill in Pittsburgh. He was the inventor of the only known machine which rolls shaped metal with one roll; that is, a horseshoe complete in one operation, or an ax with a hole in it, and the like. The machine was operated in the Reese & Graff mills in Pittsburgh, and is now in successful running, elsewhere, for the manufacture of probably half a hundred specialties. He was the inventor of the Universal Beam Mill and the inventor of the gas conduit now in general use. Other of his more notable inventions are: A machine for re-rolling old rails, a safety car stove, live stock feeding apparatus for freight cars, a brake, corrugated sheet
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iron for roofing, a garden hoe, and supple- mentary devices in number. Abram Reese worked in the rolling mills of Pittsburgh when a boy. He was the first labor boss at the Cambria Iron Works at Johnstown, Pennsylvania, when this mill was being built and managed by his brother, Jacob (whose biography and portrait are else- where in this work). Abram Reese pud- dled the first "heat" in the Cambria Iron Works. He was later manager of the Fort Pitt, or the Reese & Graff mill, as the works were known, in Pittsburgh, of which his brother Jacob was part pro- prietor, and during the Civil War oper- ated this mill in the interest of the United States government, making iron armor plates. He was later general manager of the Excelsior Iron Works, located on the present site of the Schoen Steel Car Com- pany at Woods Run. After this he was superintendent of the Vulcan Iron Works at St. Louis. In later years Mr. Reese equipped and started a mill for the re- rolling of oil rails in Louisville, Kentucky. He was engaged in other enterprises, was at one time manager of the Petrolite Oil Refinery of Pittsburgh, and was one of the pioneer oil operators during the early excitement in Oil City. He was inter- ested in coal and mining, and superin- dended what were the earliest shipments of ore, probably, to Pittsburgh from the lake region. At the time he rolled the first rail west of the Mississippi river, in June, 1871, as stated above, Mr. Reese was superintendent of the Vulcan Iron Works, located in South St. Louis. A piece of the rail is preserved at Jefferson, the capital of Missouri. General U. S. Grant, President of the United States, visited the works about this time, and congratulated the owners and superin- tendent on the achievement.
For some years prior to his death, which occurred April 25, 1908, Mr. Reese had lived a retired life in Pittsburgh.
Mr. Reese married Mary Godwin, of Hi- worth, Wiltshire, England. Her brothers were pioneer potters of Ohio and West Virginia. Children of Abram and Mary (Godwin) Reese: Harry W., of Pitts- burgh; Arthur B., of Pittsburgh ; Stanley C., of Pittsburgh (see biography follow- ing) ; Charles, of New York, and Cara, who is deceased.
REESE, Stanley C., Scientist.
Stanley Chester Reese was born in Pittsburgh, May 4, 1874. He attended the Springfield public school and the Central High School, from which he graduated with honors in 1892. He entered Princeton University, from which he graduated with the degree A. B., cum laude, in 1896, having taken sophomore high honors in Latin and mathematics, and college high honors in mathematics and science, as well as special mention for public speaking, during his college course. Mr. Reese was a member of the American Whig Society of Princeton, a literary so- ciety of which one of the founders was James Madison. At his graduation Mr. Reese was awarded the J. S. K. Fellow- ship in mathematics as the result of com- petitive examination open to all the mem- bers of his class. He spent the year 1896- 1897 at Princeton as fellow in mathe- matics, pursuing advanced work in mathe- matics and the exact sciences. During the year, Mrs. William Thaw, of Pitts- burgh, established the Thaw Fellowship in Astronomy, open to any graduate of not more than five years' standing of any American college, and in June, 1897, Mr. Reese was awarded this honor. He con- tinued his work at Princeton as fellow during 1897-98, and as Professor of Mathematics and Modern Languages in the Princeton University Academy during 1898-1899. He received the A. M. degree
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in course in 1897, and in 1899 presented himself for the degree of Doctor of Phi- losophy, the requirements for which de- gree included an oral examination on the most advanced works of astronomy, mathematics, and logic, and a thesis em- bodying an original contribution to the sum total of human knowledge. Mr. Reese presented a thesis on the "Jupiter Perturbations of Planet No. 367," a re- search to locate one of the lost asteroids, and his examination included questions on the works of the modern English, French and German mathematicians. as well as on astronomy, logic and the alge- bra of logic. Mr. Reese won the degree, and was the youngest man to receive the Ph. D. degree from Princeton.
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